ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of the book. The book focuses on the political macrosociology of China and Russia with an exploration of power restructuring in imperial times, under communism, and today. It presents a historical and comparative view of power relations and political process in two civilizations that have experienced closely related forms of imperial rule, old regime crisis, communist revolution, communist state building, and power-decentralizing, power-deconcentrating, and transitional processes. The book explores the Chinese power-restructuring experience to illuminate comparable processes in Russia and the Soviet Union and the Russian and Soviet experience to elucidate the Chinese case. It also focuses on three broad patterns—continuity, interaction, and synthesis. The book then focuses on a conceptual construct that more satisfactorily encompasses the historical and contemporary realities of power relations and political process in China and Russia—Weberian patrimonialism.
