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Party-State Relations and Soviet Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Ronald J. Hill
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Extract

One of the preoccupations of students of Soviet and communist politics in the past decade or so has been the problem of system change. There can be no doubt that in a number of fundamental respects the Soviet Union today bears little resemblance to the totalitarian model bequeathed by Stalin. In particular, despite the well publicized attempts to stifle vocal opposition, the abandonment of the capricious and widespread use of terror has brought about a radical modification in the life of the mass of the population and party membership. Equally significant has been the rise in living standards, over the past decade especially. Perhaps also of relevance to the average citizen, envious of and apprehensive towards foreigners – particularly Chinese and Germans – is the Soviet leadership's tangible success in reaching some form of accommodation with the country's main ideological adversaries, and the rise in prestige stemming from the USSR's achievements in space and in the international sports arena. Hence, for probably the majority of Soviet citizens, taking a broad view, Harold Macmillan's British election slogan of 1959 would be quite apposite: they have never had it so good.

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Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 149 - 165
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 An early attempt to confront the problem was the series of articles in Problems of Communism during 1966–68, subsequently reprinted, under the editorship of Zbigniew Brzezinski, as Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).Google Scholar See also Johnson, Chalmers, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Taubman, William, ‘The Change to Change in Communist Systems’, in Morton, Henry W. and Tökes, Rudolf L., eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s (New York: Free Press, 1974). pp. 369–94.Google Scholar

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3 ‘Ob uluchshenii deyatel'nosti Sovetov deputatov trudyashchikhsya i usilenii ikh svyazei s massami’; text reprinted in KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh i resheniyakh s”ezdov, konferentsii i Plenumov TsK., 8th edn, Vol. 7 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1971), pp. 237–48.Google Scholar

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5 These and other specific points referred to in this article are fully documented in my book, Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform (London: Martin Robertson, 1980)Google Scholar; on electoral reform literature, see my article, ‘Soviet Literature on Electoral Reform: A Review’, Government and Opposition, XI (1976), 481–95.Google Scholar

6 See Hill, , Soviet Politics, Chaps. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

7 Starovoitov, N. G., Nakazy izbiratelei (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literature, 1975), p. 110, fn. 1.Google Scholar Electors' ‘mandates’ are specific requests given to candidates in the course of an election campaign by the constituents at a public meeting, which it is their duty to strive to have implemented when elected.

8 For example, Kotok, V. F., Nakazy izbiratelei v sotsialisticheskom gosudarstve (imperativnyi mandat) (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), p. 96Google Scholar; Sukhanov, N. Ye., ‘Rabota mestnykh Sovetov s nakazami izbiratelei’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo 1 pravo (1969), No. 6, p. 79.Google Scholar

9 See Hill, , Soviet Politics, pp. 164–6, 188–9.Google Scholar

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16 See Schapiro, Leonard, ‘The Party and the State’, Survey, No. 38 (1961), p. 111Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 76.Google Scholar

17 See Diorditsa, A. F., Deyalel' nost sel' skikh i poselkovykh Sovetov Moldavii – na uroven' novykh zadach (Kishinev: Kartya Moldovenyaske, 1967), p. 13Google Scholar; Naida, S. F. et al. , Sovety za 50 let (Moscow: Mysl', 1967), p. 9.Google Scholar

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19 Cited, for example, in Naida, et al. , Sovety za 50 let, p. 10.Google Scholar

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22 On these points, see, for example, Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 72Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, pp. 80–2.Google Scholar

23 As reported in Pravda, 6 10 1976.Google Scholar

24 As quoted in Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 72.Google Scholar

25 Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, pp. 63, 66.Google Scholar

26 Barabashev, and Sheremet, , ‘KPSS i Sovety’, p. 34Google Scholar; Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 24.Google Scholar

27 For example, Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 73Google Scholar; Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 102.Google Scholar

28 This point is obliquely referred to by Peter Frank in his contribution to Brown, Archie and Kaser, Michael, eds., The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Soviet writers who have mentioned it include the contributors to Yudin, I. N. et al. , Nekotorye voproxy organizatsionno-partiinoei raboty (Moscow: Politizdat, 1973), pp. 68–9Google Scholar; and Topornin, B. N., writing in Tikhomirov, Yu. A., ed., Demokratiya razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), p. 108.Google Scholar

29 Calls for intra-party democratization have been made by, among others, Topornin, in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 100Google Scholar, and Kulinchenko, V. A., in Kadeikin, V. A. et al. , eds., Voprosy vnutripartiinoi zhizni i rukovodyashchei deyatel' nosti KPSS na sovremennom etape (Moscow: Mysl', 1974), p. 160.Google Scholar On the question of the ‘scientific’ study of the party, see in particular a series of articles on the theme of sociology in party work, that appeared in the journal Voprosy isiorii KPSS during 1969–70; also the work of a Bulgarian scholar, published in Russian translation, Byrdarov, G., Sotsiologiya i partiinaya rabota (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977).Google Scholar

30 For further elaboration, see Hill, , Soviet Politics, Chap. 7.Google Scholar

31 Topornin, B. N., Sovetskaya polilicheskaya sistema (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975), p. 91Google Scholar; Safarov, R. A., Obshchestvennoe mnenie i gosudarstvennoe upravlenie (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1975). pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

32 Reference to ‘the all-round development of the political system of Soviet society’ is made, for example, in Shapko, V. M. et al. , eds., KPSS – rukovodyashchee yadro politichesk oi sistemy sovetskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 4.Google Scholar ‘Further perfecting (dal'neishee sovershenstvovanie) socialist democracy’ (a phrase that sounds odd in English) was a term common in Soviet literature in the 1960s.

33 Manov, G. N., in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 277.Google Scholar

34 Manov, , in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, pp. 277–8Google Scholar; also in Tikhomirov, Yu. A., ed., Sovetskoe gosudarslvo v usloviyakh razvilogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), p. 58.Google Scholar

35 For an excellent brief survey of this literature, see White, Stephen, ‘Communist Systems and the “Iron Law of Pluralism”’, British Journal of Political Science, VIII (1978), 101–17, pp. 101–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Programma KPSS; Russian text reprinted in KPSS v rezolyutsiyakh…, VIII (1972), pp. 196–305Google Scholar; an English version was published in Schapiro, Leonard, ed., The USSR and the Future (New York: Praeger, 1963).Google Scholar The quoted passage appears on p. 301 of the Russian version and p. 310 of the English version.

37 See Brown, A. H., Soviet Politics and Political Science (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 93Google Scholar; Brown quotes Mandelshtam, Nadezhda's memoirs (Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, 1970)Google Scholar to the effect that ‘fear of chaos is perhaps the most permanent of our feelings’.

38 For instance, Leonard Schapiro's interpretation follows such a line: see his The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2nd edn (London: Methuen/University Paperbacks, 1970)Google Scholar; this view is most succinctly expressed in his Epilogue to that book, ‘Reflections on the Changing Role of the Party in the Totalitarian Polity’, pp. 619–29.Google Scholar

39 For example, by Matthews, Mervyn, Privilege in the Soviet Union (London: Allen and Unwin, 1978)Google Scholar; Yanowitch, Murray, Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (London: Martin Robertson, 1977).Google Scholar

40 See, in particular, Reddaway, Peter, Uncensored Russia (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972)Google Scholar; and Bloch, Sidney and Reddaway, Peter, Russia's Political Hospitals (London: Gollancz, 1977).Google Scholar

41 See, for example, Nove, Alec, Stalinism and After (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975), p. 159Google Scholar; Brown, and Kaser, , The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, pp. 245, 249Google Scholar; Hough, Jerry F., ‘The Brezhnev Era: The Man and the System’, Problems of Communism, xxv (1976), No. 2, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

42 Brown, Archie, ‘Eastern Europe: 1968, 1978, 1998’, Daedalus, Winter 1979, p. 152.Google Scholar

43 See, for example, Brzezinski, , Dilemmas of Change, pp. 22–3Google Scholar; Medvedev, Roy A., On Socialist Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1975), Chaps. 3 and 4Google Scholar; Tökes, Rudolf L., ed., Dissent in the USSR (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), p. 15.Google Scholar

44 On these questions, see Armstrong, John A., ‘Party Bifurcation and Elite Interests’, Soviet Studies, XVII (1966), 417–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, and Kaser, , The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, pp. 257 and 273Google Scholar, n. 18; and Nemtsev, V. A., ‘Raionnyi organ vlasti i ego territoriya’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (1969), No. 8, pp. 69–73.Google Scholar It has also been argued that resistance by local officials led to the broad failure and subsequent abandonment of the economic Reforms of the late sixties: see Ryavec, Karl W., Implementation of Soviet Economic Reforms: Political, Organizational and Social Processes (New York: Praeger, 1975).Google Scholar

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46 See, for example, Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, pp. 130–1, 183Google Scholar; Chekharin, Ye. M., Razvitie politicheskoi sistemy Sovetskogo obshchestva na sovremennom etape (lektsiya) (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 22Google Scholar; Brezhnev, Leonid, in XXV s”ezd, Vol. 1, pp. 95–6.Google Scholar

47 See Pye, Lucian W., Aspects of Political Development (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1966), Chap. 5.Google Scholar

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49 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 See, for example, Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 164Google Scholar; Bokarev, N. N., ‘Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya problem partiinogo stroitel'stva’, Voprosy istorii KPSS (1974), No. 1, p. 104Google Scholar; in this connection, note also Manov's references to passivity, consumerism and selfishness, mentioned above in fn. 34.

51 Not that one should be too sanguine about the availability of information in Soviet society: the censorship system (Glavlit) retains its power to scrutinize every word that is published. So, even though the range of factual information and opinion that does appear in print is far wider than in Stalin's day, Shakhnazarov has argued for far greater freedom of information, so that a competent, informed public opinion may develop: see Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, pp. 136–8.Google Scholar

52 Torpornin, , in Tikhomirov, , Demokratiya, p. 86.Google Scholar

53 Ukrainets, , Partiinoe rukovodstvo, p. 51.Google Scholar

54 Shabanov, , Problemy Sovetskoi sotsialisticheskoi demokratii, p. 22, quoting Lenin.Google Scholar

55 Pigolkin, A. S. and Rozhko, I. N., Sovetskoe zakonodatel' stvo i ego rol' v kommunisticheskom stroitel'stve (Moscow: Znanie, 1976), p. 62Google Scholar; Tikhomirov, , Sovetskoe gosudarstvo, p. 126.Google Scholar

56 Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 86Google Scholar; The Role of the Communist Party, p. 57.Google Scholar See also Utenkov, A. Ya. et al. eds., Vnutripartiinaya demokratiya i povyshenie aktivnosti kommunistov (Moscow: Mysl', 1977), p. 23.Google Scholar

57 Programma KPSS, pp. 272–7.Google Scholar

58 Measures aimed at implementing this policy include the statutes on village and settlement Soviets (1968), town and district Soviets (1971), the status of Soviet deputies (1972), and Supreme Soviet elections (1978); and also the USSR Constitution (1977). These legislative measures have been accompanied by the publication of vast amounts of literature, aimed at encouraging selection panels to be more demanding of candidates, and the deputies, once elected, to take seriously their ‘profession’ as ‘empowered representatives of the people’. On the administrative side, measures were announced in March 1971 to strengthen the material and financial basis of local state administrations, and a new statute on the USSR council of ministers was adopted in 1978.

59 Programma KPSS, pp. 301–4.Google Scholar

60 1977 Constitution of the USSR, Article 6 – in many ways the key article in the Constitution.

61 Or a belief, at any rate, that it is both desirable and attainable. I do not necessarily hold that view.

62 Tucker, , ‘Culture’, p. 187.Google Scholar

63 The prologue to the party rules defines the party as consisting of ‘the more advanced, politically more conscious section’ of the population: see Rules of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 5.Google Scholar

64 On these points, Stephen White makes some perceptive comments, in his article, ‘Contradiction and Change in State Socialism’, Soviet Studies, xxvi (1974), 41–55, p. 49.Google Scholar The point would, of course, be expressed differently in the Soviet Union, in terms of the vanguard's accepting its duty to lead.

65 Chkhikvadze, V. M., ‘Pravovaya nauka sotsializma’, Pravda, 10 01 1968Google Scholar, quoted in Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 132.Google Scholar

66 Shakhnazarov, , Sotsialisticheskaya demokratiya, p. 132.Google Scholar Shakhnazarov is currently president of the Soviet Political Sciences Association and deputy head of a CPSU Central Committee department.