ABSTRACT
One searches history in vain for a case of a peaceful and bloodless succession to a dictator who has climbed to power by force and based his rule upon force without troubling to restore the ruptured fabric of legitimacy. On the surface everything seems designed to last forever and to ensure a simple, quiet, peaceful succession. Even in Lenin's day, before the Central Committee and Politburo had been drained of all political life and power, it proved impossible to arrange a succession by purely peaceful means or by means which, at least within the party purview, might be regarded as lawful and legitimate. The nature of the total state and the personal psychology of the particular leader combined in Stalin's case to make it ever harder for anyone to grow big enough or acquire the prestige to fill his shoes, or don the mantle of the apostolic succession.
