Decentralization in Recent Soviet Administrative Practice

Extract

The Soviet Union, as an administrative state par excellence, is a Parkinsonian nightmare. Although the leadership is armed with broad powers and unhampered by formal restraints in its control of the bureaucracy, it is nevertheless hard pressed to keep the huge administrative structures of the Soviet system efficient and responsive to central direction. The success or failure of a regime depends in large measure on how effectively it can get its policies translated into action by the bureaucracy.

Most schematic descriptions of the Soviet system by Western commentators, especially those written in the early 1950's, emphasized the division of the state into several highly centralized, vertically structured, and functionally specialized administrations—party, police, armed forces, and the economic bureaucracy. Within these broad categories there was frequently even further vertical-functional fractionization. For example, within the industrial bureaucracy there were various specialized ministries and a separation between planners and managers.