We still have one mechanism to investigate, and readers will hopefully not be discouraged by its complexity (simplicity often derives from a mastery of the details). In the final analysis, the Soviet tendency for administrative opacity is not as complicated as all that. And if a comparison between the Soviet and other bureaucracies can generate confusion, its results are invariably illuminating – and sometimes surprising.
THE NOMENKLATURA OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
The endeavour in 1946–8 to reorganize the party’s central apparatus can be encapsulated in the term nomenklatura, which refers to the mechanism used to keep leading cadres under party control. It was also the cause of problems and side-effects that plagued the regime to the very end.
The resuscitation in 1946 of the Central Committee’s nomenklatura required considerable effort on the part of the cadres directorate and the three supreme bodies: the Politburo, the Orgburo (abolished in 1952), and the Secretariat. The Russian term nomenklatura means a ‘list’ of items, whatever they might be, that have to be ‘named’. We are now going to examine this list more closely to figure out how it was supposed to work in practice.
A document signed on 22 August 1946 by Andreev, head of the cadres directorate, and his deputy Revsky, was sent to the four secretaries of the Central Committee (Zhdanov, Kuznetsov, Patolichev and Popov). It presented for their approval a version of the nomenklatura that contained 42,894 leadership positions in party and state apparatuses. (The precise number varied from one draft to another, but this need not concern us.) Let us underscore once again that this list was established and controlled by the Central Committee.
The text begins by stating the obvious: it is difficult to exercise control over cadres when more than half of the appointments to, and dismissals from, ministerial posts figuring in the current nomenklatura are decided without Central Committee approval. It was therefore urgent that the latter formally endorse the new list, which was only a draft but which was presented as better suited than previous versions to the requirements of the five-year plan for 1946–50. The directorate was also working on another much-needed list – the so-called ‘reserve register’ containing an auxiliary list of candidates for nomenklatura posts. In the event of rising demand for personnel, this would make it possible rapidly to supply the requisite cadres. The latest version of the new nomenklatura eliminated approximately 9,000 positions from the old rolls and introduced some new ones. These alterations were required to take account of economic and technological changes and concomitant alterations in the relative importance of various posts.
It took about three months for the first postwar ‘nomenklatura of Central Committee posts’ to be approved in stages. At the end of November 1946 the Central Committee possessed a text that could serve as a basic grid for handling leading cadres. The general list of posts to be filled in accordance with nomenklatura rules was supplemented by a detailed record of the officials currently holding these posts. Referring to some 41,883 posts (and the names of their incumbents), it allows us to draw up a picture of the whole cohort that was considered pivotal to the system. The classification was extremely detailed. The enumeration of the posts that the Central Committee wanted on its own list began with ‘posts in party organizations’, classified by rank: Central Committee secretaries and their deputies, heads of department and their deputies, heads of ‘special sectors’, and so on. Next came local party officials at republican and regional level, followed by the directors of party schools and holders of chairs in Marxist-Leninist history and economics.
The list then proceeded to senior positions in the state apparatus, from central level via the republics to district leveclass="underline" ministers, deputy ministers, members of ministerial collegia, departmental heads. It went on down the whole hierarchy of administrative posts in government agencies, as well as the parallel apparatus of the soviets, until it reached the lowest rank that the Central Committee wished to have under its direct or indirect tutelage.
The text provides figures for each ministry, but examination of the data by hierarchical stratum is more illuminating. Out of 41,883 ‘nomenklatura positions’, the top stratum (ministries and party) accounted for 4,836, or 12 per cent of the list. (Readers are aware by now that this ‘excursion’ into the nomenklatura leads us to a sketch of the whole Soviet administrative system.) To analyse what this represents, it should be read in conjunction with data from the Central Statistical Office, which provide details for the whole state apparatus. In sum, the nomenklatura represented around a third of the 160,000 top posts, of which 105,000 were based in the central government apparatus in Moscow, while 55,000 were located in republican administrative bodies (ministries and agencies). We might note that at this moment state administration numbered some 1.6 million managerial posts, 18.8 per cent of the total 8 million employees. (A more realistic calculation would reduce the latter figure to 6.5 million, by excluding from ‘administration’ categories like cleaners and other junior technical staff.) ‘Senior managerial cadres’ comprised officials heading up administrative units which lower ranks were directly or indirectly attached to. There we also find staff with the title (and probably the role) of ‘principal’ or ‘senior specialist’.
Returning now to the Central Committee nomenklatura proper, we possess a breakdown by field of activity. The most important contingent was that of party and Komsomol officials: 10,533, or 24.6 per cent of the list. Next came industry with 8,808 posts, or 20.5 per cent; general administrative agencies with 4,082, or 9.5 per cent; defence with 3,954, or 9.2 per cent; culture, the arts and sciences with 2,305, or 5.4 per cent; transport with 1,842, or 4.4 per cent; agriculture with 1,548, or 3.6 per cent; state security and public order with 1,331, or 3.1 per cent; the prosecution service and justice with 1,242, or 2.9 per cent; foreign affairs with 1,169, or 2.7 per cent; construction enterprises with 1,106, or 2.6 per cent; procurement and trade with 1,022, or 2.4 per cent; social services with 767, or 1.8 per cent; trade unions and cooperatives with 763, or 1.8 per cent; state planning, registration and control with 575, or 1.3 per cent; and financial and credit institutions with 406, or 1 per cent.
Analysis of the professional profile of officials included on the list in mid-1946 reveals that 14,778 posts were held by engineers with different specialities. The fact that many of the rest had a lower educational profile was compensated for, or so it was claimed, by length of service. Seventy per cent of those who possessed only primary education had more than ten years’ experience in leadership roles. This figure conduces to rather less optimistic conclusions. In total, 55.7 per cent of central nomenklatura cadres had more than ten years of service; 32.6 per cent had between six and ten years; 39.2 between two and five years; 17.25 per cent between one and two years; and 22.1 per cent less than a year. The nomenklatura also contained 1,400 office-holders who were not party members (3.5 per cent of the total). And last but not least, 66.7 of positions were held by Russians, 11.3 per cent by Ukrainians, 5.4 per cent by Jews, etc. (the ‘etc.’ occurs in the document itself).