4 - Bureaucratic behavior

Summary

This chapter focuses on the individuals who staff the Soviet economic bureaucracy. It divides Soviet bureaucrats into three general categories: khoziaistvenniks (persons who perform resource allocation and are held responsible for results), apparatchiks (persons who issue instructions and rules to the khoziaistvenniks), and technocrats (individuals who serve the former two groups in a technical rather than decisionmaking capacity). We show that each bureaucratic type behaves differently and works under different conditions of reward and risk.

Organization of Soviet bureaucratic units

Each Soviet bureaucratic organization is set up according to official instructions concerning its functions and makeup. For high-level organizations, these instructions are issued by the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. At lower levels, they are issued by ministries or republican authorities. These instructions provide the operating rules and bylaws of the organization.

Each organization is supposed to operate according to a set of instructions, called dolzhnostnye instrukstsii, which describe the duties and responsibilities of the organization and its management personnel. In many cases, these operating instructions are vague and general (e.g., “the obligation to organize on a scientific basis the work of subordinates”). Soviet authors complain about vague instructions, which give the management of the organization the opportunity to define responsibilities in its own way. Staffing instructions are typically worked out by the State Committee on Labor and Wages (Goskomtrud), which gives a “unified nomenclature of positions” (nomen klatura dolzhnostei sluzhashchikh).