ABSTRACT
At Stalin’s death in 1953 local government in the USSR was in a practically moribund condition, its constitutional role as the representative of state power in the localities firmly interpreted in practice as concerned with implementing policies devised at the center. The soviets, whose spontaneity as strike committees created by the working class so attracted Lenin, had been formalized and drained of any substance as organs through which the people ran their own affairs. Administration at local level was effectively an extension of central authority. The ministry-based economic administration removed from local state organs the real power to control affairs in the neighborhood, and any potential that the local soviets and their apparatus possessed was allowed – or forced – to be wasted. In short, local soviets and their apparatus showed no development over their position thirty-five years earlier, at the time of the revolution (Friedgut, 1978, p. 464). There were more soviets, of course, and 1·5 million citizens were drawn into them as deputies; yet they were very different institutions, and their function was essentially that of rubber-stamping decisions imposed by the center and transmitted through the party hierarchy. Since 1953, apparently serious attempts have been made to revitalize local government, to devise a new, more positive role for the soviets and to recruit individuals who will be competent to perform in these reinvigorated institutions. The results, however, have been mixed, and fundamental relationships have not been disturbed.
