Legitimacy and Power in the Soviet Union Through Socialist Ritual

TLDR: In this article, the authors focus on the conscious attempts of Soviet political elites from the early sixties onwards to change their strategy of gaining compliance by reducing reliance on coercion and strengthening political legitimacy.

Abstract: and within societies over time. One way of gaining compliance is for political elites to establish the legitimacy of the political system, of their position within it, and of the commands that are issued. Political power can be said to be legitimate when, in the words of Sternberger,' it is exercised both with a consciousness on the part of the elite that it has a right to govern and with some recognition by the ruled of that right. Both this consciousness of the right to govern and its acknowledgement by the ruled is derived from some source of authorization which may change over time. This paper will focus on the conscious attempts of Soviet political elites from the early sixties onwards to change their strategy of gaining compliance by reducing reliance on coercion and strengthening political legitimacy. It will draw attention to their efforts to develop a new source of authorization and to employ a new legitimation procedure. In developing the theoretical argument the Weberian typology of legitimate rule2 will be employed, and this approach to the topic will be contrasted with that adopted by T. H. Rigby in two recent publications.3 Unlike most recent work in this area this article will go beyond mere theoretical hypothesizing and combine its analysis with empirical data on the new Soviet approach to the problem of legitimacy. In particular, it will focus on one new important legitimation procedure - the introduction of a system of socialist ritual. This system of ritual, which has been created in the Soviet Union during recent decades, embodies the norms and values of Soviet official ideology. The rituals range from the mass political ritual of the October celebrations, through rituals of initiation into various social and political collectives (such as the Young Pioneers, the army, the working class) to such individual rites de passage as the Festive Registration of the Newborn