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The Obkom First Secretaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Grey Hodnett
Grey Hodnett*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

If upon occasion in the past Nikita Khrushchev took an indulgent view of the Stalinist process of natural selection in the Party apparatus, it would hardly have been surprising. He was, after all, a most prominent product and beneficiary of it. Yet, without in any way criticizing the process as such, Khrushchev constantly manifested a nagging concern over its end results. In part this concern may be attributed, as it often has been, to a readiness to regard personnel changes as a panacea for difficulties in reality stemming from deep structural flaws in the Soviet economy and administrative system. And it can hardly be denied that in 1962 and 1963 Khrushchev was confronted with serious difficulties in agriculture and industry. But there is also little reason to doubt that he was genuinely worried about the effectiveness— and hence the quality—of Party cadres, or, furthermore, that there were grounds for his uneasiness.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 636 - 652
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 In his report to the November plenum Khrushchev stated that only 14 out of 215 questions discussed in 1962 at obkom (oblast committee) and kraikom (krai committee) plenums in the 25 largest industrial oblasts, krais, and autonomous republics of the RSFSR had dealt with industry.

2 See the comments by Linden, Carl and Cleary, J. W. in Problems of Communism, Vol. XIV, No. 3 (May-June 1965)Google Scholar; and the articles by Peter Reddaway and Boris Meissner in Survey, July 1965Google Scholar.

3 The author wishes to thank Seweryn Bialer, who suggested the writing of this article and generously devoted his time to discussing various technical problems involved but who naturally shares no responsibility whatever for the data presented or its interpretation.

4 The main sources of biographical information utilized were Jfenymamu Bepxoenoio eoeema CCCP (Moscow, 1958 and 1962), ExeioduuK Eoibuiou coee%%ou 9HV,UKJtoneduu (Moscow, 1962), and the various editions of the U.S. Department of State's Directory of Soviet Officials. The Institute for the Study of the USSR kindly provided assistance in tracking down a number of elusive facts.

5 This article does not treat the Tian'-Shan’ Oblast in Kirgizia, which was eliminated in December 1962; the two autonomous republics in Georgia and the one in Azerbaidzhan; nor autonomous oblasts in any republic.

6 The Syrdar'ia and Kashkadar'ia oblasts in Uzbekistan were created in February 1963 and February 1964, respectively.

7 The West and South Kazakhstan krais were eliminated in December 1964.

8 Unless otherwise indicated, “oblast” will henceforth be used to signify oblast, krai, or autonomous republic, and obkom to signify oblast, krai, or autonomous republic Party committee.

9 The number, respectively, of divided and undivided oblast structures by republics was: Belorussia, 6 and 0; Kazakhstan, 3 and 15; Kirgizia, 1 and 0; RSFSR, 42 and 31 (the latter included all 16 autonomous republics); Ukraine, 19 and 6; and Uzbekistan, 3 and 7.

10 Thirty-six were predominantly agricultural, 16 predominantly industrial, and 7 mixed agricultural-industrial.

11 The Amur, Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan, Kaliningrad, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Murmansk, and Sakhalin oblasts in the RSFSR and the Chernovtsy, Ivano-Frankovsk, Volynsk, and Zakarpatsk oblasts in the Ukraine. A number of frontier oblasts, however, were divided.

12 There are 2 full and 1 candidate membership oblasts in the Ukraine, 3 full and 4 candidate membership RSFSR autonomous republics, and 25 full and 14 candidate membership oblasts among the remaining RSFSR oblasts. Full membership oblasts tend to be more industrial and of greater economic importance than candidate membership oblasts. These calculations are based upon elections of first and other obkom secretaries to the Central Committee at the Nineteenth (1952), Twentieth (1956), and Twenty-second (1961) Party congresses. To qualify for either designation the obkom had to be represented after all three elections, and oblasts were arbitrarily classified as “full” or “candidate” on the basis of the 1961 elections.

13 This foundation would be broadened if one were also to include the 25 additional divided oblasts which were represented by obkom first secretaries in the 1961 Central Committee (14 full members, 11 candidates) but were neither “full” nor “candidate” membership oblasts as defined in footnote 12.

14 Including posts in the city of Moscow; Moscow, Kuibyshev, Sverdlovsk, Gorki, Minsk, Lvov, Dnepropetrovsk, Donets, Kharkov, Kokchetav, and Karaganda oblasts; and the Virgin Lands Krai.

15 These 102 will henceforth be referred to as the “1962 group.“

16 Among the 17 not known to have been promoted (out of the 29 who no longer were obkom first secretaries in October 1964), 6 (one of whom was deceased) had been first secretaries of obkoms with full-member representation in the 1961 Central Committee, and 1(also deceased) had been first secretary of an obkom represented by a candidate member. Of the 17 oblasts involved, 6 were economically important: Moscow, Kuibyshev, Sverdlovsk, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kokchetav oblasts, and Virgin Lands Krai.

17 The Party apparatus has, of course, played a significant role in industry. See Jerry Fincher Hough, “The Role of the Local Party Organs in Soviet Industrial Decision- Making” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1961).

18 The question of how much power Khrushchev had in 1962 to control appointments to the obkom first secretaryships goes far beyond the scope of this paper. The minimum assumption, however, must be that he enjoyed some influence in this regard. The fact that after the reorganization the agricultural first secretaries clearly enjoyed greater prestige, on the whole, than did their industrial colleagues provides some additional proof that the reorganization involved no demotion on a personal basis.

19 Sidney I. Ploss cites data for the RSFSR which indicates, however, that the reorganization may have significantly lowered the average age level of obkom second secretaries. See Conflict and Decision-making in Soviet Russia (Princeton, 1965), p. 262.

20 EaymuuHon xu3Ht>, No. 10, 1965, p. 11. See also the following works by Armstrong, John A.: The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (New York, 1959), p. 1959 Google Scholar; and The Politics of Totalitarianism (New York, 1961), p. 111. It is important to distinguish between an individual's social origin (that is, the social position of his father) and his own social position at different moments in his lifetime. As Seweryn Bialer shows in his forthcoming study of the Soviet elite, the high social mobility of Party apparatchiki has meant that only an extremely small fraction of them could be called peasants by the time they turned twenty, much less by the time they joined the Party.

21 UaymuuHOH XU3M>, No. 10, 1965, p. 11.

22 Many received their higher education while holding full-time jobs, and many were preoccupied with Komsomol and other extracurricular affairs. The circumstances under which a number of diplomas were granted lead one to surmise that not much education, if any, occurred. Those who received Party higher education by correspondence are the most suspect as a group. Several cases of patently “honorary” degrees would seem to betoken an anxiety on the part of those concerned to have a certificate of higher education filed in their dossiers.

23 A “professional” position is defined as one which does not involve manual labor, does require specialized technical training, and does not include substantial managerial responsibilities.

24 Planning and sovnarkhoz positions have been categorized as “economic administrative.“ Career patterns indicate, however, that the key supervisory positions for agriculture in the state bureaucracy are without question “political,” and so they have been classified as “leading soviet.” See Thomas H. Rigby, “The Selection of Leading Personnel in the Soviet State” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1954), pp. 424 ff.

25 It may be argued that neither higher technical education nor economic administrative experience is necessarily required for a person to perform successfully the role of economic coordinator and innovator—witness Khrushchev himself. Within limits there is some merit to this argument. But the example of Khrushchev provides some idea of where these limits lie.

26 “Political” is defined as including Party, “leading soviet,” trade-union, Komsomol, and secret police positions at all levels.

27 Yevgeny Yevtushenko's characterization of Stalinism; see A Precocious Autobiography (New York, 1963), p. 81.

28 “Leading soviet” is defined as including the following types of position: executive committee (council of ministers) chairman; executive committee (council of ministers) deputy chairman; and chief or deputy chief of any sector in the soviet apparatus charged with general agricultural supervisory responsibilities (see note 24).

29 See Armstrong, The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite, pp. 54-55.

30 See also Rigby, p. 184; and Alan Charles Berson, “Changes in Structure and Personnel in the Soviet State and Communist Party from 1953 to 1959: A Study of Party-State Relations“ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1962), pp. 378-92.

31 The first secretaries of the non-Slavic national minority oblasts are a partial exception to the rule. Many of them spent a number of years in local government affairs, especially in public education.