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constitution meant universal suffrage—
    for each worker, peasant and Muslim woman in the huge domain of the
    Soviet Union, and even for the clergy who had been disenfranchised after
    the revolution. Andrei Vyshinskii (1883–1954), the infamous chief pro-

    I N T R O D U C T I O N : N O N - C O M P E T I T I V E E L E C T I O N S 21
    secutor in the Moscow show trials of 1936–1938, pointedly described this
    claim to modernity as follows:
    “Never in a single country did the people manifest such activity in elections as did the Soviet people. Never has any capitalist country known, nor can it know, such a high percentage of those participating in voting as did the USSR. The Soviet election system under the Stalin Constitution and the elections of Supreme Soviets
    have shown the entire world once again that Soviet democracy is the authentic
    sovereignty of the people of which the best minds of mankind have dreamed”
    (quoted from Smith in this volume).
    Even the Italian Fascists also celebrated themselves as having the most
    modern form of popular government: the fascist minister and follower of
    Mussolini, Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959), asserted that Fascism would be
    more democratic than all the traditional democracies because it had elimi-
    nated the distinction between the elite and the masses. The influential
    newspaper Corriere della Sera declared in 1939 that: “the fascist regime is the most democratic regime that exists because it has total consensus” (quoted from Corner in this volume).
    Secondly, in addition to their meaning as a symbol of modernity, the po-
    litical technology of general and equal elections was able to contribute towards the loosening of traditional connections and individual loyalties,
    despite all the dictatorial limitations. It was also able to establish the con-
    cept of individual citizenship and legitimize central state power. This factor
    is mainly seen in countries that had no electoral tradition that predated
    dictatorship, such as the Soviet Union. As we can see in 19th century West-
    ern countries and in the case of contemporary China, un-free elections
    could also have modernizing effects (Lu and Shi 2009; Anderson 2000;
    Arsenschek 2003; Bensel 2004). Like elections that take place under de-
    mocratic conditions, non-choice elections are based on the model of an
    individual, equal citizen, who takes part in public affairs by using his or her
    right to vote. In societies without a tradition of universal and free suffrage
    this modern political technology—even in its non-democratic version—
    could marginalize and de-legitimize traditional patterns of inequality, local
    mutualism, tribal loyalty and collectivism (Goldman 2007; Gross 1986).
    The introduction of female suffrage in the Muslim territories of the USSR
    probably had a modernizing effect, irrespective of its non-democratic char-
    acter.
    The third aspect is that dictatorial regimes were able to confer increased
    legitimacy upon themselves by maintaining that they were upholding exist-

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    R A L P H J E S S E N A N D H E D W I G R I C H T E R
    ing electoral rules and procedures. In Italy and Germany before the Fas-
    cists and National Socialists established their regimes there had been a long
    tradition of elections and suffrage stretching back to the 19th century. Over
    several decades the population had been able to gain experience of this
    political technology with the result that elections belonged to the normal
    and necessary elements of politics which could only be changed with great difficulty (Bryce 1921, 46; Kühne 1998, 59). Under these circumstances,
    the abolition of suffrage, or even a fundamental modification of it, would
    have endangered the claims to legitimacy of the regime. The German Na-
    tional Socialists, who were at great pains to achieve the appearance of legal-
    ity in the establishment of their dictatorship, may well have destroyed the
    democratic content and the fundamental rights contained