Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2011
Soviet regional leaders were modestly successful in their attempts to add local projects to the agenda of forthcoming five-year economic plans at Party Congresses during the Brezhnev era. The volume of local demands expressed in Congress speeches steadily increased from the 24th to the 26th Congresses, as did the frequency of speaker participation in petitioning for investment. This seems to reflect the gradual legitimation of regional consultation in long-range planning and the sharpening politics of stringency of the latter Brezhnev era. While the vast majority of requests were purely provincial in scope, broader regional interests were articulated to an increasing extent at the 25th and 26th Congresses. Requests respecting agriculture were the most frequent, followed by energy and fuels, water resources, and transportation.
1 Hough, Jerry gave the first detailed analysis of local interest representation in The Soviet Prefects: The Local Party Organs in Industrial Decision Making (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 12.
2 Fainsod, Merle, How Russia Is Ruled, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 217–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Schapiro, Leonard, The Government and Politics of the Soviet Union, 6th ed. (London: Hutchinson, 1977), 64.Google Scholar
4 See, for example, Reshetar, John, The Soviet Policy, 2d ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), 113Google Scholar; Hammer, Darrell P., USSR: The Politics of Oligarchy (Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden Press, 1974), 180.Google Scholar Jerry Hough admits Fainsod's conclusion may be “overdrawn,” and acknowledges some effort on the part of Congress speakers to influence future but not present policy; cf. Hough, , How the Soviet Union Is Governed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 450–51.Google Scholar
5 This procedure is outlined in the official resolution on the approval of “The Basic Guidelines for the 11th Five-Year Plan,” adopted at the 26th Congress; cf. Pravda and Izvestia, March 3, 1981, p. 1, and Current Soviet Policies [hereafter cited as CSP], 8, p. 76.
6 Speech by Chiryayev, G. I., XXV s″ezd, Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskpgo Soyuza (Moscow: 1976), Vol. 2, p. 108Google Scholar; [The reports are hereafter cited as XXV s″ezd KPSS, XXVI s″ezd KPSS, and so forth.]
7 Speech by Gapurov, M. G., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, pp. 348–49.Google Scholar
8 Speech by Kunayev, D. A., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, p. 142.Google Scholar
9 XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2, pp. 295–96, 299, 303. An analysis of changes in the Basic Guidelines is made by the Current Digest of the Soviet Press [hereafter cited as CDSP], 28, Nos. 15–17; see esp. No. 17, pp. 17–19.
10 See the speeches by Bondarenko, I. A. and Medunov, S. F., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, pp. 336–39, 204–08.Google Scholar
11 Speeches by Kunayev, D. A., Rashidov, Sh. R., and Gapurov, M. G., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, pp. 142, 179–80, 348.Google Scholar
12 XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2, pp. 284–85.
13 Speech by Solomentsev, M. S., XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1Google Scholar; cf. CSP 8, p. 52.
14 Speech by Konotop, V. I., XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2Google Scholar; cf. CSP 8, p. 65.
15 Speech by Polyakov, V. N., XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2Google Scholar; cf. CSP 8, p. 67.
16 CSP 8, p. 65.
17 XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2, p. 271; cf. CSP 7, 110.
18 XXIV s″czd KPSS, Vol. 2; cf. CSP 6, p. 90.
19 XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 6, p. 62.
20 XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, p. 184; cf. CSP 7, p. 53.
21 Bialer, Seweryn, “The Politics of Stringency in the USSR,” Problems of Communism 29 (May-June 1980), 19, 23.Google Scholar
22 Holubnychy, Vsevolod, “Spatial Efficiency in the Soviet Economy,” in Bandera, V. N. and Melnyk, Z. L., eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1973), 13.Google Scholar
23 Bialer (fn. 21), 19, 23.
24 Biddulph, Howard L., Regionalism and Soviet Policymaking: Influencing the Political Agenda in the Post-Stalin EraGoogle Scholar (forthcoming).
25 XXVI s″ezd KPPS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 6, p. 62; and CSP 8, pp. 66, 65, 63.
26 Ibid., 51, 53, 61, 62, 52–55, 65–69.
27 Gustafson, Thane, Reform in Soviet Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 71–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 Ibid., 77–79.
29 Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 25th Congress, by Brezhnev, L. I., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, p. 73–78.Google Scholar
30 See fn. 11.
31 See fn. 10.
32 See fn. 17.
33 XXVI s″ezd KPPS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 8, pp. 51, 53, 61–62.
34 Ibid., 57.
35 Ibid., 107.
36 Ibid., 63.
37 Ibid., 66, 51.
38 Speeches by Aliyev, G. A. and Shevardnadze, E. A., XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1Google Scholar; cf. CSP 8, p. 54–55, and speeches by Solomentsev, Chyorny, Shakirov, Fedirko, Bogomyakov, at the 26th Congress, ibid., 52, 53–54, 62, 63; Georgiyev, , Tabeyev, , and Fedirko, at the 25th Congress, XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, pp. 241–42, 382–83Google Scholar; Vol. 2, pp. 204–05.
39 Consult, for example, Masherov's, speech at the 24th Congress, XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1Google Scholar, and Romanov's, speech at the 25th Congress, XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, 144–49Google Scholar, on Production Associations; Masherov's speech at the 25th Congress, ibid., 158, and Musin's, R. M. speech at the 26th Congress, CSP 8, p. 64Google Scholar, on polytechnical education; Shevardnadze's proposals on raikom reforms, ibid., 55; Goryachev's ideas for institutes for advanced training of local executives in industry and agriculture, XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2; cf. CSP 6, p. 87; Pel'she's, proposal to the 23rd Congress, on consolidation of educational administration into a single ministry, XXIII s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 5, p. 55.Google Scholar
40 See esp. speeches by Lyashko, A. P., Goryachev, F. S., Kovalenko, A. V., Konotop, V. I., and Rasulov, D., XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1, pp. 71, 433–39, 410–11, 390–91, 328.Google Scholar
41 XXIII s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 5, p. 52.
42 XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 6, p. 80.
43 XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 8, p. 57.
44 XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2; cf. CSP 8, p. 65.
45 See especially Solomentsev's speech at the 26th Congress, ibid., 52.
46 See changes in Basic Guidelines for the 10th Five-Year Plan in CDSP 28, No. 15, pp. 13–17; No. 16, pp. 14–22; and No. 17, pp. 11–19, 28.
47 See changes in Basic Guidelines for the 11th Five-Year Plan in CSP 8, pp. 94–120.
48 Speeches by Kunayev, , Rashidov, , Gapurov, , in XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1Google Scholar; cf. CSP 6, pp. 64–65, 71–72, 101.
49 Speech by Georgiyev, , XXIII s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2Google Scholar; cf. CSP 5, p. 114.
50 XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2; cf. CSP 6, pp. 90, 149–60.
51 XXV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 2; cf. CDSP 28, No. 16–17; XXVI s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; CSP 8, p. 63.
52 See Rasulov's, speech at the 23rd Congress and Konotop's speech at the 24th Congress; XXIII s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 5, pp. 60–61; XXIV s″ezd KPSS, Vol. 1; cf. CSP 6, p. 98.Google Scholar
53 CDSP 28, No. 16, pp. 20–22.
54 CSP 8, p. 114.
55 CSP 8, pp. 114–17.
56 Ibid., 114.
57 See Kassof, Allen, “The Administered Society: Totalitarianism Without Terror,” World Politics 16 (July 1964), 558–75, at 566–67 and 572–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rigby, T. H., “Traditional, Market, and Organizational Societies and the USSR,” World Politics 16 (July 1964), 539–57, at 539, 554–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a modification of Rigby's position, cf. his “A Conceptual Approach to Authority, Power and Policy in the Soviet Union,” in Rigby, and others, eds., Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR (London: Macmillan, 1980), 9–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Rigby, , “Politics in the Mono-Organizational Society,” in Janos, Andrew C., ed., Authoritarian Politics in Communist Europe; Unity and Diversity in One-Party States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 31–80.Google Scholar
58 Bialer, Seweryn, Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 166–67, 186.Google Scholar
59 Ibid., 167.
60 Rigby, , “Hough on Political Participation in the Soviet Union,” Soviet Studies 28 (April 1976), 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
61 See fns. 2, 3, 4.
62 Holubnychy (fn. 22), 13–14.
63 Hough, , The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
64 Bialer (fn. 58), 204.
65 Gustafson (fn 27), 158–59; cf. Cocks, Paul, “The Policy Process and Bureaucratic Politics,” in Cocks, and others, eds., The Dynamics of Soviet Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
66 This point is made by D. Richard Little in his essay, “Bureaucracy and Participation in the Soviet Union,” in Schulz, Donald E. and Adams, Jan S., eds., Political Participation in Communist Systems (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), 97–98.Google Scholar
67 Tarrow, and others, Territorial Politics in Industrial Nations (New York: Praeger, 1978)Google Scholar, chap. 1, 2–23.
68 As representative of this large body of scholarship, see the following: Skilling, H. Gordon and Griffiths, Franklyn, eds., Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, esp. Skilling's two introductory essays; Stewart, Phillip, Political Power in the Soviet Union (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968)Google Scholar; Schwartz, Joel and Keech, William, “Group Influence and the Policy Process in the Soviet Union,” American Political Science Review 62 (1968), 840–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paul Cocks (fn. 65); Ploss, Sidney, ed., The Soviet Policy Process (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn & Co., 1971)Google Scholar; Smith, Gordon B., ed., Public Policy and Administration in the USSR (New York: Praeger, 1980)Google Scholar; Thane Gustafson (fn. 27); Solomon, Peter H., Soviet Criminologists and Criminal Policy: Specialists in Policy Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lodge, Milton, Soviet Elite Attitudes Since Stalin (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1969)Google Scholar; Lane, David, Politics and Society in the USSR, 2d ed. (London: Robertson, 1978)Google Scholar, chap. 8.
69 See, for example, Lodge (fn. 68); Skilling, H. Gordon, “Groups in Soviet Politics,” in Skilling and Griffiths (fn. 68), 24Google Scholar; Lane (fn. 68), 234–43; Aspaturian, Verno. V., Process and Power in Soviet Foreign Policy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 531–33.Google Scholar
70 Bunce, Valerie and Echols, John M. III, “Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era: ‘Pluralism’ or ‘Corporatism’?” in Kelley, Donald R., ed., Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era (New York: Praeger, 1980), 1–21.Google Scholar