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Institutional Change in the 1970s: The Case of the USSR People's Control Committee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jan S. Adams
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Extract

In the continuing debate among Western students of Soviet affairs about the direction in which the Soviet political system is moving, all participants agree that accurate analysis is imperative. How one interprets the evidence of change determines one's view of current Soviet reality and one's perception of the opportunities and threats involved in U.S.-Soviet relations. This crucial issue is addressed in the following pages by examining the current situation of an important, evolving institution, the USSR People's Control Committee (Komitet narodnogo kontrolia, or KNK). To a remarkable degree this organization, in its twelfth year of existence, demonstrates the continuing process of de-Stalinization in the Soviet polity.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 457 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1978

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References

1. V. V. Kuibyshev was the first chairman of the joint Party Central Control Commission and Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, created in 1923, which was the forerunner and model for Khrushchev's Party-State Control Committee (November 1962-December 196S), now the People's Control Committee. For a brief account of the 1965 transformation, see Jan S., Adams, “Soviet Inspectors General: An Expanding Role?,” Soviet Studies, 20, no. 1 (July 1968): 106–11 Google Scholar.

2. On the KNK's embroilment in high-level political infighting, see Grey Hodnett, “Khrushchev and Party-State Control,” in Dallin, Alexander and Westin, Alan F., eds., Politics in the Soviet Union (New York, 1966), pp. 113–64 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the KPGK's jurisdictional disputes with local party agencies, see Paul Cocks, “The Rationalization of Party Control,” in Chalmers, Johnson, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford, 1970), pp. 175–76Google Scholar; Paul Cocks, “Politics of Party Control: The Historical and Institutional Role of Party Control Organs in the CPSU” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1968), pp. 629-32; and Christian Duevel, “The Dismantling of Party and State Control as an Independent Pillar of Soviet Power,” Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the USSR, 13, no. 3 (Munich, 1966): 3-18.

3. See “Soviet Economic Failures Affect Party Unity,” Radio Free Europe Research Report, no. 0541 (Munich, April 3, 1970), p. 2; and Turovtsev, V. I., Narodnyi kontroV (Moscow, 1970), pp. 37–38, 156Google Scholar.

4. Sovetskaia Belorussiia, June 23, 1970.

5. Jerry F. Hough notes that the “widespread impression of a post-Khrushchev counterrevolution against popular participation in decision-making” must reckon with a steady upswing during the past two decades of statistics related to the numbers of Soviet citizens joining the party, the Komsomol, local Soviets as deputies and activists, and other “independent organizations,” as well as NK agencies ( Jerry F., Hough, “Political Participation in the Soviet Union,” Soviet Studies, 28, no. 1 [January 1976]: 4 and 8Google Scholar). Lenin's Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate existed from 1920 to 1934.

6. Tuzhikov, A, “V narodnye kontrolery—dostoinykh,” Partiinaia zhizn', 1971, no. 19, p. 40 Google Scholar.

7. Churaev, V., deputy chairman, USSR KNK, “Povyshat’ aktivnost’ grupp i postov narodnogo kontrolia,” Partiinaia zhizn, 1973, no. 23, p. 29 Google Scholar.

8. Interview with Ivan Petrovich Burmistrov, deputy head of the Organization Department of the USSR KNK, December 9, 1975; confirmation of Burmistrov's membership total appears in “Otchety vybory grupp i postov,” Partiinaia zhizn', 1976, no. 8, p. 27. The inspection contingent of the Komsomol—the Prozhektor (Searchlight)—had grown as well. According to Oleg Anatol'evich Il'in, deputy head of the department of Komsomol'skii prozhektor, of the All-Union Komsomol Central Committee, the 500, 000 Prozhektor detachments in December 1975 contained 4 million Komsomol members—that is, one out of nine Komsomol members had enlisted in the Prozhektor—and one in four Prozhektoristy belonged to an NK unit (interview with Il'in, Moscow, December 9, 1975).

9. Shkolnikov, A, “Povyshat1 effektivnost’ raboty organov narodnogo kontrolia,” Kommunist, 1976, no. 18, p. 28 Google Scholar.

10. The biographical information in this section comes primarily from Who's Who in the USSR 1965-1966, ed. Andrew I. Lebed, Heinrich E. Schulz, and Stephen S. Taylor (New York, 1966) ; from Deputaty Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR: Sed'moi sosyv (Moscow, 1966) ; from Stewart, Philip D., Political Power in the Soviet Union (Indianapolis, 1968)Google Scholar; and from Soviet press notices.

11. See; for example, his speeches to the Twenty-first Party Congress (Isvestiia, February S, 1959), to the Twenty-second Party Congress ﹛Pravda, October 28, 1961), and to the Central Committee plenum (Pravda, March 9, 1962).

12. Specifically, as a member of the Supreme Soviet, Shkol'nikov served on the Legislative Proposals Commission of the Council of the Union, 1958-62 and 1966-74, and on the Foreign Affairs Commission, 1962-66 (Isvestiia, March 28, 1958; Pravda, April 24, 1962; and Deputaty Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, p. 500). On March 20, 1974, he reported to a joint meeting of the Legislative Proposals Commission on revisions of the “Principles of Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics on Administrative Responsibility” ﹛Izvestiia, March 21, 1974). At party meetings, moreover, he participated in the commissions that prepared the summary resolutions of the following party congresses (starting in 1956) and plenums (starting in 1962): Twentieth Party Congress (Pravda, February 21, 1956), Twentyfirst Party Congress (Pravda, February 4, 1959), Twenty-second Party Congress (Pravda, October 28, 1961), November 1962 CPSU Central Committee plenum (Pravda, November 22, 1962), March 1965 CPSU Central Committee plenum (Stenograficheskii otchet, March 24- 26, 1965, p. 87), and Twenty-fourth Party Congress (Pravda, April 6, 1971). Finally, as a member of congress presidiums and secretariats, he helped to arrange the agenda of successive all-union congresses (Twenty-second CPSU Congress Presidium [Pravda, October 18, 1961] and Twenty-fourth CPSU Congress Secretariat [Pravda, March 31, 1971]).

13. This is not to imply that the Brezhnev policy represents an abrupt break with the past. Shelepin and his deputy chairman, V. I. Zaluzhnyi, were also concerned with economic goals and appeared to value the KNK as a mechanism for motivating the Soviet citizen to higher levels of achievement. The differences between earlier leaders and Shkol'nikov are essentially differences in the relative emphases placed upon parallel goals. This topic is dealt with more exhaustively in Adams, Jan S., Citizen Inspectors in the Soviet Union: The People's Control Committee (New York and London, 1977)Google Scholar.

14. Sobrcmie postanovlenii pravitel'stva SSSR, nos. 11 and 13 (1975).

15. Ibid., nos. 16 and 18 (1975).

16. Radio Liberty Research, RL 474/75, November 17, 1975.

17. A Radio Liberty analyst asserts, however, that it is “difficult to assume that Shkol'nikov would have proposed any such reorganization of the people's control organs himself, since it amounts to a diminution of his central ‘control empire’ in Moscow” (ibid.).

18. Ibid.

19. Much of the information in this section is based on the author's interview with I. P. Burmistrov in Moscow, December 1975, which was a follow-up to an interview in July 1973 with the deputy head of the Information Department of the USSR KNK in Moscow, Vladimir Timofeevich Stepanov.

20. It is interesting to note that the number of citizen contacts recorded by the Bureau of Complaints and Proposals between January 1974 and July 1975 (430, 000 letters and 580, 000 visitors) compared favorably with the volume of mail received by Izvestiia's Department of Letters. In 1975, according to Deputy Editor Grebnev, Isvestiia received an average of 1, 500 letters a day, or over one-half million per year. On this basis, the USSR KNK Bureau could legitimately claim to be attracting a sizable volume of citizen input related to questions of improving economic production processes, management practices, and many other matters. Control officials repeatedly emphasized the specialized character of the majority of the messages they received and insisted that in cases of genuine grievances public criticism often revealed sources of mismanagement that led to correction (based on interviews at the USSR KNK and the editorial offices of Isvestiia, December 9 and 12, 197S).

21. The comments of a staff inspector in the Methods Subsection are worth quoting for the suggestion they give of the magnitude of the assignments of the Organization Department, and by implication, of the all-union NK Committee as a whole. During an interview, Inspector Vladimir Il'ich Babentsev explained that his current assignment was devoted to the analysis and improvement of the inspection methods of NK Groups in the ministries. This work, he said, “is extremely complicated, chiefly owing to the fact that each ministry has quite literally hundreds of firms under its direction.” Babentsev has described one phase of this work in his article, “Gruppy narodnogo kontrolia v proisvodstvennykh ob” edineniiakh,” in Berlin, S. G., ed., Gruppy narodnogo kontrolia v sjere upravleniia (Moscow, 1974), pp. 51–62 Google Scholar.

22. See, for example, the editorial in Isvestiia, September 12, 1975; and “0 partiinom rukovodstve organami narodnogo kontrolia v Latviiskoi SSR,” Partiinaia zhizn', 1975, no. 17, pp. 5-7. Follow-up articles appeared in November: “Partiinye organizatsii i narodnyi kontrol',” Partiinaia zhizn', 1975, no. 22, pp. 48-53; and “Pravo kontrolia obiazyvaet,” Pravda, November 19, 1975. It does not appear that the Latvian NK operation was chosen as a target because it deserved special censure, but rather because the campaign required a concrete focus. Comments by local NK officials in Moscow and Leningrad in December 1975 clearly indicated their understanding that the Latvian articles were intended as instructions for all NK agencies. In subsequent months, party meetings throughout the country repeatedly referred to the Latvian case. See, for example, the article in Zaria vostoka, February 17, 1976, p. 2, on the work of Georgian party units in strengthening party guidance over NK agencies in accord with the Latvian decree, and similar references in Partiinaia zhisn', 1976, no. 8, p. 27; Pravda, April 13, 1976; and Isvestiia, April 21, 1976.

23. In the republic, thirty-five out of the forty-one chairmen of NK committees were elected to gorkom and raikom bureaus; almost half of the committee members are deputies of Soviets, almost 90 percent of the leaders of Groups are deputy secretaries or members of the bureaus of primary party organizations (see Partiinaia zhisn', 1975, no. 17, p. 5).

24. Ibid., p. 6.

25. This message was underscored in December by a Central Committee plenum, which discussed the difficulties of monitoring the economy and the necessity for NK organs to help resolve these problems. Speaking of that plenum and looking toward the upcoming Twentyfifth Party Congress, Ivan Burmistrov prophesied that NK organs would be asked to intensify their role in the achievement of the new five-year plan.

26. In this connection it is worth recalling that 4 million of the 9.5 million People's Controllers are Communist Party members.

27. With respect to awards, it is interesting that one chairman of an NK Committee in Leningrad, Nikolai Nikolaevich Rusakov, received the Order of Lenin for his participation in the work of the KNK. “This award,” said Vladimir Nikolaevich Egorov, chairman of the Leningrad City KNK, “shows the respect of our leaders for our work” (interview at Smol'- nyi, headquarters of the Leningrad City and Oblast KNK, December 15, 1975).

28. Partiinaia zhizn', 1975, no. 22, p. SO; emphasis added.

29. Pravda, February 25, 1976.

30. See, for example, Partiinaia zhizn', 1973, no. 23, p. 28; Izvestiia, July 5, 1973; and editorial in Pravda, December 8, 1973.

31. The following brief overview of KNK activities in 1975 is essentially a summary of the carefully considered but spontaneous responses of KNK officials to the question of what major activities were of greatest concern to the all-union committee currently and during the preceding year.

32. Other sources are more specific. V. I. Turovtsev, for example, states that “the USSR KNK in 1970 proposed to Gosplan increases in the output of consumer goods and other products totaling 1 billion 300 million rubles” ( Turovtsev, V. I., Narodnyi kontrol’ [Moscow, 1970], p. 42 Google Scholar). NK committees have an impact on the enterprise plan at local levels as well, as the following case shows: in late 1971 People's Controllers discovered that the Proletariat Plant in Leningrad had inflated its report of production by distorting certain elements of the unit-cost of product, raising wholesale prices and concentrating on the production of those articles that brought the highest return. Contrary to the plant's official report, the NK investigation revealed that commodity output had actually declined over the previous two years, labor productivity had grown at 8.9 percent, instead of 19.2 percent as had been claimed, and the company's wage fund had been overexpended. The Leningrad City KNK fined the plant 78, 000 rubles and called for a revised plan based upon NK calculations (V. Egorov, “Vse li zalozheno v plan ?,” Pravda, November 16, 1971; see also Turovtsev, V. I., Narodnyi kontrol' v sotsialisticheskom obshchestve [Moscow, 1974], p. 138 Google Scholar).

33. On July 26, 1974, Shitov and Kutsevol joined the Standing Commission for Consumer Goods (the latter as deputy chairman), while Viktorov was given a seat on the Legislative Proposals Commission (Isvestiia, July 26, 1974).

34. Little, D. Richard, “Soviet Parliamentary Committees after Khrushchev: Obstacles and Opportunities,” Soviet Studies, 24, no. 1 (July 1972): 41–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. See. Novikov, A, “Narodnyi kontrol’ i perestroika struktury upravleniia,” in Berlin, Gruppy narodnogo kontrolia, pp. 20–26Google Scholar; and the articles by L. Shimov and F. Babich in the same collection

36. N. G. Kuznetsova, Doctor of Jurisprudence, “Ukreplenie sotsialisticheskoi zakonnosti organizatsii bor'by s prestupnost'iu v svete reshenii XXIV s” ezda KPSS,” Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, 1975, no. 3, pp. 122-30 (translated and abstracted in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 27, no. 26 [1975]: 7) ; emphasis added. Kuznetsova's figures add up to only 90 percent. Moscow control officials illustrated their internalization of the meaning of these statistics when they evaluated the importance of the various tasks subsumed under “work with the ministries”: first place was given to “checking the implementation of plans and timely delivery.”

37. V. Egorov accuses ministry officials of sweeping information about violations under the rug (see Egorov, V, “Sovet po koordinatsii kontrolia,” in Berlin, Gruppy narodnogo kontrolia, pp. 105–7Google Scholar).

38. An Izvestiia article ( “Proverka ispolneniia v ministerstve,” January 15, 1976) illustrates the USSR KNK's work with the ministries. The basis for the article was a report delivered directly to the all-union NK Committee by the chairman of an NK Group within the USSR Ministry of Assemblage and Special Construction. The chairman's report was a survey of the results of a series of investigations into how well the ministry apparat was fulfilling its main construction tasks, as well as its subsidiary goals of increasing labor productivity, introducing new technology, and making better use of material resources. Of particular interest was the indication that close ties are maintained by the ministry NK Group with the USSR KNK's Department of Construction and Construction Industries. By means of this liaison, the ministry Group was constantly advised by the KNK Department with respect to its work plans and even given particular targets for inspections. Similar contacts are maintained between other economic departments of the all-union KNK and NK Groups, within allied ministries.

39. Robert V. Daniels, “Soviet Politics Since Khrushchev,” in Strong, John W., ed., The Soviet Union under Brezhnev and Rosy gin (New York, 1971), p. 1971 Google Scholar; for further discussion of this point, see Jerry F., Hough, “The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?,” Problems of Communism (March-April 1972), pp. 25–45Google Scholar.

40. See note 32.

41. Kulolev, A, “Podvodiat’ postavshchiki,” Izvestiia, January 15, 1976 Google Scholar.

42. As the engineer, Grekhov, pointedly remarked to the author: “Had the axle been delayed, the axle plant would have paid a fine to the turbogenerator plant, but this wouldn't really have helped us. We needed to receive the equipment on time. This was the main thing. The goal of NK's in both enterprises is really the same—turning out the completed turbogenerator— so we continue to cooperate closely toward this end” (interview at Elektrosila, Leningrad, December 16, 1975).

43. Hough, “The Soviet System,” p. 35.