Ministries versus territories: Evidence from agricultural administration in Soviet Central Asia

GREGORY GLEASON*

Ministries versus Territories: Evidence From Agricultural Administration in Soviet Central Asia

Newly established Soviet leaders have often seen bureaucratic reorganization as an answer to the pressing problems of agricultural production. Reorganizations appear to offer the leadership increases in production, increases in efficiency, an opportunity to improve managerial quality, and a chance to salvage the humanitarian promise of socialism. Most important, as an economic strategy, reorganization appears to bear few immediate costs. Thus, Khrushchev carried out the 1957 Sovnarkhoz reform; and Brezhnev held his March (1965) plenum. Gorbachev’s first year in office saw a series of minor reorganizations of the farm bureaucracies followed, toward the end of the year, by a major redefinition of management authority in the agricultural sector. In December 1985 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet announced the replacement of five key farm ministries, including the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, by a single organization, Gosagpron. I The redefinition of bureaucratic authority, however, involves shifting the resources available to particular institutional constituencies. The long-term costs of such a strategy are often greater than is readily apparent.

The management of Central Asian agriculture raises several important and contentious issues.2 There are clear signs of popular and official discontent regarding Central Asia’s heavy specialization in cotton growing, the environmental effects of rapid and externally controlled growth of extractive industries, and the socio- occupational consequences of the expansion of low-skilled economic sectors in Central Asia. But the most pronounced area of concern does not arise from the direction of

* This article was researched while the author was a research scholar in residence at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, D.C. The author is grateful for the generous help of the Kennan Institute. I am also indebted to Dorothea Hanson for her editorial assistance.

1 .On January 17 1985, the Uzbek communist party newspaper of the Uzbek republic, Raveit Voztoko, announced the merging of the Uzbek SSR (UzSSR) Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Cotton Cleaning of the UzSSR. The local impetus toward reorganization, however, was probably overtaken by the suggestions of impending central reorganizations that arose as a result of the CPSU April (1985) plenum. Finally, on December 28 1985, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet announced in Bar&t and Zzvestiia a major farm reorganization. The announcement was accompanied by a joint resolution of the CPSU and Council of Ministers describing the reorganization. An English version of the resolution may be found in Current Llrgesf of the Sovicf Press, Vol. 37, No. 48 (December 25 1985), pp. 1-5.

2. The subject of this article is the administration of agriculture. Soviet sources refer to this as ‘uprawl& rel ikokhvziaistvom’. Unfortunately, Soviet sources also use the term ‘upravlmic’ to refer to particular offtces and agencies. For instance, Khrushchev created ‘tmilorial’no-ploiruodr!vmnyc upravclmnic’, (territorial-production administrations). Since it is confusing to use the term upravcfmic to mean both administration in the generic and in the specific sense, I use the translation ‘directorate’ when a specific office is being discussed. Thus, in the case above, I refer to ‘territorial-production directorates’.

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228 Srvwzs IN CCMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

growth in Central Asia. Rather it arises from difficulties that follow from the nature of the administrative system itself. These difficulties resuft in ‘intergovernmental’ conflicts, that is, conflicts among the agencies and offices charged with carrying out public policies.3

During the post-war era the major conflict of intergovernmental tensions was not between institutional or personal proponents of ‘market’ as opposed to ‘centralized’ economic institutions. In Soviet Central Asia a thriving secondary market-a market ‘na levo’ as Soviet citizens express it -existed and was grudgingly tolerated by the authorities.+ While proponents of market solutions to economic probiems presumably existed, they possessed only negligible resources for a@ecting public disputes. Rather, the main conIlict was between proponents of Moscow-dominated central or ‘branch’ ministerial control of the economy as opposed to locally managed ‘territorial’ direction of economic activity .s In the discussion which follows, branch can be read as ministerial, and territorial can often be understood to mean pertaining to a Soviet republic. For reasons which we will explore, however, these identities are not always exact.

The conflict between branch and territorial principles is considerably more complex than a conflict between ‘centralized’ and ‘market-oriented’ principles. Both branch and territorial forms are socialist principles of organization. As such they both imply centralization, but in different forms. Branch institutions are sui gene& centralized. Their decision making centers are in Moscow. instruments of branch policy impie- mentation radiate to the Soviet peripheries. The branch ministries are hierarchically organized. Territorial institutions, in contrast, are geographically dispersed and only secondarily hierarchical. Under the territorial framework a substantial degree of decision-making authority is devolved to territorially-based institutions. However, whiie certain decisions regarding investment, allocation, and distribution are made at different levels by the two types of organization, both types are alike in one critical respect. Both branch and territorial institutions rely upon administered structures. Neither countenances ‘decentralization’ if this is understood to mean the introduction of market mechanisms. Since both forms of organization favor administered structures, both put the means (as well as ends) of production in the hands of public officials.

Although both branch and territorial forms of administration require the apparatus of an administered economy, they do so in different ways. The arguments mustered by

3. Soviet SOURCES recognize a distinction between ‘Sotisk2 or ParIiamentary institutions, ‘g~~r~i~~~’ or government institutions, and ‘pa&i& or party institutions. In this article I am using the term ‘inter governmental’ to apply to relations between any branch of the Soviet public policy ptwess.

4. For a recent discussion of a(~ Iwo activities see James R. Millar, ‘The Little Deai: Brezhnev’s Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism’, Slavic Review, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter 1985), pp. 694-706. For a discussion of the second economy in the Central Asian context see Nancy Lubin, La&w and Nahmatity in So& Cm&al Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

5. A Soviet source offers the following definitions for ‘branch’ and ‘territorial’: ‘Branch management is the management ofa more or less narrow sphere of administrative-political economic, and socio-cultural life of a government or society. It takes place along vertical lines from high to low in the domain of the entire USSR just as in the domain ofeach union republic, and each autonomous republic. ’ ‘Territorial management is the management of all spheres of social and government life in the domain of each administrative-territoriaI unit (k&, o&W, r&n, gw&, s&j as in the domain of each union repubiic and autonomous rcpubiic and the entire USSR. The essence and the tasks of such management consist af the coordination [of the territorial organs] with the branch organs. Necessary consideration is given 10 local differences. This task is carried out by the territoriai organs named organs of general competence ~4h[~~5ikff~~ ~r~~~~~‘ the Councit of Ministers of the union republic or autonomous republic.)’ See M. Kh. Khakimov, Noaoia ~~fjf~j~ GSYSR i uprtruimic

mro&pn kkonirirtvom: I&& ohasimyo i im&alhogo print-ripao (Tashkent: Fan, f979), pp, 23-24.

Ministries versus Tmitorics in Soviet Central Asia 229

proponents of one approach as against the other emphasize the technical superiority of their position. Those who favor the branches say that the ministerial arrangement encourages technological dispersion and innovation while discouraging localism. Advocates of a territorial approach say it promotes the participation and initiative of the masses and of lower level managers. Despite the references to technical advantages of one form over the other, there are clear indications that in making these arguments, advocates and supporters are defending institutional interests rather than theoretical abstractions.

The first major premise of this article is that organizational change in the administration of agriculture reflects institutional forces that have come into conflict with one another over the past three decades. The thesis of this study is that these intergovernmental conflicts result from factional disputes among rival bureaucratic groupings. These groupings represent constituencies with a territorial-and thus in Central Asia, ethno-regional-basis for their common interests. What Joel Moses has termed the ‘common evolving phenomenon of regionalism’ in the USSR has come into conflict with the growing ‘institutional pluralism’ that Jerry Hough documented among the centrally-based institutions.6 Ministries find themselves confronting territories. In support of this thesis the study reviews first the organizational changes since 1953, second the criticism by local and central officials of the system’s functioning, and third the proposals for change in the administrative structure. The article concludes with a discussion of some of the institutional forces shaping political decisions in Central Asia.

Organizational Structures

Until its recent demise, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture was a union-republic ministry with a republican branch, the UzSSR Ministry of Agriculture. One may distinguish between the Moscow-based institution and its Tashkent-based branch by referring to Moscow offices as ‘Minselkhor’ and Tashkent offices as L Uzminselkhoz’. Facilities devoted to agriculture that were located in the UzSSR (i.e., sovkhozy, kolkhozy, etc.) are, according to law, subordinated jointly to Minselkhor and the UzSSR Council of Ministers. This is the principle of dual subordination (a’uoinoe podchinenie). Dual subordination is a consequence of a conscious policy adopted after 1965 to ‘combine’ branch and territorial principles. The theoretical justification for dual subordination is primarily political. Prior to the decision to combine principles, relations between the republics and ministries were seen as inherently conflictual. As the Soviet legal scholar A. E. Lunev wrote in 1966, the ‘primary’ problem in Soviet administration was ‘the specification of the administrative activity between the governmental organs of the USSR and the union-republics’.7 As one legal scholar pointed out, dual subordination of the organs of branch administration ‘can be viewed as the organizational form of the combination of branch and territorial principles’.s As an administrative principle, dual subordination offers shared spheres of authority to both territories and ministries.

6. See Joel C. Moses, ‘Regionalism in Soviet Politics: Continuity as a Source of Change, 1953-1982’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (April 1985). p. 185; Jerty F. Hough, ‘The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?’ Roblemr of Communism, Vol. 12, No. 2 (March-April 1972), p. 31.

7. A. E. Lunev, ‘Prauouycprablemy nauki upnwlmiia’, Souctskorgosudarstvo iprauo, No. 12 (1966), p. 35. 8. Khakimov, Not&a hstitutsiia &XSR (note 5), p. 18.

230 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

In so far as it was subordinate to, and in practice responsive to, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, Uzminselkhot was a branch institution. On the other hand, in so far as it was subordinated to and responsive to the UzSSR Council of Ministers, Uzminselkhoz had a ‘territorial’ -in this case, republican-basis.

The borders of these spheres of authority are not always clear. One economist recently argued that all institutions wear two hats. They act as both territorial and branch institutions depending on the task and function. Sigov listed all major administrative institutions from the all-union level to the raion level noting, ‘Each of them is, from one point of view, a part of a branch and, from another point of view, a structural division of the region of the territory on which it is located.‘q Both the ministries and the party were organized along republic lines. Party organizations have always been central in their responsibilities and regional only in their implementation and composition. At one point the republics could be seen as the basic territorial framework. At yet another point the Sovnarkhozy- which were first sub-republican and later suprarepublican- were the quintessential territorial organizations. This dispute seems to have been anticipated in the 1978 UzSSR Constitution, which does not specify the number and type of ministries, nor their republican or union-republic status on the premise that these institutions are flexible. lo

The main branch organ of the agricultural management in the republic was Uzminselkhot which was broken down into ten directorates and sections. Directly subordinate to Uzminselkhot were the regional ‘associations’ (obedineniia). Beneath that was the level of the oblast agricultural directorate and beneath that was the level of the raion agricultural directorate. The next level was the farm unit itself, the sovkhoz or kolkhoz.

When wearing its other ‘hat’, Uzminselkhot is also said to be a territorial institution:”

In support of territorial agricultural administration the principle role belongs to the Uzbek

SSR higher organs of government and management of the UzSSR.

If the republic is looked upon as a collection of territorial interests, its main institutions are the Council of Ministers, the various subordinate research organizations, notably the republic Academy of Sciences, and the Soviet institutions along with their executive committees. The oblispolkomy and the raiispolkomy are the main territorial institutions at the regional level.

The Moscow offices of the ministries retained the authority to study demand for agricultural commodities, to develop the ‘schema’ for siting of facilities, and, most important, to determine the control figures which established priorities and allocations, and stated all the plan targets. The authority delegated to the Tashkent offices included organizing the efforts of the sector, assembling prospective and current plans on the basis of the control figures, taking measures to get plans fulfilled, and improving the planning mechanisms. Minselkhoz’s chief responsibility was what Soviet economists refer to as kontrol, a combination of monitoring and providing direction. Uzminselkhoz required a production-finance plan to be produced by every farm before the beginning of the calendar year. l2

9. I. Sigov, ‘Sochctanic otradevogo i tmitorial’nogo upravlmiia’, Voprory ekonomiki, No. 9 (1984). p. 27. 10. S. Kh. Iuldashev, 3pmuochnik po khlopkovodrtuu (Tashkent: Uzbekistan, 1981), pp. 355-356. 11. Khakimov, Novaia konstitutsiia SSSR (note 5), p. 163. 12. A. Urkinbaev, ’ Osnounye napravdenic soucdunstvovaniia mckhanizma khoziaistvovaniia’, Sel’skoc khoriaistuo

Uzbekistana, No. 1 (1980), p. 50.

Ministries versus Tmitories in Soviet Central Asia 231

Soviet sources point out that agricultural administration tends to be more closely tied to territorial forms of organization than are other economic sectors. ‘Territorial and local organs of agricultural administration’, a Soviet writer noted, ‘are given wider powers than those in industry, transportation, or construction.‘i3 However, any inherent structural tendency toward local control, particularly in the UzSSR, was overcome by the impetus toward bureaucratic control. Central Asian agriculture under Soviet power has been heavily oriented towards one crop, cotton. The Soviets emphasized cotton in Central Asia from the first days of Soviet power. The administrative organs of Central Asian agriculture had their beginning in a 1929 TsK VKP (b) resolution establishing the forerunner of the cotton bureaucracy, the Main Cotton Commissariat (Glavkhlopkkom). l4 During the 1930s this was broadened to include all non-food and fodder production under a Commissariat for Technical Crops. With the advent of mechanized harvesting techniques in Central Asia, a Ministry of Cotton Production was created in 1950. Complaints led shortly to fuller unification into a Ministry of Agriculture of the UzSSR (Uzminselkhor).

DeStalinization witnessed a series of administrative changes. An important change came in March 1953 with a major law initiated by Khrushchev to transfer power from the Ministries to localities.i5 This was not a concession to local demands and interests. Khrushchev’s decisions were predicated on two objectives. He sought first to increase the power of the party relative to the ministries. Second, he saw a need to streamline the decision-making process to unburden central authorities from routine decision making. The reduction in the number of low level managers involved in agricultural administration was substantial.16 In September of that year Khrushchev put the raion party apparatus in charge of farms and attempted to eliminate the raion departments of agriculture, the lowest rung of the ministerial apparatus. l7 An October 1954 joint resolution further criticized deficiencies in the ministerial structure.t8 The next year the Ministry of Water Economy, a powerful bureaucratic lever in arid Central Asia, was switched from union-republic to republic status, further devolving authority. l9

The ministerial apparatus was in full retreat. Its defenders in Moscow were not silenced but were ineffectual in defending the ministry. The Ministry of Agriculture lost major planning functions in 1955. With the introduction of the Sovnarkhoz concept in 1957, territorially based forms of administration were gaining influence and beginning to build local constituencies. The Ministry lost the Machine Tractor Stations (MTSs) in 1958.20 The Central Statistical Directorate (TsSU) took over the responsibilities for data

13. Khakimov, Nouaia konsfifufsiia SSSR (note 5). p. 157. 14. This was technically under the direction of Vysshyi &wef Narodnogo Khoriaisfua (VSNKh) until 1931

when it became known as the Narodnyi Komissariaf, ‘Narkomof’. 15. This resulted in the consolidation of 4’2 union-republic and republic ministries into 12 union-republic

and 6 republic ministries. Khakimov, Nouaia konsfifufsiia SSSR (note 5), p. 41. On the subject ofthe politics of Khrushchev’s reforms see George W. Breslauer, Khrruchcu and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Aufhorily in Sot&f Politics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982), especially pp. 39-49.

16. One source notes that between 1953 and 1956 the administrative apparatus in Uzbekistan was reduced by over 13000 persons. These reductions fell mainly on branch offices. See A. Novogorodskii, ‘ V. I. Lmin i uoprosy souershmsfuouaniia i udeshcolcniia appmafa upraulmiia’, Kommunisf Uzbekrstana, No. 3 (1972). p. 68.

17. Howard Swearer, ‘Agricultural Administration under Khrushchev’, pp. 18-19 in Roy D. Laird (ed.), Soviet Agriculture and Pmanf Affairs (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1963). pp. 9-40.

18. See ’ 0 sushchcsfvmnykh nedosfatkakh u sfrukfurc minisfcrsfv i ucdonutv SSSR i mrakh po ultuhsshmiiu rabofy ~gomdarstumnogo apparatn’, pp. 144-l 50 in Reshmiia p&ii i prauifel’stua po khoziaistumnym uoprosam, Vol. 4 (Moscow: 1968).

19. Khakimov, No&a komfifufsiia SSSR (note 5). p. 42. 20. Robert Miller, One Hundred 7?towand Tracfors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).


collection. Some planning responsibilities were transferred to Gosplan. In 1961 the USSR Ministry of Agriculture lost its major supply functions with the creation of Soiuzsel’khoztekhnika.2’ By 1961, at the high water mark of the anti-ministry forces, Minsekhoz was reduced mainly to a research institution, offering little more than advice and extension services.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the impetus for geographical decentralization lost momentum at this point. This may have been a result of Kremlin politics.22 In any event the decentralizing trend offered opportunities to local leaders. As Howard Swearer observed, ‘the easing of central controls makes it easier for local officials of all varieties to form mutual-protection societies in order to present the best possible face to MOSCOW’.*~ The January (1961) pl enum issued charges of fraud in the procurement system. In Central Asia charges of wholesale falsification of procurement figures resulted in purges which reached to the heights of the republican communist party apparatus.24

The bulk of the authority which Khrushchev removed from the ministries was transferred not directly to the party, but rather to the localities and to regional decision- making structures set up under the Sovnarkhoz. First established following the February (1957) plenum, the Sovnarkhoz concept was based upon 105 geographically defined economic regions. Initially this resulted in the creation of four Sovnarkhoz units in Uzbekistan.25 This was later expanded to five. 26 On July 1 1960 these five units were united into one republican Sovnarkhoz. 27 The Sovnarkhozy of all the Central Asian republics were merged into a Central Asian Sovnarkhoz on February 5 1963 .28

These were highly visible structures during this period and obviously provided more than mere forums for regional leaders to air their views. Although they did gain some resources for beginning the transition to semi-autonomous institutions, which would be capable of attracting their own supporters and championing their own interests,2g they

21. Miller (note 20). 22. See Sidney I. Ploss, Conficl and Decision-Making in Soviet Russia, A Case S@y of Agricultural Policy,

1953-1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965); Werner G. Hahn, 77~ Politics of Soviet AgriicuNure, 1960-1970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1972).

23. Howard Swearer, ‘Agricultural Administration’ (note 17). 24. See Grey Hodnett, ‘Technology and Social Change in Central Asia: The Politics of Growing Cotton’,

in Henry L. Morton and RudolfTGkes, Svviel PoliticsandSocicty inthc 1970s(New York: The Free Press, 1974), especially pp. 68-75.

25. The Sovnarkhozconcept was ratified by the Supreme Soviet ofuzbekistan May 27 1957, the same day the UzSSR Council of Ministers issued a resolution forming the Tashkent, Fergana, Samarkand, and Karakalpak Sovnarkhozy. See the Postonoulcniia So&a Minislrov V.&R, May 27 1957.

26. This was the Bukhara Sovnarkhoz. See the Vkaz of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the UzSSR of January 11 1958. Sobranicpos~a~vlmiipravilel’s~va Vzbckskoi SSR (Tashkent: 1958), Vol. I, pp. 33-40.

27. An Vkaz of the UzSSR Supreme Soviet Presidium was accompanied by a joint UzSSR Council of Ministers and Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz) resolution of July 1 1960 uniting the five economic regions into one republican Council of People’s Economy (Sovet narodnogo khoziais~va, or Svvnnrkhoz). A USSR joint Council of Ministers and CPSU resolution of April 26 1961 formed a Central Asian Economic Council (Sredncariatskii ckonomicheskii SOW). See ‘Ob ekonomichcskom raivnirovanii SSSR i organizotsii Sovc~ov po koordimtsii i planimvanii v kmpnykh ekonomrcheskikh r&n&‘, Sobranicpos~anovlenii SSR (Moscow: 1961). No. 8, p. 59. The Central Asian Economic Council was later eliminated with the creation of the Central Asian Sovnarkhoz (Sredncariotskii sovnarkhor).

28. Pravda, February 9 1963. 29. At one point the Srcdnctiatskii ckonomichcskii raion was given its own publication. The popular journal

Ekonomi~ i Zhizn’ started publication in 1964 as a monthly journal of the Planning Commission of the Smincariatskii ckmomichcskii r&on. In February 1965 it was switched to the Gosplan. Its name during its brief life as a regional journal was Narodnoe khoziaistvo Srcdnei Arii.


never however gained the planning functions which they were promised.3o Day-to-day administration became less centrally organized and centrally accountable.

The main changes in daily farm operation began in 1958 with the establishment of directorates at the raion level. Neither party nor ministerial institutions in a technical sense, these directorates were transmogrifications of earlier directorates. The March (1962) plenum moved to transform these yet further, naming them Territorial Production Directorates (TPDs), 31 of which there were some 29 in the UZSSR.~* The principal organizational change of the TPDs was a simple one: henceforth agreements between the farm and the procurement agencies would be written contracts; such contracts would extend between 2 and 5 years and would fix the particulars of the quality and transportation costs in advance.33

These directorates, as so many other administrative experiments under Khrushchev’s leadership, were never justified by results. Laboring against the momentum of the bureaucracy, Khrushchev attempted to shift authority to the TPDs by limiting the control that other branches could exercise over them. Khrushchev himself, however, came to criticize them, finding fault in the inability of the system to make a break with the past. Khrushchev emphasized the authority of the TPDs,

insisting that:

The production directorates are not subordinated to anyone in the raion. They do not have

to account to anyone except the higher organs-the oblast, krai, republican, party, and

Soviet organs. Neither the party raikom nor the raion executive committees should interfere

with the work of the directorates.34

With Khrushchev’s ouster in October 1964, a major restoration of the ministeries began. The party committees, ‘split by Khrushchev between rural and urban components, were reunified by a decision of the November (1964) plenum. Such an early reorganization suggests that the consensus for reunification predated and no doubt contributed to Khrushchev’s removal. The March (1965) plenum devoted to agriculture officially restored the primacy of the branch system.35 The reinstatement of V. V. Matskevich, earlier demoted from the position of Minister of Agriculture, symbolized that this was more than a simple reorganization: it amounted to a restoration.

The leading concept behind the new consensus in Moscow was to build an ‘industrial- ized’ agriculture that served the socialist state on a reliable and uniform basis. The previous delegation of authority to the raion level was criticized for leading to poorly coordinated policy. The Minister of Agriculture of Uzbekistan at the time, K. Khudaiberdyev. noted:

30. In an article written in 1964, M. Kb. Khakimov observed that in the 1964-65 planning year for the first time the process would be carried out by organs of the Central Asian Economic region. See M. Kh. Khakimov, ’ 0 nekotorykh uopmsakh razvitiia natsionalhoi souctskoi gosudarstvmnosti u sovrmuqv’ per&f’, Obshchcstumnyc nauki D Uzbekistanr, No. 6 ( 1964), pp. 12-2 1.

31. See the USSR joint resolution ‘Opnestroik upraulmiia sel’skim khoriaislwm’, Pravda, March 24 1962. 32. For a discussion see R. Abidrhanova, ‘Martouskiiplcnwn TsK KPSS 1962s. i sovnshenstuovanic rukowdstva

sci ‘skim khoriaistvom’, Obshchestumnye nauki u Utbckistane, No. 11 (1962), pp. 14-20. 33. See Kh. Rakhmankulov, ‘Martouskii pfcnwn Tsk KPSS 1962 soda i novyc formy upraulmii sel’skim

khoriaistvom I ragotouok scl’kho.zproduktou’, Obshchestvmnye nauki u Uzbrkistane, No. 5 (1962), p. 17. 34. Prauda, June 30 1962. 35. See the joint resolution of March 1 1965, ‘0 pouyshmii roli Ministerstoo rclSkogo khoriaistua SSSR u

rukouodstve kolkhoznym i sovkhomym proizvodstuom’, Sobraniepostanoulenii SSSR, No. 4 (1965), article 20.

234 STUDIES IN C~MPARATIWT COMMUNISM

k is no secret that for the past few years in the republic’s kolkhozes and sovkhozes crop

rotation has been completeiy violated. The hectarage under alfalfa, the basic and most

valuable predecessor of cotton, has been reduced to a minimum.36

Officials drew the conclusion that an orderly bureaucracy seemed the best mechanism for administering agriculture. The September (1965) plenum solidified the branch gains at the expense of the territory. The formal codification of the new ministerial powers came with the announcement of a new Protocol for the Ministries.S7 The restoration was not advertised as a reimposition of the branches. Rather, the new form of administration was said to be based on a ‘combination of branch and territorial principles’. As Kosygin expressed it:

The branch principle of administration should be combined with the territorial principle. This should solve the interbranch tasks of the compiex development of the national

economy as a whole. Moreover, it should help the economies of the republics and the raions

by enlarging the rights of the republics.38

A Central Asian writer referred to the new reform as having as one of its goals the ‘further improvement of centralized planning and strengthening of branch planning in connection with territorial planning ’ .3g One notable Central Asian economist, who later became one of the most outspoken critics of branch management in Central Asia, noted in 1968 that:

The branch principle remains the main one in optimal planning. It opens broad possibilities

for the promotion of scientific-technical progress, the strengthening of specialization, and

the improvement of the cooperation of industrial enterprises and increasing the effective-

ness of production.40

It was even argued that the centralization that took place through the restoration of the branch system allowed the central ministries to be more responsive to local conditions:

The switch to the administration of the economy according to the branch principle created a

series of organs of all-union significance. The formation of many union-republic ministries and offices testifies to the closer economic and political links between the all-union offices and the offlces of the union republics.41

Yet despite these central accolades, the official ‘combination’ formula was understood by most to mean predominance of branch institutions in all cases except those in which it did not matter.

During the course of the 197Os, however, the original luster of the reorganization wore off as conflicts developed among branches and between the branches and the territories. Responding to criticisms of insularity and lack of coordination, Soviet political leaders began seeking ways of organizing means of production and services

36. N. Khudaiberdyev, ‘Rcshmiia Plenums TsK KPSS-v zhitn’!’ Scl’skoe khoriaisrzm Uzbekistana, No. 5 (1965), p. 2.

37. See ‘Obshchc~plozhcnie o ministnstuokh SSSR’, Sobroniepostanoolmii SSSR, No. 17, article 116 (1967). 38. A. N. Kosygin, Izbrannyc rcchi i s&fti (Moscow: 1974), P. 269. 39. M. Shariikhodzhaev, ’ Problmy soounshmstoouaniia planimvaniia narodtwgo khoziatitw Uzbckis~ana’,

Kommwtist Uzbckis&a, No. 5 (1968), p. 52. 40. A. S. Safaev, ‘Kpoblrmc o~~imalirogo ofrat&w~o ~~~~~v~iia’, O~s~~stv~n~ M& u Uzbckistanc, No. 1

(196% P- 3. 41. A. Agamkhodzhaev, ~~~~~i~~c~s~a fedcmsii i printsip ra~~avjja naro&v SSYR’, Kanvnunist

U~6&&anu, Nos. 11-12 (November-December 1972), P. 169.

which would promote production rather than serve the institutional goals of the various agencies, bureaux, and offices. Gradually, over the years of organizational treadmills of reforms, the number and kind of bureaucratic targets handed down to farms pro- liferated. Where the procurement agencies had once been concerned with the ‘4’ -gross deliveries-they grew more concerned with such indicators as farm inclusive costs, number of workers, wages, budget allotments, capital expenditure, and technical equipment costs. 42 Uzminselkhoz required that each farm would function

according to an ‘orgkhozplan’ -an organizational economic plan. These plans were also required of each oblast . 43

By 1971 the problems of integration were pressing enough that a consensus on the problem had formed even though a solution had not yet emerged. The 24th CPSU Congress endorsed the ‘complex approach’ to solving economic and social problems. Furthering this course, the 25th Congress called for ‘the wider application of the complex inter-branch approach to the solution of the most important tasks’, noting the importance of ‘improving the structure and function of the organs of branch and territorial management’.44 The ‘complex approach’ was a formula designed to promise change at no cost. The Congress also called for a simplification of the administrative structure, clarifying the role of each link in the process, improving mid-level management, seeking a more fundamental distribution of labor among branches, and increasing reliance upon farm self-suficiency (khozraschet).45

Disagreement among agencies led to conflicts that hindered production. Soon after the ministerial restoration, central officials sought to limit the conflicts at the oblast and raion level by giving ~~nsel~oz a pivotal policy tool: control over key appointments of agricultural officials. Protocols on oblast and raion directorates adopted by ~inselkhoz in 1966 had given Uzminselkhoz the authority to appoint and dismiss the chief (nachal’nik) of the directorate. This left the obiispolkomy and raiispolkomy with only minimal authority over agricultural managers. In theory the protocols violated the principle of dual subordination. In practice it encouraged managers to gravitate toward branch rather than territorial interests. It blatantly circumvented local leaders since it was adopted not by the UzSSR Council of Ministers, but by Uzminselkhoz, thereby giving Uzminselkhor the privileged position of defining the jurisdiction of its rivals. The protocols were renewed by Uzminselkhoz in June (oblast poiozhenie) and August (raiionoe po/ozhenie) 1975 without any change in this provision. The provision was not popular. One writer remarked:

In such a way the current protocols on the oblast and raion agricultural directorates of the

UzSSR in essence contradict not only current law but, as well, the constitutional principle

of the combination of branch and territorial management.“j

In the early 1970s an administrative concept won high-level approval for forming corporation-like structures designed along product lines. The structures promised greater authority for intersectoral movement of goods, especially production inputs. This ‘association’ (obea’inenie) concept, as it was called, was first introduced in industry

42. K. Khadamov, ‘Plannirovanic sd’skvkhoziaistvtmogo pmizvodifva’, scl’skoe khozi&vo Uzbekistana, No. 12 (IQ?O), pp. 31-33.

43. P. Timofeev, ‘Nauclinot pfanimurmic-kazhdomu khoziaistuu’, SeisLlikoe kkoziaistvo Uzbekistana, No. 10 (1968), pp. 17-20.

44. Pm&, December 14 1975. 45. See V. Kh. SamarWlodzhaev, ‘Kproblemc so~sk~t~~iia oTg~ov~s~stv~nv~ upravlcniia v udoviakh

~a~k~tech~ithes~go progressa’, Ob~~~~v~R~ w&iv Uzbckidanc, No. 1 (1976), p. 33. 46. Khakimov, Novak koastitutsiia SSSR (note 5), p. 160.


by a 1973 joint resolution.47 Gradually, through a series of geographically limited and administratively cautious experiments, the obedinenie concept was extended into agriculture. It was officially proclaimed by a joint resolution in 1976.4s On the surface the reform was designed to promote specialization and concentration in agricultural production, thereby pushing agriculture along in the direction of further intensification. But at the core of the problem was the conflict between territorial and branch institutions. The CPSU Central Committee resolution admitted this. As it noted:

Inter-farm agro-industrial specialized production associations (inter-kolkhoz, inter- sovkhoz, kolkhoz-government, and government-kolkhoz) are created with consideration for both territorial and branch characteristics.4g

The obedinenie concept had already been applied in various sectors of subsidiary farming and animal husbandry in Uzbekistan. Wine-making, melon production, apiculture, and several animal husbandry obedineniiu had existed with mixed results since as early as the 1960s. 5o The experiences of these structures is illustrative of the fate of the administrative reform at large. After obedinenie were first introduced in the agricultural sector, complaints arose that the obedinenie could not- be effective unless the farms they controlled were deprived of legal standing. ‘Analysis shows’, wrote one Soviet writer, ‘that the obedinenie are much simpler to manage where the constituent units have lost their legal autonomy.‘5’ Some policy makers wanted to erode the very limited autonomy of the farms themselves. This would allow the obedinenie the financial autonomy necessary to carry out their integrative functions. This remedy, however, proved worse than the problem. Ten years after they were first introduced to reduce insularity between branches, the obedinenie were criticized for having become insular themselves. Consequently, the UzSSR Council of Ministers acted in January 1981 to reunify the obedinenie dealing with the production, procurement, and processing of potatoes, vegetables, melons, fruits, and grapes by forming them into a union-republic Ministry of Fruit and Vegetables.52

When government goals were hindered by a lack of coordination among branches, political leaders sometimes sidestepped the established bureaucracy by creating specialized parallel organs. Various experiments took place in Uzbekistan to ‘rationalize’ the

47. Sobranic postanovlmiia SSSR, No. 7 (1973), article 31. In many areas of the economy other than agriculture, the mid-1970s witnessed a movement toward replacing the traditional wings (&auki) of the administrative branches. The direct subordination of the obcdinmic to the Council of Ministers, in the words of a Soviet writer, ‘means that the glauki of the ministries will be gradually eliminated’. See V. Kh. Samarkhodzhaev, ‘Kproblnncsovnshmstvouaniia org~*oupsudnrstumnogo upnwlmiia u wloviiakh nauchno-tcchnichcs-

kogoprogrcssa’, Obshchcstumnyc nnuki u Urbckistanc, No. 1 (1976), p. 43. Samarkhodzhaev distinguished between the ob’edinmie arrangement and its predecessor. On page 43 of the article cited he observed: ‘In terms of its functions and rights the new obcdinmic substantially differs from the eliminated glauki. The glauok is an administrative organ of management. It is a structural link of the central apparatus and is maintained through its budget. In contrast, the industrial obcdinmiia distribute material, financial, and labor resources of all the subordinate divisions and are fully responsible for their activity.’

48. See ‘0 dal’ncishcm rawitii spctsializatsii i kontsentratsii selikokhoriaistuennogo proizuodstva na baa mczh- khoziaistumnoi koopnztsii I agropromyshlmnoi intcgratsii' , Kommunist Uzbekistana, No. 7 (1976), pp. 9-10. Also see Praudn, June 2 1976.

49. Ibid., p. 8. 50. A. Tagaev, ‘Formirouan~ i razuitie agrarno-promyshlcnnykh komplcksov’, Sel’skoc khoziaistuo Uzbcktstana,

No. 7 (1979), p. 55. 51. A. Tagaev and I. Makhmadiev, ‘Sounrhmstvovanie sistny upraolmie u APO’. Scl’skoc khoziaistuo

Uzbekistana, No. 10 (1982), p. 56. 52. Ibid., p. 55.

Ministries versus Tmilorics in Soviet Cmtral Asia 237

organizational structure along these lines. For instance, a Ministry of Sovkhozes, established in 197 1, took direct control of the sovkhozes away from lJ.zminselkhoz. This experiment was reversed in 1975. 53 Another example is the case of Glavs- reabzirsovkhotlrtroi, a government committee which was formed in February 1963 to facilitate agricultural expansion in the Hungry and Karshin steppes.54 In the first 15 years of its existence its budget grew by a factor of five. In 1978 it was said to include some 150000 workers.55 Thus, there is a tendency for farms in new areas to be retained under the control of the ‘development ministry’, the Ministry of Land Amelioration and Water Economy (Minszemauodkhoz). For instance, in 1979 there were 62 new cotton sovkhozes in the Hungry steppe region. Forty-eight of these were under the control of the Minszmzavodkhor, rather than under-Uzminselkhot as would be expected.56

The most important recent administrative change, prior to the 1985 establishment of Gosagropom, came in 1982 with the introduction of increased authority at the territorially-based raions. 57 The 1982 ‘Food Program’ of the USSR included provisions designed to enlarge the latitude of local leaders and officials in meeting the ‘crisis’ proportions of the food situation. The Food Program gave official sanction to experiments with local management that had been tried elsewhere. The main innovation was the creation of raion level councils to help the Raion Agro-industrial Associations (RAPOs). 58 The councils were to include the head of the raion agricultural directorate (serving as the chairman of the council), the chairmen of the kolkhozes, the directors of the sovkhozes, the heads of the subordinated enterprises, and the leaders of the agricultural departments of the raion party apparatus. Each republic had a Commission of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers on Questions of the Agro- industrial Complex. On paper the RAPOs were given the authority to manage local agriculture directly. They were assigned control of financial and technical resources within the raion. They were empowered to fix internal prices for the distribution of goods and services within the raion. None of these powers had been delegated to their predecessors, the directorates of the raiispolkomy. Apparently, the RAPOs were introduced in Uzbekistan along with liberal provisions for forgiving outstanding debts.5s They seem to have been met with local enthusiasm. One writer, using a standard technique of defending local interests through recourse to the favored ideological formulas of the central officials, noted that the RAPOs represent the ‘best combination of branch and territorial principles’ .60

Since the reorganization of the MTS and the elimination of the party ‘political sections’, the Politotdely, party control of agricultural administration in the rural areas has been weak. The May (1982) plenum ordered the raion party committees to create agricultural sections, but it has been reported that these have not been very influential. Although they had been in existence for over a year before the 1982 plenum, they were still small and insignificant. For example, in one oblast, only 2 of the 13 raikomy had party sefkhozofde[y of 3 specialists, the others having only 2 specialists each.61

53. See Khakimov, Novaia konsfitufsiia SSSR (note 5). p. 157. 54. Khakimov, Nouaia konstittisiia SSSR (note 5), p. 123. 55. Ibid., p. 123. 56. S. Kh. Iuldashev, S’rauochnikpo khiopkowdsfuu (Tashkent: Uzbekistan, 1981). pp. 355-356. 57. Pravda, May 1982. 58. Ibid.

59. Shakirov referred to a ‘general sum’ of 285 million rubles of debt relief to kolkhozes in Uzbekistan. A. Shakirov, ‘Sounshmstuouanic ekonomicheskogo nwhanizma’, Scl’skaekhoziaistuo Uzbekistana, No. 1 (1983). p. 16.

60. Ibid., p. 14. 61. S. Mamarusulov, ‘Sel’skokhoriaislucnnyi otdcl raikomapartii’, Kommunisf Uzbckisfana, No. 1 (1984), p. 43.


The influence of the administrative change, important enough in food production areas, has been minimal in the cotton complex. 62 It continues to be a crop where the critical decisions regarding the planting schedules, target deliveries, procurement prices, and cost of inputs are set by what are essentially external agencies in Moscow. Hence, the efforts made to lower the decision-making level to the farm have mainly to do with marginal improvements.

Direct relations between the Council of Ministers of the Uzbek Republic and the USSR Council of Ministers are not clear. Virtually no published sources describe or analyze these relations in other than the most superficial terms. Soviet sources in

Uzbekistan frequently refer to what they call the institution of ‘standing representation’

attached to the Moscow ministries. Presumably this refers to Uzminselkhor officials who

would sit ex officio on Minselkhoz decision-making bodies. The range of leverage of the UzSSR delegation in this liaison is unclear. One source noted:

Although the institution of standing representation has completely justified itself, in recent

years the USSR government and the governments of the Union-republics have taken a

number of measures to improve the activity of the standing committees. Thus the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the UzSSR of March 12 1971, affirms the new protocol on the

standing representation of the Council of Ministers of the Uzbek SSR and the Council of

Ministers of the USSR which more specifically defines the tasks and functions of the repre-

sentation of the Uzbek SSR.“3

None of the all-union instruments give the right to change or supersede the acts of republican ministries or agencies subordinate to the union-republic ministries although it has been observed that the union-republic ministries tended to do this in practice. One source noted that frequently union-republic ministries change plans in violation of the prescribed order and without consultation with the Council of Ministers of the union- republic in a way that ‘affects the rights and interests’ of the republic.64

Criticisms

Since Khrushchev’s dismissal the criticism voiced in the journals reviewed for this article follows a logical progression. Following restoration of branch authority in 1965, criticism began to center on the failings of the planning mechanism in responding to local conditions. By the early 197Os, however, critical remarks had shifted from the examination of the planning reform to criticisms of the lack of integration between the ministries. This line of criticism increased throughout the 1970s. By the early 1980s. critical commentary was clearly focused in anticipation of administrative change. The commentary from those working in the Central Asian republics, as we document in the following discussion, increasingly assumed a quality of advocacy in favor of greater territorial prerogative.

The first major installment in a serious debate between branch and territorial proponents was presented in the journal Kommunist Uzbekistana in an article by V. Osminin discussing the importance of maintaining a territorial institutional ballast in

62. For a description of the cotton complex and its functioning see Gregory Gleason, Belweetl MOSCOW and Tashkent: The Politics of Agriculture in Uzbekistan (forthcoming).

63. A. Agamkhodzhaev, ‘Sotsralistichcskaia fedmztsii i printsip mmopraviia narodoo SSSR’, Kommunist Uzbekistana, No. 11-12 (1972), p. 168.

64. See Khakimov, Novnrn kmstifutsira SSSR (note 5), p. 120.

Ministries versus Tm’tories in Soviet Central Asia 239

the management structure. 65 The article went against the current of central efforts to

reinstate the preeminence of the ministries. Shortly thereafter, the initial ardor of the

reforming impulse subsided amid signs that the reform had not resulted in bringing in

qualitatively new management methods. Complaints were voiced that the

‘combination’ of branch and territorial principles had resulted in simply reimposing the previous pattern of ministerial dominance over the old.@

In the 1970s critics increasingly observed that the administrative apparatus worked haltingly, sporadically, and arrhythmically. ‘The central problem of planning and management of the economy’, one writer observed, ‘is the question of the tempo and proportions of economic development. S’ This was not only the claim of local critics. Throughout the USSR the argument increasingly met with in the early 1970s was that a significant organizational ill of the system was the tendency of the ministries to develop ‘compartmentalism’ (ruzdroblennost). Brezhnev himself opined:

A multi-branched, compartmentalized structure of production still exists. This is an inheritance of the past. It impedes the process ofscientific and technical advance and retards the intensification of production. The improvement of inter-branch cooperation is now the essential and basic question of the development of the country’s agriculture.68

Brezhnev’s message with respect to this problem to the XXV CPSU Congress held early in 1976 was simple. He noted that ‘before us the task is clear. It is the concentration of forces and resources in fulfillment of the most important all-government programs and a more skilfull combination of branch and territorial development.‘6g

Although it was billed as a policy initiative to increase specialization and concentration in agriculture, the July 1976 CPSU CC resolution on agriculture reflected an underlying concern with avoiding compartmentalism. As it noted:

In many oblasts, krais, and republics, they try to satisfy the task of raising the effectiveness of agricultural production through merely combining the existing brigades and farms. This does not involve carrying out specialization, and taking into account the natural and economic conditions, let alone fundamental changes in the organization and technology of

production. Such a course as the earlier enlargement of kolkhozes and sovkhozes does not

eliminate the shortcomings of a multi-branch economy.‘(’

Yet the language of the July resolution called for taking into account both branch and territorial principles but did not rely on the formula of a ‘combination of branch and territorial principles’.

By this time the criticism emerging from Central Asia had grown more direct. V. Osminin, who launched the planning debate in Uzbekistan a decade earlier, again took up the banner of territorialism. In the political but unmistakable locutions of Soviet self- criticism he explained:

65. V. Osminin, ‘ Tmi&orialnyc osobcnnosfi uosproizuodrfva i planimunnia D soiunoi rcspublike’, Kommunisf Uzbekrsfana, No. 3 (1966), pp. 18-24. See also the follow-up article by A. Abduganiev, ‘Sounshcnsfuouof ‘mefody

plantrovaniia’, Kommunrsf Uzbekirfann, No. 1 (1967). pp. 56-59. The various issues in the planning disputes are summarized in ‘K zfogam obswhdmiia problem soucrshmsfuovaniia pfanirovaniia nnrodnogo khoriaisfua’, Kommunisf Uzbekisfano, No. 12 ( 1969).

66. I’. K&akin, ‘Khoriaisfucnnaia refnna i ofrasl’, Kommunisf Uzbekisfana, No. 7 (1968), pp. 13-21, 67. M. ShariIkhodzhaev. ‘P ro bf rmy soucrshmsfuouaniia’ (note 39). 68. Leonid I. Brezhnev, Lminskym kursom (Moscow: Politizdat, 1974). pp. 452-453. 69. From Brezhnev’s Ofchefnyidokladto the 25th Party Congress. As quoted in V. Osminin, ‘Ekonomichcrkoc

raztnfie sfrnny i ferrifonal’nocplanirouanic’, Kommunisf Urbckisfona, No. 8 (1976). p. 60. 70. See ‘0 dal’neishem rawifii (note 48). pp. 3-14.


A great deaf of experience has been gained in our country about the complex economy of the

union-republics with regard to their role in the all-union division of labor. However, it would be mistaken to think that the possibilities of territorial planning are exhausted and its importance, under the branch system of management, should lead to a mechanical combination of the branch interests and tasks on the level of the territory of the union- republic as a part of the USSR.”

Osminin, in ritualistic laudatory terms, called attention to the great qualitative changes in the economy. Then he drew the not so ritualistic conclusion that these changes create objective conditions for a ‘significant increase in the role of territorial planning in the general system of planning’. ‘*

The compartmentalism of the branches led to many derivative complaints. One of the most important was the fracturing of authority in the multi-branch organization. Because of the problems of compartmentalism, the RAP0 structures were enthu- siastically welcomed as an antidote to bureaucratic insularity. ‘The main goal of the [RAPO] reorganization’, wrote one researcher, ‘was the elimination of bureaucratic compartmentalism in management. ‘73 This writer admitted that administrative reform was a ‘difficult matter’ but that it would lead to a genuine combination of territorial and branch principles. 74 Yet despite these hopes among the critics of compartmentalism, the problem persisted as an all-union problem. Andropov’s succession first seemed to suggest impending changes. Th en his unexpected incapacitation stalled efforts at reform. Bureaucratic immobilism continued; the criticism in the mid-1980s did as well. In 1984 one critic noted:

The functioning of an independent branch system of ministries is hardly justified. Branches exist with similar functions leading to parallelism and the creation of artificial bureaucratic barriers. They hinder effective economic and socio-cultural activity.‘”

Proposals for Change

Most criticism appearing in official sources in the 1970s and 1980s went little beyond harsh words. Few systematic, orchestrated proposals for reorganization originated from the regions. One exception was a proposal called the ‘cotton program’. The cotton growing industry of Central Asia, once described by a report of a visiting team of researchers from the US Department of Agriculture as the ‘success story of Soviet agriculture’, is often held up as a model of Soviet achievements in agriculture.76 But achievements in gross output conceal the real costs of the cotton industry, especially the non-economic costs. The pressure to meet the insistent annual target levels demanded by Moscow led to a syndrome of sub-optimal development. Knowledgeable Soviet sources have observed that high targets have forced monocultural practices on Central Asian agriculture which have led to land deterioration. This in turn has allowed the

71. V. Osminin, Ekonomicheskoe rarutie (note 69). 72. Ibid., p. 63. 73. G. Karimova, ‘A~opromyshlennaia intcgrafsia i pufi zovcrshmstuouaniia uprauleniia’, Sdskoc khozuzistvo

Uzbekistana, No. 2 (1982), p. 52. 74. Ibid. 75. V. I. Shabailov. ‘Suiurno-respubltkanskzc mtnistentva souunykh respublik’, Souefskoc~osudarstuo ~praoo, No. 9

(1984), p. 25. 76. See ‘U.S. Team Reports on Soviet Cotton and Trade’, FAS-M-277, Foreign Agricultural Service,

United States Department of Agriculture (June 1977). p. 6.

Ministries versus Territories in Soviet Central Asia 241

spread of cotton wilt, which has forced a poor crop structure on those unaffected farms, necessitating a heavy reliance on herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. These exceed acceptable levels and lead to environmental degradation. 77 One of the most important, coordinated, and officially sanctioned efforts to address these issues was the cotton program.

The cotton program originated in a series of specialist studies sponsored by the Economics Institute of the UzSSR Academy of Sciences. By the early 197Os, efforts were directed at bringing together specialists from different fields including agronomics, economics, labor use, and management, to solve some of the pressing problems of monocultural cotton cultivation. In 1973 the first all-union ‘cotton’ conference was held in Tashkent. Conferences on cotton production have been a frequent occurrence in Central Asia. The 1973 conference, however, was distinguished by going beyond consideration of ways of increasing cotton production to a concern with questions of the management and organization of the industry. A series of proposals for ‘optimizing’ the cotton production complex was adopted by the conference.‘s According to a later report, the conference also supported the idea of creating a scientific research center to coordinate empirical research on the cotton industry. A book-length compendium of conference papers was later published.7g

Five years later, in September 1978, a second and larger ah-union conference was held which was attended by more than 500 specialists.80 A compendium of papers presented at the conference was published.81 This conference too adopted proposals and reiterated the appeal for the creation of a coordinating center.*’ The published accounts of this conference suggest that by this time the main proponents of the cotton program had begun to think in terms of the creation of a coordinating center that would go beyond research and development to include some actual management authority.83

A third all-union conference was held in April 1982 in Tashkent. Like its predecessors, this cotton program conference was opened by Sharaf Rashidov, the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz) First Secretary, and it too adopted a series of recommendations relating to the management of the cotton production complex.84 According to one of the program’s chief supporters, the research institutions had by this point completed their analytical efforts and awaited the program’s endorsement by the necessary party and government officials.@

The ‘integrated cotton program’ consisted of a series of proposals which the research

77. Ekonomichcskie problmy komplcksnoi propramrny ‘Khlopok’ (Tashkent: Fan, 1981), p. 37. 78. Pravda Vostoka, May 29 1973. 79. The compendium of papers was entitled Problmty optimizatsii rarvitiia narodno-khoriaistvcnnoso khiopkovqo

kompleksa. The proposals of the conference were entitled: Osnovnye polozhmiia programmy issledovonii po optunizatsii razutua narodno-khoriaistumnogo khlopkovogo kompleksa.

80. Prnuda Vostoka, September 6 1978. 81. The compendium of papers was entitled Ekonomicheskie problemy kompleksnoi p~o~mrnnq~ ‘khlopok’

(Tashkent: Fan, 1981). 82. The proposals were entitled: Prcdlorhmii po soucrshmstuovoniiu planirouantto, upraulcniia i poqyshmiiu

cffrwnosti rozrabotkl ekonomichcskikh problem kompleksnoi programmy ‘Khlopok’. 83. In Kurbanov’s contribution to the conference compendium he provides a flow chart oforganizational

change anticipated under the provisions of the cotton program. The flow chart includes a reference to a ‘management center’. See Iu. R. Kurbanov, ‘Reshcniia i&I&go (1978g) Pimuma TrK KPSS-Vazhnyc etap u dalncishem razurtrr khlopkouodstua Uzbekistana’, in Eknomicheskie problmy (note 81), pp. 14-28.

84. Praudn Vostoka, April 15 1982. 85. See A. S. Safaev, ‘Problcmy komplcksnoi narodno-khoriaistumnoiprogrammy “Khlopok”‘, Kommunist. No. 7

(1982). p. 80.

242 STUDIES IN COMPA~TIVE COMMUNISM

groups broke down into sub-proposals. The main goal of the cotton program was to satisfy the demand for cotton. In pursuit of that goal the program elucidated 10 subprograms concerned with such things as labor resources, cotton processing, and water use. These subprograms were broken down further into intermediate goals and policy mechanisms which were ordered according to their ability to contribute to cotton production. Empirical research led to a proliferation of minor ‘subprograms’, which at one point numbered over 3O.@j

The central representation evidenced by support from the Central Econo- mathematical Institute (Tsentrtzl’nyi Ekonomatematicheskii In&d) [TsEMI] and the All- Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after Lenin ( VASKhNfL) lent a certain amount of legitimacy to the conference. However, the role of N. P. Fedorenko, TsEMI’s director, was that of a specialist as opposed to a decision-maker. Since CPSU Politburo members had previously attended cotton conferences and major pol&ical plena of the CPUz in Uzbekistan, it may be significant that the conferences beginning in 1973 were not, according to published reports, added to the itineraries of any major central political figures.

Regional leaders, in contrast, provided highly visible local support for the program. In addition to CPUz First Secretary Rashidov’s support for the program, other republican leaders from party, government and ‘state’ (Suuetskii) institutions made contributions. Until his death in 1981, Iuldash Kurbanov, former head of the Commission on Agriculture of the Supreme Soviet of the UzSSR, was a prominent supporter of the program. So indeed was Timofei Zinin, the chief of the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee of the CPUz since 1961. Several high government oflicials also either contributed to the published compendium of papers or attended the conference.87

The main responsibility for the promotion of the cotton program in Uzbekistan appears to have been delegated at an early point to the chief of the section of economics of the UzSSR Academy of Sciences, Abid S. Safaev. Safaev’s writings and research prior to the development of the cotton program had included work on some technical questions of cotton production but did not include the broad charge he was to receive with the cotton program. In the years following the frrst conference, Safaev became a tireless proponent of the cotton program, authoring singly or in joint publications numerous articles discussing certain details of the cotton program and the importance of change in the prevailing forms of organization in the cotton industry.

The exact statement of the proposals of the various conferences has not been made public outside the research institutes. ss It is clear, however, on the basis of reports which have made it to the public record, that there are certain areas of cotton production of which the cotton proposals are particularly critical. These areas can be grouped into three categories: the first category includes policies pertaining to technical questions, that is agronomic practices and financing practices; the second category contains

06. See Problemy optimizatsii razuitiia narodno-~oriaistvcnnago kh&@ovogo komplckra and Ekonomichtskic probImy kompicksnoi programy ‘khlopok ‘.

87. See A. S. Sadykov, N. P. Fedorenko, and A. S. Safaev, ‘Ekwtomicheskaia nauka-komplckmoipro~rarammr ’ ‘Khiopok ” : Vestnik Akademii A&k, No. 2 (Feruary 1981), p. 69.

88. There are suggestions that the proposals were circulated among specialists and economic managers however. For instance, the article by G. S. Ltan and A. Iu. Sheviakov, ~Ne~fo~~~s~~y r~7abofki~mple~o~ procrammy ’ ‘Khiopok ” ‘, in Probity opfim~~sii (note 79), p. 155, footnote 2, cites the proposals in ‘rotoprint’ form.


policies pertaining to the organization of the cotton complex itself; and the third category contains those criticisms directed at the role of the complex in the future development of the Central Asian economy.

Analysis of the reports of the cotton program suggests a basic tendency among its supporters during the years since its inception. While the cotton program began with a focus on technical questions, the research which it has supported has led most of its proponents away from the importance of these technical questions to issues of the second and third categories. To use the words of one cotton program proponent, the ‘technical questions have been solved’ but the managerial issues have become more pressing.s9

At the heart of the managerial questions raised by the cotton program is the conflict between branch and territorial principles of management. The conflict is more politically charged than it may appear because of the close interdependence between political control and economic management in the USSR. The indifference of central political figures to the program -as symbolized initially by their failure to participate in the conferences -no doubt stems from the fact that a switch from the branch principle to a complex principle of management in the cotton program would inevitably result in a de

facto territorial solution to the problem. Cotton production is centered for climatic reasons in Central Asia and any management reorganization which circumvented the ministerial apparatus would inevitably result in more territorial control. The cotton program supporters have explicitly denied that they favor a territorial solution to the problems of the cotton production complex, 90 but their arguments have not seemed convincing to Moscow.

The early enthusiasm among cotton program proponents for implementation of their recommendations has gradually given way to a sense of resignation born of the bureaucratic obstacles that they faced. Event&y this grew into a weary disillusionment. A. S. Sadykov, President of the UzSSR Academy of Sciences, presented a reasoned and persuasive plea in the January preceding the 26th CPSU Congress:

Considering the scale and great all-union importance of the integrated program ‘Cotton’ we consider it necessary to include it in the government plan for the economic and social

development of the USSR for the period 1981-l 985 [the 11 th five-year plan] .gl

Yet the directives adopted by the Congress made no mention of the program nor was there any official recognition from Uzbekistan that the program proposals had been even partially accepted in Moscow. Despite the fact that the program was officially endorsed by the USSR Academy of Sciences, ‘very serious’ practical (that is, political) difficulties prevented its adoption in practice. g2 The chief supporter of the program after a decade turned almost plaintive in expressing hope that ‘the matter will not be limited by the creation of yet another scientific council with the right of an advisory organ’.g3

89. Thus Safaev noted: ‘Currently the collective ofscientific researchers of the section on optimal planning and management of the UzSSR AN EI and TsEMI have jointly completed work on the scientific-methodo- logical bases for the creation of an original complex program of economic scale.’ A. S. Safaev, ‘Robfry komplekmoi (note 85), p. 80.

90. Ibid., p. 87. 91. A. S. Sadykov, ‘0 dnl’ncishmt raztritiifun&muntal’nykh i pn’kIadnykh issleaiwanii u oblasti khlopkovodstua u

nauchnykh uchrezhdmiiakh U.SSR’, Obshchcstutnnye nauki u Uzbckistans, No. I (1981). p. 12. 92. Safaev noted the Academy ofSciences support in ‘Problnny komplekmoi’ (note 85). p. 86. The discussion

of the ‘very serious difliculties’ can be found in Sadykov, Fedorcnko and Safaev, ‘Ekonomichcskaia nauka’ (note 87), p. 72.

93. A. S. Safaev, ‘Problrmy komplcksnoi’ (note 85), p. 86.


Eventually the program’s chief institutional supporter, TsEMI, itself came under high level criticism in 1983 for its efforts. g4 Finally, in the wake of a major post-Brezhnev purge in Central Asia and amid sweeping indictments of fraud, bribery, nepotism, and economic deception on the part of local officials, the president of the UzSSR Academy of Sciences, A. S. Sadykov, was publicly pilloried.g5

Conclusions: Territorial Control

Khrushchev’s bombastic leadership style signaled an end to the more authoritarian aspects of the Stalinist system. Ironically, Khrushchev also sought to use those same mechanisms in the furtherance of what he saw as decentralization. Brezhnev’s administration reintroduced a period of stultifying centralization by restoring institutions maladept at administering the centralized structure. Gorbachev’s political demeanor, his administrative style, and his public pronouncements suggest a much reduced emphasis on the utopian tenets of socialism and a more realistic and pragmatic approach towards directing the Soviet political system to fashion a modern, rational, and competitive society. From available evidence, however, these changes do not fore- shadow an end to ideology and, above all, an end to the political control of the economy in the service of ideological ends. The Soviet economy is a centralized economy. More important, centralization is a consequence of Soviet socialism. This is a premise firmly established in the political calculations of not only Moscow officials but regional officials as well, for they too are dependent on the maintenance of the administered economy. A switch to a territorial principle would not result in a decentralized agricultural economy, at least not at first.

Why then has the territorial impulse been so ineffectual? Although economic adversity has sent political figures searching for solutions to the problems of administration, the argument that economic deconcentration necessarily implies political devolution has prevented them, in the two decades since the Brezhnevian restoration, from concluding in favor of genuine territorial solutions. Once the process of economic deconcentration begins in earnest, Moscow leaders fear they may find themselves on a slippery slope: political devolution and dismemberment of the factious multinational state may not be far behind. Moreover, Moscow’s fear of what Swearer called ‘mutual- protection societies’ and Hodnett referred to as the ‘role bargain’ of local leaders prevents devolution.

The foregoing observations describe Moscow’s preference for avoiding territorial solutions. But what of the localities’ resources in advancing their goals through bureaucratic means? Their inability in the past to do this successfully is a result of the failure of a territorial institutional base to emerge. Aside from some research organizations, which while vocal are quite small, there is no institutional countervailing force to the party. Territories may fight ministries, but as yet the party remains not only the sole ‘guiding force’ of Soviet society, it is also the sole unifying force. This leaves local leaders with genuine ethno-regional sentiments at a great disadvantage. They must approach central leaders as petitioners arguing that their territorial solutions are ideal because they at once serve all-union (which means Moscow) goals better than existing

94. See Chernenko’s statement in Pmvda, June 15 1983. 95. See the editorial ‘Soo~ue~stuouot’ uremcni’, Rauda Vostoka, November 22 1985

Ministries vcrsu~ Territories in Soviet Central Asia 245

arrangements and, at the same time, promote local initiative. Local leaders must claim their solutions make more efficient use of local natural and organizational resources. This leaves local leaders at risk of over-selling their programs. When they are unable to deliver on their promises, as has happened in Central Asia in the last few years, they must suffer the indignities of post facto charges of political intrigue, corruption, and deception.

Ministries versus territories: Evidence from agricultural administration in Soviet Central Asia

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