As we have seen, administrative officials liked to offer themselves as many services and perks at the state’s expense as they could extract. They also liked to party. Even in the postwar days of penury, high-ranking officials had had a good time. But in the 1960s the libations were more lavish and the parties rowdier! No one even tried to claim that they had anything to do with serving the common weal. The pile of empty bottles consumed by civil servants at state expense spoke for itself The government regularly received indignant letters condemning this lifestyle and became seriously alarmed about it. A countrywide campaign was launched against illegal expenditure of state resources on banquets and receptions, and large-scale investigations undertaken, which revealed the extent of the problem. All kinds of occasions were excuses for banquets – anniversaries, jubilees, conferences, visits by dignitaries – during which vodka, cognac and wine were served in generous quantities. Finance and control agencies had plenty of material on these goings-on; they knew perfectly well that managers and their accountants were burying such expenses as ‘production outlays’ and that the ministries and senior officials were turning a blind eye to it. The Council of Ministers drafted a decree stipulating that in future ministries could only give banquets in exceptional circumstances, following permission from the Council (or the local authorities in the republics), and that alcohol was not to be served during them. Infringements were to be severely punished and the culprits required to reimburse the cost out of their own pockets.
The draft decree was jointly proposed by the Finance Minister (Garbuzov) and the Chairman of the State Control Committee (Kovanov), after they had presented their government colleagues with a ‘panorama’ of such excesses. In 1968, 6,500 government enterprises and agencies had been investigated (at central, republican and district levels), revealing that more than a thousand of them had staged lavish banquets where enormous quantities of alcohol were consumed and presents offered to honoured guests. In Izhevsk, twelve enterprises belonging to different ministries had each spent thousands of roubles on receptions and parties. Between October 1967 and July 1968, one of them had drained 350 bottles of cognac, 25 bottles of vodka and 80 bottles of champagne during the merry-making, at a total cost of 3,100 roubles. Sometimes the banquets were staged in restaurants, which were cited in the document together with the bills stating the price of the drinks.[6]
As we can see, there was no shortage of information on the lifestyle of officials financed by the state, and the leadership sought to remedy the situation. But it is doubtful whether the measures they took or proposed had any effect. The decree itself offered a loophole, authorizing banquets in some circumstances (it was impossible to ban them altogether), and we can be sure that the requisite permission was given. For such was the style of the system, in which everything functioned via personal contacts, exchanges of services, deals, promotions, and so on.
This detour was necessary in order to return to the crowds of ‘suppliers’ (snabzhentsy), for whom meals in restaurants, receptions and binges were part of the routine. Working without these, not to mention bribes, was inconceivable; and this was common knowledge. The KGB and prosecuting authorities could recount some especially juicy stories. In any case, libations were only the preliminary to a whole ‘culture’ of wheeling and dealing, profiteering and corruption. The supply agencies were the quintessential milieu that generated this culture and diffused it throughout the administration, especially to economic agencies. As we proceed, we shall discover the existence of powerful systemic springs at work, transforming the whole Soviet bureaucratic scene into a setting from a different play altogether.
THE USSR’S GOSSNAB: STAFF AND ACTIVITIES (1970)
By name at least, such Soviet institutions as the KGB or Gosplan were known throughout the world. But outside the ranks of specialists, no one abroad referred to Gossnab. For Soviet economists and the whole administrative class, Gossnab – the State Committee for Material and Technical Supplies – was the engine of the economic system. Like the KGB and Gosplan, Gossnab was a supra-ministerial body, run by a prestigious economist and administrator, V. Dymshits, who had won his spurs in Gosplan.
Gossnab was supposed to provide the economy with everything it needed in order to function. Its warehouses, stations and offices were a sort of Mecca for the innumerable tolkachi (‘pushers’) and other agents from the various ministries, agencies and production units. These emissaries arrived to assure themselves that Gossnab would indeed deliver what they had been promised in order to fulfil the plan. Not receiving what had been envisaged, or receiving nothing at all, or getting it too late was a major anxiety; and given that Gossnab was frequently short of all sorts of items, the tolkachi were charged with making contacts with its officials, arranging deals and obtaining results.
A centralized supplier on this scale was regarded as a contradiction in terms by leading Soviet economists. Even when competently run, Gossnab, like every other Soviet agency, experienced shortages and deficiencies. It was cursed by just about everyone, with the exception of those who enjoyed the seal of government priority in procurement (the arms sector or other pet projects of the leadership).
Despite its elevated position in the Soviet institutional hierarchy, Gossnab had to submit to the same administrative routines as other bodies when it came to its budgets, personnel and structural units. Acquaintance with these procedures will help us to understand the character of this apparatus. Budgetary negotiations with the Finance Ministry were not particularly exacting, because the latter was aware of the complexity of Gossnab’s duties and its high status. On 8 August 1970, Dymshits approved the list of Gossnab’s staff and sent it to the Finance Ministry for registration, as procedure dictated, in order to secure the requisite personnel and corresponding budget. The document specified the number of top officials and their salaries, the number of specialists, and each specialist department together with its field of activity, for everything had to be approved by the financial auditors. Thus we learn that Gossnab comprised 34 units with 1,302 employees. Among them we find 286 holding higher managerial posts, 10 of which were leadership positions. The monthly wage bill for these 286 posts was 284,786 roubles. A separate table indicated the salary of the 10 highest officials (between 550 and 700 roubles, plus unspecified perks), or a monthly total of 5,300 roubles (though this excludes the salary of Gossnab’s head). At the other end of the wage scale, we find employees earning 70 roubles a month and enjoying no perks.
As has been said, the bargaining went smoothly. At this stage, Dymshits was still in a strong position. The Finance Ministry’s inspectors went through the motions of approving a central staffing level of 1,302, while trying to nibble away at numbers and wages wherever possible. When Dymshits requested an average monthly salary of 219 roubles per administrator (it had been 215 the previous year), the Finance Ministry suggested 214. Representatives of the Finance Ministry had fixed rules as regards categories of employees (nachal’niki, ‘specialists’, ‘senior specialists’), and they quibbled over everything. But they readily agreed to the requested number (ten) of top officials. Next came the examination of Gossnab’s activities and departments (in addition to its supply agencies, Gossnab had factories, construction teams and research laboratories). The supply activities were distributed between the specialist departments: heavy industry, energy, metals, construction, materials, and so on, as well as an import-export department and the usual internal administrative agencies.[7]
6
GARF, A–259, op. 45, d. 7501, LL. 4962: a file of documents from the government of the Russian Federation (October-November 1968) concerning the campaign which was being conducted throughout the USSR against ‘illegal expenditure of public money on banquets and receptions’.
7
RGAE, f. 7733, op. 58, d. 2892, LL. 1–5, 85–97: a bundle of documents (dating from July–December 1970) dealing with the negotiations between Gossnab and the Finance Ministry over the numbers and salaries of top officials.