Commissars Commanders And Civilian Authority

For six decade the Soviet system has been immune to military rebellion and takeover, which often characterizes modernizing countries. How can we explain the stability of Soviet military politics, asks Timothy Colton in his compelling interpretation of civil-military relations in the Soviet Union. Hitherto most western scholars have posited a basic dichotomy of interests between the Soviet army and the Communist party. They view the two institutions as conflictprone, with civilian supremacy depending primarily upon the party's control of officers through its organs within the military establishment. Colton challenges this thesis and argues that the military party organs have come to possess few of the attributes of an effective controlling device, and that the commissars and their heirs have operated as allies rather than adversaries of the military commanders. In explaining the extraordinary stability in army-party relations in terms of overlapping interests rather than controlling mechanisms, Colton offers a major case study and a new model to students of comparative military politics.

This innovative study offers the first-ever comparison of the military roles played by commissars, political officers, and chaplains in military settings ranging from the armies of Cromwell, the Jacobins, the Nazis, the Soviets, and the United States. Despite the stark differences in the political systems of the countries of these disparate armed forces, Dale R. Herspring argues that there are certain critical functions that must be fulfilled in every military, regardless of its ideological orientation. Most vital are motivation, morale boosting, and political socialization. In addition, Herspring's comparative historical analysis decisively demonstrates that the roles of commissars, political officers, and chaplains alike have evolved in ways that are crucial yet rarely understood either by policymakers or scholars.

This book represents the first attempt to deal with the problem of how to conceptualize the civil-military relations of communist systems within a common intellectual framework. The opening chapters present three major constructs originally designed for analyzing civil-military relations in the USSR: the interest group approach, the institutional congruence approach, and the participatory model. In subsequent chapters the utility of these approaches is tested against a wide variety of communist systems, including those of Cuba, the USSR, China, Romania, Hungary, the GDR, and Poland. In probing these issues for the first time, the authors shed considerable light on the transnational differences and similarities among communist systems, and the dynamics of civil-military relations in all communist systems.

Based on a conference held in Washington, DC, 13-14 Mar 1995.

This work provides an in-depth and up-to-date examination of civil-military relations in China. It reflects the significant changes taking place in Chinese society and their impact on the civil-military dynamic, with particular attention to how the military will fit in with the new class of entrepreneurs. Rather than focusing exclusively on elite Party-Army relations, the book examines civil-military relations from various vantage points: at "the center" and in the provinces; between civilian leaders and military leaders; from a strictly military perspective and from a civilian perspective; and from the angle of specific issue areas. Chapters explore issues, such as the impact of AIDS, the defense budget, the emerging dynamic between the military and China's new leadership, resettling demobilized troops back into civilian life, and the role of the militia, reserve units, and other civilian groups. The contributors are highly respected specialists in China studies, including political scientists, historians, PLA specialists, and sociologists. They present a vibrant portrait of the new civil-military dynamic in the PRC within the complex social changes that China is exploring today.

Analysis of the central role of militarization in the devel opment of state, society and economy in the U.S.S.R. between the end of the "New Economic Plan" in 1926 and the conclusion of the first "Five-Year Plan" in 1933.

In many contemporary nations, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the armed forces play a major role in governing. Historical, economic, and sociological factors have contributed to the political prominence of the military in developing countries. Nevertheless, in the 1980s several states in Latin America restored civilian rule followi

The focus of this book is on the interaction between the civilian government and the military in Asian and African countries. The authors have gone to great lengths to provide an accurate analysis of both the advantages and the shortcomings of the respective countries' attempts to reach civil - military cooperation. Each article provides the reader with the information necessary to make a preliminary judgement on the efficiency of the given country's ability to achieve harmony between their government and their military.