Russia's Power Pyramid

...Are there any signs, however, that one of the members of the Presidium is being built up through public media...

...First...

...Without doubt, the power struggle continued, but the direct goals changed...

...The Soviet hierarchy, and especially the Central Committee, has achieved a position where it can influence the Premier, particularly when his policies are in need of "repair...

...More likely, the struggle in the Party Presidium is now of a different character—not a struggle for the top leadership of Party and state, since this slot is now generally recognized in the Presidium as legitimately belonging to Khrushchev, but a fight to influence Kremlin policies and Khrushchev personally...

...If this continues for some time then a structural change in the essential framework of Soviet leadership may possibly take place...

...A leader who could command a decisive superiority in real and formal power did not yet exist in the first post-Stalin years...

...No one in it can compare to Khrushchev: the present members of the Presidium are in a good position to fight for power after Khrushchev departs, but to fight for his departure is quite different...

...Third...

...For example, in the period beginning with Lenin's death and ending with total collectivization (1924-37...

...There now seems to be considerable genuine discussion at the Central Committee plenary meetings...

...a contest of this kind cannot remain anonymous for any length of time...

...Interest in the internal power struggle at the top levels of the Soviet Communist party is continual and THE NEW LEADER consequently will print other articles examining this crucial subject in future issues...

...Open political struggle, even on a small scale and in limited circles, was out of the question...

...Molotov's departure was settled at a Presidium meeting in the spring of 1955...

...The top of the pyramid was cut off and a violent struggle erupted to occupy that top...

...The Central Committee—even the Presidium—and all Soviet bureaucratic hierarchies were reduced exclusively to the role of executive bodies...

...As a result the methods used are also absolute, unhampered by restraints imposed by society or by the protagonists themselves...

...The difference between the Soviet Union and other societies is that the reward of victory and the price of defeat are absolute in the Soviet Union...

...Some portion of their views is also apparently incorporated in the Central Committee resolutions which are the end result of plenum discussions...

...The most important new twist is not a battle between the Presidium members for Khrushchev's scalp, but the growing importance of the Central Committee in influencing and limiting his direction of Soviet affairs...

...Sometimes it was simply a struggle for survival and not a struggle for glory...

...Second...

...When the Central Committee plenum convened in July 1955 to approve the Presidium decision formally, the participants in the discussion of Molotov's deviation were almost exclusively members and candidate members of the Presidium...

...that is, you can fight someone who belongs to your own stratum, but not to a higher stratum, unless there is someone of authority and renown in the higher stratum who demands support for his own struggle...

...The present situation in the Soviet Union is quite different, and there seems no justification for belief that a power struggle of the 1953-57 type has returned...

...the power struggle was not to unsettle the existing leader...

...To eliminate a man of Khrushchev's stature, his opponents must conduct a war against him with extreme methods—including a factional struggle—if they hope to succeed...

...During the 1953-57 struggle there was a score of personalities in the top leadership who, from their experience, authority and skill could openly aspire to the supreme leadership...

...Many Central Committee members, while paying prescribed homage to the leader, at the same time are expressing their own views, particularly on matters concerning internal economic policy...

...Conflict and contention on the lower levels, even in the Central Committee, were only reflections of the fierce battles in the Presidium...

...The forms and methods of this struggle were very limited and consisted mainly of "palace intrigues," informing—and patient waiting...

...We now come to the crucial problem of eventual and possible transformations in the structure of Soviet power and authority...

...Although the dictator was dead, and a new dictator was not yet in sight, the Central Committee and the various groups of the higher "Party aktiv," in the first years after Stalin's death, did not play a role different from that during his lifetime...

...A struggle for influence and power goes on incessantly in the Soviet leadership...

...Every contender in the struggle for leadership could therefore be eliminated from the contest with relative ease, without causing an upheaval of far-reaching effects...

...If after three years of a supposed power struggle in the Kremlin one cannot name which Presidium members are for Khrushchev and which against, something must be fundamentally wrong with the theory...

...Second...

...It is even possible to envisage a reverse process in the Soviet Union: a diffusion of power...

...The situation was quite different in the period beginning in the late '30s and ending with Stalin's death in 1953...

...Also, the length of the "incubation period" in which this concentration of power takes place cannot be predicted...

...The power struggle in the Soviet Union is usually conducted along horizontal lines...

...As compared with the 1953-57 period, the Soviet Presidium now presents a picture of grayness...

...However, the layers of the pyramid below the top still lived by the inertia, habit and fear instilled through long years of Stalinist practice...

...That does not mean that the tendency toward a concentration of power under Soviet totalitarianism must unavoidably bring about a Stalin...

...Power struggle in the leadership of a nation is not In its August 29 issue, THE NEWLEADER published James Biddleford's "Russia Returns to Collective Leadership'' and Roris Nicolaevsky's "Agriculture and Khrushchev's Power Struggle.'' Seweryn Bialer, a former official of the Polish Communist party who defected to the West in 1956, here takes issue with both of these—denying the theory of a Suslov opposition and a return to collective leadership...

...However, as long as no change takes place in the Soviet power structure, and the dominant factors tending toward a personal dictatorship are not removed, periods of diffusion of power in the Soviet Union are transient...

...Soviet policies are still formulated without direct influence of broad public opinion, but in the last three years, and particularly when Soviet policy has received setbacks, "narrow" public opinion—namely, that of the Central Committee—plays some role in shaping Soviet political policies...

...Hence, the thesis that "collective leadership" in the USSR has returned, or is now returning, is tantamount to saying that a fierce struggle for power of the 1953-57 type is taking place once again...

...Even the most ardent supporters of the theory that Khrushchev's power and authority are extremely limited do not deny that he is now more than merely the top contender for the dictatorship...

...for influence and authority in carrying out his orders, not for the right to give orders in his place...

...The form of this struggle consisted of a peculiar fusion of open political activity inside the Communist party and backstage machinations, secret factions and oriental intrigue...

...The feasibility and the practicality of exercising pressure on the "leader," of having a say in affairs, which until then had been the sole domain of the Presidium, were visibly demonstrated for the first time...

...he appealed from the authority of the Presidium, which had declared itself against him, to the authority of the plenary-session of the Central Committee—which formally, according to the Party statutes, was supreme, but which actually had not ever acted as a supreme body up to that time...

...To be sure, individuals and groups of the so-called higher "Party aktiv" may and do participate but without hope that as a direct result one of them will reap the highest reward...

...All the anti-Khrushchev forces in the Presidium joined in an alliance and obtained a decisive majority in the Presidium...

...Khrushchev's gamble this time was successful and brought complete defeat to his opponents...

...The lower Party echelons, including the Central Committee, were notified of this struggle when its outcome was already a foregone conclusion, and their role was reduced to a formal rubber-stamping of the results...

...In the first years after Stalin's death the principal changes in the power structure took place at the top, primarily in the Party Presidium...

...From every point of view they presented a real challenge to Khrushchev...

...It does not follow from this axiom that this struggle always takes the same course...

...characteristic of the Soviet system alone...

...In 1953-57, there were no difficulties in naming those who were Khrushchev's rivals...

...But even Boris Nicolaevsky, once one of the ardent proponents of this theory, now writes: "It is still unclear who headed this opposition (to Khrushchev...

...Second, it is possible that the Central Committee's decisive participation in the struggle between Khrushchev and the "anti-Party group" has to some extent broken the inertia and insecurity of the Central Committee itself...

...Such a conflict would be impossible to conceal and there are no visible signs of it yet...

...The struggle between Khrushchev and the so-called "anti-Party group," which exploded in June 1957, fundamentally changed this state of affairs...

...This step was without precedent in the last 30 years of Soviet Communism...

...Second...

...IN EXAMINING the available materials of the Central Committee plenary sessions in recent years, one can see a difference, not only compared with Stalin's time, but also compared with the period before 1957...

...Lavrenti Beria's fate, as well as Malenkov's forced resignation in January 1955, were resolved within the Presidium without even the formal "resolution" of a Central Committee meeting...

...During 1953-57...

...If there really is a fight for supreme leadership, it is to unseat the recognized leader...

...The degree of this concentration in the hands of an individual and the use made of that power by the individual depends on numerous and variable elements, sometimes on accidents, and even to a certain degree on the character of the individual...

...Why is it that the names of the top contenders are seldom mentioned in articles dealing with the struggle between the Premier and his supposedly "deadly" foes...

...It forced him to arrange his relationships with the Central Committee on a basis much closer to the statutory rules...

...Soviet totalitarianism, though quite different from the South American type of personal dictatorship, nevertheless leads to concentration of power and authority in the hands of an individual...

...In the last decade of this period it became increasingly a struggle for convenient positions from which to fight for Stalin's mantle when he died...

...Possibly the Central Committee's growing importance explains the until now inexplicable change in agricultural policy of its December 1959 plenum...

...Direct goals, forms and methods of the power struggle differ essentially from period to period, as much as the periods differ from each other...

...For example, even the top contender, Nikita Khrushchev, was eliminated as a competitor for Stalin's succession in 1955 with no greater disturbances in the Soviet affairs than caused by the elimination of Georgi Malenkov...

...Such personalities as Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov or Lazar Kaganovich created a rallying point for the smaller fry of the Presidium and enabled them to fight for their own aspirations and ambitions...

...Presumably the opposition to the "kolkhoz mergers" came mainly from the non-Presidium members of the Central Committee...

...Because of this, lesser personalities from the highest circle (Saburov, Dmitri Shepilov, etc...

...Third...

...The struggle seems to be for the strongest possible position in the leadership with a simultaneous recognition of the principal role played by Khrushchev...

...The fight for personal supremacy in the Kremlin is for all practical purposes restricted to a very select circle...

...His opponents are anonymous: Someone is fighting—but who...

...At the same time, it created at least two side effects, the results of which we are now witnessing...

...The methods employed were very diverse and included such means as mass political discussions, Party referendums, economic and police pressure, bribery and falsification of Party elections...

...Khrushchev's ability to suppress any opposition which would eliminate him is considerable, but his ability to suppress expression of different points of view about particular problems is still limited...

...Khrushchev, with his back to the wall, took a step which not one of his opponents in the previous years had dared to take—or had a chance to take...

...Such a buildup would suggest that some take-over in the Presidium is being prepared, but the reverse is closer to reality...

...These individuals and groups participate in their own interest, but at the same time in the interest of one of the top contenders who, in turn, hopes to reach the Soviet "throne" through his own and his supporters' efforts...

...in any modern society (and even in the "old" ones) there is a continuous struggle for power and influence...

...On and off for the past three years there has been gossip about the supposed struggle for leadership between "Stalinist" Mikhail Suslov and Khrushchev...

...Third...

...Sometimes in the background of this struggle lurk true and deep differences of views as to tactics of internal and external Soviet policy, but more often there is a naked power struggle, a clash of personal ambitions covered by the fig leaf of high-sounding programs and slogans...

...Here, in part, lies the secret of the "inconsistencies and shifting attitudes" in the Kremlin...

...First, The Soviet system has a tendency to generate personal dictatorship...

...These three "truths" may seem trivial and self-evident, but they are too often forgotten when it comes to analyses of concrete Soviet situations...

...The Party leaders fought their battles primarily within the Presidium, and in the beginning only in the Presidium...

...The Central Committee's growing importance in making Kremlin policy may alter RUSSIA'S POWER PYRAMID By Seweryn Bialer IT SEEMS PROFITABLE to outline a few general "truths" about the "eternal' power struggle in the Kremlin and to examine them in the light of the current Soviet situation...

...It is possible that the opposition pressure of the Central Committee resulted in Khrushchev's abandoning the idea, at least for the time being—and was not a fight for Presidium leadership at all...

...the immediate goal of the groups fighting in the Kremlin was to gain absolute personal supremacy...

...there no longer is any comparison between his power, authority and popular image and that of his colleagues in the Presidium...

...The so-called "Suslov challenge" is no less uncertain...

...In the last two years, ratings of the Presidium members around Khrushchev have changed like winners in a poker game...

...First, the intervention of the Central Committee on Khrushchev's behalf indebted him to that body—for the time being at least...

...The struggle within the Soviet leadership is not necessarily a contest for the absolute personal supremacy of one individual...

...It was a struggle for Stalin's favors, not for his position...

...IT IS GENERALLY accepted that the term "collective leadership" describes the fluid equilibrium of power which existed in Russia from Stalin's death up to 1957, when the so-called "anti-Party group" was removed from the Soviet leadership...

...Stalin was not an accident, a "mistake" or a deviation, but the legitimate child of the Soviet system...

...The power struggle in the first post-Stalin years was conducted primarily in the highest echelon of Soviet leadership, chiefly in the Party Presidium...

...Stalin's centralized "power pyramid" was the classical example of the Soviet power structure: an absolute concentration of power in an individual at the top and no restraining counter-balance from below...

...could be much more active in the struggle for power...

...First...

...But how do the characteristic traits of the 1953-57 struggle compare to the present situation...