Secretary Of Central Committee Research Articles

Misuse and punishment: corruption of regional leaders of the USSR in 1946-1952

The article on the basis of documents of the Central Committee Secretariat of the CPSU reveals the scale and main types of abuses of regional leaders of the USSR in the first post-war years. It is shown that the Central Committee received information about the corruption of the first secretaries of regional party committees and chairmen of regional executive committees from various sources and considered it in ordinary order. In most cases, the Central Committee either did not punish regional leaders for abuses, or imposed on them mild party punishments that did not affect their careers. Dismissal, expulsion from the party and criminal prosecution were rarely used and, as a rule, under the influence of political circumstances.

Обращения и докладные записки артиллерийского конструктора Кировского завода И.А. Маханова к секретарю ЦК ВКП(б) А.А. Жданову в 1937–1938 годах

The fate of Ivan Abramovich Makhanov, the artillery designer and the head of the Kirov Plant bureau was ignored by Soviet historiography. Moreover, for a long time it was believed that the designer was repressed and killed in the late 30s. However, after spending 16 years in prison, I.A. Makhanov survived, lived a long life and left behind voluminous handwritten memoirs published in 2022. In addition, in the recently declassified funds of the archives of Saint Petersburg, separate documents of Makhanov’s authorship, as well as those dedicated to his activities, are found. The complex of new sources forces us to revise the established views on the history of the national artillery and military industry of Leningrad. At the same time, the ambiguous role of Makhanov as a designer and administrator in the history of domestic artillery systems creation and production is manifested. This publication is devoted to the correspondence of Makhanov with the CPSU(b)’s Central Committee Secretary A.A. Zhdanov in 1937–1938. From the above documents, in addition to clarifying important technical issues, one can glean an amount of valuable information about both the personality of Makhanov and the structure of the relationship between the “technical intelligentsia” and the supreme party leadership of the USSR in the late 30s of the 20th century.

I.V. STALIN’S TAKING THE POLITICAL ADVANTAGE IN THE PARTY INFIGHTING IN THE SOVIET STATE IN 1922–1936

The purpose of the article is to analyze the factors of transformation of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b) into the governing body of the Soviet state. The article has studied the activities of such party and state institutions as the Council of People’s Commissars, the Politburo, the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In this work, an attempt was made to consider the transformation of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b) headed by I.V. Stalin into a body for developing key decisions. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that it describes the main events of the internal political struggle of various departments of the Soviet state in terms of their priority on the political Olympus at the time of the initial formation of a new one-party state. The article uses the methods of comparison and analysis of archival documents.
 
 A chain of various political events led to the fact that by the beginning of the 1930s, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b), headed by the Secretary General I.V. Stalin, had begun to hold a privileged position in the political circles of the Soviet state. As a result of the internal political struggle, the interaction between the members and candidates for membership in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b) began to focus on the political position of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b), which since April 1922 was headed by I.V. Stalin.
 
 In a long and bitter struggle, I.V. Stalin gained a privileged position in political circles and got a stable majority of votes at party congresses. Considering various disputable situations that constantly arose between the opposing factions in the Bolshevik Party, it can be revealed that as a result of the internal political struggle, ideological principles were often pushed into the background. The primary task of one or another group of party leaders was to discredit political opponents and exclude them from the leadership, and then from the Communist Party. I.V. Stalin gained a preponderance of political power due to combining positions in the leadership of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b) and in the leadership of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the AUCP(b). The realization of this benefit took place through frequent changes within the Party and gaining the overwhelming majority of Stalin supporters’ votes at the plenums of the Central Committee of the Party, meetings of the Political Bureau and congresses of the Bolshevik organization. After I.V. Stalin had been promoted to the position of General Secretary in April 1922, the Central Committee Secretariat headed by him was gradually becoming superior to other political institutions. Stalin’s work in the above-mentioned party organ turns into a decision-making activity, and over time the nature of the documents emanating from him is transformed. As a result of the party infighting of the 1920s, such leaders of the October Revolution as Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Pyatakov were removed from the political arena. Their names had ceased to appear in the business correspondence of the central party organs. In the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the factor of the informal system of political decision-making is gradually becoming crucial.
 
 The practical significance of the article is that the results obtained in the study can be used in the preparation of generalizing works on the history of Russia, as well as the history of party-state construction in the USSR. The prospects of the research consist in using the article by teachers and students of educational institutions in the framework of educational courses on the history of the Fatherland. The research materials and the conclusions obtained may be of interest to the heads of state authorities for the development and implementation of personnel policy, the implementation of measures aimed at improving its effectiveness, as well as the strategy of sustainable development of the state.

Cjelovito istraživanje uloge Pašage Mandžića u tuzlanskom procesu / Comprehensive Research of Pašaga Mandžić's Role in the Tuzla Process

The book “Tuzla Processes: 1970s,“ by Prof. Dr. Kadrija Hodžić, professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Tuzla, presents a comprehensive study of the course of political events related to the role of Pašaga Mandžić in the development of Tuzla and the Tuzla region. It is important to keep in mind that Pašaga Mandžić belongs to the leading communist cadres who organized an uprising against the fascist occupation of the country in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1941. As a prominent anti-fascist fighter, Pašaga Mandžić will become the commissioner of the First Partisan Strike Battalion, formed in Srednje near Sarajevo, in March 1942. Together with Avdo Humo, Rodoljub Čolaković and Đuro Pucar - Stari, he participated in the preparations for the First, Second and Third Sessions of ZAVNOBIH. At the Third ZAVNOBIH Session in 1945 in Sarajevo, Pašaga Mandžić was elected a member of the first People's Government of Federal Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the post Second World War period, Pašaga Mandžić performed numerous duties, from the president of the Tuzla District to other duties in the republican bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the early 1970s, at the invitation of the leadership of the League of Communists of the Municipality of Tuzla, Pašaga Mandžić, as a pensioner, came to Tuzla and with his experience contributed to the economic development of his hometown. After the dismissal of Sead Babović, Secretary of the Municipal Committee of SK Tuzla, Pašaga Mandžić with his views on the development of Tuzla's economy comes into dispute and conflict with the current political leadership of Tuzla. The actual showdown between the leadership of the League of Communists of Tuzla and Pašaga Mandžić took place at the Eighth Session of the OKSK Tuzla in 1971. However, that conflict did not have the character of a political affair. Pašaga Mandžić’s deeper conflict with the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina arose on 26 June 1973, at an extended session of the Central Committee Secretariat, Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, when Pašaga Mandžić individually raised the question of organizing and leading the uprising in Eastern Bosnia. Pašaga Mandžić 's position was assessed as a form of nationalism dangerous for treating the character of the uprising and the national liberation struggle in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time, it was not only the ideological critique of Pašaga Mandžić. Accusations followed against Pašaga Mandžić and a group of people who worked more closely with him in Tuzla than the Central Committee and the State Security Service. The brutal procedure of the State Security Service against the members of the Tuzla group was carried out, and then the court process in Tuzla. There is also a belief that Pašaga Mandžić was protected from prosecution by Josip Broz Tito on the Đuro Pucar’s intercession. Author Prof. Dr. Kadrija Hodžić conducts many years of research on Tuzla processes on an interdisciplinary basis. The results of the research shed light on everything that took place in the Tuzla processes of the 1970s. The whole result of the research enables a new social evaluation of the role of Pašaga Mandžić in the national liberation struggle and socio-economic development of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the hometown of Tuzla after the Second World War. In the coming decades, a reliable critical evaluation of the contribution of the research of Prof. Dr. Kadrija Hodžić establishes complete historical truths about a revolutionary figure such as Pašaga Mandžić.

Completing the most monumental series on the“National History” of Vietnam

Vietnam has a long and rich history. In effort to recreate its heroic but equally tragic historical episodes, so far, many domestic and foreign works have been written on various topics. However, large-scale historical works are rare. As the country needs a national history series commensurate with the significance of Ho Chi Minh’s era, and to follow the policy of the Party Central Committee Secretariat and the direction of the Government, the Ministry of Science and Technology has organised a state project (KHXH-LSVN/14-18) to research and compile a special series on Vietnamese national history. In November 2021, the last volume of the series was finalised at the state level. This article offers an overview of the research and compilation process and highlights outstanding new insights of the most accomplished works on Vietnamese history thus far

Transformation of Soviet Ideological Attitudes in the Works of A.N. Yakovlev in 1985-1991

The present article studies the views of the godfather of Glasnost, CPSU Central Committee Secretary Alexander N. Yakovlev (1923-2005), and how they evolved during the Perestroika period in the second half of the 1980s. The author analyzes Yakovlev's positions on issues of Soviet ideology at the beginning of Perestroika, arguing that at that time his statements on the need for radical improvement of ideological work did not differ from the views of other party leaders. Yakovlev's personal biography shaped his interpretation of important events of twentieth-century Russian history; he had fought in the Great Patriotic war and participated in the work of the 20th Party Congress and in the Commission of the CPSU Central Committee for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. Yakovlev became the target of critique from the leaders of the newly created Communist party of the RSFSR, as well as from conservative CPSU members, in particular during the XVIII Party Congress in the summer of 1990; they criticized Yakovlev's work in the Central Committee of the CPSU and the extent of his influence on M.S. Gorbachev. The article traces changes in Yakovlev's assessments of the socialist formation, of Marxism, and of the political and legal structure of the CPSU. The author identifies a direct link between the problems of social and political life in the Soviet Union and changes in Yakovlev's public statements. This analysis leads to the conclusion that Yakovlev's influence on the President of the USSR, M.S. Gorbachev, was not as big as sometimes assumed. Since the beginning of 1991, Yakovlev's influence was gradually declining, and on the eve of the August putsch it reached its lowest point. The article is based on Yakovlev's published articles and public speeches as well as on archival materials from his personal fund that is preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

On the Way to “Brezhnev Stability”: Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1966–1968

The article uses primary sources not previously published, including draft minutes of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat during the period 1966–1967. This primary source clearly demonstrates the practice of making the most important decisions in one of the most important bodies of the party apparatus during the formation of the practice of “collective leadership”. The article shows the place of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat in the power structure of the USSR. Despite the brevity of notes, an analysis suggests several conclusions about the political and economic orientations of the country’s leaders in the early Brezhnev period. Speeches made during discussions of various issues demonstrate the desire of party leaders to move away from unjustified (in their opinion), reforms of the Khrushchev-era management apparatus and to focus instead on systematic changes aimed at strengthening the role of the party-state apparatus and improving the economy. The article also analyzes speeches by individual party leaders who most clearly expressed their position, such as L.I.Brezhnev, M.A.Suslov, D.F.Ustinov, and A.N.Shelepin. The article discusses the organization of the activities of the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee: the composition of participants in meetings, the distribution of responsibilities between them, the procedure for preparing agenda items for meetings of departments of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the practice of discussions, and attempts to streamline the work of the Secretariat.

Historia walki na dwa fronty. Władza – prasa – dziennikarze 1953–1955/1956

Oparte o obszerne kwerendy archiwalne, prasowe i literaturę przedmiotu studium polityki prasowej partii komunistycznej i sytuacji w środowisku dziennikarskim w latach 1953– 1955/1956, uwzględniające odmienną perspektywę centrum i peryferii, na tle przemian politycznych i kulturalnych. W pierwszej fazie destalinizacji polityka prasowa PZPR była rezultatem bardziej pragmatycznego kursu wyznaczonego przez ZSRR w krajach bloku po 1953 r. Gdy „odwilż” w Polsce nabrała własnej dynamiki, rozdźwięk w elicie PZPR i niespójna polityka sprzyjała poszerzaniu marginesu swobody prasy, zwłaszcza w stolicy. U progu 1956 r. część środowiska dziennikarzy, głównie młodych, buntowała się przeciwko modelowi prasy dyspozycyjnej, ograniczonej do roli narzędzia partyjnej propagandy. History of a two-front fight. The authorities – the press – journalists 1953–55/56The main purpose of the article is to analyse the press policy conducted by the communist party and the relationship between the authorities and journalists in 1953– 55/56 against the background of political and cultural changes in Poland. The analysis is based on the broad research in archives and press releases as well as literature on the subject; the subject is presented both from the national and local perspective. In the first phase of changes after Stalin’s death the press policy of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP) was a result of more pragmatic line set by the Soviet Union in the communist block after 1953. When, at the end of 1954, the Thaw in Poland found its own dynamic, a growing discrepancy in the Party’s elite and incoherent policy contributed to the expanding margin of freedom of journalists, especially in the capital city of Warsaw. The press policy of the PUWP was the fruit of difference of opinion between the Party’s leaders, the Political Bureau, and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. The Political Bureau was slamming the brakes. For the first time in April 1955, when in a letter to the central committees of voivodeships and districts they in fact reinterpreted the decisions of the post-Thaw Third Plenum of the Central Committee. For the second time, when at the end of 1955 they criticised the Trybuna Ludu (People’s Tribune) daily and Nowe Drogi (New Ways) monthly, and undertook a failed attempt to launch an ideological offensive. Jerzy Morawski, who was put in charge on behalf of the Central Committee Secretariat, represented this part of the Party’s elite who supported cautious changes and encouraged the press to criticize economic and social pathologies, regarding it as a necessary safety valve. An analysis of Morawski’s statements reveals that, in general, he supported the press in a role of critical observer. In January 1956 the Central Committee secretary explicitly distances himself from recent decisions of the Political Bureau on the Trybuna Ludu and presented himself as the advocate of liberalisation. Ambiguous signals from the centre of power fomented unrest and frustration of the journalist circles in Warsaw, who at the turn of 1956 in their large part rebelled against the model of press seen as a tool of party propaganda. On the other hand, however, signals sent from the centre exerted pressure and were resented by the central and local structures of the Stalinist party-state apparatus. Under these unstable circumstances the explosion was triggered by Moscow, where the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was beginning.

“The Study of Local Experience”: Reassessing the Role of the Central Committee Secretariat during the nep

This article examines one of the standardized procedures implemented by Stalin and his supporters during the New Economic Policy to professionalize policy processes in central party agencies. Stalin and his supporters in the Secretariat and Organization Bureau relied on informational studies generated by officials in the Organization-Assignment Department of the Central Committee Secretariat (Orgraspred) to assess both the results of major political campaigns and the quality of local party administration. This article draws attention to this practice by examining two case studies. The first was a 1924 investigation into the poor health of party activists and officials sponsored by the Orgraspred, which appeared to confirm opposition claims about the separation of the party leadership from the working class. The second recounts the findings reported by three of Stalin’s allies in the Organization Bureau – Molotov, Andrei Andreev, and Nikolai Antipov – following extended personal tours of Tambov, Tula, Kursk, Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East in support of the “Face to the Countryside” campaign. A careful review of the standard procedures these case studies exemplify suggests that common beliefs about the apolitical nature of the Stalin faction that formed during the years of factional struggle require revision.

Stalin and the Secretaries of Local Party Organizations, 1921–1927: Subordinates, Clients, or Supporters?

This article uses archival evidence to reexamine the relationship between Stalin and the secretaries of local party organizations during the nep. The orthodox view holds that after April 1922 Stalin installed individuals personally loyal to him as secretaries throughout the party’s network of territorial committees. Stalin used these supporters to manipulate the selection of delegates to the Twelfth Party Congress, which allowed him to fabricate majorities in the Central Committee and Politburo. Using operational records generated in the Central Committee Secretariat to examine patterns of secretarial office holding, this article shows that no fewer than 490 officials served as party secretaries during Stalin’s first five years as General Secretary and that rates of turnover among local party secretaries remained persistently high. These findings suggest that Stalin did not construct a stable network of clients among the secretaries of local party organizations prior to the Fifteenth Party Congress.

Mark Sandle, Igor Cașu, Leonid Brezhnev in Moldavia, 1950-52: the making of a GenSek?

This is the first article dealing specifically with Brezhnev in Soviet Moldavia. The article draws mainly on recently disclosed files from the Archive of the Social-Political Organizations of the Republic of Moldova, the former archive of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Moldavia. The authors are trying to understand the importance of the period when Brezhnev served as First Secretary of Central Committee of Moldavia from 1950 to 1952 for his subsequent career. In order to understand better the results of Brezhnev’s rule in Moldavian SSR and the impact on his leadership style, the authors discuss the previous career of Brezhnev as well as the activity of the previous First Secretaries in Soviet Moldavia. One of the main results of Brezhnev period in Moldavia was the consolidation of kolkhozes. In a broader sense, since this period at least, Brezhnev favoured quantity over quality.

Scandal in Riazan: Networks of Trust and the Social Dynamics of Deception

Scandal in RiazanNetworks of Trust and the Social Dynamics of Deception Yoram Gorlizki (bio) In the final months of 1960, the Soviet political establishment was rocked by one of the most notorious data-fixing scandals in the country’s history. The scandal erupted around a huge fraud in Riazan, an agricultural region to the immediate southeast of Moscow. While statistical deception was a relatively common feature of Soviet bureaucratic life, the debacle in Riazan was not easily brushed aside. For much of the previous two years, under its charismatic first secretary, Aleksei Larionov, Riazan had been at the center of a national campaign to drive up meat production. The announcement, a year earlier, on 16 December 1959, that Riazan had tripled its annual yield of meat to a remarkable “three annual plans” of 150,000 tons, had been greeted with a Soviet-style media frenzy. National newspapers had led with front-page articles celebrating “Riazan’s Victory” and the “Achievement of the Third Plan,” while brochures on the Riazan story were printed in large runs and translated into the languages of the USSR’s fellow socialist states. Riazan’s glory, however, was to be short-lived. Investigations in the autumn of 1960 revealed that the state’s statistical reporting in 1959 had consisted of a tissue [End Page 243] of lies: the true volume of meat production in Riazan that year had been a meager 60,000 tons, barely a third of the figure trumpeted in the press. Inquiries also showed that the make-believe figures circulated in 1959 had been concocted by Larionov himself, along with a team of leading officials from the regional party committee. It would prove particularly damaging to the authorities that the fraud could not be written off as the work of “criminal” miscreants. In fact, no criminal charges were pressed in Riazan. Far from being the illegal actions of wayward individuals, the fraud drew in the ordinary party apparatus and was carried out by loyal party functionaries, most of whose prior careers had been beyond reproach. The fallout from the Riazan scandal was far-reaching. On 22 September 1960, on the eve of his dismissal as regional first secretary, Larionov committed suicide. A month later, Khrushchev sent a “note” to the Presidium that drew broader lessons from the affair.1 Khrushchev also gave the green light to a string of investigations in other regions, which in the months leading up to the 22nd Party Congress, triggered the largest purge of regional first secretaries in the whole post-Stalin era. The scale and systemic nature of the fraud in Riazan also turned attention to the culpability of leading figures in Moscow. Among the most celebrated victims of the scandal were the former Central Committee secretary Averkii Aristov and his colleague, the veteran secretary and co-author of the Secret Speech Petr Pospelov, both of whom were sacked. Nor was Khrushchev’s own reputation left unscathed. The Soviet leader had lent his credibility to the Riazan campaign, making a much-publicized visit to the province in February 1959 as the bid for the 150,000 tons got underway, then hosting a glitzy reception for Riazan officials at the Kremlin in November. When he was himself deposed in October 1964, the arch-organizers of the coup, Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov, cited the Riazan Affair as testimony to Khrushchev’s recklessness. “[The] Riazan Affair—[that was] your fault,” Brezhnev charged. “We all well remember,” Suslov joined in, “how [Khrushchev] sang the praises of that window-dresser [ochkovtiratel´] and adventurer Larionov, who proposed to fulfill the three-year plan for meat in one.”2 The Riazan scandal raises larger questions about the Soviet political system. Falsification was a fact of life for Soviet officialdom. In periods when the country was headed by a “voluntarist” leader, such as Khrushchev, intent [End Page 244] on meeting extraordinary targets in record time, pressures on officials to over-report were stepped up.3 Yet even by the standards of the Khrushchev era, the scale of fraud in Riazan was unusual. Not only did the region produce barely a third of its meat target, but the scam lumbered the province’s collective...

The Central Committee Secretariat, the Nomenklatura, and the Politics of Personnel Management in the Soviet Order, 1921-1927

This article re-examines early efforts to put into practice the nomenklatura system for assigning elite office holders adopted by the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee (Orgburo) of the Russian Communist Party in late 1923. Until recently, scholarly treatments of this issue have largely taken for granted Stalin’s ability to transform the formal authority this initiative concentrated in the executive agencies of the Central Committee into effective administrative power. This article challenges that assumption by looking past official regulations in order to examine the operational records of the body most closely involved in managing the assignment of responsible officials across the soviet political order, the Organization-Assignment Department of the Central Committee Secretariat. The working papers of the Organization-Assignment Department, the Secretariat and the Orgburo make it evident that the nomenklatura had not yet evolved into the central vehicle for managing elite office holding that it was intended to be prior to the Stalin Revolution. The evidence suggests the persistence of ad hoc improvisation in the management of personnel, which produced a hybrid order that relied on an unstable mix of bureaucratic, personalistic and campaign-style methods to extend communist influence over government and economic administration.

Russian parties and the political internet

Russian parties and the political internet

The Death of Andrei Zhdanov

SEER,VTol. 8o, No.2, April2002 The Death of Andrei Zhdanov C. N. BOTERBLOEM THE years immediately before the death of Central Committee Secretary and Politburo member Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov (I896-I948) were the high point of his career as Soviet leader. Zhdanov was Stalin's 'all-powerfulfavourite', and seemed poised to succeed Stalin who was, by almost a generation, his elder.' As the spokesmanof the Communist Partyin the culturalfield, Zhdanov had in the summer of I946 criticized the writers Mikhail Zoshchenko (i 894- I958) and Anna Akhmatova (i 889- I966); posturingas Stalin's deputy, he had addressed in the same year the Soviet Union and the Communist world in commemoration of the October Revolution; in the guise of a leading Marxist-Leninist philosopher, he had in the summer of I947 attacked a recently published textbook on Western philosophy; as a Soviet musical connoisseur, he had in early I948 berated the famous composers Dmitrii Shostakovich (I906-I975), Aram Khachaturian (I903-1978), and Sergei Prokofiev(i 89I- I953); as an international statesman, he had in September I947 defined the emergence of two hostile camps competing for global supremacyafter World War Two at the founding session of the information bureau of the main European communist parties, the Cominform.2 Suddenly, however, in the summerof I948, Zhdanov disappearedfromview. On IOJuly 1948, the Central Committee (CC)'s Politburogave him leave from his duties as second Partysecretaryto recuperate from a severe illness,while thisleading organ of the Communist Partyconcomitantly reorganizedthe CC Sekretariat.3Soon after,in an open letterto Stalin published in Pravda, Zhdanov's only son Jurii(b. I9I9), a high-ranking Central Committee official, admitted to unwarranted criticism of Academician T. D. Lysenko (I898-I976). Then, on September I, Andrei Zhdanov was reporteddead at the age of fifty-two. C. N. Boterbloem is Associate Professor of History at Nipissing University, Ontario. 1 See, for instance, 'Foreign News: Russia', Time, 9 December I946, pp. 18-20, and B. Pares, Russia,rev. ed., New York, 1949, p. 203. 2 See, for example, G. M. Adibekov et al. (eds), Soveshchaniia Kominforma, I947, I948, I949. Dokumenty i materialy,Moscow, I998; L. Maksimenkov, 'Partiia-nash rulevoi', Muzykal'naia zhizn', 14-I7, I993, pp. 6-8; V. V. Aspaturian, 'The Contemporary Doctrine of the Soviet State and Its Philosophical Foundations', American Political Science Review, 4, I954, pp. 1031-57; A. A. Zhdanov, '29-aia godovshchina Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi Sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii. Doklad na torzhestvennom zasedanii Moskovskogo Soveta 6 noiabria I946 goda', Bol'shevik,2 I, 1946, pp.- I I3; A. A. Zhdanov, Essays on Literature, Philosophy,and Music,New York,I950. See, for instance, Y. Gorlizki, 'Party Revivalism and the Death of Stalin', SlavicReview, I, 1995, pp. I-22 (p. i6). 268 C. N. BOTERBLOEM The circumstances of Zhdanov'sdeathand its consequenceshave been obscureand merit investigation.Lackof evidencehas led to speculation byhistorians fondof seeingintriguein Stalin'sdoings.For example,somehavesuggested thatZhdanov's politicaldemisewasnot just theresultof hisson'snaiveescapades,butthathe wasalsobeing punishedforthe SovietUnion'sgrowingriftwithYugoslavia andthe BerlinBlockade(and possiblyother foreign-policy issues),developmentsthatcoincided withhisdisappearance frompubliclife.4Recently, theRussianhistorianJu.N. Zhukovhasarguedthatin I948 Zhdanov lostoutin a ruthless rivalryamongthehighestSovietleadersinwhich supposedly evenStalinhimselfwasonthedefensive againstsomeofthe others.5 InJanuaryI953, the highestleadershipannouncedthatZhdanov waskilledbywilfulmedicalmalpractice. Althoughthisaccusation was withdrawn afterStalin'sdeathin MarchI953, historians haveargued thatZhdanovwasphysically annihilated on Stalin'sordersbyobedient doctors.6 The argumentthatZhdanovwasmurdered appearsplausibleif his killingisseenasthefirststepinthelethalpurgeofhisclosestassociates in I949 and 1950. Conventionalwisdomhas it that,duringStalin's rule, a fall frompoliticalgracewas usuallyfollowedby the physical extermination,not only of the 'unmaskedenemy', but also of his politicalfriends.A fewyearsagobothFrenchhistorian NicolasWerth and Russianplaywright(and Stalinbiographer)EdvardRadzinsky drew attention to a possible parallel between the fall-out after Zhdanov'sdeathin I948 andthatof S. M. Kirov(I886-I934).7 The similarities appearstriking. LikeZhdanov,Kirovhadbeena Central CommitteeSecretarywho hadled the LeningradPartyorganization for many years.Many have claimedthat substantialcircumstantial 4 R. Conquest, PowerandPolicyin theU.S.S.R.. TheStrugglefor Stalin'sSuccession, i945-1g60, New York, I967, pp. I 0I -03 (hereafter, PowerandPolicy);W. G. Hahn, PostwarSovietPolitics. TheFall of Zhdanovand theDefeatof Moderation,I946-i953, Ithaca, NY, I982, pp. 98- IOI (hereafter, Postwar SovietPolitics). Conquest's argument is based on the coincidence of Zhdanov's fall with the Soviet-Yugoslav rift, while Hahn in his speculations bases himself largely on one Yugoslav source. 5 Iu. N. Zhukov, TainyKremlia.Stalin,Molotov,Beriia,Malenkov,Moscow, 2000, pp. 467-7 I (hereafter, TainyKremlia...

Remembering the Avant-Garde: Moscow Architects and the “Rehabilitation” of Constructivism, 1961–64*

Remembering the Avant-Garde:Moscow Architects and the “Rehabilitation” of Constructivism, 1961–64* Stephen V. Bittner (bio) In 1962 and 1963, the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party directed the most furious campaign against artistic freedom since the late Stalin period. For much of the creative intelligentsia the campaign was unexpected. Many thought that the 22nd Party Congress in October 1961 had heralded the beginning of a new period of "aggressive de-Stalinization."1 Nikita Khrushchev, after all, had used the congress to widen the scope of criticism against Joseph Stalin, and to make the important rhetorical leap from Stalin's mistakes to Stalin's crimes. He questioned Stalin's role in Sergo Ordzhonikidze's suicide and in the arrest of the Red Army leaders prior to World War II, and threw his support behind the construction of a monument in Moscow to honor the memories of those who had fallen victim to Stalinism. Other party officials detailed the activities of Viacheslav Molotov, Georgii Malenkov, and Lazar' Kaganovich (the so-called Anti-Party Group) in the purges, and demanded that Stalin's body be removed from the mausoleum on Red Square.2 In the months following the Congress, reform-minded [End Page 553] intellectuals were quick to act: landmark works by Evgenii Evtushenko and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn appeared in print; Evtushenko and Vassilii Aksenov were elected editors of the Union of Writers journal Iunost'; and activists in the Union of Cinema Workers and the Academy of Fine Arts pressed for accelerated reform. Between December 1962 and March 1963, however, in a series of meetings with prominent representatives of the creative intelligentsia, Khrushchev and Leonid Il'ichev, a Central Committee Secretary and former Agitprop chief, denounced the liberal onslaught. Defending the Party's role as chief arbiter in the cultural sphere, they reasserted the primacy of traditional ("socialist-realist") manners of artistic production. Young Turks like Evtushenko and Andrei Voznesenskii fared particularly poorly, but the campaign had a wide reach, and even moderates like Il'ia Ehrenburg and Dmitrii Shostakovich were implicated. The result was not a complete rout of the liberal forces in the cultural sphere, but it did portend a political atmosphere that was significantly less congenial for innovative art and critical reappraisals of the past than that which had existed in the months immediately following the party congress.3 Contemporary observers in the West noticed early on that Soviet architects appeared to escape the brunt of the campaign. On 4 December 1962, only three days after Khrushchev denounced an exhibit of modern art at the Manezh Hall in Moscow, an editorial in Izvestiia cited his comments at the opening of the Palace of Pioneers on the south side of the capital, an austere glass and concrete structure which was unmistakably modernist. "It's hard to arrive at a common opinion in judging a building like this one," Khrushchev reportedly remarked. "Tastes differ, after all. You can't please everyone. Some like it, others don't. Myself, I like your palace. I'm expressing my own opinion."4 One commentator interpreted the editorial as a sign of the ambivalent attitudes toward modern art that existed even at the top of the party.5 (Evidently, the editors of Izvestiia hoped to show that Khrushchev was not the complete rube in aesthetic affairs that much of the creative intelligentsia imagined him to be.) A month later, in a survey of Soviet graphic arts, Alain Besançon claimed that architecture, with its prefabricated and standardized components, was at the vanguard of the Soviet [End Page 554] aesthetic, and as such was clearing the way for the development of other types of artistic modernism in the Soviet Union.6 Besançon might be accused of overstatement, but his observation unwittingly captured much of the irony of the situation. At the same time that modernism was under attack in the graphic arts and liberals were in retreat in literature, Moscow architects spoke openly about the "rehabilitation" of Constructivism, and looked enthusiastically at the experiments of the 1920s and early 1930s in search of inspiration. This was an extraordinary development, and one that was indicative of the degree of political change that had taken place during...

Reinventing the politburo: central mechanisms for policy formulation and coordination in russia and hungary

In most economies in transition in Central and Eastern Europe, the senior organs of the communist party—the Politburo, the Central Committee Secretariat, and the Central Committee apparat—played a critical role in the formulation and coordination of government policy. Government ministries served a largely instrumental role in implementing decisions that were arrived at by the party. The collapse of these structures has left a vacuum that countries have attempted to fill in various ways. In many respects, Hungary and Russia represent the opposite ends of the spectrum. After some trial and error, the Hungarians have developed a system that—although not perfect —does a reasonably effective job in vetting proposals for decision and resolving issues efficiently and effectively. At the other extreme, with the exception of the areas of defense and foreign policy, the process of intergovernmental coordination has virtually broken down within Russia. This paper chronicles the efforts of both countries to develop alternative mechanisms for policy formulation and implementation, highlights their existing strengths and weaknesses, and concludes with some observations regarding the reasons behind their relative success or failure.

Another Kind of Fear: The Kirov Murder and the End of Bread Rationing in Leningrad

The 1 December 1934 murder of Soviet Communist Party leader Sergei Mironovich Kirov has long been considered a pivotal event in Soviet history, not least of all because of the attention it received in the USSR. But although there is much controversy over Stalin’s role in the assassination, and on the connection between Kirov’s death and the Soviet terror of the 1930s, most observers concur that once Kirov was dead, the government attempted to orchestrate public opinion of his death as a calamity with broad implications. For days after the slaying, the Soviet leadership devoted hours of radio time and pages of newsprint to mourning the loss of the 48-year-old Politburo member, Central Committee secretary, and Leningrad regional and city party leader and to denouncing those allegedly behind the murder. In turn, local party functionaries organized meetings of workers, peasants, students, and housewives to collectively mourn “Mironych” and to reflect upon his life and work, while also exhorting citizens to make donations of cash or labor in his memory. The authorities lauded Kirov as the “truest son and outstanding leader” (deiatel’) of the party; headlines proclaimed “Kirov can never be torn from our hearts” and “Until the end of our days we will remember your life and struggle, Comrade Kirov!“

Patrimonialism and the stalinist system: The case of S. I. Syrtsov

(1996). Patrimonialism and the stalinist system: The case of S. I. Syrtsov. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 551-568.

The “Right Deviation” of Ana Pauker

This paper argues that the accusation of “Right Deviationism” levelled against Romanian Communist leader Ana Pauker in May 1952 was in fact based on truth, that Pauker openly opposed forcibly collectivizing a resistant peasantry and therefore scaled back collectivization efforts in late 1950 and 1951. Though Pauker was appointed Central Committee Secretary with responsibility over agriculture when collectivization was officially launched in March 1949, she was absent from the country when the Romanian Workers Party launched a campaign of forced collectivization in the summer of 1950, and took decisive steps to reverse such a policy upon resuming her duties at the end of that year—essentially halting further collectivization throughout 1951. In doing so Pauker appears to have been closely allied to CC Secretary and Finance Minister Vasile Luca, who promoted a pro-peasant policy resembling Bukharin's throughout the postwar period, and was apparently opposed by General Secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. It also appears that Pauker's line on collectivization in 1951 went against the wishes of the Soviet Union, which imposed collectivization on its satellites at that time.