We can now return to the Soviet bureaucracy, whose fate we tracked under Stalin. After his death, what happened to it can best be described, without the slightest hyperbole, as the ‘emancipation of the bureaucracy’. Stalinism cost it dear, and even if administrators served as best they could, the system did not allow them to behave like the bosses they were supposed to be. Henceforth they did everything in their power to eliminate from the system all the elements of Stalinism that had spoilt things for them. To anticipate somewhat, we can say that the bureaucratic phenomenon was going to flourish as never before and that the Soviet system’s modus operandi was to be profoundly transformed by it. Henceforth the decision-making process was ‘bureaucratized’ – that is to say, it no longer took the form of categorical orders, but of a complex process of negotiation—coordination (soglasovyvanié) between top political leaders and administrative agencies. This new modus operandi had already existed in many respects, but was always vulnerable to abrupt termination by sometimes bloody purges. That was now out of the question, even if a peremptory reform by Khrushchev abolished a large number of government agencies and offices with a stroke of the pen. But this had nothing in common with the way Stalin had operated. Moreover, the reform in question actually ended up failing, as we shall see in more detail later.
Two Russian terms are especially useful when dealing with the bureaucratic universe. The first, just mentioned, is soglasovyvanie, which perfectly encapsulates the interminable process of negotiation-coordination – similar to a variety of bargaining – between ministerial departments, as well as between government and party officials. The second is upravlentsy, referring to the administrative cadres engaged in upravlenie, which means something like ‘managing-governing-commanding’.
Having registered the depressed state of the party apparatus after the war compared with the influence and arrogance of ministers – something bitterly resented by party apparatchiks – we are in a position to follow the policy initially pursued by Khrushchev. It aimed to reinvigorate the party and restore the status and power of its apparatus by strengthening its ideological role (this policy and the hopes it raised would subsequently fade). To this end, Khrushchev put much effort into his own reformulation, at once new and old, of socialist aspirations. He set particular store by such practical measures as raising the living standards not only of the population as a whole but also of the apparatchiks themselves, so that the latter could approximate to the level of material comfort enjoyed by top ministerial officials – the yardstick for party bosses and the ranks below them. It was not only a matter of wages, but in particular of an array of perks that were an intense object of desire among different upper strata. In their eyes, such perks were the only way of measuring their real status (something not invented by Soviet bureaucrats). The Central Committee had to do something urgently to satisfy the personnel of the party apparatus at central and republican levels alike, so that they did not remain a second-rate group composed of impoverished malcontents. As this was the only way of preventing an exodus of the brightest or cleverest apparatchiks to work for the ‘competition’, steps were taken to ensure that they once again felt themselves to be in the saddle and were seen as so being, as befitted a ruling party.
In our sketch of the state administration, as in Part One we shall make a clear distinction between the upravlentsy on the one hand, and the apparatchiks of the Central Committee apparatus and party bodies on the other.
Predictably, in every sector the powerful state administration was, like the rest of society, highly sensitive to the transition under way to a different kind of social, cultural and, in some respects, political organization. The bureaucracy had to react to the spontaneous waves of change and, in so doing, exhibited a ‘spontaneity’ of its own – i.e. the various trends at work within it. It adopted new patterns of behaviour; its self-image and ways of conceiving its own interests evolved. Our inquiry will focus on this last point: the predominant orientation of the bureaucracy, especially in its upper echelons, to its own interests and its assessment of its position within the system.
The story of the Soviet bureaucracy remains little known. The complex, troubled history of the construction of the state’s administrative structures and recruitment of its personnel, constantly on the agenda since Lenin first asked for an inventory of officials after the Civil War, contains a shadow history: the invention of new bodies to control this administration. Like the administrative structures themselves, these were constantly being disbanded and replaced by different ones. There is no need to go into the details. Suffice it to say that Soviet administrative history exhibited an astonishing tendency for ‘bureau-creativity’, replete with endless restructuring that finally subsided in the regime’s last years. But by then, as wicked tongues had it, senior bureaucrats no longer retired: they died in their office chairs.
Whatever the supervisory agency in question (the first dated from 1921), its task was to define, classify, and of course inventory the numbers and cost of the monster. This in itself proved onerous. In the first two decades of the regime, there were numerous computations, inventories and classifications. But we shall pass directly to 1947, when the Central Statistical Office conducted a complete census of the various administrative strata and reliable figures were communicated to the leadership. Naturally, numbers were just the start of the operation. Assessing the cost of administrative agencies, establishing remuneration rules, working on organizational structures, handling appointments (the nomenklatura or rather nomenklaturas, for there were several) – this was a mammoth undertaking. Wages policy alone (assuming some order was desirable in it) required a huge amount of work: job definitions, pay scales (with special treatment for priority and privileged sectors), control over the use of the wages fund – not to mention the broader problem of how ministries actually managed the budgets accorded them by the Finance Ministry, after approval by the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. Each of the tasks signalled here demanded considerable time and effort on the part of the supervisory agencies; and the top leadership also immersed itself in the matter. The ‘circular’ complexity of the venture (one apparatus controlling another apparatus) was such that no so-called ‘state control’ agency could effectively oversee a constantly expanding bureaucratic universe.
The first of the ‘controllers’ was the Finance Ministry, since it held the purse-strings. Next came Gosplan, which assigned ministries their economic tasks and therefore had to know the number, structure and cost of their personnel. The Central Statistical Office, whose services no one could dispense with, periodically conducted general or partial inventories. Then there was the ‘state control’ agency proper (frequently reorganized and renamed in the course of its history). It studied and investigated administrative bodies, uncovering a proliferation of agencies and officials. Its archives contain a wealth of data for researchers to delve into. Among other things, we learn from them that the state administration suffered from something like a propensity to ‘parcellization’ – that is to say, to the creation of multiple sub-units with overlapping functions and myriad malfunctions. Finally, the Prosecutor’s Office, the police and the KGB had their hands full with cases of gross negligence, derelictions and criminal behaviour. Party organizations – particularly its own apparatus – made their own contribution to analysing the phenomenon with a view to formulating policy proposals. They frequently initiated investigations or created committees of inquiry to analyze the problems of the ‘administrative system’ in general or some particular agency. The Russian term for the whole bureaucratic phenomenon – administrativno-upravlencheskaia-sistema (command-administrative system) – is apt. But it covers both state administration and party apparatus. To round off our picture of a bureaucracy that was constantly being inspected, investigated and restructured, we shall mention in passing that each administrative body had its own inspectorate. Yet nothing could stop this ever more complex structure from expanding by its own momentum in a direction no one desired.
We cannot disregard the leadership’s ability to wield its axe and launch anti-bureaucratic offensives. Stalin’s purges are a case in point. But efforts to reduce and rationalize the administration, to make it more efficient, less expensive and more responsive to both the leadership and public opinion, had been as ineffectual as they were legion. This probably explains why the impetuous, cocksure Khrushchev opted for a frontal assault in order to settle the problem at one stroke, but as ever without having thought his strategy through. Initially, such shock treatment was highly impressive, because it was not wanting in plausibility.
The aim was to replace the massive pyramid of economic ministries (mostly linked to industry), which were over-centralized and oblivious to local interests, by local economic administrative bodies. Their mission was to manage and coordinate the economy with a much clearer sense and knowledge of local conditions than remote bureaucrats based in Moscow could muster. Given that the bulk of economic activity occurred at local level, the move was intended to facilitate initiative and release new resources, remedying the failures of the previous pyramid structure. A joke captures the problem. Two economic agencies located opposite each other in a street in Kazan both possess merchandise in their warehouses needed by the other agency. But they cannot negotiate a transaction without calling their ministry in Moscow. When the latter gives its agreement, trains leave Moscow for Kazan loaded with the material already stocked in sufficient quantities in the local warehouses. This contained more than a grain of truth.
The unwieldiness of ministries made it imperative to bring management closer to production, by adopting a territorial rather than a branch principle. On 10 May 1957, the Central Committee decided that it was no longer possible to manage 200,000 enterprises and 100,000 construction sites spread across the country from ministerial offices in Moscow. The moment had come to enhance republican and local powers, and to dispatch management directly to the economic-administrative regions.
Mainly intended for industry and construction, the programme was also implemented in other sectors. In May—June 1957, the Supreme Soviet created 105 economic regions (70 in the Russian Federation, 11 in the Ukraine, and in some instances just one per republic). All in all, 141 economic ministries were abolished at central, central-republican and republic levels, shedding 56,000 officials, which represented a saving of 600 million roubles. They were replaced by economic councils (sovnarkhozy), which were responsible for several branches on their territory. Initially, their personnel was small – just 11–15 officials. In due course – 1960 – the managers of major enterprises and construction sites were co-opted and additional departments were created, containing sections responsible for branch management. Subsequently, technical councils were established bringing together experts, engineering staff, and so-called economic rationalizers.
In 1959 and 1960 the economic successes were beyond dispute, with annual growth rates of 8 per cent. In the largest republics, ‘republican councils of the national economy’ were instituted to coordinate the smaller local councils and handle material-technical supply issues. At the end of 1962 various sovnarkhozy were amalgamated and their number fell from 105 to 43. On 24 November 1962 an All-Union Council of the National Economy was set up in Moscow. Its task was to compile a national plan and a general supply system for raw materials and technology, and it managed things through the republican governments, sovnarkhozy, and individual ministries. Central government – i.e. the Council of Ministers of the USSR – dealt only with what was not included in the plan. Thus, even if it remained somewhat fragmented, a central level was being recreated. On 13 March 1963 the USSR Council of the National Economy was invested with dual union-republican status: a central body, it was now to have homologues in the republics. During 1963–5 it was assigned jurisdiction over Gosplan, the State Construction Committee, and the branch committees of the Council of Ministers in key sectors. Following the good results of 1957–60, the next four years were marked by a slowdown in economic growth, and the defects of the new system became apparent. The intention to decentralize and democratize management of the economy was a good one, but the sovnarkhozy proved incapable of ensuring the indispensable branch-level specialization where essential technological development occurs. They prioritized relations with the enterprises in their regions, neglecting the transverse problems peculiar to branches.1
Many had understood from the outset in 1957 that the territorial and branch principles needed to be combined. State production committees, under the Council of Ministers in Moscow, began to emerge for this purpose. Another anomaly in need of correction was that scientific research and development offices were cut off from production units. They did not come under the sovnarkhozy; and the state production committees that supervised them were not empowered to introduce their inventions into production – they could only make recommendations.
In addition, sovnarkhozy tended to prioritize local interests, aiming at a form of economic autarky where everything would be produced locally. This generated a certain ‘localism’ whereby everyone tended to their own business in the first instance. In these circumstances, the central government’s branch committees (as their head, Kosygin, explained to the Central Committee in 1965) could not have any impact on technological progress: they were merely consultative bodies. Poorly conceived, Khrushchev’s reform was coming apart at the seams.
The failure of the sovnarkhozy prompted a new wave of criticism of ‘voluntarism’ and a propensity to ‘administer’, which came down to issuing instructions. Such criticism had frequently been directed at the previous system. After Khrushchev’s fall, however, the status quo ante was restored: the sovnarkhozy were disbanded and the vertical ministerial system re-established.
The restoration of vertical ministries in 1965, almost immediately after Khrushchev had been ousted, was no accident. The regime felt more confident about its ability to control centralized administrative pyramids than to deal with a system that combined both principles, but which had never been seriously worked out. The Central Committee plenum in 1965 drew the lessons of seven years of development and in a single stroke eliminated the different central, republican and local bodies of the ‘sovnarkhoz’ variety. At the end of 1965, thirty-five economic ministries were back at work, operating as before. As for Gosplan, which had had to endure an unhappy cohabitation with the National Economic Council, it recovered its previous powers, as did the powerful but notorious Gossnab (State Committee for Material and Technical Supplies).
This reorganization was not to represent a happy outcome, even if Kosygin had declared in favour of a return to the vertical pyramids of centralized ministries. Unlike other leaders, he did not idealize them and in the same year – 1965 – without fanfare he launched a new economic experiment – the regime’s last – aimed at changing the system of economic incentives, but not directly the command-administrative system.
The rapidity of the reversion to the enormous complex of pre-Khrushchevite economic administration looked like a miracle. In fact, however, the old system had never really disappeared. Very soon after the creation of the sovnarkhozy, a system of substitutes had been established in the form of the industrial branch committees attached to the Council of Ministers, whose design actually corresponded to the former ministries. The number of officials in the various central industrial agencies reached 123,000 at the end of 1964, surpassing the figure for 1956. Moreover – something we have not yet mentioned – numerous branch supply committees, supplanting the disbanded supply super-ministry, sprang up quite incongruously in Gosplan. They employed many of the former cadres from the ministries, preserving their know-how, which meant that they were ready to restore the previous structures at short notice.
Some ministerial officialdom had been disadvantaged by Khrushchev’s overhaul and even obliged to quit Moscow for the provinces, but this was no purge of any kind. It was well known in bureaucratic circles that administrators took care of their own: no sooner had they been removed from one post than they found another elsewhere – usually at the same level. The Moscow megacentre was a master in the art of this ‘bureaucratic security system’, even if those in the know were well aware that it was not necessarily the most effective personnel who were retained, but the best connected and most socially skilful – something, to reiterate the point, that is not peculiar to the USSR.
The re-establishment of the ministries, while a cause for rejoicing among many bureaucrats, also entailed the re-emergence of all the problems that had prompted the Khrushchev reform. A book by relatives and friends of Kosygin, who was the boss of the economy and intent on efficiency, affords us some idea of his scathing verdict.2 Kosygin complained bitterly about the fact that so many things reached the Council of Ministers when they should have been resolved lower down by the numerous administrative bodies that existed to deal with them: ‘Why should the government have to concern itself with the quality of the sand being supplied to the glass industry and other industrial branches? There are ministries and a state standards agency: why don’t they meet and resolve the issue?’ The State Construction Agency – a powerful body – came to see Kosygin to discuss its new housing designs, but these fell exclusively within its competence. All this, argues the author of the relevant chapter, attested to the inefficiency of numerous state agencies. Kosygin was unsparing in his criticism of them and sought to improve their functioning. One day, when the Finance Minister Garbuzov was talking to him about the expansion of the state apparatus, its multiple hierarchies, and the number of redundant departments, Kosygin answered him thus:
It’s true, the productivity of our apparatus is very low. Most people don’t do enough work and have no idea what they are going to do the following day. We’ve just abolished the Committee for Cultural Links with Foreign Countries. Did anyone notice? Nobody – anyway, I didn’t. We are producing tons of paper, but in practical terms we actually do very little. With a better organization of work, we could easily cut the number of officials by half.
There is an audible note of despair here. Kosygin depicts a system which, at the level immediately below the summit, is not doing much and does not really care. For understandable historical reasons, the system had been constructed ‘from the top down’. But it remained stuck in this mould to the very end. The reckless interlude opened by Khrushchev was a legitimate attempt to alter this modus operandi, but the former system returned like a shot. In essence, the bureaucratic system remained the same; it was just temporarily split into local replicas of the ‘big brother’.
Did Kosygin have a clear idea of why things were going so wrong? Had he pondered the deeper causes of the phenomenon? Without access to his papers, it is impossible to say for sure. However, a provisional response is perhaps hinted at by the reform of the ‘economic mechanism’, officially launched in 1965, which carries his name. This was the largest economic reform since the war and it was initiated cautiously, without official fanfare. Its main objective was to reduce the burden of central planning indicators – a tentacular system that was difficult to coordinate – and introduce new incentives from below into the system, in particular by making funds available to reward managers and workers for good results or technological innovation. The method was first of all experimented with in a limited number of factories. Then, when it yielded encouraging results, it was extended to a larger number of enterprises and branches. However, it rapidly ran into obstacles that could only have been overcome by taking other measures to bolster the break with existing structures. These would have opened the way for a ‘de-bureaucratization’ and altered the relationship between the plan’s indicators (a veritable straitjacket) and material incentives inside production units and among consumers. Conservative critics were right when they said that that would have amounted to transforming the system beyond recognition. This was what was required. But the political dynamic needed to push it through was lacking. Kosygin’s opponents managed to smother the reform, without even having to proclaim it openly.
These ‘opponents’ comprised a coalition or, more precisely, a bloc of the upper echelons of the state and party bureaucracy. The term nomenklatura will serve to denote them here. They were all party members and some simultaneously occupied a high administrative position and a seat on the Central Committee. But there are good reasons for distinguishing between administrative cadres and party apparatchiks, and studying them separately. In Part One, we saw that during and after the war the two bureaucracies regarded themselves as distinct, competing categories, vying for power over one another. One of Khrushchev’s first professed objectives had been to restore the preeminence of the party – in the first instance, of its apparatus – in order to make it an instrument of his own power. That is why it is worth returning to some key features of this apparatus.
Some figures are a basis to start from.3 On 1 October 1949 there were 15,436 party committees (or organizations) in the whole country. Excluding the Central Committee’s own administration, full-time (i.e. remunerated) apparatchiks numbered 138,961, of whom 113,002 were ‘political officials’ and 25,959 ‘technicians’. We possess data on the staffs of local party bodies for the period 1940 – 1 November 1955, broken down into two categories (political officials and technicians), but also according to the position of the organization in the country’s administrative structure (republics, regions, districts, subdistricts, and workplaces). Here are some annual totals for 1 January of each year.
| Political | Technical | |
| 1940 | 116,931 | 37,806 |
| 1947 | 131,809 | 27,352 |
| 1950 | 113,313 | 26,100 |
| 1951 | 115,809 | 26,810 |
| 1952 | 119,541 | 27,517 |
| 1953 | 125,005 | 28,710 |
| 1954 | 131,479 | 28,021 |
| 1955 | 142,518 | 27,830 |
| 1955* | 143,768 | 27,719 |
* On 1 November.
A reliable source on party personnel on 1 December 1963 – the most recent that I have been able to obtain – gives the following figures for the apparatus, excluding the Central Committee: 24,290 party organizations, with 117,504 full-timers, of whom 96,909 were ‘political officials’ and 20,595 ‘technicians’. The monthly wages bill amounted to 12,859,700 roubles for the former and 1,054,100 for the latter. The relatively low proportion of technical personnel reflected pressure from above not to exceed budgetary limits. As a result, the political personnel lacked adequate support staff – notably secretaries and typists.4
In 1958, the personnel of the Central Committee – the Moscow power hub – numbered 1,118 officials and 1,085 technicians, or 2,203 people; as well as the officials of the party committee within the Central Committee (for like any other workplace, party members at the Central Committee had their own cell). As we can see, the Central Committee needed more ‘technicians’ and could afford them. The annual wages bill in 1958 was 57,039,600 roubles.5 Five years later, a report refers to an annual wages bill of 65 million roubles – an increase justified by the recruitment of new apparatchiks for newly created posts and structures.6
Two thousand plus employees, 1,100 of them engaged in political tasks: such was the size of the workforce at Moscow’s Staraia Ploshchad – the famous square where the Central Committee apparatus was located, which constituted the seat of power in the Soviet Union. But these figures do not reflect the real configuration of central power. To them we must add the central administration of the USSR government and ministries, or some 75,000 people who were likewise based in Moscow (the party apparatus for Moscow and its region is not included in these figures, but belongs in the same category). Without adding more data, it is worth mentioning that the ‘summits’ of the republics and administrative regions – especially the wealthier ones – should also be included, since they acquired ever more power as the centre became submerged by an avalanche of seemingly insoluble problems.
This relatively small number of people making up the upper echelon is not to be confused with the much larger class of rukovoditeli (officials performing managerial duties), who were distributed throughout the country in economic, administrative and party positions and who numbered some 2 million.
The Moscow apparatchiks were certainly well paid. In the Soviet Union, however, wages were not an adequate yardstick for gauging living standards or the way in which merit was rewarded. Over and above the inherent satisfaction to be had from occupying high rank, as far as everyone was concerned the real rewards lay in the system of privileges and perks. It merits brief investigation.
Access to priority medical services was an especially coveted privilege.7 The list of beneficiaries was kept by a special main directorate – the fourth – of the Health Ministry, which was also in charge of the best medical centres. It managed three diagnostic centres and three top hospitals, as well as a special diagnostic and treatment centre reserved for members of the Central Committee, the government and their families. The first and second diagnostic centres, as well as the university hospital and an emergency centre, were reserved for the leaders of central and local party bodies, organs of the soviet, and economic agencies.
The list of the privileged grew with successive decisions by the Central Committee and Council of Ministers, which reflected the expansion of the national economy, social organizations and the media. It ended up including around half a million people. Thus, top-ranking officials (and their families), from the capital down to the districts, had access to the best medical facilities. The narrow circle of the Politburo and the Council of Ministers had its own health services in the Kremlin, supervised by the Health Ministry.
To provide proof of status (and take pride in it), it was enough to mention that one was entitled to the ‘Kremlin’s medical facilities’. Thus, in order to know precisely who belonged to the privileged few, the best source is the Health Ministry archives. In them we also find some interesting data on those who lost these perks – and not only because of their demise. But hospitals and medical facilities are only part of the story.
On 19 April 1966, the deputy head of the Central Committee’s financial affairs department communicated to the Central Statistical Office, which had requested it, the list of sanatoria, rest homes and hotels it controlled. On 1 January 1966 there were twelve sanatoria, five rest homes (excluding those for one-day visits) and two hotels. The document specified who was entitled to use them (adults and children), how many people per year stayed in them during the high season, and where they were situated. The Central Statistical Office had been instructed to keep tabs on these various perks. The file provided similar data for Defence Ministry and KGB establishments. Every self-respecting ministry possessed such recreational establishments, not to mention dachas for bigwigs.
Lower-level party officials in workplaces also had to be motivated in their work. Extraordinary privileges were invented for party, Komsomol and trade-union apparatchiks (i.e. paid functionaries not involved in production). In March 1961 the Central Committee decided that they were to share in the premiums accorded to engineers and administrators for introducing new technology into production (including in the arms industry). The premiums awarded by the relevant party body were not to exceed three years’ wages, whereas administrators and engineers could earn bonuses worth up to six years’ wages.8 Even so, this represented a significant sum. The claim – or fiction – that the work of party secretaries was indispensable was thus bolstered by this remuneration of their ‘contribution’ to the technological innovation made by engineers in enterprises and research departments. In the absence of such devices, the pay and position of party officials in factories would have rendered them poor relations. And not to have granted them the right to these premiums would have implied that their work did not really count.
I have no evidence to prove for certain that this measure was ever implemented. It may be doubted whether it was the ideal way to restore the prestige of party functionaries in the eyes of technical personnel. At all events, it serves as a reminder – should one be needed – that most party secretaries were officials (and not people with a political mission) who wanted to receive their share like other people, even if their actual contribution to production was virtually nil.
We have not broached the delicate issue of pensions for top party apparatchiks. It might be assumed that they depended on the rank people had attained by the end of their careers. Yet surprising as it may seem, in a bureaucracy obsessed with privileges pensions remained a weak point. Basically, the problem was evaded, for confronting it would have involved fixing a retirement age, which could have had unfortunate consequences. Retirement dates were largely arbitrary, dependent on the whim of superiors. This absence of regulation caused many difficulties for high-ranking officials who were retiring or being forced to retire. Despite their age, many regional secretaries glued themselves to their chairs, blocking the arrival of new blood. They feared an abrupt and drastic reduction in their living standards. Under Brezhnev, the size of pensions depended on connection with Politburo members, even with Brezhnev himself or members of his entourage. This legal vacuum only deepened the dependence of local leaders on the centre. Not infrequently, dedicated local leaders who had paid no attention to cultivating cosy relations with their superiors suffered when it came to retirement, unlike the toadies among them.9 Our source here is Ligachev – a Politburo member dedicated to the party and known for his personal integrity. But he would have done well to ask if such behaviour was ‘communist’ and why he was so insistent on the term for his party.
To finish this section on a happier note, we can add that the Council of Ministers did finally issue a decree regulating pensions for leading state and party officials in 1984 – one year before Gorbachev’s arrival in power.
Even if there were surprising gaps when it came to pensions, the kinds of perks offered by the regime to its rulers – who were also party and state employees receiving a salary (though they were not the owners or co-owners of the units under their command) – mean that we can legitimately speak of a welfare state. Obviously, this welfare state also existed for poorer layers of the population, but in the case of the privileged it assumed luxurious proportions in the given Soviet conditions. In an economy constantly suffering shortages of every variety, a good wage was not enough. Special access was also required to products and services that were in short supply and available exclusively to the privileged few. Hence the development of a perverse mechanism involving high-ranking employees, lobbying hard for perks as a condition of good performance, and their powerful employers (Central Committee, Council of Ministers, ministries) using these perks as a carrot (granting them) or a stick (withdrawing them). This threatened one day to exceed what the system could afford, for it revolved around the redistribution of existing resources, not the creation of new ones. Inevitably, it revealed new motivational realities on both sides. The appetites of administrators went on growing, beyond the system’s limits. That some of the highest-level apparatchiks remained ardent partisans of their ‘socialism’ is readily explicable: no other system would have afforded them as much. We can judge for ourselves from some examples of the degree of material comfort extended to top apparatchiks as they climbed the ladder of the central apparatus.
Almost incredulous, a Central Committee secretary has recounted the perks offered him. We are in 1986, but the information is also valid for the earlier period. It comes from the former ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin.10 Dobrynin knew the leadership well, but had only a vague idea of the universe of the party apparatus. In March 1986 he became secretary of the Central Committee in his capacity as head of the International Department. The following day, he met a representative of the ninth directorate of the KGB, which was responsible for the personal security of leading figures and the material perks granted to Politburo and Secretariat members (it was frequently referred to as ‘the Politburo’s nanny’). ‘I found myself in a world apart’, Dobrynin writes. According to the current rules, he was entitled to three bodyguards, a Zil limousine, and a dacha near Moscow at Sosnovyi Bor – the ‘Sosnovka’ occupied by Marshal Zhukov until his death – with the following staff attached to it: two cooks, two gardeners, four waitresses, and guards. The building comprised two floors, with a large dining room, a living room, several bedrooms and a projection room. There was another building nearby, with a tennis court, a sauna, an orangery and an orchard. ‘What a contrast with the Muscovite life I’d been used to!’ And yet Dobrynin was simply one of several Central Committee secretaries, not a Politburo member, let alone general-secretary. What was a Politburo member entitled to? He does not say. More than a Central Committee secretary, obviously, but a lot less than the general-secretary. In any event, it is worth registering the (doubtless sincere) astonishment of this highly placed – and hence already privileged – Muscovite.
Whatever the amenities they enjoyed, Politburo members could always demand more. But some of them – a majority, perhaps – were not really interested in luxury, and certainly not in ostentatious luxury, with the well-known exception of Brezhnev.
Ligachev’s personal experience offers us a glimpse of the Politburo’s working life in its twilight years in the early 1980s.11 After Andropov’s death, the Central Committee elected Konstantin Chernenko as general-secretary. He was proposed by Prime Minister Tikhonov and seconded by Gromyko – an unproblematic election. A year later, Chernenko caused some consternation by proposing that Gorbachev – Andropov’s protege – should chair Secretariat meetings, effectively making him the regime’s number two. There was opposition from some quarters, but Chernenko, although not at all close to Gorbachev, insisted. The position of number two was not a formal one. Ligachev remembers that in 1984 there were people who sought to find compromising material on Gorbachev from the time when he was regional secretary of the Stavropol region, but does not name them. The use of compromising documents was a favourite weapon in leadership infighting: one side to a conflict would try to dig up dirt to dish on the other. Access to police material or information from the ‘underworld’ could be a precious asset.
Chernenko received detailed briefings on the state of health of other leaders from Tchazov, the Health Minister. But the health of the general-secretary himself was kept top-secret: even other Politburo members were largely ignorant. Such secrecy was fertile ground for rumours and allowed some members of the leadership, who had personal access to the sick general-secretary, to manipulate him to personal or group advantage.
The Central Committee building on the Staraia Ploshchad was itself a highly secret place. But those in the know would tell you that, traditionally, office no. 6 on the ninth floor was the general-secretary’s. Office no. 2 was known as ‘Suslov’s office’. It was from there (I think) that the Central Committee Secretariat was managed.
The Politburo convened every Thursday at 11 AM precisely, either at the Kremlin or Staraia Ploshchad. In the Kremlin, on the third floor of the old part of the building, the general-secretary had an office as well as a reception room. This was also where the ‘nut-tree hall’ was located, with its large round table around which leaders discussed problems informally before the Politburo session began. While candidate members and Central Committee secretaries attended the latter, they did not participate in the informal discussions.
Under Brezhnev, Politburo meetings were short. It took an hour, or even forty minutes, to approve decisions that had been prepared in advance. Under Andropov, the Politburo’s work was more serious and deliberations could last hours. The Politburo had to decide on important appointments – something it did rapidly under Brezhnev and more attentively under Andropov.
A brief passage in Ligachev’s memoirs adds an interesting note to this collective portrait. One day – probably in 1983 – one of the most powerful partisans of the conservative wing, the long-time defence head Ustinov (who died in 1984), said to the newly arrived Ligachev: ‘Yegor, you are one of us, part of our circle.’ Ligachev says that he did not understand what was meant by this. In fact, Ustinov was giving the provincial newcomer to understand that there were factions in the Politburo. His own comprised the conservative ‘state patriots’, and after his death, the lack of Ligachev’s support for ‘us’ was sorely felt. By then, Ligachev was already in Gorbachev’s camp. Subsequently, during perestroika, he rejoined the conservative faction. In his memoirs, Ligachev comments that Gromyko, Ustinov and Chernenko – the figures from the previous generation – can be taxed with a whole variety of failures: they were responsible for the fact that the state was ‘on the verge of collapse’ in the 1980s. However, he adds that it was to their credit that they opted not to pursue Brezhnev’s line but to back Gorbachev instead. In this respect, they proved superior to all the last-minute turncoats who abandoned politics to concentrate on their own personal interests. Gromyko had been the first Politburo member to propose Gorbachev for the post of general-secretary, which had secured him unanimous endorsement not only in the Politburo but also from the Central Committee secretaries. According to Ligachev, things could have turned out quite differently.
As for the modus operandi of the Politburo in Gorbachev’s time, there is some interesting information in Dobrynin’s memoirs. It remained pretty much unchanged. The main difference stemmed from Gorbachev’s personal style, which was more modern than that of the figures described by Ligachev in a period when, with Chernenko ill, the atmosphere had more in common with the priesthood of a mystical cult than the leadership of a modern state.
As a Central Committee secretary, Dobrynin participated in Politburo meetings. He had the right to express his views, but not to vote. The Central Committee secretaries were invariably in attendance. From time to time, Gorbachev convened special sessions. Votes on contentious issues were rarely taken: Gorbachev would forestall them by stating that the issue merited further attention and would be discussed at the next meeting. He would use the intervening period to prepare the decision he wanted to see adopted. Gorbachev liked to talk at length, and sessions would sometimes last until 6 or 8 PM. But he also allowed his colleagues to express their opinions; and in this respect, the atmosphere was more democratic. During the lunch break, which lasted an hour, everyone sat together at a long table in a small working hall. They could choose between two very plain menus, without alcohol. At lunch, discussion was more freewheeling and no stenographic record was made, although Gorbachev’s personal assistant did take ‘private’ notes.
Officially, only Politburo decisions were recorded in writing and transmitted to a short list of officials to be implemented and supervised. The most important decisions were kept in a special folder. The agenda was drawn up by the general-secretary, but Politburo members were entitled to supplement or amend it – something they rarely did. Papers for each meeting were sent out a day or two in advance by the ‘general department’, the Secretariat’s main executive body. This department occupied a special place in the party apparatus. It was always headed by the general-secretary’s right-hand man: Chernenko under Brezhnev, and Lukyanov, followed by Boldin, under Gorbachev. Lukyanov was a well-educated, measured person, while Boldin was a narrow-minded bureaucrat who held sway over Gorbachev. This was a cause of bewilderment to many, especially when Boldin showed his true colours by turning out to be one of the instigators of the plot against Gorbachev in August 1991.
The international department run by Dobrynin had nothing to do with foreign affairs. Its 200 officials dealt with Communist parties and other left-wing movements abroad, but not the parties of the popular democracies, which were handled by a separate department. Dobrynin had asked Gorbachev to reverse an old decision, dating from the time of the Comintern, and let his own department handle foreign affairs. He had his way on 13 May 1986, when Gorbachev also authorized the transfer of some experts from the Foreign Ministry to the international department to aid Dobrynin in his new duties.12 We should add that these moves involved some internal politicking. As we can see from his memoirs, Gorbachev was trying to eliminate Gromyko’s influence over foreign policy and even remove him completely from political life. Henceforth, with Dobrynin’s professional input, the general-secretary monopolized foreign affairs.
In the context of this brief sketch of the Politburo’s functioning, it is important to realize that, for all his ‘modern’ style, Gorbachev remained a ‘classical’ general-secretary. His career in the party apparatus had shaped his conception of power, and particularly of the role of general-secretary as superior to other Politburo members and subject to its own rules. Even if Dobrynin does not explicitly say as much, his description confirms it: Gorbachev manipulated his colleagues through rather transparent stratagems in order to get his own way. Gorbachev was incapable of shedding the ‘general-secretary syndrome’, and it took him time to realize that a system of power which generated this kind of ‘disembodied’ central position was already moribund.