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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2017
By turning to the Central Committee in June, 1957, to defeat the temporary majority in the Presidium, Khrushchev had not only wrecked the concept of collective leadership; he had corrected the optical illusion of a meaningful separation of “powers” in the allocation of the top party-state posts within the Presidium of the Central Committee. In institutional terms, the ouster of four of the five first deputy chairmen of the Council of Ministers (plus Malenkov, a deputy chairman) from the Presidium and the packing of that body with the entire1 membership of the enlarged Secretariat and some regional party secretaries represented the absolute subordination of the policy making organ of the CC to its nominally executive arm, the Secretariat. Carried to its logical conclusion by the First Secretary's assumption of Bulganin's office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in March, 1958, this ”coup d'etat” was not formally submitted for approval to the extraordinary Congress which left the leading party organs unchanged.
1 Except Pospelov, a candidate member.
2 There is nothing in the party rules about the incompetence of an extraordinary Congress to elect a Central Committee. At the June, 1959, plenum, 112 of the 123 full members of the CC elected at the 1956 Congress were present, deaths and recorded expulsions accounting for the loss of 10 (
, Moscow, June 24-29, 1959, p. 3). Most of the 21 CC members who were not listed as delegates to the 21st Congress will probably be dropped in addition to the numerous victims of the 1960-61 reshuffles among the secretaries of the Republic and the RSFSR oblasts. A conservative estimate of the ”lame duck” Central Committee members in the spring of 1961 would be 50. Between September, 1953, and the 20th Congress more than half of the 84 first secretaries at the oblast level and above were removed; an equally large number will have been ousted before the 22nd Congress.
3
,, No. 10,1957, p. 5.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Kolarz, W., Stalin-1949-Chruschtschow-1959, Das Parliament (Bonn), August 12, 1959.Google Scholar
7 See
Stalin, J. V., Problems of Leninism (New York, 1934), pp. 38–39.Google Scholar The term rarely appears in Soviet journals; for recent examples, see 
, No. 11, 1960, pp. 32-33, and a quotation attributed to Khrushchev (from speech at 20th Congress), Ilpaeda, February 15, 1956. 
, No. 7, 1961, p. 69.
8 For a summary of the Congress procedures, see J. Miller, Soviet Studies, XI, No. 1 (July, 1959), 84–109.Google Scholar
9
, February 1, 1959.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., February 4, 1959.
12 M. CycлoB, , February 17, 1956.
13 Bialer, s., “I Chose Truth,” News From Behind the Iron Curtain (New York), October, 1956.Google Scholar
14 In the statement by Saburov, the following issues are specifically mentioned: (a) Virgin Lands program (1954); (b) new planning procedure in agriculture (1955); (c) overtaking the U.S. in per capita milk, butter, and meat production (1957); (d) raising procurement prices (1956); (e) abolition of arrears for economically weak kolkhozy (1957); (f) freeing individual holdings from obligatory milk deliveries (1957); (g) broadening rights of republics (1955); (h) reorganization of industry (1957); (i) abolition of compulsory loans (1957); (j) economic aid to people's democracies (1956); (k) aid to underdeveloped countries (1955-57).
15 « For an excellent discussion of the role of the CC in the intra-party struggles (1953-58), see Rigby, T. H., “Khrushchev and the Central Committee,” Australian Outlook, XIII, No. 3 (July, 1959), pp. 165–180.Google Scholar
16
, January 14, May 5, June 15 and 25, 1960.
17 Ibid., February 7, 1961.
18 Ibid., May 5, 1960.
19 The case of Ignatov merits special mention. In April, 1959, he was assigned to the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR without any men-tion of change in his status as member of the Secretariat. He was removed from that post in order to “concentrate on his work in the Secretariat.” Within six months, however, he was again transferred from the Secretariat to become a Deputy (not First Deputy) Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers (May 6, 1960) and after the reorganization of the agricultural administration he was named Chairman of the State Committee for Procurements (February 25, 1961).
20
, May 5, 1960. The promotion of Kosygin and the appointment of Kozlov to the Secretariat have given rise to considerable speculation among Kremlinologists on the subject of possibly increased influence of the Leningrad apparatus in the future selection of cadres during the pre-Congress period. Despite an acceleration of the rate of replacements of first secretaries, there have been relatively few Leningrad transfers, T. Sokolov and N. Rodionov to Kazakhstan, V. Bazovsky to Novgorod, and N. Kurytkov to Kulinin.
21 See 
, No. 6, 1960, p. 442.
22 At the January, 1961, plenum and in the subsequent extended tour of the provinces and republics, Khrushchev has imparted a truly remarkable lesson in leadership to his subordinates, a public performance which has no parallel in Soviet party history.
23 Speech by N. S. Khrushchev at 15th Congress of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, 
, May 20, 1940, quoted from
Armstrong, J., The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (New York, 1959), p. 151.Google Scholar
24 Interview with
Reston, James (New York Times), , October 11, 1957; speechat Eortieth anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution, , October 7, 1957; interview withShapiro, H. (United Press), , November 19, 1957.Google Scholar
25 Interview with A. I. Macdonald (London Times), , February 16, 1958. For further development of the thesis of the “everlasting” party, see 
, No. 2, 1958, and 
, No. 8, 1960; also E. Goldhagen, “Ideology and the Transition to Communism,”Soviet Survey, April-June, 1959. Speech at the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, , November 7, 1957.
26 In December, 1958, on the eve of the 21st Party Congress, Army Genera I. A. Serovwas replaced as head of the KGB by A. Shelepin, Head of the CO Department for Party Organs of the Union Republics and formerly First Secretary of the Komsomol (, December 26,1958).
27 The charges of criminal responsibility for the group as a whole were raised at the Congress by only two full Presidium members, N. Ignatov and N. Belyaev, and candidate member N. Podgorny. Specific accusations had previously been leveled against Malenkov by Khrushchev on several occasions for responsibility for the “Leningrad Affair.” According to S. Bialer, “I Chose Truth,” News from Behind the Iron Curtain, October, 1956, Khrushchev had blamed Malenkov as early as January, 1955, for this 1949 purge; subsequently Khrushchev repeated this accusation in Leningrad on July 6, 1957 (Upaeda, July 7, 1957). The USSR Prosecutor General had also charged the group with “serious arbitrary acts and violations of socialist legality” at the December, 1958, meeting of the Supreme Soviet (Upaeda, December 27, 1958). Spiridonov, First Secretary of the Leningrad Obkom, blamed “several of these 'functionaries'” for the Leningrad Affair (
, No. 2, 1959, p. 21). Several articles in leading Agit-Prop journals have, however, gone to great lengths to define the recent intra-party controversies in terms of “non-antagonistic contradictions” which require persuasion and not coercion for their resolution. See, for example, 
, No. 9, 1960, pp. 33-37; and $. 
, No. 6,1960, pp. 38-42.
28
, February 1,1959.
29 See, for example, Berman, H., “Law Reform in the Soviet Union,” American Slavic and East European Review, April, 1950; Berman, H., “Soviet Law Reform—Moscow 1957,“ Yale Law Journal, LXVI (1957)Google Scholar, 1191-1215; Koralfy, A., “Recent Legal Changes in the USSR,” Soviet Studies, IX (1957/58), 1–19 Google Scholar; Gsovski, V., “New Trends in Soviet Justice?” Problems of Communism, V, No. 1 (1956), 25–30 Google Scholar; Lipson, L., “The New Face of ‘Socialist Legality’,“ Problems of Communism, VII, No. 4 (1958), 22–;30 Google Scholar; Lipson, L., “Socialist Legality: The Mountain Has Labored,” Problems of Communism, VIII, No. 2 (1959), 15–19.Google Scholar
30 Although abolished in 1953, there was no official announcement until 1957 (see Berman, “Soviet Law Reform-Moscow 1957,” Yale Law Journal, LXVI [1957], pp. 1194 ff.).
31
, December 26,1958.
32
Stalin, J., Mastering Bolshevism (New York: International Publishers, 1937), p p.29–30.Google Scholar For a post 20 th Congress modification of the sharpness of the attack on this thesis, see 
, No. 20, 1956, p p. 4-5; also R. Lowen thal, “StalinistIdeology,” Soviet Survey (London), July-September, 1960, p. 35.
33 See Part I of this article, American Slavic and East European Review, Apr i l, 1961, p. 204.
34
, December 24, 1956, and November 15, 1958.
35 The terminology is from B. Meissner, op. cit., p. xii.
36
, No. 10, 1960 (translation, Current Digest of Soviet Press, XII, No. 46, 5).
37
, February 4,1959.
38 Ibid., February 1, 1959.
39 Most of the 32 speakers were party secretaries and chairmen of Republican Councils of Ministers; none of the ministers whose “empires” were about to be reorganized participated in the proceedings except as deputies who approved the reorganization unanimously. (
, 1957.)
In tabular form the original Sixth Five-Year Plan targets, 1960 performance and 1965 targets in heavy industry are as follows:
| 1960 FYP Target | 1960 Act. | Per cent | 1965 Plan | Per cent Increase 1959-65 | Per cent Increase 1961-65 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pig iron (mil. tons). | 53 | 46.8 | 88.3 | 65–70 | 7.4–7.5 | 6.8–8.4 |
| Steel | 68.3 | 65.3 | 92.6 | 86-91 | 6.6–7.5 | 5.7–6.9 |
| Rolled steel | 52.7 | 50.9 | 96.6 | 65–70 | 6.3–7.4 | 5.0–6.6 |
| Coal | 593 | 513 | 86.5 | 600–612 | 2.8–3.2 | 3.0–3.5 |
| Oil | 135 | 148 | 109.6 | 230–240 | 10.7–11.4 | 9.2–10.2 |
| Gas (bil. cu. meters) | 40 | 47 | 117.5 | 150 | 25.4 | 26.1 |
| Elec. Power (bil. kw.) | 320 | 292 | 91.2 | 500–520 | 11.5–12.2 | 11.4–12.2 |
| Cement (mil. tons). | 55 | 45.5 | 82.7 | 75–81 | 12.1–13.3 | 10.5–12.3 |
40 Nearly all observers agree that the goals of the Seven-Year Plan are “realistic” in the producers’ goods sector. For the agricultural sector, however, in which 1960 agricultural output for grain, milk, meat, wool, and eggs in no case reached more than 75 per cent of the Sixth Five-Year Plan targets, there is an equally unanimous consensus that the 1965 targets are impossible of fulfillment. The record of the consumer goods sector falls between heavy industry and agriculture. Cotton fabrics (4,800 mil. meters in 1960) reached only 66 per cent of the original 1960 target, while output of washing machines (953,000) was nearly double (180.5 per cent) the 528,000 target set in 1956.
41 Moore, B. Jr., Terror and Progress USSR(Cambridge, 1954), p. 231;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a much less qualified forecast of inevitable evolutionary trends towards political democracy under the pressures of continued industrialization and higher educational levels, see I. Deutscher, Russia, What Next? (1953), and The Great Contest (1960).
42 Ritvo, H., “Totalitarianism without Coercion?” Problems of Communism,Vol. IX, No. 6 (1960).Google Scholar
43 Fainsod, M., “The Party in the Post-Stalin Era,” Problems of Communism,Vol. VII, 1 (1958).Google Scholar
44 In six of the republics there has been no change in KGB leadership since 1954 (Arnenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Uzbek); in three (Belorussia, Lithuania, md Kirgiz) only a single shift; in five (Azerbaidzhan, Kazakh, Moldavia, Tadzhik, and Turkmen) there have been two transfers. In the USSR/RSFSR there was only one change; n December, 1958, Shelepin replaced Array General I. Serov who now serves in an intellience function on the General Staff of the Soviet Army. Directory of Soviet Officials, Department of State, I (August, 1960), 19. None of the transferred KGB officials have been iccused in any way publicly.
45 Letter from the CC, CPSU, to the CC, Communist Party of Yugoslavia, The Soviet
Yugoslav Dispute (London: Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs, 1948), p. 15; also H. XpymeB, Ipaeda,January 28, 1959; 
,February 5, 1959.
46 Although the legal reform is one of the few measures for which Khrushchev has not Deen given personal credit in Soviet media, there is some evidence that he has played a najor role in the discussions, particularly after the ouster of Malenkov in February, 1955. For a reference in a Western source, see R. Tucker, Impressions of Russia in 1958, RAND P-1570, p. 172; Prof. H. Berman of Harvard in a personal conversation has quoted a leading Soviet legal authority who stated that the delay in legal reform promised immediately after the death of Stalin was not overcome until early 1955.
47 Loeber, D. A., “The Soviet Bureaucracy and Rights of the Individual Against the State,” Journal of the International Commission of Jurists,Vol. I, No. 1 (Autumn, 1957), also Schlesinger, R., “Discussion on Criminal Law,” Soviet Studies,January, 1959.Google Scholar
48
, No. 11, 1960, pp. 39–48.
49 Presented for discussion in 1958, the anti-parasite laws were passed into law in twelve of the fifteen republics by mid-1960. The RSFSR law was not adopted until 1961, Co6emcKaЯ PoccuЯ, May 5,1961.
50
, September 6,1960.
51 Despite the frequent references to the transfer of state functions to “public organizations“ since the 21st Congress, a recent survey of the progress made still lists only the following: more than seven million trade-union members in the permanent production conferences; an identical number as controllers and inspectors in safety regulations, social insurance, and cultural work; 800,000 members of twenty-one scientific technical societies; the transfer of direction of sport and physical culture from a state committee to the All-Union Society in 1959; voluntary people's militia “under the direct guidance of the Party organizations“ (p. 44) and the people's courts under the trade unions; lecture work of the Society for Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge.
52 Abolished in September, 1953 (B. A. 
, 1959, p. 263).
53 For an interesting historical review of the previous experiments with comradely courts (45,000 in operation in 1938) and the parallel problems of the present see 
, April, 1961.
54
,February 4, 1959.
55 Ibid.,November 3, 1957; for a chronological listing of the decrees and resolutions see Ost-Probleme (Bonn), Vol. XIII, No. 8 (1961).
56
,May 7,1961.
57
,January 20, 1960.
58 Galay, N., The Soviet Army and Domestic Policy, Twelfth Congress of the Institute for the Study of the USSR(Munich, 1960).Google Scholar
59 Ilpae∂a, May 9,1960.
60 According to C. Duvel, the following Marshals of the Soviet Union are now on the retirement lists: Budyenny, Konev, Meretskov, Sokolovsky, Timoshenko, Vasilevsky, Voroshilov, Yeremenko, and Zhukov (Daily Information Bulletin, April 21, 1961, Radio Liberty, Munich). On August 11, 1961, Konev was named Commander of the Soviet Armed Forces in East Germany.
61 The seven are Grechko, Zakharov, Chuikov, Bagramyan, Biryuzov, Moskalenko, and Golikov. All were associated with Khrushchev in the Ukraine either before or during the war or at Stalingrad. The same is true of Marshal Malinovsky. Rokossovsky is thus the only active Marshal who is not a member of the Khrushchev machine. In no sector of the party-state bureaucracy can Khrushchev's control be demonstrated to be more complete than in the high command.
62 H. Dinerstein, “Current Soviet Strategic Ideas,” Soviet Survey, October-December, 1960.
63 In his conversation with Vice-President Nixon, Khrushchev revealed that he had ordered Marshal Vershinin, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, to Sochi and dictated an article which appeared in , September 8, 1957, under Vershinin's signature. Khrushchev referred to this as “Marshal Vershinin's famous interview on Soviet capabilities of destruction.” New York Herald Tribune, September 14, 1960.
64 See response to letter read by Khrushchev at the January plenum in 
, January 19, 1961, and subsequent follow-up in 
, March 30,1961.
65 This does not include the 15 Republic Chairmen of Ministers.
66 For a violent Soviet denial of the prevalent Western interpretation of this aspect of the 1957 reform, see 
, No. 3, 1961, pp. 182–87.
67
,February 3, 1961.
68
,May 7, 1961. The accompanying commentary by USSR Chief Prosecutor R. Rudenko leaves no room for doubt that the malpractices of the economic bureaucracy are as much a target as the large scale speculation and crimes of violence. This measure :limaxes a two-year drive against the economic bureaucracy since the law on faulty producion, December 25, 1958, and decree against localism, April 24, 1958 (quoted in 
, February 26, 1961). A few days later a new decree made the padding of statisical reports punishable by sentences up to three years.
69 Meissner, B., Russland unter Chrushchtschow(Munich, 1960), p.199.Google Scholar
70 The latest figure for party membership is 9,500,000, 
, April 12, 1961.
71 See note 2.
72 For the 22nd Congress, each delegate will represent 2,000 members instead of 6,000 as was the case in 1959 and 5,000 at the 19th and 20th Congresses.
73
, April, 1961.