Substate Dictatorship

“[A] rigorous academic study.”—Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs

“Without qualification, Gorlizki and Khlevniuk have produced an impressive study. It is arguably the most comprehensive empirical scope of centre-regional relations of the Soviet party-state, and it is organized in a coherent and insightful conceptual framework. . . . A must for scholars of Stalinism and Soviet politics more generally.”—Gerald Easter, Russian Review

“[A] major monograph. . . . Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the pillars of the Soviet dictatorship at the local level.”—Donald Raleigh, Kritika

Selected by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Book of 2021”

“This is a pathbreaking study of how the Soviet political system worked in the postwar era. Gorlizki and Khlevniuk have once again demonstrated their absolute mastery of the political history of the Soviet Union.”—Alan Barenberg, author of Gulag Town, Company Town: Forced Labor and Its Legacy in Vorkuta

“Remarkable. The authors integrate contemporary political science and political theory in their analysis of vast historical material.”—Arturas Rozenas, New York University

“A major contribution to the study of Soviet history and a must read for anyone interested in the rise, functioning, and demise of dictatorial and authoritarian regimes worldwide. A timely contribution indeed!”—Serhii Plokhy, Harvard University

“No dictator rules alone. To understand Russia from Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev to the regime’s decline, collapse, and dissolution, Gorlizki and Khlevniuk argue, is to appreciate the many dictatorships that were the Soviet Union. This important book marshals the best that history and social science have to offer to elucidate the anatomy of the Soviet dictatorship.”—Milan Svolik, Yale University

“Increasingly, people speak of the Kremlin, Moscow, and Russia interchangeably. This book is a reminder as to why it is essential to disaggregate Moscow from the regions and to focus on the workings of bureaucracy rather than the head of state. This meticulous, archive-based research results in one of the best accounts on networks and nomenklatura in the Soviet Union. Its findings on cooptation, coordination, control and camouflage at the subnational level remain relevant for understanding Russia today.”—Alena Ledeneva, UCL, founder of the Global Informality Project