State in Collapse: From Soviet to Russian

Many theories of political transition carry an implicit premise: that the form of the state can be treated as a constant. If “the state” can be held constant, then changes in the organization of political power can be discussed in relatively straightforward terms. In the Soviet case, however, that premise is hard to sustain. Because regime and state were so deeply fused, one could never really isolate either side and analyze its changes on their own. Once the state itself could no longer preserve its basic structure and entered a process of state rebuilding aimed at restoring centralization and direct rule, that process came into direct tension with the logic of political transition, which emphasized wider competition and participation. For states of this kind, the state has to be treated as a variable rather than a constant. And once it is treated that way, it is no longer enough merely to describe the dynamic process of state collapse. What matters more is understanding how the Soviet-Russian state form changed over several decades, on what kind of state form Soviet state power was lost, what powers the post-Soviet state still retained after that loss, what kind of state form then emerged, what powers it sought to restore, and how it attempted to do so. Any analysis of Soviet-Russian political transition, or of changes in its state form, must therefore begin with a description of the Soviet state itself.