Ideology, Politics, and Government in the Soviet Union Ideology, Politics, and Government in the Soviet Union AN INTRODUCTION Fourth Edition John A. Armstrong University of Wisconsin PRAEGER PUBLISHERS New York To Roy and Leona Taylor Published in the United States of America in 1978 by Praeger Publishers A Division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston 200 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017 © 1962, 1967 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. © 1974 by Praeger Publishers, Inc. © 1978 by Praeger Publishers, A Division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-89732 ISBN: 0-03-040366-9 Printed in the United States of America 890 008 987654321 PREFACE T O T H E F O U R T H ED ITIO N When I wrote the first edition of this book fifteen years ago, I believed there was a need for a brief, simplified survey of the main features of the Soviet political system. Since that time, the reception given the book suggests that it has, indeed, served a purpose. I am convinced that a good part of the book's utility has been due to its timeliness. The first edition appeared less than a year after the Twenty-second Congress of the Soviet Communist Party; Nikita Khrushchev was then apparently at the height of his power. Two years later he was overthrown, and the oligarchical leadership which succeeded him systematically demolished his ideological and institutional innovations. By 1967, when the second edition of this book appeared, it was already clear that the confident progress toward Communism which the Twenty-third Congress had proclaimed was at an end. Except in the foreign policy sphere, changes since 1967 have not been so spectacular. Instead, minor institutional reorganizations, subtle ideological re-em- phases, and gradual shifts in methods of social and economic control have occurred. Paralleling these changes has been a notable increase in the amount of information about the nature of the Soviet system. The cumulative impact of systemic changes and new information is so great that revised views of the Soviet polity are imperative every few years. Consequently, the fourth edition, like the third edition, has been thoroughly revised so as to provide an introduction focusing on current Soviet politics. As with the first edition, for the sake of brevity I have omitted almost all history of v vi Preface Soviet institutional development and political rivalry from this volume. Government in the Soviet Union is no longer a curiosity, and only in a very special sense can one describe it as an experiment. Consequently, a preliminary look at the system may well take for granted its relative stability, its capacity as a going concern. It seems to me that the historical examination of political institutions and behavior can reasonably be postponed. The great danger of this type of approach is the loss of historical perspective. I have tried to avoid, or at least limit, this danger by treating the more remote background of present-day Soviet society in the opening chap­ ter. Furthermore, while institutions and behavior can be pre­ sented out of their historical context, the same does not hold true for Soviet ideology, which is incomprehensible except in its developmental framework. Consequently, Chapter 2, though not chronological in organization, contains numerous refer­ ences to the precursors of the present Soviet ideologues. Discussion of foreign policy also requires attention to the radical transformations in the international environment within which the Soviet regime operates. Increasingly over the past decade, it has become apparent that Soviet foreign and domestic policies are so closely related that consideration of the latter is hardly possible without a close if brief examina­ tion of foreign affairs. In earlier editions, this examination was attempted in the form of brief interpolations, especially in the concluding chapter. Now, it seems to me, a more syste­ matic consideration of the interpenetration of foreign and domestic policy, as presented in Chapter 8, is the most effec­ tive way to sum up the underlying factors affecting the evolu­ tion of Soviet policy during the 1970’s. Both the pre-Soviet background treated in Chapter 1 and the effects of ideology discussed in Chapter 2 are part of what social science theorists increasingly agree on calling "political culture." During the past twelve years, the conceptual frame­ Preface vii work and vocabulary of systems analysis and structural func­ tionalism have rapidly become part of the common fiind of knowledge of social science students. Even those who do not intend to acquire specialized competence in analytic social science have frequently obtained at least a general familiarity with the approaches. Apart from certain general difficulties involved in applying "whole-system” approaches, there are special difficulties involved in adapting them to the examina­ tion of Soviet politics. I think there is widespread agreement that, of all major categories of political systems, the totalitarian type is least readily susceptible to systems analysis and still less to structural functional analysis. Both approaches were developed primarily from the consideration of pluralist societies like the United States or from the adaptation of anthropological perspectives on traditional societies. The application of these approaches to an extremely centralized political system, dominated by a small, relatively homogeneous elite adhering to an ideology demanding the complete transformation of human nature, requires fundamental reconsideration. The organic analogies behind some of the newer social science models, which tend to assume the existence of unconscious social processes tending toward an equilibrium state, are particularly hard to relate to the highly self-conscious goal orientation of a Communist elite. On the other hand, such approaches make it equally difficult to place adequate conceptual emphasis on the high degree of in­ tra-elite conflict in Communist systems. For the time being, therefore, it seems to me preferable to use an eclectic approach, employing a "rational actor” model to interpret much of the ideological development and policy formation in the U.S.S.R. and a "conflict model” to examine elite political processes. As a heuristic device, a systems conceptual point of view that does not imply the assumption that there are systemswide functions is used throughout. In specific sections—especially viii Preface the nationalities question and its relation to foreign policy— a modified systems model with explicitly functionalist char­ acteristics is utilized. Hopefully this eclectic treatment will suggest the relevance of the newer social science approaches and some of their vocabulary, without attempting what I regard as the premature application of a single conceptual framework. I hope that the material presented on the nationalities question, particularly, will be stimulating in a methodological as well as a conceptual sense. Increasingly, quantitative com­ parison of political and social units has become a significant exercise for undergraduate students as well as an important tool for more advanced researchers. Like language study, training in statistical techniques and computer programing becomes immensely more challenging for the social science student if exercises utilize substantively significant contem­ porary materials. While the usual approach is correlation analysis of data relating to independent countries, comparative quantitative analysis of sub-national units (as several excellent studies of differences among American states demonstrate) is equally appropriate. Ordinarily, the unspecialized student wishing to pursue such analyses finds it difficult to obtain reliable data standardized for comparable aspects of each subdivision of any national political system other than the United* States. Data on major Soviet nationalities (or on the Union republics, which usually constitute their "home ter­ ritories”) are becoming increasingly available. These data are highly standardized across nationality units. Nevertheless, specific problems such as access to scattered sources in Russian and other Soviet languages and the need for specialized evaluation and interpretation of the Soviet data have pre­ vented their utilization in general comparative data books. Recently Ellen P. Mickiewicz and her collaborators have pro­ vided an impressive compilation of data on all facets of Soviet Preface ix society, Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data (Riverside, N.J.: The Free Press, 1973). However, most of her data on ethnic factors were—unavoidably—derived from the 1959 Soviet census, whereas the appearance of 1970 census data calls for a fundamental reappraisal of Soviet nationalities. The Table of Major Nationalities in Chapter 7 of my book provides fully evaluated data, including the results of the 1970 census and many new data on Party membership. I hope that readers may find these data useful not only for systematic comparison of Soviet units but also in extending the universe of the readers* general comparative investigations, particularly in the sphere of social mobilization. Consequently, while the data are pre­ sented in a form suitable for quantitative manipulation, I have by no means exhausted the potential for analysis in my verbal interpretation. While expressing certain reservations concerning the use of a single social science approach, I must emphasize, as I did in the earlier editions of this book, that a dominantly legal or institutional approach to the study of the Soviet system would be utterly misleading. Emphasis on the constitutional system of Soviet government, or even on the formal structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, would be inappropriate. Consequently, I have confined myself to brief explanations of what I consider to be the significance of formal structure in both government and Party. Additional details on these struc­ tures are contained in the organizational charts accompany­ ing the text. These charts are not confined to the formal structures of Party and government, but attempt to suggest the dynamics of power relations as well as formal lines of subordination. In a short book, illustrations of this kind are exceptionally important. But even the most penetrating eluci­ dation of structural features could not furnish complete in­ sight into the extent of Soviet totalitarianism. Such insight requires an understanding of the complex nationality question, x Preface earlier police terror as a background to contemporary repres­ sion, and the pervasive control of the economy. Brief as my treatment is, I have felt it essential to devote nearly a third of the book to these subjects. I hope that this work will serve as a useful elementary guide to the Soviet political system; it is not a compendium of the opinions of others or even an abridgment of my own. Today, excellent specialized studies on nearly all aspects of the Soviet system are very numerous. Consequently, although “Suggested Readings" in die present edition contain twice as many items as did the first edition, a comprehensive bibliography would be impracticable. I can only plead that those books I do list seem to me to be most useful for the general reader and the nonspecialized student. While I rely on these works, the emphasis and many of the conclusions I advance are my own; no other writer on the Soviet system will accept all of them without reservation. I am convinced that it is impossible to avoid a personal approach if one is to present a coherent analysis of Soviet politics, particularly in the international sphere, and it should be pointed out that much of what is said in this book is not established beyond dispute. I have tried to indicate the most important points where the accuracy of available data is doubtful or where divergence of informed opinion exists, but conciseness of expression may, at times, have led to unwarranted generalizations. Some readers may question my evidence for certain statements. Elaborate foot­ notes seemed out of place in so brief a survey. Where feasible, I have indicated my sources, such as the proceedings of the Soviet Communist Party Congresses, in the text. Because the Nationalities Table, as indicated above, is intended to be a data resource, I have provided precise footnote indications of its sources. Probably the general reader is more likely to be concerned with over-all information about the workings of the Soviet