7 - ‘The minute hand’

Summary

Much of the business transacted in the name of the Sovnarkom was not decided, or even discussed, at its formal meetings and frequently did not even appear on their agenda. To fully comprehend the decision-making significance of Sovnarkom, therefore, we must also examine its auxiliary bodies and internal machinery.

The first of these auxiliary bodies was the Little Sovnarkom (Maly Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov) which, as we have seen, had already come into existence before the end of 1917, replicating a similar development in the Russian Council of Ministers following the 1905 Revolution. Two weeks after the transfer to Moscow a decision was taken to re-establish and reinvigorate this body, its purpose being defined as ‘the consideration of minor matters, not raising issues of principle’. It was to consist of four members, who might be people's commissars or their assistants, and meetings were to be convened three times a week. Its decisions were subject to confirmation by the Full Sovnarkom, which was to deal with them as the first item on its agenda at its next meeting. Matters were to be decided by simple majority vote (no formula for settling deadlocked votes being prescribed), but any member could insist on a decision being ‘starred’ for separate discussion by the full Sovnarkom.

Almost immediately the Little Sovnarkom began to deal with a great deal of government business, and was soon meeting almost every day (compared with its weekly meetings in Petrograd).