A Preliminary Reexamination of the Origins of the Foreign Section of the CC CPSU, its Leadership and Malenkovs Role

A draft paper prepared

By

Dr. Seth J. Axelrod 1995

Not to be cited without the authors consent

1

Introduction The history and development of the Foreign Section (FS) of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPSU has remained something of a mystery to students of Soviet foreign policy and policy-making. According to the observations of several Western scholars, various anecdotal accounts and Soviet biographical evidence, it is commonly believed that a CC FS was established shortly following the May 1943 dissolution of the Comintern.1 Alexandre Chakovskiis historical novel about the Potsdam Conference, makes mention of leaders of an International Section participating in a 1943 study of postwar problems.1 A one time Comintern employee has also referred to a Foreign Department of the CC as existing in 1943-44.2 Gunther Nollaus research indicates that the Comintern Liquidation Commission was located within an International Department of the CC.3 Furthermore, the existence of such a section is suggested by the biographies of B.N. Ponomarev which identify him as deputy head of an unnamed CC section from 1944-1946.4 As a foreign affairs specialist, it is commonly assumed by several Western observers that Ponomarev would have been in a section related to foreign affairs.5 In spite of evidence indicating the post-Comintern existence of an FS, it nevertheless remains unclear as to whether such an apparatus existed prior to the Cominterns disbandment. Indeed, as demonstrated below, several emigre writers of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s have recounted that an FS did, in fact, exist prior to the Cominterns disbandment. Still further, it is unclear as to whether responsibilities for foreign Communist affairs also resided in a separate, pre-war, Politburo Commission for Foreign Affairs and, if so, what the relationship between the Politburo and the CC FS was. Fainsods information, for example, certainly indicates that both existed as of the late 1930s with the latter subordinate to the former.6

1Alexandr Chakovskii, "Pobeda," Znamya. No. 11, 1978. p. 16. Chakovskii's work gives the impression of having been compiled from official Soviet archives.

2Alfred Burmeister, Dissolution and Aftermath of the Comintern: Experiences and Observations, 1937-1947 (New York; Research Program on the USSR, 1955), p. 24.

3Gunther Nallau, International Communism and World Revolution: History and Methods (London: Hollis & Carter, 1961), pp. 207-08.

4Ponomarev biography in Sovetskaya istoricheskaya entsiklopediya, pp. 402-03 and the third edition of the Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya, p. 349.

5Taubman states that Ponomarev became a member of the Comintern's Executive Committee in 1936. William Taubman, Stalin's American Policy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982), p. 247. Teague and Kitrinos note that Ponomarev worked for the Executive Committee of the Comintern between 1937 and 1943. After the dissolution of the Comintern, they state that Ponomarev returned to the CC apparat and from 1944 to 1946 was a deputy head of a department of the CC and that this was almost certainly the International Department headed by Zhdanov. Teague, op cit, p. 8 and Robert W. Kitrinos, "International Department of the CPSU," Problems of Communism, Vol. XXXIII, September-October 1984, pp. 49 and 65. Hough observes that Ponomarev worked in the Comintern Executive Committee from 1935 to 1943 and thereafter was a deputy head of the "international information department" of the CC from 1944 to 1946. Hough, op cit, p. 169.

6Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled (Cambridge, MA: 1953), p. 282. 2

There is also some confusion surrounding the immediate postwar existence of the FS. It is known that a Politburo Commission on foreign policy affairs was formed in December 1945;7 however, with the exception of the vague Soviet biographical references of Ponomarev, there is little evidence in the Soviet historical literature or press of the time that would indicate that an FS continued to exist between the years 1945 and 1948.8 According to a later scholarly study by B.A. Abramov, a Foreign Relations Section of the CC was (re)created in 1948.9 Whether or not this section was a reorganized pre-1948 CC foreign policy section is not at all clear from Soviet sources. Nevertheless, this section, and its subsequent reorganizations, is commonly regarded as the immediate postwar origin of the later-day International Department (ID) of the USSR.10 An equally puzzling issue for Western scholars has been in identifying the leadership of the FS during its early stages of development. This, as Teague notes, is in part due to the fact that Stalins advisors seem to have held their positions more as individuals than as officers responsible for specific arenas.11 Nevertheless, conventional wisdom has it that Andrei Zhdanov held a leadership position in the Soviet pre-war, wartime, and postwar foreign policy-making apparatus. In fact, it has been argued by several Western authorities that Zhdanov most probably was the CC secretary responsible for Soviet relations with foreign Communist parties and the first head of the FS throughout the war and immediate postwar years.12 Other sources have similarly cited Dmitri Manuilskii or Georgi Dimitrov (both formerly of the Comintern leadership) as the first heads of the FS following the Cominterns disbandment.13 According to Hough, Georgi Malenkov seems to have filled the role of CC Secretary in charge of relations with foreign Communist parties after Zhdanovs death in August 1948.14 B.N. Ponomarev is then cited from the mid 1950s as the later-day head of the modern ID of the CC.15 Lastly, the FSs organizational structure and areas of responsibility has also remained somewhat obscure.16 More precisely, Western and migr analyses remain unclear as to whether the FS

7Istoriya kommunisticheskoi partii sovetskogo soyuza, vol. 5, bk.2, p. 63. 8Hough, op cit., p. 169. 9B.V. Abramov, "Organizatsionno-partiinaya rabota KPSS v godi chetvertoi pyatiletki," Voprosy

Istorii KPSS, No. 3, March 1979, p. 64. 10Abramov, op cit, p. 64; Hough, op cit, p. 169-70; Schapiro, op cit, p. 42; Werner Hahn, Postwar

Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1946-53 (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 205.

11Teague, op cit, p. 7. 12Mark Kramer, "The Role of the CPSU International Department in Soviet Foreign Relations and

National Security Policy," Soviet Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 1990, p. 429-30; G. Ra'anan, International Policy Formation in the USSR (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1983), p. 12; Hough, op cit., p. 168; Teague, op cit., p. 7; Kitrinos, op cit, p. 48.

13Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1962), p. 64; Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov with Jerrold and Leona Schechter, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster (Boston: Little Brown, 1994), pp. 232-33; Hough, op cit, p. 169;

14Hough, op cit, p. 168. 15Teague, op cit, pp. 11; Kitrinos, op cit, pp. 49 and 65; Hough, op cit, p. 171; Kramer, op cit, p.

430. 16Hough, op cit, p. 168-69; Schapiro, op cit, p. 42.

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was initially responsible to the Politburo or, alternatively, independent of the Politburo and responsible solely to Stalin. Fainsod, as cited above, argues the former; while several migr accounts, as discussed below, argue the latter. Furthermore, it is not certain whether the earliest FS conducted purely liaison and advisory functions; whether it had intelligence or espionage functions; whether it had cadre selection and other administrative responsibilities; or some combination of one or more of these responsibilities. Indeed, Schapiro, among others, notes that even in its later incarnation, in the mid 1950s, the FS was also much more, indicating its close association with Soviet intelligence and cadre organs.17 According to Western authorities a more or less clear division of labour regarding such responsibilities only seems to have emerged from the mid to late 1950s.18 In view of the numerous outstanding questions surrounding the FS, this study seeks to accomplish several tasks. First, it attempts to place the existence of the FS to before the Cominterns disbandment in 1943. In suggesting its pre-1943 existence, this study also attempts to associate the FS with a much larger apparatus: Stalins special sector. It will be observed that, in hypothesizing this initial organizational arrangement, the available reports of this Stalinist phenomena are marked by mutual disagreement as to the appropriate terminology to apply to it. Various reports of this institution have referred to it as Stalins techincal cabinet, personal chancellery, special sector, or secret department. Regardless of the terminology, the fact of its existence throughout the decades of Stalins rule remains a consistent element in migr accounts. Still further, and as described below, accounts of its extensive responsibilities, including foreign policy, are also consistent. While, as Rosenfeldt notes, this evidence does not on first consideration permit even the object of our investigation to be determined unequivocally,19 there is a sufficient basis upon which to forge a tentative hypothesis as to the pre-1943 existence of an FS within the special sector. Second, this study attempts to identify the FSs areas of responsibility and the process through which its duties came to be given definition. It is suggested that in its initial incarnation as part of the special sector, the FS existed as a somewhat amorphous body with multiple tasks. More precisely, the available evidence indicates that the FS emerged out of a system based on connections between and among the various organs of Soviet power such as the Soviet intelligence and security organs, cadres administrations and agitation and propaganda organs, all of which were ultimately responsible to Stalin and his special sector. It was only through a process of numerous reorganizations that an identifiable and specific CC FS was established. Third, this study also attempts to identify the leadership and/or coordinator of the FS and its activities during the pre-war, war and immediate postwar years. It is maintained herein that Malenkov headed the FS at the time of the Cominterns disbandment, if not earlier, and that he retained this responsibility until at least December 1945 or, at the latest, May 1946. Thereafter, Zhdanov assumed this responsibility until July/August 1948. In mid 1948 Malenkov, again, resumed authority over foreign Communists and retained this position until late 1952.

17Schapiro, op cit, p. 43; Schultz and Godson, op cit, pp. 22-25. 18Hough, op cit, p. 169-70; Schapiro, op cit, p. 42; Kramer, op cit, p. 430. 19Niels Erik Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power: The Role of Stalin's Secret Chancellery in the

Soviet System of Government (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Baggere, 1978), p. 17. 4

Although Soviet biographic sources published at a high point in Malenkovs career, early in 1954, contain no reference to his work in an international department (mezhdunarodnyi otdel), the Comintern, or any other foreign policy machinery,20 it will be demonstrated that Malenkov was a principal member of Stalins private secretariat. Through this initial association; the available evidence pertaining to the FS leadership; and a process of eliminating other possible candidates as leaders of the FS, Malenkovs responsibilities vis-a-vis foreign Communists can be discerned with some degree of certainty. It will be observed that, in the course of pursuing this analysis, there is no attempt made to associate Soviet factional conflict or international considerations with the development and leadership of the FS, except insofar as such considerations shed light upon the object of this study. It is, however, suggested that a reexamination of the FS, its organization and leadership, may lay the foundation for a reassessment of Soviet domestic conflict and Soviet foreign policy choices during the war and in its immediate aftermath. Methodology To accomplish the aforementioned tasks, this study relies heavily on the observations and recollections of several scholars, including former Comintern members and Russian migr writers and defectors, as well as on certain primary source documents. Due to the nature of the majority of evidence presented, there is an acknowledged risk that memoir materials and anecdotal evidence provide purely spurious accounts of the phenomena under consideration. There is, therefore, the issue of what is admissible and what is inadmissible as acceptable evidence. In this regard, careful attention is paid to the injunctions offered by Rosenfeldt. While it is possible that Soviet and migr accounts are misleading or fraudulent or, while genuine, have been misled by the fraudulent accounts of others, such accounts cannot be rejected out of hand. There is the likelihood that such accounts are partly based on authentic elements, i.e. elements which did not merely originate in the mind of the fraudulent writer. In this regard, Rosenfeldt notes that in the process of research ... a fraudulent work can serve as an important clue-source.21 Obviously, an analysis cannot be based solely on such works, but equally obviously, material containing an element of established genuineness cannot be ignored. Where the works that are used seem, on the whole, plausible, one nevertheless must be on the look-out for discrepancies, conscious or subconscious twisting of the truth, unstable evaluations and uncontrolled rumour spreading.22 In deciding which works are admissible this study, in part, builds on research which has already been conducted. More precisely, it takes as its starting point material which earlier research has deemed to be serious. Such material includes the works of Avtorkhanov, Antonov-Ovseyenko, Barmine, Khrushchev, Rudolf, Ruslanov and the more recent materials produced by Kaplan.23

20See Malenkov's biography in Bol'shaya sovietskaya entsiklopediya, 3rd ed. 21Rosenfeldt, op cit, pp. 18-19. 22Ibid., p. 19. 23For a summary of the treatment of these accounts and the reliability of emigre evidence see ibid,

pp. 18-29. 5

Other works by such authors as Leonhard, Medvedev, and Nicolaevsky, among others - persons who, in the words of Rosenfeldt, have been so far removed from the phenomena described that any first-hand knowledge can solely be in the form of a general understanding of Soviet conditions based on (ex) Soviet citizenship, government or Party service or temporary association with International Communism - are also employed. Apart from this general insight, the value of these latter writers lies in their connection (or probable connection) with well-informed sources not accessible to other historians.24 For practical reasons it has also, to a certain extent, been necessary to rely on the findings of others who have covered the subject under consideration. Thus, the work of such noted Western scholars as Robert Conquest, Merle Fainsod, Werner Hahn, Gavriel Raanan, Leonard Schapiro and Robert Tucker, among others, are also employed. These authorities have provided later researchers with valuable insights into the Stalinist system of government; its structure and organization; and its internal dynamics. Lastly, it will be observed that, with the exception of recent scholarly findings, Soviet archival information is noticeably excluded from this analysis: hence the title, A Preliminary Reexamination.... The findings set forth in this study are therefore tentative and should by no means be considered the final word on the matter. The Special Sector as a Precursor Several Western authorities have observed that prior to the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943, the CC did not have a specific department or section with policy-making or liaison responsibilities vis-a-vis foreign Communist parties. Teague, for example, writes that: In the period between the First and Second World Wars, the CPSUs relations with other CPs were maintained through the Third International or Comintern....2 In a similar vein, Hough has noted that: For the first twenty-five years of its existence, the Communist Party did not have

an international department with policy responsibilities. The institution that handled most Soviet relations with foreign Communist Parties until 1943 was the Communist International....25

Schapiro has likewise observed that it was only after the Comintern had been dissolved that the Central Committee acquired a foreign affairs department which it had hitherto lacked....26 These assertions, while perhaps technically correct, fail to account for a pre-existing administrative apparatus which did have, among other tasks, responsibilities pertaining to foreign Communist parties. More precisely, that an identifiable CC FS did not appear until 1943-44 seems plausible. However, that the Stalinist system of governance did have a pre-existing apparatus - variously referred to as the secret department/special sector/ Stalins private

24For the general treatment of this material see ibid and, in particular, p. 24. 25Hough, op cit., p. 167. 26Schapiro, op cit, p. 42.

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chancellory or secretariat - which did carry on functions thus far considered the sole purview of the Comintern also appears to be a strong possibility. Indeed, from the outset it may be considered a fiction to suppose that for the first quarter-century of its existence the CP CPSU did not have an instrument through which policy responsibilities were ensconced. Lenin was quite forthright when he disparagingly wrote of Western observers who were incapable of comprehending ... the present state of affairs, the real balance of power. Those elements, he continued: should be regarded as deaf mutes and treated accordingly .... First, to soothe the

fears of the deaf mutes, we must proclaim a separation ... of our government ... from the Party and Politburo and especially from the Comintern [emphasis added]. We must declare that the latter entities are independent political organizations merely tolerated on Soviet soil. Mark my words, the deaf mutes will swallow it.27

Herein resided the basis for the Stalinist system of government that would last until the immediate postwar years. A system that would maintain a public artifice of independent political organizations while simultaneously commingling these vary same structures within an apparatus directly accountable to Stalin. It was out of this Stalinist apparatus - with its vast responsibilities for intelligence gathering and oversight, security affairs, cadre checking, propaganda activities and relations with foreign Communist Parties - that an FS emerged and became an identifiable apparatus. In short, the story of a specific FS is to be found in the history of Stalins private secretariat. The extensive and well documented research of Rosenfeldt and Schapiro has revealed that during the early, pre-war, period of his rule, Stalin had created an immensely powerful chancellery composed of his own private secretaries, the secret department of the Central Committees Secretariat (the sekretnyi otdel and its powerful successor, after 1934, the osobyi sektor28) and the leaders of the secret police, of the formal party and state control agencies and of the Secretariats cadre department, to rule the USSR. According to several migr accounts from the 1920s, 1930s and, to a lesser extent, the 1940s this institution operated via channels that by-passed the official Party and State apparatus.29

27Cited in Branko Lazich and Milorad Drachkovitch, Lenin and the Comintern, Vol. 1 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1972), p. 549. For information regarding Soviet direction of the Comintern since its creation see: A. Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party (Munich: Institute for the Study of the USSR, 1959) pp. 145-51 and L. Trotsky, "Komintern i GPU," Byulleten' oppozitsii, No. 88, June 1941, pp. 4-15.

28On the transition of the sekretnyi otdel to the osobyi sektor in 1934 see: Niels Erik Rosenfeldt, "The Origins and Development of Stalin's Secret Chancellery," Russian History/Histoire Russe, Vol. 9, Pts. 2-3, 1982, pp. 317-19.

29Rosenfeldt has analyzed this institution in great detail in his Knowledge and Power. Also see: Leonard Schapiro, "The General Department of the CC of the CPSU," Survey, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1975, pp. 53-66 and Rosenfeldt's "The Origins and Development," pp. 308-24. The analysis

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Dmitrievsky, an ex-Soviet diplomat writing of the 1920s, has stated that this secretariat/special sector had a far greater role in decision-making than official government leaders and that this, in consequence, gave those acting on its behalf authority over, e.g., officials in the administration.30 Barmine, another former Soviet official and migr writing of the 1920s and 1930s, has similarly stated that reports, advice and views of the private secretariat carried far greater weight than the evaluations which stemmed from members of the Council of Peoples Commissars.31 Avtorkhanov, a former official of the Soviet Communist Party, also notes of this period that all political questions, whether internal or foreign, were investigated and decided, in practice before they were passed on to the official administrative departments of the CC and the competent Party organs. The conclusion reached by Avtorkhanov is unequivocable: The internal and foreign policy of the Soviet Union was, in reality, directed by Stalins technical cabinet ... [who were] ... little known to the Party and to the country at large.32 The responsibilities of this special sector are said to have been wide and varied. Ruslanov has stated that: Through the Special Sector Stalin directed the foreign Communist parties,

received all reports on the work of the military and political intelligence services abroad, gave directives to ambassadors, guided the fifth columns and issued instructions to them such as those on the assassination of Trotsky, the kidnapping of General Kutepov, atomic espionage, and so on .... The activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the foreign department of the M.G.B., the military intelligence and the Cominform were coordinated in the Special Sector.33

Ruslanov further notes that the nomination of top posts in the Party and State administration went through the special sector: ministers, civil servants, security officers, ambassadors etc.34 Given the wide variety of tasks involved, the special sector appears to have been divided into various sections or areas of responsibility:35 foreign affairs was among such areas. Indeed, several migr sources of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, among them Avtorkhanov and Barmine, have identified foreign policy and International Communism as falling within the direct purview of Stalins special sector.36 Ruslanov, for example, notes that the CC did not have a foreign department and that control of foreign policy was placed directly in the special sector.37 In a

presented here draws on Rosenfeldt's work and re-examines many of the sources Rosenfeldt made use of.

30S. Dmitraevsky, Sovetskie portrety (Stockholm, 1932), p. 108-109; Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power, p. 36.

31Barmine, One Who Survived: The Life Story of a Russia Under the Soviets (New York: Putnam, 1945), pp. 260-62; Rosenfeldt, op cit, p. 36.

32Avtorkhanov, pp. 103-109; Rosenfeldt, op cit, p. 37. 33P. Ruslanov, "Voskhozhdenie Malenkova," Sotsialistichechii Vestnik. No. 7-8, 1953. pp. 128-29. 34Ibid. 35Avtorkhanov, op cit, pp. 103-04. 36Ibid; Barmine, op cit. pp. 261-62. 37Ruslanov, op cit, pp. 127-31. Hough has argued that Ruslanov "confused" the special sector with

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similar vein, Tucker has concluded that it [the special sector] had a foreign section through which Stalin conducted Soviet foreign policy.38 However, other accounts indicate that the CC did, in fact, have a pre-war foreign section. Fainsod, for example, reports - and accepts - the testimony of one highly placed informant familiar with the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs under Litvinov in the late 1930s... that: The Politburo would also be supplied with background memoranda prepared by

the Foreign Section of the Central Secretariat, which had at its disposal sources of intelligence that were not necessarily available to the Foreign Affairs Commissariat.39

Fainsods assertion is, to some extent, supported by Barmine and Louis Fischer who note the existence of a foreign section of the CC prior to 1943. Barmine recalls having telephoned someone in the foreign bureau of the CC in January 1937.40 Fischer mentions the existence of a CC bureau, run by Karl Radek, that supplied Stalin with information on the international situation.41 This would place the existence of the FS to at least before January 1937 (if not earlier), at which time Radek was on trial.42 Hahns research of various CC reorganizations notes that during the Second World War a CC section for foreign policy was established, perhaps in connection with the 1943 dissolution of the Comintern;43 however, he allows for the possibility that it had already existed secretly [emphasis added] by 1939: the time of the last,

a Politburo foreign policy commission established in December 1945 and headed by Malenkov. This is unlikely in view of the evidence provided in this text. Hough, op cit, p. 170 note 9.

38Robert Tucker, The Soviet Political Mind, rev ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972), p. 182.

39Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, p. 282. 40Barmine, op cit, p. 309. 41Louis Fischer, Men and Politics: An Autobiography (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941),

p. 434. 42Radek's leadership of a pre-1937 FS is uncertain. It is known that as early as December 1917

Radek was to be part of delegation "to undertake preliminary steps for the convocation of an international conference consisting..." of representatives of left-wing and Communist parties. Avtorkhanov, op cit, pp. 145-46. It is also known that Radek was a member of the ECCI at the Second Comintern meeting in Petrograd. Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (London: Sceptre, 1991), p. 86. Radek was considered an expert on current and, specifically, German affairs in both the Comintern and the USSR as a whole. See: Arkady Vaksberg, trans by Jan Butler, The Prosecutor and the Prey: Vyshinsky and the 1930s Moscow Show Trials (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990) p. 77; John Dziak, Chekisty: A History of the KGB (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), pp. 183-84; V.I. Kaplan, Vazhneishie sobytiya mezhdunarodnoi zhizni i deyatel'nost' instituta mirovogo khozyaistva i politiki (Moscow: 1991), pp. 15 and 20-24. If Radek was, in fact, head of a foreign section he most likely held this position prior to the 1934 "Congress of Victors" at which point Radek, among others, were admitting past errors. Indeed, as later discussed in the text, it is quite possible that Manuilskii had acquired such responsibilities in 1928 when he was appointed by Stalin (through his special sector) to supervise Bukharin's work in the Comintern.

43Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics, p. 201. 9

pre-war, CC reorganization.44 In view of Fainsods information regarding a pre-1943 CC FS, Hahns suggestion of its secret, pre-war, existence, and several migr accounts indicating its association with the special sector, what conclusions may be drawn? More precisely, can these reports be reconciled? To answer this question several caveats should be observed. First, no Party Congresses were called between 1939 and 1952. Central Committee meetings were also far and few between. Even Politburo gatherings were the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, Several authorities speak of the CC and Politburos eclipse in the pre-war years.45 Barmine, who was acquainted with the Politburos workings during the early 1930s, has written: A thin appearance of collective work is still kept up at Politburo meetings. Stalin

does not command, he merely suggests or proposes. The fiction of voting is retained. But the vote never fails to uphold his suggestions. The decision is signed by all ten members of the Politburo, with Stalins signature among the rest. Yet everyone knows that there is only one boss. The phrases used, the forms of address, follow traditional Party terminology; but behind them all Comrade Stalins word is law .... Stalin not only is generally called the Boss by the whole bureaucracy, but is the one and only boss.46

If these accounts are accepted as reflecting the real political situation in the pre-war years, then Stalin must have ruled via an organization which he himself controlled. Most likely this organ was the special sector. Second, many of those working within Stalins special sector operated through the offices of the CC, though not having membership in it. Indeed, their authority was supposedly greater than that of persons with membership in the Party or State organs: hence reference to little known, but much feared, men - Stalins technical assistants - operating throughout the State and Party organs. Avtorkhanov, for example, remarks that during the 1930s

... members of the Central Committee licked the boots of Yezhov and Malenkov, in spite of the fact that the persons who wielded such authority and their colleagues [in the special sector] were listed merely as technical employees of the Central Committee.47

These experts or specialists within the special sector were associated with the normal power structure via the official title assistant to a CC Secretary (pomoshchniki sekretarya TsK)48 or by

44Ibid, p. 200. 45Robert Tucker, "Autocrats and Oligarchs," in Ivo Lederer, ed., Russian Foreign Policy (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 184 and Robert Slusser, "Role of the Foreign Ministry," in ibid, pp. 232-35; Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 104.

46Barmine, op cit, p. 213. 47Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 105. 48Barmine, op cit, pp. 260-62; Dmitrievsky, op cit, pp. 108-10; Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 103;

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their association with responsible work within the CC apparatus.49 According to Rosenfeldt: It was presumably these assistants who together made up the personal

secretariat of the General Secretary ... [and] In their capacity as assistants, they presumably came under the heading of the Secretariat bureau.50

Given this information, and the various accounts indicating special sector involvement in foreign affairs, it seems plausible to suggest that prior to the Cominterns disbandment in 1943 the CC FS referred to in various emigre accounts was, in reality, a part of the special sector, and operated through the offices of the CC without actually having de jure responsibility for foreign affairs. These caveats would account for this pre-1943 FS reportedly having sources of intelligence at its disposal that were otherwise unavailable to the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs or, as Fainsod appears to suggest, to the Politburo. Indeed, various emigre information pertaining to the special sector tends to support this hypothesis. Barmine mentions that one special sector function was to maintain contact with the GPU which was engaged in intelligence work.51 Avtorkhanov states that the special sector seemingly represented a nationwide communications network tied to the GPU.52 Still further, he asserts that in practice the control organs in the Army (osobye otdely and politotdely), and the secret political sections of the NKVD (sekretno-politicheskie otdely) were directly subordinate to the special sector.53 Similarly, Andreevich takes note that another task of the special sector was to maintain connections with the Secret Police.54 He further observes that the special sector compiled a national intelligence estimate on the basis of all incoming information.55 Ruslanov tells that through Poskrebyshev (Stalins private secretary) was received all reports from the political organs in the Army and Navy, from the military counter-espionage and from the various special departments in the State administration. All such secret information was then used for compiling an analyses on the current situation for Stalin. In this way Stalin obtained an overall picture of all internal life of the nation.56 Likewise, Orlov recounts the existence of a so-called Little Council, which reportedly evaluated all incoming intelligence data for the Politburo.57 Several Western authorities concur that the secret police were heavily involved in foreign affairs

Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power, pp. 37-38. 49Wolfgang Leonhard, Soviet Union After Stalin, english ed. (1954), p. 54; Schapiro, "The

General Department of the CP of the CPSU," pp. 58-9; and William O. McCagg, Jr. Stalin Embattled, 1943-1948 (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1978), p. 385 note 32.

50Rosenfeldt, "The Origins and Development," p. 313. 51Barmine, op cit, pp. 260-62. 52Avtorkhanov, op cit, pp. 104-107; A. Avtorkhanov, Proiskhozhdenie partokratii, vol. II

(Frankfurt am main: 1974), pp. 417-18, 422-24. 53A. Avtorkhanov, Zagadka smerti Stalin (Frankfurt am Main, 1976), p. 29-33; Rosenfeldt,

Knowledge and Power, p. 69. 54E.A. Andreevich, "Structure and Functions of the Soviet Secret Police," in Simon Wolin and

Robert Slusser, eds., The Soviet Secret Police (London: Methuen & Co., 1957), p. 102. 55Ibid, pp. 107-108; Rosenfeldt, op cit, p. 65. 56Ruslanov, op cit, pp. 128-29; Rosenfeldt, op cit. p. 64. 57Alexsandr Orlov, Handbook of Intelligence and Guerilla Warfare (Ann Arbor, MI: University of

Michigan Press, 1963), p. 187. 11

from the 1930s to the immediate postwar years and that, at a minimum, the special sector was in close contact with the security and intelligence agencies.58 Slusser notes that during the 1930s secret police control over the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs had substantially grown.59 Similarly, Knight observes that the political police had, through its Foreign Department, long been involved in intelligence gathering and espionage aboard.60 Knight further notes that there is little doubt ... the CC Special Department had close contact with the security police, but suggests that some police related functions have been incorrectly attributed to this body.61 Likewise, Schapiro concludes that the regular duties of the Party Special Sector must have brought it into close contact with the State Security police; however, he too, limits this association.62 The picture thus far presented suggests that, at a maximum, the special sector was a decision-making body, with its views and recommendations having greater weight than those of the State and Party apparatus. At a minimum, the special sector acted as a central coordinator and/or distributor of all incoming intelligence and, possibly, as an analytical and advisory body for the Politburo. As regards the foreign section, in particular, the emigre accounts tends to support the suggestion that a foreign section existed prior to 1943, and that this section apparently functioned as part of the much larger special sector, and quite possibly operated through the offices of the CC in secret. Still further, given the descriptions provided by emigre accounts of both the special sector and the FS - to whit, that the special sector gathered in its hands all intelligence, and that the FS had intelligence available to itself that was otherwise not available to other State and Party organs - one is tempted to hypothesize that the special sector and the FS were co-terminus, at least when issues of foreign affairs were being addressed in the special sector. As further discussed below, Malenkovs association with both the special sector and the FS make this an intuitively appealing hypothesis; however, it remains to be determined by future research. Regardless of the organizational arrangements, the FS was apparently subsumed within this apparatus. Functions of the FS: Pre-1943 Although its pre-1943 existence seems highly plausible, there is little information available regarding the FSs functions and areas of responsibility. According to the descriptions of later incarnations of the ID from the late 1950s onward, it conducted a variety of tasks, not least of which was liaison activities with various foreign Communist parties. Other activities included decision-making responsibilities, political warfare or active measures (covert activities), and propaganda and research functions.3

58See, in particular, Rosenfeldt's treatment of this subject in Knowledge and Power, pp. 68-94. 59Slusser "Role of the Foreign Ministry," pp. 233-36. 60Amy Knight, The KGB, Police and Politics in the Soviet Union (Boston: Uniwin Hyman, 1988),

p. 100. 61Ibid, p. 100. 62Schapiro, "The General Department," pp. 55-56.

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As far as can be ascertained from the evidence that is available, the functions that fell within the purview of the pre-1943 FS were strikingly similar to those of its later manifestations: (1) liaison and political direction; (2) propaganda and agitation responsibilities; and (3) intelligence gathering and espionage activities. Significantly, not only do these tasks correspond with later ID responsibilities, they can be traced directly to Stalins special sector. This linkage further serves to support the hypothesis that the origin of the FS was the special sector. The proceeding sections of this study briefly examine each of the aforementioned activities of the pre-1943 FS/special sector. In this way the foundation is laid for a further examination of the FSs development, and a lineage of the section can be established. Liaison and Political Leadership From Lenins 21 Conditions - which set the requirements for the acceptance and continued membership of foreign parties in the Comintern - to the Cominterns disbandment, foreign Communist parties were in practice reduced to the role of sections of the CC of the Russian (and later Soviet) Communist Party. Avtorkhanov states: The Soviet Communist Party was not a section of the Comintern, but the

Comintern was a section of the Soviet Communist Party, or more specifically, of the International Department of the Soviet Party Central Committee.4

In Lenins time, however, foreign Communist parties did enjoy some degree of formal autonomy. Under Stalin this type of autonomy became fictitious. Stalin joined the Comintern Presidium in 1925, after Lenins death.63 From this point, Stalin had succeeded - through his subordinates in the special sector - first, to circumvent, and later, to establish his complete control of Comintern direction within his hands. Between 1925 and 1929 Stalin had successfully purged numerous Comintern officials. Indeed, by late 1928 Bukharin, who had been Secretary of the Political Secretariat of the Comintern, was put under the supervision of Manuilskii. At the same time tighter control over the USSR delegation in the Comintern was entrusted to Molotov. Bukharin, although not officially removed from the delegation, was forbidden all contact with other delegations and sections of the Comintern.64 Stalins tactics at the time were fully revealed by Bukharin who had prepared a statement to present to the January 1929 CC plenary session. In this statement Bukharin charged that the CPSU had ceased to be ruled by the Party statues: to whit, rule by the CC, Orgburo and Politburo and by Congresses, Conferences and plenary meetings of the CC. In the Party, Bukharin observed, there are no longer elected secretaries, but there are Party bureaucrats appointed by and removable by Stalins apparatus [emphasis added]. The aim was, according to Bukharin, to create a party within a Party, or a picked set of secretaries. This practice applied to the Party and State apparatus alike, and, where such rule by cadre selection could not be fully accomplished, Stalin resorted to a calculated method of organizational encirclement. More precisely, he resorted to the appointment of political commissars as, for example, mentioned

63Ibid., p. 147. 64Ibid., p. 92.

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above with the appointment of Molotov and Manuilskii to the Comintern. In fact, these latter two appointments were made, not by a decision of the Party acting through a plenum of the CC, the Politburo or Orgburo, but by a decision of Stalins cabinet [emphasis added] which was, in turn, ratified pro forma at a meeting of the Secretariat of the CC.65 Furthermore, this policy of bureaucratization and cadre selection was conducted throughout the Comintern apparatus: from its rank and file workers to its top leadership. Thus, Bukharin argued, it was no longer the case that such Comintern workers were selected along the Leninist principle of promoting professional revolutionaries, but on the Stalinist principle of picking hired functionaries. Devoted Comintern personnel were being expelled from fraternal parties if they showed the slightest sign of independence of judgement or in work. The means, as so often employed by Stalin and his assistants, was to openly brand such persons oppositionists, compromisers, turncoats, etc. Their expulsion from the Comintern and their own national party was carried out at Moscows behest.66 Eventually, Bukharin himself was removed from the post of Political Secretary of the Comintern and ousted from the apparatus by mid 1929.67 As foreign delegations acclimatized to their strict subornation to the USSR, any objection to Stalins method disappeared. By the early 1930s, the Stalinization of the Comintern was reasonably complete.68 Between the early 1930s and the outbreak of the Second World War official political and liaison functions appear to have been conducted by hand picked Soviet functionaries and those foreign Communist leaders who were fortunate enough to have survived the purges of the mid 1930s. Included among the former group was Manuilskii, who was to become secretary-general of the Comintern; the latter group included Georgi Dmitrov of Bulgaria and Tito of Yugoslavia, both close associates of Manuilskii and Andrei Zhdanov.69 Zhdanov himself was appointed a member of the Cominterns Executive Committee at the organizations seventh congress in 1935.70 According to Fainsods information, Zhdanov was later made responsible for Comintern affairs within a Politburo Foreign Affairs Committee during the late 1930s.71 This was most likely after the Eighteenth Congress of the VKP(b) in March 1939, at which time Zhdanov was made a full member of the Politburo.72 This committee was likely to have had de jura or formal authority over Comintern affairs, while a foreign section of the special sector maintained de facto authority. As previously observed, by the late 1930s the Politburo was in eclipse, but apparently

65Cited in Ibid, pp. 117-18. 66Ibid, p. 118. 67Ibid, p. 150. 68Robert Conquest, Stalin: Breaker of Nations (New York: Penguin, 1991), pp. 171-72; Alex

Nove, Stalinism and After (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), pp. 38-39. 69Ra'anan, International Policy Formation in the USSR, pp. 42-43 and 101 note. The establishment

and analysis of a Zhdanov-Tito-Dimitrov connection comprises a sizeable segment of Ra'anan's study.

70Martin Ebon, Malenkov, Stalin's Successor (New York: MaGraw-Hill Books, 1953), p. 47. 71Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, p. 282. 72Jonathan Harris, "The Origins of the Conflict between Malenkov and Zhdanov: 1939-1941,"

Slavic Review, No. 2, 1976, pp. 292 and 293. 14

still receiving information from a foreign section. (The distribution of such information, as demonstrated in the following section, was tightly controlled by Stalins special sector, and strengthens the suggestion that the Politburo was substantially weakened as a decision-making body). It seems plausible that the Politburo most likely ratified pro forma decisions made in Stalins special sector.73 With the onset of the Soviet-German War in June 1941, the formal liaison and political functions of the Politburo commission, along with all other Politburo activities, were apparently suspended with the creation of the State Defence Committee (Gosudarstvennyi komitet oborony or GKO). The scope of the GKOs authority included the mobilization of all human, material and other resources of the state for the security needs of the war and the leadership of all forms of conflict in war, including ideological, economic, and diplomatic struggle.74 According to Yu. P.

73This latter point does not, however, preclude the fact that conflict over foreign policy did emerge within the Soviet leadership. By way of illustration, one can take note of Zhdanov's preference for the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In a key article appearing in Pravda attacking British and French plans, Zhdanov stated:

I permit myself to express a personal opinion ... although my friends do not share it. They still think that in beginning negotiations on a pact of mutual assistance with the USSR, the English and French Governments had serious intentions of creating as powerful barrier against aggression in Europe. I believe ... that the English and French Governments have no wish for a treaty of equality with the USSR, but only [for] talks about a treaty in order to play upon public opinion in their countries about the supposedly unyielding attitude of the USSR and thus to make it easier for themselves to make a deal with the aggressors.

A.A. Zhdanov, Pravda, June 29, 1939. As a member of the Politburo, the terms Zhdanov used - "my friends do not share" my

opinion - were so unusual as to give rise to the belief that two alternative lines of policy were causing conflict. Indeed, Zhdanov's appointment as chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Foreign Affairs Committee in 1938 has been viewed by one scholar as a direct challenge to the more cosmopolitan and Anglophile domain of Litvinov's Narkomindel. Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39 (London: Macmillan Press, 1984), pp. 122, 131-32, 155-56, 158. For Zhdanov's appointment to the committee see: Harrison Salisbury, The 900 Days: The seige of Leningrad (New York: Avon Books, 1970), p. 163; George K. Schuller, The Politburo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press - Hoover Institution Studies, Series B: Elite Studies No. 2, August 1951), p. 68. Not much is known of the activities of this committee except that it was legislative body which most likely had little substantive importance. Amy Knight merely notes that membership in the committee was "prestigious." Amy Knight, Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1993), p. 86.

Similarly, another scholar suggests that it is also quite possible that those "friends," to whom Zhdanov referred in June of 1939, who advocated a deal with Britain and France, may have included Malenkov. Ra'anan, op cit, p. 15. Curiously, Khrushchev took particular note of the fact that of the Soviet political leaders invited to Stalin's dacha on the day of the signing of the German-Soviet Treaty Malenkov was noticeably absent. Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (Boston: Little Brown, 1990), p. 53.

Regardless of the fact of foreign policy conflict within the Soviet leadership, the scholar is almost always left to contend with Stalin's predilections and personal whims. On this point see: Tucker, "Autocrats and Oligarchs," pp. 186-87.

74Cited in Daniel McIntosh, "Soviet Wartime Decision Making and Control" in Jonathan R. Adelman and Cristann Lea Gibson, eds, Contemporary Soviet Military Affairs: The Legacy of

15

Petrov, a leading historian on party-military relations during the war and a coeditor of the official party history of the period, the GKO united in itself party leadership and soviet executive power and therefore could not help but introduce changes in the existing peacetime system of activities of the appropriate soviet and also party organs. The committee was allotted certain party rights and often had party secretaries as its plenipotentiaries.75 As a result of this wartime change in the Soviet system of governance it is unclear as to what organ Soviet political and liason functions vis-a-vis foreign Communists devolved. It is possible that such functions were subsumed within the GKO. However, it is equally, if not more, plausible that these responsibilities reverted directly to the special sectors foreign section which, as noted above, acted as Stalins secret and de facto foreign affairs mechanism. Slusser argues that After the formation of the wartime coalition, [even] the role of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs ... dropped to a level of secondary importance as Stalin assumed immediate responsibility for the conduct of Russias foreign policy.76 Once again, Stalin must have ruled through an apparatus he, himself, controlled. This apparatus was most likely the special sector and its foreign policy organ, the foreign section. This is consistent with Ruslanovs assertions, cited earlier, and, to a very limited extent, with Schapiros information. The latter source informs us that, at least on the Union Republic level, the special sector continued to function during the war.77 In either case, Malenkov was, as later demonstrated, the dominant authority at the time of the outbreak of the war and retained this position most probably until December 1945, when the Soviet Union returned to Politburo rule and strict adherence to Party statues. Propaganda and Research A second area pertaining to foreign Communist affairs and, subsequently under special sector/FS guidance appears to have been propaganda and research activities. This connection is suggested by several sources. In particular, it is indicated by information pertaining to the Press Bureau (and, later the Press Department of the CC), the Smolensk archives, and the famed Soviet economist Evegeni Varga and his Institute for World Economy and World Politics. Avtorkhanov, who had first hand experience of the Press Bureau/Department from the early to late 1930s, cites its functions as three-fold: (1) to issue guiding directives to the entire Party and Soviet Press; (2) to control the press; and (3) to act as a research laboratory for working out new types, methods, and modes of operation for press propaganda. To accomplish these tasks, it worked through sectors of the Party press, Soviet press, ministerial press, and a sector for

World War II (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 122. 75Cited in Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics, p. 36 note 42. 76Slusser, "Role of the Foreign Ministry," pp. 232-33. 77Schapiro, "The General Department," p. 55.

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publication.78 Each sector reportedly had at its disposal, in addition to its permanent staff of reporters, a large number of expert consultants drawn from various central institutions and organizations such as the Communist Academy, the Institute of Red Professors, the editorial boards of the central press organs, the State publishing house, the War Department, the Nationality Council of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the Press Department of the Commissariat (and later Ministry) of Foreign Affairs, the Comintern, and so on.79 Avtorkhanov further relates that within the Press Department, the foreign sector had three functions, (1) censorship, (2) information, and (3) research.80 As for the first, censorship, this was equated to a strict monopoly in ideas whether expressed in newspapers, journals, or books. Not a single work, foreign or otherwise, could be imported or exported without the knowledge of this section. This, however, was not its main task, even though the practice was strictly adhered to. The primary aim of the idea monopoly was to prevent the smuggling of ideas from outside into Soviet publications, as required by Stalins letter. The foreign press sector saw to it that Glavlit (the main censorship department) received up-to-date instructions regarding translations from other languages, as well as on the use of foreign sources by the Soviet press. Equally strict instructions were worked out for TASS on the extent to which the Soviet press could use information provided by foreign agents and its own foreign correspondents. These instructions were revised in accordance with changes in the foreign policy of the USSR concerning any particular State, Party or person.81 The functions of the foreign press sector, as a provider of information or misinformation, consisted in acting as a masked part of Soviet camouflaged propaganda diversionism, such as probing the enemy in order to find a sympathizer, or reconnaissance within the camp to subvert the enemy by misinforming world public opinion in regard to the Soviet Union.82 As for its research functions, the press sector dealt purely with reconnaissance for purposes of military, economic and political espionage. Large and well staffed research groups to analyze and classify the world press were attached to the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute and, in particular, to Vargas Institute of World Politics and World Economy. These groups had access to newspapers and journals of all countries and in all languages. Once a month they supplied the press sector with carefully analyzed data culled from the foreign press and divided into the three types of material - military, economic and political - mentioned above. The press sector gave these analytical statements a secret classification and distributed them as bulletins among the relevant departments.83 These bulletins were most likely the Byulleten zagranichnoi pechati (presumably containing excerpts from the foreign press) and

78Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, pp. 174-75 and 176-77. 79Ibid., p. 177. 80Ibid., p. 178. 81Ibid. 82Ibid., p. 178. 83Ibid.

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O sektsiiakh Kominterna (about the situation in the Communist parties abroad).84 The Smolensk archives tell us that all significant Party and State matters were classified as secret or top secret, so that they automatically came under the wing of the special sector. In this way Stalin was not only assured of keeping abreast of all sensitive areas of the Party and State administration, but also was able to ensure that no one was given more information than their work directly entitled them to receive and, conversely, that Stalin and his special advisors were much better informed and had far greater freedom of action than all other administrators and decision-makers within the Soviet system.85 Thus, for example, the foreign section having greater information at its disposal than was otherwise unavailable to the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs or, as Fainsod suggests, to the Politburo. Such information control further substantiates the hypothesis that the Politburo was in eclipse as a decision-making body. Information pertaining to Varga further informs us that the special sector was not merely responsible for the classification, communication, and security of Press Bureau/Department output, but was directly responsible for the analysis itself as it directly related to foreign communist affairs. Varga is said by Avtorkhanov to have been a member of Stalins private secretariat and a one time head of the foreign section.86 This would place Varga in the same apparatus as Malenkov who, as identified below, was a key figure in the private secretariat. Ebon, a Malenkov biographer, has found that Varga is a Malenkov man.87 Similarly, Nicolaevsky has cited Varga as an economic advisor to Malenkov.88 Deutscher, unsourced, simply describes Varga as Stalins economic advisor.89 As noted above, Varga was the director of the Institute of World Politics and World Economy. In this capacity Varga controlled a worldwide network of correspondents who collected and issued information. All ideological material from abroad and all the ideological output for foreign consumption (especially to other Communist parties) would thus have been channelled through Vargaa organization.90 Varga is also said to have acted as editor of the Comintern Yearbook. Ebon notes that Varga was the Communist Internationals top economist.91 The Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern merely identifies Vargas long history in this organization, but without elucidating his work for it.92 The most detailed account of Vargas relationship with the Comintern comes from Kaplan, a

84Rosenfeldt, "The Origins and Development," p. 321; Merle Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (New York: Vantage Books, 1958), 79.

85Rosenfeldt at ibid, p. 320. 86Avtorkhanov, op cit, pp. 103-04. 87Ebon, op cit, p. 61. 88Boris Nicolaevsky, "Malenkov: His Rise and His Policy." New Leader, Vol. 36, no. 12, 1953.

p. 4. 89Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 501. 90Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power, p. 152. 91Ebon, op cit, p. 61. 92Branko Lazitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern (Stanford, California: Hoover

Institution Press, 1973), pp. 424-25. 18

veteran of Vargas Institute of World Economy and World Politics, who notes that Varga not only combined leadership of his institute with work for the Comintern, but also with work for Stalin personally; thereby suggesting work outside of a formal apparatus.93 Kaplans account further substantiates Vargas and his institutes special information and propaganda role. Kaplan relates that in 1931 the CC took a special decision concerning the work of Vargas institute which, though citing its past accomplishments, directed it to address further the following questions: 1) General problems of imperialism and the world economic crisis. 2) The condition and problems of the working class and the working class movement in the capitalist countries. 3) The theory and practice of social-fascism and fascism. 4) International imperialist contradictions and the preparation for war and intervention. 5) Colonial problems and colonial revolutions. 6) Agrarian relations and agrarian problems in the capitalist countries. 7) World industry and measures for the USSR concerning the acquisition of progressive methods of capitalist technology. 8) The international market and the foreign trade of the USSR. In addition to the fulfillment of these numerous research tasks the institute was also directed to provide continuous information to the highest state and Party organs concerning important world processes; to assist in propaganda work; and to train qualified cadres for research.94 This CC decision, notes Kaplan, radically reorganized the activities of IMKHiMP, and transformed it from a semi-autonomous status into the class of a large industrial enterprise.95 Along with this vast increase in responsibility, the institute was also directed to create several sectors including: an industry sector, a sector for the workers movement and research and information sectors. These sectors not only served employees of the institute, but also gave high-quality information to the political, state and economic organs which were conducting foreign economic and political activities.96 During the war Varga and his institute continued their information and propaganda functions. Varga was appointment as an assistant to a bureau for military-political propaganda by a Politburo postenovlenie dated 25 July 1941.97 Vargas activities at this time pertained to anti-fascist propaganda. Likewise, this was the primary focus of his institute for the first two years of the war. Thereafter, the institute focused on the prospects for postwar development: a subject which, according to Kaplan, was of great interest to the leadership of the Party and state.98 Kaplan further informs us that Varga and his institute continued to provide important policy

93Kaplan, Vazhneishie sobytiya mezhdunarodnoi zhizni., pp. 28-35, 48, 63-67, 97-98 and 121. 94Ibid, pp. 64-65. 95Ibid., p. 65. 96Ibid. 97Izvestia TsK 1990, no. 6, p. 204. 98Kaplan, op cit, p. 121.

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papers throughout the war and immediate postwar years.99 In fact, Kaplan notes that in 1944-45 the authority of IMKhiMP and its director was, in the eyes of the General Secretary, very high.100 It is probable that Vargas work and that of his institute were under the direction of the Stalins special sector and FS during the war. (Evidence of this is discussed below.) Regardless, Malenkov appears to have had responsibility in this sphere as well. During the war Soviet journals were officially described as attached to the Central Committee as a whole (of which Malenkov was in firm control as first secretary), and not the Agitprop (Zhdanovs domain).101 This corresponds with Hahns research of the the wartime reorganization of the CC in which Agitprop is described as largely responsible for propagnda groups, artistic literature, cinematography, radiobroadcasting and radiofication, and art.102 Indeed, as early as the 1939 reorganization of the Central Committee, cadres of the press organs and publishing houses were under the supervision of Malenkovs Cadre Adminstration.103 Medvedev and Kaplan also report that Malenkov was responsible for the hiring and firing of journal editors and, hence, the content of the journals.104 This is not to suggest that the FS operated under the auspices of the Cadres Adminstration (a Malenkov domain between 1939 and 1946), although this possibility cannot be precluded.105 Rather, it appears that certain propaganda functions as they related to foreign Communist affairs - though organizationally within the Cadres Adminstration - were orchestrated by the foreign section/special sector.

99Ibid, Chapter 7 and 8. See also the recent study by Scott D. Parrish, "The Turn Toward Confrontation: The Soviet Reaction to the Marshall Plan, 1947," in New Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan, 1947: Two Reports, The Cold War History Project, Working Paper No. 9. (The Woodrow Wilson Center, 1994), pp. 16-19. Parrish's research is based on new evidence from the Russian archives.

100Ibid, p. 142. Varga's stature was such that he accompanied Stalin to the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, presumably to discuss German reparations. Varga's involvement in the German reparations issue is discussed further in the text. Ibid.

In view of Kaplan's memoirs, it is significant to note that Kennan regarded Varga "as a responsible mouthpiece of thought for influential communist party circles. Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. VI, 1946, p. 684.

101Some evidence that the activities of Agitprop were limited at this time can be found in the CC journal Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, no.19, 1945, pp. 44-45.

102Hahn, op cit, p. 200. Hahn cites Istoriya kommunisticheskoi partii sovetskogo soyuza, vol. 5, bk. I, p. 405 for the wartime reorganization of Agitprop.

103Ibid, p. 199. 104Roy Medvedev, All Stalin's Men (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), p. 150. Kaplan notes that

toward the end of the war Malenkov appointed one of his "pomoshchnik" as deputy director of Varga's institute. Kaplan, op cit, p. 147.

105From the 1939 CC reorganization to 1946, almost all CC sections (otdely) were abolished or placed within one of the two "adminstrations" (upravleniya), Cadres and Propaganda. Hahn's research of the 1939 and wartime CC reorganizations provides a relatively clear picture of which sections belonged where. However, there is no information to suggest that the foreign section existed within either of the two adminstrations. Hahn, op cit, pp. 198-203. Clearly, there is room for further study on this matter. It is plausible that the foreign section, as part of the special sector, transcended, or cut through, the two existing adminstrations.

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Vargas institute continued the aforementioned functions up to at least October 1947 at which time it was eliminated and merged with other institutes. Significantly, and as later discussed, this occurred when other activities pertaining to the foreign section were likewise being reorganized. Indeed, the link between Vargas institute and the pre-war FS is an important one, since later incarnations of the FS forged similar links, from the late 1950s onward, with various think tanks under the Academy of Sciences.106 Intelligence and Espionage Of all the activities thus far described that of intelligence and espionage appear to have been a dominant task of the FS and the Soviet Unions activities vis-a-vis foreign Communist parties. Indeed, as early as the Second Comintern Congress in Petrograd it was stated that all Communist parties were required to operate illegally as well as legally, and to create a parallel illegal organization which at the decisive moment will help the party to do its duty to the Revolution.107 Zinoviev, who was then Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), told the congress that the ECCI had not merely the right but the obligation to meddle in the work of parties that belonged or wished to belong to the Communist International.108 The principle instrument of such meddling were the representatives, nicknamed the eyes of Moscow, sent by the ECCI to member parties and Communist groups. These representatives, according to one German participant at the congress: never worked with the leadership of individual Communist parties, but always

behind their backs and against them. They enjoyed the confidence of Moscow but the local leaders do not ... The Executive Committee acts as a Cheka projected outside the Russian borders [emphasis added].109

These representatives sat on the CCs of the parties to which they were accredited and sent back reports which were seen by Lenin and the Cominterns Little Committee (in effect its Politburo).110 Its additional task was to aid Moscow in splitting various European Socialist parties with the aim of establishing new Communist parties, and to aid in the transfer of funds from Moscow to the various member-parties of the Comintern.111 The eyes of Moscow did, indeed, serve as the Chekas foreign extension. In fact, prior to Zinovievs injunctions to the Second Comintern Congress, Dzerzhinskii (head of the Cheka)

106See: Schapiro, "The CPSU International Department," p. 43; Hough, "Soviet Policymaking," pp. 176-180; Teague, "The Foreign Departments," p. 23 note 36.

107Jane Degras, ed. The Communist International, 1919-1942. Documents. vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 166-72.

108Lazitich and Drachkovitch, Lenin and the Comintern, p. 141. 109Branko Lazitch. "Two Instruments of Control of the Comintern: The Emmissaries of the ECCI

and the Party Representatives in Moscow," in Milorad Drachkovitch and Branko Lazitch, eds. The Comintern: Historical Heights (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 49.

110Lazitch and Drachkovitch, Lenin and the Comintern, pp. 158, 454. 111Ibid, Chapter 10.

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ordered, in December 1920, the creation of the Inostrannyi otdel (INO or Foreign Department), for conducting foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Furthermore it was Dzerzhinskii himself who represented both Russian and Polish Communist Parties at different Comintern congresses.112 According to one scholar of the Soviet security and intelligence apparatus, the INO was later tasked and overseen by Stalin and/or his personal secretariat.113 The INO established a network of legal residences headed by residents (station chiefs) operating under diplomatic cover within the Soviet embassies.114 Though theoretically subordinate to the Ambassador, in fact ... his [the residents] authority exceeds that of the Ambassador. Greatly feared by his colleagues, even by the Ambassador, he holds over their heads the perpetual fear of denunciation.115 This description, as later demonstrated, is quite significant as it corresponds with a later description of post-Comintern intelligence operations from Soviet embassies. According to Colonel A. Rezanov, a former tsarist intelligence officer, the organizations in the Cheka, the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, and the Communist International were responsible for the circulation of propaganda and spurious information.116 Another source of the 1920s similarly identifies a Foreign Department of the GPU (the Chekas successor) as bearing responsibility for disinformation and the advancement of world revolution.117 These accounts are in accordance with previously noted information pertaining to the special sectors responsibility for propaganda. Shortly following the creation of the INO and, presumably, as a result of the Second Comintern Congress, the Comintern established a secret international liaison department (the Otdel mezhdunarodnykh svyazey or OMS) to run its network of clandestine agents abroad.118 The OMS provided a valuable service for the INO by drawing into secret service work foreign Communists and fellow travellers who were more likely to appeal for help from the Communist International than from a direct approach from Soviet intelligence organs. It is noteworthy that many of the best OGPU (the 1923 successor of the Cheka/GPU), and NKVD foreign agents in the 1930s believed initially that they were working for the Comintern. In reality, the OMS aided the INO (and later, in 1940, its successor in the NKGB, the INU or Inostrannoye Upravlenie) by drawing in its foreign Communist resources into the Soviet intelligence and security organs.119 Similarly, Avtorkhanov asserts that the NKVD was able to help Comintern agents on one

112Dziak, Chekisty, pp. 14-15. 113Ibid, p. 177. Stalin, himself, joined the Comintern Presidium in 1925 after Lenin's death, and by

1928 was manipulating its leadership and carrying out purges. Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, p. 147-150.

114George Leggette, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 299.

115Georgi Agabekov, OGPU (New York: Brentano's, 1931), p. 271. 116Cited in Dziak, op cit, p. 41. 117Ibid, pp. 41-42. 118Aino Kuusinen, Before and After Stalin (London: Michael Joseph, 1974, pp. 40ff; Walter

Krivitsky, I was Stalin's Agent (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1939), pp. 79 ff. 119Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 98 and 270.

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essential condition, that they be at the same time agents of the NKVD.120 Indeed, Andrew and Gordievsky document several cases in which some of the most important Soviet agents, including Richard Sorge, Kim Philby and the Ware Cell (which included, among other U.S. Government officials, Alger Hiss), were first run by the OMS.121 There was initially some friction between the networks of the OMS and the more powerful INO. This was, however vitiated by the personal friendship between M.A. Trilisser, the head of the INO in the Cheka and its successor organs from August 1921 to late 1929, and I.A. Pyatnitsky, head of the OMS from its establishment to the mid 1930s.122 The INO was, however, clearly the dominant partner in its relationship with the OMS. While Trilisser had a seat on OMS, Pyatnitsky had no position in INO.123 By late 1924 the OMS was subjected to greater control by the OPGU (successor of GPU) and, on military matters, by Soviet military intelligence (then the fourth department of the Soviet General Staff, later the GRU).124 At this time the OGPU increased the number of its own agents within the OMS network, and military intelligence assisted the OMS in its communications and courier network.125 The lines between the fourth department (and its successor, the GRU) and the OGPU/NKVD responsibilities were frequently blurred during the 1930s. The fourth department commonly gathered political as well as military intelligence, while the OGPU/NKVD less commonly collected military as well as political intelligence.126 Both increasingly took over OMS intelligence networks, with Yezhovs NKVD later acquiring military intelligence responsibilities between 1937-1938.127 At this point little, if nothing, is heard of the OMS as an independent network. When Beria arrived in Moscow in July 1938 as successor-designate to Yezhov, he brought with him V.G. Dekhanozov, as the new head of the INO.128 Shortly thereafter the NKGB was created (in February 1941). Within this newly established NKGB the INO was raised in status from a Department to a Directorate with P.M. Fitin succeeding Dekhanozov as the last head of the INO in 1940. The responsibilities accorded the INU were as follows: 1) Universal Espionage;129

120Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, p. 180. 121Andrew and Gordievsky, op cit, pp. 189, 211, 213, 240-41. 122Ibid, pp. 99-100 123Ibid, p. 100; Lazitch and Drachkovitch, The Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, rev. ed.

1986, entries for Pyatnitsky and Trilisser. 124Kuusinen, op cit, pp. 51-52. 125Andrew, op cit, pp. 110-11. 126Ibid, p. 189. 127Dziak, op cit, p. 185 note 6. 128Robert Conquest, Inside Stalin's Secret Police: NKVD Politics 1936-1939 (London: Macmillan,

1985), p. 103. 129Universal espionage included: Economic and political data, production, economic statistics,

construction projects, political parties and figures, elections, social relations, morale and mentality of people, interracial relations, religious life, grievances, defense installations, industrial methods,

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2) Active Counterintelligence;130 3) Covert Propaganda and Political Intervention in Non-Soviet Countries;131 and 4) Information for Greater Work Efficiency.132 As earlier noted, throughout the period 1920 to the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the entire intelligence and espionage system answered directly to Stalin and his special sector.133 As regards foreign espionage - the OMS, INO/INU and GRU - in particular, there appears to have been some amalgamation between 1937 and 1938, with initial supervision over their activities residing with Yezhov. It should be observed that these descriptions tie in with later, post-Comintern, information pertaining to the operation of Soviet intelligence networks working out of Soviet embassies. Malenkov, once again, was mostly likely responsible for oversight of the Soviet security apparatus and, most significantly, foreign intelligence, including Comintern intelligence. As suggested below, he probably gained this responsibility from the late 1930s and held this position, as part of FS activities, until December 1945. Malenkov and the Leadership of the Special Sector Thus far several aspects of Soviet relations with foreign Communist parties have been identified as special sector/FS activities. Malenkovs eventual leadership role was suggested in each case. At this point it is necessary to consider some details of Malenkovs career, since it is via his association with the special sector that he is later and more firmly associated with responsibilities for foreign Communist affairs. One of the earliest heads of the sekretnyi otdel is reported to have been I.P Tovstukha. According to Schapiro, Tovstukha was appointed to this position in 1924 after having been a deputy head of the secret department from April 1922, at which time Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party.134 From the mid 1920s, Tovstukha was succeeded by several figures and, ultimately, in 1928, by Poskrebyshev.135

inventions, and science discoveries, etc. Andreevich, "Structure and Function of the Soviet Secret Police," p. 138.

130Active counterintelligence consisted of spying on and penetration of the intelligence organs of foreign countries to paralyze and compromise their work. Ibid.

131Covert Propaganda and Political Intervention in Non-Soviet Countries entailed: inspiring political intrigue, disseminating false rumours, planting fake documents and compromising materials, provoking conflicts, fomenting discontent, covering up Communist activities, influencing the Press, opposing anti-Soviet and anti-Communist activities, organizations and parties, and surveillance over the leaders of "fraternal" Communist parties. Ibid.

132Information for greater work efficiency included: studying police rules and regulations, passports and other documents, visas and methods of obtaining them, customs regulations and practices, etc., in countries under surveillance. Such information facilitates penetration of agents in these countries. Ibid.

133Knight, The KGB, pp. 24-26. 134Schapiro, "The General Department," pp. 53 and 54. 135Ibid, p. 54; Rosenfeldt, "The Origins and Development," p. 313; Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and

Power, pp. 45-46, 122-23, 142-43, 157-58, 163-67 and 170-79. 24

Poskrebyshev retained his position as head of the special sector from 1928 to 1952-53.136 However, he and his predecessors were not alone in this apparatus, and others appear to have wielded significant authority through their association with it.137 This is particularly true of Malenkov who, though a lesser functionary in his early Party career, later rose to achieve a substantial position of authority in Stalins special sector. Indeed, Malenkov is identified as having held a key position in the special sector by several sources.138 According to his biography in the 1940 Politicheskii slovar, between 1919 and 1920 Malenkov had joined the Turkestan Command of the Red Army under Frunze.139 There, he acted in the capacity of a political worker rather than a front-line fighter.140 According to Pistrak, this army was, at the time, being purged of Whiteguardism and criminal elements. He concludes Malenkov is thus the first leader of modern times to make his political debut as a

policeman and executioner. Even the MVDs ... boss, Beria, was active in other Party work for several years before Stalin assigned him in the late 1920s to purge the Transcaucasian Bolsheviks.141

It was at this time that Malenkov most likely came into contact with Poskrebyshev. The latter had been employed between 1919 and 1922 as Head of the Department of Registration and Information of the Political Directorate of the Turkestan Army.142 It is probable that Malenkovs work fell under the authority of Poskrebyshev. This provides an initial link to Malenkovs later association with the special sector and his involvement with the political police: both of which were significant aspects of his work in foreign Communist affairs. During the period 1925-30, according to Soviet sources, Malenkov carried out responsible work within the Central Committee apparatus.143 Leonhard and Pistrak both interpret this as

136Schapiro, op cit, pp. 54, 57-58. 137Ibid, pp. 54-55; 138Avtokhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, p. 103; Ruslanov, 128-29; Janet Zagoria,

ed. Power and the Soviet Elite" "Letters of an Old Bolshevik and other Essays by Boris I. Nicholeavsky (New York: Federick A. Praeger, 1965), pp. 94 and 109; Leonhard, op cit, p. 55; B.D. Wolfe, Khrushchev and Stalin's Ghost (London, 1957),p. 211; E.L.Crowly, ed. Prominent Personalities in the USSR (Metuchen, 1968), p. 364. Rosenfeldt, in his detailed study on Stalin's private secretariat in Knowledge and Power (p. 203), cites Malenkov's involvement in the secretariat as having a "proximity to certainty." In his later article, "The Origins and Development," p. 313, he appears even more certain of Malenkov's presence within this institution.

139Politicheskii slovar' (gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1940), p. 326. Also see Lazar Pistrak, "Malenkov: The Man and the Myth," The New Leader, Vol. 36, No. 11, 1953, p. 7.

140Pistrak at Ibid. 141Ibid, p. 7. 142Schapiro, op cit, p. 56. 143Politicheskii slovar', p. 326; Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya, 2nd ed., pp. 145-46.

Medvedev states that Malenkov started work as a "technical secretary" in the Orgburo of the Party CC. Medvedev, All Stalin's Men, p. 31.

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expressing that he worked in Stalins secretariat.144 Ebon similarly notes that the reference to the Partys apparatus in reality referred to Stalins private secretariat.145 Significantly, Ebon also refers to information provided by Robert Dall, at student in Moscow at the time, who states that ... Malenkov was recommended for a party position by Besso Lominadze, at the time leader of the Communist Youth League, the Komsomol. With this recommendation, Malenkov was hired by Ivan Tovstyukha, who was then looking for promising young men to staff the party secretariat.146 Tovstukha, it will be recalled, was the head of the sekretnyi otdel. Another source attributes Malenkovs early notice in 1925 to Kaganovich who was then head of the Organization and Training Section of the Central Committee. Kaganovich was reportedly so taken with Malenkov that he apparently mentioned this young Party worker to Stalin. Stalin, in turn, favoured Malenkov with an interview, at which time he decided to take you [Malenkov] on to work in the office of the Central Committee.147 As part of Stalins staff, Avtorkhanov states that Malenkov assisted Poskrebyshev in the special sector and later in Stalins cabinet.148 This ties in with Nicolaevskys and Fischers information that Malenkov was originally an assistant to Poskrebyshev and that it was Poskrebyshev who first brought Malenkov into Stalins inner sanctum.149 His duties, according to Avtorkhanov, were those of a personnel aide. He is said to have kept a detailed diary of Stalins instructions, directions, impressions, etc., and to have been present at closed meetings as a recording secretary and to have acted as Stalins personal observer at certain departmental meetings which Stalin was unable to attend.150

144Leonhard, The Soviet Union After Stalin, p. 54; Pistrak, op cit, p. 7. 145Ebon, Malenkov, p. 28. 146According to Ebon, Lominadze was one of the Comintern agents who, on December 11, 1927,

organized the Chinese Communist uprising known as the "Canton Commune." He was later shot in the purges of 1937. Could it have been this early contact with Lominadze that accounts for Malenkov's later interest in Asian affairs? Ibid. McCagg, Stalin Embattled, pp. 304 and 401 note 1.

147Avtorkhanov, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party, pp. 16-17. Avtorkhanov's account finds Malenkov being censured by his Party unit in the Moscow Higher Technical School in 1925 for his lack of support for the "Trotskyite" programme. After appealing in vain to the Moscow City Committee to be reinstated as secretary of his Party Unit and for having failed to expose the "Trotskyite conspiracy in the Moscow Higher Technical School," he then appealed directly to the Central Committee and was eventually received by Kaganovich. Avtorkhanov then suggests that Malenkov's vehement anti-Trotskyism and a memorandum he produced on purging Troskyites from university-level institution formed the later basis for directives on university purges issued in 1925, of which Malenkov was one executor. Ibid.

148Ibid, pp. 103-107. 149Zagoria, op cit, p. 116; Louis Fischer, The Life and Death of Stalin. (London: 1953), p. 240. 150At this point, Malenkov is reported to have never become involved in discussions, even though

in the absence of Stalin he often asked pertinent questions on subjects under discussion. Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 17. Compare Avtorkhanov's description with that of former Transport Minister Kovalev's. He recalls that during the Second World War:

Molotov, Beria, and Malenkov would usually be in Stalin's office. I used to think they were in the way. They never asked questions, but just sat there and listened, sometimes jotting down a note .... I witnessed this scene dozens of times.

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By the end of the 1920s, Avtorkhanov states that Malenkov took over the leadership of the cadre sector of the private secretariat, and that the centrally directed personnel policies were the result of a collaboration between Malenkov and Poskrebyshev.151 Then in 1930, Malenkov was appointed a divisional director within the Partys CC and also became chief of the Organization Department in the Moscow Party CC where he worked under Kaganovich.152 These positions, according to Avtorkhanov, were held simultaneous to his position in Stalins private secretariat.153 Malenkov was not at this time a member of the CC. Indeed, he was not to become a member until the plenum of the 18th Party Congress of 22 March 1939 when he was appointed one of the CCs Secretaries. It is known, however, that prior to his appointment to the CC a report by Malenkov was being discussed by the CC plenum of January 1938.154 As earlier cited, Malenkov and others who worked in the CC as assistants were among the most feared as it was known that they operated in Stalins special sector: the real decision-making authority within the USSR. Several sources further attest to Malenkovs increased stature from the mid 1930s. The 1940 Politicheskii slovar cites Malenkov as being placed in charge of a CC section set up in 1934 by the Seventeenth Party Congress to replace the CC Organization and Assignment Department: the otdel rukovodiashchikh partniinikh organov (CC Department of Leading Party Organizations or ORPO ).155 Ebon states that in 1934 Yezhov [who, from 1927 was in Stalins secretariat] was Malenkovs superior in the ORPO, but Medvedev asserts that Malenkov was Stalins personal choice for the position, having been acquainted with Malenkov for some time.156 The October 15, 1935 issue of Partiinoe stroitelstvo defined the duties of the ORPO as supervision of the work of leading Party organs throughout the Soviet Union, keeping record of prominent Party members, people in the state administration, industry, transport, agriculture, trade, education and science.157 In short, Ebon concludes that the ORPO acted as the Partys internal secret service,

Cited in D.A. Volkogonov, D.A. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. Ed. and Trans. Harold Shukman (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991), p. 419.

Also compare the above with the impressions of Edmund Stevens, a former Moscow correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor. He notes Malenkov was: "The typical product of the party apparatus ... Lacking mass appeal he dislikes the limelight and prefers to pull the wires behind the scene." Cited in Pistrak, op cit, p. 6.

It appears that Malenkov's low key modus operandi was established earlier on. It is therefore understandable that Sovietologists have found it difficult to gauge his areas of responsibility and, in particular, his later responsibilities pertaining to foreign Communists affairs.

151Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 103-07. 152Politichiskii slovar', p. 326; Pistrak, op cit., p. 7; Ebon, op cit., p. 31. 153Avtorkhanov, op cit, p. 103. 154Medvedev, op cit., p. 144. 155Politicheskii slovar', p. 326. Avtorkhanov refers to this new section as the Organization and

Political Section of the CC. For a description of the Organization-Assignment Departments functions see: Knight, The KGB, pp. 127-28.

156Ebon, op cit, 34; Medvedev, op cit, p. 142; Avtorkhanov, op cit, pp. 218 and 302. 157Cited in Ebon, op cit, p. 33. Yezhov was, at that time, editor of Partiinoe stroitel'stvo.

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Stalins own intelligence service within the party.158 It is possible that this bureau was co-terminus with a Special Secret Political Sector of State Security in which, according to Nicolaevsky, Poskrebyshev was a prime power ... [and which acted as] a branch of Stalins secretariat created in 1934.159 However, Knight suggests that there is some confusion between the private secretariat and a Secret Political Department (Sekretnyi-politicheskii otdel) of the OGPU/NKVD.160 Adding to this confusion is another department, the CC Political-Administrative Department, which also emerged out of the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, and which is also said to have been the successor of the Organization-Administration Department. Significantly the description of this latter department tallies with Ebons understanding of the ORPO. Kaganovich stated that the tasks of the department were to keep watch on Party aspects of work in general Soviet organs, in the Red Army and its Political Directorate, in procuratorial organs and others.161 Knight also cites Yezhov has having had some form of oversight res