There was always a delicate balance between the party and the  
military in the USSR. Trotsky was driven from the USSR and  
assasinated because he was the all too popular head of the Red Army.  
It was for this reason that Stalin purged the military just before  
WWII. During WWII officers like Zhukov were very careful to insist  
that the Party was boss. The same problem has led to purges in the PRC.

James Brothers, RPA
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On Jun 7, 2007, at 9:16, Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe wrote:

> Bracket Latin America and Africa:  think of Thailand, a functioning  
> constitutional monarchy, which has recently experienced a military  
> coup.  In France, 1960 when de Gaulle announced the withdrawal from  
> Algeria there was an attempted military coup.  In Greece in 1968,  
> the militarized police overthrew the government and ruled by  
> force.  In Spain (1980s?) military officers seized parliament and  
> attempted a coup.  Think also of the militarized KGB in the USSR,  
> arresting Mikail Gorbachev in the Crimea in 1990, breaking the  
> tradition of civilian Communist Party dominance since 1917.