Reforms, in view of a comparative party-state model, become the instruments of self-reproduction and self-destruction of party-state power. The specific patterns of power distribution imply different development and transformation paths through different instruments of self-reproduction. This approach also points to the structural and dynamic background of the differences in the location, sequence, speed and political conditions of reforms during the operation and transformation of party-states. In view of the model the paper points to the inconsistencies that emerge in the comparative reform literature concerning the evaluation and strategies of reforms disconnected from their systemic-structural context.