Political Mobility and the Soviet Political Process: A Partial Test of Two Models

Abstract

This article provides a partial test of the rational-technical model and of the patronage model of political mobility in the Soviet Communist Party. Two major hypotheses are examined: 1) the greater the number of patron client ties acquired by regional Party secretaries, the greater the probability of their upward mobility, and 2) the better the economic performance of the regions for which secretaries are responsible, the greater the probability of their upward mobility. Multiple regression analysis indicates only very weak support for these hypotheses for the 1955–1968 period in the RSFSR. Considerably greater support for the hypotheses is found when the following variables are controlled: level of economic development, political regime, and Party cohort. Changes in the level of policy conflict within the central elite are found to account for much of the variation over time in the explanatory power of the two models.