BUSINESSLIKE EFFICIENCY—THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE OF THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF UNIVERSITY PARTY ORGANIZATIONS

L. I. KISELEV

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Scientific Communism)

In the system of socio-political laws of socialist and communist construction, the law of the guiding role of the Communist Party is the leading one. Armed with scientific theory—Marxism-Leninism—the Party organizes the working people, sets tasks before them, and directs their activity in creating the new society.

After the October (1964) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Party carried out a great deal of work in the sphere of Party building. A course was adopted toward strict observance of Leninist norms of Party life and the principles of Party leadership, which had a profound influence on all aspects of Party and state life. In particular, changes took place in the leadership style of Party organizations¹. They are being studied and theoretically generalized in the pages of the journals Kommunist, Partiinaya zhizn’, Politicheskoe samoobrazovanie, and a number of others, as well as in numerous collections and brochures².

The subject of the present article is the disclosure of one of the features of the style of Party leadership—businesslike efficiency—using the example of the Party organizations of technical higher educational institutions in Western Siberia.

Let us clarify the concept of “style.” This term is not the monopoly of any single science. At first it was understood as a manner, a mode of speech, that is, in a philological sense³. Later it was transferred to the sphere of art. A new interpretation of the term “style” arose—an art-historical one—as a distinctive trend in art that had taken shape in one epoch or another and represented a definite system of ideological and artistic features⁴.

At the present time, in the opinion of A. N. Sokolov, this category is used with full justification by at least four scientific dis-

disciplines: linguistics, literary studies, art history, and aesthetics. In each of these sciences the concept of “style” has acquired its own meaning.^5

This category is also widely used in other spheres of social life. People often speak of the work style of individual leaders, of administrative bodies as a whole. The concept of “style of Party leadership” has become established. In the literature, however, different interpretations of this term are often given.

Thus, A. S. Drygin writes: “The style and methods of Party work are a broad concept. Taken together, it includes the Party’s tasks and the content of its activity at particular historical stages, the forms, means, and techniques of action.”^6

One cannot agree with such a definition.

The Party’s tasks determine strategy and tactics, while style characterizes the particular features of leadership. These concepts are not identical.^7 Lenin did not identify them with one another. He pointed out that the successes of the Communists as the vanguard of the working class are ensured by “the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided that the broadest masses become convinced of their correctness through their own experience.”^8

Style is a system of components of leadership. And since the latter is built on the basis of the indicated rules, i.e., principles, style is a system of principles. The resolutions of the Twenty-Third Congress of the CPSU state that “a scientific approach, collectivity, and businesslike efficiency in the leadership of communist construction, in the conduct of the domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet state, which have become established in the work style of the Central Committee, must henceforth form the basis of all its activity.”^9

However, the work style of both Party bodies and individual leaders has a relative independence. It is known that the general cannot exist apart from the particular. Every generality is only a particle of the particular.

The general principles of Party leadership are realized to varying degrees in the activity of the subject of administration. On this basis various stylistic systems take shape; people speak of a “good style” or a “bad style,” usually investing in these concepts the methods and techniques by which administration is carried out. In other words, there are no absolute boundaries between style and methods. They stand in a dialectical interconnection and interdependence. The work style also determines the methods for solving the tasks posed, while the latter, in turn, in their totality largely characterize the style.^10

Let us consider one of the most important aspects of style—businesslike efficiency. Businesslike efficiency is a capacious concept. In its most general, concise form it may be expressed in the formula: the unity of conception and execution.

Businesslike efficiency is inherent not only in the working class and its vanguard—the Communist Party—but also in the bourgeoisie. For the latter it,

^5 A. N. Sokolov, Theory of Style. Moscow, 1968, p. 3.
^6 A. S. Drygin, “To Improve the Style and Methods of Party Work,” in Time and Style. Northwestern Book Publishing House, 1967, p. 4.
^7 For more detail on the distinction between strategy, tactics, and administration, see V. G. Afanasyev’s article “Once Again on the Problems of the Scientific Administration of Society,” Scientific Administration of Society, Moscow, 1969, issue 3.
^8 V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 45, p. 61.
^9 Twenty-Third Congress of the CPSU. Stenographic Report, vol. II, Moscow, 1966, p. 313.
^10 N. Lyaporo[v], M. Stepichev, Time and Style. Moscow, 1969, p. 6.

in the words of A. S. Makarenko, there is “a quality for defeating the inefficient, gaining the upper hand over them, turning them into slaves, into the exploited.”⁵

Proletarian businesslike efficiency has a fundamentally different character and differs from bourgeois efficiency in its social nature, character, and orientation. It is based on Marxist-Leninist theory, which makes it possible to know the objective laws of nature and society and, in accordance with the tendencies of their development, to elaborate scientifically grounded plans and organize the working people for their fulfillment.

Proletarian businesslike efficiency is a quality inherent not in isolated individuals or a narrow circle of persons, but in hundreds of millions of working people.⁶

Businesslike efficiency is a system of properties, of features of leadership, and, like any system, it may conventionally be divided into the following components:

a) the ability to adopt a scientifically grounded managerial decision;
b) skill in the selection of cadres and in the practical organization of the matter;
c) systematic control, precision, initiative, and promptness.

It is well known that the initial moment of leadership, on which the success of the matter above all depends, is the adoption of a scientifically grounded managerial decision. The latter is possible only when the leading bodies, in setting themselves certain definite goals on the basis of which this decision is worked out, have sufficiently complete information: a) about the matured social needs, b) about the conditions for their realization, and c) about the ways and means of realization.⁷ Moreover, the unity of these elements is necessary. The absence or insufficiency of information about any one of them may lead to the posing of ill-considered tasks that do not correspond to real actuality.

Such information can be obtained through various channels. The most widespread sources in university Party organizations are direct communication with the masses, with living people; control; concrete sociological investigations, and others. The first of these is a very important source of reliable information. It is known, for example, how highly V. I. Lenin valued it. He pointed out: “The vanguard fulfills the tasks of a vanguard only when it is able not to detach itself from the mass it leads, but truly to lead the whole mass forward. Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity, there can be no question of any successful communist construction.”⁸

This source enables Party organizations to obtain, first, systematic information—and only systematic information is scientific. Discrete, empirical information merely helps one orient oneself in the situation that has arisen; second, information from different sides, at different levels. In this way, unreliable, inaccurate, and non-objective information is excluded.

Various forms are used for this purpose: meetings of Party leaders with students in dormitories, participation in the work of student public organizations, through the network of curators (Party assignees), and so on.

Of course, a higher educational institution is only one of the many structural elements and subsystems that make up the system (society), each of which acts both as a subject and as an object of administration. As such, it receives a large amount of external information.

An important role in this case is played by various kinds of seminars and meetings of the party activists of higher educational institutions, organized by oblast and city party committees.

In Novosibirsk, for example, the city and oblast party committees regularly hold seminars for secretaries of party committees, at which, as a rule, the fundamental and most urgent problems of their ideological-political and organizational activity are discussed.

They are held at the higher educational institution whose party committee has accumulated the greatest experience on the question submitted for consideration. After a brief familiarization and exchange of opinions, corresponding recommendations are developed. Such practice makes it possible to make broader use of the valuable experience that party organizations possess in their work, and to determine its most effective forms and methods.

In 1968–1970, seminars of this kind were held in all higher educational institutions of Novosibirsk.^15 On the basis of this initial, informational material, as well as the prescriptive material received from higher party organs, prospective work plans are created in the party organizations of higher educational institutions, usually for the academic year; in these plans, above all, the central, integral task (the main link) is determined. The point is that they have to solve many interrelated tasks, differing in their significance, degree of complexity, deadlines for completion, and so on. This creates the danger of losing perspective. Knowledge of the central problem removes it.

However, the adoption of a scientifically grounded decision does not yet ensure success. Practical measures are needed for its implementation. It is in this rough work that the core of businesslike efficiency manifests itself. This depends on the functioning and development of the party organization itself and on the proper selection of personnel.

In higher educational institutions the following organizational structure has taken shape: party group—primary party organization (faculty-level, groups of departments, and so on)—institute-wide organization with the corresponding elected organs: party group organizer—bureau—party committee or bureau. Moreover, depending on the number of communists in the subdivisions of an institute, there may be several kinds of party groups: departmental; by specialty (research workers and students); groups of research institutions, problem laboratories, and so on. In addition, in student dormitories, where often there is not yet a real collective, non-statutory party groups are created which, working together with Komsomol and trade-union organizations, help the administrations of faculties resolve many issues in the education of young people.

Such a structure ensures the comprehensiveness and systematic character of leadership.

The elected party organs, proceeding from the general line expressed in the prospective plans, develop a set of measures for its implementation. Work plans are drawn up for a comparatively short period of time (for example, for a half-year).

^15 Current archive of the Department of Science and Educational Institutions of the Novosibirsk Oblast Committee of the CPSU. Report on the ideological-political education of the intelligentsia in Novosibirsk, 1970.

Especially in recent years, party bodies have begun to prepare more carefully for sessions and meetings. The most important questions of university life are brought up for discussion. Thus, from November 1966 through June 1967 the Party Committee of the Novosibirsk Electrotechnical Institute (NETI) considered 75 questions at its meetings, of which 18 were connected with instructional-methodological, scientific, and educational work (24%); in the following reporting period they already amounted to 37.1% (26 of 70), and from June 1969 through October 1970—40% (43 of 107).^16

Members of the committee are usually familiarized in advance with drafts of the party committee’s resolutions; in preparing them, assistance is sought from councils of scholars and specialists. It should be noted that this is also promoted by the changes taking place in the composition of party organizations (Table 1).

Table 1

Composition of the NETI Party Organization (1968–1970)^17

It is evident from the table that the proportion of Communist instructors in the NETI party organization exceeded 50% in 1970. However, this is not simply a matter of quantitative growth. Qualitative changes are taking place: the number of CPSU members holding an academic degree or academic title is growing. At NETI, as of January 1, 1971, they made up more than 40% of the total number of Communists, whereas among the faculty the number of persons with an academic degree or academic title was considerably smaller (24.3%).^18

Similar processes are taking place in other higher educational institutions as well. Much attention is also devoted to the very conduct of meetings of party committees and party bureaus. Everything is thought through and planned in advance. For example, in 1965 the Party Committee of the Tomsk Civil Engineering Institute, by a special decision, established that the agenda, indicating the time at which discussion of each question would begin, was to be given to committee members and speakers no later than 5 days in advance, and the draft resolution 2 days before the start of the work. The adopted decision is handed to the specific executors, against signature, no later than 5 days after the committee meeting.^19

^16 Calculated from materials of the current archive of the NETI Party Committee.

^17 The table was compiled on the basis of materials from the current archive of the NETI Party Committee and the Party Committee’s report for 1968–1970.

^18 Current archive of the NETI Party Committee.

^19 Party Archive of the Tomsk Regional Committee of the CPSU (PATO), fonds 4584, inventory 3, file 15, sheets 378–380.

Such practice considerably facilitates monitoring of the implementation of decisions, which in turn increases the effectiveness of resolutions, since it compels the adoption of concrete measures with specified executors and deadlines. That is, between these two elements of efficiency, as between the others, there exists a close dialectical interconnection, and their separation is purely conditional.

Control, as a system of observations and inspections, makes it possible to obtain in good time the necessary information about the implementation of a party decision, to reveal emerging contradictions, to resolve them, and to carry out correction.

Its forms are varied. It cannot be asserted that some of them are more effective and others less so, since in reality they rarely appear in a “pure” form. Usually party organizations use various forms of control. Moreover, one and the same form may produce different results. This depends on many circumstances: the organization of the work, the degree to which the chosen form corresponds to the concrete situation, and so on.^20

The forms and methods of checking the implementation of resolutions that have become most widespread in university party organizations include the study of the state of affairs on site, individual conversations with the personal executors, the personal acquaintance of members of the party committee and party bureau with how a particular decision is being implemented in collectives (in departments, faculties, and so forth), analysis of adopted resolutions, and so on.

Thus, in the party committee of Tomsk State University named after V. V. Kuibyshev, the following form has become established. Each member of the committee, once a week, receives communists in his own area of work or uses this time to check the state of affairs on site. Between meetings of the party committee, meetings are held of sectors consisting of several committee members, at which instructions are given, individual questions of educational, scientific, and upbringing work are discussed, preparations are made for forthcoming meetings, and so on.

At meetings, information on the implementation of party-committee decisions is regularly heard from the communists responsible for this.^21

Thus, the striving to pose and solve practical tasks on a scientific basis, the unity of conception and execution, concreteness, and promptness characterize the efficiency of party organizations.

^20 G. Vashchenko. “Checking Implementation—the Most Important Aspect of Party Work.” — Kommunist, 1967, No. 13, p. 101.

^21 A. P. Bychkov. “Criteria of Effectiveness.” — Krasnoye znamya, No. 20 (13142), 1967, January 24.

1. G. S. Zolotukhin. On collectivity and personal responsibility in Party work. — Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1970, No. 8, pp. 4–5. ↩

2. V. Anisimov, A. Klimov. Collectivity, scientific approach, businesslike efficiency. — Politicheskoe samoobrazovanie, 1968, No. 7; N. Rodionov. On the effectiveness of Party work. — Kommunist, 1967, No. 9. Time and Style. Volgograd, 1968. Time and Style. North-Western Book Publishing House, Vologda, 1967. Style, Forms, Methods. Alma-Ata, 1966, and others. ↩

3. A. N. Sokolov. Theory of Style. Moscow, 1968, p. 5. ↩

4. Ibid., p. 8. ↩

5. A. S. Makarenko, Works in 7 volumes, vol. 5, Moscow, 1958, p. 286. ↩

6. G. Shitarev, “Businesslike Efficiency—the Most Important Feature of a Worker of the Leninist Type,” Political Self-Education, No. 10, 1965, p. 37. ↩

7. V. N. Kodin, “The Goal in the Scientific Management of Society,” in: Scientific Management of Society, Moscow, 1968, issue 2, p. 240. ↩

8. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 45, p. 23. ↩