Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T02:25:38.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Soviet Studies of Organization and Management: A “Jungle” of Competing Views

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Richard F. Vidmer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The USSR has entered a new, qualitatively higher stage in constructing a Communist society—“mature” or “developed” socialism. Theorists envision progressively higher developments to occur in this stage and commonly regard the scientific technological revolution as one of its defining traits. Reflecting objective changes that have occurred in society’s production forces, the scientific-technological revolution poses an unprecedented challenge to political leaders: they must now “integrate complexity and manage change through advances in organization and technology.“ This challenge cannot be successfully met without the support and active participation of specialists in administrative policy. While theorists and politicians alike remain convinced that only socialism provides the optimal framework for organizing societal development, they begrudgingly acknowledge that the reputed advantages of the Socialist economy—national planning, public property, class solidarity—do not manifest themselves automatically, but must be brought to life through the creative application of scientific knowledge and organizational skill.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , Fall 1981 , pp. 404 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. G. Popov argues that developed socialism creates the possibility and necessity for elaborating a theory of Socialist management (see G., Popov, Problemy teorii upravleniia, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. [Moscow, 1974], p. 206 Google Scholar). For Western views on Soviet administrative developments in this era, see Robert F. Miller, “The Scientific-Technical Revolution and the Soviet Administrative Debate,” in Cocks, Paul, Daniels, Robert, and Heer, Nancy W., eds.. The Dynamics of Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 137–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert F., Miller, “The New Science of Administration in the USSR,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 18, no. 3 (September 1971): 247–58Google Scholar; Alfred, Zauberman, The Mathematical Revolution in Soviet Economics (London, 1975 Google Scholar); Michael, Ellman, Planning Problems in the USSR (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar; Loren, Graham, “Cybernetics,” in George Fisher, ed., Science and Ideology in Soviet Society (New York, 1967), pp. 83–106 Google Scholar; Donald Schwartz, “Recent Soviet Adaptations of Systems Theory to Administrative Theory,” Journal of Comparative Administration, 5, no. 2 (August 1973): 233-63; Erik Hoffmann, “The ‘Scientific Management’ of Soviet Society,” Problems of Communism, 26, no. 3 (May- June 1977): 59-67; Richard F. Vidmer, “The Emergence of Administrative Science in the USSR: Toward a Theory of Organizational Emulation,” Policy Sciences. 2, no. 1 (August 1979): 93-108; Richard F. Vidmer, “Administrative Science in the USSR: Doctrinal Constraints on Inquiry,” Administration and Society, 12, no. 1 (May 1980): 69-80; Richard F. Vidmer, “Management Science in the USSR: The Role of'Americanizers,'” International Studies Quarterly, 24, no. 3 (September 1980): 392-414; Paul Cocks. “The Rationalization of Party Control,” in Chalmers, Johnson, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford, 1970), pp. 153–90 Google Scholar; Paul Cocks, “Rethinking the Organizational Weapon: The Soviet System in a Systems Age,” World Politics, 32, no. 2 (January 1980): 228-57.

2. Paul Cocks, “Retooling the Directed Society: Administrative Modernization and Developed Socialism, “ in Jan, Triska and Paul, Cocks, eds., Political Development in Eastern Europe (New York, 1977). p. 84 Google Scholar.

3. The voluntaristic element in economic development is stressed by certain theorists, notably administrative lawyers. Nevertheless, others pay more attention to deterministic concepts likeplanomernost' and emphasize that objective laws or zakonomernosti play a predominant role in economic affairs.

4. This resembles Holloway's treatment of cybernetics in the USSR (see David, Holloway, Technology, Management and the Soviet Military Establishment [London, 1971]Google Scholar). However, 1 suggest that cybernetics is but one of a multiplicity of competing definitions of upravlenie.

5. Afanas'ev, V., “Further Improvement of the Management of Soviet Society,” Social Sciences, 3, no. 9 (1972): 71 Google Scholar.

6. For a treatment that identifies types (vidy) of upravlenie, see Tikhomirov, lu., Vlast’ iupravlenie v solsialisticheskom obshchestve (Moscow, 1968 Google Scholar).

7. In this article, I deal with Soviet perspectives on management, rather than on specific behaviors associated with administrative reform. Indeed, there are great differences between theory and practice, and even sophisticated developments in management science do not suggest, in themselves, that overall economic performance will improve. Nevertheless, significant organizational changes have already occurred in the USSR due to the political leadership's increasing attention to management science (see Hoffmann, Erik. “Soviet Information Processing: Recent Theory and Experience,” Soviet Union. 2, no. 1 [1975]: 22–49Google Scholar).

8. Erik Hoffmann arrives at similar conclusions with respect to Soviet writings on the scientifictechnological revolution (see Hoffmann, , “Soviet Views on the'Scientific-Technological Revolution,'” World Politics, 30, no. 4 [July 1978]: 615–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

9. This task was initially set forth by Brezhnev at the Twenty-fourth Communist Party Congress (1971) and then strongly reiterated at the twenty-fifth congress in 1976.

10. Of course, it was not productivity, but rather the distributive inequities of capitalism and its systematic exploitation of the working class that would ultimately destroy bourgeois rule.

11. Marxists envisioned bureaucracy as largely a technical problem. Once stripped of its bourgeois character, the conditions would exist for the eventual “withering away” of state agencies. But production organizations would undergo quantitative, not qualitative, changes under proletarian rule, despite the expectation that workers would occupy key managerial roles in the new order. See Jeremy, Azrael, Managerial Power and Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 12–27 Google Scholar.

12. O., Pozdniakov, O problemakh nauchnoi organizatsii truda i upravleniia (Moscow, 1969), p. 19 Google Scholar.

13. M. Babin, “Problema nauchnoi organizatsii truda v sovetskoi ekonomicheskoi literature dvadtsatykh godov,” (Doctoral diss., Moscow, 1966), p. 5.

14. For obvious doctrinal reasons, there would be little talk in the Soviet administrative literature about “intelligent gorillas “—the Taylorist conception of the worker. And to their credit, many Soviet theorists felt more comfortable dealing with technical rationalization than raising labor intensification.

15. For an excellent review of the rationalization movement, see Cocks, “Rationalization of Party Control. “

16. Management theorists in the 1930s, especially those with bourgeois credentials, would find themselves linked to the “right deviation” in politics and, hence, were subject to severe repression and even liquidation.

17. Foragood review of administrative science in this period, see D., Kruk, Razvilie teorii i praktiki upravleniia proizvodstvom v SSSR (Moscow, 1974 Google Scholar).

18. Virtually all Soviet management specialists today recognize the disasterous consequences that such a separation had on the field.

19. J., Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (New York, 1952), p. 1952 Google Scholar.

20. Robert Miller has noted the administrative law sanctuary for the scattered remnants of theoretical inquiry (see Miller, “New Science of Administration,” pp. 248-50).

21. See Richard Judy, “The Economists,” in Skilling, H. Gordon and Griffiths, Franklyn, eds., Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton, 1971), p. 225 Google Scholar.

22. During a series of interviews conducted at the Tallinn Polytechnical Institute, Estonian management theorists stressed the influential political nature of this work (see D., Gvishiani, Sotsiologiia biznesa [Moscow, 1962]Google Scholar).

23. Despite the devastating impact of cybernetics and the Ekonomiko-Matematicheskie Melody (EMM) on political economy, that field continues to exert substantial political as well as institutional muscle in the field.

24. This movement is perhaps best symbolized by Soviet participation in the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna. Along with the United States, the USSR bears the greatest financial burden in this multinational venture.

25. For a good illustration of such a defense, see I. Solov'ev's article in Pravda, June 4, 1973, p. 2.

26. See Vidmer, “Management Science in the USSR. “

27. The possibility and necessity of developing Socialist theory can be attributed to changes occurring after the 1964 (October) plenum, that is, after the political demise of KJirushchev (see Popov, , Problemy leorii upravleniia, p. 206 Google Scholar).

28. A. Eremin, Otnoshem'ia sols/a/isticheskoisobslve/mostt i'ekonomic/ies/coe uprav/en/e (Moscow, 1973), p. 51.

29. Erik Hoffmann correctly points out that such dichotomies serve an important ideological v function, namely, to deny undue Western influence in Soviet society (see Hoffmann, “Soviet Views, “ L p. 6126).

30. Ivan Syroezhin, a prominent Leningrad game theorist, outlined these four schools to me during an interview held at the Voznesenskii Finance-Economics Institute, March 1976.

31. This classification scheme avoids various microanalytical approaches like NOT, the sociology of labor, and social planning in the collective. While these fields can provide important data for managers and consultants, administrative theorists (mainly economists) regard them as excessively narrow, capable of dealing only with certain “aspects” of management. Of course, sociologists disagree with such views.

32. This conclusion came to light after I had conducted numerous interviews with Soviet administrative specialists in Moscow, Leningrad, and Tallinn.

33. Ironically, there has been no review of Soviet approaches to match Gvishiani's trenchant analysis of management science in the United States. See D., Gvishiani, Organisation and Management: A Sociological Analysis of Western Theories (Moscow, 1972)Google Scholar.

34. For an attempt to order the field's terminological chaos, see Mangutov, I. and Umanskii, L., Organizator i organizatorskaia deiatel'nost’ (Leningrad, 1975)Google Scholar.

35. Anisimov, G, “O predmete politicheskoi ekonomii” Kommunist, no. 18 (December 1966): 90 Google Scholar.

36. I., Syroezhin, ed., Ekonomicheskaia kibernetika: Osnovy teorii khoziaistvennykh sistem (Leningrad, 1974), p. 30 Google Scholar. Syroezhin also believes that economic phenomena cannot be examined in a special theory apart from the analytical categories of political economy.

37. F., Binshtok, Nauka upravlial (Moscow, 1967), p. 20 Google Scholar.

38. But this has proved no mean task. In fact, it is no exaggeration to state that no definitive treatment has yet appeared in the Soviet literature.

39. D., Kruk, Nekotoryeproblemy teorii upravleniia sotsialisticheskimproizvodstvom (Alma-Ata, 1970), p. 13 Google Scholar.

40. Political economists have been challenged by theorists, mainly administrative lawyers, who regard upravlenie as primarily a voluntaristic phenomenon, that is, purposive human leadership. And while many acknowledge a complex intermingling of elements, they nonetheless emphasize the economic core of management.

41. V., Volovich, Mesto i rol’ upravlencheskikh otnoshenii proizvodstva v ekonomieheskoi struklure sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva (Leningrad, 1975), p. 5 Google Scholar.

42. A., Eremin, O sisteme ekonomicheskikh nauk (Moscow, 1968)Google Scholar.

43. 1 reached this conclusion after a series of interviews with Soviet theorists in Leningrad, March 1976.

44. Oligin-Nesterov, V., Ispol'zovanie ekonomicheskikh zakonov sotsializma i upravlenie proizvudstvom (Moscow, 1973). p. 48 Google Scholar.

45. Moiseenko, N. and Popov, M., Demokraticheskii tsentralizm—osnovnoiprintsip upravleniia sotsialisticheskoi ekonomikoi (Moscow, 1975), p. 144 Google Scholar.

46. V. Shcherbitskii, “Partiinye organizatsii i sovershenstvovanie upravleniia ekonomikoi,” Kommunisl, no. 6 (April 1973): 19-33. (An English excerpt is found in Current Digest of the Soviet Press. 25, no. 36 [October 3, 1973]: 6.)

47. This terminology was suggested to me by Ivan Syroezhin in Leningrad in 1976. To be sure, the word “empirical” does not refer to the microaccumulation of data with the explicit purpose of describing or explaining organizational behavior. On the contrary, Soviet theorists focus on prescriptive recipes to improve managerial performance. And the approach that concentrates on training managerial cadres constitutes an “empirical” view to them.

48. See Ernest, Dale, The Great Organizers (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

49. For a good illustration, see Adfel'dt, N., “Khoziaistvennye kadry i nauka upravleniia proizvodstvom, “ Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, September 29, 1962, no. 40, p. 7 Google Scholar. (An English translation is found in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 14, no. 40 [October 31, 1962]: 3.)

50. For a detailed examination of this bias in Soviet administrative theorizing, see Vidmer, “Administrative Science in the USSR. “

51. For example, see Mil'ner, B., ed., Organizalsionnye for my i melody upravleniia promyshlennymi korporatsiiami (Moscow, 1972 Google Scholar).

52. Khabakuk, M, “Professional Loyalty and Its Influence on Managerial Decision-Making” International Studies of Management and Organization, 2, no. 2 (Summer 1972): 197-212Google Scholar.

53. O. Deineko finds twenty-one disciplines relevant for management (see Deineko, , Melodologicheskie problemy nauki upravleniia proizvodstvom [Moscow, 1970]Google Scholar).

54. Gavriil Popov told me that “if planirovanie constitutes the heart of the Soviet economy, then upravlenie makes up its body” (personal interview in Moscow, June 1976).

55. In Popov's theory, rukovodstvo involves deductive principles generated at various levels of abstraction. By contrast, iskusstvo deals with inductive principles based on generalizing managerial experience. They combine, in synthesis, to adumbrate the subject matter of Socialist management (see Popov, Problemy teorii upravleniia).

56. Ibid., p. 174.

57. Popov told me in 1976 that Moscow State University's Management Center had over one hundred fifty thousand rubles in consulting contracts with various agencies, including Gosplan RSFSR.

58. N., Drogichinskii, ed., Sovershenstvovanie mekhanizma khoziaistvovaniia v usloviiakh razvitogo solsializma (Moscow, 1975), p. 24 Google Scholar.

59. A., Malkov, Ekonomika, upravlenie i planirovanie promyshlennogo proizvodstva (Kazan', 1974), p. 196 Google Scholar.

60. Ellman, Planning Problems in the USSR, especially chapter 3. Moreover, a great deal of TsEMl's success can be attributed to the political skill and “empire building” of its director, Nikolai Fedorenko. By consciously pursuing a policy of diversity at the institute, Fedorenko has been able to shift gears and emphasize new trends whenever political alignments so demanded. His adaptability and tolerant attitude have allowed many leading specialists to remain at TsEMl, although they no longer count among the “favorites” ( Katsenelinboigen, , Soviet Economic Thought, pp. 107–Google Scholar).

61. Another factor might be added to this check list, namely, the apparently successful work done in the United States by specialists like T. Koopmans, George Dantzig, and others. Certain analysts, particularly M ichael Ellman, suggest that American experience had significant impact on the Soviet decision to proceed with mathematical economics.

62. Ellman, , Planning Problems in the USSR, p. 57Google Scholar.

63. The gap between theory and practical applications was strongly criticized in the editorial commentary found on the tenth anniversary of Ekonomika i matematieheskie melody (12, no. 2 [1976]). And in the very next issue, a major shakeup of the editorial board was announced (ibid., no. 3 [1976]).

64. Abel’ Abanbegian is one such theorist. He heads the prestigious Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production in Novosibirsk. The institute was originally staffed largely with former specialists from TsEMI, but has lost some theorists in a recent migration back to Moscow.

65. For a good illustration of this trend, see Dadaian, V. and Raiatskas, R., “Integrirovannye makromodel'nye kompleksy” Ekonomika i matematieheskie melody, 12, no. 2 (1976): 256–67Google Scholar.

66. For example, Dan Bond —an American mathematical economist well versed in Soviet developments— told me in 1976 that a research group had been integrated into Gosplan, Lithuania. While it then had no operational responsibilities, researchers shared the same building and facilities with Gosplan's line personnel.

67. Some of the greatest semantic entanglements in Soviet management science involve which concept has a more general theoretical purview—upravlenie, planirovanie, or rukovodstvo

68. Such definitions, it should be noted, permit these specialists to carve out a meaty subject for themselves.

69. Ellman, , Planning Problems in the USSR, p. 65Google Scholar.

70. Ibid., p. 141.

71. Graham, “Cybernetics,” p. 86.

72. For an insightful view on how Soviet theorists have adapted cybernetic to administrative theory, see Schwartz, “Recent Soviet Adaptations of Systems Theory. “

73. V., Ikonnikov, Osnovnye aspekty formirovaniia nauki upravleniia obshchestvennymproizvodslvom (Moscow, 1969), p. 3 Google Scholar.

74. A., Kolmogorov, Kibemetika (Moscow, 1958), p. 149 Google Scholar.

75. A., Berg, Kibernelika na sluzhbu kommunizmu (Moscow, 1961), p. 29 Google Scholar.

76. For a good illustration, see A., Godunov, Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie problemy upravleniia sotsialisticheskim proizvodstvom (Moscow, 1975)Google Scholar.

77. V., Shorin, ed., Aktual'nye problemy upravleniia (Moscow, 1972)Google Scholar.

78. A., Petrov, Chto takoe organizatsiia upravleniia (Moscow, 1967), p. 40 Google Scholar.

79. For a good review of these arguments, see Hoffmann, “Soviet Information Processing. “

80. Syroezhin, ed., Ekonomicheskaia kibernelika..

81. Syroezhin, I., Kurochlcin, Iu., and Gidrovich, S., Simulated Game Models as a Means of Management Training and a Form of Collective Decision-Making (Leningrad, 1976)Google Scholar. This monograph was presented as part of the U.S.-USSR cultural exchange in management science.

82. For a summary of where ASU has been most effectively utilized, see Afanas'ev, V. et al., Upravlenie sotsialisticheskim proizvodstvom: voprosy teorii ipraktiki (Moscow, 1975), pp. 510–16 Google Scholar.

83. For an examination of this institute as well as the role of D. Zhimerin in its formation, see Wade, Holland, “A Tsar for Soviet Computing” Soviet Cybernetic Review, 2, no. 6 (November 1972): 7-11Google Scholar.

84. Ivan Syroezhin has described the major elements of this approach to U.S. readers (see Syroezhin, , “Man-Machine Systems in the USSR” Management Science, 15, no. 2 [October 1968]: B-6Google Scholar).

85. Trapeznikov is often identified with a distinctive trend in Soviet cybernetics which, inter alia, is considerably more complex than the views promoted by the Institute of Cybernetics. Moreover, Glushkov's views have been sharply contrasted to those of Fedorenko (see William J., Conyngham, “Technology and Decision Making: Some Aspects of the Development of OGAS” Slavic Review, 39, no. 3 [September 1980]: 426-45Google Scholar).

86. Moreover, some have argued that systems theory is a concretization of dialectical materialism (see A., Petrov, Ekonomicheskie osnovy upravleniia proizvodstvom [Moscow, 1966], p. 4 Google Scholar).

87. Kozlov, Iu., Upravlenie narodnym khoziaistvom SSSR (Moscow, 1969), p. 4 Google Scholar.

88. For example, G. Popov recommends that a “special mechanism” be formed, perhaps modeled on Rabkrin, to help rationalize the economic mechanism. This would unite the knowledge and experience of scholars with that of managers in order to help formulate and then evaluate relevant policies (see Popov, , Problemy leorii upravleniia, p. 150Google Scholar).

89. William Zimmerman would characterize the interplay of conflicting forces in administrative science as a “regulative” policy process (see Zimmerman, “Issue Area and Foreign-Policy Process: A Research Note in Search of a General Theory,” American Political Science Review. 67, no. 4 [December 1973]: 1204-12).

90. This is Paul Cocks's terminology. For a trenchant analysis of contemporary Soviet politics, see Cocks, “Rethinking the Organizational Weapon. “

91. Of course, only the Communist Party has the strategic position in the Soviet establishment and the political authority to process demands, that is, to pick and choose among competing claims. And the party has shown purposiveness in pressing for innovative techniques (often imported from the West), much to the chagrin of many political economists as well as conservative party hacks. To be sure, the current situation represents a major departure from the traditional Stalinist system: “The diversity of trends in economics has developed a firm political basis. The competition among these institutes is no longer organized by just one person; it is based on oligarchical or so-called collective leadership. Each Politburo group supports the institutes which develop proposals for it, and the balance of power between powerful opposing groups in the Politburo guarantees the existence of these organizations” (Katsenelinboigen, Soviet Economic Thought, p. 156).

92. For an interpretation of Soviet administrative theory as a repressive political ideology, see Michael E., Urban, “Bureaucracy, Contradiction and Ideology in Two Societies” Administration and Society, 10, no. 1 (May 1978): 49-85Google Scholar. However, Katsenelinboigen notes another possibility, namely, the emergence of a new “strong boss” who promotes economic-mathematical methods in a manner reminiscent of Khrushchev's reckless advancement of corn in Soviet agriculture ( Katsenelinboigen, , Soviet Economic Thought, p. 166Google Scholar).