The Affair of the First Secretary of the Kaluga Regional Committee of the VKP(b): A Look at the Social Capital of the Kaluga Regional Leadership, 1944–1948

Abstract

The article examines the demotion of the first secretary of I. Popov, the Kaluga regional committee of the CPSU. We examined records of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, the Kaluga regional committee of the CPSU, and other regional authorities and recollections and letters of regional leaders. Based on that research, we analyzed the business and personal relations I. Popov had over the course of his almost three-year work in Kaluga, the level of distrust among Kaluga officials, sanctions for misconduct common in the bureaucratic sphere — that is, the overall state of social capital of the bureaucracy in Kaluga. Popov had been sent to the newly created Kaluga region after working as the Chair of the regional executive committee of Chkalovsk and at the Personnel Management Office. He failed to employ horizontal communication in the nascent Kaluga management to successfully restore the region’s economy. Popov constantly slighted key leaders of the regional administration, which prevented them from forming a trusting relationship and finding common ground when it came to the “style of managing” the region. This approach resulted in a high turnover rate of officials, the employment of extreme measures, the falsification of documents and misrepresentation which were considered the main factors impeding the development of the region by both Kaluga officials and the Central Committee of the CPSU. Popov gained quite a negative reputation in the Kaluga social circles by turning to favoritism and other tactics to illegally multiply his wealth. In the end he was discredited and demoted from the post of the first secretary of the Kaluga regional committee of the CPSU.