The main target of Zhdanovism was the professional intelligentsia, which was accused of ‘fawning on the West’ and taxed with ‘cosmopolitanism’ (a term that conveyed the regime’s barely concealed anti-Semitism in these years). But its spirit profoundly marked the state and party apparatuses, which employed large numbers of people with higher education. An expression of extreme Russian nationalism, Zhdanovism attacked manifestations of nationalism in the non-Russian republics. The introduction into high party and government spheres of the archaic-sounding ‘courts of honour’ contradicted any minimally coherent administrative logic, and significantly frustrated efforts to raise the professional level of the party apparatus. These ‘courts’ were supposed to instil in apparatchiks a sense of patriotism and pride in the unique achievements of their (Stalinist) fatherland, by means of staged mock-trials in every administrative agency. The culprits were accused of all manner of infamies, but only their careers suffered (they escaped with their lives). In sum, these ‘courts’ judged ‘crimes’ approximating to treason, but which were not subject to criminal prosecution.
The practice was explained by Kuznetsov in a report to the full party apparatus on 29 September 1947. The target of such measures was individuals with higher education, including the growing number of specialists. The central apparatus was not considered immune from the relevant disease and the report was presented during a meeting convened to elect the ‘court of honour’ for the Central Committee’s own apparatus – an election that gave the signal for similar elections throughout the country’s administrative bodies. The professed aim was to combat behaviour displaying servility to the West.
A court was likewise established in the State Security Ministry (MGB). Its operatives were seemingly irked by being subjected to such a procedure, but Kuznetsov informed them that if such courts were required in the central party apparatus – the country’s citadel – then there was no reason to exempt the MGB. Its members also had progress to make when it came to patriotism and ‘spiritual independence’ – the only things that could ensure recognition of the superiority of Soviet culture over that of the West.
Kuznetsov’s argument ran as follows. In so far as the country’s activity depended on the quality of the party apparatus, the ‘courts of honour’ had a decisive role to play. The apparatus harboured numbers of employees who engaged in anti-patriotic, anti-social and anti-state deviations. Hitherto, when such instances had been discovered, they had been handled internally with the utmost possible discretion. This stemmed from the widespread belief that once someone had become a member of the apparatus, there was no further need for vigilance or political improvement. But many officials seemed not to appreciate that their work in the central apparatus – that ‘holy of holies’ (the expression is used in the report) – was not a routine job, but a party duty. Dissolute behaviour was even to be found among leading figures, Kuznetsov observed – something that was absolutely inadmissible in the party’s ranks, let alone the apparatus of the Central Committee. Drunkenness, debauchery, and negligence when handling confidential documents were among the most frequent misdemeanours cited. Such derelictions were highly dangerous, because the Central Committee received reports on all aspects of the country’s activities, including defence and foreign policy. For this reason, any work performed in the apparatus, whatever the position held, must remain confidential. Vigilance was the party’s best weapon against its enemies; it must form an inviolable principle of national life.
There was a disturbing but evident undercurrent to this policy. During the meeting, it was officially stated that the new line drew its inspiration from the methods of the great purges. Some of the key signposts of the latter were actually cited as useful reminders. Among them were the ‘confidential’ letters addressed to party members that had marked the launch of purges: the letter of 18 January 1935 concerning actions against ‘Kirov’s murderers’; the letter of 13 May 1935 on party members’ cards; the 29 July 1936 circular on the Trotsky–Zinoviev ‘terrorist bloc’; the 29 June 1941 circular to party and state agents operating near the front. All of these preceded or followed the unleashing of waves of terror against the population in general and cadres in particular. The shadow of this dark epoch was deliberately invoked to serve as a warning to a potentially disloyal intelligentsia. Stalin’s speech on vigilance during the hallucinatory 1937–8 Central Committee sessions – another ‘classic’ on the best way to deal with enemies – was also cited.
Such was the spirit of a campaign gearing to inculcate nothing less than ‘spiritual independence’. The foreign espionage factor was also employed. The apparatchiks were informed that Western intelligence services were seeking to penetrate the party and that their families were not immune: ‘You tell your wife something, she tells a neighbour – and everyone gets wind of state secrets.’ Anyone in the least familiar with Stalin’s way of criticizing party officials and leaders would recognize his own inimitable style here. In fact, the condemnation of ‘family chatterboxes’ by members of the apparatus was based on a recent episode: in 1948, the government had decided in the utmost secrecy to raise prices, but the decision had become known to the population before its promulgation, resulting in a mad scramble for the shops.
The purges accompanying Zhdanovism never reached anything like the scale of 1936–9, but they nevertheless gave rise to such atrocities as the execution of the writers of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the assassination of the great actor Mikhoels (in a rigged car accident), numerous arrests and executions of cultural figures, not to mention careers ruined and artistic and scientific works destroyed. In 1950 came the ‘Leningrad affair’: all the old leaders of the Leningrad party and administration – including Kuznetsov himself and the Deputy Prime Minister and Gosplan head, Voznesensky – were executed and more than a hundred others perished or were sent to camps.
The ideology of the zhdanovshchina was Stalin’s own, of course – the culmination of his ideological peregrinations. Stalin was by now fascinated by the ‘glorious’ Tsarist past. The ‘courts of honour’ were not the only thing he borrowed from its history. All the ministerial top brass now wore a uniform and their titles derived directly from Peter the Great’s ‘table of ranks’. Worse than the external paraphernalia was the extreme Russian nationalism, savouring of proto-fascism, typical of decaying Stalinism. Stalin wanted this spirit to survive him. To this end, he personally revised the new Soviet anthem, imposing on a multinational country a chauvinist paean to ‘Great Russia’.
It is worth adding that the ‘courts of honour’ and the archaic titles and uniforms (with their ridiculous epaulettes) were abolished or abandoned under Khrushchev, to be quickly forgotten by an administration that had little time for such antics. And the putrid fumes of Zhdanovism largely dissipated.
All this is important for understanding the atmosphere that suffused the country when Kuznetsov tackled the important task of rationalizing the work of cadres, in the first instance in the party. His idea was to treat them firmly but fairly, and expect the appropriate response. The difference in tone and spirit between Kuznetsov’s public explanation of Zhdanovism in 1947 and his frank and rational discussions with colleagues in 1946–7, is striking. It prompts the question as to whether he fully approved of Zhdanovism.