1. PARTY ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITY IN SARATOV AIRFRAME PLANT NO. 292 (PLANT MANPOWER) 2. LOCAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITY 3. COMMENTS ON CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, BERIYA S ARREST, DECENTRALIZATION, AND EDUCATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T00246A047000040001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 29
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 20, 1959
• Content Type: REPORT

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r4.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title
18, U.S.C. Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
COUNTRY USSR (Sarat
ov Oblast)
SUBJECT 1. Party Organization and Activity in DATE DISTR. 20 February 1959
Saratov Airframe Plant No 0 292 yam?-k /Kay ~O
2. Local Government Organization and NO. PAGES 2
Activity
3. Comments on Classified Documents, REFERENCES
Beriya's Arrest,. Decentralization,
DATE OF and Education
INFO.
PLACE &
DATE ACQ.
SOURCE EVALUATIONS ARE DEFINITIVE. APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
report concerning local Party and government organization and
activity in the Saratov area, as well as ~comments on classified
documents, decentralization, Beriya's arrest, and Khrushchev's education
reform,
2, The highlights of the report are as follows:
25X1
25X1
A. Since the beginning of 1955 the increase in Party membership at the
Saratov Airframe Plant No, 292 was confined exclusively to manual workers.
This development reflected a deliberate policy of increasing the proportion
of manual workers in the Party.
B. The leading Party officials in the Saratov Airframe Plant No. 292 we:re
technicians --- the first and second Party secretaries were engineers ---
who were pressed into Party careers but who preferred to return to their
technical specialities, There was a distinct trend toward filling the
leading posts in the Party leadership, at least below the oblast committee
level, with technicians skilled in industrial practice rather than in
Party administration,
Co Two categories of classified documents were available 25X1
(1) the documents under the plant
administration which concerned productio~c, plans, and operations; and 25X1
(2) the classified Party documents, The first category was kept in a
special office in the plant known as the "first section" (pervyy otdel)
and was available only to specially cleared personnel in the plant. Party
documents were kept in the office of the Party Committee and those in
STATE X ARMY X INAVY x lAIR FBI AEC c' ~r
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C-ONF=I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
7-2-
concerned Party administrative records,
g., dues
payments, membership lists., future activities. 25X1
had temporary custody of important Party documents, such as Khrushchev's
speech on Stalin.
25X1
D. Among the important classified Party documents as an article
by Khrushchev published in early 1957 on the problems.of industrial organization
and administration. This article was apparently a forerunner of Khrushchev's
published "theses" on the reorganization of industry.
25X1
former Soviet MVD chief,
avren iy Beriya, had placed five MVD divisions around Moscow in 1953 in
preparation for a coup. Beri a's scheme was disrupted by the head of the
Leningrad Military District LA.A. Luchinskiil who refused to support Beriya
and instead informed Marshal Georgiy Zhukov about Beriya's plans. According
to this story, Beriya's appeal to the Leningrad commander and the latter's
report to Zhukov took place on the same date as the performance at the Bolshoy
Theater which was attended by all the Party leaders except Beriya. 25X1
reform was an oversupply of technical personnel in the USSR.
the Saratov Airframe Plant
no. 292 was beginning to experience difficulties in absorbing new engineers,
25X1
many of whom had:to?be,assigned-jobs. as: welders or.i.machinists.
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T=I-A-L
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1. The Party Organization in the Saratov Aircraft Factory -
Of the approximately 20,000 workers at the Saratov Aircraft Fact-
ory, about 3,000 were Party members and about 3,000 were members
of the Komsomol. At any given time there were, in recent years,
approximately 100 candidates for Party membership in addition. 25X1
in recent years the number of candidates for
Party membership had not varied greatly, although there had been
an increase in Party membership beginning in 1955. This increase
was confined exclusively to manual workers in factory 25X1
and represented a deliberate attempt on the part of the Party
leadership to increase the percentage of manual workers in the 25X1
Party. there were 700 workers in all* of wiiich
approximately 50 were Party members. The Party Bureau of the 25X1
shop consisted of five members
Party organization was subordinate to the factory comm-
ittee of the Party, which was headed by the Party Secretary for 25X1
the factory organization, who was a full-time Party worker.
This Secretary's two deputies were also full-time Party workers
and their office was assigned a stenographer. These four people
were the only full-time Party employees in the factory.
2. Regular Propaganda and Agitation Activities in the
Saratov Aircraft Factory - Regular propaganda and agitation
r N-1
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N L01 G d~' L ATIACHMENTI
activities consisted of a brief talk on selected agitation themes 25X1
by the foreman (mayster) of each brigade in the shop at the begin-
ning of the working day. Such talks were called "five-minuters"
(pyatiminutki). whey usually lasted from 10 to 15 minutes. The
subjects for any given day were selected as follows. Each month
the Party Bureau for the shop, in coordination with the factory
committee, prepared a list of standard topics for agitation to be
used in the coming month. Such a list included the anniversaries
of significant events in Soviet and world history, Soviet and
Communist holidays (such as the October Revolution, International
Women's Day and May Day), themes reflecting current internal Soviet
policies (such as the reorganization of administration in industry,
the increase in agricultural productivity, etc.) and selected inter-
national themes (good news and progress from the Communist Bloc,
crises and evil plots from the West, successes of national liber-
ation movements in Asia and Africa). The list of such themes, which
the Party Bureau prepared, also included references to pertinent
sources for the foreman to read before the sessions began. In
addition to the themes prescribed on the list, themes of local,
factory and shop importance, such as especially good or especially
bad production records, etc., were also used. Also, events, part-
cularly world crises' affecting the interests of the Soviet Union,
were subjects of agitation at the times when concern over these
questions was greatest.
The foremen were not required to follow a rigid schedule each
month in their agitation themes, although they did have to cover
major topics and an appropriate selection of minor ones as well.
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l b s :6R ~ a A1TA H ENT
At the end of each month, each foreman submitted
a list of the subjects he had covered
25X1
in the month. This agitation was conducted by the foremen whether
they were or were not Party members, although the majority of them
were. Party members and particularly the more active Party organ-
izers (Partorgy) played a special role in these agitation sessions 25X1
too. There were, of course, frequent occasions when specif-
ically designated the agitation theme or themes for a given day, as
for example during the Suez crisis. There were also occasions on 25X1
which the factory committee informed particular themes to be
stressed. But, in general, indoctrination in the conduct of agita-
tion was so intensive, the general themes so emphatically emphasized
by the Soviet press and radio, the source material so carefully
tailored by those Party and Government organs charged with producing
it, that close supervision of the agitational activities on lower
levels did not have to be maintained by higher ones.
Basic source materials used for agitation and propaganda ses-
sions, such as those described above, included the Agitators Comp-
anion (Sputnik Agitatora), the lecture pamphlets put out by the
All-Union Society for the Distribution of Scientific and Political
Knowledge, the newspapers, and the magazines published by the Party.
the Agitators' Companion is published for each 25X1
oblast' by the Party Oblast Committee. It contains a great deal
of material for agitation on local themes, such as the development
of local industry, the progress of local agriculture, the plans
for increasing local housing, etc. It includes, as well, material
C /per//~~l~/p a \~1J
~ w' /' F P U ~ ~~ ~
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ATTACHMENT TO
on which to base other agitation sessions of an all-union or int
national nature.
In addition to the daily "five-minuters", special meetings are
called to reinforce major propaganda and agitation themes when
appropriate. Such meetings, for example, were called for the Suez
crisis (though not for the Hungarian crisis) and also at the time df
the introduction of the Sovnarkhoz system of administration in Sov-
iet industry. Literary and cultural themes, including all those
discussions taking place in and around the Saratov Aircraft Factory
on the questions of the literature of dissent in 1956 and 1957 were
held in the factory club sessions for which attendance was not com-
pulsory
3. Organization of Mass Meetings
Mass meeting to stimulate popular enthusiasm for the policies 25X1
of the Party and the government are held on orders of the factory
committee which presumably received them from the Regional Committee
of the Party. Meetings of this sort were held to protest
attack on the Suez and on other similar occasions to protest
the actions of "the imperialist camp". Such meetings are also held
to indoctrinate the workers on major changes in government policy,
for example,.on the reorganization of industrial administration into
the current Sovnarkhoz system. In the meetings organized on the 25X1
Suez crisis, was
told by the Factory Committee that there was going to be a mass
meeting on the subject and speakers for the meeting should be sel- 25X1
ected a meeting of the members of the bureau
of
organization to discuss possible speakers and also checked
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NU12 TIAL 5
with the foremen of the brigades in the shop.
is never difficult to get speakers for such occasions because there
are always those among the workers who like to get up and talk
whether they have any convictions about the subject under discussion
Participation in meetings of this sort is also
,a good way of getting oneself well-known among the members of the
party hierarchy and the factory administration as well.
These meetings are usually of approximately 15 minutes in
25X1
duration and may take place before, during or after the working
day. Usually they take place before the working day because the
Party can then insure a greater attendance.
workers may have made arrangements to do other things immediately
after work and it was easier to get them to come in a few minutes
early to attend a meeting, few of the workers having planned to
do anything other than eat breakfast prior to the working day.
Whenever a proposal is made at such a meeting that the workers
donate a portion of their wages to some worthy cause, as was done
in the Suez crisis, this proposal is always made by a non-party
worker. One of the secretaries of one of the factory party org-
anizations would arrange this by getting aside one of the non-
party workers who enjoyed appearing in such festivities and
suggesting to him that he make such a proposal. Such proposals
for donations of working time to support a cause of this sort
were then immediately seconded by other workers primed for their
duties in the meeting and then adopted by a voice vote of all 25X1
the workers there. although the demonstration
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was rigged there was not any real resentment among the mass o
the workers against such proposals. This was so because in many
cases the donation was returned to the workers rather than being
spent for the cause for which it had been designated. The pro-
posal would be that the workers work overtime a half-hour or an
hour in addition to: the regular working day and donate their
overtime pay.
In that case, in approximately one month
after the time had been donated, the extra pay for the overtime
25X1
hour was returned to the workers. the amount
of money collected in a nation-wide campaign of that sort was in
fact far in excess of the amount of money that could be sent out
of the Soviet Union without placing an undue strain on its for-
eign currency reserves.
The same type of overtime work is also performed on occasion
by a unit of the factory or perhaps by all the workers of the 25X1
factory when there is some common goal they wish to achieve. For
example, they wanted to buy instruments for an
orchestra and were able to buy them all by working overtime. 25X1
the factory management almost invariably wel-
comes volunteer overtime of this sort because it increases the
production record of the.factory above the planned norms.
4. Types of People Within the Party Apparatus - The First
Secretary of the Party Committee in the Saratov Aircraft Factory
Was an aviation engineer who had been the deputy to the chief
engineer previous to his election to the position of Party Sec-
retary. The Second Secretary was also an engineer who had worked
CONFIDENTIAL
MTI A I ATTIPHI4r,I*
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__ "11116 ATTACHmENI To
for 15 years in the factory. The Third Secretary was an adminis-
trator who had previously worked in the special security section
and in the personnel section of the factory.
25X1
the officials of the party in organizations at this level and
below were almost always professional men or workers who took on
party assignments for awhile. Many technicians were pressed into
a party career on this level rather against their will. Most of
them frequently expressed the desire to get back into "real work".
They found that they could not keep up with their professions
when they were involved in the red tape, the personnel problems
and the endless round of meetings which were the daily affair of
the Party Secretary. They looked upon service for a time as a
party secretary as a strategicly good move in their careers, but
usually planned to continue within their professions after their
term as party secretary was up.
it is of great
importance for these secretaries of the organization in a large
factory to be experts in the operations of the factory because
so many questions in which the Party plays a decisive role. are of
a more or less technical nature and a person not professionally
trained in engineering would not be able to perform the 4ob pro-
perly. previous to the time when the aviation 25X1
engineer became First Secretary, the First Secretary had been,.a
chemical engineer sent to the factory for the purpose of serving
as Party Secretary. This man had not been able to do the job in
view of his ignorance of the aviation industry and had been replaced
by the aviation engineer. The chemical engineer was then sent
as Party Secretary to a chemical factory in some other area.
25X1
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this man was probably making a career of J 25X1
serving in party positions, but added that nevertheless he was
25X1
a trained chemical engineer. most of the
members of the Central Committee who exerted strong influence
in the affairs of the Soviet Union were those who had made their
careers within the Party almost exclusively.
25X1
at this time it is more and more difficult for a career- 25X1
ist to rise very high within the Party chain of command unless
he is also capable, experienced, and well-trained in some other
field of activity. There is a strong trend at this point to have
the posts of Party Secretaries, at least below the regional
committee level, manned by technicians skilled in industrial
practice rather than in party administration.
5. Regular Meetings and Proceedures Within the Party Organ-
ization - The shop Party Organization met at least once and usually
twice each month. At least once a month
had a formal session with the Factory Committee
of the Party. At appropriate times, particularly in preparation
for Party Congresses and elections, there were also mass meetings
of all the Party members in the factory.
6. Elections to Party Positions - Elections to Party posi-
e-n
d arby reports
tions are held at regular intervals and are als an
from the incumbent secretaries on the work of the organization
during their incumbency. On the level of the Primary Party
25X1
Organization,) (there was in his experience
little influence exerted by the higher echelons of the party to
control the nomination of candidates.
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CHMEIT
the Party Organization in the Saratov Aircraft Factory was
25X1
a particularly "liberal" one and secondly, by adding that the
criteria for a man elected to a Party position were so well
understood by all Party members that the chances of their making
an error in nominations was very small.
7! X1
those elected had to be approved by the higher echelons
after their elections.
25X1
In the Primary Party Organization, a list of seven mominees
for the Bureau of the Organization is drawn up in an open meeting
of all the members of the Organization. Certain informal
discussions precee this meeting and, although there was no
single slate of candidates proposed, certain understandings
were reached among influential members of the Organization about
whom to nominate. After what was often a very lively discussion,
the seven nominees were approved by an open vote. After this
the members of the Organization voted by secret ballot for five
of the seven. The five receiving the highest number of votes
were then designated as the new Bureau of the Organization, pro-
vided, of course, that they met with the approval of the 25X1
Factory Committee. open discussion among the
members of the organization was positively encouraged by the
members of the Factory Party Committee and that no one not gen-
erally acceptable to the membership would be elected.
After the election of the Bureau, its five members meet in
private to discuss the assignment of jobs among them.
(0NA U' NT I I
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7. The Election For the First Secretary of the Factory
Party Organization - All members of the Party attached to the
Factory Organization had a general meeting. The Secretary of
the Committee read his report of the activities of the Organ-
ization during his incumbency and then members of the Organ-
ization delivered speeches from the floor either in praise or
condemnation of the Organization's activities during that per-
there was a considerable amount of
criticism and self-criticism involved in these meetings. U
the degree to which this was calculatedly 25X1
inspired by orders from on high and the degree to which it was
genuinely spontaneous.
both types of criticism 25X1
existed, however. Then nominations were opened for the twenty
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members of the Factory Party Committee. In this election only as
many nominees as there were positions on the Committee were pro-
posed in contrast to the seven nominees for five positions in the
Primary Organization.
would be withdrawn and another substituted in his place.
was open criticism of some nominees and that occasionally a nominee
25X1
although the nom-
inating process was obviously arranged from on high, that there 25X1
sometimes these sessions become quite stormy if the Party 25X1
the nominees for the Factory Committee were generally selected by
the Regional Party Committee and that, ultimately, the persons
selected to serve on the Factory Committee were approved by the
places on the committee.
membership as a-whole objects to certain of the nominees. After
the question of who was to be nominated had been settled, the
twenty nominees-J?re voted for and elected to fill the twenty 25X1
too strong a line in criticizing the incumbents of the Party
Central Committee in Moscow.
wIhen asked to comment on the fate of Party members who took
Committee or the nominees in such a meeting,
there were usually no consequences for the critic.
criticism that was too harsh or that seemed to have a 25X1
deviationist line did usually lead to an investigation. 25X1
one case of a member of the Party who had criticized the
25X1
Regional Committee as a party placing itself too far above the
masses-and not being really the representative of the workers.
This case was investigated and it turned out that 25X1
CONE DE UN's T`."AL
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the critic was a man who had formerly run :S coopers i
and had been a manual worker for only a few months himself be-
fore making the criticism. This particular person was eventually
excluded from the Party and convicted of theft.
the conviction for theft was not a frame-up.
8. The Division of Duties Between the Secretaries to the
The First becretary was in general charge of the Organization,
represented it in dealings with higher Party organs and supervised
the activities of the Party members among the workers in addition
to concerning himself with the over-all problems of the operation
of the plant. The Second Secretary acted as the deputy to the
First Secretary, without restricting himself to a particular
field of activity. The Third Secretary was in charge of all cor-
respondence, maintained the committee's files, including the clas-
sified files, and in general over-saw the administration of the
Factory Committee Vyere as Follows:
Party Organization.
9. Recommendations for Party Membership. - In writing a
recommendation for Party membership, the Party member writing
the recommendation must have known the person he is recommending
personally for at least one year prior to the date of writing
the recommendation. That is, a member.of the party writing the
recommendation must have been in approximately daily contact
with the person he is recommending for one year before and upon
the day he writes the recommendation. A recommender is supposed
to write a recommendation based exclusively on his personal
Co .
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knowledge, and is not considered responsible for making a bad 25X1
recommendation in case it turns out that the person he recommended
had something bad on his record beyond the immediate personal
knowledge of the recommender.
a
The autobiography submitted byyParty membership candidate
Inot as a routine matter checked out 25X1
with other Party organizations. Each biography, however, is
scrutinized by the members of the Bureau of the Organization to
which he is applying and by higher authorities within the imm-
ediate area and only in those cases in which there appears to be
something unusual or contradictory in the man's past is an invest-
igation of the man conducted.
the app-
licant's father had died under circumstances that appear odd; for
instance, if the exact date of death, the cause of death, the
locality of death were not perfectly clear. In such a case invest-
igation might be made to verify that the father was in fact dead
and that he did die in the mar=er described by the applicant
instead, (as might also be the case) of the applicant's father
being convicted under article 58 of the criminal code orb oth
wise undesirable &' the antecedent of a Party member.
an applicant for Party membership who
lied on his application forms was not punished for that act.F-
the deed would be noted in the records of th
Party, and presumably elsewhere.
25X1
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ATTACHMENT
10. Lylections to Local Soviets. -
A. Selection of Candidates:
detail the election campaign in which a woman worker
was selected as a deputy to the City Soviet.
the Factory Committee that a nomination
discussed in
25X1
by
would be
there was somebody appropriately
the members of the Komsomol Bureau and the shop
steward from the trade union and a couple of ?-mmediate subord-
25X1
inates. This group of perhaps twelve or fifteen people discussed
the prospects and qualification of the potential candidates among
the workers They finally settled on a young woman 25X1
worker who had a good production record, had lived in the area
for a long time and was consequently well known to many citizens,
who seemed to take a lively and enthusiastic interest in local
affairs and who was politically and morally above reproach. Having
thus agreed on this girl among themselves, they then had a general
shop meeting with all the workers to get their candidate formally
backed by their Party Organization and by their trade union organ-
ization. In the course of this meeting there were tentative nom-
inations of other workers, which were informally turned down, and
the result of the meeting was that the girl was unanimously nomin- 25X1
ated by the shop organizations as a candidate in the election.
there was a good deal of apathy involved in the whole busi-
ness and indicating that in its own peculiar way it was really
j '4
CONFIDENT
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ATTACHMMENT
sections of the factory able to get "nominee backed 25X1
After
a good deal of negotiation with the Party Secretaries from other
by the factory as a whole. After this the whole matter got settled
nominee was officially designated as the candidate. The
25X1
formal meetings in which this was done were all conducted with
open voting by the members of the appropriate Party and trade union
25X1
organizations involved there was
a good deal of open discussion about the merits of various nominees,
the final vote was considered unanimous..
become a candidate, was of course unopposed in the election.
11. The Elections to the Supreme Soviet. -
the Primary Party Organizations
As candidates by the Party fteeionel Committee.
do back certain nominees in the hope that they will be designated
LZDAI
the decision to select a candidate for the Supreme Soviet
was certainly not made on a level below that of the Regional 25X1
rnmmi++AA what degree the
roving candidates selected by the Regional Committee.
Oblast Committee or the Central Committee in Moscow, went in app-
CONH DENTIAL
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vote for the candidate selected and of using the election campaign
for further general propaganda and agitation purposes.
CUNIIDENTI~A$I, ATTAC5MEjT l6
role in such campaigns was exclusively that of getting out the
Llection Processes and Procedures. -
The other members of this commission consisted of the
Secretary of the Komsomol Organization, the Chairman of the Shop
Trade Union Organization, and the head of the shop. The Party
Secretary, the Chairman of the Trade Union Organization, and the
head of the shop are the three indispensable members on the voting
commission, although the Secretary of the Komsomol is almost 25X1
always also included. E the "triangle" of the
head of the shop, the Party Secretary and the Chairman of the
Trade Union Organization, as a matter of course always were in
charge of all matters of importance related to the shop. The
commission sat at a table outside the room in which the voting
was to take place and checked the name as given on the passport
of each voter against the roster of residents in the election dis-
trict. Having verified that a given citizen was authorized to
vote, they then issued a ballot (byuletin) with the names of the
candidate or candidates (depending upon whether elections were
being held for more than one office or not) to the voter. The
voters then (r oceded into another room in which there were three
curtained-off booths and beyond them urns in which the completed
ballots were to be placed. Beside each urn there was, in addition,
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each of the three curtained booths there stood a girl member of
the Komsomol w1io automatically pulled aside the curtain of any
ATTACHMENT 17
a table at which a voter could n.ar k his ballot openly. Beside
empty booth for each incoming voter.
the maj-
ority of the voters used the secret booths rather than placing
their ballots directly in the urn or gong to the open table to 25X1
mark them. Votinguts accomplished by crossing out the name on the
ballot if one intended to vote against the candidate or unmarked
if the candidates approved by the voter. 25X1
there was no pressure on the voters to put their ballots in the
urns directly without stopping off in the curtained bootris. ^
while some of the leading Party functionaries and act- 25X1
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ivists dm~put their ballots directly in the urns, others mage a
point of going to the booths as a sign that going to the booth kMs
proper for all citizens. 25X1
13. The Purposes of Soviet Elections. - why
the voters were never given a choice between two candidates in any
Soviet elections.
having two candidates in the elections in the United States was
soemthing of a waste of time because the policies applied by 25X1
members of both major parties in the Unites States were identical.
point in having more than one.
candidate selected would be very similar in his qualifications,
25X1
background and attitudes to any other candidate and there was no
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NTI ATTACHMENT
18
Soviets bothered to have elections at all,
25X1
the elections were useful to
the regime as an indication of popular discontent, especially with
the First Secretaries of the Regional Party Committees. The First
Secretaries of the Regional Party Committees.t3ere considered to be
the men on the spot, fully responsible for the success of an ele-
ction campaign as well as all other goings on in their areas. A
bad showing in an election campaigns a good sign that all 4s not
25X1
going smoothly in the region.
14. The Election of People's Judges - The selection of can-
-didates for the position of a people's judge (Narodnyy Sud')
as Party Secretary for the shop organization, was informed
at-who the candidate might be and,
ions to the man,
who the candidate would be
any particular object-
Upon being informed 0 25
1 the usual procedure in
stimulating mass participation for the .selection.
in general high-level positions were designated in the upper 25X1
echelons of the Party, but that these nominations were cleared 25X1
with persons
and the other members of the arty
to insure that there was no information on the
candidates of which those making the selection were ignorant. In
this manner, the nomination system was used to avoid designating
an inappropriate candidate.
15. Qualifications for Deputies to Local and Other Soviets -
25X1
when a local party organization is asked to propose
rid"NT
Ur -W
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CONFIDENTIAL - Arr~ce~E~r 19
nominees for such nposi on e erson; specified by sex,
25X1
age, type of work, education, etc.p)aLB spelled out to the people
whowere going to look for a candidate. The object of the exercise
is to produce a group of deputies which allegedly represent an
appropriate cross-section of society including, for example, a
certain number of older manual workers, an appropriate sprinkling
of bright young girls and the right number of scientists and 25X1
intellectuals, etc. the decision on what
type of candidate would be proposed from which party organization
was decided by the Regional Committee or members thereof.
16. Methods of Getting the Vote Out in Soviet Elections. -
During the election, the election committee checked the list of those
who hall voted against the list of persons resident in the election
on, mem-
district to discover who had not voted. As the day 0 tht
bers of local party organizations, the Komsomol' or members of the
election commission check(~at the houses in which these people lived
to see what haj prevented them from voting. Usually when a person
ols found at home heWA s willing to come down to the poles and vote.
In some cases, the voterw&s urged to vote and held up to public
ridicule as well by having the members of the election commission
bring the urn in which the votes'iere to be placed and a blank
ballot to the home of the voter who had not voted. This ostentat-
ious dispasy0is usually effective in getting anybody to vote. 25X1
a citizen who refused
to vote would not, however, be punished for not doing it.
course ittgas obligatory for a _party arty member to vote.)
i
(O MDrNTIAL
(Of
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. ?~ ocet.i`Y r ~nL MOMENT
17. Classified Documents - There were two types of classified
25X1
documents available) I First, there were the documents
ification were indicated by serial numbers beginning with one zero,
under the control of the plant administration, pertaining to its
production, plans and operations, and secondly, there were the
classified Party documents. Concerning the first category, these
documents were kept in a special office in the plant known as the
first section (Pervyy Otdel'). The varying, degrees of classifi-
cation were indicated both by labels stamped on the documents and
by serial numbers. the three degrees of class-
two zeros or three zeros in an ascending order of sensitivity.
very secret (Bovershenno Sekretno)
the labels stamped on the documents as including
the higher classification might have been
the phrase for official use only (dlya sluzhebnogo 25X1
polzovaniya) as one only in the armed services.
bring it back to-,their own p~aces of work, use it during working
hours and return it before the end of the working day to the first
These cleared employees could go to the section, sign out a document,
The documents kept in the first section were available only to
factory employees who had been specially cleared (zasekrecnenyy).
IN t 11) L N4 Vu. I
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Party Organization
ments were also held in a small safe assigned to the Bureau of the
the office of the Party Committee in the factory and certain docu- 25X1
and technical data on the products. Party documents were held in
AIT qMENT
The documents held in the first section were 25X1
devoted to plant matters and included all the documents on over-all
plant production, the procurement of raw materials, production plans
These included records of dues pay-
important party documents,
party activities, etc. None of them were of significant importance. 25X1
ments, a list of the members of the organization, plans for future
such as KHRUSHCHEV's speech about STALIN,
had to
return these immediately after reading to the office of the Factory
Party Committee.
KHRUSHCHEV speech, other documents published by the Central Committee
of the Party on a class
l- D
included an 25X1
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' GG
article by KHRUSHCHEV published in early 1957 on the problems of
industrial management and organization. This document was appar-
ently a forerunner to KHRUSHCHEV's overt proposal for the reorgan-
ization of industry and commented on many of the shortcomings 25X1
that he cited later in overt speeches.~
the Arrest of BERIYA. -
18.
BERIYA had planned to arrest the other members of the Party Pres-
idium in the weeks leading up to his own arrest. BERIYA had
placed five MVD divisions around Moscow in preparation for his
and was, at the time of his arrest, engaged in making final prepar-
ations to take over control of the USSR. He erred, however, in
calling the officer in charge of the Leningrad Military District
and trying to get support from him for the coup. This officer,
instead of supporting BERIYA, however, immediately informed 25X1
grad and the general's report to ZHUKOV took place during a coup. BERIYA at the time was staying in his dacha outside of Moscow
ZHUKOV of BERIYA's plans and ZHUKOV was able to place loyal Army
divisions between Moscow and the MVD troops that BERIYA had stat-
ioned around the city. As soon as this was done an armored force
proceded to BERIYA's dacha, overwhelmed the NIVD guards and arrested
BERIYA. BERIYA's appeal to the general in Lenin-
per-
formance at the Bolshoi Theatre, which was attended by all of the
leaders of the Party with the exception of BERIYA. BERIYA had
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^ ^ ^ MM L. ^ ^ I D. Ma I a /R a r] 1
ATTACHMENT
After BERIYA was arrested there was a wholesale firing o UD
25X1
tains its militarized troop
officers. Saratov was full of ex-MVD officers
looking for jobs in the early Fall of 1953. The MVD still main-
MVD troops are now subordinate, however, to the Commander of the
Military District in which they are located, as well as to the MVD,
in contrast to the direct and exclusive subordination to the head-
quarters of the MVD in the BERIYA era.
19. Reaction of the Soviet Population to the Devaluation of
Savings Bonds. - The order of the Soviet Government's withholding
any further interest payments on Soviet savings bonds and abro-
gating the right of cashing them in when due for another twenty 25X1
years was promulgated
the impact of this order was, of course, dis-
sum of money in bands. The general impact was
siderable
heartening to all holders of bonds. The younger workers, however,25X1
did not mind so much as the older ones who had accumulated a con-
not so great as might have been expected, however, because
the average Soviet citizen reckons his total income only in terms
of the money few, if any, had
ever counted on really using the accumulated savings in their 25X1
bonds. The general attitude toward this savings bond program
had been that it was another form of income tax and most people 25X1
were not overwhelmingly surprised when it turned out to be precisely
that. Before the bonds were abrogated, it was ppssible to sell a
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illegal transaction, but one in which many people indulged, parti-
cularly when they were in need of ready cash. The only legal way
to sell bonds was to sell them through the State Savings Banks 25X1
tNWW IAA ATTACHMENT
one-hundred ruble bond for ten or rubles. This was an
in the Soviet press, prior to the devaluation of the bonds, there
had been reports of certain scandals in bond purchase in which
individual citizens had managed to buy millions of rubles worth of
bonds at approximately a tenth of their face value and so increase
the size of their bond holdings that they won the State loteries
based on bond serial numbers quite often. In these cases the
frequency with which a given person won the loteries attracted the
attention of the Ministry of Finance which investigated the case
and then discovered the holder was in possession of enormously large
sums of bonds. Such a deed was apparently considered a criminal 25X1
act and the bonds in the possession of a person of this sort were
course, for bonds at face value was non-existent,
where they were offered for sale at face value. The demand, of
confiscated) Ithe individuals themselves were
imprisoned.
the Reorganization of Administra-25X1
tion in Soviet Industry. - the
explanation overtly stated in the Soviet press and the subject of
so much discussion in the Soviet Union, to wit, that the ministeries
represented an overcentralization of control in Moscow and that it
20.
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25
-
had proved to be an inefficient and unnecessarily bureaucratic wa
CONFIDENTIAL
in addition to
this there has been the problem of Party control as well.
of getting things done.
arrangement made local Party control much more effective.
the Party on the oblast and regional levels particularly,
not been able to exert control over major industry and the new
had 25X1
types of people manning key 25X1
posts in the Party by saying that, as a prelude to the reorganization
of administration in industry and continuing on to the present, there
has been very great pressure on technical men in the Party's ranks_
to assume posts of Party responsibility. a third obser-
vation on the reasons for the decentralization program as well.
25X1
strategic planning in the
light of the impact of atomic attack might well have had something
to do with it too. by dividing the Soviet 25X1
Union up.'.into economic regions, each of which was supposed to be as
self-sufficient as possible within the bounds of economic effic-
iency, that the Soviet Union had initiated a trend toward local
industrial self-sufficiency which would allow industries in regions
unharmed by atomic attack to continue to function even thougn the 25X1
formerly supplied to them by Leningrad.
under the ministerial system all of the factories have one ministry
regardless of their geographical locations supplied each other with
certain materials. This meant that were a factory in Leningrad
to be destroyed, plants in many other cities belonging to the
same ministry would be unable to function due to lack of material
industry in other regions had been destroyed.
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given region would still be able to function even though the pro-25X1
duction in other regions had been knocked out due to the emphasis
to a significant degree ri of the industry-
of the over-all plan when this problem was pointed out
i'TACHMENT
the other side of the 25X1
problem, which has been so greatly stressed recently in the Sov-
iet press, of excessive local self-sufficiency to the detriment 25X1
the Soviet leaders had
the military strategic situation in mind when they reorganized
KHRUSHCHEV's projected reforms in the Soviet educational system
and shown the article in Komsomolskaya Pravada of 21 August 1958.
Soviet industry.
21. Education in the Soviet Union. -
to be disturbed by the trend, apparent in the 25X1
article, in Soviet education to limit the education of most Soviet
citizens and to concentrate on the acquisition of manual skills
in the education available. why this reform is 25X1
being instituted is as follows. The Soviet Union some years before
it was beginning to suffer from an excess of technical 25X1
this problem particularly among the
engineering disciplines) lin the Saratov Aircraft Factory.
Until 5 or 6 years ago there was a greater demand for engineers
than the institutes were able to, supply and each engineer upon
graduation from the institute had a position of responsibility to
look forward to. In recent years, however, the Saratov Aircraft
Factory has had considerable difficulty in absorbing new engineers
and giving them jobs that ep u1 to the level of the technical
25X1
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education they had received. In recent years new engineers were
assigned to ordinary worker's jobs, working as welders or machinists,
etc. The $ngineers didn't like to be assigned to such jobs very-,,,
much, I (they accepted the situation with
reasonably good grace. This was particularly true, in view of the
fact that an able worker could approach the salary of an engineer 25X1
if he exerted himself. In some instances it was also possible for
the young engineers to earn more as a worker than they might have
earned as engineers.
uation that education was now being more rigidly controlled to 25X1
reduce the number of new graduates in the engineering faculties
the problems
of employment of persons with higher education in disciplines out-
side of the technical fields.) la considerable
25X1
disappointment that the previous plan to give all Soviet citizens
a ten year education had been abandoned and thought that this would
be a very unwelcome move to almost all Soviet citizens today.
Although not prepared to condemn the new move entirely without
more information available than that in the article in the newspaper,
this represented a significant curtail-
ment in the opportunities available to Soviet youth.
CO
N 6 ODE T!AL
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