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The Kremlin's Professional Staff: The “Apparatus” of the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Louis Nemzer
Louis Nemzer
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

Soviet leaders have long understood the need for effective administration in the modern state, despite their great interest in questions of theory and matters of policy. Joseph Stalin, in his first report as Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, warned in 1923 that “policy loses its sense and is transformed into a waving of hands,” unless an efficient system for policy-execution exists. Consequently, Stalin and his lieutenants have constructed an extensive and diversified system for this purpose, using many agencies and reaching into every corner of Soviet society. Although the paucity of essential data makes a comprehensive analysis of the entire system virtually impossible at this time, it is noteworthy that recent Soviet materials have thrown some light on the functions and operations of one important segment of that system. This is an agency attached to the highest level of the Communist Party, the “Apparatus” of the Party's Central Committee.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) guides and controls all governmental, economic, social and other organizations in the USSR.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 1950 , pp. 64 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1950

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References

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5 Even before Stalin became Secretary General of the Party's Central Committee, he secured control of one department of the Apparatus (Stalin, Sochineniya, Vol. 5, p. 427Google Scholar). For reports on the work of the Apparatus by top Party leaders, see Stalin's speech to the XIIth Party Congress (ibid., p. 210); Kaganovich's, L. statement to the Orgburo (“On the Apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU [B]”, Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 2, pp. 9–15 [February, 1930]Google Scholar; and A. Zhdanov's proposals to the XVIIIth Party Congress (Pravda, February 1, 1939).

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43 Sharev, op. cit., p. 30.

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62 For examples, see reports in these issues of Kul'tura i zhizn': No. 19 (July, 1948); No. 21 (July, 1947); No. 36 (December, 1947); and No. 13 (May, 1949).

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65 Ibid., No. 13 (May, 1948).

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70 For examples, see the following issues of Kul'tura i zhizn': No. 11 (April, 1948); No. 12 (October, 1946); No. 15 (May, 1947). See also: “On the work of the Propaganda groups of the Propaganda Department, Central Committee, CPSU”, Propagandist, No. 17, pp. 30–31 (November, 1942)Google Scholar; Sputnik Agitatora, No. 23–24, pp. 42–44 (December, 1943)Google Scholar.

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