Leadership in Soviet-type Political Systems

Case Study

Peter Frank Leadership in Soviet-type Political Systems

LET US BEGIN BY CONSIDERING WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE following leaders were suddenly to die in office: Thatcher, Carter, Hussein of Jordan. In Britain, Conservative members of Parliament would meet, elect a new leader, and the Queen would duly invite that new leader to try to form a government. In America, the vice-president would become president and see out the prescribed term of office. In Jordan, the late king’s eldest son would succeed to the throne: ‘The king is dead; long live the king!’

Although these examples by no means exhaust the types of leadership extant in the world, they will suffice for the purpose of comparison. But first we should note that, even though they represent three different types of political system (prime- ministerial, presidential, monarchical), they all share the charac- teristic that in the event of the leader’s dying there exists a predictable and well-understood mode of succession. However, each mode of succession rests upon a different convention: in the British case it is based upon custom and precedent; in the American upon precise, mandatory law as set out in the written Constitution; and in the case of Jordan the mode of succession is determined by tradition deriving, it is said, from God.

In choosing these examples we are assuming broad agreement on two points. First, that by specifying Thatcher, Carter and Hussein we have identified correctly the three personalities who are, in their separate polities, the ‘leaders’. And, secondly, that we are correct in assuming that in Britain, the USA and Jordan the dominant leadership offices are, respectively, the premiership, the presidency and the monarchy. Now all of this is pretty self-evident; yet if we ask the same question about the Soviet political system (Who is the leader? Which is the key office?) the answers are by no means as clear-cut and unambiguous.

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Were we, for example, to ask who was the leader in, say, 1921, we should have little hesitation in replying that it was Lenin. Does it follow, therefore, that the premiership wadis the key office in the Soviet political system? Or, since we should no doubt agree that Stalin was the leader in, say, 1937, does that mean that the key office was/is the Party general secretaryship? And if we do believe that indeed it was, then why did Malenkov choose (I believe he did have a choice) the government post in 1953 and not the Party post? Moreover, why have all Soviet leaders, with the exception of Lenin, chosen to hold multiple office at one time or another?

The point of these questions is to show that when in the case of prime-ministerial, presidential or traditional monarchical systems we ask the question who (Who is the leader?) we are implicitly also identifying the office of leadership (Carter is the leader; Carter is the president; the presidency is the key office). Now let us attempt the same equation in a Soviet context: Brezhnev is the leader; Brezhnev is the Party general secretary . . . is the president . . . is simultaneously Party secretary and president; the general secretaryship . . . no, the presidency . . . (or is it the Party secretaryship and presidency conjointly?) is/ are the key office(s). Immediately, the ‘equation’ becomes muddled, confused and ambiguous.

But, it may be objected, apart from Lenin, all Soviet leaders have invariably arrived at their dominant position via the Party post, so does this not prove the saliency of the Party secretaryship? Of course, to that extent it would seem that it does. But why, then, we repeat, have all Soviet leaders apart from Lenin simultaneously held offices additional to the purely Party post? After all, multiple office-holding by leaders is not to be found in most other types of political system. It may be that the factors which prompted multiple office-holding in the USSR are unique in each individual case. Yet, even if that were so, it is obvious that in practice the Party secretaryship alone is inade- quate to sustain ‘the leader’ over any prolonged period of rule. Why?

Let us return to our original three examples, and let us sup- pose that in each case there are conspiracies afoot to replace the leader. How could this be done? Any successful attempt to remove Thatcher, wherever the idea originated, would ultimately have to take place in Cabinet with, presumably, a majority of

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ministers insisting upon her standing down. In the American case, short of impeachment or certifiable insanity, the president could not be removed, pending either the expiry of his per- mitted term of office or his party’s preferring a different candi- date at the next election. In the case of Jordan, it would be impossible to replace the king legally and constitutionally against his will. Technically, therefore, the king is most secure, then the president, while least secure is the prime minister (although in practice so great is the potential for the premier to manipulate his cabinet colleagues that he is usually very secure indeed). Enhancing prime-ministerial security, too, is the fact that while agreement upon the need to be rid of a leader may be relatively easy to secure, agreement as to who should succeed him/her is frequently very difficult to reach (how else could Harold Wilson have survived for so long?). So, looking at the problem from the prime minister’s point of view, the factor making for security or insecurity of office is not so much one’s immediate colleagues as, rather, the periodically expressed wishes of the electorate.

Now, in the Soviet case, although in theory certain electoral mechanisms are at work, in practice (because of democratic centralism, the unanimity principle, ‘On Party Unity’, and so on) they have very little force either in ensuring the demise of a leader or in sponsorin a replacement. Consequently, dissatis-

any attempt to organize his removal will be conducted in an atmosphere not just of conspiracy and disloyalty, but also of illegality. Yet, if anything, the probability of such attempts to replace the leader is greater in the USSR than in multi-party systems. And this is what we should expect: for in a system where the entire government has to submit itself periodically for endorsement or rejection by a nationwide constituency, behaviour which might enhance the chances of the government’s losing office is likely to occur only rarely (however much grum- bling there may be); whereas in the Soviet Union the only way in which leadership change can occur is by conspiratorial, ‘illegitimate’ methods.

Is it possible, then, to construct a model or typology of leadership in the USSR? One variant might be:

faction with the leader f ecomes doubly difficult to express and

SOVIET LEADERSHIP 95

DEMISE OF DOMINANT LEADER

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP

PRIMACY OF PARTY SECRETARY

LINKING OF PARTY SECRETARYSHIP AND PREMIERSHIP OR PRESIDENCY (= DOMINANT LEADERSHIP)

DEMISE OF DOMINANT LEADER

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP

ETC., ETC.

I I I

I I I

Such a model is not markedly different from what has been called the dictatorlsuccession crisisldictator sequence: nor is it necessarily inconsistent with T. H. Rigby’s ‘self-stabilizing oli- garchy’ model. But it does explicitly require the linking periodically of Party secretaryship with either the premiership or the presidency.

In order to test the utility of the model more extensively, let us apply it to Soviet-type political systems generally.

If we go back t o 1953, before Stalin died, we can identify thirteen Soviet-type political systems. There were the Soviet Union, plus Albania, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) , Hungary, North Korea, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, North Vietnam and Yugoslavia. After 1961 Cuba can be added to the list, making fourteen countries in all. Let us ask, in each case, who is the leader. Thus, in the USSR, in 1953, the leader was Stalin; in Albania it was Hoxha; in Mongolia it was Tsedenbal; and so on. Next, having identified the leader as a personality, let us go a stage further and identify the office or offices which are occupied by that leader, noting first that Soviet-type political systems offer four possibilities :

i) The leader is simultaneously Party secretary and head of the

ii) The leader is Party secretary and simultaneously head of

iii) The leader is simultaneously Party secretary and premier and

government (i.e. premier) ;

state (i.e. president);

president;

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iv) The principal offices of Party, government and state are kept

In 1953, before Stalin died, we find that in only one case (the GDR) were the three offices kept separate; whereas in two instances (China and Czechoslovakia) the leader was both Party secretary and president; and in another two cases the leader was simultaneously Party secretary, premier and president (Tito in Yugoslavia and Ho Chi-minh in North Vietnam). But in eight1 out of thirteen countries the leader was Party secretary and premier at the same time; in other words, according to the pattern then prevailing in the USSR.

Now let us move forward a year to 1954. Stalin is dead; Malenkov has relinquished the Party post while retaining the premiership; Voroshilov is president, and Khrushchev is Party secretary. Were we to say that Khrushchev is now the leader, then that statement could be correct only in the sense that it was Khrushchev who emerged eventually as the dominant leader. However, the main point for present purposes is that the three offices were at that time separate. And, in all, seven (as against only one a year earlier) out of thirteen Soviet-type systems shared that pattern. Moreover, although uncertainty surrounds the status of Khrushchev at that time, the same could not be said of leaders such as Bierut in Poland or Hoxha in Albania who relinquished their premierships while retaining their Party posts. However, it is indicative of the confusion then prevailing in Communist circles as to precisely which office was of key significance that two leaders (Gheorgiu-Dej in Romania and Tsedenbal in Mongolia) chose to give up their Party offices and to retain their government posts. In Yugoslavia Tito con- tinued to occupy all three major offices, and the situation remained unchanged in North Vietnam, too. In China, Mao was head of both Party and state - a pattern repeated in Czecho- slovakia where Novotny headed the same two institutions.

By 1958 Khrushchev had attained a position of dominant leadership in the USSR. The anti-Party group (so-called) had been defeated. Voroshilov was hanging on to the presidency; while Khrushchev, like Stalin and, briefly, Malenkov before him,

separate.

1 1 have been unable to identify the president of Mongolia in 1953. Nor have I succeeded in identifying the president of North Korea in 1953-54. Consequently, both countries in the appropriate years have been allotted to the category joint Party secretaryship and premiership.


assumed the office of premier in addition to the Party first secretaryship. Brezhnev replaced Voroshilov in May, 1960; otherwise the distribution of power remained unchanged until Khrushchev was himself ousted in 1964.

Taking 1961 to be roughly the mid-point in Khrushchev’s period of dominant leadership, let us consider the situation in that year in Soviet-type systems generally.

The picture is far less sharply defined than it was in 1953 and 1954. In addition to the USSR itself, four countries were also headed by leaders who held simultaneously the chief offices of Party and government: Cuba, Hungary, Mongolia, North Korea; and in Yugoslavia Tito remained at the head of all three institutions. But in five instances the three principal offices were separate (Albania, Bulgaria, China, North Vietnam, Poland), and in Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Romania the leader was simultaneously Party secretary and president. In other words, although all fourteen countries manifestly merit the designation ‘Soviet- type’, there is scarcely any consistency of leadership pattern over either time or space.

For some thirteen years after 1964 the three principal offices were kept quite separate from each other in terms of personalities in the USSR. This is by far the longest unbroken pattern of leadership in the Soviet Union since 1953, so let us see what the general picture was like towards the end of that period, in 1976.

By then, the trend once again, apparently, was towards emulation of the Soviet Union. Seven countries (including the USSR) out of fourteen were keeping separate the three principal posts. Only one (Cuba) still adhered to the practice of linking Party secretaryship and premiership, a combination which the Soviet Union had officially abjured in 1964. Nor is there any longer a country where the same individual is head of Party, government and state (Tito having at last given up the burdens of the premiership in 1963). But what of the remaining six countries? These were all, by 1976, headed by leaders who were simultaneously head of Party and president: Husak (Czecho- slovakia), Tsedenbal (Mongolia), Kim 11 Sung (North Korea), Ceausescu (Romania), Tito (Yugoslavia), and Honecker (GDR).

Table 1 attempts to summarize the shifts in institutional power in Soviet-type political systems in the period 1953-76. The picture presented by the table prompts several observations. First, we may say that, over the entire period, there is no

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TABLE 1 Incumbency of principal offices of Party, government and state in Soviet-

type political systems, 1953- 76

1953 1954 1961 1976 (N=13) (N=13) (N=14) (N=14)

Party post separate from government and state posts 1 7 5 7

Party post and premiership linked 8 2 5 1

Party and presidential posts linked 2 2 3 6

Party, government and state posts held by same 2 2 1 None individual

Total 13 13 14 14

Source: Data derived principally from current Soviet press and Keesing’s Contemporary Archives.

consistent pattern of leadership, although we may note the definite tendency for systems to oscillate between keeping the occupancy of offices quite separate and then to link Party and government posts. This tendency is in accord with our model outlined above. Also in accord is the fact that all fourteen systems have at one time or another (for varying durations of time) linked the Party post with one or another of the other two. More specifically, between 1953 and 1976 nine out of the fourteen countries had combined the offices of Party and state in the same individual (the exceptions being the USSR, Albania, Hungary, Poland and Cuba); while eleven out of fourteen had linked Party and government post (the three exceptions here being China, Czechoslovakia and the GDR).

Secondly, by 1972 the category embodying all three posts in the same individual had disappeared. This was because in one case, North Vietnam, the leader had died; and in the other, Yugoslavia, because Tito, presumably for reasons of both state and advancing age, chose to relinquish the government post. (Here we would speculate and say that were this phenomenon to reappear in any of the existing Communist states then it


would probably indicate that the leader concerned was not merely the dominant leader but, in fact, a dictator. However, it is quite possible that a future, new, Communist state might produce a leader holding all three offices, since if Ho and Tito are any guide, such multiple office-holding may be a character- istic of pre-revolutionary charismatic leadership.)

Thirdly, and with the foregoing comments in mind, let us examine in some detail the category Party postlpresidency. The two cases in 1953 were Mao in China and Gottwald in Czecho- slovakia; and in 1954, following the deaths in close succession of Gottwald and his successor as president, Zapotocky, they were Mao and Novotny. In 1961 there were three countries belonging to this category: Czechoslovakia (Novotny ), GDR (ulbricht), and Romania (Gheorgiu-Dej). As we have seen, by 1976 the number of Party-state leaders had increased to six out of fourteen, and were: Husak in Czechoslovakia, Tsedenbal in Mongolia, Kim 11 Sung in North Korea, CeauSescu in Romania, Tito in Yugoslavia and Honecker (GDR). (Moreover, to this category, since 1977, must be added the Soviet Union.) Considering the range of leaders and countries, there does not appear to be any obvious, common explanation for this pattern of leadership. So, let us attempt to find an explanation for this apparent trend by asking: What are the effects of combining the posts of head of Party and head of state?

One consequence is that the leader becomes identified for- mally with the state (which embodies the whole of society) and not just with the Party (which consists only of a not-necessarily- representative minority of society). This, it could be argued, reinforces the aura of legitimacy surrounding the leader, which, by the same token, emphasizes the ‘illegitimacy’ of any conspiratorial attempt to remove him. To that extent, the linking of these two offices is a protective device.

Also, it could in certain circumstances be the case that a leader’s simultaneous identification with Party and state is a protection, too, against attempts at removal by agencies external to the country concerned. Could the USSR have intervened in Czechoslovakia in the way that it did in 1968 had DubEek been also president? May not such considerations have prompted Ceaugescu’s strengthening of the presidency in 1974?

Another possible explanation for the linking of the principal offices of Party and state may be to do with ruisons d’ktut. The

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emergence of the USSR from its pre-1953 isolation, poly- centrism, the rapid internationalization of politics, peaceful coexistence and detente, all these factors have meant that Communist leaders have been drawn increasingly into contact with the heads of state of non-Soviet-type states. When this happens protocol becomes important.

It may or may not be of consequence (to Brezhnev or the French) that the French government was uncertain whether to treat Brezhnev as a head of state or as ‘merely’ the leader of a political party on a proposed visit to France. Likewise, it is probable that Carter, had he had occasion to use the ‘hot line’, would have been just as likely to telephone Brezhnev the Party general secretary in an emergency as he would have been to telephone Brezhnev the president. But there is also the question as to whether Brezhnev the Party secretary had the right to negotiate on behalf of the USSR; and even if the leaders of great power states turned out to be not too concerned about Soviet constitutional niceties, that is not to say that the ‘right’ was automatically conceded inside the Soviet collective leadership itself. But, it might be objected, why should not this diffi- culty be resolved by linking the Party and government offices; why Party post and presidency? The answer here may be that it is becoming too difficult a task for a single individual to manage effectively both Party and government apparatuses in increasingly complex industrial societies; yet it appears to be a universal trend for political leaders to assume special responsibility for questions of foreign policy and it is not therefore incongruous that Brezhnev should be prominent in this field while occupying simultaneously the offices of Party secretary and president.

In conclusion, then, we would suggest that the pattern of leadership in Soviet-type political systems since 1953 has, in institutional terms, been very unstable, and that dominant leadership involves the linking of Party office with either the premiership or the presidency. So far, the linking of Party and government offices has been the most common phenomenon (although, taking all fourteen countries together, not over- whelmingly so); but, for the reasons outlined above, we may be witnessing the beginning of a new trend towards linking Party office and presidency.

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Leadership in Soviet-type Political Systems