Collective leadership in the Soviet Union
Collective leadership (Russian: коллективное руководство, kollektivnoye rukovodstvo), or collectivity of leadership (Russian: коллективность руководства, kollektivnost rukovodstva), 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.
According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov, Lenin “in general leaned towards a collegial leadership, with Trotsky in the first position”.
[3] 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)".
[6] 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.
[6] 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.
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.
This campaign culminated in 1964[11] 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.
[13] With Khrushchev's removal, collective leadership was again praised by the Soviet media as a return to "Leninist norms of Party life".
[14] At the plenum which ousted Khrushchev, the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the office of General Secretary and Premier simultaneously.
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.
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.
[14] 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.
[25] Dennis Ross, an American diplomat, believed the late Brezhnev-era leadership had evolved into a "rule by committee", pointing to several collective Politburo decisions as evidence.
[25] Grey Hodnett, another analyst, believed that "freer communication" and "access to relevant official information" during the Brezhnev Era had contributed to strengthening the Politburo's collective leadership.
[27] Robert Osborn wrote in 1974 that collective leadership did not necessarily mean that the Central Committee, Politburo and the Council of Ministers were political equals without a clear leading figure.
