COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP IN THE USSR - ARE THERE HISTORIC PARALLELS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01446R000100020012-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 27, 1998
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: April 11, 1956
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2001Lialle-irrLITA-RDP80-01446R000100020012-2
1.3. April 1956
F ? Director Central Intell
SUBJ/ ? Collective ,Leaderehip in the USSR Are there Historic
eL
?
1. Our frame of reference is a collective leadership in peace time
end without the stress of major crises. The present Soviet collective
lesderthip operates, in fact, under politically and economically favorable
cirtumstance*.
2. We believe that there is no historic parallel to the present
Soviet experiment. It is entirely possible that the Soviet leaders are
about to develop a new form of "dictatorship by cammittee", giving them
the adventage of appearing to be quasi-democratic.
3. la the past, there have been instances of dictatorship by
ameittee? but only in actual periods of revolution and crisis. Outstand-
ing examples of such terroristic committees are Cromwell's "Protectorate";
Robespierre's Committee for Public Safety and the Leninist period of
War Communism". Perhaps the committee of three, set up by Chiang Kti-
thek upon the death of Sun Yet Sen, lasting from 1925 to 1928, might be
mentioned here. during- that period the Chinese revolution vas consolidated,
and the struggle for power was initiated. In each of the above instances,
the governing committees were formed as the result of emergency. Councils
in sue lent Greece and Rune are not pertinent examples since political,
social and economic conditions differed vastly from our own. Nor can
governments in medieval city republics - such as Venice - be compared with
*at we call collective leadership, since the leader, the Doge, was an
authoritarian executive elected by a collegium of hereditary aristocracy.
4. There is no such emergenay in the USSR today. But under the
terroristic dictatorship of Stalin the Soviet leaders have learned their
lesson. Almost certainly none of them is inclined to suffer another
Stalin-like era again. This is presumably the case, particularly among
the1122211peviks vbo had the most intimate access to Stalin. The younger
leaders VKbave not been quite as much exposed to the old dictator's
whims may have a less deeply ingrained reaction.
5. When we speak of collective leadership, we mean a committee of
a very few men, probably not more than five or six. The larger the
membership, the greater the likelihood that fractionalization may occur,
dividing the committee into antagonistic groups. Such developments are,
of course, possible also among a few men, but in the case of the Soviet
lomderv, the psychological impact of the Stalin terror probably acts as
a preventive. The question is, then, what will happen after the old
Bolsheviks have retired or died? It is doubtful that the younger genera-
tion, now in their fifties, will continue to accept a collective leadership
vithout a struggle for personal power.
t
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6. Xt is believed that the present collective 3ederhip will
last for a period which may correspond to the tenure of the old Bolsheviks
noV in the Presidium. This may continue for at least four or five years,
barring major upheavals in the international field. There is an outside
shone? that this form of committee government in peacetime may contribute
to nore "demoeratie" forms of rule. There is also a slight chance that
the period of collective leadership may be prolonged into an era of a
sew Communist oligarchy, led by a pries ieterpres. It is more probable,
however, that, as the old Bolsheviks frade ou -and the younger men replace
them, a struggle for power will again begin, ending in dictatorship, in
the traditional Russian fashion.
25X1A9a
Chief, SSfDDI
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