Authors

Graeme Gill¹;  ¹ University of Sydney, Australia

Discussion

Both the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia were/are personalist regimes, in the sense that the will of the leader was a (perhaps the) major factor in how the regime functioned. This paper will compare the basis upon which each case of personal leadership rested - Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin - to determine how the different institutional structures of power in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods affected personal leadership. In doing to, it will address one of the continuing puzzles about contemporary Russia, the level of continuity that exists with its "Soviet forebear.