This reorganization gives an idea of Central Committee activity and, in particular, of the most important departments and posts. Our source, Oleg Khlevniuk, provides us with an interpretative key, demonstrating that underlying the redistribution of duties there was a deliberate policy on the part of Stalin.[1] He was seeking to disperse and dilute the power of his close associates. Kaganovich, previously considered second in command, lost this rank. Formally, he was replaced by Andreev, who, in some spheres, shared his responsibilities with Ezhev. Andreev had important Politburo responsibilities, but a department of lesser importance (industry), whereas Ezhev, who was not a Politburo member, ran key departments and for this reason participated in its meetings. Stalin had entrusted him with major responsibilities at Internal Affairs (the NKVD). In this capacity, he organized the trial of Zinoviev. Charged with supervising the NKVD for the party, he formulated the statutes for its espionage and counter-espionage department, the GUGB (General Department of State Security), and effectively controlled the NKVD for eighteen months, before officially becoming Commissar for Internal Affairs. His first job as head of the party Control Commission was to organize the campaign for checking membership cards – a kind of ‘prepurge’. He was then responsible for the purges for one and a half years.
Zhdanov was assigned to Leningrad, but was to spend ten days a month in Moscow. Pursuing his policy of dispersal, Stalin next decided that rather than three Central Committee secretaries (himself, Kaganovich and Zhdanov), there would henceforth be five. And the post of Stalin’s ‘deputy’ disappeared. He now saw Politburo members more rarely, according to a strict calendar, and he spent less time with Molotov and Kaganovich. It is not that they had been demoted, but in 1935–6 Kaganovich had to seek Stalin’s advice (i.e. approval) on everything. His letters to Stalin now contained obsequious formulations, whereas he had previously taken quite a few final decisions himself and written to Stalin without servility. Such fawning at the highest level is a good indication of the diminishing influence of Politburo members and Stalin’s growing personal power. More decisions were now taken by signing a circular containing the resolution to be approved, rather than by voting at meetings. The time for criticism and reservations, which had hitherto been regarded as normal on the part of high-ranking leaders, was at an end. Requests to retire, refusals to write some report, ultimata to defend the interests of some agency – these disappeared without a trace. Frequently, the sheet containing decisions for approval did not circulate. Many resolutions carry only Molotov’s stamp. Other decisions were taken by a few members who came to visit Stalin on vacation in Sochi.
Sometimes a simple telegram from Stalin would do. The famous letter announcing the nomination of Ezhev to head the NKVD and betokening the dismissal of Yagoda, who was four years late in organizing a great purge, was signed by Stalin and Zhdanov. Kaganovich received a copy on 25 September 1936. As for ‘poor’ Yagoda, who had not realized that he should have acted in 1932, he was of course executed. Stalin’s power was now so well established and accepted by the others that he could make them swallow anything. The accusations against Yagoda are a good example: he obviously would not have been able to launch a vast purge in 1932 without being explicitly instructed to do so by Stalin.
Mastery of the Politburo was achieved by the technique of fragmenting even this small body. According to Stalin’s whim, it functioned in fragments – meetings of seven, five, three or two. The only people summoned were those who had to handle some particular matter. Meetings often took the form of dinner at Stalin’s dacha for those he singled out as ‘friends’. This is attested by Mikoyan,[2] who explained that a quintet (Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria and himself) existed in the Politburo until 1941 dealing with foreign policy issues and ‘operational matters’. After the war, Zhdanov joined this group, as did Voznesensky later. Voroshilov, who had been added at the beginning of the war, was dropped in 1944.
This is what has been called the ‘narrow’ Politburo, excluding Kaganovich, Kalinin and Khrushchev, all of whom were burdened with heavy administrative responsibilities outside the Politburo. The ‘habit’ of convening a few reliable elements had become established with the struggle of the triumvirate (Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev) against Trotsky, and continued with a different cast during the struggle against Rykov, when the latter was still in charge of the Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars). In the 1930s, Stalin sent Molotov a letter in which he asked him to consider an important problem and talk it over with ‘friends’. Not all Politburo members fell into this category and no one could count on remaining in it permanently. Before the war, members like Rudzutak, Kalinin, Kossior and Andreev were never invited to such ‘intimate’ caucuses, although they might have known that such meetings took place.
To summarize, the Politburo in Stalin’s hands was precisely a bureau whose personnel he nominated and used as he saw fit.
THE PARTY APPARATUS
As the party lost its political identity, its apparatus – the very citadel of the system – grew ever more complex. In order to ‘simplify’ things and ensure greater control, a super-apparatus – variously dubbed ‘special’, ‘political’, and finally ‘general’ – was constructed to serve Stalin personally, without the knowledge of the rest of the apparatus. Its staff constantly expanded, as did its status vis-à-vis other Central Committee departments. Stalin’s personal secretary – the ubiquitous and highly discreet Poskrebyshev – headed it and thereby acquired a promotion and salary increase. As for the Sovnarkom – a supposedly powerful institution with its departments, specialists and consultants – its authority was undermined by conspiratorial techniques at the summit. It was in fact sidestepped, since all decisions were taken elsewhere, by Stalin and Molotov. Their business was conducted via a completely secret channel of communication: Molotov submitted his proposals to Stalin and the latter corrected, approved or rejected them, sending his response, which had the force of an order, back to Molotov via the same channel. A very intimate affair! If we are aware of such details today, it is thanks to the research of Oleg Khlevniuk and his team of hardened researchers in the Soviet archives.
By way of an overview of Stalin’s complex, and expanding, system of power, we might single out the following features. We are dealing with a ‘security state’, headed by a figure who organized his own ‘cult’ and resorted to a laborious method, refined down to the last detail, of running and controlling the whole enterprise. The objective was not only to guarantee its smooth operation, but also to avoid his entourage and officials at any level accumulating too much authority and power. It was achieved by fragmenting the highest institutions of state, emptying them of substance. This way of ruling – just the opposite of what might have been expected in such circumstances – created gluts and bottlenecks, to which the centre responded with emergency measures.
1
See Oleg V. Khlevniuk,
2
RGASPI, f. 39, op. 3, d. 188, L. 246. All this comes from a note to volume four of Mikoyan’s memoirs, ‘O