ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the character of oligarchical tendencies under the some leaders, explores the impact of the distribution of power upon the satisfaction of various “group” interests, and considers about the possible effects of a more oligarchic pattern of leadership upon the conduct of foreign policy. It argues that the Nikita Sergeievich Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev periods were both marked by a combination of monocratic and oligarchic elements—by the coexistence of "leader" and "leadership" roles. The celebration of Leonid Brezhnev's seventieth birthday in December 1976 was accompanied by expressions of esteem and devout fealty from all domestic and foreign constituencies and by new elaborations of Brezhnev's own "cult of personality." Seweryn Bialer has commented that Khrushchev's Presidium was "collective leadership" as opposed to Stalin’s one-man rule. Khrushchev did exercise power in ways that probably often were not to the liking of his colleagues in the leadership.
