The Applicability of Corporatist Models to the Study of Soviet Politics: The Case of the Trade Unions

Abstract

Most Western specialists of Soviet affairs trained after 1960 have come

to reject the totalitarian model of Soviet politics. The attack on the

totalitarian portrayal of the Soviet polity has been sustained for nearly two

decades with numerous alternative approaches to the study of Soviet politics

coming to the fore. Among the most importance of these new research

strategies have been the attempts of H. Gordon Skilling to introduce interest

group theory to the study of Soviet political processes1 and of Jerry Hough to

present an image of "institutional pluralism.

n2 Both Skilling and Hough seek

to analyze Soviet politics in terms comparable to political systems elsewhere;

both seek to integrate Soviet studies and political science.