Absolute personal dictatorship set in. While the Politburo remained by far the most important body in the country, because its fourteen or so members and candidate members were the general secretary's immediate assistants, there is much evidence that they, too, implicitly obeyed their master. Other Party organizations followed the instructions they received as best they could to the letter. Significantly, no Party congress was called between 1939 and 1952. The so-called 'democratic centralism' within the Party, that is, the practice of discussing and debating issues from the bottom up, but, once the Party line had been formed, executing orders as issued from the top down, became a dead letter: even within the Communist party framework no free discussion could take place in the Soviet Union, and almost every personal opinion became dangerous.
Through the Communist party apparatus and the several million Party members, as well as through the political police, Stalin supervised the government machine and controlled the people of the country. The peculiar relationship between the Party and the government in the Soviet Union, in which the Party is the leading partner as well as a driving force in carrying out state policies, has been elucidated in such studies as Fainsod's analysis of the Soviet regime in the Smolensk area, based on the Smolensk Party archives which had fallen into Western hands, and Armstrong's investigation of the Communist party in Ukraine. Not in vain did Article 126 of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 declare:
… the most active and most politically conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.
The Party, as will be shown in a later chapter, in fact dominated the social and cultural, as well as the political and economic life in the Soviet Union.
The Stalinist Constitution of 1936, which replaced the constitution of 1924 and was officially hailed as marking a great advance in the development of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, retained in effect the 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' exercised by the Communist party and its leadership, specifically Stalin. At the same time it was meant to reflect the new 'socialist' stage achieved in the Soviet Union, based on collective ownership of the means of production and summarized in the formula: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.' It gave the ballot to all Soviet citizens - for no 'exploiters' remained in the country - and made elections equal, direct, and secret. In fact, it emphasized democracy and contained in Chapter X a long list of civil rights as well as obligations. Yet, as has often been demonstrated, the permissiveness of the new constitution never extended beyond the Communist framework. Thus Chapter I affirmed that the basic structure of Soviet society could not be challenged. The civil liberty articles began: 'In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system…' - and could be considered dependent on this condition. The Communist party, specifically recognized by the Constitution, was the only political group allowed in the Soviet Union. Still more important, the niceties of the Constitution of 1936 mattered little in a
country ruled by an absolute dictator, his party, and his police. Ironically, the height of the great purge followed the introduction of the Constitution.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics remained a federal state, its component units being increased to eleven: the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and ten Soviet Socialist Republics, namely, Ukraine, Belorussia or White Russia, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia, and the Kazakh, Kirghiz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek republics in Central Asia. While the larger nationalities received their own union republics, smaller ones obtained, in descending order, autonomous republics, autonomous regions, and national areas. Altogether, fifty-one nationalities were granted some form of limited statehood. Yet, like much else in the constitution, this arrangement was largely a sham: while important in terms of cultural autonomy - a subject to be discussed in a later chapter - as well as in terms of administration, in fact it gave no political or economic independence to the local units at all. The Soviet Union was one of the most highly centralized states of modern times.
A bicameral supreme Soviet replaced the congresses of Soviets as the highest legislative body of the land. One chamber, the Union Soviet, represented the entire Soviet people and was to be elected in the proportion of one deputy for every 300,000 inhabitants. The other, the Soviet of Nationalities, represented the component national groups and was to be elected as follows: twenty-five delegates from each union republic, eleven from each autonomous republic, five from each autonomous region, and one from each national area. The two chambers received equal rights and parallel functions, exercising some of them jointly and some separately. Elected for four years - although with the Second World War intervening the second Supreme Soviet was not elected until 1946 - the Supreme Soviet met twice a year, usually for no more than a week at a time. In the interims between sessions a Presidium elected by the Soviet had full authority. Almost always, Supreme Soviets unanimously approved all actions taken by their Presidiums. In the words of one commentator: 'The brevity of the sessions, already noted, the size of the body, and the complexity of its agendas are all revealing as to the actual power and place of the Supreme Soviet.' Still more revealing was the acquiescence and obsequiousness of the Soviet legislature in its dealings with Soviet rulers.
In the Constitution of 1936 the executive authority continued to be vested in the Council of People's Commissars, which had to be confirmed by the Supreme Soviet. Commissariats were of three kinds: Union - that is, central - Republican, and a combination of the two. Their number exceeded the number of ministries or similar agencies in other countries because many branches of Soviet economy came to be managed by separate commissariats. In general, heavy industry fell under central juris-
diction, while light industry was directed by Union-Republican commissariats.
The Soviet legal system, while extensive and complicated, served Party and state needs both explicitly and implicitly and had only an extremely limited independent role in Soviet society. Besides, the political police generally operated outside even Soviet law. It might be added that the Soviet central government served as the model for the governments of the union republics, although the latter established single-chamber, rather than bicameral, legislatures by omitting a chamber for nationalities.
Stalin's Soviet regime, which took its definitive shape in the thirties, was to undergo before long the awesome test of the Second World War. In a sense it passed the test, although it can well be argued that the war raised more questions about the regime than it settled. But, before turning to the Second World War, it is necessary to summarize Soviet foreign policy from the time of Brest-Litovsk and Allied intervention to the summer of 1941.
XXXVIII
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1921-41, AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1941-45
'Soldiers! isn't Moscow behind us? Let us then die on the approaches to Moscow, As our brothers knew how to die!'
Our Government committed no few mistakes; at times our position was desperate, as in 1941-42, when our army was retreating, abandoning our native villages and towns in Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia, the Leningrad Region, the Baltic Region, and the Karelo-Finnish Republic, abandoning them because there was no other alternative. Another people might have said to the government: You have not come up to our expectations. Get out. We shall appoint another government, which will conclude peace with Germany and ensure tranquillity for us. But the Russian people did not do that, for they were confident that the policy their Government was pursuing was correct; and they made sacrifices in order to ensure the defeat of Germany. And this confidence which the Russian people displayed in the Soviet Government proved to be the decisive factor which ensured our historic victory over the enemy of mankind, over fascism.
