Encyklopedia Administracji Publicznej MW Pivot Skin

SOVIET MODEL OF ADMINISTRATION – the essence of the Soviet model is administering every area of social life, beginning with the economy, through social life, up to culture and the education system. The model evolved over 70 years of its existence – from the revolutionary situation and wartime communism, through totalitarianism (1930s to 1950s), to the authoritarian system with totalitarian elements (different degrees in different countries). It is necessary to distinguish between the declared principles and the actual principles of functioning of administration in the real socialism system.. The former include such principles as the participation of masses in government, democratic centralism, and socialist law. In practice, these principles took the form of a lack of democracy or a socialist democracy controlled by the communist party (a non-alternative vote within the national fronts), centralisation, → police state. The centre of political and executive power in this system was not the government, but the political office being the equivalent of the cabinet in the parliamentary system. This administration was centralised and subjected to parallel control of the communist party apparatus at each level (→ steering role of the party towards administration). The structural principle of the real socialism countries – uniform state power – contradicted the principle of the division of powers, since there was the supremacy of the parliament under strict control of the communist party (through a predetermined percentage of seats for the communist party in the parliament, party guidelines and party discipline, the ability to dismiss a deputy). The real socialism countries basically did not know the institution of a vote of confidence/no-confidence in the understanding of democratic states. The government was usually referred to as the supreme executive and management body, which in fact rendered its real position. It was the executive body in relation to the party, the parliament and the head of state and the managing body in relation to the administration. Each ministry was a vertically organised administrative empire, with numerous units administering social life in a given department of administration. The position of ministers did not result solely from the position occupied in the government structures, but above all from the simultaneous positions in the party structures, above all in the political office. One of the features of the central authority was also a highly advanced industry – during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev (1984), USSR had 59 ministries and 22 state committees of a ministerial nature (e.g. KGB, planning committee, price committee, etc.). In the Soviet administration system, despite of the existence of a bureaucratic organisation, there was no → civil service as understood by Western democracies. At every level of administration an important role was played by socio-economic planning, which in terms of nationalization of the majority of national assets meant bureaucratic planning. Economic ministries directly supervised the companies and constituted a “state within the state”. This kind of organisation was one of the main causes of inertia and stagnation in the system of real socialism. In the area of local authority, the Soviet system abolished → local government as understood by Western democracies. “All power in the hands of councils” – the basic slogan of the October Revolution quickly became fictitious. The gap between theory (phraseology) and practice was obvious not only for Western scholars, but also for communist decision-makers who attempted to change this situation, but under the conditions of the undemocratic system they never succeeded. First of all, the role of the communist party, which in fact, as defined by sovietology, was the “supermayor”, was undefined in the system. Political supervision by local party committees and administrative supervision by the ministries – made the self-government of councils a fictional. National councils, without their own tax base and financially dependent on the centre, did not have the possibility to pursue an independent policy. Local governments were also weak due to the fact that the local industry was subordinated to central ministries. Local institutions (schools, public utilities, cultural, etc.) were subject to the principle of nomenclature. National councils served as a link between power and society and as a tool for social mobilization (a form of studying the mood in the period of controlled election campaigns – “socialist democracy”). The councils had both decision-making and executive functions (presidium and chairman of the council), which resulted from the doctrine of uniform state power. The original feature of the administration of real socialism countries was the principle of double subordination: to a higher-level council and to a higher-level executive body (e.g. a voivodship). The councils and their executive bodies played mainly a strictly executive role, not an initiative role (this was reserved for the party) in relation to the local community. The mechanisms of administrative control and supervision, such as administrative courts and commissioners for citizens’ rights, in general did not function – although some socialist countries had made such attempts (e.g. such a body was established in PPR in the 1980s). Institutions of state control were most often subordinated to the government or their leadership was subject to → party nomenclature, party control was of real significance. A distinctive feature of this system was the extensive application of autonomous legal acts to regulate many issues, including those that in democratic countries are subject to the law and control. A typical example of the latter in the real socialism system was drawing up joint resolutions by the constitutional and party bodies, the so-called party and state resolutions. It should be mentioned that the Soviet bloc states formally and legally had both unitary and federal character (Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union), although the control of the Communist Party was the key factor. (→ steering role of the party towards administration) [D. Długosz]