Work for this article was supported by a major grant from the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council, "Networks and Hierarchies in the Soviet Provinces, 1945-1970" (RES- 000-23-0880), and by subsidiary grants from the British Academy (SG-42559, SG-48370). Draft papers and archival materials from the larger project on which this article draws can be found at www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/sovietprovinces. I am very grateful to the Russian codirector of the project, Oleg Khlevniuk, for supplying the archival documents consulted and for his many ideas. Earlier versions were presented at a workshop in Manchester in September 2006, at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in New Orleans in November 2006, and at the CEELBAS Midlands Russia Seminar at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of Warwick, in December 2009. Special thanks go to Mark Harrison for his stimulating readings of various drafts of the paper. I am also grateful to the commentator in New Orleans, Brian LaPierre, and to Mark D. Steinberg, for their thoughtful criticisms and comments.

1 XXIII S“ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, 29 marta–8 aprelia 1966 goda. Stenograficheskii otchel (Moscow, 1966), 1:89.

2 Breslauer, George W., “The Twenty-fifth Congress: Domestic Issues,” in Dallin, Alexander, ed., The Txuenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU: Assessment and Context (Stanford, 1977), 8.Google Scholar

3 Breslauer, George W., KJirushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics (London, 1982), 154.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Clark, William A., Soviet Regional Elite Mobility after Klmishchev (New York, 1989), 114–23.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Rigby, T. H., “The Soviet Leadership: Towards a Self-Stabilizing Oligarchy?” Soviet Studies 22, no. 2 (October 1970): 179;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Robert E. Blackwelljr., “Cadre Policy in the Brezhnev Era,” Problems of Communism 28, no. 2 (March-April 1979): 31–33.

6 Blackwell, “Cadre Policy in the Brezhnev Era,” 31–37.

7 For a secondary distinction between strategic trust (i.e., trust in people we know well) and generalized or social trust (i.e., faith in strangers) that discounts the latter as an example not of “trust” but of “faith,” see Hardin, Russell, Trust and Trustworthiness (New York, 2002), 56, 60–62.Google Scholar

8 Such scholars prefer alternative terms, such as confidence or quasi-trust to describe the relationship individuals have to institutions. See Niklas Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” in Diego Gambetta, ed., Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations(Oxford, 1988), 98–99, 102–3; and Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 151–52, 158–59.

9 Although definitions of trust are notoriously slippery, standard conceptions ground trust in an ongoing personal relationship where the trusted has the freedom to act against the interests of the truster but where the relationship provides, nevertheless, a basis for cooperation on certain matters. This basic understanding is shared by conceptions as varied as Tilly's “transactional,” Hardin's “cognitive,” and Luhmann's “systemic” accounts of trust. See Tilly, Charles, Trust and Rule (New York, 2005), 4, 12, 24, 45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hardin, Trust and Trustiuorthiness, 3, 4–5 , 14; Luhmann, “Familiarity,” 97, 99. Two areas of contention in the trust literature center on the types of motivation of the trusted and the extent to which trust is behavioral (e.g., Tilly) or cognitive (e.g., Hardin). According to the latter, influential view, trust (an assessment by the truster about the intentions of the trusted) must be distinguished from trustiuorthiness (the motivations and competence of the trusted). From this perspective, “trust," which is cognitive, must be differentiated from “acting on trust” (for example, through actual cooperation), which is behavioral. See Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, chaps. 1, 2.

10 For a discussion of trust as an “extremely effective lubricant” in an institutional environment marked by high transaction costs, see Lorenz, Edward H., “Neither Friends nor Strangers: Informal Networks of Subcontracting in French Industry,” in Gambetta, , ed., Trust , 198.Google Scholar

11 Breslauer, “Twenty-fifth Congress,” 17.

12 In what follows, by regional first secretaries I refer to the leaders of obkoms and kraikoms that, in the RSFSR, were directly subordinate to the Central Committee and, in other republics, were one tier below the republic-level party organization. The male pronoun is used here advisedly. All regional first secretaries in the period covered by this article were men.

13 See, for example, Plenum tsentral'nogo komiteta kommunisticheskoi parlii sovetskogo soiuza, 24–26marta 1965goda (Moscow, 1965), 219; XXIIIS'ezd, 1:522, 2:128; Konovalov, A. B., Partiinaia nomenklatura Sibiri v sisteme regional'noi vlasli (1945–1991) (Kemerovo, 2006), 47.Google Scholar

14 See Nikita Kfirushchev 1964: Stenogrammy plenuma TsK KPSS i drugie dokumenty(Moscow, 2007), 245–46, 247, 373–74, 378, 379, 392; and General'nyi sekretar' L. I. Brezhnev 1964–1982 (Moscow, 2006), 16.

15 Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhizn' ireformy (Moscow, 1995), 1:180.

16 On the new norms of collective leadership in Moscow, see Rigby, “Soviet Leadership,” 173–83; Hodnett, Grey, “The Pattern of Collective Leadership,” in Bialer, Seweryn, eel., The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo., 1981), 95–96;Google Scholar and Ross, Dennis, “Coalition Maintenance in the Soviet Union,” World Politics 32, no. 2 (January 1980): 264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Oleg Khlevniuk, “Regional'naia vlast' v SSSR v 1953—kontse 1950–kh godov: Ustoichivost' i konflikty,” Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 3 (July 2007): 31–49; and Khlevniuk, “Razdelenie apparata—razdelenie setei” (unpublished paper on the effects on regional networks of the 1962 division of the regional party apparatus, 2007). The latter is cited with permission.

18 Khlevniuk, “Regional'naia vlast',” 33–35.

19 Ibid., 35–37.

20 Examples of the traditional approach include the excellent books by Urban, Michael E., An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Cirailation in the Belorussian Republic, 1966–1986(Cambridge, Eng., 1989);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Willerton, John P., Patronage and Politics in the USSR (Cambridge, Eng., 1992).Google Scholar

21 For a full list of the regions examined, see our project Web site at www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/sovietprovinces (last accessed 1 June 2010).

22 It should be noted that the three regions varied considerably by rank order of their obkom committees. Thus, of the 70 provincial party committees in the RSFSR in 1966, Peter Frank ranked Krasnodar 4th, Kirov 30th, and Kabardino-Balkaria 66th. See Frank, Peter, “Constructing a Classified Ranking of CPSU Provincial Committees,” British Journal of Political Science, 4 no. 2 (1974): 229–30.Google Scholar

23 Mal'bakhov had followed a classic party career in the republic, climbing up the ranks from raikom secretary in 1946–47 and raikom first secretary in 1947–49, to secretary and then second secretary of the Kabardinian obkom from 1949–52, and chair of the presidium of the republican supreme soviet from 1952–56.

24 Mal'bakhov himself was born in the village of Deiskoe in the Tersk district on 18 November 1917.

25 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI), f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,1.31.

26 Ibid., 1. 34. The author of this letter, K. K. Uianaev, was certainly not a fan of Mal'bakhov's. There are good reasons, however, for taking his communications with the Central Committee seriously. He sent two letters, one on 23 March 1969, to Brezhnev, in response to which the Central Committee party organs department demanded more evidence. A mass of solid, detailed information was then provided in a 14–page letter that the Central Committee received on 28 August 1969. RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,11. 23–43. On the particular issue of the influence of the Tersk network on Mal'bakhov, years later, in a tribute volume to Mal'bakhov, a former okbom secretary and friend of Mal'bakhov's conceded in coded terms that the former first secretary had been prone to making appointments “under the influence of a certain group” and then added: “Which leader in earlier times was able to escape the influence of his immediate circle? There was probably only one,” Stalin, I. V. Dokshokov, M. I., Glavnaia privilegiia — otvetstvennost' za drugikh (Nal'chik, 1998), 99;Google Scholar and see Zumakulov, B. M., Beituganov, S. N., and Kudaev, V. Zh., Govoril likho, slyshali vse (Nal'chik, 2000), 30, 350, 352.Google Scholar

27 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,1. 34.

28 Ibid., 1. 39. For additional evidence, see ibid., 1. 37; and Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'nopoliticheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 17, op. 105, d. 294,1. 4, and RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 282,11. 26–27.

29 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,11. 39, 30.

30 Ibid., 11. 33–34.

31 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, A. 330, 1. 23. “The criticisms made by comrades Cheremisin, Mishkov, and Khachetlov have no obvious content,” Mal'bakhov concluded. Ibid., 1.24.

32 Ibid., 1. 22. Emphasis added.

33 Ibid., 1. 24. Mishkov was not nominated for reelection. See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 324,11. 244–51.

34 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,11. 37–38.

35 See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 304,11. 6–7.

36 On this and Bessarabov's poor personal relations with Mal'bakhov, see Dokshokov, Glavnaia privilegiia, 119.

37 Krupin's biography can be found in RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 330, 11. 7–8. For Khubaev's reference to the republic as his “second homeland,” see ibid., 1. 10.

38 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 330,1. 29.

39 According to a letter issued two days after the riot, the trouble started when the policeman, V. I. Tokarev apprehended a Kabardin, N. Kh. Maremukov, who, reportedly in an inebriated state, smashed one of the windows in the police office and shouted that he was being beaten to death. At the same time, two other Kabardins, Tkhakakhov and Kunizhev, claimed, as it turned out falsely, that Tokarev had also killed Tkhakakhov's brother, Alik. An angry crowd of 2,000–3,000 quickly gathered outside the police station as a vanguard group of rioters caught up with Tokarev, who was attempting to flee by car, and killed him. Most of these facts were confirmed at the trial, which was held in November and December 1968. Three defendants were sentenced to death, six to terms of 12 to 15 years, and a further twenty-four to terms varying from 6 months to 10 years. RGASP1, f. 17, op. 104, d. 336,11. 93–94,105–6; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 337,1.133; and RGASP1, f. 17, op. 104, d. 338,11. 87, 97–98; also see RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,1. 24.

40 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 336,1. 94; RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,11. 24, 26.

41 Dokshokov, Glavnaia privilegiia, 98.

42 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9, 1. 42. In fact, it was probably for this reason that even prior to the Nal'chik events Mal'bakhov had been constrained in his ability to remove certain Balkars such as Kh. I. Khutuev and Ch. B. Uianaev altogether from the republican elite so that, although they were dismissed from their republic-level posts, they retained their seats on the obkom.

43 Bilinskii, Yaroslav, “The Ruler and the Ruled,” Problems of Communism 16 (September-October 1967): 20–21;Google Scholar and Miller, John H., “Cadre Policy in Nationality Areas: Recruitment of CPSU First and Second Secretaries in the Non-Russian Republics of the USSR,” Soviet Studies 29, no. 1 (1977): 15, 19–20, 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,1. 29.

45 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 336,11. 115–17; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 295,1. 36.

46 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 9,1. 43.

47 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 295,1. 129; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 106, d. 306,1. 105.

48 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 295,1. 42.

49 Zumakulov, Beituganov, and Kudaev, Govoril tikho, 376. Emphasis added.

50 Petukhov had studied in Rostov and served for almost a decade in senior party and state positions in Krasnodar and North Ossetia. For more on Pcheliakov, see Yoram Gorlizki, “Scandal in Riazan': Networks of Trust and the Social Dynamics of Deception” (unpublished paper, 2009).

51 RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 588, 11. 48, 80. In June 1963 Petukhov also organized a highly controversial economic conference that reportedly descended into a celebration of Petukhov's own “teachings” on the economy. See ibid., 11. 21–23, 78.

52 RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 588, 11. 1–3, 21–22, 78; and RGAN1, f. 5, op. 61, d. 8, 11. 128,107.

53 RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 588,11. 46–49, 54–55.

54 RGASPI, f. 556, op. 14, d. 243, 11. 170–71; and RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 596, 1. 112.

55 RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 596,11. 63–65, 78–79, 93, 97. One of Petukhov's most ardent former supporters, the obkom secretary A. V Smirnov, now switched sides and also began to criticize Petukhov. See ibid., 11. 73–75.

56 Those with the highest protest votes (30 and over) were the senior officials from the former agricultural obkom, V. P. Liamov, E. N. Nekrasov, and E. A. Rodin, who had stood by Petukhov in the debates of 1962 to 1964. See RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 588,11. 23, 80–81; RGASPI, f. 556, op. 10, d. 596,11. 24–25, 79, 93; also see Michel Tatu, Poxuerin the Kremlin. From Khrushchev's Decline to Collective Leadership (London, 1969), 436.

57 RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 8,1. 115.

58 Ibid., 1. 118.

59 Ibid., 1. 120.

60 Ibid., 11. 123–24.

61 Ibid., 11. 85, 119.

62 Ibid., 1. 103.

63 Ibid., 11. 76, 82. Emphasis added.

64 Ibid., 11. 82, 94.

65 Ibid., 11. 84–85.

66 The two main flashpoints were the so-called Nolinskii Affair, after which the former head of the obi ispolkom, A. V. Smirnov, was sacked, and a tragedy at the local sports stadium on 25 May 1968, when 39 people were killed. The stadium tragedy forced Petukhov to take action against a number of local officials such as Zaporozhskii, Liamov, and Kolbin, following which the latter two refused even to greet or acknowledge him in public. RGANI,f. 5, op. 61, d. 8,11. 81,86,97, 100–101, 107, 117, 119.

67 Ibid., 11. 94–99, 106–9, 123–25. The latter criticisms were voiced in closed session.

68 Ibid., 1.96.

69 Ibid., 1. 82.

70 Ibid., 11. 114–15.

71 Ibid., 1. 86. “After our conversations,” Petukhov himself recounted, “raikom secretaries often come up and tell me that comrade Kolupaev is pestering them: ‘How can we keep comrade Petukhov, look at what he is up to.’ I'm simply embarrassed for you [Kolupaev] and embarrassed, too, [for them].” Ibid., 1. 122.

72 Ibid., 1. 129. Emphasis added.

73 See speech by Sharov and the letter from Petukhov to the Central Committee of SO June 1969. Ibid., 11. 89, 68.

74 Ibid., 1.89.

75 Ibid., 1. 113. “Is it really the case that you can hang on to this post until the end of your days?” the chair of the Iskra kolkhoz asked Chemodanov. “That is not the way of the party.” Ibid., 1. 129.

76 Ibid, 1. 111.

77 Ibid, 1. 121. Emphasis added. Podoplelov had also used the term in the RSFSR Soviet controversy, which led to his censure on 31 January 1967, see ibid., 1. 70.

78 Bespalov had risen up through the ranks, serving as first secretary of the Kirov gorkom from 1964 to 1968 and then as obkom second secretary from 1968 to 1971.

79 Petukhov was chided by some local party leaders for his excessive “softness” and “liberalism.” RGANI, f. 5, op. 61, d. 8, 11. 85, 88. It was perhaps a measure of this that Liamov was the only person in his eight years as obkom first secretary to receive a formal reprimand {vygovor) from Petukhov. Ibid., 11.117,122. “I have no means of influence other than oral reproof [vnushenie],” Petukhov later complained. “The director [of a factory] can issue a written reprimand, but we here [at the party] have to decide things collegially.” Ibid., 1. 120.

80 Commenting on the new arrangements in Moscow, Rigby wrote: “Khrushchev's successors have acquiesced in the emergence of a ‘pecking order’ in the oligarchy with Brezhnev as No. 1… . At the same time, however, and this is the most salient characteristic of their style of government, they have hedged the power and authority of individual leaders around with a number of quite formidable controls.” Rigby, “Soviet Leadership,” 186–87.

81 For a broader discussion of the “seniority principle” under Brezhnev, see Rigby, T. H., “The Soviet Regional Leadership: The Brezhnev Generation,” Slavic Review 37, no. 1 (March 1978): 23;CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the “clear unwritten rules” aboutwho could become a regional first secretary under Brezhnev, see Gorbachev, Zhizri i reformy, 1:122.

82 “Brezhnev,” notes one biographer, “was able to get on with people, he never blew up at subordinates but would criticize them gently. His son-in-law Churbanov even thought up the term ‘Brezhnevite criticism.’ [Churbanov] wrote: ‘Leonid Ilich was able like no one else to take people to task without ever offending them.’” Sokolov, B. V., Leonid Brezhnev: Zolotaia epokha (Moscow, 2004), 206.Google Scholar

83 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 469,11. 182–84; Frank, “Constructing a Classified Ranking,” 229.

84 As first secretary in Tambov, Zolotukhin had emerged as a leading light of a formidable group of “agricultural first secretaries” against whom, on some accounts, Khrushchev's 1962 bifurcation had been directed, and for which reason diis group had inclined strongly toward Brezhnev in October 1964. See Armstrong, John A., “Party Bifurcation and Elite Interests,” Soviet Studies 17, no. 4 (April 1966): 422–24, 426–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In Tambov Zolotukhin had come to know the then first secretary of the nearby Ivanovo obkom, Ivan Kapitonov, and it was Kapitonov who, having recently been installed as Central Committee secretary in December 1965, unveiled Zolotukhin as the new leader of Krasnodar at a Kraikom meeting on 12 January 1966. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 499,1. 57.

85 Gorbachev, Zhizn' i reformy, 1:140–41. Although Gorbachev, who was partial to Zolotukhin, does not explicitly include him in this group, it is clear from his description and from Zolotukhin's role at numerous congresses and plenums that he was a member. See, for example, Egorychev, N. G., Politik i diplomat (Moscow, 2006), 160.Google Scholar

86 Thus in November 1968 Zolotukhin announced major over-the-plan allocations of tractors, manure, agricultural machinery, and means of uansport to Krasnodar. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 536,11. 272–73.

87 See Saloshenko, Viktor, Predsedateli i gubernatory: Vzaimosviaz' vremen (Krasnodar, 2002), 399–400.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., 374.

89 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 472,11. 54–58.

90 See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 474, 11. 139–44; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 477, 11. 306–9. As a krai, Krasnodar encompassed an obkom-level administrative unit, the Adygei autonomous oblast.

91 This followed a series of carefully orchestrated attacks on Tupitsyn, especially at the kraikom buro on 9 August, and at the kraikom plenum on 19 September, which progressively sapped Tupitsyn of his authority. See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 504, 1. 125; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 500,11. 40–41 ; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 474,11. 80, 91.

92 See especially RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 480,1. 47, but also RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 469,1. 189, and RGASPI, f. 17, op. 104, d. 536,1. 282.

93 For the Kiriakin affair, see RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 500,1. 42; on other “organizational measures,” see RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 479,1. 192; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 480,1. 54; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 469,11. 190–91; and RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 479,1. 192.

94 “Through his strictness, high expectations, [and] personal asceticism … Zolo-tukhin was quick to bring order to this huge region,” writes Gorbachev. See Gorbachev, Zhizn' ireformy, 1:139.

95 On this contrast between the Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods, see Afanasy Federovich Eshtokin: Lichnost' gosudarstvennogo masshlaba (Kemerovo, 2000), 86.

96 This applied to Albert Churkin, Sergei Medunov, A. A. Khomiakov, O. S. Nikitiuk, and N. A. Ogurtsov. At the lower levels too, the “seniority principle” was closely adhered to. Thus, all eight of the new raikom first secretaries appointed in January 1967 climbed one rung up the nomenklatura hierarchy. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 472,11. 54–56.

97 As with Brezhnev, he had to wait nearly three years, until February 1969, before he could replace any of his obkom secretaries, in this case one who was in any case due to retire, or tamper with the composition of the obkom buro. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 478,11. 4 – 5 .

98 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 500,1. 108.

99 As Brezhnev admitted in a speech to Leningrad officials in July 1965: “For 22 years I was an obkom [and republic-level] secretary … but I would never have said or say now that I somehow ‘managed’ industry. What nonsense! … The task of managing and running industry can be undertaken only by those who fully understand this area.” General'nyi sekretar' L. I. Brezhnev, 37–38.

100 An important step in this direction was supposed to have been made with the famous July 1965 Central Committee resolution, “On Serious Shortcomings in the Work of the Khar'kov Oblast Party Organization in Admissions to the Party and the Training of Young Communists,” originally discussed in Tatu, Power in the Kremlin, 500–502.

101 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 500, 1. 101; and see his speech of December 1967 in RGASPI, f. 17, op. 103, d. 477,1. 309.

102 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 480,1. 53. Emphasis added.

103 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 102, d. 500,11. 57–58. Emphasis added.

104 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105 d. 479,1. 191.

105 On “informal practices” see, most famously, Joseph Berliner, Factory and Manager in the USSR (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), chaps. 11 and 12. Not all informal devices for achieving cooperation qualify as trust relationships. Some of the economic practices described in this paragraph are perhaps more akin to the “pretrust relations” of traditional communities, where cooperation is achieved not through self-standing personal relationships but by means of communal norms backed by sanctions. Here, as later, we accept that the “trust in cadres” campaign gave legitimacy to a variety of informal practices, not all of which were trust-based. See Cook, Karen S. and Hardin, Russell, “Norms of Cooperativeness and Networks of Trust”, in Hechter, Michael and Karl-Dieter, Opp, eds., Social Norms (New York, 2001), 327–47;Google Scholar and Cook, Karen S., Hardin, Russell, and Levi, Margaret, Cooperation without Trust? (New York, 2005), chap. 5, esp. 91–92.Google Scholar

106 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 480,1. 51.

107 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 105, d. 479,11. 192–93.

108 According to the lawyer Arkadii Vaksberg “thousands of letters had been sent to the Kremlin in Moscow … [and] each of these spoke of law-breaking, extortion, misap-propriation of state property, summary justice to anyone that crossed the authorities, and in every letter the finger of guilt pointed at Medunov.” Vaksberg, Arkady, The Soviet Mafia (London, 1991), 11;Google Scholar also see 16–17, 34–35, and, for a more detailed description of the so-called Medunov clan, see 52–61 .

109 According to P. A. Rodionov, a candidate member of the Central Committee from 1966 to 1971, “rumors of Churkin's corruption had been doing the rounds since his time as head of the [Krasnodar industrial] executive committee”; eventually 765,000 rubles were reportedly found on Churkin following a major scandal in 1971. See Ivanova, G. V., ed., Ot ottepeli do zasloia (Moscow, 1990), 205–6.Google Scholar Although Churkin was not prosecuted, his career ended abruptly in 1974, and he was subjected to disciplinary proceedings by a decision of the Committee of Party Control on 28 January 1976: “On the Criminal Abuses of the Former Secretary of the Georgian Central Committee, Churkin A. N.”

110 In his first fifteen months, Brezhnev appointed new first secretaries to four of the five largest regions in the RSFSR (Moscow, Rostov, Gor'kii, and Krasnodar), as well as new leaders to some of the most powerful of the other provinces in the republic. New appointments in Moscow (V. I. Konotop), Rostov (M. S. Solomentsev), and Stavropol' (L. N. Efremov) were made on 16 and 18January 1965, while the new assignments to Cheliabinsk (N. N. Rodionov), Volgograd (L. S. Kulichenko), Gor'kii (K. F. Katushev), and Krasnodar (G. S. Zolotukhin) were made on 16 and 29 November 1965 and 14 and 28 January 1966. The term party verticalis used by Pikhoia, R. G., SSSR: Istoriia vlasli 1945–1991 (Moscow, 1998), 273–74.Google Scholar

111 The average annual number of candidates admitted to the party fell from 760,000 in 1961–1966 to 600,000 from 1966 to 1971. Expulsions rose from 30,300 in 1965 (roughly the average for the previous five years) to 61,900 in 1966, climbing to 75,800 in 1970. See XXTVS'eidKommunisticheskoipartii Sovetskogo Soiuza, 30marta-9aprelia 1971 goda. Stenograficheskii otchet, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1971); and RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 12,11. 217, 217ob.; RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 13,11. 9, 9ob.; RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 14,11. 78, 78ob.

112 In order to make room for these practices Brezhnev virtually abandoned cross-postings between regions and radically reduced the appointment of central officials to the non-national territories. XXIV S'ezd, 1:124.

113 On this, see Gambetta, “Can We Trust Trust?” in Gambetta, ed., Trust, 230; and Cook, Hardin, and Levi, Cooperation without Trust? 169, 186.

114 Although relatively little has been written on trust and transaction costs in the Soviet context, the argument that trust lowers transaction costs is now standard across much of the comparative literature. A famous forerunner of this position can be found in Arrow, Kenneth Joseph, The Limits of Organization (New York, 1974), 23.Google Scholar For a more recent survey, see Cook, , Hardin, , and Levi, , Cooperation without Trust? 52–53, 76.Google Scholar For an analogous argument, albeit one couched in very different terms, made with regard to the Soviet political system in the Brezhnev period, see Willerton, Patronage and Politics, 230.

115 XXfV S“ezd, 1:194, 511; XXV S“ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, 25 fevralia-5 marta 1976goda. Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1976), 1:145, 177, 421.

116 For various examples of regional leaders greeting the discourse of “trust” with avid enthusiasm, see XXIVS'ezd, 1:142, 194, 203, 244, 355, 441, 511, 575; XXVS'ezd, 1:145, 177, 228, 336, 387, 420–21, 434.

117 For an early version of this position, see Gambetta, “Can We Trust Trust?” 218–19. A more recent and elaborate treatment can be found in Cook, Hardin, and Levi, Cooperation without Trust? 42, 53–55.

118 Gorbachev, Zhizn' i reformy, 1:123.

119 From 1966 to 1976 the number of obkom first secretaries in the RSFSR who were full members of the Central Committee rose from 36 to 60, all of whom were now guaranteed regular trips to the Kremlin in order to attend Central Committee plenums. Rigby, “Soviet Regional Leadership,” 22.

120 Gorbachev, Zhizn' ireformy, 1:140–41. Emphasis added. Equally, Gorbachev recalled: “Every [first secretary] knew full well that he would be stripped of his office and all his power the moment … he lost the trust of the general secretary [biidet poteriano doverie genseka].” Ibid., 1:123.

121 Cited in Sokolov, Leonid Brezhnev, 206.

122 XXTVS“ezd, 1:567.

123 Cf. Millar, James R., “The Little Deal: Brezhnev's Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism,” Slavic Review 44, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 697, 701–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

124 Most studies of trust do not see it as a fungible or measurable entity, or as a resource that could be “depleted through use” so that technically one cannot envisage “too much” of it. See Gambetta, “Can We Trust “Trust,” 234. By “too much trust” I mean that the regime became overly reliant on ongoing personal relationships as a means of rule as opposed to the properly functioning institutions and external guarantees of trustworthiness that in other societies play the dominant role in ensuring large-scale cooperation. See Hardin, , Trust and Trustworthiness, 47, 60–62;Google Scholar Cook, , Hardin, , and Levi, , Cooperation without Trust?, l 133–34, 141, 147, 185–86.Google Scholar