Communist Regime Collapse: Output and the Rate of Repression

The history of communist regimes was characterized by periods of strong repression interspersed with periods of moderation, and, finally, in most cases, by regime collapse. The purpose of this paper is to present a model which answers the rather obvious question: Why were communist dictatorships unable to keep power by means of repression, even in the face of economic difficulties? We show that there is a connection between the level of output, allocations to consumption and the rate of repression. There are levels of output at which it is not optimal to increase the repression rate, but where decreasing it might lead to a regime collapse. We develop a game theoretic model of communist dictatorship which uses the relationship between output, consumption and repression to explain changes in the rate of repression and communist regime collapse.