The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis (Europe and the International Order) - Hardcover

Holmes, Leslie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195210131 ISBN 13: 9780195210132

Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr, 1993

Synopsis

Using an analytical, comparative approach that examines communist regimes from Moscow and Beijing to Havana and Kampuchea, Leslie Holmes argues that the extraordinarily rapid decline and collapse of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1992 had its roots in the anti-corruption campaigns introduced in the early 1980s. Originally created to combat the disastrous economic reforms of the 1960s and '70s, the anti-corruption campaigns could not meet citizen expectations, and ultimately had the unintended effect of provoking a legitimation crisis throughout the communist world. Holmes studies this crisis in detail, investigating campaigns against official corruption in more than twenty communist states, with particular emphasis on the former USSR and the People's Republic of China. In a final chapter, Holmes locates the failure of communist power in the larger debate about the crisis of modernity, and argues--controversially--that the collapse of communism is not necessarily of much relevance to this alleged crisis.

About this title

Review

′This is a persuasive and cogently argued thesis ... a fine addition to the literature on communism in transition.′ Times Higher Education Supplement ′An excellent book.′ Political Studies ′Holmes′ book raises important questions about the nature and significance of communist anti–corruption campaigns since the 1960s.′ AJPH

From the Back Cover

The collapse of communist power may well be seen by future historians as the most significant event of the late twentieth century. It directly affected approximately twenty countries in three continents and brought about the eventual end of the Cold War. Yet there are very few comparative and theoretical analyses of the 1989–91 revolutions; this book seeks to remedy that situation.
Holmes starts by considering official corruption and campaigns against it, seeing such campaigns as symptomatic of a legitimation crisis that developed in most of the communist world following the failure of the economic reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. He then considers other aspects of the growing legitimation crisis, and relates these directly to general crisis and collapse. In the conclusion, Holmes argues against those who have seen these revolutions as the final proof of the crisis of modernity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195210131
• ISBN 13: 9780195210132
• Binding: Hardcover