Cooption and Repression in the Soviet Union

22 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2006

See all articles by Dmitriy Gershenson

Dmitriy Gershenson

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Herschel I. Grossman

affiliation not provided to SSRN (deceased)

Date Written: December 2000

Abstract

The Soviet ruling elite, the nomenklatura, used both cooption and political repression to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. Loyalty was critical both in defusing internal opposition to the rule of the nomenklatura and in either deterring or defeating foreign enemies of the Soviet Union. We assume that the nomenklatura determined the extent of cooption and the intensity of political repression by equating their perceived marginal benefits and marginal costs. We use this assumption to construct an account of the historical evolution of policies of cooption and political repression in the Soviet Union.

Keywords: Cooption, Repression, Soviet Union, Communist Party, Nomenklatura

JEL Classification: D78, N44, P21

Suggested Citation

Gershenson, Dmitriy and Grossman (deceased), Herschel I., Cooption and Repression in the Soviet Union (December 2000). IMF Working Paper No. 00/201, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=880838

Dmitriy Gershenson (Contact Author)

International Monetary Fund (IMF) ( email )

700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431
United States

Herschel I. Grossman (deceased)

affiliation not provided to SSRN (deceased)