A Key to Soviet Politics

The Crisis of the Anti-Party Group

Roger Pethybridge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000480085
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

First Published in 1962, A Key to Soviet Politics is the first full scale attempt to analyse the internal struggle for power in Russia since 1957. The changes in the Soviet government after the 'Crisis' of June 1957 are probably better documented than perhaps any other political upheaval in Soviet history, because Soviet press and party journals devoted an unusual amount of attention to the June Crisis and because information on the crisis was allowed to leak out slowly in the subsequent fall of Zhukov in 1957 and Bulganin in 1958, and the renewed attack on the 'Anti-party' group at the Party Congresses in 1959 and 1961. Roger Pethybridge argues that this crisis of the 'Anti-party' group in fact illuminated many other related topics in Soviet politics. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of Soviet history, Soviet politics, European history, Russian history, and comparative politics.

CHAPTER II

THE ROOTS OF THE CRISIS

Personalities and Issues Involved 1953-57

Accomplished leaders don’t fall from the skies. They are raised up only in the course of struggle.

STALIN in a speech to the Polish Commission of the Comintern, July 3, 1924.

Stalin’s death, like Lenin’s, created an enormous power vacuum that was sealed over temporarily by a ‘collective’ leadership made up of Stalin’s more important subordinates, each of whom had borne a major responsibility for safeguarding one or another interest group under his supervision. In 1953 these groups were much more clearly delineated than in 1924.

From March 14, 1953, at least, when Malenkov requested that he be released from his post as secretary of the Central Committee and retained the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers only, it became obvious that no single Soviet leader was to be allowed enough power to gain an immediate ascendancy over his colleagues. In the light of the power struggle that was to follow and continue until June 1957, it is of vital importance to know to which sector of influence in terms of the interest groups the protagonists in the coming battle were assigned immediately after Stalin’s death and in particular how the new appointments were decided.

It now appears that Malenkov and Beria alone arranged the principal post allotments after Stalin’s death.¹ They seem to have done this before a meeting of the Presidium was called and thus presented the Central Committee with a ‘fait accompli’.¹ The joint ‘decision’ of the Plenum of the Central Committee, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet regarding the changes² was merely an endorsement of a previous manoeuvre. Malenkov and Beria formally acknowledged the existence of a Presidium in the Council of Ministers, the state bureaucratic machine. It had directed the Council unofficially since its creation by Stalin at the Nineteenth Congress. It now consisted of Malenkov as Chairman and four Deputy Chairmen—Beria, Molotov, Bulganin and Kaganovich. Except for Beria, who was executed in 1953, these men were to form the most influential part of the ‘anti-party’ group of 1957. It is significant that although the Presidium of the Council of Ministers changed in composition between 1953 and 1957, in the spring of 1957 it was reformed and consisted of the same men who had been in it in 1953 plus Pervukhin, Saburov and Mikoyan. This time all of its members except Mikoyan were in the ‘anti-party’ group of 1957. Shepilov was the only non-member who joined the group at the last minute. Thus the central organ of the state interest group served as a nest of conspiracy against Khrushchev and the party apparatus, as we shall see.

In 1953 the men who had been most closely connected with Stalin were grouped in the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, while the Secretariat of the Central Committee was left to newer, younger men with the significant exception of Khrushchev; it was considered necessary for him ‘to concentrate on work in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in this connection to relieve him of his duties as first secretary of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’.³

At first sight it would appear that this last assignment, if indeed it was decided upon by Malenkov and Beria, was too dangerous and generous a gift to Khrushchev in view of the influence of the party apparatus in the past; but it certainly was not intended to be so. Whereas Malenkov was now the Chairman of the recently-created Presidium of the Council of Ministers, Khrushchev was only one of five secretaries, and although he was the only secretary who was also a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he was not referred to as first secretary until September 7, 1953, let alone as General Secretary. What is more important, Malenkov and Beria removed four of Khrushchev’s future supporters from the Secretariat¹ and introduced Shatalin, a close henchman of Malenkov, who was more familiar with the day to day details of Secretariat work than Khrushchev.²

Two other new secretaries were appointed: Ignatiev, who left the Secretariat shortly afterwards, and Pospelov, who appeared to waver between Malenkov and Khrushchev at first but sided with the latter after 1955. Suslov, the only other secretary, was to adopt a near neutral stand in June 1957 and at the Twenty-first Congress was rather lukewarm in his criticism of the ‘anti-party’ group. Finally when Khrushchev was confirmed as secretary of the Central Committee after Stalin’s death, he was relieved of his post as first secretary of Moscow city, a post where his prestige and influence were perhaps greater than as a member of the new Secretariat.

At some time between March 7 and 14, 1953, Malenkov apparently ceded to pressure from his colleagues who must have resented him taking important decisions without consulting the other leaders. Malenkov gave up his stake in the party apparatus as secretary of the Central Committee. It is reasonable to presume that if he had the power to make one very important choice in conjunction with Beria which was not countered by the joint session of the Central Committee plenum, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, he could also choose which of his two key posts as secretary of the Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of Ministers to give up in deference to the other leaders.³ Therefore the wording of the Central Committee resolution of March 14th was not hypocritical but probably expressed the real situation.¹ Malenkov’s closest associates were not deprived of any of their posts at this juncture.

Why did Malenkov plump for the bureaucratic state machine in preference to the party apparatus? Part of the answer has already been suggested in the previous chapter. We have seen the decline of the party apparatus and the rise of the state bureaucracy and the technical élite during the last period of Stalin’s rule.² In all probability Malenkov believed that by relying on the state machine he was better equipped for maintaining the influence he had won as Stalin’s heir presumptive. In the Presidium of the Council of Ministers he was primus inter pares, pares of the stature of Molotov, Kaganovich and Beria. Molotov and Kaganovich had shifted over from party apparatus and technical posts respectively well before Stalin’s death. Beria controlled the secret police, which as was seen above constituted a potential threat to the party apparatus. The members of this new Presidium were far larger figures than those who formed the revised Secretariat.

In view of his previous career Malenkov could estimate better than any of the Soviet leaders the actual powers of the Secretariat by the time of Stalin’s death. His comparative lack of interest in it in 1953 can be surmised from his concentration on the make-up of the new Presidium of the Council of Ministers with himself at the helm. The prestige of the Secretariat in particular had suffered just before Stalin’s death. It is also possible that at the time of the Nineteenth Party Congress in 1952 there was an attempt to deprive Stalin of some of his dictatorial power.³

Malenkov’s two choices with regard to his location in the government, the first of which was taken freely and apparently in collaboration with Beria and the second probably forced upon him, have been examined closely at this stage because they are of crucial importance for an understanding of the battle from 1953 to 1957 between Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Saburov and Pervukhin representing state and economic forces on the one hand and Khrushchev and his supporters in the apparatus on the other.

Instead of treating the protagonists of the crisis of June 1957 in the framework of the interest groups, as was done in the previous chapter, they will be dealt with here in relation to the four main political issues which arose between 1953 and 1957. This method has been chosen because Stalin’s death cleared the air so that real political issues could be disputed between the leaders. The ensuing quarrels illustrate their positions better than their connections with a particular interest group or groups. Only at the end of this chapter a short survey will be given of the various developments in the interest groups from 1953 to 1957 in the light of the political issues.

Over these four years the Soviet leadership was divided on four main issues. They concerned problems in agriculture, the production of consumer goods versus heavy industry, foreign policy and the reorganization of the Soviet economy. The first two questions arose before the Twentieth Congress of 1956, the third extended beyond and was greatly affected by the Congress, while the issue of economic reorganization formed the basis of the final quarrel between the leaders which sparked off the events of June 1957. Immediately prior to the Twentieth Congress the future nucleus of the ‘anti-party’ group appeared to be almost annihilated politically through their defeat over the agricultural and consumer goods issues and also in the first phase of the quarrel over foreign policy. Unexpectedly the Twentieth Congress, intended by Khrushchev as a final blow at his opponents’ prestige, had after-effects in the satellites which reversed the foreign policy issue into a temporary victory, especially for Molotov, and readjusted the balance between Khrushchev and his critics to such an extent that Khrushchev’s triumph over the final issue of economic reorganization was not accepted as a defeat by the ‘anti-party’ group: they resisted even after Khrushchev’s proposals on this subject had almost entirely passed into law. Hence the attempt of this group to oust Khrushchev in June 1957.

Agriculture

The agricultural issue had roots in the period before Stalin’s death. The reinforcement of party control over the collective farms was initiated by Khrushchev when he began to amalgamate them into larger units after 1949. His ambitious scheme for setting up ‘agro-towns’ was criticized by Malenkov at the Nineteenth Congress,¹ thus sowing the seeds of their conflict over agriculture after Stalin’s death. A year earlier, in 1951, Malenkov and Molotov had strongly criticized an article on agriculture by Khrushchev which appeared in Pravda.² Another and more successful move by Khrushchev in this early period led to the adoption of the brigade instead of the link system in the collective farms. This too was intended to heighten party influence, which could now concentrate on a small number of picked brigade workers rather than be dispersed over many scattered units.

In their respective major speeches on agriculture soon after Stalin’s death,³ both Malenkov and Khrushchev admitted that agricultural output was being crippled by insufficient incentives and unsuitable planning for production. Thus they agreed on the two shortcomings in Soviet agriculture and the need to eradicate them. It was only when the methods of solving the problems came up for discussion that they disagreed.

On the surface it would seem that the two questions required solutions of a purely technical, economic nature that had no connection with political issues and the growing rivalry between Malenkov and Khrushchev. However a closer e...