Introduction: Government and Party before the Molotov Era

Abstract

In theory, the relationship between the Communist party apparatus and state bodies in the USSR was simple: the Party was the leader and inspirer of effort and the formulator of policy, which state bodies, as the government of the country, were responsible for executing. The ‘government’, as distinct from the Party, was the administrative apparatus for carrying out the day-to-day functions of the Soviet state and economy. All state organs, including the armed forces and secret police, were permeated at every level by the Party. Responsible members of all state agencies were party members and the party structure itself interpenetrated these agencies for the purpose of supervision and control. The history and functioning of government bodies have received little attention however, and even in the 1970s was little known or understood,¹ mainly because during the 1930s government became a secret process² and remained so until the Gorbachev era. Soviet studies of the government of the USSR were usually little more than the history of the structure of state institutions, and western scholars neglected the study of Soviet government, finding access to material difficult and regarding ‘government’ of secondary importance to the Party in the political process.³