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The Soviet Leader Cult: Reflections on the Structure of Leadership in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Graeme Gill
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Extract

A common feature of authoritarian regimes throughout history has been the creation of an elaborate mystique around the leader. This has consisted, in general terms, of the building up of the leader into a figure of superhuman dimensions dwarfing all the lesser mortals who surround him. Although such a cult often pandered to and was inflated by the egoism of its principal, its presence across millennia and cultural differences suggests a systemic basis for its development. Leader cults have rarely been the result simply of a desire for personal glorification or public worship on the part of a leader, significant though such factors may be in any particular instance, but have resulted in large part from structural features of the political system in question. The Soviet political system is clearly relevant in this regard, having been characterized by the existence of exaggerated cults of the leader for much of its sixty-two-year history. By analysing two of these cults, those of Stalin and Brezhnev as embodied in the images of the two leaders projected through the party press, it will be possible to isolate those structural aspects of the Soviet political system which encourage the emergence and growth of a leader cult.

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Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 167 - 186
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

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27 Although the image of Brezhnev has been undergoing embellishment for a number of years, the most rounded and complete picture of Brezhnev emerged at the time of his seventieth birthday in December 1976. The XXV Congress of the CPSU in early 1976 and the occasion of his elevation to the chairmanship of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in mid-1977 were also the scenes of much exaggerated praise of Brezhnev. For the Congress see Pravda, 26 02 1976 to 5 03 1976Google Scholar, and for his elevation Pravda, 17 06 1977 to 20 06 1977Google Scholar, and Kommunist, IX (1977), pp. 4–5Google Scholar. For some details of the public honouring of Brezhnev, see Brown, Archie, ‘Political Developments, 1975–1977’, in Brown, Archie and Kaser, Michael, eds., The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 309–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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39 Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 5Google Scholar, XIII (1977), p. 16, and XXIII (1977), p. 15.

40 Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar. The publication of volumes of his speeches, his memoirs and his biography have been the occasion for exaggerated praise of Brezhnev and his works. For example, see Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1978), pp. 11–18Google Scholar, XI (1978), pp. 8–12, XIX (1978), pp. 10–18, and XXI (1978), pp. 8–15; Voprosy Istorii KPSS, II (1979), pp. 3–13.Google Scholar

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47 Ustav Komm. part., pp. 15, 16, and 17.Google Scholar

48 Ustav Komm. part., p. 17Google Scholar. In practice this post has existed from 4 April 1922 when Stalin was appointed to it, but the formal method of filling it was not specified until the XXIII Congress.

49 This situation is not unique to the election of the General Secretary but also applies to the election of the Politburo and the Secretariat by the Central Committee and of the Central Committee by the Congress.

50 Sverdlov was not called General Secretary, but being the only Central Committee Secretary he carried out the equivalent functions.

51 Once again, the Central Committee's action was initiated elsewhere, and in effect simply registered the result of a political battle that had already been fought and won prior to the Committee meeting.

52 It is interesting in this connection to note Gilison's point that as well as the absence of formal guidelines, there is no clear precedent to follow in regard to the style of leadership expected of a party leader since neither Lenin's nor Stalin's positions could be duplicated. See Gilison, Jerome M., ‘New Factors of Stability in Soviet Collective Leadership’, World Politics, XIX (1967), 563–81, p. 568CrossRefGoogle Scholar. We could also add that dissatisfaction with Khrushchev's style of leadership effectively prevented this from becoming a model for his successors.

53 The absence of institutionalization of this position is matched by a vagueness about the relationships between the leading bodies of the political structure – the Politburo, Secretariat, and Presidium of the Council of Ministers. See Rigby, T. H., ‘The Soviet Leadership: Towards a Self-Stabilizing Oligarchy?’, Soviet Studies, XXII (1970–1971), 167–91, p. 169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 For a discussion of the leadership in terms of networks of relationships between individual leaders based on ‘power inequalities among the leaders resulting from differential access to “fixed” positional resources’, see Hodnett, Grey, ‘Succession Contingencies in the Soviet Union’, Problems of Communism, XXIV (1975), 1–21, p. 131Google Scholar. On the question of institutionalization, see pp. 14–15.

55 See a discussion of this in Gilison, , ‘New Factors of Stability in Soviet Leadership’, pp. 572–3.Google Scholar

56 We should not assume that a General Secretary inevitably wants to expand his power to the limit. For an argument that Brezhnev is satisfied with a position in which he does not completely dominate his colleagues despite indications ‘that he has become undisputed leader’, see Hough, Jerry F., ‘The Brezhnev Era: The Man and the System’, Problems of Communism, XXV (1976), 1–17, pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

57 For the view that the Soviet leadership is the scene of continual struggles for power between individual members, see Meyer, Gerd, ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, in Cohen, Lenard J. and Shapiro, Jane P., eds., Communist Systems in Comparative Perspective (New York: Anchor Books, 1974), 195–221, p. 204.Google Scholar

58 Here lies a possible source of divided loyalties, when a party member is the subject of institutionally based demands for loyalty from the party, of which he may be a long-time member, and from one of the functionally based institutions in which he may have made his professional career.

59 For a discussion of the formation of such alliances, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, pp. 204–8.Google Scholar

60 On nomenklatura see Lebed, A., ‘The Soviet Administrative Elite: Selection and Deployment Procedures’, Studies on the Soviet Union, V (1965), 47–55Google Scholar, and Harasymiw, Bohdan, ‘Nomenklatura: The Soviet Communist Party's Leadership Recruitment System’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, II (1969), 493–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 This was significant for Khrushchev's power in the 1950s. For one aspect of this see Rigby, T. H., ‘Khrushchev and the Resuscitation of the Central Committee’, Australian Outlook, XIII (1959), 165–80, p. 174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 On ‘family groups’ see Armstrong, John A., The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (New York: Atlantic Books, 1959), pp. 82 and 84Google Scholar, and Fainsod, Merle, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (New York: Knopf, 1958), pp. 85–6, 111, 151, 270–3.Google Scholar

63 See Rigby, , ‘The Soviet Leadership’, p. 177Google Scholar, where it is argued that this relationship is based on ‘mutual aid’.

64 When this occurs, clients often try to switch their allegiance. In this way Brezhnev was able to ‘inherit’ many of Khrushchev's former clients. See Hodnett, , ‘Succession Contingencies in the Soviet Union’, p. 9Google Scholar. For the fate of some sets of clients on the demise of their patron, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, p. 208.Google Scholar

65 Rigby, , ‘The Soviet Leadership’, p. 177.Google Scholar

66 For examples of leaders placing their clients in institutional structures nominally controlled by their rivals as a ‘check’ or ‘balance’ against the effective control of those organizations by their competitors, see Meyer, , ‘The Impact of the Political Structure on the Recruitment of the Political Elite in the USSR’, p. 209.Google Scholar

67 Tatu has differentiated between ‘clients’ who owed their whole careers to a patron, ‘allies’ whose careers were largely independent of the patron but who owed current high office to their support for the patron at a crucial stage in his career, and ‘independents’. See Tatu, M., Power in the Kremlin: From Khrushchev to Kosygin (New York: Viking Press, 1968), p. 24Google Scholar. In these terms, the cult would be aimed at reinforcing the commitment of a patron's clients and allies, and winning over the independents and clients and allies of other patrons.

68 This is not meant to imply that support for leaders results solely from career considerations. Agreement on policy issues can also be a significant factor.

69 This is not to suggest that cults are restricted to the top leaders. When a patron or potential patron gains a position anywhere in the political structure which gives him scope for patronage and access to controlled media exposure, a cult may be developed around him in an attempt to consolidate his position through the attraction of a personal following. Such a cult may be instrumental in his further ascension of the political ladder. Clearly the profile projected in such cults will be much more modest than in cults of the top leaders, and their geographical extent will be regionally limited. Such cults may effectively constitute subcults of a patron higher up.

70 In this sense all clients have a personal interest in fostering the development of the cult because by strengthening the position of their patron, they hope to secure their personal futures. In this way the leader cult can develop some independence from the control of the leader at the centre, reflecting the zeal with which his supporters promote his image. The important role played by clients in promoting a leader's cult explains the emphasis leaders have placed on having their clients in controlling positions in the media. Khrushchev's appointment of his son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei as editor-in-chief of Izvestiia is probably the most blatant of such acts.

71 Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), pp. 4 and 7Google Scholar, XXIII (1977), p. 15, 11 (1978), pp. 5 and 6, IV (1978), p. 5, XXI (1978), p. 8, and 1 (1979), p. 5. Interesting in this regard is the formulation used in connection with the framing of the new Constitution adopted in 1977. It was reported to have been drawn up ‘under the guidance and with the active participation of the Central Committee, its Politburo and personally the General Secretary of the CC CPSU and Chairman of the Constitutional Commission, comrade L. I. Brezhnev’. If the 1977 Constitution is to become known as the ‘Brezhnev Constitution’ in the style of the ‘Stalin Constitution’ of 1936, there is no sign of it yet. For this formulation see Paniinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 16, 11Google Scholar (1978), p. 6, and XIX (1978), p. 19.

72 Partiinaia zhizn', 1 (1977), p. 4Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

73 Pravda, 19 12 1976Google Scholar. Indeed it has even been claimed that the thousands of greetings sent to Brezhnev on his birthday and his election as Chairman of the Presìdìum of the Supreme Soviet are a clear demonstration of the unity between party and people. The implication is that they show popular support for the party rather than affection for Brezhnev personally. Kommunist, XII (1977), p. 26.Google Scholar

74 Partiinaia zhizn', XIII (1977), p. 24Google Scholar; Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

75 Pravda, 19 12 1976.Google Scholar

76 Pravda, 17 10 1964, 5 11 1964, 6 12 1964Google Scholar; Partiinaia zhizn', XX (1964), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

77 Pravda, 20 12 1976Google Scholar. It is also reflected in titles of articles like the following by Zasorin, V., ‘Kollektivnost’ v rabote – vazneishaia cherta leninskogo stilia, Partiinaia zhizn', III (1969).Google Scholar

78 One qualification should be added to this statement: some discussions of the collective nature of party work have acknowledged an important role by individual leaders of the collectivity. For example, see Kommunist, XVIII (1976), pp. 21–2Google Scholar, and some of the articles in the ‘For a Leninist style of work’ theme of the ‘party life’ section of Pravda.