THE NEW SOVIET CONSTITUTION AND THE PARTY-STATE ISSUE IN CPSU POLITICS, 1956-1966

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP03-02194R000200570001-0
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• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 113
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 30, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 21, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

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21 July 1966
RSS No. 0015/66
Copy No. -1
%J U
INTELLIGENCE STUDY
THE NEW SOVIET CONSTITUTION
AND THE PARTY-STATE ISSUE
IN CPSU POLITICS, 1956-1966
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
Research Staff
SEER FT
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THE NEW SOVIET CONSTITUTION AND THE
PARTY-STATE ISSUE IN CPSU POLITICS,
1956-1966
This working paper of the DDI/Research Staff examines
the ten year dispute, which continues, within the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) over the question of the
correct role for the Communist party in the modern Russian
state. It examines the intense party-state dispute--which
is reflected in the efforts to adopt a new Soviet Consti-
tution--primarily through positions taken in the party
and juridical media.
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Although not coordinated with other offices, the
paper has benefited much from the author's discussions 25X1
with colleagues in OCI, ONE, ORR FDD and BR. In particu-
lar, the author would like to thank
formerly of RPD, for 25X1
their suggestions. The author a one, however, is respon-
sible for the conclusions of the paper. The DDI/RS would
welcome further comment on the paper, addressed to 0 25X1
he Chief or Deputy Chief of the staff
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THE NEW SOVIET CONSTITUTION AND THE
PARTY-STATE ISSUE IN CPSU POLITICS,
1956-1966
Summary... ......................................... iii
ONE: ELEMENTS IN THE DEBATE ON THE CONSTITUTION ...... 1
The Institutional Problem In CPSU Politics......2
The Form Of The Institutional Debate ............ 6
TWO: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL-
INSTITUTIONAL DEBATE ..........................11
Opening Moves On Institutional Reform .......... 12
21st Congress And The Council of Ministers'
Diminished Role ...............................17
Khrushchev And The Jurists On The Withering
Thesis ........................................23
22nd Congress And The Party's Traditional
Role ..........................................35
The "Production Principle" And The
Constitution ..................................42
Intervention of the Presidium opposition ....... 52
New Leaders And Old Problems ...................65
23rd Congress And The Supreme Soviet's
Expanded Role .................................81
The "Brezhnev Constitution" ....................90
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THE NEW SOVIET CONSTITUTION AND THE
PARTY-STATE ISSUE IN CPSU POLITICS,
1956-1966
Conclusions
The long-standing effort within the USSR to promul-
gate a new constitution reflects the dispute within the
CPSU over the question of the correct role for the Com-
munist party in a modern, industrialized Soviet Union,
Unlike the display of Stalinist solidarity which
surrounded the promulgation in 1936 of the existing Soviet
Constitution, the effort to write a new basic law emerges
against a background of major theoretical and juridical
disputes over basic institutional questions.
The main issue at stake was--and remains in the
post-Khrushchev period--the question of the future and
function of the principal party and state organizations.
Under Khrushchev's direction, the project for draft-
ing a new constitution was part of a larger plan to trans-
form the party into an institution that would absorb func-
tions traditionally performed by the ministerial apparatus
of the state. The institutional transformation sought
by Khrushchev appears to have been aimed at enabling him
to surmount bureaucratic hinderances to the exercise of
personal power which have accompanied the post-Stalin
slackening of political discipline in the CPSU.
For diverse reasons, the leading members in the party
presidium (the party's highest policy-making body, recently
renamed "politburo") and the secretariat (the party's high-
est executive body) who were involved in the dispute on
the constitution rejected Khrushchev's efforts to construct
a production-oriented party, to enhance his personal power
position, and to push his particular domestic programs.
Suslov, the party's leading theoretician and the one who
led the opposition to Khrushchev's Constitution, argued
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for the preservation of the traditional role of the CPSU
as the ideological and political monitor of a separate
state apparatus concerned with the routine functions of
running the country. Suslov thus upheld the viability
of the existing state ministerial system as a part of his
argument for the preservation of the party as a political
organization. In effect, he argued that Khrushchev was
pressing for the destruction of the true identity of the
party. Ponomarev, a leading officer of Khrushchev's con-
stitutional commission, seconded Suslov's opposition.
Kosygin, the party's leading economic manager, supported
the existing ministerial system as a part of his argument
for technical expertise in running the complicated economic
life of the country. The late Kozlov, the early heir ap-
parent during the constitutional debate, appeared to balk
at Khrushchev's institutional efforts to strengthen his
power position. Brezhnev, the subsequent heir apparent,
may also have objected to Khrushchev's institutional
schemes. Nevertheless, Brezhnev, like senior party offi-
cial Mikoyan, had strongly seconded Khrushchev's project
for a new constitution and referred to the project in the
context of praising Khrushchev's concept of a production-
oriented party.
While Khrushchev's successors initially soft-pedalled
the idea of constitutional reform, the current party leader,
Brezhnev, recently revived the project of a new constitu-
tion. And certain less controversial facets of the old
question of a practical role for the party have once again
been raised by the new constitutional commission chairman,
Brezhnev, in the context of a new basic law. Thus, it
is possible that the Brezhnev Constitution conceals an
effort to sanction juridically less contentious party-
state policies such as a "working party", primarily at
the rank and file level, and a strengthened Supreme Soviet
(the formal law-making parliament) in its relations with
the Council of Ministers (the formal executive body).
The latter policy suggestion has been endorsed by Podgorny,
the current chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet,
and his protege Shelest, the party leader of the Ukraine.
Kosygin, the current chairman of the presidium of the Council
of Ministers, and one of his first deputy chairmen, Mazurov,
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have so far remained silent on the Brezhnev-Podgorny pro-
posals to strengthen the Supreme Soviet. Kosygin and
Mazurov have emphasized the need for an improved state
apparatus in running the complex affairs of contemporary
Russia.
So far the issues in the current constitutional
debate have been of a far more limited scope than those
raised by Khrushchev's highly controversial approach to
the institutional issue. Accordingly the current consti-
tutional dialogue is silent on the themes that were promi-
nent under Khrushchev; namely, explicit subordination of
ideological tasks to economic tasks in overall party work,
the formula on the "withering away" of the state apparatus,
the assumption of state tasks by the party organization,
and other "social" organizations.
Khrushchev's conspicuous failure to alter funda-
mentally the major governing bureaucracies in the USSR
combined with the strengthened influence of the Suslov-
led party traditionalists in the current political en-
vironment within the CPSU makes it likely that at this
stage the project of the new constitution tentatively
scheduled for completion next year will not result in
any basic institutional transformations within the system.
As yet no leader, including Brezhnev whose strength has
steadily increased, either seems powerful enough or ready
to force through major changes. The best any leader might
hope for, it would seem, would be to introduce formula-
tions in the new constitution which he could use to justify
political programs now only in embryo.
Summary
Part one of the paper briefly examines the content
and form of the post-Stalin debate over the institutional
roles of the party and state.
Part two of the paper reconstructs the developnient'of
the controversy, and the development of the pos itioins -of the
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current Soviet leadership, It concludes with an examina-
tion of the contrasting constitutional positions within
the current Kremlin command. To summarize the chronological
development, eight time periods in the constitutional
debate are singled out:
The first period, 1956-1959, involves the develop-
ment of Khrushchev's constitutional position. In this
period, Khrushchev (1) revived the "withering away of the
state" thesis that had been buried by Stalin, (2) made
clear his controversial position that the withering thesis
meant that responsibilities of the state apparatus would
in fact be diminished, (3) held that the existing state
apparatus would not remain under "communism," (4) stressed
that state functions would be transferred to "social organi-
zations," such as the party, the soviets, trade unions,
(5) placed party work on a production-oriented, rather
than on its traditional ideologically-oriented basis, and
(6) implicitly argued that the party organization, the
"highest form of social organization," would later substi-
tute for or merge with the ministerial and soviet organi-.
z at ions .
In 1959-1961, various political and judicial spokes-
men exposed their opposition to Khrushchev's constitutional
scheme. The opposition was led by presidium member Suslov
who supported a strong state apparatus ("even after the
realization of communism"') to strengthen his case for the
preservation of the party as an ideologically-oriented
organization. Leading Soviet jurists entered the debate
in this period and presented their contrasting briefs on
the project for a new basic law.
By the 1961 Party Congress, the debate appears to
have undercut Khrushchev's institutional views. He was
unable to gain party sanction for the priority of practical
work in the new party program which gave the usual priority
to the political-ideological over economic tasks in party
activities.
Despite this setback, Khrushchev in 1962 moved
ahead with the project to draft a new constitution and
toward the end of the year gained formal adoption of his
reorganization of the party "production principle."
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The reaction that followed the October 1962 Cuba
missile debacle constitutes the fifth round in the debate
on the constitution. During this period, Khrushchev's
decentralization policy, an important part in his "wither-
ing thesis," suffered setbacks and the project of the con-
stitution showed no sign of progress. The statements
of Kosygin, Brezhnev and the late Kozlov manifested dif-
ferences of view on the project.
Despite signs of high-level disagreements, Khrushchev
in mid-1964 renewed his efforts to move forward on the
constitution. Indications of resistance to his plans
were suggested in the public handling of his mid-July-con-
stitution speech which appeared to qualify his comments
by noting that he made only "preliminary observations"--
while two years earlier he had "defined" the main tasks
of the new constitution. In addition, the role of the
state apparatus was highlighted in the Soviet media in
the period following the mid-July constitution commission
meeting, secretariat member Ponomarev presented a Suslov-
stvle theoretical defense of the state system
Within a year after Khrushchev's overthrow, his
major institutional changes were abolished: first his
1962 restructuring the party on a production basis and
later 1957 decentralization of the state ministries were
fully revoked. The party withdrew. to its sphere of
political-ideological leadership, the state apparatus re-
gained its prerogatives as the economic manager within
the system. Suslov took his usual part as the protector
of the ideologically-oriented party, leaving mundane tasks
to state institutions. Brezhnev initially endorsed this
line, but as time went on--and as pressures for hard deci-
sions mounted--he gave increasing emphasis to the neces-
sity of the party's involvement in the economic sphere.
He was, however, cautious not to associate himself directly
with the discredited Khrushchevian formulations on the
production-oriented party. In defense of the prerogatives
of the state, Kosygin sought to mark out the realm of
economic-industrial management as his quasi-autonomous
jurisdiction. With Podgorny's shift to the chairmanship
of the Supreme Soviet another dimension to the institutional
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rivalry entered the pictures the movement aimed at expand-
ing the powers of the Supreme Soviet in its relations with
Kosygin's Council of Ministers was pressed. Brezhnev's
endorsement of parliamentary reforms to put teeth into
the Supreme Soviet seemed directed not so much toward
boosting Podgorny (over whom he had gained the advantage)
but rather as another way of diminishing Kosygin's state
apparatus. Suslov, while apparently not objecting to
the expansion of the Supreme Soviet's role, continued to
concentrate on the concept of the ideological party.
As these cleavages developed, the project for writ-
ing a new constitution once more grew in political signi-
ficance. And Brezhnev's 10 June 1966 announcement that
a new Soviet Constitution would "crown the majestic half-
century course of our country"--1967--may well engender
the eighth round in the debate. This possibility is strength-
ened by the fact that (1) Brezhnev surrounded his refer-
ence to the new basic law with references reminiscent of
some of his predecessor's party-state concepts and (2)
the members of the new Kremlin oligarchy presented dis-
similar views on the respective roles of the patty, the
soviets, and the state apparatus and their interrelation-
ship. In sum, Brezhnev's move on the project is likely
to sharpen the internal conflict over the institutional
issue as various elements seek to incorporate their posi-
tions into the-regime's basic law.
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ONE: ELEMENTS IN THE DEBATE ON THE CONSTITUTION
During the momentary political vacuum in the lead-
ership produced by Stalin's death (5 March 1953) a highly
unusual joint session of the CPSU Central Committee, the
USSR Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the USSR
Supreme Soviet was convened in order to undertake the
first actions of the post-Stalin regime. For a brief
moment the three bodies representing the party, the state
ministerial bureaucracy, and the parliament were depicted
as co-equals. While the Supreme Soviet presidium was
soon relegated to its usual ceremonial functions in Soviet
politics, the cleavage between the party and state ap-
paratus has figured prominently in contemporary Soviet
politics. It reverberated in the Khrushchev-Malenkov
struggle in the 1953-55 period and the charge raised against
Malenkov following his defeat that he attempted to put the
state over the party--whether his ultimate intention or
not--gave expression to an underlying issue. Ironically,
as Khrushchev's policy from 1956 on cut increasingly deeper
into the prerogatives Of the state apparatus he became
subject to the reverse charge and after his fall he was
denounced for attempting to involve the party in functions
traditionally exercised by the state.
In the post-Khrushchev leadership, institutional
issues are once more enmeshed in leadership politics.
At present the Supreme Soviet apparatus enters into the
political equation since the top posts of the party, the
state apparatus and the Supreme Soviet are divided between
three powerful figures in their own right--Brezhnev, Kosy-
gin and Podgorny. While Brezhnev is clearly in the strong-
est, and Podgorny in the weakest strategic-position in terms
of factional politics, this circumstance is more likely
to exacerbate rather than simplify any attempt at a rational
reordering of the Soviet institutional structure.
In brief, since the passing of Stalin's system of
personal absolutism, institutional issues have been an
ever-present and increasingly important dimension of Soviet
leadership politics. These issues under Khrushchev and
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more recently in the Brezhnev-Sosygin-Podgorny leader-
ship have been mirrored in a continuing discussion and
debate within the regime over the interpretation and ap-
plication to contemporary Russia of doctrines feceived
from Lenin and Stalin on the party and state.
Part one first briefly discusses the broad political
context of the institutional issue and secondly sets forth
in summary the basic doctrinal elements of the debate over
the organization of the Russian polity.
Since its founding the Soviet regime has suffered
from basic defects in its internal constitution.* Both
the relationships within the ruling group and between the
major political structures of the regime have been ill-
defined and established channels or regularized methods
for containing and resolving political conflicts have
been almost wholly absent.
These defects of the Soviet "constitution" have
been variously manifested since 1917 perhaps most con-
spicuously in the absence of any arrangement for the trans-
fer of power from one leadership to another. The trans-
fer of power has been and remains an irregular and un-
predictable proceeding fraught with dangers for the ruling
*Throughout most o this paper the term constitution
is used in its generic sense--that is, the overall ns i-
tutional structure and political practice of the Soviet
polity. The paper also discusses the effort in the post-
Stalin regime to draft a new written constitution to
supersede the 1936 Stalin Constitution, but the context
will make it clear when reference is being made to the
constitutional document.
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party institution itself. The "succession" crises however
are rooted in the perennial conditions of Soviet politics.
The authority and powers of a prime leader have never been
stAblized in clear-cut institutional terms and have been
vulnerable both to the eccentricities of factional politics
and the shifting balances of institutional forces within
the regime. At the same time the institutional struc-
tures of the party and state rather than providing a stable
environment for the resolution of political conflicts
have served as counters in power struggles among factions
of the leadership.
Under Lenin and Stalin the problem of rationaliz-
ing and stabilizing both political authority and the in-
ner-politics of the regime remained submerged. Largely
through his prestige as the author of Bolshevik victory
in 1917 and the force of his personality, Lenin dominated
and gave unity to the new Soviet regime. Though of a
radically different political character than Lenin, Stalin
also created a personalist regime. The dictatorial sway
he imposed is often called a system of "institutionalized"
terror and, indeed, from the standpoint of the society
subjected to the terror this was precisely true. However,
in terms of inner-regime politics the terror prevented
institutional factors from gaining autonomous political
force and thus affecting the personal power of the supreme
leader.
With the erosion of Stalin's system of terror after
his death, institutional factors began to gain in import-
ance in Soviet politics. Khrushchev's leadership itself
reflected the change. While he strove in his own way to
lead in the personalist tradition of Lenin and Stalin,
he devoted more and more energy after 1956 to the effort
both to institutionalize his position and reshape the
institutional structure of the regime. (In way of con-
trast, Stalin, especially in the last half of his rule,
displayed little interest, if not contempt, for the ques-
tion of his institutional status. Molotov occupied the
premiership in the heyday of Stalin's dictatorial powers
and even Stalin's title of General Secretary of the party
fell into disuse.) Khrushchev, for example, engaged in
a sustained but not notably successful effort to establish
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himself formally as the "head" of the party presidium,
a body which is formally based on the concept of "col-
lectivity" and the political equality of its members,*
He sought to overcome the potential for conflict in the
regime resulting from the division of executive authority
between the party and state by taking over the premiership
in addition to the post of First Secretary, He evidently
regarded or came to regard his straddling act as only an
interim solution. In the last two years of his incumbency,
for example, Khrushchev sought to underscore his executive
supremacy over party and state by chairing a series of
joint presidium-Council of Ministers meetings. Khrushchev's
concern with his formal position also was echoed in char-
acterizations of Khrushchev by some military figures as
the "Supreme High Commander" of the armed forces--a title
similar to the title held by the U.S. President under the
Constitution. Reports at the time of Khrushchev's fall
that he was attempting to set up a new executive arrange-
ment designed to separate himself from his presidium col-
leagues seem at least credible in view of his previous
moves.
Khrushchev's awareness of the constitutional prob-
lem was not narrowly limited to securing his personal
position. As has been noted he was concurrently engaged
in a broad effort to reconstitute the overall institu-
tional structure of the regime. His 1962 reform of the
party was part of a long-term effort at once aimed at
assuring the institutional supremacy of the party in the
Soviet system and at reshaping the role of the party in
contemporary Soviet society. From the standpoint of the
*Khrushchevvs own concept of the internal organization
of a party bureau was reflected in his creation at the
20th Congress of the Central Committee Bureau for the
RSFSR. In contrast to the concept of a collective of
equals, the new bureau contained a hierarchy of ranks
(chairman, first deputy chairman and so forth) modelled
after the Council of Ministers. Khrushchev?s RSFSR
Bureau was abolished after his falls
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traditional separation of party and state functions Khru-
shchev was moving in a radical direction. Under his
prospectus of the "transition to communism" the state ap-
paratus would be reduced and its functions gradually ab-
sorbed by the party which would increasingly involved it-
self in the management of the economy. Khrushchev's
project for institutional reform aroused powerful opposi-
tion both in the party and state apparatus and it fell
with him.
As a result the institutional problems Khrushchev
sought to resolve have been posed anew in the post-Khru-
shchev leadership. In fact, in this second decade of the
post-Stalin period, the institutional anomalies of party
and state remain essentially unchanged. The regime formally
still has no less than three executive posts--the party
secretary, the Premier and the Supreme Soviet chairman
heading the respective hierarchies of the party and state
ministerial apparatus and the Supreme Soviet parliament.
Strictly speaking the party has no genuine executive
official, rather it is led by a "collective" organ of
political equals (politburo, formerly presidium). By'
contrast the arrangement of authority and official respon-
sibility is far more clearly defined and rationally organized
in the state ministerial apparatus and the Supreme Soviet
structure. Unlike the party organs, each has its defined
order of ranks and subordination.
In addition, the principles of coexistence between
the party and the institutions of the state continue to
be surrounded by ambiguities. In form, the apparatus
of the state remains as a separate order of political
power. Indeed, party dominance within the regime has to
date been complete, but the party leadership has always
had to compete with the latent but real danger that these
institutions provide potential frameworks for alternatives
to party rule. This consideration has increased in import-
ance in the post-Stalin period. No longer is the "mono-
lithic" unity of the internal regime enforced by an all-
powerful or dictatorial personality. Nor is the internal
discipline within the leading group as tight as it once
was. Further with the passing of Khrushchev the insti-
tutions of party and state once more become entangled in
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the struggle for leadership among his successors. Under
such circumstances the institutional dualisms of the
regime can have a disintegrativereffect. While the party
has succeeded in keeping the system more or less unitary
in practice the diversity of institutional forms has
affected the pattern of post-Stalin Soviet politics.
THE FORM OF THE INSTITUTIONAL DEBATE
While post-Stalin Soviet politics has been subjected
to extensive examination and analysis, one body of evid-
ence bearing on the institutional dimensions of leader-
ship politics--especially the party-state issue--has been
given, at most, only passing attention. This evidence
consists of the extensive debate in recent years in party
and juridical literature (and leaders' statements as well)
on the future of the party and state apparatuses in the
"transition to communism." While 1e discussion has been
conducted in elaborate and abstruse doctrinal terms, it
has echoed trends and conflicts within the leading group
over the institutional issue.
Much of the debate has revolved around the Marxist-
Leninist notion of the withering away of the state under
communism. The "withering thesis" was, and remains,
closely tied in with Soviet constitutional theory.* The
constitutional role of the state apparatus under Stalin's
reign was predicated on Lenin's doctrine in his 1917
State And Revolution that the USSR would pass through a
"transit onal s age' called "socialism"--a stage in which
the role of the state organizations (for example, the
secret police) would expand rather than wither away.
*The futurism of oviet constitutional law contrasts
with Western constitutional law, which is founded on
past or existing political institutions
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Under Stalin, the party became, in practice, one of several
institutions of governance. The constitutional role of
the state apparatus under Khrushchev's plan, however,
was predicated on Lenin's further assertion in the same
work on a subsequent transition to the "higher stage" of
"communism" during which time the state was supposed to
"wither away." Khrushchev held that the functions of
the state bureaucratic organization would be transferred
to "social" organizations--such as the party, "the highest
form of social organization"--as the Soviet Union progressed
toward the "higher stage." Those resisting Khrushchev's
purposes (including, in particular, Suslov) drew on other
elements of doctrine or reinterpreted doctrines on the
state in favor of more conservative positions in elaborate
arguments dealing with two key questions.*
One argument dealt with a strictly functional ques-
tion: what would the role of the party and the ministries
be during the period of the withering away of the state?
The Khrushchev school stressed that during this period
the party's "main task" was constructing the "material-
technical foundations for communism." The Suslov group
stressed that such activity was limited to the "main
economic task"of the party, that is, a job subordinate
to the party's traditional ideological and political
"guidance." The former school, in a step-by-step construc-
tion of its position, argued that the state functions
should be transferred to social organizations during the
*Part two examines the presentations of the legal
advocates of the Khrushchev school (principally jurists
P. S. Romashkin, F. Burlatsky, M. Mnatsakanyan, M. Akhmedov
and A. Nedavny), and the past and present opponents
(principally jurists G. Shakhnazarov, M. Piskotin, B.
Mankovsky, V. Chkhikvadze, V. Kotok, and D. Chesnokov).
The penultimate section of part two examines the presenta-
tions of the advocates of the Brezhnev-Podgorny proposals
for greater soviet control over the ministerial apparatus
(jurists A. Makhnenko, V. Vasilyev, M. Binder, M. Shafir
and O. Kutafyin).
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withering-away period. Included in this definition of
social organizations were the party, the soviets, trade
unions, young communist league, comrades' courts--virtually
all organizations other than the state bureaucracy. Un-
der Khrushchev's developed constitutional views, all
social organizations during the withering period would
converge into an all-embracing social organization--his
concept of the party of the future. The other school
sought to justify continuing reliance on the state
structure in the transition to communism. Their arguments,
in effect, opposed the notion of a convergence of party
and state and a concurrent diminution of the role of the
state apparatus. In this connection, they defended the
traditional--concept of the party as primarily a political-
ideological rather than managerial-administrative agency
of governance.
In this context, two CPSU party congresses--the
8th and the 18th--were used as juridical and theoretical
precedents for certain functional arguments of the two
opposing schools. The 8th Party Congress (18-23 March
1919) had resolved (1) that the soviets were state organs
and that the party ought to "guide" soviet activity but
not "replace" the soviet organization, and (2) that the
state system would dissolve "After being freed of its
class character'(ioe. after the attainment of "socialism")
The Khrushchev group stressed the second proposition of
the 8th Congress and, in effect, distorted the first in
tortuously arguing that the soviets (like the party) were
social organizations. The Suslov group concentrated on
the first resolution and deemphasized the second. The
18th Party Congress (10-21 March 1939) formally sanctioned
an earlier pronouncement by Stalin that "under communism
the state will remain until such time as the danger of
foreign aggression has vanished," The Suslov school,
emphasizing the need for a strong state apparatus (in-
cluding its coercive organs) in the face of the external
threat from "imperialism," lauded the 18th Congress' justi-
fication for strengthening the state on the eve of the
war with the "imperialists" (in this case Nazi Germany).
The Khrushchev school allowing that the 18th Congress
gave a necessary justification for maintenance of a
coercive apparatus against the external threat also
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stressed the theme that the internal need for the coer-
cive state was waning in the "transition tocommunism."
Also in the functional context, two doctrines on
the state--the traditional concept of the "dictatorship
of the. proletariat" and an innovation introduced at the
22nd Congress, the "state of the whole people"--figured
prominently in the arguments of the opposing schools.
Khrushchev interpreted the transition from the dictator-
ship of the proletariat to the state of the whole people
as a manifestation of the process of withering away of
the state and the assumption of state tasks by the party
and social organizations. The Suslov school resisted
this notion holding rather that the state of the whole
people doctrine meant an increased role for the state,
and the preservation of the party's traditional role in
the "transition to communism." Since Khrushchev's fall,
the concept of the state of the whole people has once
more apparently become the subject of controversy inside
the regime. The 23rd congress's complete silence on the
doctrine suggested the presence of strong pressures within
the leadership to shelve the concept. Brezhnev's intro-
duction of the notion of a "genuine people's state" after
the congress bore earmarks of an attempt to come up with
an alternative formula. Behind the Brezhnev move may be
the current issue produced by moves by some regime ele-
ments to strengthen the authority of the Supreme Soviet
vis-a-vis the Council of Ministers and the ministerial
apparatus as a whole.
A second argument was put in terms of time: when
would the state wither away? Khrushchev had a vested
interest in realizing "communism"--and thus his particular
view of the production-oriented party--as soon as possible.
Suslov and other opponents had,-.a vested interest in push-
ing back the realization of "communism" as an important
part of their case for the maintenance of the traditional
roles for the party and state. While both schools stated
that the process would be "gradual," the former took
pains to explain why it would take as much as two decades
to build communism. (The 20-year deadline was raised at
the 1961 party congress.) On the basis of the "deadline,"
this school adopted a line which emphasized the urgent
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necessity to commence, now, the withering away of the
state. The latter school went to some effort to posit
that communism would not be realized by 1981, and that
the state system at that time would be strengthened, not
withered. In the post-Khrushchev leadership, the ele-
ments opposing any hurrying of the advent of "communism"
in the USSR appear to have won the day at least for the
present. The ambitious goals of Khrushchev's economic
program which was to take the USSR to the very doorstep
of the communist society have been sharply scaled down
and the successor leadership has generally avoided any
explicit commitment to a target date when the "transi-
tion to communism" is ostensibly to be completed in the
USSR.
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TWO: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL-INSTITUTIONAL
DEBATE
With his sweeping industrial decentralization in
early 1957 Khrushchev forced the issue of the relation
of party and state to the center of post-Stalin politics.
His assault on the super-centralized state apparatus in-
herited from Stalin was the opening action in a running
battle over basic institutional issues in the Khrushchev
and post-Khrushchev regimes. The industrial reform which
aroused immediate resistance from the Molotov-Malenkov
opposition and others was among the major issues involved
in the challenge to Khrushchev's leadership in June 1957.
The reform initiated Khrushchev's effort to diminish the
role of the state apparatus and_-_insure the supremacy of
the party apparatus in post-Stalin Russia. The effort
registered Khrushchev's awareness that the perpetuation
of party hegemony within the Soviet system had increasingly
become an institutional problem. His drive, however,
stirred powerful forces opposed to major institutional
changes and not surprisingly his 1962 restructuring of
the party apparatus was a key event in the lead-up to his
overthrow in October 1964. On the:eve of his fall he was
pressing ahead with an effort to incorporate the insti-
tutional changes he had already effected and apparently
others he was planning into a new constitution replacing
the 1936 Stalin Constitution.
As Khrushchev developed his far-reaching program
to transform the regime's institutional structure he in-
creasingly sought to justify it in broad doctrinal terms.
He turned to various legal theorists to elaborate his
position. Some enthusiastically took up the task, others
were lukewarm and still others engaged in a disguised
effort to dilute and undermine the Khrushchevian formula-
tions. Juridical literature focusing on institutional
and constitutional matters became a mirror of the conflicts
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and cross-pressures that developed inside the regime under
the impact of Khrushchev's project.
The following section details the development of
the conflict, the reaction to what may be broadly char-
acterized as the "Khrushchev Constitution" for the con-
temporary USSR both before and after his fall, and finally
the reemergence of the institutional-constitutional con-
flict in somewhat altered terms among Khrushchev's succes-
sors,
Khrushchev's first major foray into the sphere of
industrial reform--the decentralization of the managerial
structure of the state apparatus in early 1957--was under-
taken in the midst of conflict in the Soviet leadership.
He launched his bold venture despite the strength-
ened position of his presidium opponents after the Hungarian
revolt. His 1956 Congress deStalinization policy was under
a cloud as a result of the revolt and he had been tempor-
arily forced to the defensive--particularly on the Stalin
issue--in the presidium. His decentralization project
in fact came on the heels of a major managerial reorgani-
zation in December 1956 that was not of his own making
and which was.:opposed in concept and design to his early
1957 industrial reform. The December 1956 reorganization
had enhanced the powers of the state apparatus through
the creation of a new centralized economic directorate
and super-planning agency, the Gosekonomkommissiya, headed
by Pervukin (a future member of the "anti-party" group).
The Khrushchev reform, by contrast, dismantled the central
ministerial apparatus seeking to shift major economic
responsibilities from the state to the party, especially
its territorial apparatus. Thus, the new local Councils
of the National Economy created by the Khrushchev reform
came under the purview of provincial party organizations.
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At the 1956 Congress, Khrushchev had stressed that
the party must increasingly involve itself in "problems
of practical economics" but he gave little hint that he
was contemplating a direct attack on the traditional
state structure. His industrial reform emerged with no
forewarning and bore the earmarks of a surprise move in
the central committee aimed at setting his opposition in
the presidium off balance. He did succeed in recouping
the initiative with the reform proposal but its introduc-
tion produced sharp conflict in the presidium and the
tenuousness of Khrushchev's position in the ensuring strug-
gle was revealed in June:1957 when he came precariously
close to being overthrown by his "anti-party" rivals.
Khrushchev's Decentralization Theses
Khrushchev introduced his reform plan at a central
committee plenum on 13-14 February 1957. The plan called
for a sweeping-decentralization of 'the administrative
structure of Soviet industry by setting up a network of
regional economic councils in the place of centralized
ministries. And on 29 March 1957 the central committee
released the famous Khrushchevian "theses" which clearly
identified the ministerial system as his target. The
"theses" proposed (1) that with the creation of regional
councils of national economy there would be no need to
have union and republican ministries to run industry and
construction, and (2) in apparent reference to Peruvkin's
Goskonomkommd.ssya, that the creation of new central organs
under the USSR Council of Ministers would mean "the preser-
vation of the old form of management only under a new
name but of an inferior type," A passage in Khrushchev's
"theses" charged that "some comrades" were in favor of
the latter scheme. After the June 1957 leadership crisis,
"comrades" Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov were identi-
fied as among the opponents of Khrushchev's plan. Soon
after the ouster of Marshal Zhukov in October 1957 from
his positions on the party presidium and the Ministry of
Defense even the ministries connected with the defense
industries were downgraded to state committees.
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With the diminution of the role of the ministries,
Khrushchev concurrently held out the prospect of the ex-
pansion of the role of the soviets. Thus, along with his
industrial reform decrees, the ministerial system was
also the target of an earlier Khrushchev-supported decree
of the party's: central committee entitled "on improving
the activity of the soviets of workers deputies and
strengthening their connections with the masses." The
decree, dated 22 January 1957, enabled the soviets to
assume legally functions residing in the state apparatus
(the ministries, or executive committees at local levels).
The decree also provided added sanction to a Khrushchev-
emphasized campaign which called for volunteers to assist,
if not assume, the work of the state employees in execut-
ing correctional, protective, medical, cultural, educa-
tional, and recreational functions.*
Khrushchev's Withering Thesis
With organization and political gains in hand, Khru-
shchev in his 6 November 1957 revolution anniversary
speech formally resurrected the "withering away of the
state" thesis which had been buried by Stalin and his
chief postwar state theoretician, D. Chesnokov.**
*According to the official Soviet statistics presented
in National Economy of the USSR, a 25 percent reduction
in the number of state administrative workers took place
between 1953 and 1957. This reduction coincided with the
post-Stalin emphasis given to the volunteers' campaign.
According to the same statistical source, a sharp increase
in the number of workers in the state apparatus during
Khrushchev's last year (some 46,000 workers were added to
the 1963 force) was sustained--almost doub~ed--during the
first year of the new leadership (some 86,000 additional
administrative workers were added in 1965).
**After losing his seat on the smaller March 1953 party
presidium (he had been elected a member of the expanded
presidium at the October 1952 party congress and selected
(footnote continued on page 15)
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That the withering thesis had been buried by Stalin
and Chesnokov had been made clear in the latter's 18 March
1953 Pravda citation that
on the basis of the balance of experience
of the Socialist State, J.V. Stalin for
the first time in the history of Marxism,
came to the striking conclusion on the
necessity of maintaining the State even
under Communism 'if, by that time, capital-
ist encirclement has not been liquidated,'
and he placed before us the task of 'strength-
ening in every way the power of the Social-
ist state.'
Earlier, at a 19 June 1951 lecture at the Department of
Economics and Law of the Academy of Sciences, Chesnokov
had made the traditionalists' case for the preeminent
role of the state in building communism. "Only a sound
Soviet socialist state is capable of ensuring the build-
ing of the material-technical basis of communism." And
like the 1936 Stalin Constitution, Chesnokov in 1951
lectured that the role of the party is that of the "guid-
ing nucleus of the state and other organizations of
Soviet society." (The CPSU "...is the leading core of
all organizations of the working people, both social and
state," Article 126.)
Khrushchev in his November 1957 speech set out to
reverse the bases of the Stalin-Chesnokov "non-withering"
thesis. Linking his 1957 decentralization drive to the
withering thesis, Khrushchev devised a three-part inter-
pretation of Lenin's vagary in State And Revolution (1917)
(footnote continued rom page 14)
by Stalin as a member of an elite 11-man commission to
revise the 1919 party program) Chesnokov lost his posi-
tion as editor of Kommunist in April 1953. In January
1955 in the wake o rushchev's public attack on Malenkov,
a Party Life article implicitly linked Chesnokov with the
pro-consumer views of the disgraced Malenkov.
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that the state would "wither away" under "communism."
First, Khrushchev held that "communism is no longer in
the distant future." Second, he stated that state func-
tions would be diminished during the movement toward com-
munism.* "The Marxist-Leninist teaching on the state and
its withering in proportion to the movement of society
toward complete communism is of enormous significance,"
he said. Third, he concluded that the state "will wither
away completely when the higher phase of communism sets
in." (Two other parts of Khrushchev's withering thesis
awaited--and in 1959 duly received--explicit formulation;
(1) that state functions would be transferred to social
organizations and (2) that the party, a "social organiza-
tion," would assume productive tasks--and thus become
*The process of e "withering away" of state court
functions was graphically demonstrated during this period.
In 1957-1958 a series of harsh "anti-parasite" laws were
promulgated by the several republics of the USSR. The
laws, ostensibly aimed at reforming "hooligans" and "work-
shirkers" among other such "parasites," were to be carried
out through a newly established network of tribunals called
"comrades' courts." The Khrushchev-endorsed tribunals,
somewhat similar to Stalin's "troikas" reportedly abolished
in 1953, were placed outside the jurisdiction of the regular
state-run criminal courts. And while the new party-run
comrades' courts were engaged in the sphere of criminal
law, they represented a judicial maneuver directly related
to the basis of Khrushchev's interpretation of Soviet con-
stitutional law--the "withering away" of the functions
of governmental bodies and the transfer of state tasks
to non-governmental, "social organizations" such as the
irregular tribunals. Khrushchev drew this conclusion in
his 21st Party Congress speech in January 1959. Paradoxic-
ally, the regression to Stalin's system of party-run
kangaroo courts and the subsequent "violations of social-
ist legality" that were reportedly handed down in the
comrades' courts tended to strengthen the appeal of Sus-
lov's conservative view of the state among several lead-
ing, liberal Soviet jurists. The views of the leading
lawyers on this question are examined presently.
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more than the "leading core" of the nation--and subordinate
all other tasks, such as ideological work, in the building
of communism. Party production tasks were equated with
party ideological work in Khrushchev's 14 February 1956
Party Congress report, but the latter work was not then
explicitly subordinated to the former. The final step
in Khrushchev's withering thesis--that the party would
then become the "all-embracing" or "multi-purpose" organi-
zation in modern Russia--crystalized in mid-1961.)
Following the basic guidelines set by Chesnokov
in the early 'fifties, the opposition to Khrushchev's party-
state scheme maintained contrary conclusions on Khrushchev's
withering thesis in an ensuing debate on the constitution.
The debate vigorously commenced at the next party congress.
THE 21st CONGRESS AND THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS' DIMINISHED
ROLE
Having occupied the highest party, government, and
military* posts, Khrushchev at the 21st Party Congress
told the delegates on 28 January 1959 that "some" revision
*Within a year a er the fall of Zhukov, Khrushchev
had established the "Higher Military Council" (sometimes
referred to as the Supreme Military Council or Main Mili-
tary Council by Soviet military spokesmen) with himself
as chairman. The Higher Military Council, which seemed
to bear some resemblance to the U.S. National Security
Council, consisted of key military and party personnel
who served as Khrushchev's personal advisory group on
matters relating to defense. Two or three years after
the creation of the Council, Khrushchev donned the title
of "Supreme High Commander"--a title which apparently
had been intended to indicate that Khrushchev's military
authority was comparable to the military powers expressly
granted in the U.S. Constitution to the President of the
(footnote continued on page 18)
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of the 193Q Constitution was in order. He did not cast
his remarks on the const itaition in an anti-Stalin context
as he did at the 20th Party Congress.
Rather, he announced at the 1959 Congress that constitu-
tional revision was necessitated by the fact, announced
earlier by him in his congress report, that the USSR was
entering upon the "higher stage" of history called "large-
scale construction of a communist society."
(footnote continued rom page 17)
United States- "The President shall be Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and the Navy..." Article II, Section 2. (For
a study on Khrushchev's role in military policy making
see CAESAR XXIV of 20 July 1964, "The Higher Military Coun-
cil of the USSR.")
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Khrushchev argued that the basic law of the land
ought to recognize the endeavor of building communism,
as well as all the theoretical and functional changes,
such as the expanded role of the party and "withering
away" of the state apparatus (whose highest body is the
Council of Ministers)-that he said entering the "higher
stage" embraced. He told the delegates to the 21st
Congress that
The Communist Party, as the highest form
of social organization, as the leading
detachment, the well-tried vanguard of the
nation, leads all the social organizations
of the working people.
Comrades, at present, when our country
is entering a new and most important
period of development, the need for in-
troducing some changes and additions to
the USSR Constitution has ripened. Since
the adoption of the constitutions over
20 years replete with events of world
historic significance have gone by.
Socialism has left the confines of one
country and has become a mighty world
system. Important changes have taken
place in the political and economic life
of the Soviet Union. The building of
a communist society has become a direct
practical task of the party and the people.
All these great changes in the domestic
life and in the international situation
should be reflected and set down legally
in the Soviet Union's Constitution, the
basic law of our state.
The Practical Party Corollary of the Withered State
Two principal constitutional changes, Khrushchev's
report further indicated, would be recognition of (1) the
transfer of state functions to "social organizations",
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which presumably included the CPSTJ ("the highest form
of social organization"), as well as the local soviets,
the trade unions, the comrades' courts, and (2) the
practical role of the party in "building communism."
The latter recognition meant the involvement of the party
in all national endeavors--economic and administrative
functions as well as the party's traditional ideological
and political tasks.
Khrushchev's report thus presented a clear insight
into his long-range goal of establishing, in this par-
ticular instance by constitutional amendment, a party that
would take the place of the state. Accordingly, the tradi-
tional state administrative:functions which were centered
in the Council of Ministers--the central government ap-
paratus which had been the base of power for Khrushchev's
recently defeated rivals, Malenkov and Bulganin--were given
little recognition in Khrushchev's congress report. He
said that state functions would be transferred to "volun-
tary, social organizations" during the process of the
withering away of the state into what Khrushchev called
and continued to call a "communist social, self-administra-
tion."
Khrushchev gave as examples of this "withering
away" the transfer of certain undefined aspects of cul-
tural services away from "government organizations,"
thus undercutting the Ministry of Culture, the transfer
of health services and resort facilities to the trade
unions and local soviets, thus undercutting state minis-
tries, and the strengthening of the newly formed comrades'
courts, and "people's militia," which had set up a paral-
lel and rival party-run system for the state militia and
court heirarchy.
That the withering thesis had a direct bearing on
the future of state coercive organizations (the state
militia and the state security bodies) was made even more
explicit by Khrushchev eight months after the congress.
But the rationale for such a connection was made in his
congress remarks on the changed role of the secret police.
While asserting at the congress that it would be "stupid
and criminal" to do away with the state militia and state
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security bodies due to "imperialist intrigues," he em-
phasized that the "spearhead" of such bodies "is primarily
posted against agents sent in by imperialist states" and
he emphatically reiterated that "at present we have no
people in prisons for political motives."
The Old Party-Old;. State Opposition
The Khrushchevian corollary that the withering
away of the state and the transfer of ministerial func-
tions to social organizations would be met by a parallel
rise of the functions of the party was promptly challenged
at the 21st Congress. The opposition was led by presidium
member and senior party theorist Suslov who, in his 30
January congress speech, ignored Khrushchev's appeal for
additions and amendments to the Stalin constitution as
he attempted to undercut the principal foundation of Khru-
shchev's constitutional thesis,*
Suslov argued that as the Soviet Union enters the
"higher stage" (1) the traditional role of the state ap-
paratus under the Council of Ministers would not be re-
duced and (2) the role of the party would remain in the
*The only high-level statement by a party official to
endorse Khrushchev's remarks on the need for changes and
additions to the Stalin ?Cbnstitution was made in a speech
attributed to then presidium member and chairman of the
Supreme Soviet presidium (the ceremonial "presidency")
Voroshilov. The speech was inserted in the official steno-
graphic record of the 21st Congress with the belated
explanation that it was not delivered at the congress due
to "illness" of the speaker. While the speaker report-
edly expressed that Khrushchev's constitutional plans
were "completely correct," Voroshilov did not elaborate
on the former's withering thesis. Voroshilov at the next
congress (1961) was listed, by Khrushchev, among the
members of the "anti-party group."
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ideological field. The state related functions of the
party, Suslov pointed out, were to "raise ideological work"
and "guide" the planned activity of the people.
Separatipg soviets from social organizations, Sus-
lov presented his functional and temporal argument that
"the increasing role of social organizations by no means
leads to a reduction of the role of the state or economic
organs or of the great role of the soviets during the
gradual transition from socialism to communism."* Suslov
followed his argument with a scathing remark about the
attempts of "Yugoslav" revisionists to depreciate the
importance of the state and state organs "and, thus,
ideologically to disarm the working class in the struggle
for the victory of socialism."
Khrushchev linked the party and local soviets with
social organizations. And in further contrast to Suslov's
argument, Khrushchev remarked that "the implementation
by public organs of severil functions which at the moment
belong to the state will broaden and strengthen the polti-
cal foundations of the socialist society and will lead
to the further development of socialist democracy." And
Khrushchev's remarks on the Yugoslav view of the withering
away of the state were not cast in a prejorative tone.
In.. fact he went out of his way to point out that "we do
not quarrel with Yugoslav leaders about the formation of
the workers councils or other questions of their internal
life." (The Yugoslav workers' councils seemed to bear
much in common with Khrushchev's notion of local level
voluntary social organizations.)
Finally, Suslov rounded out his case with a Stalin-
Chesnokov defense of the state organization, "The state
is preserved not only under socialism but also in certain
historical conditions under communism, when the capitalist
states and the capitalist camp are still preserved and,
*Emphasis supplied ere and elsewhere in this paper
unless otherwise noted.
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consequently,when the danger of the imperialist attack on
our country and other socialist countries is still not
eliminated." (The logical conclusion to Suslov's con-
servative state doctrine was made by constitutional
jurist B. Mankovsky, who in 1961 was identified as the
chairman of the committee of constitutional law of the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Mankovsky,
according to the Bulgarian legal journal Pravna Misul
of November-December 1965, claimed at a 107 -con rence
that "it is only with the victory of the world communist
system that the process of withering away of the state
and law begins.") Khrushchev rounded out his case with
a discussion of state functions, not organizations:
"under communism certain public functions will remain,
analogous to present state functions." (The logical con-
clusion o rushchev's state doctrine was made by the
head of the USSR Law Institute, P. Romashkin, whose views
are examined presently.)
Significantly, Suslov's emphasis on the continuing
role of the state apparatus found its way into the congress
resolution on Khrushchev's report. The resolution obscured
Khrushchev's opposing formulation. For example, it in-
cluded a passage dealing with the need to expand the
activity of the soviets, but did not broach the issue as
to whether the soviets were state or social organizations,
or both. The resolution's endorsement of the Khrushchev-
sponsored proposal for changes and additions to the con-
stitution followed.
Though he was unable to push through unimpaired
in the congress resolution his concept of the role of the
party in contemporary Russia, Khrushchev and certain
jurists proceeded to expand upon the implications of his
congress formulation on the withering away of the state.
As a way of trying to get around Suslov's opposition,
Khrushchev presented the major exposition of his thesis
on 24 February 1959 that all soviets were "social organi-
zations." However, the attorneys for the defense of the
old party and state were prompt to devise new arguments
in defense of the old system.
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The Working Party, The Strengthened Soviets, and "Other"
Social Organizations
Poetic utopianism combined with a forecast that
the advent of communism was close at hand was expressed
in Khrushchev's 24 February 1959 speech in the Kalinin
electoral district of Moscow.- "Communism is no longer
a remote dream but our near tomorrow." In the same speech
Khrushchev expanded upon his congress position by assert-
ing that "a number of functions of the bodies of the
state apparatus would be transferred to social organiza-
tions, including the soviets of workers deputies, which
are among the most mass-scale and authoritative ones."
Khrushchev had included, and then in passing, only local
soviets in his January 1959 Congress definition of social
organizations. In February 1959 he included the whole
soviet organization in his definition of social organiza-
tions.
Possibly for tactical reasons, Khrushchev went on
to voice only part of a line first made at the 8th Party
Congress held 18-23 March 191.9. He told the electors
that "the task of the party organizations is to assist
the soviets in their work, guide their activity, but not
to take their place or to take over their functions."
Significantly, Khrushchev steered clear of stating that
the party organizations would not take the place of state
organs--the main theme of the 8th Party Congress caveat
(which had expressly defined the soviets as state organs)
and a critical part of Suslov's January 1959 Congress de-
fense for the "purity" of Marxism-Leninism for the CPSU.
Khrushchev's post-congress formula on the nature
of the soviets was reiterated in a conference of the In-
stitute of Law of the Soviet Academy of Science held on
18 May 1959 which was devoted to the issue of constitutional
revision. The conference renewed Khrushchev's congress
view that the party was the highest form of social organi-
zation,and revived the question of the gradual transfer
of functions of the state apparatus to social organizations.
In addition, the conferees implicitly raised the sensitive
question of defining a new role of the party in the revised
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constitution. The conference report printed in Soviet
State and Law September 1959 recognized as "unsatisfactory"
the fact that the 1936 Stalin Constitution did not speci-
fically define the role of the CPSU but merely stated
that "the leading role of the Communist Party is the main
feature of a socialist state." The jurists at the con-
ference, however, did not go on to propose any major
changes.
Following the May conference, the questions of the
role of the party and the implications of the withering
thesis were given added attention in statements by Khru-
shchev. With regard to the non-ideological role of the
party, Khrushchev in his 29 June 1959 central committee
plenum speech rebutted a "comrade" who, Khrushchev said,
had inquired what had happened to "party work." Khru-
shchev indicated that the theoretical work of the party
would be relegated to second priority while the party
was engaged in the tasks of solving the economic problems
of the country. Khrushchev snapped
One of the comrades here sent me a note,
'Comrade Khrushchev, why is it that every-
one here speaks about industry and nobody
speaks about party work?' Dear comrade,
if a factory where you are engaged in
party work produces a faulty component
while you are at that time delivering a
lecture on the construction of communism
in our country, animation in the hall7
wouldn't it be mire useful if you were
engaged in organizing people for scientific
work of a higher standard? Party work
means everyone doing his job, knowing his
profession well, making good components,
and assembling good machines.
In his 17 October 1961 CPSU Congress report, Khrushchev
made explicit the proposition that ideological tasks were
subordinate to productive tasks in "party work."
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The Withering Campaign of 1959-1960
Popularizing the withering thesis, Khrushchev gave
particular emphasis to the transfer of state functions
to social organizations throughout the latter half of
1959 and early 1960. For one notable example, in a 21
September 1959 interview published in Pravda on 25 September
Khrushchev, in discussing the transfers governmental
functions to mass associations of workers, pointed toward
(1) the reduction in the personnel from the Ministry of
Defense, (2) reduction in the police personnel from the
Ministry of Public Order (MOOP) and (3) reduction in
personnel from the Ministry of State Security (KGB).
He then added that "more and more functions of maintaining
order and administering the state are being transferred
to the hands of social organizations." Later, in his
major troop and military budget cut speech at the Supreme
Soviet on 14 January 1960, Khrushchev provided more detail
on the withered Ministry of Defense of the future: "Look-
ing into the future one can predict that we can have mili-
tary units formed on the territorial principle. Their
personnel will be trained in military art in their spare
time while employed in production, when the need arises,
the necessary means of transport, aircraft, and other
military equipment will make it possible to concentrate
troops at the required place on our territory."
The Jurists' Contrasting Briefs
In 1960 certain judicial publicists undertook a
full scale effort to refine Khrushchev's new examples of
the withering away of the state ministries and the paral-
lel rise in importance and function of the party and
soviets. One of Khrushchev's most obedient constitutional
theorists, P. S. Romashkin the Director of the Institute
of State and Law of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in an
article in his institute's official journal Soviet State
And Law (October 1960) expanded upon the party-state views
presented in Khrushchev's January and February 1959 speeches.
First, Romashkin made it clear that the withering away
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of the state meant the withering away of the state bureau-
cracy. Citing a textbook entitled Fundamentals of Marx-
ism-Leninism,* he said that withering away of the state
mean
the gradual disappearance and dissolution
in society of that special stratum of
people who are constantly engage n
state administration and who form the
state proper. In other words, the
withering away of the state presupposes
a continuous reduction of and later the
complete liquidation of the state appara-
tus and the transfer of its functions to
society itself, that is, to social organi-
zations and to the entire population.
(Emphasis in. origijal)
Secondly, after having cited Khrushchev's 21 September
1959 remarks on the withering away of the armed forces
and the militia and the state security organs, Romashkin
proceeded to criticize a group of judicial publicists for
"not taking into account" the significance of Khrushchev's
24 February 1959 formulation on the nature of the soviet
organization.** The significance of Khrushchev's formula,
*This textbook was published in late 1959 under the
general editorship of presidium member Kuusinen. Like
the January 1959 congress resolution, Kuusinen's book
also contain's Suslov's 21st Congress formulation on the
preservation of the state apparatus. Romashkin did not
point this out.
**He did not mention names in scoring these "authors"
but he identified their work, The Foundations of the Theory
of State and Law, and a particular page W icz omitted e -
"signi cance of Khrushchev's Kalinin remarks. One "om-
mission" was made in a chapter written by F. Kalinichev,
a department head of the Higher Party School. While Kalini-
chev rectified his "error" by pointing out the alleged
dual nature of the soviets (i.e., both state and social
organizations) in a June 1961 Soviet State And Law article,
(footnote continued on page 28)
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analyzed Romashkin, was that "the soviets, being the elected
organs of state authority, at the very same time are organs
of social self-administration."
Romashkin then presented the major thesis of his
article. He proposed that the amended constitution should
include provisions for the transfer of functions of the
councils of ministers to the soviets,
the transfer of a number of functions of
the state apparatus to social organiza-
tions signifies a strengthening of the
role of the soviets and the execution by
the deputies of the soviets of certain
functions previously performed by the
employees of the state apparatus.
Carried to the logical conclusion, Romashkin's radical
suggestion pointed toward the assumption by the soviets
of genuine governmental powers.
Finally, after having again urged that Khrushchev's
24 February 1959 formulation on the soviets be incorporated
into the revised constitution, Romashkin broached the sen-
sitive issue of defining a new role for the party in the
constitution. And unlike the report of the timid 18 May
1959 jurists' conference, Romashkin hinted that a major
change ought to be proposed. (In February 1961, as pointed
out ahead, he bodly suggested that the functions of state
agencies should be transferred to the party). In his
(footnote continued -from page 27)
he nevertheless advocated a Suslov-like position at a
Higher Party School conference (discussed presently) in
February 1961. At that conference, Kalinichev argued
(1) that the party was only a "directing force," and (2)
that the soviets per se (and by implication other exist-
ing organizations, such as the party, the state bureau-
cracy) will continue under communism.
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October 1960 article Romashkin cryptically suggested that
the amended constitution recognize "the growing role of
the Communist Party in the life of the Soviet peop a and
state /Which7 is even more clearly expressed by the trans-
fer of-a number of functions of state agencies to public
organizations." (Emphasis in original) Romashkin went
on to suggest that the growing role of the party and its
development in the future "must be clearly and thoroughly
discussed perhaps in two or even three places in the Con-
stitution--in the general introductory part, in the chapter
on the USSR social system, and in the chapter on the basic
rights and obligations of citizens."
Romashkin's conclusions were particularly important
in light of the fact that he was the director of the in-
stitute which was reported in 1960 to be working out a
draft of a "new"--not merely amended--constitution for
Khrushchev.
That Romashkin's case was polemical is made clear
in comparison with a point-by-point refutation of Khru-
shchev's view of the withered ministries which appeared
in an article by Soviet jurist Shakhnazarov printed in
Political Self-Education (August, 1960). The jurist
cautiously adopted the Khrushchevian construction on the
transfer of state functions to public organizations and
the growth of the role of the party during the "transi-
tion period." But he emphatically concluded that the
party's role would remain in the traditional sphere of
"general guidance" rather than active participation in
the work of the state agencies.
in Soviet party and law schools
Shakhnazarov's article, which was widely circulated
was in fact a strong defense of the existing
state system. A three-part defense of what he called the
three categories of the state system--administrative,
judicial, and military--followed.
First, with regard to the defense ministries, the
jurist pointedly cited the conclusion reached at the 18th
Party Congress (10-21 March 1939) on the eve of World War
II which provided added theoretical justification for a
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highly organized state apparatus: "under communism the
state will remain until such time as danger of foreign
aggression has disappeared."* The only early congress
that Romashkin cited in his October article was the 9th
Party Congress in 1919, at the end of World War I, which
he said foresaw the trend of the transfer of state organs
to public organizations. Thus it was not surprising
that Shakhnazarov, unlike Romashkin, ignored Khrushchev's
September 1959 remarks on the withered defense organiza-
tion.
Secondly, in defense of the police and judicial
ministries, Shakhnazarov constrasted the professionalism
of the state militia and the state courts with the
amateurishness of the Khrushchev-sponsored comrades'
Courts and peoples' militia. And he appeared to appeal
for some ministerial control of the irregular tribunals
in pointing out what he called "serious mistakes" when
the people's squads and comrades' courts acted without
close contact with the corresponding state ministries.
(Romashkin chose to ignore this issue.) The mistakes,
wrote Shakhnazarov, were "due to poor knowledge of Soviet
*The Party Congress was handled quite differently
by the jurists who supported Khrushchev's constitutional
scheme. For example, jurist F. Burlatsky, whose support
for Khrushbhev's views is discussed later in this paper,
stated that "if one makes a careful study of Stalin's
pronouncements on the question of the state, and especially
at the Eighteenth Congress of the CPSU, it will not be
hard to note that he clearly had one definite political
aim--to find theoretical substantiation for intensifying
the methods of coercion in the period of the transition
to communism, to justify the practice of mass repressions
and the gross violation of socialist legality." (World
Marxist Review, July 1963).
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law and prove that extensive training should therefore
be given all those who participate in voluntary organiza-
tions for the maintenance of order."*
Finally, in defense of the administrative ministries
(the state bureaucracy), the jurist veiled his argument
by discussing only the role of the soviets, which he was
willing to regard as both state and social organizations
in a countermove to try to get around Khrushchev's propo-
sals.(That is, he adopted Khrushchev's terminology but
retained Suslov's conclusions.) Shakhnazarov asserted
that "only an insignificant number of the more than 1,800,-
000 deputies* of the soviets are employed directly in the
offices of the executive committees and in other state
institutions." But he did not go on, like Romashkin, to
conclude that parts of the state organization ought to
be assumed by the soviets during the withering away of
the state. Shakhnazarov capped his vindication of the
traditional role of the state ministries and the old role
of the party by citing the article in the 1936 Constitution
*This complaint con. inued to be voiced in other theore-
tical journals. For example, an unsigned article in Kom-
munist of November 1963 concluded that it would be "ra ier
oonng-historical period" before Soviet legal science withered
away. Going beyond Shaknazarov, the article with appar-
ent justification maintained that "the entire system of
soviet and economic organs will require greater attention
to the legal training of workers in the administrative
and economic apparatus. It is no secret that many such
workers are still somewhat at sea in legal matters, and
the result is violations of the law. It would be desir-
able to make use of the experience acquired to date in
drafting a list of positions for which legal training
is necessary."
**This figure is the rough total for all soviet deputies
in 1960 from the lowest levels (cities, districts, etc.)
through the higher levels (union republics, etc.) to the
highest level (the Supreme Soviet).
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defining the party as the "leading core"--rather than an
actual productive force in the nation. And as if to make
his disagreement with Khrushchev and his lawyers clearer,
Shakhnazarov did not call for any constitutional redefini-
tion of the role of the party.
Khrushchev And Romashkin?s Brief
Avoiding Shakhnazarov's defense of the existing
state organization and adopting much of Romashkin's case,
Khrushchev summarized his conceptions regarding the with-
ering thesis in a 6 January 1961 speech before a joint
meeting of the Higher Party School, the Academy of Social
Sciences and the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Though
he did not then express his proposal in the specific terms
of a legislating Supreme Soviet or an "all embracing" party,
Khrushchev ignored the future role of the state apparatus
and again turned to the subject of the role of voluntary
social organizations as the Soviet Union "enters commun-
ism." While the 1959 CPSU congress resolution had taken
a compromise position, Khrushchev nevertheless announced
at the January 1961 joint meeting that "our party holds
firmly to the course" of "transferring functions of state
organs to social organizations." Compressing Romashkin's
1960 rationale, Khrushchev concluded that "this course,
far from weakening, strengthens socialist society and is
1n ,line with the future transformation of the socialist
state system into communist social self-administration."
The "Convergence Thesis"
At a lively conference held on 21-22 February 1961
at the Higher Party School in Moscow, Romashkin, endors-
ing Khrushchev's renewed position, rounded out his October
1960 Soviet State And Law case in a major exposition of
his radical views on constitutional changes. Romashkin's
presentation, some parts of which were reported in Ques-
tions of History CPSU (May-June 1961) and other parts
in Soviet State And Law (June 1961), included his earlier
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premises that (1) withering away of the state meant the
transfer of state ministerial functions to social organi-
zations and (2) that the soviets, as social organizations,
would assume traditional state functions. At the February
1961 conference, the conclusion of his argument was pre-
sented: the transferred ministerial powers were to be
assumed by the party organization.
First he argued that there would be a "drawing to-
gether of Soviet, party, and trade union work" which would
result in a "new type of multipurpose organization for
administering the affairs of society." Then the "new multi-
purpose organization" was defined: "it is especially
important to keep in mind an organization such as our party
whose very nature reveals many features of the future of
the communist system of organizing society." Therefore,
according to Romashkin's rationale, the party would become
the "multipurpose organization" or "all-embracing social
organization" in the life of the future Russian society.
Romashkin concluded with a look into the distant future:
"when the consciousness of the entire people is raised
to the level of communist consciousness, the need for
the existence of the party will disappear, and it will
gradually be dissolved in the people as a whole."
Romashkin's thesis that the party would be trans-
formed into an "all-embracing"-organization was a logical
expression of Khrushchev's efforts to turn the party's
attention to the practical matters of administration and
economics.
The Higher Party School conference was significant
not only in that it revealed Romashkin's full thesis,
which Khrushchev at the 22nd Congress later endorsed, but
also in that (1) it exposed the state bureaucratic opposi-
tion to Khrushchev's anti-ministerial efforts and (2) it
disclosed that a suggestion made at the 21st Party Congress
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to increase the numbers and powers of permanent commis-
sions* of the soviets was a controversial constitutional
matter.
With few exceptions, those supporting one or more
of four measures to strengthen the ministries or, at the
lower levels, executive committees were administrative
workers.** The four measures this group suggested were
*Permanent (or standing) commissions of the soviets
are agencies of the two houses of the Supreme Soviet
USSR (the Soviet of the Union, the Soviet of Nationalities)
and the lower-level soviets. The permanent commissions
continue to work between the biannual soviet sessions.
In theory, the powers of the commissions are impressive:
they are charged with (1) elaborating and giving first
consideration to draft statutes that are introduced at
sessions of the Supreme Soviet, (2) checking the work of
agencies subordinate to the Supreme Soviet, and (3) as-
sisting in the implementation of acts passed by the soviets.
In practice, however, the commissions and the soviets
have been virtually ignored by the Council of Ministers
which, in conjunction with the party?s central committee,
carries out the bulk of state legislation. As examined
presently, the issue of granting greater juridical respon-
sibilities to the permanent commissions is one of the
main constitutional issues in present Kremlin politics.
**Those supporting the state apparatus were the follow-
ing: A. Denisov, chairman of the Law Commission attached
to the Council of Ministers USSR; N. Smirnov, chairman
of the executive committee of the Leningrad Soviet; P.
Spiridonov chairman of the executive committee of the
Khoynikskiy Rayon in Belorussia; A. Nikifornov, deputy
chairman of the executive committee of the Moscow City
Soviet, and F. Kalinychev, department head Higher Party
School. Those supporting stronger soviets included the
following: Mr. Georgadze, Secretary of the Presidium
of the USSR Supreme Soviet, N. Starovoytov, division head
of the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, B. Samsonov,
deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet, and jurists P. Romashkin
(footnote continued on page 35)
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to (1) increase restrictions on soviet deputies, (2)
transfer soviet jobs to the executive committees, (3)
increase the size of the executive committees, and (4)
ensure the future existence of the ministries (that is,
"retain in a communist society"). The group supporting
one or more of three measures to strengthen the soviets
were generally associated with the soviet system. The
three measures suggested were to (1) assume functions
of ministries or executive committees, (2) increase soviet
control over the ministries or executive committees, and
(3) strengthen the soviet organization by adding permanent
commissions.
THE 22nd CONGRESS AND THE PARTY'S TRADITIONAL ROLE
Khrushchev's renewed efforts in 1960 and 1961 to
resolve in his favor the critical constitutional question
on the future diminishing role of the state bureaucracy
received a setback in 1961 with the incorporation of the
traditionalists' position in the new party program at the
October 1961 22nd Party Congress. Khrushchev countered
by proposing a "new" state constitution to incorporate
the "new features" that building communism supposedly
necessitated.
(footnote continued rom page 34)
M. Akhmedov and A. Nedavny. Two state workers, Nikiforov
and Spiridonov, reasoned that the expansion of authority
of permanent commissions would somehow allow executive
committees to concentrate on solving "fundamental prob-
lems." USSR Procurator Rudenko (the USSR's Chief Prose-
cutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials) supported
greater controls on soviet deputies while also criticiz-
ing certain legal violations of executive committees.
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The Old Party Organization
The convergence of the party organization with the
other social organizations was the crucial element in
Romashkin's thesis. And Khrushchev, in his 17 October
1961 speech at the 22nd Party Congress, appeared to have
accepted much of his lawyer's thesis in asserting that
during the period of the change of the existing system of
government into a social-self government (1) the party
organization itself reveals features of the future state
system ("the party must set the example, be a model in
developing the very best forms of communist public-self
government"), (2) that the party organization would be
modified while party influence would grow ("the apparatus
of the party agencies will steadily shrink while the
ranks of the party activists grow") and (3) that party
activists would increase their participation in the opera-
tion of the soviets, the trade unions and other social
organizations.
The Romashkin "convergence" thesis, however, did
not appear in the party program, the document which pur-
ported to be a two decade blueprint for building a com-
munist society "in the main" in the USSR.
The Old Party Tasks
Khrushchev on 17 October ignored and Suslov on
21 October praised the program's formula on the creation
of the material-technical basis of communism as the "main
economic task" of the party. Khrushchev viewed the creation
basis of communism as the main task: "the Party
first of all will direct the efforts of the Soviet people
toward creating the material and technical base of commun-
ism."
Khrushchev explicitly subordinated traditional
party jobs to the tasks of building communism. The party,
he said on 17 October, "has based its policy on a scienti-
fic, Marxist-Leninist foundation and has subordinated
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all its theoretical and ideological-educational activity
to the solution of specific tasks of communist construc-
tion." The congress, however, gave the traditional ideoe
logical tasks the dominant emphasis. Even the congress
resolution (31 October) on Khrushchev's report placed
ideology over practical work:
Further improvement and intensification
of ideological work constitutes one of
the Party's chief tasks and a most im-
portant prerequisite for success in all
its practical activity. (Emphasis in
original)
The Old State Agencies
In his 21 October speech Suslov, vaunting that un-
disclosed "difficulties" in working out the theoretical
portions of the party program had been surmounted "bril-
liantly," firmly presented the Stalin-Chesnokov-Mankovsky
view that the state system would be strengthened during
the "new stage" of Russia's development. At about the
same time, Romashkin (read Khrushchev) reiterated his
case on the liquidation of the state apparatus in a law
journal article explicitly pegged to the theoretical
portions of the party program.
Romashkin, Soviet State
And Law, October 119U(-
"Withering away of the
state means the follow-
ing; first, the gradual
disappearance of the need
for state coercion toward
the members of society.
Secondly, gradual disap-
pearance and dissolution
of the special class of
persons engaged in govern-
ment administration.
Suslov, 21 October CPSU
Congress speech
"The process of withering
away of the state will
signify the gradual trans-
formation of the organs
of state power into organs
of social self-administra-
tion by means of the
further development of
socialist democracy, which
presupposes the active
participation of all
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Romashkin (continued)
Consequently, withering away
of the state remans unremit-
ting reduction and later the
complete liquidation of the
state apparatus and the trans-
fer of its functions to
society itself, that is, to
social organizations, the
whole collective."
Suslov (continued)
citizens in the management
of the state and control
of economic and cultural
construction, improvement
in the work oft the s ,a to
apparatus and increasing
control by the people over
its activity."
The final draft of the party program set off Suslov's
above position in bold face type in the Russian text.
Khrushchev's (and Romashkin's) formulation that the Soviets
were both state and social organizations was also included,
but, as jurist Shakhnazarov had demonstrated in August
1960, it was possible to adopt Khrushchev's terminology
while retaining Suslov's conclusions.
Unlike Khrushchev and the party program, Suslov
in his 22nd Congress speech failed to mention the soviets.
At the 1959 Congress Suslov had referred favorably to
the soviets and the permanent commissions of the soviets.
His silence at the 1961 Congress on the issue of the
soviets' role followed the public exposure of Khrushchev's
formula on transferring functions of the state apparatus
to the soviets and other social organizations. In short,
Suslov's new tactic in defense of the old system was to
slight the soviets and to uphold the viability of the exist-
ing state ministerial system as a part of his protracted
strategy for the preservation of the party's traditional
political role.
Notwithstanding Suslov's exclusion of the soviets
in his 1961 scenario, the party program included a pas-
sage on the authority of the Supreme Soviets and the
permanent commissions of the soviets to check on the
activity of the several Councils of Ministers. The pro-
vision in the party program, recently paraphrased by
Brezhnev and Podgorny at the 23rd Party Congress in 1966
(see ahead, pp. 86-87 ), read:
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Every deputy to a Soviet must take an
active part in state affairs and carry
on definite work. The role of the
permanent committees of the Soviets is
increasing. The permanent committees
of the Supreme Soviets must systematic-
ally supervise the activities of minis-
tries, agencies and economic councils
and contribute actively to the implementa-
tion of decisions adopted by the respec-
tive Supreme Soviets.
However, systematic supervision of the activities of the
party organization rather than the government ministries
appeared to be the critical issue in Suslov's congress
defense of the existing institutions. And his 1961 Congress
defense on this issue seemed to be directed toward pre-
congress proposals to set up an agency empowered to check
on the activity of both the party and state bureaucracy--
proposals with which Khrushchev and presidium member
Mikoyan identified themselves at the congress. The con-
trol agency, as originally proposed in the party press,
would have had the authority to investigate the activity
of high-level party and state officials. Suslov's view
on the issue, as cited in juxtaposition to a Romashkin
quote (above), was for "increasing control by the people
over its /The state apparatus?7 activity"--not for increas-
ing "control" over the party apparatus. The agency (later
named the Party-State Control Committee) was not explicitly
endorsed in the congress resolution.
The State of the Whole People
Both Suslov and Khrushchev at the 22nd Congress
endorsed the formula that the "dictatorship of the prole-
tariat" had fulfilled its mission (building "socialism")
and that the dictatorship of the proletariat had been
transformed into the "state of the whole people" (whose
mission was to build "communism"). But the two speakers
promptly drew contrasting conclusions from the above sub-
stitution of state formulas. Suslov concluded (1) that
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the state apparatus during the period of the "state of
the whole people" would in effect be strengthened and
that (2) "our state is called upon to organize the crea-
tion of the ma eeriaal and technical base of communism."
Khrushchev held that (1) the state and economic apparatus
of the "state of the whole people" would in effect be
diminished through "voluntary participation in that ap-
paratus" and through the assumption of state functions
by the party and soviets and (2) that the party was to
organize the creation of the material and technical base
of communism. In addition, Suslov?s remarks on the
change in terminology were devoid of the effusive praise
that Khrushchev gave to the substitution of formulas
(the transition to the state of the whole people is "a
fact without parallel in history!", "a most important
milestone").
The party program endorsed Suslov's conclusions
on the "state of the whole people."
Khrushchev, who was assigned by a 17 January 1961
plenum the task of reporting on the party program at the
22nd Congress, dutifully fulfilled this task in his 18
October report on the program by briefly mentioning the
program's incorporation of the Suslov thesis on the cor-
rect role of the party. ("While bearing responsibility
for the state of work on all sectors of communist con-
struction, the party organizations must at the same time
not supplant the state and public agencies"). But in
Khrushchev's 17 October central committee report to the
delegates of the 22nd CPSU Congress he ignored the party
program's compromise inclusion of Suslov's formula on the
correct role of the party as well as Suslov's view on
the future role of the state-bureaucracy. In fact, Khru-
shchev on the 17th deleted any reference to the state's
role in his concluding remarks on the "chief tasks" of
building communism.
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However, Khrushchev did not get his positions of-
ficially endorsed in the party program. Accordingly, he
turned his attention to another document--the "new" USSR
constitution. And in the context of presenting his parti-
cular rationalization for the party's existence, in his
17 October speech Khrushchev made the surprise announce-
ment that a "new" constitution which would reflect "changes
in the life of our country" was in the process of being
drafted:
Over the past quarter of a century, since
the present Constitution of the USSR was
adopted, there have been big changes in
the life of our country. The Soviet Union,
has entered a new stage of its develop-
ment, and socialist democracy has risen
to a higher level. The new Constitution
of the USSR that we are beginning to
draft must reflect the new features in
the life of Soviet society in the period
of the full-scale building of communism.
The opposing faction scored again: like Suslov, the 31
October resolution ignored Khrushchev's remarks on the
"new" constitution.
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Following his second congress setback for his own
particular party platform, Khrushchev, in his sustained
efforts to "modernize" the CPSU, turned from the conserva-
tive party program to the promulgation of a new constitu-
tion to sanction the new forms and methods allegedly
needed to build communism, (For apparent tactical reasons,
he initially appeared to settle for a new basic law which
would have been little more than a redraft of the party
program.) However, Khrushchev's long-range view of the
party reappeared in 1962 as he undertook a considerable
effort to move ahead on the final drafting of a new con-
stitution while at the same time promoting the "economics
over politics" formula for party work. This formula--
theoretically substantiated, so the Khrushchev forces
argued, by a newly "deciphered" passage in a Lenin docu-
ment ("The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Regime") regarding
the practical role of the party--became the doctrinal
underpinning for Khrushchev's long-standing efforts to
place the party officially on the "production" principle.
The production principle, as some Soviet spokesmen
pointed out later, was intended to be incorporated into
the new constitution. Other spokesmen adopted new tactics
to sustain the traditionalists' opposition. And following
the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Kosygin and Brezhnev
exposed their dissimilar views on the project.
New Project, Old Polemic
A sense of urgency for a new constitution combined
with reiterations of Khrushchev's line on the transfer of
state functions to social organizations was initiated in
Izvestiya--the government newspaper edited by Khrushchev's
son-in-law, Adzhubey--as early as December 1961? Notably,
a 4 December Izvestiya editorial reprinted Khrushchev's
17 October 19761 rremarks on the need for a new constitution
which had been deleted in the 22nd Congress resolution.
Immediately following the remark on the constitution,
Izvestiya added the sensitive matter of the transferral
of state jobs to social organizations:
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The question naturally arises of the elabo-
ration and adoption of a new Constitution
of the USSR, which, as N.S. Khrushchev
said in the Report of the CC-CPSU at the
XXII Congress of the Party, should reflect
new characteristics in the life of Soviet
society during the period of the full-scale
construction of Communism. The Party and
Government in the future also will conduct
a course of transferring an increasing
number of state functions to social
organizations.
"Rushing Ahead" was the title of another Izvestiya
commentary on 19 December which, at first glance, seemed
to sustain Izvestiya's case for the need to adopt a new
basic law. However, the article--authored by jurist
Shakhnazarov, the lawyer who had carefully rebutted in
1960 Khrushchev"s view of the withering away of the
state agencies--explicitl.y defended the Stalin Consti-
tution and argued that a new basic law ought to "perfect
the whole state organization." Shakhnazarov, after scoring
Stalin's abuses of the 1936 Constitution ("the fruit of
the collective creativity of our party," wrote the jurist),
argued that the 1956 Congress "largely restored the Leninist
norms of party and state life." Shakhnazarov then gave
only passing attention to the issue of a new constitution
and offered the comment that the state-oriented proposi-
tionsin the 1961 party program were a "remarkable theoret-
ical basis for the country and of a new constitution."
And unlike the Izvestiya editorial on 4 December, Shakh-
nazarov made no reference to transferring state functions
to social organizations as the Soviet Union "rushes ahead"
toward communism and a new constitution,
In the wake of other judicial polemics on the subject
of a new basic document, Khrushchev at a 25 April 1962
session of the Supreme Soviet again ventured into the realm
of constitutional law. He announced that the 1936 Constitu-
tion "has outlived itself," that "it does not correspond
to its present stage." Declaring that "now that a new
party program has been adopted, we feel that every condition
exists to tackle the drafting of a new Soviet Constitution."
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He went on to assert, however, that the new constitution
"should embody in full measure /-the ideas 7 which have
been reflected and developed in the CPSU Program." He
did not take the occasion to reiterate his view of the
long-range role of the party; in fact, he did not even
mention the party in his 25 April speech. Nor did
Khrushchev indicate that the constitutional project
should rush ahead with any great urgency. Rather, his
somewhat uncharacteristic remarks on the new project were
an expression of hope that the draft law would be com-
pleted by 1966.
Comrade deputies, I think I express the
satisfaction of all deputies of both
chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the
sixth convocation that this Supreme Soviet
in its present composition /_I.e., 1962-19667
will draft, discuss with all the people,
and adopt the new constitution of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Khrushchev remained discreetly silent on the fact that
work on the draft of a new constitution, which he referred
to in October 1961, had been progressing for at least two
years. And he explicitly avoided the disclosure of any
specifics of the new constitution in telling the dele-
gates that "for the time being it would be premature to
specify in detail what the new constitution should look
like." But in a broad generalization he went on "to
define briefly the main tasks of the future constitution,"
which Khrushchev said "will be to reflect the new stage
in the development of the Soviet society and state; to
raise socialist democracy to a still higher level; to
provide even more solid guarantees for the democratic
rights and freedoms of the working people, guarantees
of the strict observance of socialist legality; to pre-
pare the conditions for transition to communist social
self-administration." However, he may have been publicly
hinting that radical changes in the existing system were
to be incorporated into the new constitution. He said
that the Soviet people in creating the new constitution
were "pioneers of new forms of state and social systems."
He did not call for the transformation of the existing
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"parliamentary" system into one granting express powers
to an independent bxecutive branch, though late 1964
reports (which are examined presently) held that Khrush-
chev's effort to pioneer new forms--particularly the
effort to convert the Soviet leadership structure to
"something like" the "U.S. system"--faced strong opposi-
tion dating from 1962.
Abundant signs in March and April 1962 of other
high-level opposition in arriving at more immediate
policy decisions (particularly those relating to resource
allocations) may, in part, explain Khrushchev's public
avoidance of particularly sensitive party-state matters
in his 25 April 1962 speech. The postponement of the
April Supreme Soviet from the 10th to the 23rd suggested
that the leadership had had difficulties in agreeing
upon a single program for the soviet delegates to approve.
Following the speeches on Khrushchev's report,
which added virtually nothing to his cautious remarks,
the Supreme Soviet passed a resolution creating a consti-
tutional commission consisting of 97 deputies of the
Supreme Soviet, most of whom were leading party officials,
under Khrushchev's chairmanship. The chairmen of the nine
sub-committees, which made up Khrushchev's new constitu-
tional commission were not disclosed at this time.
(One of the subcommittees, apparently at Khrushchev's
request, dealt with foreign policy. At the April session,
Khrushchev complained that "the present constitution does
not define the principles of the foreign policy of the
Soviet Union" and that in the current period problems of
peaceful coexistence of states with different social
systems and of the struggle for peace have acquired "tre-
mendous importance." Therefore, Khrushchev concluded,
as jurist Romashkin had done in his 1960 Soviet State and
Law article, that "the new constitution should clearly
formulate the basic principles of the relations of our
state with other states." Domestically, constitutional
incorporation of foreign policy principles may have pro-
vided further theoretical justification for Khrushchev's
efforts to further his particular proposals. But the net
effect of one 1962 Soviet foreign policy failure--the late
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October failure to keep offensive missiles deployed in
Cuba--led to another check on Khrushchev's long-range
view of the "new Party." The next time Khrushchev talked
about the need for a new constituion (16 July 1964),
the report of his remarks did not include any mention of
a need for the inclusion of foreign policy provisions in
the new law.)
Cuba, The Constitution, And Kosygin
In the summer of 1962, as Khrushchev was rushing
ahead with his domestic efforts to place the party on the
"productiorf'principle--rather than the ideological basis
assigned in the party program--leading officials of Romash-
kin's institute hinted that the new constitution would be
more than a legal accommodation of the new program.
jurist F. M. Burlatsky was less definite with regard to
the date for a new law, but he indicated that the consti-
tution would involve important alterations in the state
apparatus. Burlatsky wrote that "within the next few
years we are going to have to adopt a new constitution."
This forecast followed his Khrushchev-like formulation
that under the state of the whole people the state appa-
ratus would be subject to the increasing enlistment of
the "masses" into the management of state jobs.
Unlike Burlatsky, Kosygin offered a different formula
for the development of the state of the whole people in his
6 November 1962 Kremlin speech--the first major presidium
address in the wake of Khrushchev's failure to redress the
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strategic balance by installing offensive missiles in Cuba.
Kosygin, commenting on the establishment of the material-
technical base for building communism, seemed to betray
his position on the state organs by not only pointing out
the role of the state, but also by listing the state before
the party: "the leading place in the activity of the state
and the Communist Party /In the construction of communism7
is taken by the development of the economy."
Accordingly, Kosygin made no reference to the wither-
ing away of the state, no reference to the role of the
soviets, and no reference to the related constitution
project .
Kosygin's
particular case for the preservation of the state agencies
was reflected in a 5 December 1962 Pravda editorial cele-
brating "Constitution Day" which pointed out in the con-
text of recalling the establishment of Khrushchev's consti-
tutional commission that the CPSU Program called for
"improvement of the work of the state apparatus."
Kosygin, the party's chief economist, failed to
speak at a central committee plenum in late-November con-
cerned with "The Development of the Economy of the USSR
and Party Leadership of the National Economy." And Suslov,
the party's chief ideologist, at the same November plenum
referred only to the necessity to struggle for the purity
of Marxism-Leninism,
The Creation of the Production-Oriented Party at the November
1962 Plenum
Khrushchev's proposals for change in the basis of
party activity and organization in the summer of 1962 sus-
tained the shock of the missile crisis and were adopted at
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the 19-23 November 1962 Central Committee plenum. The
decisions, which were a major landmark in Khrushchev's ef-
forts since 1957 to develop a "new party," involved (1)
an official recognition of the party's chief role in
productive functions of the nation, (2) a reorganization
of the party and lower-level soviet apparatus into two
parts, one concerned with industrial affairs (mainly urban
based) and the other with agricultural matters (rural
based), and (3) an effort to strengthen direct supervision
and control of the party over the state agencies through
the formation of a combined Party-State Control Committee
(headed by KGB Chief Shelepin). (Some articles on this
committee had projected a party control function as well,
but the November plenum did not explicitly define this
controversial purge power for Khrushchev's new committee.)
And Khrushchev at the November plenum again made
his position clear that the matter of economic production
was the party's main task: "by concentrating attention
on the main thing, namely questions of production, the
Party organizations will be able more concretely to deal
with organizational and ideological-educational work
which is directly bound up with both industrial and agri-
cultural production."
Ideological work of this nature was expressly
emphasized by the chairman of a body established at the
November 1962 plenum, the Ideological Commission of the
Central Committee headed by secretariat member (and
Khrushchev protege) Ilichev. On the eve of the November
1962 plenum, Ilichev in a lengthy Kommunist~No. 16)article
repeatedly attacked unnamed party theoreticians who "cling
to yesterday's theory." And unlike Suslov at the 22nd
Party Congress, Ilichev in discussing the party program
did not assert that the creation of the material-technical
bases of communism was the "main economic task" of the
party. Rather he first cited the main theme of the
"recently deciphered" article (first announced in Pravda
on 28 September 1962) said to have been drafted by Lenin:
Usually with the world 'leadership' or
'direction' there is associated primarily
an activity which is predominately or
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even purely political. Yet the very basis
and the very essence of the Soviet regime
and the very essence of the transition
from a capitalist society to a socialist
one, consists in the fact that political
tasks and problems hold a subordinate place
to economic tasks.
Then Ilichev judged that Lenin put questions of the direction
of the economy in the center of all the work of the Party
"and consequently also in the center of its scientific-
theoretical activity." And as if to make his theoretical
differences with the traditionalists even clearer, Ilichev
went on to assert that the party's dominant role in eco-
nomics "is all the more justified under present conditions."
Khrushchev's November victory was substantial: the
party's basic structure was transformed from the 1961 party
program's territorial-production basis to a basis that was
mainly production-oriented. And the newly established
Ideological Commission was headed by an obedient theorist
rather than a persistent critic.
But his victory was not sustained as the post-Cuba
crisis reaction began to consolidate, and as individual
presidium members began to play politics with the production
principle and the constitution.
Divergent handling of the production principle and
the new constitution project was displayed in December 1962
by two leading contenders for Khrushchev's power--"heirs
apparent" Kozlov and Brezhnev. Shades of variation between
the two of the efficacy of the November plenum decisions
was not startling. (Kozlov in his 3 December speech at
the 10th Italian Communist Party Congress said that the
November plenum "generally outlined" the measures corre-
sponding to the period of constructing communism. With
regard to features of the same period, Brezhnev in his
30 December Izvestiya article said the November plenum
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"outlined concrete ways.") But the interesting variation
between the two, and between Khrushchev's constitutional
jurists, appear to have centered on the sensitive question
of the constitutional incorporation of the party's November
1962 production principle. Khrushchev's jurists, in par-
ticular Romashkin and Mnatsakanyan, discussed the consti-
tution in terms of the November 1962 plenum decisions in
law journal articles in 1963 (examined presently). Kozlov
at the Italian Party Congress did not link the two projects.
Brezhnev in his Izvestiya article juxtaposed, but did not
link the party's new prime task with the USSR's new law
project. For example, Kozlov told Italians that
we are striving to draw all the builders
of communism into the administration of
the economy, of culture, and of all the
affairs of our all people's state. The
more perfected forms of democratic adminis-
tration fostered by life will be legally
reflected in the new USSR Constitution
which is being worked out now.
And Brezhnev revealed to Izvestiya readers that
the decisions of the November plenum
have embodied the collective wisdom and
experience of the party; they are per-
meated with a spirit of a genuinely
creative Leninist approach to the
solution of problems in the further
development of socialist society.
The enormous changes which have
occurred in Soviet society, in the
development of socialist statecraft,
will be legally endorsed in the new
USSR constitution.
However, Brezhnev's failure to link conclusively the Novem-
ber 1962 decisions to the new constitution appeared to be
a particularly shrewd maneuver in the unsettled Kremlin
politics of the immediate post-Cuba missile crisis period.
That is, Brezhnev's argument (1) placed him in a somewhat
different constitutional position from Kozlov (in addition,
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Brezhnev, unlike Kozlov, cited Khrushchev's April 1962
cryptic remark on pioneering new forms of state and social
systems) while (2) stopping short of a full commitment to
the Khrushchev-sponsored position for constitutional
accommodation of the production principle. Brezhnev,
like Suslov at the 22nd Congress, also referred to the
party program's appeal to improve the work of the state
apparatus (a reference conspicuously absent in Khrushchev's
April 1962 remarks on the constitution), and to strengthen
"popular control" over the activity of the state--not
party and state--apparatus. (As pointed out ahead, the
position on greater control of the state apparatus was
reiterated by Brezhnev during the 1966 party congress.)
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THE INTERVENTION OF THE PRESIDIUM OPPOSITION
While Khrushchev was able in the immediate post-
missile crisis period to push through his plans to place
the party on the production principle at the November
1962 Central Committee plenum, his project for a consti-
tutional definition of the production-oriented party of
the future made little progress throughout most of 1963.
In fact, during the five month period following the Cuban
crisis, Khrushchev's decentralization policy--dating from
his 29 March 1957 "theses" on the ministerial apparatus--
suffered setbacks. And Khrushchev's efforts to impose
additional controls on party functionaries through the
newly established Party-State Control Committee were
frustrated; an 18 January 1963 Party-State statute form-
ally limited the role of Shelepin's committee to the state
administrative apparatus.
In the midst of other setbacks and other high-level
disagreements, Khrushchev in mid-1964 renewed his efforts
for a new basic law. Presidium opposition to his consti-
tution was manifested.
The Centralized Ministries And Stalin's State Theorist
In the midst of high-level policy disputes over
Khrushchev's handling of Cuba, China, resource alloca-
tions and deStalinization, Khrushchev's November 1962
ministerial victories encountered significant setbacks.
within the first three months of 1963.
One setback dealt with the downgrading of the Khru-
shchev-supported state committees. A 26 January 1963
edition of Vedimosti, the official journal of the Supreme
Soviet, carried the unheralded January Supreme Soviet
decrees which announced the disestablishment of Khrushchev's
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state committees as independent agencies..* The bulk of
the state committees were subordinated to the USSR State
Planning Committee (Gosplan), others to the USSR Council
of National Economy (USSR Sovnarkhoz)--an organizational
scheme which was a step toward the one advocated by the
"anti-party group" in 1957.
Five days later, D. Chesnokov--Stalin's postwar
state theoretician--warmly endorsed the unheralded
Vedimosti centralization announcements in an article in
Kommunist (sent to press on 31 January 1963). In the
middle of the article, Chesnokov suddenly chose to digress
from his main theme, the November 1962 plenum decisions,
to state that the economic and political life of the
nation "requires the maintenance and perfection of central-
ism." Chesnokov, before returning to his main theme, took
a crack at alleged negative tendencies in Khrushchev's
decentralization scheme in the context of praising the
USSR Council of National Economy and Gosplan.
The measures outlined by the Party also
increase the operational smoothness of
all echelons of the national economy;
*This announcemen included those state committees
formed at the November plenum--trade, electrical, light,
and food industries. Later in January and February 1963
many independent state committees established in the
years following the 1957 decentralization "reforms" were
also disestablished--lumbering, fishing, fuel industry,
ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical industry,
automation and machine-building, professional-technical
education. The subsequent growth of the Gosplan bureau-
cracy alone reportedly has been phenomenal. According
to Soviet economist Liberman in an interview printed in
Komsomolskaya Pravda on 24 April 1966, the number of of-
ficial pose ions in the planning bureaucracy has increased
by a factor of 45. "In due course the number of such
positions has grown from 400 to 18,000!" exclaimed the
economist.
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they perfect centralism as dictated by
the organized and plan d echaracter of
economy and society. Thus, the strength-
ening of the sovnarkhozes will undoubtedly
facilitate the overdoming of provincial-
istic tendencies which are more strongly
pronounced in the small sovnarkhozes. The
creation of a USSR council of national
economy will facilitate a more flexible
form of coordination of the current plans
of economic construction and of the opera-
tive leadership of the fulfillment of the
annual plans on a nationwide scale. The
transformation of the Goskomsoviet
/thte Economic Councii7 into Gosplan,
Handling long range planning, will per-
mit a more thorough and better grounded
elaboration of long-range plans for
boosting the national economy and there-
by will facilitate the compilation by
the Union Republics, the local govern-
mental agencies and the sovnarkhozes of
their own plans within the framework
of the national plans. (Emphasis in
original)
Following the January-February reverses, another
setback for Khrushchev?s long standing decentralizing
efforts arrived on 13 March 1963 with the formation of
the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR Council of
Ministers and the subordination to the Supreme Economic
Council of Gosplan and USSR Sovnarkhoz. The Supreme Eco-
nomic Council was granted clear powers enabling it to
move into any economic area to fulfill its plans. And
the Supreme Economic Council was headed by a man, armaments
minister Ustinov, whose 13 March 1963 appointment received
little praise from Khrushchev.
The Return of the Lawyers
In the latter part of 1963--that is, well after
Khrushchev had held on to his leading position in an
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apparent struggle with Kozlov (who became ill in early
1963 and died last year) and Suslov in the months follow-
ing the Cuban missile crisis--Khrushchev's constitution
project again surfaced in articles by jurists endorsing
and opposing Khrushchev's institutional efforts.
One Soviet jurist, M.O. Mnatsakanyan in an article
in Problems of History CPSU`(October 1963) made more ex-
plicit the conclusion drawn by Romashkin in a discussion
of the constitution project and the November 1962 party
decisions in a March 1963 Soviet State And Law article.
Mnatsakanyan held that the concept of rus c ev's `pro-
duction principle would be incorporated into the new con-
stitution which, the author declared, "will be adopted
in the very near future." Mnatsakanyan went on to make
it clear that the new constitution would "consolidate"
the "recent measures" which, he later explained in his
article, were embodied in the decisions of the November
1962 plenum regarding "the reorientation of the party
organs of the republics according to the production prin-
ciple and the creation in the central committee of the
republic communist parties a bureau for industry and a
bureau for agriculture."
The next major article on constitutional themes
did not draw this connection. It made the traditionalists'
classic argument of linking the defense of ministerial
system with the viability of the Stalin Constitution.
The article, written by jurist M. Piskotin, appeared in
Kommunist No. 17, signed to the press on 3 December 1963,
under the pointed title of "development of democracy and
improvement of the state apparatus." Piskotin, like his
colleague Shakhnazanov in his 1960 Political Self-Education
article, praised the 1936 Constitution for "playing a
tremendous role" in the life of the nation. Piskotin
ignored the three-year-old subject of the necessity for
a new constitution, and as the title of his article sug-
gests, he enumerated the powers of the state ministries:
"the main responsibility for the management of state,
economic and cultural affairs rests in the state apparatus."
And he applauded, as had Kosygin on occasion, the quality
and quantity of the state technicians, "in the various
state administrative organs, both central and local, a
vast army of specialists is at work."
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Constitutional accommodation of the party produc-
tion principle--which would provide the basic statutory
authorization for Khrushchev's solution for the role of
the party in the nation's contemporary life--was not
mentioned in Pravda's cautious 1963 "Constitutional Day"
editorial, but Fe-traditional 5 December editorial did
not go on, as it had in December 1962, to recall the
party program's explicit position on the expanding role
of the state apparatus.
The Return of the Constitution Commission
Like the 5 December Pravda editorial, Khrushchev
did not recall the program's - po tion on the critical
matter of the role of the state at what was called the
next "regular" meeting of the constitution commission on
16 July 1966. (This was the first meeting on record of
the commission since its foundation in April 1962.)
And unlike his report before the April 1962 Supreme
Soviet session, Khrushchev at the 16 July 1964 meeting
specifically brought up the matter that the new constitu-
tion "must fully reflect" not only the party program but
also the role of the party and social organizations in
the building of communism.
e ignore the u ure role
o the state. He o e commission members that "the
new constitution must fully reflect the ideas of Marxism-
Leninism, the CPSU Program of a communist society, of the
role of the people's masses, the communist party, and
social organizations in the building of communism."
Signs of Resistance to Khrushchev's Constitution
While Khrushchev may have renewed his former posi-
tion on the party, at least five indications that all had
not gone well at the mid-July meeting may be tallied.
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One: Khrushchev's speech was released in a sum-
marized form only--a sign which in his case generally in-
dicated that controversial issues were not resolved. An-
other 1964 example of this was his final--and abridged--
major speech at a late September party-government meeting
whjbh contained radical
suggestions (e.g. a suggestion to adopt a pro-consumer
policy similar to the one advocated by Malenkov in the
early post-Stalin period) that were not acceptable to the
leading group.
Two: I (Khrushchev's
abridged report (a 16 July Moscow radio domestic broad-
cast and a virtually identical 17 July Pravda report)
appeared to qualify his comments by noting that he made
only "preliminary observations" on the principles for the
new constitution. This qualification appeared to be
particularly curious in light of the fact that work on the
project had been progressing for over four years (it took
Stalin less than two years to enact his basic law) and
in light of the fact that two years earlier (25 April
1962) Khrushchev had "defined the main tasks of the con-
stitution" before the same commission.
(A curious modification with regard to the consti-
tutional issue of the military authority of Khrushchev
was exposed in the Moscow press three months before the
commission met. Khrushchev's lofty military title "Supreme
High Commander," publicly introduced by Defense Minister
Malinovsky at the 1961 Party Congress and reiterated in
his mid-April 1964 Red Star article pegged to Khrushchev's
birthday, was deleted-in Pravda's 17 April 1964 reprint
of Malinovsky's article. Pravda referred to Khrushchev
as "comrade" rather than " uSuppreme High Commander.")
Three: Eight days after the constitutional com-
mission met, prominence was given in Pravda to a meeting
of the rarely publicized "Presidium" the Council of
Ministers. The Presidium of the Council of Ministers,
formally established two days after Stalin's death was
announced, had been given virtually no publicity following
the purge of its original members (Malenkov as chairman,
Bulganin, Molotov, Beria and Kaganovich as first deputy
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chairmen) under Khrushchev's aegis. In addition to the
political significance associated with the ministerial
presidium, Pravda's 25 July 1964 reportorial action was
in tacit contrast with Khrushchev's deemphasis on the
policy-making role of the state apparatus as a separate
entity. (It may be significant to regard to the elevation
of the public status of the Council of Ministers that on
the day before the constitutional commission met, Mikoyan,
the presidium member who had given Khrushchev no noticable
opposition on the former's constitutional efforts, was
shifted from the Council of Ministers to the Supreme
Soviet chairmanship--vacated on 15 July by Brezhnev who
returned to full-time party work.)
Four: Lack of agreement may also serve to explain
the fact that reports of the subcommittee heads were not
released, even in summary form. Almost all subcommittees
submitted reports, Pravda noted, and for the first time,
the names of seven subcommittee heads were disclosed:
Chairman
General Political and Theoretical
Questions (not revealed)
Questions of Public and State
Structure Voronov
State Administration, Activities
of the Soviets and Public
Organizations Brezhnev
Economic Questions and Adminis-
tration of the National
Economy Kosygin
Nationalities Policy and
National State Structure Mikoyan
Science and Culture, Education,
and Public Health Yelyutin
(Minister of Education)
Foreign Policy and International
Relations Ponomarev
People's Control and Socialist
Law and Order Shvernik
Editorial Sub-commission (not revealed)
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Suslov, as the senior theoretician of the party and as
a member of the original 97-man constitutional commission,
would have been the logical choice for the subcommittee
chairmanship of the important subcommission of General
Political and Theoretical Questions. In light of the
paramount importance of that subcommission, it may be
noteworthy that the session was called at a time when
Suslov was out of the country. (He was in Paris as the
head of the Soviet delegation to the funeral of French
party leader Thorez.) Thus it was Khrushchev who pre-
sented the principles of the draft constitution and the
expected presentation of the subcommission on "General
Political and Theoretical Questions" was not mentioned
in the report of the meeting.
Two weeks after Khrushchev's theoretical presenta-
tion, a Suslov-style refutation of the bases of Khrushchev's
constitutional theory surfaced in the party's major theoreti-
cal journal. The refutation appeared in a speech which
secretariat member Ponomarev reportedly made at a June
1964 session of the Academy of Social Sciences but belat-
edly published in an issue of Kommunist sent to the press
on 31 July 1964. The speech, published by Kommunist
with "certain additions" which were not disclosed and
which raised the question as to whether the additions
originated at the 16 July session of the constitutional
commission), scored the Chinese Communist rejection of
the 1961 CPSU program and attempted to refute the basic
reasons for that rejection. Ponomarev's refutation,
however, carried implicit criticism of Khrushchev's view
on the withering away of the state. For example, Ponomarev
openly agreed with what he called the statement by the
"enemies of the CPSU Program" who say that due to the
imperialist threat the socialist countries must strengthen
the state. (This was somewhat reminiscent of Suslov's
30 January 1959 assertion that due to the threat of im-
perialist attack, "the state is preserved--under commun-
ism.") Ponomarev gratuitously added that the threat of
imperialism necessitates "heavy expenditures /-on the part
of socialist countries7 to strengthen their defense cap-
abilities." He made no reference to Khrushchev's December
1963 and January 1964 appeals for reduced defense expen-
ditures. Ponomarev concluded with the non-committal
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statement that the threat of imperialism "must not be
allowed to be an invincible obstacle to the construction
of communism." Later in his article he made the weak
argument that "critics" who regard the "construction
of communism impossible as long as imperialism continue
to exist" lack faith in the Soviet people.
Functional differences with regard to Khrushchev's
view of the correct role of the party were then drawn by
Ponomarev. Ponomarev chose to cite the 1961 party pro-
gram's position that the construction of the material-
technical foundations for communism is regarded as the
main "economic" task of the party. He made no reference
to Khrushchev's long standing view that the task of build-
ing the foundations of communism was the party's "chief"
task.
Differences with regard to the amount of time it
would take to construct a communist society were also
drawn by Ponomarev. Ponomarev chose to report that com-
munism would not be realized by 1981 (the two decade refer-
ence in the 1961 party program). He said that at the
end of the twenty year period "our society will be very
close the implementation of the principle" of communism.
Khrushchev in his 17 October 1961 congress report went
to some length to explain why it would take as much as
two decaded "to build a communist society in its basic
outlines."
Finally, Ponomarev reiterated Suslov's position
on the "state of the whole people." Employing Suslov's
22nd Party Congress definition Of'the.state formula
Ponomarev in Kommunist pointed out what he said was the
"obvious fact a power of the...state has increased
greatly with the growth of the dictatorship of the proletariat
into a state of the whole people." Khrushchev at the
22nd Party Congress had forecast that the state would
wither away under the state of the whole people."At;the July 1964
meeting he ignored the future role of the state apparatus
in urging that the new basic law "must be the constitu-
tion of the socialist state of the whole people whose aim
is the building of a communist society.")
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Five: The issue of the new constitution was virtu-
ally ignored in open Soviet media after the July meeting.
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Khrushchev's public support for the turnover
rule was suggested by (1) his particular interpretation
of the turnover rule and (2) his support for a key'-"amend-
ment" made in the final draft of the statutes dealing
with the qualified electorate. With regard to interpre-
tation, Khrushchev in his 18 October 1961 Congress report
in a transparent effort to exempt himself from the electoral
proposal pointedly commented that "in rejecting the cult
of the individual we do not in the least eliminate the
question of developing leading party figures and strength-
ening their authority." The matter of strengthening
authority was not included in the remarks of Kozlov, who
had been given the task at tie January 1961 plenum of
reporting on the statutes at the congress. In his 28
October statute report, Kozlov merely noted that the
statute "does not deny the importance of the role played
by experienced party workers who enjoy high prestige,"
went on to state that "without a more or less stable group
of leaders it is not possible to ensure continuity of
leadership, the transmission of accumulated experience,"
and then paraphrased the statute's provision on the ap-
plication of the law to "leading party members"; "parti-
cular Party officials may, by virtue of their recognized
authority and the high order of their political and organi-
zational abilities, be elected to executive bodies for
a longer period." With regard to the key "amendment,"
a substantive change in the wording in the final draft
of the statutes merits consideration: the final draft
alloted the responsibility of determining qualified party
leaders, to a "meeting, conference or Congress." The
original draft of the statutes, published on 5 August
1961, had maintained that the "consideration of the poli-
tical and work qualities of an individual" would be the
decision of a "Party organization." That Khrushchev was
identified with the change from "party organization" to
"meeting, conference, or Congress," was hinted in a second
remark, also ignored by Kozlov, made in his 18 October
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1961 speech. After commenting on the permissibility of
strengthening the authority of qualified party officials,
Khrushchev stated that "what is necessary is that lead-
ing Party figures be promoted from the Party masses by
virtue of their talent, their political qualities and
their qualifications and that they be closely tied with
the Communists and the people." It is possible that
Khrushchev had his June 1957 presidium anti-party group
experience in mind--it was one subject of his 1961 speech--
and wanted to insure legally that there would be no
repetition of such a close call to his power position.*
In short, Khrushchev's presentation on the "succession
statute" suggested that he had more strength in a wider
party forum than in the small presidium. In this light,
it may not be surprising that Khrushchev enthusiastically
endorsed the provision which was incorporated into the
new party statutes that a decision by a party organiza-
tion, such as the presidium, relating to the succession
issue would explicitly be subject to review of the larger
party masses in a "meeting, conference, or Congress."
In addition, the party program gave rather substantial
attention to the electoral role of the party masses which
appeared to fit in with Khrushchev's expressed interest
in a wider electoral base to strengthen his own authority
vis-a-vis his presidium associates.)
Finally, one late October 1964 Moscow datelined
Western news item, citing "reliable information," reported
the story, which also appears plausible, that the consti-
tution commission set up in 1962 to produce a new Soviet
constitution had been deadlocked over the issue of intro-
ducing "something akin to the American presidential sys-
tem."
*The "anti-party group' in the presidium in 1957 had
voted to oust him, and only later in the presidium ses-
sion did they agree to Khrushchev's request to bring the
matter before a hurriedly called session of the party's
central committee.
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Within a year after Khrushchev's overthrow, his
successors abolished the fallen leader's major institu-
tional changes. First his 1962 restructuring of the party
and later his 1957 decentralization of industrial manage-
ment were revoked. The regime returned to the status quo
ante institutionally. The party withdrew to its sphere
o ppolitical-ideological leadership, the state apparatus
regained its prerogatives as the economic manager within
the system.
The resegregation of party-state functions along
traditional lines however was more a reflection of the
balance of forces within the coalition that overthrew
Khrushchev than the coherent platform of a dominant and
unified ruling faction. The new institutional arrange-
ment was not stable. Not long after the dust of Khru-
shchev's fall had settled signs of conflict over insti-
tutional roles began to emerge among the leaders.
Suslov took his usual part as the protector of
the ideologically-oriented party leaving mundane tasks
to state institutions. Brezhnev initially portrayed him-
self as a backer of the return to the traditional concept
of the party but as time went on gave increasing stress
to the legitimacy and necessity of the party's involvement
in the economic sphere. Thus he began to move in the
general direction Khrushchev had gone but was careful
not to associate himself with the discredited Khrushchevian
formulas on the production-oriented party. Here Brezhnev
entered into competition with Kosygin. Kosygin sought
to establish a working principle of mutual non-interfer-
ence between party and state marking out the realm of
economic-industrial management as his quasi-autonomous
jurisdiction. With Podgorny's shift to the Supreme Soviet
another dimension of the institutional rivalry entered
the picture. The movement aimed at expanding the powers
of the Supreme Soviet began to be vigorously promoted and
the idea of putting teeth into the soviets as the controller
of the ministerial apparatus of the state was pressed.
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In connection with this issue various alliances appeared
to develop. Podgorny's personal interest in expanding
the role of the soviets was obvious. Brezhnev seemed to
go along with the idea not so much to boost a rival
over whom he had gained the advantage but rather as another
way of diminishing Kosygin's state apparatus. Kosygin
continued to betray his distaste for expanding the soviets'
role and other high-level figures indicated their opposi-
tion to curbing the state apparatus. Suslov and his
political kin while apparently not objecting to the
expansion of the soviets' role continued to concentrate
on the concept of the ideological party.
As these cleavages developed, the project for
writing anew constitution once more grew in political
significance. While the debate over institutional roles
continued among the jurists following Khrushchev's fall,
the constitutional project was soft-pedalled during the
first twenty months of the new regime. However, soon
after the 23rd Congress Brezhnev--who replaced Khrushchev
as head of the constitutional commission--revived the
question. His move on the project is likely to sharpen
the internal conflict over the institutional issue as
various elements seek to incorporate their positions into
the regime's basic law. The following pages detail the
development of this issue since Khrushchev's fall.
The Restoration of the "Pure" Party at the November 1964
Plenum
The intensity of the reaction within the regime
to Khrushchev's effort to transform the party institu-
tion was registered almost immediately after his fall.
In November, barely a month after his fall, the Central
Committee convened and liquidated his 1962 bifurcation
of the party into industrial and agricultural committees
on the "production" principle.
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Pravda on the next day reported and commented
on the decisions of the plenum, and made it clear that
the production-oriented party was an error of the Khru-
shchevian past:
Replacing the territorial-production
principle of party organization with
the so-called production principle
objectively led to a confusion of func-
tions, rights, and obligations of party,
soviet, and economic organs and pushed
party committees into replacing economic
organs.
Following the plenum, the traditionalist lawyers promptly
clarified their earlier abstruse opposition to Khrushchev's
view of the party. Two jurists, V. Kotok (head of the
law institute's department of theory of governance and
constitutional law) and his assistant V. Maslennikov,
reiterated and added to the above Pravda indictment by
charging in a 28 November 1964 Izvesfy article that
the November 1962 reforms not only pushed party committees
into replacing economic organs, but also into substitut-
ing for soviet organs. The two jurists then cited the
full 8th Congress testament on party restrictions on
soviets and state bodies which Khrushchev had avoided
in his 24-February 1959 maneuver in his constitutional
campaign. Kotok and Maslennikov wrote that "the 8th
Party Congress indicated that one should never confuse
the functions of party collectives with the functions
of state organs, such as soviets. The party must carry
out its decisions through the soviet organs within the
framework of the Soviet Constitution, The party strives
to lead the ac t ivi es of the Soviets and not replace
Them!"
Brezhnev And The Silent Constitutional Commission
On Podgorny's recommendation, Brezhnev was selected
at an 11 December 1964 session of the Supreme Soviet as
Khrushchev's replacement for the chairmanship of the
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constitutional commission. The new chairman apparently
adopted the policy of calling no public sessions of his
commissions. Brezhnev's early reluctance to press for-
ward with any noticeable vigor on the project during the
early post-coup period may well have been due to the con-
siderations that (1) the effort for a new constitution
was personally identified with the man he had helped to
oust and (2) that the project was an effort to encorporate
Khrushchev's highly controversial views of the long-range
role of the party into the basic law of the land.
That Khrushchev's efforts for a new constitution
were deemphasized by the new leadership was again made
clear in the Pravda editorial on Constitution Day, 5
December l964. a editorial had nothing to say about
preparations for a new basic law. The editorial reiterated
Suslov's view on the expanding role of the state apparatus
and went on, without naming Khrushchev, to praise the
decisions of the October 1964 plenum, which ousted him,
and the November 1964 plenum, which revoked his bifurca-
tion scheme. On the next day, in an even more pointed
attack on Khrushchev's view of the party, an editorial
in Pravda reiterated the position voiced around the:time
of the November plenum that "the essence of the Leninist
style of party lies in the fact that this guidance is
not administrative but of the supreme, political type.
The party exercises political guidance over all state
and public organizations. But it does not assume their
functions. notions of direct management."
A similar position was promptly adopted
by the new head of the Institute of Law.
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Romashkin's Conservative Replacement And The New Debate
V. Chkhikvadze, a Soviet jurist who replaced
Romashkin as Director of the law institute in early
1964*, presented a major exposition of his pro-ministerial
views in the early January 1965 edition of Kommunist.
The article first set out to clear the new director) who
was not a member of the 97 man constitution commission,
of any pro-Khrushchevian legal views. It praised the
October ouster and the November decisions on the production
principle, criticized "artificial hastening of the wither-
ing away of the state", questioned the worth of comrades'
courts (which have received abundant criticism in the
post-Khrushchev period), and urged that the state ap-
paratus should closely supervise all social organizations
which assumed former state functions. Chkhikvadze then
presented his explicit defense of the state apparatus by
first stating that the state is the "basic tool in the
organization of the building of Communism." A second
assertion followed that "the period of expanded Communist
construction is accompanied by the ever growing import-
ance of administration." This pro-state position was then
repeatedly bucked up with the theme of the importance of
efficiency and professionalism in administering a modern,
complex state.
*C i va a was an active member of the editorial
board of Soviet State And Law from mid-1948 to the end
of 1958--at which time Romas kin became a member of the
board. Romashkin was dropped from the editorial board
by the September 1965 edition of the law journal, His
last article in the law journal appeared in the March
1963 edition, and it discussed the constitutional project
in terms of the production-oriented party.
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Conservative constitutional views were not reflected
in a February 1965 Soviet State And Law article by the
chief editor of that journal, A. Lepes kin. Lepeshkin,
while pressing for a strengthened state system in the
new constitution, posed the radical suggestion of a genuine
choice of candidates in the Soviet `elections." Lepeshkin
boldly told,. us that
as is well known, the Soviet election law
does not limit the number of candidates
proposed as soviet deputies. Meanwhile,
the practice of elections for the soviets
of all levels has been formed in such a
way that only one candidate, for whom or
against whom the voters of a given electoral
okrug vote, is on the voting list for
deputies.
Numerous articles and suggestions of our
readers raise the question of the advis-
ability of leaving on the ballot paper
not one, but several candidates proposed
by the voters for election to one vacant
seat of a soviet deputy for a given
electoral okrug, of course, the democrat-
ism of any electoral system is not mea-
sured only by the number of candidates
put on the voting list, that is one or
two. Nevertheless, this is not a problem
of minor importance and its correct solu-
tion under our conditions is of great im-
portance for the development of the demo-
cratic principles of the Soviet electoral
system.
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Lepeshkin, whose radical electoral remarks were widely
circulated in the Western press in late May 1965,* was
replaced as chief editor of the journal by the early June
1965 edition.
At about the time that Lepeshkin presented his
radical electoral views, a rejoinder to the constitutional
position of the new director of the law institute was
presented in an early February 1965 Kommunist article by
V. Vasilyev. Vasilyev guardedly introduced His rebuttal
with the comment that "one should not go to extremes
with regard to the soviets7--take over the functions of
The economic organs, adopt administrative methods affect-
ing enterprises and organizations under the jurisdiction
of economic organs or interfere in the managerial activities
of their leaders." Nevertheless, Vasilyev emphatically
endorsed the Khrushchevian policy of "recent years" of
transfering administrative and economic state functions
to the soviets.
In recent years, the soviets have started
solving more and more problems which in
the past were mainly the responsibility
of the executive organs. The soviets
have been more active in supervising the
fulfillment of resolutions. The member-
ship in the permanent commissions has
expanded, Some local soviets have trans-
ferred to their commissions many adminis-
trative matters.
The new director of the law institute had referred to "in-
creasing the role of permanent commissions," but only
parenthetically and then in the context of describing an
assignment given by the Academy of Sciences which called
*See orza s Manc ester Guardian article for 21 May
1965, "Election Re-forms For Russians? Voters May Get
Choice of Candidates." Soviet voters did not get a
choice in the 12 June 1966 elections.
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upon the law institute to draft a manual defining the legal
activity of the soviets. And unlike the new law director,
Vasilyev pointed out that the soviets, which he regarded
as all-embracing social organizations, should closely
supervise the administrators. Vasilyev criticized soviet
deputies who "fail to give the executive organs tasks"
after having presented his constitutional thesis:
It is the soviets who set up the adminis-
trative apparatus. Directly or indirectly,
all state organs receive their power from
the soviets. The representative organs
have great facilities for influencing the
practical work of the executive; apparatus
by directly participating in the work them-
selves.
Finally, Vasilyev praised the role of the non-
professional volunteers. While he noted that voluntary
workers sometimes duplicate the tasks of formal organiza-
tions, he emphasized that "the more active they /the
volunteers7 are, the better." Unlike law director
Chkhikvadze,* Vasilyev lauded the scope of volunteer-
soviet activity:
Voluntary deputy chairmen of executive
committees of village, settlement, rayon
*C i va ze in Kommunist referred to the role of vulun-
teers in the same slighting ing manner that * he had referred
to the role of permanent commissions. Praise for the acti-
vity of volunteers was a common theme in the juridical
media prior to Chkhikvadze's replacement of Romashkin as
director of the law institute. For example, the head of
the constitutional law department (sector) of the insti-
tute, V. Kotok, emphasized the case for replacing the paid
staff of executive committee departments with unpaid volun-'
teers in a July 1961 Soviet State And Law article. Fol-
lowing the change in law institute irec ors, Kotok and
his assistant Maslennikov did not return to this point
in their 28 November 1964 Izvestiya article.
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and city soviets,-voluntary departments
of executive committees, groups of volun-
tary inspectors and instructors, voluntary
councils at regular departments and ad-
ministrations, many voluntary public
organizations--this is far from the full
list of ways in which the working people
participate in the work of the soviets.
The soviet actives now number about 23
million people. This clearly marks the
soviets not only as government but as
social organizations as well.
In short, the constitutional debate continued,
though with far more limited terms of reference. And
the former terms dealing with the role 6f the party
were obliquely raised in March by the new First Secretary
of the party's central committee.
Brezhnev's Dalliance With The Production Principle
During the period between the revocation of the
"so-called" production principle and a March 1965 central
committee plenum, Soviet theoretical and judicial spokes-
men were careful to define the party's task in the eco-
nomic life of the nation as "guiding" or "leading." One
leading theoretician who had fully supported Khrushchev's
subordination of all party tasks to productive work--
secretariat member Ilichev--was removed from the secretariat
at the March 1965 plenum.
While carefully emphasizing the "guiding and lead-
ing" role of the party, Brezhnev in his March 1965 plenum
speech on "urgent measures for the further development
of Soviet agriculture" made a comment reminiscent of a
passage in Khrushchev's 1956 Congress report on the deter-
mining factor of party work in the economy.
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Khrushchev, 14 February
1956 report at the 20th
Party Congress
"The work of a leading
Party worker should be
judged primarily by ree
suits obtained in the
development of the eco-
nomy."
Brezhnev, 24 March 1965
Central Committee plenum
speech
"Constant attention.. .to
increased agricultural
production should be the
determining aspect of
the work of Party bodies."
Six months later Brezhnev referred to the party's role
in industrial production in the same vein.
In short, Brezhnev was echoing the general outlines
of the former Khrushchevian line and indicating. that
the party did not plan to hand over its authority in the
economic sphere to the state.
Evincing his earlier cautious and evasive approach
toward making final the 1962 party production principle,
Brezhnev--like Khrushchev in his 1956 Congress report--
preceded his above remark with a traditionalist position
that the party must "coordinate and guide" the work of
state and social organizations in the countryside. How-
ever, Brezhnev limited such party work to "organizational
and economic strengthening"--rural ideological work was
ignored. Ideological work was briefly noted in an earlier
remark by Brezhnev on the broader theme of the party's
nationwide tasks, but it was then listed last: the party
has "the special responsibility of steadily improving
organizational, political, economic and ideological work."
Brezhnev also claimed that rural party bodies "must stop
giving preemptory orders and bureaucratic instructions,
and stop exercising petty tutelage and usurping the func-
tions of the managers and experts of collective and state
farms." But he went on in his plenum speech to urge an
increase in the role of the party and the numbers of full-
time party secretaries .in the collective and state farms.
A second example of the party's role in production
was signaled at the March plenum by promotion of defense
expert Ustinov to the party secretariat and presidium,
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and his concomitant resignation from Kosygin's Council
of Ministers and the Supreme Economic Council. Ustinov's
party promotion, coming in the wake of a 2 March 1965
conversion of six key state defense committees into
ministries,* suggested that Brezhnev's party control over
the critical Soviet industrial sector would be strength-
ened.
In short, Brezhnev seemed to be leaving open the
question of the party?s assumption of economic tasks.
The question was again raised at the September plenum.
Brezhnev The Party, Kosygin The State
Reminiscent of his November 1962 state-oriented
position on constructing communism, Kosygin at the Septem-
ber 1965 plenum declared that "the successful completion
of the program of building the material and technical
basis of communism-will largely depend on how effectively
they /problems of industrial management, planning and
production7 will be solved." The solution, confidently
announced Kosygin in his 27 September plenum speech, would
be approached by the full reestablishment of the pre-1957
ministerial system--the target of Khrushchev's early
"thesis" and later constitutional efforts. As in his 6
November 1962 speech, Kosygin at the September 1965 plenum
again presented his position on the state's role in the
construction of communism. And while he pointed out the
role of the party in the practical affairs of the economy
(industry in this case), he again listed technical expert-
ise first: "At the present time more than two million
experts with a higher or secondary education are employed
in industrial establishments. There are more than four
million communists working in industry." ("Professionalism"
*Perhaps coincident ally, a partial rehabilitation of
Marshal Zhukov surrounded the March 1965 reestablishment
of the pre-December 1957 system of defense ministries.
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in the whole state apparatus was the main subject of a
September 1965 article in Soviet State And Law by jurist
M. Piskotin, who reiterated much of his conc usions regard-
ing the efficacy of a viable state apparatus presented
in his earlier discussed December 1963 article in Kom-
munist.)
The emphasis on the state-oriented approach toward
building communism in Kosygin's speech was downplayed in
Brezhnev's 29 September report before the plenum. Brezhnev
again referred to the party's role in economic production
while reviving his December 1962 position on greater party
supervision of the ministries. ""The extension of the
powers and autonomy of industrial establishments parti-
cularly enhances the role and responsibility of the local
Party organizations, that is, those of the units whose
role in production is decisive," said Brezhnev on 29
September. While again ignoring "ideological work,"
Brezhnev maintained his carefully evasive position on the
"production principle" by immediately stating that pro-
duction problems were subordinate to the "prime task" of
educational and organizing work.
Other shades of his predecessor's more sharply
drawn views on the state bureaucracy were cast in his
September 1965 plenum speech. For one example, Brezhney,
after scoring "bureaucratic exercises" in certain undis-
closed state ministries, went on to forecast that the
Kosygin-sponsored managerial reorganization alone "will
not eliminate these /bureaucratic7 shortcomings. We
need," continued Brezhnev, "hard work and persistent
effort by the administrative apparatus Tosygin's sphere7,
but above all by Party and mass organizations to educate
people ndweed out irresponsibility, red tape, bureau-
cratic behavior." As a part of the weeding-out process,
Brezhnev suggested that
highly competent and experienced Party
workers should be recommended for the
office of secretaries of the Party com-
mittees of the / ew7 ministries.
These committees should periodically
inform the Central Committee of the
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CPSU about the work of their organiza-
tions, about the steps they take to
improve the operation of the ministries
in question.
In another contrast with Kosygin, Brezhnev did not specify
the role of the state in his plenum formulation on
building communism: "As we steadfastly enhance the role
of the Party in communist construction, we must never
forget that this calls for hard work by every organiza-
tion, above all the Soviets, the trade unions and the
Komsomol."
Following Brezhnev's September emphasis on the
party's role in state affairs (and following his appoint-
ment to Podgorny's Supreme Soviet Presidium in early
October), an article in Kommunist (goa 16~ 1965, by the
first secretary of the Bashkir O last, Z. Nuriyev, ex-
panded upon the theme of the party's activity in running
the state. After repeated assertions that party organs
must not take the place of state and economic organiza-
tions, Nuriyev finally got to the nub of his presentation
in concluding that "sometimes a situation builds up in
which the party organs are obliged to intervene in the
activity of the economic organs." This extraordinary
admission was combined with Nuriyev's insistence that
party members must study both Marxist-Leninist theory
and economics and modern techniques of production. With
regard to economic activity, Nuriyev posited that the
party--even as a "directing and leading force"--occupies
a superior position to the state. He declared that (1)
there is no "sign of equality" between party and economic
activity and that (2) the party organizations "in no
event" should assume a subordinate role with respect to
the economic or state organizations.
Kosygin's emphasis on the state's role was reiter-
ated by state theoretician Chesnokov in the next issue
of Kommuniste
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Chesnokov On Kosygin's Ministries
Disregarding the particulars of the party's role
in state activity,* Chesnokov formulated added theoreti-
cal argumentation for Kosygin?s September managerial re-
form in an article in Kommunist (No. 17) 1965. Like jurist
Shakhnazarov in 1960, esnokov predicated his defense
of the existing state apparatus on the theoretical pro-
nouncements of the 18th Party Congress concerning "the
development of the socialist state." Chesnokov, like
law institute director Chkhikvadze, presented his posi-
tion on the preeminent role of the state in building
the bases of communism.
The task of creating the mater ial-tech-
nical foundations for communism is
carried out with all the domestic
functions of the socialist state,
above all, its economic-organizational,
cultural-educational, protection and
strengthening of public ownership
functions.
That Chesnokov regarded these tasks as solely residing
in the state apparatus is strengthened by the fact that
the author made no reference to the role of the soviets
or permanent commissions of the soviets in tasks of "con-
structing the foundations of communism." Chesnokov made
a brief reference to the withering away of state functions
"which have served their usefulness," but he failed to
point out with any precision what the withered functions
would be. Chesnokov flatly asserted that "the role of
the state system will predominate and cannot but predominate
over the tasks of withering away of the state." He em-
phasized (1) that in the building of communism the state
*Chesnokov said only that the activities of the state
"are developed" by the party on the basis of modern ad-
ministrative techniques.
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would be "fully retained, further developed," and (2) like
Ponomarev in July 1964, he emphasized the remoteness of
realizing the "higher stage" of communism. Chesnokov
went on to identify the opposition as "revisionists" who
"are" (present tense) belittling the role of the state
apparatus:
...the imperialist propagandists proclaim
the "theory" according to which the USSR
has a new privileged class, namely the
white collar workers and the intelligentsia,
representing the;-new dominating class
served by the socialist state. A similar
slander has been, and is, adamantly dis-
seminated by the Trotskyites who shriek
about the distortion of the socialist
state and its transformation into a
bureaucratic organization. All these
forged theories were picked up by the
revisionists whose chatter of stateism
or of the possibility of a self-contain-
ing state, above all classes, are used
to conceal their belittling of the role
of the socialist state in the building
of socialism and communism.
In short, his state-oriented argumentation changed little
since its employment under Stalin in the early 'fifties.
Even the old terminology was employed by Chesnokov as he
re-examined the pre-1961 official Soviet state formula.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Praising the abandoned concept of the "dictatorship
of the proletariat," Chesnokov in Kommunist devoted con-
siderable attention to the similarities be between that state
formula and its surrogate formula, "state of the whole people,"
introduced at the 1961 Party Congress. With regard to
the 1961 innovation, Chesnokov further identified the op-
position as "those with claim present ten e7 that the
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state of the whole people is different, not only in form
but in content as well, from the state of the dictator-
ship of the proletariat, that is, that it is an entirely
new stage." Stating that "we cannot agree" with those
who claim that the two state formulas are different,
Chesnokov went on to conclude that the state of the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the state of the
whole people "are essentially the same state at various
developmental stages." His premises were (1) that "all"
foreign functions of the proletarian dictatorship are the
same in the state of the whole people, and (2) that the
"basic" internal functions are the same. Chesnokov routinely
explained that the proletarian dictatorship "eliminated
the exploiters," which in turn eliminated the need for
coercion. But, he immediately countered, "this does not
mean. that there is no longer any need for any coercion
whatsoever." He stated that the law would continue to
punish violators and citizens who display a "lack of
discipline" through the state court system. The Khru-
shchev-sponsored comrade courts were ignored.
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Prior to the congress three important legal develop-
ments surfaced: (1) a December 1965 central committee
plenum transformed the Party-State Control Commission into
a "system of people's control," (2) a December 1965 Supreme
Soviet session called upon the Council of Ministers to
respond to formal interpellations, and (3) certain soviet
jurists made explicit recommendations--some of which were
voiced by Brezhnev and Podgorny at the 23rd Congress--to
strengthen the soviets and the permanent commissions in
their relation with the Council of Ministers.
One: People's Control
In his 6 December plenum speech, Brezhnev suggested
that the Party-State Control Committee (PSCC)--approved
at the November production plenum, formally limited to the
state apparatus in a January 1963 statute, and ignored at
the September 1965 managerial plenum--be transformed into
a "system of people's control." The new control bodies,
Brezhnev emphasized, "do not control the work of party
organs"--a commandment that seemed to reprove unwarranted
control activity on the part of its predecessor. The charge
that the PSCC was involved in control activity in the party
apparatus was not explicitly drawn by Brezhnev. Nor do
we have any evidence that the PSCC actually strayed out of
its January 1963 statutory limitations into the party's
sphere of activity. However, in light of Brezhnev's public
reference to "short-eoinings" in the work of the PSCC and
in light of Brezhnev's caveat relating to the proper sphere
of activity for people's control, it seems reasonable to
suggest that the potential threat of such independent
activity on the part of the PSCC may have been a considera-
tion in the reorganization. At any rate, the reorganization
seems to have been directed at (1) removing any remaining
legal ambiguity relating to the activity of the party's
own control system, and/or (2) diminishing the personal
authority of the chairman of the PSCC, Shelepin, who in
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fact was removed as head of the PSCC as well as from the
Council of Ministers in December 1965.
The Brezhnev-sponsored maneuver related to the
constitutional question in the sense that the PSCC repre-
sented a Khrushchevian attempt to bring under the direct
control of one party-run agency related functions of both
party and state apparatus.
It does not appear that the party apparatus gave up
significant control prerogatives over Kosygin's state ap-
paratus in the reorganization. However, the statutory
powers for people's control have apparently not been
publicized and any final judgment on the state authority
of the new control mechanism cannot be drawn. But two
developments suggest that the state activity of the new
agency is not radically different from its predecessor.
Most of the high-level PSCC officials were simply trans-
ferred to similar positions in people's control committees,
though most lost prestiguous positions of party secretary
and deputy premier of republics and union-republics. And
the reported size of the people's control, six million
according to Pravda on 26 April 1966, indicates that the
new agency has assumed the mass state character of its
predecessor.
Two: Interpellations
An unusual display of Supreme Soviet authority over
the state's highest apparat--the Council of Ministers--
was revealed the day after the 6 December party plenum
adjourned. At a 7 December session of the Supreme Soviet,
several soviet delegates revived the virtually dormant
provision in the 1936 Constitution (article 71) which held
that USSR ministers must reply to questions of members of
the Supreme Soviet within three days. The deputies addressed
three interpellations--calling for the Council of Ministers'
views and proposals on (1) nonproliferation of nuclear
weapons and noninterference in the internal affairs of
states, (2) the West German "threat," and (3) preparations
for the second conference of Afro-Asian countries--to Foreign
Minister Gromyko, who dutifully responded in his 9 December
speech before the Supreme Soviet. (Foreign Minister Gromyko
submitted to interpellations regarding Bulganin's disarma-
ment proposals at the 21 December 1957 Supreme Soviet session--
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a time when Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Bulganin,
was being publicly slighted and his subsequent decline
was being rumored. Khrushchev replaced Bulganin in March
1958 and unveiled his own major disarmament proposal,
"general and complete disarmament," in the fall of the
next year.)
This unusual parliamentary gesture was accompanied
by the election of Podgorny, on Brezhnev?s recommendation,
to the chairmanship of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
And in light of Podgorny's and Brezhnev?s subsequent ex-
plicit proposals at the 23rd Party Congress (examined pre-
sently) for greater Supreme Soviet control over the Council
of Ministers, Gromyko?s response to formal interpellations
seemed to mark more than a symbolic gesture of Supreme
Soviet authority over Kosygin?s state apparatus.
At least four jurists in the post-Khrushchev period
have popularized the cause of granting greater powers--
supervisory, legislative, executive, and judicial--to
the permanent commissions. In effect,`the 1965-1966 pro-
posals of the four jurists appear to be aimed at imple-
menting the long-abused article in the 1936 Constitution
granting the legislative power to the Supreme Soviet
(Article 32). For example, jurist A. Makhnenko in the
July 1965 edition of Soviet State and Law urged that the
supervisory and juridical powers of the permanent commis-
sions be extended by ordering the procurator-general and
the supreme courts to report not only to the supreme soviet
presidiums of the various republics but also to the sessions
of the respective commissions of the soviets. (In the
August 1964 edition of the same law journal, Makhnenko
pressed for a greater legislative role for the permanent
commissions in drafting bills.) Jurists M. Binder and
M. Shafir in the law journal's November 1965 edition,
first noted that "over the last few years" (i.e., the
Khrushchev period) the permanent commissions of the various
republic Supreme Soviets have become more active in the
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actual administration of the economy. Binder and Shafir
then went on to propose that (1) the scope of economic
questions handled by the republic supreme soviets should
be extended, (2) the soviets should be granted enhanced
control over their administrative organs (the ministries),
and (3) the procedure for examining the drafts of the
state budget and the economic plan should be improved in
favor of the soviets,,
Finally, and on the eve of the 23rd Party Congress,
jurist 0e Kutafyin in an issue of Soviet State And Law
(sent to the press on 22 March 1966) stressed the need
to give greater legal powers to the permanent commissions
of the USSR Supreme Soviet in its relations with the
USSR Council of Ministers. First, Kutafyin posed the
problem; the Council of Ministers' virtual disregard of
the proposals of the Supreme Soviet's permanent commis-
sions. Advocating actual legislative activity on the
part of the Supreme Soviet, Kutafyin wrote that
According to the practice which has de-
veloped, the Supreme Soviet USSR trans-
fers the decision of those questions /the
proposals of the soviet permanent comniis-
sions7 to the discretion of the Council
of Ministers. However, a more correct
procedure would appear to be one in which
they /The proposals7 would be decided in
principle by the Supreme Soviet USSR it-
self.
Then Kutafyin suggested a remedy by which the regulatory
and procedural relationship between the Council of Ministers
and the Supreme Soviet and its standing commissions would
be strictly established. The jurist specifically urged
the adoption of five measures which, conceivably, would
provide the mechanism to enforce the permanent commis-
sions' already impressive paper powers (described on
page 34) : establish juridically (1) the duty and obli-
gation of the permanent commissions to send to the Council
of Ministers proposals without waiting for the convoca-
tion of the next session of the Supreme Soviet, (2) better
"forms and methods" for the permanent commissions in the
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implementation of soviet proposals, (3) the duty of the
Council of Ministers to consider the proposals of the
permanent commissions and to inform the commissions of
the results of such consideration within specified time
limits, (4) the duty of the Council of Ministers to
assist the permanent commissions in dealing with agencies
subordinate to the Council of Ministers, and (5) the
duty of the Council of Ministers not only to communicate
to the permanent commissions concerning the results of
ministerial considerations, but also to give a report on
those problems directly to the Supreme Soviet.
Kutafyin also proposed that the Presidium of the
USSR Supreme Soviet be given precise regulations and
juridically defined procedures in dealing with the perma-
nent commissions of the two supreme soviet chambers, the
Soviet of Union and the Soviet of Nationalities.
In contrast to the appeals of the above four jur-
ists, law institute director Chkhikvadze and constitution-
al law expert Kotok in an article in Kommunist signed to
the press 23 March 1966 (1) made no reference to the need
for permanent commissions for the soviets (2) gave short
shrift to the role of the soviets, (3) and flatly asserted
that the "state retains its leading role" over social
organizations--thus, on the basis of the 1961 party pro-
gram's definition, over the soviets. The two leading jur-
ists also reiterated earlier views (including Chesnokov's)
on the necessity of a viable state apparatus. And the
two jurists employed the traditionalists' classic argu-
ment of defending the party and state provisions of the
1936 Stalin Constitution. Affirming that the 1936 Con-
stitution allots the "leading and guiding role' to the
CPSU, the two lawyers linked party "purity" with Chkhik-
vadze's earlier expressed proposition on the value of a
strengthened state apparatus:
In its activities the party proceeds
from the fact that the Soviet state is
the main tool for the building of com-
munism. It /The party7 displays con-
stant concern for increasing the power
of the state, for the systematic imple-
mentation of the principles of Soviet
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democracy, strengthening socialist law
and order, improving and bettering the
state apparatus.
Divergent handling of this state-oriented proposi-
tion was displayed during and following the 23rd Party
Congress.
The Congress Proposals For Parliamentary Reform
Permanent commissions were the principal consti-
tutional subject at the 23rd Party Congress (29 March-
8 April) this year.
Brezhnev and Podgorny gave considerable emphasis
to the subject of the strict accountability of the minis-
terial apparatus to the soviets and the permanent commis-
sions. Along the line of his December 1962 Izvestiya
argument (and the positions taken by jurists Kuy n,
Makhnenko, Binder and Shafir) and in reference to the
interpellations issue, Brezhnev in his 29 March 1966 con-
gress report emphasized that "reports of the USSR Council
of Ministers at sessions of the USSR Supreme Soviet
should become the practice." Going beyond Vasilyev's
February 1965 Kommunist position, Brezhnev suggested in
his 29 March 1$6 report that greater ministerial review-
ing authority within the Supreme Soviet "possibly could
be assisted by formation of new permanent commissions in
the chambers of the USSR Supreme Soviet."
Brezhnev?s remarks on increasing the number and
powers of the permanent commissions were warmly endorsed
by Podgorny two days later. Stressing that the soviets
"must fully utilize the rights they already enjoy in
accord with the Constitution" and complaining that "the
possibilities and rights granted to them by the Consti-
tution are far from being fully utilized," Podgorny con-
cluded that "the Central Committee's suggestion to expand
the practice of hearing government reports at sessions
and to create permanent commissions in both chambers of
the Supreme Soviet is fully justified."
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The net effect of the Brezhnev-Podgorny Supreme
Soviet "reforms" would be (1) to increase the role of the
soviets in the early stages of the legislative process
and (2) to impose added tasks and control measures on
the ministerial apparatus, headed by Chairman of the
Presidium of the Council of Ministers Kosygin.
In defense of his apparatus, Kosygin in his brief
7 April concluding speech at the congress held that the
early stage of the legislative process would reside with-
in the ministries, and that the Supreme Soviet's role
would be to consider the plans which had been worked out
in the government organs.
The State Planning Committee of the USSR,
the ministries, the Council of Ministers
of the union republics, and the economic
and planning bodies must work out the
five-year plan with targets for every
year and, what is of particular import-
ance, make it known to every enterprise.
This new five-year plan must be ready
within four or five months, then it will
be submitted to the session of the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR for consideration.
Significantly, Kosygin in his lengthy 6 April report at
the congress ignored the suggestions of Brezhnev and
Podgorny to increase the powers of the Supreme Soviets
in its relations with the Council of Ministers--a "reform"
which would do little to enhance the independence of
Kosygin's bureaucracy. Kosygin also ignored Brezhnev's
suggestion (endorsed by Podgorny) to create a system of
"elective collective farm cooperative bodies"--another
"reform" which, if ever implemented,* would do little
*The April Congress resolution instructed the central
committee "to examine" the proposal to set up "collective
farm cooperative bodies." The cooperatives, an issue
discussed in a December 1959 agricultural plenum (with
Podgorny and Polyansky indicating their favor of the pro-
posal), bear some resemblance to the kolkhoz unions which
existed during the period 1927-1932.
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to enhance the authority of the newly recentralized Ministry
of Agriculture under Kosygin?s Council of Ministers.
Two organizational "reforms" associated with Khru-
shchev and relating to constitutional issues were reversed
on Brezhnev's recommendation at the 23rd Congress. The
delegates to the congress replaced the 1961 turnover rule
with a vague reference to the "principle of systematic
renewal" in the party election statute. And in gestures
apparently aimed at separating the new leadership from
titles associated with Khrushchev, the congress delegates
voted to change Brezhnev's title of "first secretary"
to "general secretary" and the presidium was renamed
"politburo," the original pre-1952 title under Lenin and
Stalin.
An "Original Version" Of Lenin?s Economic Testament
While dissociating himself from titles and certain
statutes sponsored by Khrushchev, Brezhnev did not choose
to dissociate himself fully from certain "positive" attri-
butes of his predecessor's party production principle.
Thus Brezhnev in his congress report did not criticize
the production principle in his black list of "negative
phenomena" that supposedly had been retarding the develop-
ment of the national economy. He pointed toward "faults
in management and planning, under appreciation of self-
financing methods in economics, incomplete utilization
of material and moral incentives," and so forth. (By
way of contrast, Suslov in a 2 June 1965 Sofia speech
judged that the "?so-called" production, principle, among
other phenomena which arose during the Khrushchev era,
had "inflicted great harm" on the nation's economic
and political life.)
Following the congress, Brezhnev's line of argument
was cited in the context of the "original version"--not
the "newly deciphered", and presumably disreputed version--
of the recently neglected Lenin document that was popularized
in 1962 in a like effort to substantiate Khrushchev's view
of the productive party. Somewhat similar theoretical
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substantiation for Brezhnev's congress argument was drawn
in a 22 April Izvestiya article by the Chairman of the
Institute of Marxdsm-Leninism, P. Pospelov, who wrote:
Lenin's opinion on the place and role
of economics and economic policy in the
construction of communism is especially
valuable for the practical work of the
party. In the original version of the
article "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet
Regime," Lenin reveals the determining
significance of the economic policy of the
Soviet state. Now, he pointed out, "it
is not politics but economics which is
acquiring primarily significance." In
accordance with this view Lenin more than
once warned against the mere giving of
commands, and against the danger-of the
predominance over economic methods of an
administrative approach to the management
of the national economy. "If a communist
is an administrator," taught Lenin, "his
first duty is to beware of an enthusiasm
for giving commands and to be able first
to take into consideration that which
science has already worked out, to ask
first where we have made a mistake and
only on this basis to correct what has
been done>" In another;place Lenin
warned: "...not to separate administra-
tion from politics is the task."
Lenin pushed economic methods of
leadership to the foreground. Under-
estimation of these methods in the past
was also one of the reasons for certain
negative phenomenon in the development
of the
national
economy which were men-
tioned
directly
and openly in the report
of the
Central
Committee of the XXIII
Party
Congress
which was given by Comrade
Brezhnev.
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The "newly deciphered" version was cited by Ilichev in
his November 1962 Kommunist article (examined on pages
48 - 49), which translates that Lenin wrote "political
tasks and problems hold /animayut7 a subordinate place
to economic tasks." Pospelovos "original version" trans-
lates that Lenin wrote "it is not politics but economics
which is acquiring ,priobretaet7 primary significance."
The terminology n the "original version" seems to cor-
respond more closely to the current state of Brezhnev's
cautious approach to the production principle. That is,
"economics" could be in the process of acquiring primary
consideration in Brezhnev's public formula on the role
of the party though it is not firmly "held" in explicit
primacy over ideology.
Following the congress, Brezhnev in June returned
to the subject of a working party, ignored party ideologi-
cal work, and followed his production-oriented comments
with a surprise announcement concerning an old project.
THE "BREZHNEV CONSTITUTION"
The old project--the adoption of a new constitu-
tion--was revived by Brezhnev in his 10 June 1966 Moscow
election speech. And old, though less controversial
themes on the party and state--the "working party,"
strengthened soviets--surrounded Brezhnev's reference to
the new basic law, which he confidently indicated would
be adopted in 1967.
Other more controversial themes on the party and
state from the Khrushchev period have not been touched
upon. For example, the current constitutional dialogue
under the new leadership is silent on (1) the program to
transform the ministerial, "parliamentary" system into
a system granting greater power to an independent execu-
tive branch, (2) the explicit subordination of ideological
tasks to economic tasks in party work, (3) the formula
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on 'the withering away of the state apparat and the as-
sumption of state tasks by other organizations and (4)
the "convergence" of all social organizations, including
the party, into a single "all-embracing" organization.
Although the apparent shelving of these more controver-
sial issues would presumably facilitate the passage of
the constitutional project, disarray in the leadership
with regard to Brezhnev's relatively cautious line on
the respective roles of party and state is as visible
as the previous opposition to Khrushchev's more radical
positions.
The "Genuine People's State"
In a move that could be linked with the reported
reexamination of Khrushchev's state formula, Brezhnev
announced at a 10 June electoral speech in the Kremlin
that
All the best that the practice of state
building has produced in our country must
be summed up in the new constitution of
the USSR, which will crown the majestic
half century course of our country, of
the first genuine people's state in the
history of mankind.
If the "genuine people's state" was intended as a revi-
sion of Khrushchev's formula, it may conceal some posi-
tions on the party-state issue that were associated with
Khrushchev's definition of the "state of the whole people."
For example, Brezhnev followed his announcement on the
new constitution of the "genuine people's state" with an
unusually clear description of the economic tasks of party
members.* Discarding his March and September 1965
*Brezhnev had employed a somewhat similar tack in his
30 December 1962 Izvestiya article (discussed on pp. 49-51)
in which he preceededMs remark on the new constitution
with a statement endorsing the decisions of the November
1962 "party production" plenum.
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performances in circumlocution (and approaching the
candid level of Bashkir party chief Nuriyev's November
1965 Kommunist discussion), Brezhnev ignored the ques-
tion of party ideological work and flatly told his electors
that the party is called upon to "formulate the basis of
the country's economic policy, the main principles and
methods of management and to put these into practice."
Later in his speech he provided an example of ran and
file party members putting into practice CPSXJ economic
decisions:
Communists, like all other Soviet people,
work in enterprises, on collective farms,
at building sites, and in institutions.
If they enjoy any privilege it is the
privilege of shouldering the most diffi-
culties, of serving as examples, and of
being in the vanguard. In short, what we
mean is what in the war years was expressed
by the slogan "communists, forward." To-
day, this means working selflessly at the
building sites of communism, being equal
to the demands life makes, doing everything
to fulfill completely the decisions of the
23rd Congress of our party.
"Working selflessly" to fulfill the decisions of the 23rd
Congress was a formula that still fell short of full en-
dorsement of Khrushchev's party production principle. That
is, Brezhnev did not go on to explicitly subordinate
ideological work to the practical tasks of building com-
munism, though he did not discuss the former task in his
election speech.
Brezhnev also did not reiterate his 23rd Congress
suggestion for strengthening the permanent commissions
of the Supreme Soviet--a' suggestion, incidentally, which
had been deleted in the 8 April 1966 congress resolution
on Brezhnev's report. However, Brezhnev, like the adopted
congress resolution, urged in his election speech that
the role of the Supreme Soviet be raised and that the
scope of soviet activity be expanded.
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Going beyond Brezhnev's election remarks on the
soviets, the party's paper Pravda editorialized on 13
June that the continued rise n the role of the Supreme
Soviet "has been posed by the party as a primary goal."
And that the soviet's role meant the resolution of state
matters was made explicit on the day of the elections,
12 June, in another Pravda editorial: "The Party is
tirelessly concerned over the /oviets'7 growing role in
deciding state questions." Inconspicuous contrast--and
in close similarity with Kosygin's election remarks on
the subject of the soviets--the government's paper
Izvestiya ignored the subject of raising the role of the
Supreme Soviet in its editorials on the same two days.
And in an apparent retort to the party editorial's view
of the role of the soviets, the 13 June government edi-
torial--in the same vein of Kosygin's 7 April congress
remark--held that the Supreme Soviet would merely "ap-
prove" (yutverdit') activity relating to the new five-
year plan, rather than be more actively involved "in
deciding" (v reshenim) such questions, as in Pravda's 12
June editorial. Izvestiya's 13 June editorial ur her
belittled that suchstate questions "will face" the
Supreme Soviet delegates.
Prior to Brezhnev's election speech, high-level
Supreme Soviet delegates presented their post-congress,
and dissimilar, views on the role of the party, the role
of the soviets and the role of the state apparat in their
respective "campaign" speeches on the eve of the Supreme
Soviet elections.
The Post-Congress Views of The Oligarchy
Podgorny in his 9 June Bolshoy Theater election
speech endorsed even more of jurist Kutafyin's March 1966
Soviet State And Law proposals on increasing the; powers
of the permanen commissions of the Supreme Soviet.
Podgorny enumerated one interesting case study on the role
of the permanent commissions in making corrections in the
budgets and economic plans submitted by the government
apparatus to the soviets. The example Podgorny chose
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to instance his point on the worth of the permanent com-
missions was, curiously, deleted in both Pravda's and
Izvestiya's lengthy accounts of his speech The excised
passage, which harks back to the role of the commissions
during the Khrushchev period and implicitly argues that
the Supreme Soviet is not a "rubber stamp" parliament,
was included in the live domestic radio version of Pod-
gorny's address:
Let us take the discussion about national
economic plans and budgets in the permanent
commissions and at sessions of the USSR
Supreme Soviet. Each outline in the plan,
each figure in the budget, is most thoroughly
weighed by deputies. They analyze them,
locate new reserves, and introduce con-
crete proposals.
For example, during the past four years
the' corrections in economic plans and
budgets adopted by the Supreme Soviet on
a proposal of permanent commissions and
deputies made it possible to increase
production of consumer goods of import-
ance to the population for the sum of
725 million rubles.
Both papers, however, reported Podgorny's remarks on (1)
the responsibilities of soviet deputies in verifying the
implementation of adopted laws and (2) his pointed refer-
ence to the rights of the Supreme Soviet's permanent commis-
sions to examine the activity of the state bureaucracy:
"A permanent commission hears reports from ministries
and government departments, shortcomings are disclosed,
and recommendations are elaborated for overcoming them."
Finally, and in apparent reference to the September 1965
managerial plenum, Podgorny proclaimed that the increased
responsibilities growing out of the "extensive rights"
granted to production enterprises and branch ministries
would be accompanied by "increased control over the actions
of managerial bodies by soviets and their deputies."
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Shelest, who was elected a full member of the
presidium in November 1964, warmly seconded the soviet
proposals of his patron, Podgorny. (Shelest in his 30
March congress speech also seconded the collective farm
cooperative proposals of Podgorny and Brezhnev.) Shelest,
who in Jeuly:_1963 succeeded Podgorny as first secretary
of the Ukrainian Communist Party, also echoed muchcof
the republic-level parliamentary reform proposals urged
by jurists Binder and Shafir in their November 1965
law journal article. Thus, Shelest told Kiev electors
on 7 June 1966 that
Currently the role of the soviets of workers
deputies is being particularly increased
in the solution of the tasks of economic
and cultural construction, in questions
of planning, financing, and housing con-
struction, and in the management of local
industrial enterprises and of public and
cultural services for the population.
The soviets of workers deputies are faced
with great tasks in the further intensi-
fication of organizational work, in rais-
ing the responsibility of Soviet deputies
and functionaries before the people, in
activating the work of sessions and permanent
commissions, and in the strengthening of
and strict adherence to socialist law.
In contrast, Kosygin in his election speech in
Moscow's Bolshoy Theater on the next day renewed the
state-oriented approach of jurists Chkhikvadze and Kotok
in ignoring the subject of increasing the role of the
soviets and the issue of the soviet's permanent commissions.
In fact, Kosygin voiced a position on the role of the
state apparatus as strong as Chesnokov's December 1965
Kommunist presentation on the September 1965 plenum.decisions.*
*Kosygin, after re erring to the numerical growth in
the state militia, paraphrased Chesnokov's December 1965
Kommunist rationale on the need for organs of coercion:
Kosygin said "it would be incorrect to think that since
communism will finally lead to the disappearance of state
organs of coercion, one need no longer bother about
strengthening public order."
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Thus, Kosygin, after asserting that the CPSU considers
the strengthening of the Soviet state "of great import-
ance," made a reference to the 1965 September managerial
plenum in predicting that
many legislative norms of economic ques-
tions will be revised and will be made to
correspond to the new system of management
of the national economy. This will raise
and strengthen legality and discipline and
will insure the introduction of state order
in all sections of the state machinery and
the economic management of the country.
Unlike Podgorny, Kosygin did not go on to state that the
soviets and their deputies would increase control over
the actions of the state machinery. And unlike Brezhnev's
election remarks, Kosygin (1) ignored the subject of the
working party member, (2) asserted that the role of the
party was to "lead and guide," and (3) made a stronger
pitch for the role of the expert in building the bases
of communism than he had in his 5 April 1966 congress
speech: at the Bolshoy, Kosygin said that the "working
class and the scientific-technical intelligentsia of. the
capital steadfastly stride in the vanguard of the struggle
for implementation of the plans of our party in the
creation of the material and technical base of communism."
Suslov in his 7 June Leningrad election speech
once more emphasized the need for an ideologically pure
party. He reiterated the principal points in Kosygin's
election speech dealing with the need for a strong state
apparatus, but also endorsed the Podgorny emphasis on the
soviets, though without making a specific comment on the
issue of permanent commissions. Suslov, like the 13 June
Pravda editorial, asserted that the CPSU "attaches para-
mours importance to the increasing role of the soviets"
(a formulation not broached in Kosygin's speech on the
next day) and he emphasized the role of people's control
(an organization ignored in Kosygin's speech) and the
soviet deputies in verifying the implementation of adopted
laws.
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In sum, Suslov's 1966 electoral presentation sug-
gested that he had modified his post-1959 Congress views
on the role of the soviets,* and would now again support
measures to strengthen the authority of the soviets as
long as the party's traditional role would not become
contaminated in the process. In this latter connection
the 23rd Congress adopted more restrictive party member-
ship rules--making entrance more difficult and expulsion
easier--which accorded with Suslov's insistence on the
purity-of party ranks.**
Polyansky,, , a first deputy chairman of Kosygin's
Council Ministers, in the abridged (and only available)
version of his 31 May election speech in Krasnoder also
praised the role of the soviets. And in addition, Polyansky,,
who was elevated to his current ministerial post after
the September 1965 plenum, may have previewed Brezhnev's
later reference to the "genuine people's state"; Polyansky
told Krasnoder electors that the 1917 revolution laid the
foundation for a "genuine people's rule" which, he im-
mediately explained, was represented by the emergence
of the soviets. (In a somewhat similar vein, Suslov
*For example, Suslov in his last election speech, 12
March 1962 in Saratov, ignored, as he had in his 1961
Congress presentation, the subject of increasing the role
of the soviets.
**The statutes, in addition, call for party expulsion
of those who violate either the statutes or the party
program, a provision reiterated in a Pravda article on
the day preceding the Suslov speech. T provision,
incidently, could be invoked as basis for expelling
Khrushchev from the party. After his fall his party
reform was pictured as a violation of the party statutes.
Further, his view of the production-oriented party was
out of tune with the more traditional definition of the
party retained in the 1961 party program. See also pp. 36-
37 with regard to the latter point.
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referred to "genuine socialism" before commenting on the
role of the soviets.)
Mazurov, in his 20 May election speech in Minsk
while re ear ng to the Supreme Soviet in standard terms
as the "supreme organ of power", did not single out the
soviets for praise or suggest that there was any need for
an expansion of their role. Like Kosygin, Mazurov,who
became a First Deputy Premier in March 1965, emphasized
the role of the state apparatus in state policy. Mazurov
again ignored the role of the soviets in an award presenta-
tion speech on 8 June in Fergana although one of the
subjects of his speech was the Supreme Soviet elections.
Mazurov has been closely associated with the restoration
of the centralized ministries after Khrushchev's fall and,
in fact, introduced Kosygin's managerial proposals to
the Supreme Soviet.
Shelepin in his 2 June election speech in Leningrad
did not touch on the organizational status of the Supreme
Soviet. His only specific reference to the future role
of the soviets was the non-committal statement that the
soviet deputies have "an important role" in the sphere
of housing construction. (Shelepin had also slighted
the role of the soviets in his last election speech--1
March 1962 in Tashkent.) With regard to the role of the
party, Shelepin in 1966, (1) like the 1951 Chesnokov
position (see page 15 ) and the 1936 Stalin Constitution,
held that the party is "the political leader and the leader
of our society and the state" and (2), unlike Brezhnev's
election. remarks on the 23rd Party Congress, Shelepin
said that the decisions of the 23rd Congress would "strengthen
the party even more in the organizational and ideological-
politcal sense" and will "strengthen discipline."
Politburo member Voronov, the chairman of the
Council of Ministers of Thee largest republic (the RSFSR)
and, under Khrushchev, the chairman of the important con-
stitutional subcommission on "questions of public and
state structure," emphasized the role of state ministries
in the abridged (and only available) version of his 3
June 1966 Novosibirsk election speech. In fact, his
election remarks on the efficacy of Kosygin's September
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1965 managerial reforms were much more categorical than
Kosygin's election comments on the same subject. Voronov
asserted that the September decision to transfer to new
methods of planning and management of industry is the
"decisive factor" for the fulfillment of the five-year
plan. Voronov, however, did note in his 30 October 1965
speech in Kirov that the decisions of Brezhnev's March
1965 agricultural plenum "impose even greater responsi-
bilities on Party and Soviet organs for the organization
of affairs."*
Peishe, elevated to the politburo at the 23rd Con-
gress, n s 6 June Riga election address asserted that
the soviets now are "bearing complete responsibility, are
*Prior to the March 1965 plenum, L. Kulichenko, the
chairman of the permanent commission for agriculture of
the RSFSR Supreme Soviet spelled out the powers of the
RSFSR Supreme Soviet permanent commissions vis-a-vis
Voronov's RSFSR Council of Ministers. Closely paral-
lelling the description of the existing powers of the
Supreme Soviet permanent commissions given in jurist
Kutafyin's late March 1966 Soviet State And Law article,
Kulichenko proclaimed in a 31 January 1965 stiya
article that "extensive rights and powers have been
granted us /The RSFSR Supreme Soviet permanent commis-
sions7. When necessary, we have the right to invite to
the commission meetings officials from the ministries
and from state committees created under the Council of
Ministers RSFSR, not only to invite them, but also to
hear their comments and to recommend that they adopt a
particular measure. The commission may submit its recom-
mendations to the RSFSR government and initiate proposals
aimed at improving agricultural production." If accepted,
the Brezhnev-Podgorny proposals to increase the powers
of the USSR Supreme Soviet permanent commissions will
have a like effect on the republic Supreme Soviet commis-
sions in relations with their respective councils of
ministers.
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being increasingly exacting toward all economic organiza-
tions." Pelshe, however, also indirectly noted the law-
making powers of the Council of Ministers in citing a
joint Central Committee-Council of Ministers decision
relating to state farms.
The election speeches of certain candidate (non-
voting) members of the politburo* also reflected differ-
ences over the party-state-soviet issue. For example,
trade union leader Grishin in his 4 June Orekhovo-Zuyevo
election speech, emp asized, like Podgorny and Shelest,
the increasing activity of the Supreme Soviet. Grishin
confidently asserted that "the role of the USSR Supreme
Soviet will be raised even higher on the basis of more
active work by the deputies, the formation of new commis-
sions, the intensification of Soviet legislation, and
the verification of the execution of the laws." Georgian
party leader Mzhavanadze in his 3 June Tbilisi speech,
like Shelepin, skirted the question of the institutional
powers of the Supreme Soviet stressing rather the mobiliz-
ing functions of that institution, He told his Georgian
electors that the deputies must "propagate the policy of
the Communist Party and Soviet government and organize
the masses to implement this policy." At the same time,
*The views of Kirilenko, the remaining full member of
the politburo and (prior to the last congress) the first
deputy chairman of the recently abolished RSFSR Bureau
of the central committee, on the subject of the role of
the soviets were not included in the accounts of his 7
June Sverdlovsk election speech in TASS, Pravda, Soviet-
skaya Rossiya, Izvestiya, and Pravda VostooFa -The full
text of his speech, andthe 2 June Su ism peech of
secretariat member Ponomarev, have not been made avail-
able. By the author's account, Ponomarev and Kirilenko
have not placed themselves on record regarding the issue
of increasing the role of Supreme Soviet permanent com-
missions in their published speeches during the new
leadership period.
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he concentrated on the concept of the party as the incul-
cator of ideological discipline in Soviet society as he
has in the past. He asserted that educating Soviet people
in the spirit of "ideological fidelity to communism is
the most important and primary objective in our ideological
work." (In a similar vein, he told delegates to the 23rd
Congress on 30 March that the "party will not tolerate
the slightest deviation from the principles of Marxism-
Leninism" and he told Georgian communists on 29 June 1965
that "Stalin said accurately and graphically, 'Our
party is a fortress, the doors of which open only for
the tested."') The ideological chief of the central com-
mittee, Demichev, speaking to Moscow voters on 27 May
warned of the orrosive influence of alien political
ideas, and the party's task to educate citizens "in revo-
lutionary spirit." Demichev, like Brezhnev in his elec-
tion speech, linked the party with "other social organi-
zations"--an early Khrushchevian formula (examined on
pages 23-26) which had concealed an effort to transfer
state functions to the party organization. With regard
to the subject of the soviets' activities, Belorussian
party leader Masherov in his 7 June Minsk election speech
differed from approach taken by his republic party
predecessor, Mazurov. Masherov concluded that the party
"attaches enormous attention to enhancing the role played
by the soviets."
The drafting and adoption of the new constitution
could well act as a catalyst bringing to a head the dif-
ferences among the leaders over institutional issues mani-
fested in the election speeches.
The pattern that has emerged since the 23rd Congress
shows that (1) of the eleven full politburo members, only
five--Brezhnev, Podgorny, Shelest, Suslov, Pelshe--have
on record explicitly supported the program to increase
the role of soviet deputies (a likely constitutional
"reform" issue), and only the first three of the above
five have specifically endorsed the proposals to augment
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the activity of the permanent commissions, and (2) that
three politburo members--Kosygin, Shelepin, Mazurov--have
been silent on the proposals to increase the role of
the soviets.. While the remaining three--Kirilenko,
Voronov and Polyansky--have in the past commented favor-
ably on the role of Supreme Soviet deputies, their post-
23rd Congress views on the subject cannot be ascertained
with any degree of accuracy.
The question of the relationship between the Supreme
Soviet and the Council of Ministers, while important (and
controversial, as the above pattern suggests) is neverthe-
less overshadowed by the vexatious problem of defining
a modern role for the CPSU. The solution of this cen-
tral issue stands as the touchstone for significant in-
stitutional reform in the Soviet Union. The notion of
a working party has been progressively refined in Brezhnev's
public remarks since the ouster of Khrushchev. But to
repeat, Brezhnev's remarks stop short of his predecessor's
sweeping and highly contentious approaches toward a solu-
tion of the long standing questions regarding the correct
role for the party organization, the state bureaucracy,
and the soviet parliament in the life of contemporary
Russia.
At this writing, the constitutional project seems
unlikely to "pioneer" any basic institutional transforma-
tions within the Soviet Union's labyrinthine governing
structure. As yet no leader, including the General
Secretary whose strength has steadily increased, either
seems powerful enough or ready to force through major
changes. The best any leader might hope for, it would
seem, would be to introduce formulations in the new con-
stitution which he could use to justify political programs
now only in embryo.
In the meantime, Kosygin continues to give every
sign of defending the integrity of his state base of power
on the eve of a Podgorny-chaired Supreme Soviet session
(currently scheduled for 2 August)
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