The End of Communist Power: Anti-corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis

Holmes, Leslie

ISBN 10: 074560580X / ISBN 13: 9780745605807

Published by Polity Press, 1993

About this Item

Polity Press (1993). Softcover in fine condition with clean, unmarked pages which are free from notes and underlining and very light wear only to cover and spine. Dispatched from UK within three days.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1709124755545

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The End of Communist Power: Anti-corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 074560580X
• ISBN 13: 9780745605807
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Fine
• Weight: 795 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Political History

About this title

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 the Author

Leslie Holmes, Professor of Political Science, University of Melbourne.