Purging in the Khrushchev era: 'Red Cardinals' and nationalism in the Soviet Republics

Loader, M. (2021) Purging in the Khrushchev era: 'Red Cardinals' and nationalism in the Soviet Republics. In: Moscow and the Non-Russian Republics in the Soviet Union: Nomenklatura, Intelligentsia, and Centre-Periphery Relations. Series: BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies. Routledge: Oxford, pp. 16-47. ISBN 9781032155401 (doi: 10.4324/9781003244608)

Abstract

This chapter argues that several leading Soviet politicians masterminded the administrative reorganizations using a key department within the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee Apparatus. The Party Organs Department for the Union Republics was the conduit for the communication and transmission of Moscow’s instructions with responsibility for supervising republican Communist parties. The chapter identifies three members of the top echelons of Moscow’s Party elite who sought to reimpose ‘order’ on the Soviet periphery and later profited from a diminished Khrushchev. The key players were Presidium member and Kremlin ideologue Mikhail Suslov, Committee for State Security Chairman Aleksandr Shelepin, and his acolyte Department for Union Republics Chairman Vladimir Semichastnyi. One of the Department’s key functions was the supervision of local Party organs through inspections. In a customary Department tactic, the inspectors noted that Tovmasian’s removal was implied in conversations with other Bureau members, and the Department supported the idea.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Loader, Dr Michael
• Authors: Loader, M.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Central and East European Studies
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9781032155401

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
307049		Centre-Periphery Relations in Flux: National Politics in the Soviet Borderlands	David Smith	Leverhulme Trust (LEVERHUL)	ECF-2019-311	S&PS - Central and East European Studies