Collective leadership (, ), or of leadership (, ), became - alongside doctrine such as democratic centralism - official dogma for governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other socialist states espousing communism.For example:
In the Soviet Union itself, the collective leadership concept operated by distributing powers and functions among members of the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as the Council of Ministers, to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system by a Soviet leader, such as that seen under Joseph Stalin's rule between the late 1920s and 1953. On the national level, the heart of the collective leadership was officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Collective leadership was characterised by limiting the powers of the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers as related to other offices by enhancing the powers of collective bodies, such as the Politburo.
Collective leadership became institutionalised in the upper levels of control in the Soviet Union following Stalin's death in March 1953, and subsequent Soviet Communist Party leaders ruled as part of a collective. First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev criticized Stalin's dictatorial rule at the 20th Party Congress in 1956, but Khrushchev's own increasingly erratic decisions led to his ouster in 1964. The Party replaced Khrushchev in his posts with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and with Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Though Brezhnev gained more and more prominence over his colleagues, he retained the Politburo's support by consulting its members on all policies. Collective leadership continued under Yuri Andropov (General Secretary from 1982 to 1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (General Secretary from 1984 to 1985). Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms espoused open discussion from about 1986, leading to members of the leadership openly disagreeing on how little or how much reform was needed to rejuvenate the Soviet system.
History Early years
According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov, Lenin “in general leaned towards a collegial leadership, with Trotsky in the first position”. Historian Paul Le Blanc referenced various scholars which included E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny and W. Bruce Lincoln that on balance tilted “toward the view that Lenin’s desired 'heir' was collective responsibility in which Trotsky placed an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted (if not removed)".
Marxist Leninist ideologists believed that Lenin, the first Soviet leader, thought that only collective leadership could protect the Party from serious mistakes. Joseph Stalin, who consolidated his power after Lenin's death in 1924, promoted these values; however, instead of creating a new collective leadership, he built up a leadership centered around himself.
After Stalin's death (5 March 1953), his successors, while vying for control over the Soviet leadership, promoted the values of collective leadership. The collective leadership included the following eight senior members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, listed according to the order of precedence presented formally on 5 March 1953: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Anastas Mikoyan. Amongst them Malenkov, Beria and Molotov formed an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika) immediately after Stalin's death, but it collapsed when Malenkov and Molotov turned on Beria. After the arrest of Beria (26 June 1953), Nikita Khrushchev proclaimed collective leadership as the "supreme principle of our Party". He further stated that only decisions approved by the Central Committee (CC) could ensure good leadership for the party and the country. Khrushchev used these ideas so that he could win enough support to remove his opponents from power, most notably Premier Malenkov, who resigned in February 1955.
During the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev criticised Stalin's rule and his "cult of personality". He accused Stalin of reducing the Party's activities and putting an end to Party democracy among others. In the three years following Stalin's death, the Central Committee and the Presidium (Politburo) worked consistently to uphold the collective leadership lost under Stalin. Khrushchev's rule as First Secretary remained highly controversial throughout his rule in the Party leadership. The first attempt to depose Khrushchev came in 1957, when the so-called Anti-Party Group accused him of individualistic leadership. The coup failed, but Khrushchev's position weakened drastically. However, Khrushchev continued to portray his regime as a "rule of the collective" even after becoming Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier), replacing Nikolai Bulganin.
Official order of precedence (according to 5 March 1953 amendment) Portrait Information Party position(s) State position(s) Rank 1st Informally the Party's first amongst equals, literally first secretary Chairman of the Council of MinistersName Georgy MalenkovBirthdate 8 January 1902Birthplace Orenburg, Orenburg OblastDeathdate 14 January 1988 Rank 2nd First Deputy Chairman of the Council of MinistersMinister of Internal AffairsName Lavrentiy BeriaBirthdate 29 March 1899Birthplace Merkheuli, SukhumiDeathdate 23 December 1953 Rank 3rd First Deputy Chairman of the Council of MinistersMinister of Foreign AffairsName Vyacheslav MolotovBirthdate9 March 1890Birthplace Kukarka, Kirov OblastDeathdate 8 November 1986 Rank 4th Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme SovietName Kliment VoroshilovBirthdate 4 February 1881Birthplace Lysychansk, Luhansk OblastDeathdate 2 December 1969 Rank 5th Informally the Party's Second Secretary Name Nikita KhrushchevBirthdate 15 April 1894Birthplace Kalinovka, Kursk OblastDeathdate 11 September 1971 Rank 6th Minister of DefenceName Nikolai BulganinBirthdate 30 March 1895Birthplace Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod OblastDeathdate 24 February 1975 Rank 7th First Deputy Chairman of the Council of MinistersName Lazar KaganovichBirthdate 22 November 1893Birthplace Kabany, near KievDeathdate 25 July 1991 Rank 8th Minister of Foreign TradeName Anastas MikoyanBirthdate 25 November 1895Birthplace SanahinDeathdate 21 October 1978 Rank 9th Minister of Machine BuildingChairman of the State Planning Committee Name Maksim SaburovBirthdate 2 February 1900Birthplace DruzhkivkaDeathdate 24 March 1977 Rank 10th Name Mikhail PervukhinBirthdate 14 October 1904Birthplace Yuryuzansky ZavodDeathdate 22 July 1978
Collectivity of leadership
Most Western observers believed that Khrushchev had become the supreme leader of the Soviet Union by the early 1960s, even if this was far from the truth. The Presidium, which had grown to resent Khrushchev's leadership style and feared Mao Zedong's one-man dominance and the growing cult of personality in the People's Republic of China, began an aggressive campaign against Khrushchev in 1963. This campaign culminated in 1964 with the replacement of Khrushchev in his offices of First Secretary by Leonid Brezhnev and of Chairman of the Council of Ministers by Alexei Kosygin. Brezhnev and Kosygin, along with Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Kirilenko and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny), were elected to their respective offices to form and lead a functioning collective leadership.
One of the reasons for Khrushchev's ousting, as Suslov told him, was his violation of collective leadership. With Khrushchev's removal, collective leadership was again praised by the Soviet media as a return to "Leninist norms of Party life". At the plenum which ousted Khrushchev, the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the office of General Secretary and Premier simultaneously.
The leadership was usually referred to as the "Brezhnev–Kosygin" leadership, instead of the collective leadership, by First World medias. At first, there was no clear leader of the collective leadership, and Kosygin was the chief economic administrator, whereas Brezhnev was primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the party and internal affairs. Kosygin's position was later weakened when he introduced a reform in 1965 that attempted to decentralise the Soviet economy. The reform led to a backlash, with Kosygin losing supporters because many top officials took an increasingly anti-reformist stance due to the Prague Spring of 1968. As a result, after 1968 Brezhnev was ranked first in the Politburo hierarchy, followed by Podgorny, Kosygin, Suslov and Kirilenko as the top five-ranked members of Politburo.
As the years passed, Brezhnev was given more and more prominence, and by the 1970s he had even created a "Secretariat of the General Secretary" to strengthen his position within the Party. At the 25th Party Congress, Brezhnev was, according to an anonymous historian, praised in a way that exceeded the praise accorded to Khrushchev before his removal. Brezhnev was able to retain the Politburo's support by not introducing the same sweeping reform measures as seen during Khrushchev's rule. As noted by foreign officials, Brezhnev felt obliged to discuss unanticipated proposals with the Politburo before responding to them.
Later years As Brezhnev's health worsened during the late 1970s, the collective leadership became even more collective. Brezhnev's death did not alter the balance of power in any radical fashion, and Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were obliged by protocol to rule the country in the very same fashion as Brezhnev. When Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the position of General Secretary in March 1985, some observers wondered if he could be the leader to overcome the restraints of the collective leadership. Gorbachev's reform agenda had succeeded in altering the Soviet political system for good; however, this change made him some enemies. Many of Gorbachev's closest allies disagreed with him on what reforms were needed, or how radical they should be.
Analysis Soviet assessments According to Soviet literature, the Central Committee and not the Politburo was the heart of collective leadership at the national level. At a sub-national level, all Party and Government organs were to work together to ensure collective leadership instead of only the Central Committee. However, as with many other ideological theses, the definition of collective leadership was applied "flexibly to a variety of situations". Making Lenin the example of a ruler ruling in favour of a collective can be seen as proof of this "flexibility". In some Soviet ideological drafts, collective leadership can be compared to collegial leadership instead of a leadership of the collective. In accordance with a Soviet textbook, collective leadership was:
In contrast to fascism, which advocates one-man dominance, Leninism advocates inner-Party democratic collective leadership. Hence, the ideological justification of collective leadership in the Soviet Union was easy to justify. The physical insecurity of the political leadership under Stalin, and the political insecurity that existed during Khrushchev's reign, strengthened the political leadership's will to ensure a rule of the collective, and not that of the individual. Collective leadership was a value that was highly esteemed during Stalin and Khrushchev's reigns, but it was violated in practice.
Outside observers