Participation of the Control Commissions of the RCP (B) under the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection in the Formation of Command-and-Control System in the USSR: 1923–24

The article analyzes the process of radical improvement of Soviet state apparatus outlined by the Central Committee of the RCP (B) and launched in connection with the illness and death of V.I. Lenin in 1923–24. The personnel (and personnel reserve) problem was aggravated by bitter struggles for inheritance and leadership over the party and Soviet state within the Central Committee of the RCP (B). In Soviet historiography, this problem was hushed up; in modern historiography it remains insufficiently studied. To fill in the historiographic gaps, the author uses method of source study. It has been revealed that in the studied period, Soviet civil servants, who occupied their high positions on the basis of pre-revolutionary (underground) party experience, did not meet the qualification criteria; many of them cared about their own well-being to the detriment of the case entrusted them by the party, embezzled, encouraged protectionism, had mistresses, and were surrounded by bureaucrats and personalities with a dubious past and present. Administrative measures adopted in 1923–24 to reduce the state apparatus of the People's Commissariats by 12–40 percent did not produce the desired result: the payroll not only failed to decrease, it actually grew by 100 percent due to so-called special rates of payment for management personnel and specialists. As a palliative measure, the 13th Party Congress planned to strengthen the Central Control Commission of the RCP (B) and the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection. In 1923– 24, members of regional party boards and personnel of the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection conducted important surveys of the Soviet bodies and institutions. Mass checks were run simultaneously in Soviet and party agencies. Party leaders and civil servants were checked by “troikas” of party and state auditors for adequacy to their posts; conflicts between party leaders and non-party employees were revealed, as well as facts of corruption, opposition, petty-bourgeois bias, drunkenness, domestic corruption, etc. Imposed punishments, however, were to take into account the low cultural level of managers from former workers and peasants or representatives of national republics. Following the inspections, the regional party boards were recommended “to keep an eye on” managers, while treating their shortcomings with understanding. It has been revealed that according to the plans of the Central Committee of the RCP (B), party collegiums of control commissions were not to turn into purely judicial bodies considering cases of misconduct, they were to prevent the negative phenomena. Introduction of massive control over leading personnel accelerated the formation of the command-and-control system in Soviet Russia, with all its advantages and disadvantages.