Since Stalin's death, the working practices of the Soviet leadership have undergone changes. Khrushchev's disparaging remarks at the 20th party congress about the old Politburo committee system under Stalin suggests that a more informal division of responsibilities exists in the Presidium and that the top leaders function more closely as a In an interview with a Western journalist in May 1957, Khrushchev stated that the Presidium "meets regularly, not less than once a week." Khrushchev added that at these meetings the Presidium members thrash out various problems and generally arrive at a common viewpoint. In the event of disagreement, he stated, issues are decided by a simple majority vote. Thus the evidence suggests that the evolution of the working practices of the Presidium since Stalin's death has produced a more businesslike, regularized pattern of top-level decisionmaking. However, Presidium members are in close enough daily contact that lateral coordination on many problems can be effected without the necessity of formal Presidium meetings.

While the Presidium, like the party as a whole, has regained more than a shadow of its earlier status and functions, Khrushchev has secured firm hold on the substance of power. There is every evidence that as First Secretary he controls the secretaries who form the core of the Presidium and, on this basis alone, could dominate the proceedings of that body. Even apart from this fact of personal power, it is likely that Khrushchev could, by virtue of his personality, turn the deliberations of the Presidium in any direction he should choose. Essentially, therefore, the Presidium is Khrushchev's cabinet, and its prerogatives are exercised largely at his discretion.

Information on which the action of the Presidium is based reaches the leaders through a variety of official channels. Regular reports on broad topics of general interest such as the economy, party affairs, scientific and military developments, and foreign policy are disseminated by the responsible party and government agencies on a regular basis. It has been reported that a publication called Red Tass, a secret, uncensored, and unslanted coverage of the foreign press is prepared by the Central Committee staff and submitted directly to the top leaders. This flow of information has undoubtedly contributed to the keen awareness of contemporary foreign affairs revealed in Khrushchev's many speeches and interviews. Periodic reports on topics of more specialized interest, such as routine military matters, cultural affairs, foreign Communist parties, etc., are also disseminated on the Presidium level. The insights into the working habits of the Presidium members-insights afforded by foreign observers and by the occasional remarks of the leaders themselves suggest that an enormous amount of current informational traffic flows over their desks. Khrushchev in a recent speech complained of the "many tomes" of official documents which he had to read.

This direct contact with a mass of data coming from independent, sometimes competing agencies, as well as the experience gained through the direct participation of each Presidium member in the administration of party and Government organs, provides the leadership with a basis for independent judgment in assessing and disposing of proposals and recommendations coming from below. It also puts them in a position to initiate or amend policy on their own. For example, Khru

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shchev's initiatives in Soviet agricultural policy are well known: sponsorship of the cultivation of "new lands" in Kazakhstan and Eastern Siberia; advocacy of corn cultivation; and, on at least one occasion, the upward revision of certain planned goals against the advice of his experts. At the same time, he exercises a dominant role in foreign policy. He is reported to have initiated the move within the Presidium for the conclusion of the Austrian Treaty, and to have dictated important pronouncements on foreign policy ostensibly authored by other men.

Questions for Presidium deliberation normally originate in a subordinate party or Government body. Access to the Presidium is probably negotiated in various ways. One avenue would be through the personal secretariats of the individual Presidium members. The executive staff of the party Secretariat also has direct access to the Presidium (since the secretaries are Presidium members) and is presumably the intermediary agency most frequently used to get questions before the top policy body. Some agencies, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, report directly to the Presidium on a regular basis, so that questions in this area would appear on the agenda as a matter of routine.

Normally, questions which are brought before the Presidium for deliberation have passed through several stages of coordination before reaching the Presidium table. The first stage occurs when the originating body seeks to elicit the support or satisfy the possible objections of other interested agencies on a lateral basis before moving its proposals forward for higher consideration. This initial stage of coordination is probably governed less by formal procedural protocol than by the natural bureaucratic abhorrence of an open fight with the risk of possible later embarrassment. The brake on precipitate or illconsidered initiative which this provides, however, is counterbalanced by the fierce competitive atmosphere of the Soviet bureaucracy which might occasionally lead an agency to dispense with this lateral coordination in the hope of scoring an advantage over a rival.

A second stage of coordination, probably indispensable for the great majority of questions which reach the Presidium, takes place in the Central Committee Secretariat. Almost any question for Presidium consideration would fall within the area of responsibility of one or more of the departments of the executive staff of the Secretariat, and it is quite possible that Secretariat recommendations are required as a matter of course, on all questions placed before the Presidium.

An actual case illustrating the stages through which a question passes before reaching the Presidium was revealed in an account recently published in Rome of talks held between a high-ranking Italian Communist Party delegation and Soviet Central Committee officials. The case in question involved the reprimand and restaffing of the editorial board of the journal "Questions of History," which had committed a series of ideological errors in 1956:

It depends on the importance of the matter. Information can be given orally to one of the secretaries of the Central Committee. On the other hand, information can be given at the appropriate meetings of the Secretariat or Presidium at which representatives of writers and artists sometimes participate.

Our department is not limited simply to keeping the Central Committee informed on developments in the cultural debate but also takes part in working out the projects and decisions of the Secretariat and the Central Committee. For example, the decision about "Questions of History" was taken after long discussion inside the Secretariat of the Central Committee which was based on a project drawn up by the department. To draw up the project we invited at the start the comrades from the editorial board of the review to the department. Next, in January, we held a bigger meeting, convened by our department and the propaganda department at which (there) participated not only the editorial board of the review, but also the president and vice president of the Academy of Sciences and representatives from the Academy of Social Sciences. For 2 days we had 8- to 9-hour discussions. At the next meeting of the Secretariat, the editors of the review, the comrades of the propaganda department and our department, and finally Comrades Pospelov and Suslov all spoke. After this debate, the decision to change the editorial board of the review was approved * ***.

Whether this question actually reached the Presidium agenda is not known, but the fact that the decision referred to above was formally published in a Central Committee decree suggests that it was, since the Presidium is charged by the party bylaws to act for the Central Committee when that body is not in session. It seems probable that the item was placed on the agenda for notation, that Suslov or Pospelov may have been called on to report briefly on the matter, and that a draft decree prepared by the culture department was approved, probably without formal vote.

The important point to note in this procedure is that the issue was resolved at the top leadership level, with the participation of Presidium members, but before reaching the Presidium table. In this case, Suslov, acting within the framework of basic policy, rendered the effective top-level decision, not as a Presidium member, but in his capacity as a member of the Secretariat. Much of the current business of Presidium-level importance is probably handled in this way. Similarly, Presidium members in a less formal way, may act to screen out nonessential business from the Presidium agenda and act as a court of next-to-last resort.

Major foreign policy questions apparently are handled somewhat differently from ordinary Presidium business. Available evidence suggests that Khrushchev and other members of the Presidium play a greater day-to-day role in formulating basic foreign policy than any other field of national policy. The Presidium, or Khrushchev together with several of the top leaders acting for the Presidium, probably constitutes a policy-planning board on all major foreign policy issues. Foreign Minister Gromyko, who is not a member of the Presidium, sometimes attends Presidium meetings to make suggestions and supply technical advice. In addition, Presidium membersKhrushchev in particular-participate personally in the implementation of the policy decided upon.

Conclusions as to the effectiveness of policy-formulation machinery in the Soviet Union must be tentative and cautious. The scope of

responsibility exercised by the leaders of the Soviet Union is in itself an indication of the effectiveness of the machinery on which they depend. It appears to provide well-defined and clearly structured processes for getting policy questions before the Presidium in digested and manageable form, and to combine with this a degree of flexibility which prevents these processes from becoming a limitation on the Presidium's own initiative. The success of the system appears to depend less on its machinery, however, than on the capacity and energy of the men who run it. By placing a premium on political survival in conditions of fierce competition, the Soviet system has insured the advancement of men with such capacity and energy to the top policymaking positions.

Organization

CHAPTER 4. SECRETARIAT

The Central Committee Secretariat is the second most important decision-making body in the Soviet system, ranking next to the Presidium in this regard, and it is probably the most important body for the preparation of plans and proposing new policy. Soviet officials insist that all questions discussed or decided whether by the Government or the quasi-independent "mass" organizations be first examined or approved by the organizations of the party, and the most important of these are certain to funnel through the Secretariat at one point or another. Unlike the party Presidium, which has no administrative responsibilities, the Secretariat is the administrative head of the party in much the same sense as the Presidium of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) is the administrative head of the Government.

The Secretaries are formally "elected" by the Central Committee in plenary session, but in practice the Central Committee merely rubberstamps approval of a slate already drawn up by the top party leaders. In the post-Stalin period the number of Secretaries has varied from a low of 3 (February to July 1955) to a high of 10 (December 1957 to the present). The number probably was increased in part to relieve Khrushchev of some of the burdens of party administration, to enable him to devote more time to political leadership and critical policy problems, in part to cope with the expanding activities of the party machine in formulating and implementing state policy, and in part to divide responsibility within the Secretariat so that greater attention could be given to daily problems.

The administrative duties of the Secretariat are divided among its members, each of whom has a specific set of responsibilities. In the information available there are hints of division along both functional and geographic lines. Khrushchev, as First Secretary, is of course head of the Secretariat. Aleksey Kirichenko acts as his second in command, with general supervision over the Secretariat and its central staff. The other duties are parceled out among the remaining Secretaries. (See chart H.)

The variation in the number of Secretaries and some apparent shifting of responsibilities over the past several years suggest that the organization of work within the Secretariat is fairly flexible. In addition to their administrative duties, all the Secretaries participate in protocol activities at diplomatic and state functions and at one time or another have represented the regime in visits to foreign countries.

As noted earlier the Secretaries are all members of the party Presidium. The numerical weight in the Presidium thus lies with the party secretaries, whose judgments and viewpoints will be conditioned by their common day-to-day work with the professional party functionaries. Through this interlocking relationship the Secretariat can and presumably does exercise a very great influence on policy.

The executive staff of the central party organization performs work for the Secretariat and is directly subordinate to it. This staff is more than just a support body for the Secretariat, however; it is the nerve center for the entire party machine (see chart I) and as such plays a key role in both policy formulation and policy execution. Key appointments in the executive staff are made by the Secretariat, presumably with Presidium approval.