ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, a framework was outlined for understanding communist parties’ success in the Soviet era, making a basic distinction between demand-side factors (the external socio-economic ‘breeding ground’), external supply-side factors (political-institutional and party system factors) and internal supply-side factors (parties’ own strategies). In general, the key demand-side factors helping CPs were lasting socio-economic and ideological cleavages and political polarization. The key external supply-side factors included CPs’ ability to compete with social democrats for working-class votes, to gain from protest and clientelistic voting and to avoid negative ‘external shocks’ such as prohibition or Moscow’s direct intervention. The most significant internal supply-side factors were parties’ ability to adapt ideology and practice to national and local conditions and avoid debilitating internal splits. Such parties could best manage the contradiction between ‘teleological’ and ‘societal’ imperatives imposed by the USSR.
