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Troubleshooters, Political Machines, and Moscow's Regional Control
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
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Since the beginning of Soviet power, national leaders have been concerned with controlling the diverse regions that make up the Soviet Union. They have used many means, including coercion, to extend their influence over the localities. Lower-level party officials, especially regional first secretaries, have been crucial links between the national regime and the periphery. These officials juggle a complex set of political and economic responsibilities and must safeguard a region's political stability, while applying national directives. They oversee the economic life of their bailiwick and attempt to enhance its productivity. Recruiting and elevating these lower-level officials is critical to maintaining national influence in the regions; the 1988-1990 political reforms have not changed this method.
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- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1991
References
1. For a discussion of political opportunity structures see Schlesinger, Joseph, Ambition and Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966.Google Scholar
2. Elite biographical and career information data come primarily from Soviet sources, among these Deputaty verkhnovnogo soveta. Information for recent officials is drawn from the central party journal, Izvestiia TsK KPSS. We have full information on 82 percent of our population and partial information on 90 percent. We do not include the regional party first secretaries who only served in 1963-1964 as a result of Nikita Khrushchev's bifurcation of regional party apparats. We use the terms regional, provincial, and local interchangeably. They all refer to those administrative units, responsible for policymaking, that fall under the legal purview of the union republic: autonomous republics (ASSRs), kraia (territories), and oblasts (provinces). We chose to examine the RSFSR because of its importance and diversity: We can explore ethnically Slavic and non-Slavic settings. The range of individual and regional factors we will explore systematically necessitates limiting this analysis to one republic.
3. Local politicians served in a region at least three years before their selection as party first secretary. We view three years as a period sufficient for officials to become acclimated to—and to feel an association with—a new regional and organizational setting. In nearly all cases, locals served in their regions much longer. Outsiders are posted from outside a region or have served in the region fewer than three years before being designated as top party leaders.
4. Of the total 2, 847 region-years that make up our 1950-1988 data set, only 368 entail a first secretarial turnover. This low level of variance makes it statistically challenging to explain such leadership change.
5. Determining when a first secretary's job change is a promotion, a lateral move, or a demotion can be complicated. Two aspects of the political post in question have guided our decisions: its policy-relevant influence and its level of prestige. When comparing posts we make two assumptions: Party positions have primacy over government positions at any level of authority and both party and government positions at one level have primacy over those at a lower level of authority. Thus, when an oblast first secretary is transferred to head a Central Committee department the move is a promotion, to be the first secretary of another oblast is a lateral move, and to chair an oblast executive committee is a demotion. We treated transfers to top national governmental positions (Council of Ministers membership) as promotions and transfers to republic governmental positions (for example, RSFSR minister) as demotions. Our thinking has been informed by Stewart, Philip D. et al., “Political Mobility and the Soviet Political Process,” American Political Science Review 66 (December 1972): 1269–1290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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8. Correlation of regional prominence (above or below the mean) and type of official recruited (local or outsider) resulted in a Chi-square of 6.51, with a significance level of .015.
9. We have not systematically examined the second secretaries of the seventy-three RSFSR regions for reasons of analytical parsimony. Second secretaries are important, serving as “watchdogs” for Moscow, but the first secretaries are the authoritative actors within their bailiwicks.
10. These averages compare to an average tenure of 6.5 years for the first secretaries of the remaining fifty-seven RSFSR oblasts.
11. Examples include V. V. Bakatin (Kemerovo), E. N. Chernyshov (Perm), G. S. Kabasin (Voronezh), G. M. Khodyrev (Gor'kii), and V. I. Potapov (Irkutsk).
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13. Because only the Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev periods are given as separate variables in the analysis, the years 1965 to 1982 are represented by the constant term, which is significantly negative (coefficient, -1.107; standard error, .387). During the Brezhnev years locals had a decided edge when other factors were held constant.
14. Gorbachev selected Shcherbina to head the initial governmental commissions addressing the Chernobyl’ and Nagorno-Karabakh problems.
15. In comparison, more than 82 percent (176 of 214) of all other regional first secretaries had higher education degrees, while nearly 35 percent (74 of 214) had completed higher party schools. These percentages probably overstate the level of education of this cohort, since our biographical information is less complete for those who were not troubleshooters.
16. The 7 percent non-Russians were locally recruited secretaries. Very few were dispatched to regions not populated by their own ethnic groups, and when this did occur it was the only such posting in the orficial's career.
17. P. M. Elistratov, for example, served in European Russian, far eastern, Ukrainian, Azerbaidzhani, and Mordovinian regions.
18. Correlating the selection of troubleshooters as regional first secretaries with the career fate of their immediate past predecessors (demotion, lateral move, promotion) produces a strong measure of association (Chi-square of 17.8, with significance < .001).
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22. Of the forty-nine officials who served as autonomous republic first secretaries, and for whom we have complete career information, only six moved on to important national positions. Five of the six were ethnic Russian troubleshooters (including V. P. Nikonov and A. V. Vlasov). Only one ethnic non-Russian moved on from heading a non-Russian region to an important national post.
23. For example, Gorbachev protege B. M. Volodin in Rostov.