Collegiality in the People’s Commissariats, 1917-1920

Abstract

Impulses towards collective decision-making in industrial and military administration in the early years of Soviet power have been well documented by historians. The equivalent expression in state administration, however, has not received the same attention. This article uses evidence from the Soviet state and party archives, memoir material and published legislation and congress records to demonstrate the collegial modus operandi of the early Soviet central state institutions, the People's Commissariats. It argues that the collegium represented a revolutionary innovation by the Soviet leadership and was a key aspect of the organisational culture cultivated at this time inside the state apparatus.

Notes

L. Kritsman, Geroicheskii period velikoi russkoi revoliutsii (1926), quoted in Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution, 108.

Shliapnikov, ‘Vospominaniia’, Proletarskaia Revoliutsiia, 26.

For example see Heinzen, Inventing a Soviet Countryside and Rowney and Huskey, Russian Bureaucracy and the State Officialdom.

Rigby, Lenin's Government, 245.

Heinzen, Inventing a Soviet Countryside, 9.

Gimpel'son, Formirovanie sovetskogo politicheskoi sistemy; Gimpel'son, Rabochii klass v upravlenii sovetskim gosudarstvom; Gimpel'son, Stanovlenie i evoliutsiia sovetskogo gosudarstvennogo apparata upravleniia; Gorodetskii, Rozhdenie sovetskogo gosudarstva; Gorodetskii, ed., Stroitel'stvo sovetskogo gosudarstva:, Iroshnikov, ‘K voprosu o slome burzhuaznoi gosudarstvennoi mashiny v Rossii’, pp. 54–55 in Tokarev, Problemy Gosudarstvennogo stroitel'stva; Iroshnikov, Osushchestvlenie mechty. V.I. Lenin i gosudarstv sovetov; Iroshnikov, Sozdanie sovetskogo tsentral'nogo gosudarstvennogo apparata; Korenevskaia, Stanovlenie vysshikh organov sovetskogo gosudarstvennogo upravleniia; Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–23; Pietsch, Revolution und Staat; Hough and Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed.

Uldricks, Diplomacy and Ideology; Makarova, Narodnyi Komissariat po delam natsional'nostei RSFSR; Rees, State Control in Soviet Russia 1920–34.

Orlovsky, ‘State Building in the Civil War Era’,198; Heinzen, Inventing a Soviet Countryside, 16–22. This ‘continuity’ view is also seen in Rowney and Huskey, Russian Bureaucracy and the State Officialdom, 23.

Rigby, Lenin's Government, 12.

See Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment; Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, 19.

Davitnidze, Kollegii ministerstv.

Gribanov, ‘K istorii razvitiia edinonachaliia i kollegial'nosti v narodnyk komissariatakh’, 61–69.

Davitnidze, Kollegii ministerstv, 33.

Quoted in Rigby, Lenin's Government, 4–5.

Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, 322.

Quoted in Rigby, Lenin's Government, 4.

Krupskaia, Vospominaniia o Lenine, 338–39.

Krupskaia, Vospominaniia o Lenine, 339–40.

Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial'no-Politicheskoi Istorii (RGASPI) f. 5 (Lenin's Secretariat), op. 1, d. 1806, l. 69.

RGASPI f. 5, op. 1, d. 1806, l. 34.

RGASPI f. 5, op. 1, d. 1806, l. 36.

Shliapnikov in ‘Vospominaniia’, 28.

Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti (hereafter DSV), vol. 1, 59–63 (Decree on Education).

See Decree on Commissariat of Paths of Communication, DSV, vol. 2, 18–19.

See minutes of Central Committee sitting December 1918 RGASPI f. 17 (Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, Bolsheviks), op. 3, d. 7, l. 2: ‘On the work of the collegia and commissariats, to revive the work of the collegia by the introduction to them of outstanding local workers from corresponding sections of local soviets…Recognise that the work undertaken in this direction by Internal Affairs is correct.’

RGASPI f. 5 (Lenin's Secretariat), op. 1, d. 1806, l. 25.

Lenin, State and Revolution, 37.

Vestnik Narodnogo Komissariata Truda nos. 2–3 (1918): 27–28.

Sorenson, The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism, 79.

Vtoroi Vserossiiskii s”ezd professional'nykh soiuzov, 16–25 ianvaria 1919g., Stenograficheskii otchet, 10.

Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 112.

DSV, vol. 2, 556–57.

The ‘Decree on the Title of People's Commissar’ of 27 July 1918 reads: ‘the title of People's Commissar belongs to one person only, confirmed by the VTsIK and appearing as a member of Sovnarkom, and nobody else can appropriate this title.’ This decree suggests that multiple members of the collegium had been sharing the title between them. Multiple representatives of commissariats turning up at the sittings of Sovnarkom had disrupted the continuity of its work. This testifies to the spirit of ‘collegiality’ and equality within the commissariats. DSV, vol. 3, 101.

DSV, vol. 1, 20–21.

See Shliapnikov's recollections on the setting up of the Commissariat of Labour: ‘To the Commission for Labour, or the collegium as it is now called, were appointed the following persons.’ In ‘Vospominaniia’, 26.

DSV, vol, 2, p. 489 and vol. 3, 310.

Although the Bolsheviks claimed to want to equalise pay among all levels of employees and workers, in fact within a short period they had begun to develop very complex wage scales and ranks in government institutions. See the chart on ‘Tariffs of Pay of the Work of Employees of Central State Institutions’ in Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii (GARF) f. 4085 (RSFSR Rabkrin 1917–23), op. 1, d. 8, ll. 1–6.

DSV, vol. 2, 18.

DSV, vol. 2, 18–19.

Brovkin, The Mensheviks After October, 91–94.

Ibid., 91–94.

Ibid., 91–94.

Ibid., 91–94.

Shliapnikov, ‘Vospominaniia’, 26.

Pestkovskii cited in Trotsky, On Stalin, 255–62.

Trotsky, On Stalin, 255–62.

Sovnarkom sitting of 7 January 1918 in Amiantov, ed., Protokoly zasedanii Soveta Narodnikh Komissarov RSFSR, 191.

GARF f. r–4085, op. 1, d. 10, l. 184.

RGASPI f. 5, op. 1, d. 2663, l. 19.

GARF f. 130 (RSFSR Sovnarkom 1917–23), op. 2, d. 11, l. 9.

Amiantov, ed., Protokoly, 21–24.

Amiantov, ed., Protokoly, 221.

Ibid., 339.

Ibid., 184.

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d.1 (2), l. 191. On 1 April Sovnarkom transferred this question to ‘a commission of representatives from the commissariats of Internal Affairs, Labour and Finance entrusted to work out the question and present a report on it in Sovnarkom.’ The following day Sovnarkom, having heard the report of this commission, proposed to ‘Transfer this issue to a commission made up of five members of the VTsIK. Entrust the commission to present the assessment of the organisation of state control, and to send the project for implementation to the collegium.’

For collegiality in Red Army see Collins, ‘The Russian Red Guard of 1917 and Lenin's Utopia’; Erickson, ‘The Origins of the Red Army’; Erickson, ‘Some Military and Political Aspects of the “Militia Army Controversy”’; Footman, Civil War in Russia; Schapiro, ‘The Birth of the Soviet Army’. On Workers' Control see: Avrich, ‘The Bolshevik Revolution and Workers’ Control in Russian Industry'; Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control; Chauvrier, ‘Controle ouvrier et “autogestion sauvage” en Russie’; Farber, Before Stalinism; Gimpelson, ‘On Workers’ Control after the Passage of the Decree Nationalizing Industry'; Goodey, ‘Factory Committees and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in 1918’; Husband, ‘Workers’ Control and Centralization in the Russian Revolution'; Kaplan, Bolshevik Ideology and the Ethics of Soviet Labour; Perrins, ‘Rabkrin and Workers’ Control in Russia, 1917–34'; Rosenberg, ‘Workers and Workers’ Control in the Russian Revolution'; Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy.

Lenin, Sochineniia, 3rd ed., XXII, 41.

Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 104–10.

Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. XXIII, 430.

Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. XXIII, 447–48.

For background biographical information on Shliapnikov see Holmes, ‘Soviet Rewriting of 1917: The Case of Alexander Shliapnikov’.

See Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, 232 and Shliapnikov memoir article below.

Shliapnikov, ‘Vospominaniia’, 28: ‘Of all the government institutions the People's Commissariat of Labour was organised first.’ See also GARF f. 382 (RSFSR People's Commissariat of Labour), op. 1, dd. 10–1.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 19, l. 113–2.

Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 44, 95.

Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 42, 63–66, 98, 128, 143, vol. 36, 520–23.

For background biographical information on Nogin see Arkhangel'skii, Nogin: zhizn' zamechatel'nikh lyudei.

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 1 (2), l. 233.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 19, ll.. 111–68.

DSV, vol 3, 104–06.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d 19, l. 88.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d 19, ll. 92–88.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 9, l. 85

Ibid.

Ibid.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 3, l. 65.

Ibid., l. 66.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 9, l. 65.

Ibid., l. 64

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., l. 64.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., l. 64 ob.

Ibid., l. 64 ob.

Ibid., l. 57.

Ibid., l. 56.

Ibid., l. 55.

One of the relatives reinstated illegally to the Commissariat staff by Shliapnikov.

Ibid., l. 56.

Ibid.

Ibid., l. 51.

Ibid., l. 51.

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 11, l .15.

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 11, l. 15

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 11, l. 15

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 11, l. 15.

Ibid.

GARF f. 130, op. 2, d. 11, l. 15.

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 51–40.

RGASPI f. 17, op. 2, d. 2, ll. 1–2.

Ibid., l. 2.

RGASPI f. 17, op. 2, d. 3, l. 1.

Ibid., l. 2.

RGASPI f. 19 (Sovnarkom and STO RSFSR), op. 1, d. 205, l. 1. The Sovnarkom minutes read: ‘4. Announcement of Nogin on his leaving the collegium of the People's Commissariat of labour in view of his entering Vesenkha. 5. Appointment as People's Commissar for Labour (instead of Shliapnikov) of Comrade Shmidt. Sverdlov suggested it, send for confirmation to VTsIK. 6. Appointment of Radus-Zenkovich as Deputy People's Commissar for Labour.’

GARF f. 382, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 45–10.

Ibid., l. 20.

See Nogin still participating in Sovnarkom sittings in May and June 1919: RGASPI f. 130, op. 3, dd. 39, 40, 42, 47.

Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 44, 170. However, even in this remote location Shliapnikov still managed to get himself into a conflict with fellow organisers in the Gubkom of the CP of Astrakhan (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 44, 170).The Central Committee got wind of this and on 19 December Shliapnikov's new conflict was discussed at its sitting: ‘From communications with Trotsky it emerges that a conflict has arisen between Shliapnikov and Bosh from one side, and Zaks from the other. It has emerged that Bosh has already left for Moscow so that the conflict has been liquidated. Concerning the future, it was decided that in the case of the emergence of conflict to allow Trotsky to decide the question and summon Shliapnikov from Astrakhan through the CC.’ In the end, however, this was not necessary and Shliapnikov remained in Astrakhan until at least February 1919. (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 44, 193). Further correspondence reveals that Shliapnikov was back in Moscow by April 1921 at the latest (Lenin, CW, vol. 45, 114), but that Lenin was dissuaded from appointing him to certain positions in the government because of his heavy-handedness. In one note of this period Lenin wrote, in relation to a government appointment, that ‘Shliapnikov will not do…great tact is essential’ (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 45, 253).

DSV, vol.7, 48–49.

Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 108.

V. . Lenin, speech to 3rd All-Russian Congress of Economic Work Councils, January 1920 in Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. XXV, 17.

Lenin, Speech to the 3rd All-Russian Congress of Economic Work Councils, January 1920, in Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. XXV, 17–19.

Ibid.

V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, 5th ed., vol. XXXX, 378.

Ibid., 378.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ekonomicheskaia Zhizn', no. 63, 28 March 1920, 3.

Deviaty s”ezd RKP(b). Protokoly, 115–27.

Deviaty s”ezd RKP(b), 150–55.

Trotsky, Dictatorship vs Democracy, 115, 161.

Deviaty s”ezd, 410–11.

Ibid., 204.

Krupskaia, ‘Sistema Teilora i organizatsiia raboty sovetskikh uchrezhdenii’, 140–5.

Ibid., 140–141.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 140–45.

1924 USSR Constitution, articles 56 and 57 in Unger, Constitutional Development in the USSR, 70.

Baylis, Governing by Committee, 3.

Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 392–407.

Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 392–407. Baylis, Governing by Committee, 156. This negative characterisation of collegiality in modern political systems seems to be confirmed by the rarity of collegial government in practice. Baylis highlights that in modern history, ‘Switzerland is the only nation in which both formal and de facto collegial leadership have persisted…over an extended and uninterrupted period of time, now some 140 years’ (Baylis, 21). While Baylis's case study of collegial leadership in the Swiss political system demonstrates that it is not impossible for a system of this type to survive, it also highlights specific features that allow it to occur: the ‘political culture and social peculiarities of Switzerland’ provide a highly favourable setting for collegial government: in particular the cross-cutting pluralism of language, religion and class, and its strong institutional traditions. Moreover, its relative ‘economic success’ (i.e. its leading position in international finance and large foreign investment) make collegiality possible as the affluent Swiss are able to tolerate inefficiencies in policy-making. If these are the necessary conditions for successful collegial administration, then it seems that its chances of survival in the conditions of the early Soviet period were very slim. Baylis, Governing by Committee, 32–33.

Cited in Rowney, Transition to Technocracy, 10.

Baylis, Governing by Committee, 156.

Ibid., 156.

Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organizations, 329–41.

For an outline of the debate see Smith, ‘Year One in Petrograd’.