917 after the abdication of Nicholas II, and again in 1990-1991 following the dissolution of the Communist party, which Pipes calls the true government of the Soviet state.
The West, Pipes says, has had difficulty grasping this because Western analysts have viewed the Soviet state as one organized along familiar lines, with government and citizenry coexisting in a certain balance. This, however, was not the case: "Whatever its theoretical claims and propagandistic slogans, the Communist regime in fact enforced in the most extreme form the principles of Muscovite 'patrimonialism,' depriving the citizenry of all rights, notably the right to form independent organizations and to own property. by shifting all political authority and property to the state, the Communist regime eliminated every semblance of an equilibrium between government and society" (p. 28). In the mid-1980s, the Communist leadership decided to dilute its absolute authority and to bring society into a limited partnership to help it overcome problems of political and economic stagnation. Pipes says the leadership found that there was no society and thus no partner: "There were only millions of atomized individuals--some alienated and angry, the majority indifferent--whom 70 years of Communism had taught to take care of themselves and leave public affairs to their betters" (p. 28).
Simes (1991) notes that the situation when Gorbachev assumed power was already in deterioration. In 1985 he inherited a country with a stagnating economy, an ambitious but self-defeating foreign policy, and a corrupt and inept elite short of energy and ideas. Simes finds that the crisis facing Soviet society as the union disintegrated came from the same sources noted by Pipes: "The Soviet crisis goes far beyond empty shelves, a crime wave, rampant corruption, inter-ethnic violence, and the paralyzing struggle between the remnants of the old
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