This book identifies nine strategies dictators use to legitimate their rule in the eyes of regime insiders, and then shows how these strategies have been used over the life of the Soviet and post-Soviet regimes. Drawing on analysis of the experience of all of the major Soviet and post-Soviet leaders, it charts the success with which each individual leader has utilised these strategies, and thereby offers an explanation of why some leaders have been highly successful and others less so. The ramifications of the analysis spread far beyond the specific case studies, offering an insight into the way that dictatorial rule in general is stabilised. The book will appeal not just to Soviet or Russian specialists, but to all of those interested in how dictatorship works and legitimacy is established.