The Leningrad affair and Soviet patronage politics, 1949–1950
2004; Routledge; Volume: 56; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0966813041000235119
ISSN1465-3427
Autores Tópico(s)European history and politics
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Research for this article was supported in part by grants from Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Euroasian Studies. I would like to thank Terry Martin, Timothy Colton, Ethan Pollock, David Brandenburger and Robert Cliver, as well as members of the Harvard University Russian and East European History Workshop, for reading versions of this article. Any mistakes are mine alone. The article also benefited from communications with V.A. Kutuzov and V.I. Demidov, as well as an opportunity to meet a number of children of the victims of the Leningrad Affair kindly facilitated by Dmitrii Zhelkovsky and Natalya Mikova at the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Documentary Film Studios. The Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii, henceforth RGANI), f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, ll. 58, 67. For a general overview see 'O tak nazyvaemom "Leningradskom dele", Izvestiya TsK KPSS, 1989, 2, pp. 126–137. Robert Conquest, Power and Policy in the USSR: the Study of Soviet Dynastics (London, Macmillan and New York, St. Martin's Press, 1961), pp. 95–111; Werner Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: the Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1946–53 (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1982). William O. McCagg Jr, Stalin Embattled, 1943–1948 (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1978). Aleksandr Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa: put' vo vlasti', Svobodnaya mysl', 2001, 3, pp. 89–104 at pp. 92–96; see also Aleksandr Pyzhikov, Khrushchevskaya 'Ottepel'' (Moscow, Olma‐Press, 2002), ch. 1. David Brandenburger, 'Stalin, the Leningrad Affair and the Limits of Postwar Russocentrism', Russian Review 004, 63, 2, pp. 241–55; see also Sergei Kunaev, 'Post Scriptum 1', Nash sovremennik, 1995, 10, pp. 184–198. For this argument see Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa', p. 102; Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad (NY, De Capo Press, 1969), pp. 571–583. In Kunaev Russian nationalism and Leningrad historical traditions are conflated. Gorlizk and Khlevnyuk have argued convincingly that conflict in Stalin's court centred on bureaucratic interests, the competition for Stalin's favour and the dictator's own strategies of divide and rule rather than coherent political agendas; see Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk, Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (Oxford and NY, Oxford University Press, 2004); Oleg Khlevnyuk, 'Sovetskaya ekonomicheskaya politika na rubezhe 1940–1950‐kh godov i "delo gosplana" ', Otechestvennaya istoriya, 2001, 3, pp. 77–89, at p. 89, note 30, and Oleg Khlevnyuk, 'Zadavlennye oligarkhi: Stalin i ego okruzhenie v poslevoennye gody', paper presented at the 31st AAASS convention, St. Louis, 1999 (cited with permission), p. 29. For a convincing presentation of this argument for the 1930s see Oleg Khlevnyuk, Politbyuro: mekhanizmy politicheskoi vlasti v 1930‐e gody (Moscow, ROSSPEN, 1996). Khlevnyuk, 'Sovetskaya ekonomicheskaya politika na rubezhe 1940–1950‐kh godov i "delo gosplana" '; Anastas Mikoyan, Tak bylo. Razmyshleniya o minuvshem (Moscow, Vagrius, 1999), pp. 560–570. The Leningraders desired the creation of a Russian Central Committee for the purpose of attaining more effective oversight and coordination of regional decision making in the RSFSR. This made particular sense given the bureaucratic roles of two of the victims of the Leningrad Affair in overseeing RSFSR affairs (Kuznetsov as overseer of party committees in the RSFSR and Rodionov as head of the RSFSR Council of Ministers). This bureaucratic, non‐ideological agenda is stated in the relevant sources; see Rodionov's September 1947 note to Stalin in O.V. Khlevnyuk et al. (comps), Politbyuro TsK VKP(b) i sovet ministrov SSSR 1945–1953 (Moscow, Rosspen, 2002), pp. 246–247 and Popkov's speech at the February 1949 Leningrad Party Plenum in V.A. Kutuzov & V.I. Demidov (comp. and eds), Leningradskoe delo (Leningrad, Lenizdat, 1990), pp. 76–77; Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa', p. 99. Indeed, a Central Committee body for overseeing RSFSR party organisations had existed in the 1930s and would be resurrected in the 1950s, for similar reasons to those cited by the victims of the Leningrad Affair; see Carl Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, 1957–1964 (Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), p. 96. In particular, the archival record suggests that Russian nationalism was not the central issue of the Leningrad Affair. For instance, at the February 1949 Leningrad party plenum discussing the actions of Kuznetsov, Popkov and Rodionov, Malenkov stressed that group formation (gruppovshchina) was the main mistake of the Leningraders; he did not stress the issue of the Russian bureau in detail, even though Popkov had made the startling admission at the plenum that he had seen the creation of a Russian Communist Party as a means of giving support to the Russian people (Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, pp. 76–79). Accusations of 'great Russian chauvinism' did appear in the obvinitel'noe zaklyuchenie (formal charges prepared by prosecutors) for the trial of Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and the others, but they were much less prominent than accusations relating to group formation and patronage activities (The Dmitrii A. Volkogonov Papers (Harvard University), reel 2, container 3, folder 14, pp. 1–37, at pp. 18–19 (on nationalism), 1–2, 9, 11–17 (on patronage relations)). Given the brutal means by which the MGB obtained the confessions found in this document, it must be treated with scepticism. It does suggest, however, that Russian nationalism was at no point the decisive accusation made against the Zhdanovites. Gorlizki and Khleunjuk, Cold Peace; Gennadii Kostyrchenko, 'Malenkov ili Zhdanov. Igry Stalinskikh favoritov', Rodina, 2000, 9, pp. 85–92; Yurii Zhukov, 'Bor'ba za vlast' v rukovodstve SSSR v 1945–1952', Voprosy istorii, 1995, 2, pp. 23–40; R.G. Pikhoya, Sovetskii soyuz: istoriya vlasti, 1945–1991 (Moscow, Rossiiskaya akademiya gos. Sluzhby pri prezidente Rossiiskoi federatsii, 1998), pp. 59–69. Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, pp. 23–29; Mikoyan, Tak bylo, p. 565. On Stalin's displeasure with Voznesensky's popularity as a theorist see Conquest, Power and Policy in the USSR, pp. 103–111. An important memoir from the period emphasises this point: D.T. Shepilov, 'Vospominaniya', Voprosy istorii, 1998, 6, pp. 14–19. In 1948 the Politburo passed a resolution censuring Abakumov for holding an 'honour court' (sud chesti) in the Ministry of State Security without the knowledge and approval of the Politburo; Kuznetsov was also criticised for approving the court independently (Politbyuro TsK VKP(b) i sovet ministrov SSSR, p. 262). On the phenomenon of the honour courts more broadly see Elena Zubkova, 'Kadrovaya politika i chistki v KPSS (1949–1953)', Svobodnaya mysl', 1994, 4, pp. 96–110 at pp. 99–102. Another explanation has it that Kuznetsov turned the minister for state security Abakumov against him in 1948 by investigating allegations that the latter had engaged in stealing 'trophy materials' from Germany (Interview with Valerii Alekseevich Kuznetsov, St. Petersburg, 2000; A.V. Afanas'ev, 'Pobeditel' ', in A.V. Afanas'ev (comp.), Oni ne molchali (Moscow, Politizdat, 1991), pp. 389–390). Zubkova holds that Stalin used the Leningrad purges to discipline and intimidate the Soviet elite in its entirety, an interesting but unproven argument given the near total silence imposed on the Leningrad Affair, even in the political elite. On the low level of knowledge of the Leningrad Affair in the security services see Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa', p. 101. A literature points to the importance of patron–client networks in modern political systems and especially those of developing countries. See the articles in Steffen W. Schmidt et al. (eds), Friends, Followers, and Factions: a Reader in Political Clientelism (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1977). This is a slightly modified version of a definition offered in Gyula Jozsa, 'Political Seukschafter in the USSR', in T.H. Rigby & Bohdan Harasymiw (eds), Leadership Selection and Patron–Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia (Boston, 1983), pp. 139–141. The patron–client relationship involves two individuals of different status or rank, distinguishing it from the related Soviet phenomenon of blat, the use of connections to attain goods and services (Alena Ledeneva, Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998)). Carl Landé, 'Introduction: the Dyadic Base of Clientelism', in Schmidt et al. (eds), Friends, Followers, and Factions, p. xxi. Nancy Shields Kollmann, Kinship and Politics: the Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547 (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1987); Edward L. Keenan, 'Muscovite Political Folkways', Russian Review, 45, 2, April 1986, pp. 115–181. John LeDonne, Absolutism and Ruling Class: the Formation of the Russian Political Order, 1700–1825 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991), ch. 1; Daniel T. Orlovsky, 'Political Clientelism in Russia: the Historical Perspective', in Rigby & Harasymiw (eds), Leadership Selection and Patron–Client Relations, pp. 174–199. See especially the important articles by Rigby collected in T. H. Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR: Central Leaders and Local Cadres from Lenin to Gorbachev (Aldershot, Hants, E. Elgar and Brookfield, VT, USA, Gower Pub. Co., 1990); John P. Willerton, Patronage and Politics in the USSR (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992). An interesting connection between clientelism and Soviet state building is made in Gerald Easter, Reconstructing the State. Personal Networks and Elite Identity in Soviet Russia (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000). For a more society‐centred view of Soviet patron–client relations see Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York and London, Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 62–66, 109–114. Rigby, Political Elites …, pp. 94–146; Charles Fairbanks, 'Clientelism and the Roots of the Post‐Soviet Disorder', in Ronald Grigor Suny (ed.), Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 341–374. J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: the Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1985); Merle Fainsod, Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 84–89, 213–214; James R. Harris, 'The Purging of Local Cliques in the Urals Region, 1936–7', in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions (London and New York, Routledge, 2000), pp. 262–285. In fact, the building of Moscow patronage networks made up of former colleagues was an integral means by which all party general secretaries from Stalin to Gorbachev solidified their position of power—for instance, Brezhnev's Central Committee included many officials from Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhe and Moldavia, where the general secretary had held positions of power in the past. Cf. T.H. Rigby, 'Politics in the Mono‐organizational Society', in Andrew C. Janos (ed.), Authoritarian Politics in Communist Europe: Unity and Diversity in One‐Party States (Berkeley, CA, Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1976), pp. 31–79 at p. 60. This phrase is borrowed from T.H. Rigby, 'Khrushchev and the Rules of the Soviet Game', in R.F. Miller & F. Féhér (eds), Khrushchev and the Communist World (London, Croom Helm and Totowa, NJ, Barnes & Noble Books, 1984), pp. 39–81. Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors. Leadership, Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union (NY, 1980), pp. 16–18; Rigby, 'Politics in the Mono‐organizational Society', p. 58 and T.H. Rigby, 'The Nomenklatura and Patronage under Stalin', in Rigby, Political Elites …, p. 117. Fairbanks, 'Clientelism and the Roots …', p. 354. See ibid; Fainsod, Smolensk …, p. 237; Rigby, 'Politics in the Mono‐organizational Society', p. 58; Barrington Moore, Terror and Progress in the USSR. Some Sources of Change and Stability in the Soviet Dictatorship (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 20–24; Harris, 'The Purging of Local Cliques…'. In its simultaneous promotion and evasion of state interests, political patronage paralleled blat. Fairbanks, 'Clientelism and the Roots …', p. 347. Copies of the KPK archival records are in the Chadwick–Healy Communist Party of the Soviet Union holdings located in the Lamont Library at Harvard College. The KPK took on increasing importance in carrying out political purges in the final decade of Stalinism; see Paul Maupin Cocks, 'Politics of Party Control: the Historical and Institutional Role of Party Control Organs in the CPSU', Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1969. Unfortunately, many sources for the Leningrad Affair are still off limits to researchers. The relevant archival holdings in the St Petersburg Archive of Historical‐Political Documents (Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv istoriko‐politicheskikh dokumentov, henceforth TsGAIPD) were largely inaccessible to researchers in 2000, and the documents of the Cadres Administration of the Central Committee in the Russian State Archive of Socio‐Political History (RGASPI) were completely so. Two parameters of my research should be made clear. First, I have studied only the first two years of the Leningrad Affair (1949–50). This was a pragmatic decision given the amount of material involved. Second, I have not focused on the purge of Voznesensky and his supporters in Gosplan I located few cases relating to the ties to Voznesensky in KPK archival holdings. Also, while the Gosplan Affair constituted part of the Leningrad Affair, it was distinct from the downfall of the Leningrad party figures and deserves separate treatment. The best analysis of the Gosplan affair is Khlevnyuk, 'Sovetskaya ekonomicheskaya politika'. The cases of individuals tried in connection with the Leningrad Affair were initiated either in the KPK bodies attached to the Central Committee or the KPK branches attached to the Leningrad city and provincial party committees (called party collegia). My data base, however, consists of documents from the two central KPK branches in Moscow, both under the jurisdiction of the Central Committee (henceforth TsK): the KPK Bureau (in essence, a supreme party court) and the TsK party collegium (for the most part, a party court of appeal, to which individuals appealed for reinstatement in the party or removal of party penalties (vzyskaniya). Each individual case file for the KPK Bureau consisted of a report (spravka) of two or more pages that explained the defendant's alleged misdemeanours, along with a copy of the resolution reached at the hearing, and a note from M.F. Shkiryatov to his superior Malenkov, the head of the KPK, explaining the decision reached. Meanwhile, the Leningrad KPK was entrusted to Malenkov's and Shkiryatov's subordinate in the KPK TsK, A. Ya. Novikov; see Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich. 1957: stenogramma iyun'skogo plenuma TsK KPSS i drugie dokumenty (Moscow, mezhdunarodnyi fond 'demokratiya', 1998), p. 812 (on Novikov); RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 133, ll. 1–27 (on the purge of the Leningrad KPK in August 1949). Leningrad as a whole was placed under a new leadership corps drawn from other regions of the USSR. The question of whether the new Leningrad leadership team was composed of Malenkov clients cannot be answered with my sources, but the presence in it of the latter's former subordinates in the Central Committee such as Novikov and F.P. Kozlov is suggestive. Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo contains some discussion of the post‐Popkov Leningrad leadership (pp. 166–169, 267). See comments by A.A. Kuznetsov's daughter and by Leningrad Affair victim I.M. Turko in ibid., pp. 95, 98–100. Malenkov and Shkiryatov were involved in creating a 'party prison' separate from the MGB in which victims of the Leningrad Affair were interrogated. In 1957 Malenkov confessed to interrogating individuals involved in the case (although he said that he was following Stalin's orders and stated that other Politburo members were also assigned this task) (Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich. 1957, pp. 47–48). See M.E. Chervyakov, 'Po "khozyaistvennomu delu" ', in Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, p. 276. Discussion with Dmitrii Khaustov, professor at the Academy of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, Cambridge, MA, March 2000. According to the KPK, as many as 40 party and state leaders could be present at banquets, while pyan'ki and popoiki were more secret and private affairs. For examples of references to banquets and drinking parties see RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, ll. 15–16; RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 139, l. 102. In some cases the KPK alleged that banquets were paid for out of state funds, often collected forcefully from local enterprises, and thus carried an anti‐state character. According to St Petersburg historian V.A. Kutuzov, who knows many of the Leningrad Affair victims, banquets among the Leningrad elite were routine and unremarkable events (discussion in St Petersburg, 2000). RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, l. 44. An example of clientelistic gift giving and supporting the privileged life‐styles of members of the 'Leningrad anti‐party group' was that of F.M. Shirokov, the head of the financial‐economic sector of the Novgorod provincial party committee. Shirokov was accused of spending elaborate sums on deficit items like radios, high‐quality furniture and fine kitchen goods for Novgorod party leaders (RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, ll. 22–23). The existence of such perquisites can be confirmed from other sources. On the building of a private residence (osobnyak) by Pskov party chief Antyufeev see Ivan Vinogradov, 'Dokatilos' do Pskova', in Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, p. 223. For the patronage variety of gift giving see references to Kuznetsov, while Leningrad party boss, assigning loyal subordinates cars for personal use (RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, ll. 30–31; TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 49, d. 3, l. 69). From 1948 to 1951 KPK agencies across the USSR routinely removed party members from the party for 'abuses of office, embezzlement and waste of public funds and material valuables (material'nykh tsennostei)'. During this period some 183,284 party members were removed for such actions, some 31.6% of the total number of expelled party members in the USSR for the period (calculated from RGANI, f. 6, op. 6, d. 1, l. 12). Some typical elite corruption cases are in RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 153, l. 104; RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 170, ll. 46–54. On the important connection between political clientelism and corruption see Kenneth C. Farmer, The Soviet Administrative Elite (NY, Praeger, 1992), pp. 227–228, and more broadly, James C. Scott, Comparative Political Corruption (NY, 1971). G.T. Kedrov claimed that he never questioned the legal standing of the party hunting and fishing lodges and found out about their illegality only when the Leningrad Affair began. Perhaps he was being honest; see RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, l. 44; N.S. Patolichev, Sovest'iu svoei ne postupis' (Moscow, Sampo, 1995), pp. 21–24. Little has been written on this important aspect of elite social behaviour. On elite privilege more generally see Mervyn Matthews, Privilege in the Soviet Union: A Study of Elite Life‐styles under Communism (London, Boston, and Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1978), ch. 4. Not all information about the suspects in KPK documents concerned these patron–client ties: biographical glitches concerning incorrect social origins and previous opposition activity are also found. However, in my data base, the four types of charges in this typology—elite socialising, displays of loyalty, gift giving and consumption, and receiving patronage—constituted the most damning set of KPK accusations for those suspected of belonging to the 'Leningrad anti‐party group', that is, the information most likely to lead to an individual's removal from the party. In my sample, 90% of those defendants accused of clientelistic activities were excluded from the party (110 of 122 cases), while the figure for those who were not so accused was 74% (56 of 76 cases). For instance, the KPK noted that A.N. Mashchansky, the head of the Leningrad city health division, in a speech at a party meeting, went out of his way to praise Popkov's speech a few days before (RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 1555, l. 124). In Russian, 'semeika svoikh lyudei, svyazannykh krugovoi porukoi' (G. Malenkov, Otchetnyi doklad XIX s" ezdu partii o rabote tsentral'nogo komiteta VKP(b) (Moscow, Izdatel'stvo 'Pravda', 1952), p. 72). Mentioned by Malenkov in ibid.; RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 1623, l. 38. Clientelism figured heavily in the so‐called Mingrelian Affair purges in Georgia (see Fairbanks, 'Clientelism and the Roots …') and a 1949 purge in Kalinin province (Kees Boterbloem, Life and Death Under Stalin: Kalinin Province, 1945–1953 (Montreal and Kingston, McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1999), p. 98). Why these purges occurred in the same years is a matter for speculation. D. L. Babichenko, Pisateli i tsenzory: sovetskaya literatura 1940‐kh godov pod politicheskim kontrolem TsK (Moscow, Rossiya Molodaya, 1994), pp. 118–136; Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa', pp. 97–98. Similarly, the so‐called Aviators' Case preceding the Zvezda/Leningrad resolution is commonly interpreted as a Zhdanov attack on Malenkov's clientele in the aviation sector (for which he was responsible in the wartime State Defence Committee) (Pyzhikov, 'Leningradskaya gruppa', pp. 89–90; Zhukov, 'Bor'ba za vlast' …', p. 27). Aleksandrov, the head of the Central Committee propaganda administration from 1940 to 1947, is commonly seen as a 'Malenkov man'; see Zubkova, 'Kadrovaya politika …', pp. 99–101. A.N. Yakovlev (ed.), Reabilitatsiya: politicheskie protsessy 30–50‐kh godov (Moscow, Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatry, 1991), pp. 313–314; Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, pp. 66–68. Yoram Gorlizki, 'Ordinary Stalinism: The Council of Ministers and the Soviet Neopatrimonial State, 1946–1953', The Journal of Modern History, 74, December 2002, pp. 699–736. See Kees Boterbloem, 'The Death of Andrei Zhdanov', Slavic and East European Review, 80, 2, April 2002, pp. 267–287 and The Life and Times of Andrei Zhdanov, 1896–1948 (Montreal and Kingston, McGill‐Queen's University Press, 2004), pp. 325–336. Kosygin held the positions of department head in the Leningrad provincial party committee and then chairman of the executive committee of the Leningrad soviet before becoming minister for the textile industry of the USSR in 1939. Voznesensky was chairman of Gosplan in Leningrad in the mid‐1930s. Moreover, M.I. Rodionov, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Republic, had worked under Zhdanov in the Gorky party organisation for many years. On Kuznetsov's relationship with Zhdanov see Mikoyan, Tak bylo, pp. 564–565; Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, p. 46. In his memoirs Khrushchev implies group ties by calling Kuznetsov, Voznesensky and Kosygin a 'troika of promising young men' whom Stalin was preparing 'as successors to the Kremlin Old Guard' of Beriya, Malenkov, Molotov and Mikoyan ('Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva', Voprosy istorii, 1991, 1, p. 46). On Zhdanov's ties to Voznesensky see Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, 1957, p. 44 (from the speech of then minister of internal affairs N.P. Dudorov at the 1957 plenum regarding the 'anti‐party group' of Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich). Petr Kapitsa, then editor of the journal Neva which was attacked in the famous 1946 Politburo decision, provides a very suggestive episode in his eyewitness account of the Orgburo TsK session at which the journals were discussed at the Central Committee. During a break (perekur) in the proceedings, Kuznetsov and Zhdanov and Leningrad city party committee secretaries approached V.M. Sayanov (the former editor of Zvezda who had just been criticised by Stalin at the meeting) with words of encouragement. When Stalin noticed this scene he 'jokingly became surprised: "Why are Leningraders pressed so close to each other? I am also a St Petersburger, you know" ' (Chego eto Leningraatsyy zhmutsya drug k druzhke? Ya ved' tozhe Piterskii). After this comment, Zhdanov walked away from the others ('Eto bylo tak', Neva, 1988, 5, pp. 136–149 at p. 140). At the 1957 Central Committee plenum regarding the 'anti‐party group' of Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich, T.F. Shtykov, then first secretary of Primorsky krai party committee and also a Leningrader who had, been in danger during the Leningrad Affair, stated the risk the prominence of Leningraders in Moscow posed to Malenkov. Why, Shtykov asked, did Malenkov 'decide to take revenge' on the Leningraders by organising the Leningrad Affair? 'Because Zhdanov was from Leningrad, Kuznetsov was from Leningrad, a group of other employees was from Leningrad, a number of provincial party committee secretaries were from Leningrad. This was not to Malenkov's advantage' (Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, 1957, p. 392). Shepilov, 'Vospominaniya', pp. 4, 16. Malenkov's role in preparing the Leningrad Affair by discrediting the Leningraders in Stalin's eyes is widely cited in the literature—and with good reason. Malenkov was heavily involved in creating one of the immediate causes for the Leningrad Affair by bringing to the attention of the highest authorities the Leningrad city committee's alleged mistake of holding an all‐union trade fair in Leningrad in 1948 without Central Committee permission ('O tak nazyvaemom "Leningradskom dele" '). For a different view of Malenkov's role, see Gorlizki and Khleunynk, Cold Peace, pp. 154–55. As Malenkov stated, the Leningraders had 'placed discipline in their group higher than party discipline'. In reference to an obscure episode, Malenkov made clear that Stalin was concerned that the Leningraders' interpersonal ties allowed them to bypass the Central Committee politically (Kutuzov & Demidov (Comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, p. 87). They had 'taken the path of group formation (gruppovshchina) and opposing themselves to the Central Committee'. Popkov and other Leningrad leaders discussed the Russian Communist Party idea in Kuznetsov's and Zhdanov's offices in Moscow (ibid., pp. 76–77). Khrushchev reported in his memoirs that Zhdanov mentioned the same idea ('Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva', pp. 46–47). Rodionov appealed to Stalin for a Russian TsK Bureau in a September 1947 note (Politbyuro TsK VKP(b) i sovet ministrov SSSR 1945–1953, pp. 246–247). Finally, S. Konstantinov claims to have been told by Bulychev, then chairman of a Leningrad district executive committee, that Kuznetsov discussed the idea with Rodionov ('Nesostoyavshiesya nasledniki Stalina. Sposobny li byli Nikolai Voznesenskii i Aleksei Kuznetsov vozglavit' stranu?', Nezavisimaya gazeta, 5 October 2000, p. 14). Clearly, the personal bonds between Leningraders facilitated the promotion of this idea. These actions, the resolution continued, represented efforts to 'create friction (sredostenie) between the TsK VKP (b) and the Leningrad party organisation and in this way remove (otdalit') the Leningrad organisation from the TsK' (Kutuzov & Demidov (Comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, pp. 66–67; Yakovlev (ed.), Reabilitatsiya, p. 315). TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 49, d. 3, l. 18. Politbyuro TsK VKP(b) i sovet ministrov SSSR, p. 247. Although he refused, Voznesensky was blamed in the resolution for not reporting Popkov's offer to the TsK until the discussion of Popkov's and Kuznetsov's removal (ibid., p. 67). TsGAIPD, f. 24, op. 49, d. 3, l.18; Kutuzov & Demidov (comps and eds), Leningradskoe delo, p. 79. The other figures mentioned are second party secretary of Leningrad Ya. F. Kapustin, second party secretary of Leningrad province G.F. Badaev, chairman of the Leningrad city soviet executive committee P.G. Lazutin and N.A. Nikolaev, head of the city committee machine‐building division. Kapustin, Badaev and Lazutin perished in the Leningrad Affair, and Nikolaev committed suicide in August 1949. Kosygin was untouched by the Leningrad Affair, although Khrushchev reports that Kosygin was in grave danger in these years ('Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva', p. 51). RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, l.48. On the familial tinge that often accompanied patron–client relationships see Scott, Comparative Political Corruption, p. 126; Lewis H. Siegelbaum, ' "Dear Comrade, You Ask What We Need": Socialist Paternalism and Soviet Rural "Notables" in the mid‐1930s', in Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions, pp. 231–256. On the role of regional party organs in promoting local interests see Jerry Hough, The Soviet Prefects: the Local Party Organs in Industrial Decision‐Making (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1969). Kuznetsov inherited the positions in August 1946 and September 1947 Politburo resolutions (Politburo TsK VKP(b) i sovet ministrov SSSR 1945–1953, pp. 34–36, 51). See the comments of Kuznetsov's secretary G.V. D'yakonov in Afanas'ev (comp.), Oni ne molchali, pp. 389–390; Zubkova, 'Kadrovaya politika …', pp. 96–99. RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 139, ll. 99–101; RGANI, f. 6, op. 2, d. 137, ll.1–11. 'Na ryade vazhnykh uchastkov byli dopushcheny sereznye upushcheniya v podbore kadrov' (Politbyuro TsK VKP (b) i sovet ministrov SSSR, pp. 59–60). A 1948 draft resolution outlining the new division of responsibilities in the Central Committee apparatus designated Ya. F
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