Decentralization in Recent Soviet Administrative Practice

Howard R. Swearer

doi:10.2307/3000448

Decentralization in Recent Soviet Administrative Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017

Howard R. Swearer

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The Soviet Union, as an administrative state par excellence, is a Parkinsonian nightmare. Although the leadership is armed with broad powers and unhampered by formal restraints in its control of the bureaucracy, it is nevertheless hard pressed to keep the huge administrative structures of the Soviet system efficient and responsive to central direction. The success or failure of a regime depends in large measure on how effectively it can get its policies translated into action by the bureaucracy.

Most schematic descriptions of the Soviet system by Western commentators, especially those written in the early 1950's, emphasized the division of the state into several highly centralized, vertically structured, and functionally specialized administrations—party, police, armed forces, and the economic bureaucracy. Within these broad categories there was frequently even further vertical-functional fractionization. For example, within the industrial bureaucracy there were various specialized ministries and a separation between planners and managers.

Type: Articles
Information: Slavic Review , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 1962 , pp. 456 - 470

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3000448 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1962

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References

1 For example, see Rostow, W. W., The Dynamics of Soviet Society (New York: Mentor Books, 1954)Google Scholar, Chapter 11.

2 (Moscow, I960), pp. 35 and 38.

3 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 458-59.

4 For an account of local initiative in pruning the raion governmental apparatus, see , No. 2 (Aug.), 1957.

5 (Moscow, 1956), p. 67.

6 For a description of how budget practice varies from budgetary law, see , No. 7 (July), 1959, pp. 22-28.

7 Howard R. Swearer, “Administration of Local Industry After the 1957 Industrial Reorganization,“ Soviet Studies, Jan., 1961.

8 See below, p. 462.

9 This table was compiled from the published results of local elections. See also , No. 3 (March), 1961, pp. 97-98.

10 , No. 5 (May), 1961, p. 81.

11 , No. 2 (Feb.), 1961, pp. 98-99.

12 Speech at the 22nd Party Congress by V. N. Titov, , Oct. 22, 1961.

13 , No. 23 (Dec), 1957, p. 4.

14 , No. 3 (March), 1958.

15 , June 11, 1958. See also , June 4,1958.

16 For a fuller treatment of this subject, see Howard R. Swearer, “Popular Participation: Myths and Realities,” Problems of Communism, Sept.-Oct., 1960.

17 , Feb. 12,1961.

18 , May 19, 1958, and Sept. 1, 1958; , March 4, 1951.

19 , May 28,1961.

20 For a similar interpretation, see Alec, Nove, “Post-Stalin Reorganization of Industry,” Soviet Society: A Book of Readings, ed. Inkeles, Alex and Geiger, Kent (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 326–27.Google Scholar