The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (256 page)

(1847–1922)
French philosopher and social theorist of
syndicalism
whose
Reflections on Violence
(1906) put forward a highly original conception of the role of apocalyptic vision (‘myth’) in sustaining revolutionary struggle. He argued that the general strike must be grasped as the great mobilizing myth capable of uniting the proletariat in its efforts to overthrow capitalism.
KT 

 
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Less cumbersome and specific than ‘non-aligned’, yet carrying the same aspiration of post-colonial states to dissociate themselves from the East—West division between the United States and the USSR, ‘the South’ was adopted from the 1960s as a shorthand for all less industrialized countries, especially when acting together. See also
North
.
CJ 

 
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Sovereignty is the claim to be the ultimate political authority, subject to no higher power as regards the making and enforcing of political decisions. In the international system, sovereignty is the claim by the
state
to full self-government, and the mutual recognition of claims to sovereignty is the basis of
international society
. Sovereignty is the other side of the coin of international anarchy, for if states claim sovereignty, then the structure of the international system is by definition anarchic. Sovereignty should not be confused with freedom of action: sovereign actors may find themselves exercising freedom of decision within circumstances that are highly constrained by relations of unequal power.
The doctrine of sovereignty developed as part of the transformation of the medieval system in Europe into the modern state system, a process that culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. In some ways the emergence of the concept of sovereignty ran parallel with the similar emergence of the idea of private
property
, both emphasizing exclusive rights concentrated in a single holder, in contrast to the medieval system of diffuse and manylayered political and economic rights. Within the state, sovereignty signified the rise of the monarch to absolute prominence over rival feudal claimants such as the aristocracy, the papacy, and the Holy Roman Empire. Internationally, sovereignty served as the basis for exchanges of recognition on the basis of legal equality, and therefore as the basis of diplomacy and international law.
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Elected council with legislative and/or executive functions.

 
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(1924–91)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed on 30 December 1924 with the adoption of a federal treaty and constitution, and survived until 31 December 1991. Following the forcible incorporation of the Baltic states in 1940, it contained fifteen constituent republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, the Russian Socialist Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. It was the largest country in the world in area, with a population of 293 million in 1991, composed of a multitude of ethnic groups, languages, and religions.
The Soviet period dates from the October 1917
Russian Revolution
. This triggered a break-up in the Russian Empire and independent states were formed in the Baltic, Ukraine, and Georgia; the latter two were reincorporated in 1921. Soviets had been formed during the war among soldiers, workers, and peasants and had played a decisive role in mobilizing forces for the February 1917 revolution. Initially, they supported the
Mensheviks
but, with the continuation of the war, gradually came under Bolshevik influence. However, although the removal of the Provisional Government in October was approved
post hoc
by the soviets, it had in fact been the result of a Bolshevik coup.
The institutional structure of Soviet Russia took time to form, and there was considerable rivalry between the soviets, the Council of Peoples Commissars (Sovnarkom), the trade unions, the military, and the Communist Party. At the same time, even at this stage, the discrepancy between the legitimating claims of the regime and the real locus of decision-making can be discerned. Both the soviets and the trade unions were quickly sidelined as central sources of authority, though the former retained their status as the formal source of sovereignty. Trade unions were successfully attacked as too sectional to run the economy, and there was even considerable debate about their continued existence in a socialist society where exploitation had been supposedly abolished.
Lenin
defined them as ‘conveyor belts of government and Party policy to the workers’; a subordinate position they retained until 1989. In conditions of civil war, which obtained from 1918–20, the military played a significant role but
Trotsky's
demand for greater power over industry via the ‘militarization of labour’ was also rebuffed. Gradually, the Party and Sovnarkom emerged as the main sources of executive power. Lenin's only official position was Sovnarkom chairman and from 1918 to his illness in 1922, the government was an effective body. However, even Lenin complained about the continuous drift of decision-making to the Party Central Committee; since all commissars were also on the Central Committee, this was not surprising. Despite this drift, the bicephalous executive was an everpresent feature of Soviet institutional life.
The Bolsheviks had come to power advocating the right of nations to self-determination, but for many of them nationalism was an inherently ‘bourgeois’ and parochial phenomenon; local interests, it was argued, were best served within the larger, more advanced Russian culture. Lenin again was instrumental in working out a fudge in which national boundaries would be retained and ethnic cultures strengthened provided they remained ‘socialist in form’. At the same time, the general thrust of policy for many years was towards, first the ‘drawing together’ (
sblizhenie
) and then the ‘merging’ (
sliyanie
) of nations. Paradoxically, the national policy of the Soviet state, which entailed both the promotion of members of the titular majority in most of the non-Russian republics and the establishment, sometimes for the first time, of codified national languages backed up by the cultural apparatus of the state, in the end had profound consequences in terms of building the national separatist movements that arose in the late 1980s.
The period 1929–38 was decisive in creating the Soviet institutional system as it stood until 1989. At this time, under the leadership of
Stalin
who had been building a power base as General Secretary of the Party, the industrialization and collectivization drives were launched. Huge new industries were created and millions of people moved off the land into the towns. At the same time, the scale of repression was massively escalated. Estimates vary, but many millions of people died by execution, in the camps, or of starvation in the villages. Within the Communist Party itself, a series of purges took place that resulted in a massive change in leadership. In these ten years, the size of the state and its bureaucracy expanded enormously, with the biggest growth evident in the institutions responsible for administering the command economy.
The greatest threat to the Soviet Union's existence came with the German invasion of 1941. In 1940, the two countries had signed a non-aggression pact that contained a secret protocol allowing the Soviet Union to incorporate the Baltic states. Stalin was clearly unnerved by the loss of life and territory following the Germans’ surprise attack. They advanced to within a few kilometres of Moscow before stalling in the winter. The Soviet Union eventually played the decisive role in defeating the German army, capturing Berlin and occupying most of Eastern Europe that then came under their domination. However, it did so at enormous cost to human life; at least 20 million Soviet citizens died in the effort.
In the aftermath of the war, the Soviet political system appeared vindicated: its institutions had managed the war effort and economic growth resumed at high levels by comparison with the capitalist West. Many Soviet people felt great optimism about the future prospects for their country, which were reflected in
Khrushchev's
promise to build communism by the 1980s and stimulated by Soviet advances in space. However, a number of developments combined to shatter this confidence. First, Khrushchev himself revealed the connection between the system and repression. The revelations about Stalin fatally undermined the legitimacy of the regime. Second, there emerged a high degree of institutional conservatism, particularly among the bodies responsible for managing the economy. This resulted in declining growth and, alongside this, an increase in the amount of corruption. Beginning in the 1970s, the performance of the Western economies, knowledge of which became increasingly available, matched and then passed that of the Soviet Union. The claims to superiority of socialism evaporated in these conditions.
Growing awareness of the crisis in the country helped Mikhail Gorbachev to power in 1985 and led to his programme of
perestroika
designed to reinvigorate the economy and society. However, the institutional framework proved unable to withstand the pent up frustrations of various groups, particularly given the costs of reform itself. National unrest was especially virulent, and following two years of a ‘war of laws’ between the centre and governments of the republics, in late 1991 the Soviet Union was bypassed and then consigned to oblivion by an agreement among the republics to form the
Commonwealth
of Independent States.
SWh