!"#$%&'(")*)+'$),$-)./#0$1)22340/)56$758/&(/4*/5#6$958$:#&/&095(#$0)$:#,)2;

Political Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1986

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform Jeffry Klugman1

Russian childrearing patterns and Soviet political reality combine to pro- duce important psychological issues centered around control/dependency and the split between the public and the private. In the ideal, these splits are to be resolved via complete identification of the individual with the state or society. Imperfections in this identification and too much job security under Brezhnev resulted in the proliferation of corruption, and indiscipline, and promoted resistance to reform. A trend toward rationalization in the Soviet bureaucracy, its evolution toward better bureaucratic functioning, and a tightening of discipline both serve to reduce personalism and offer a road to improved domestic performance for the Soviet system.

KEY WORDS: Soviet Union; corruption; control/dependency; Soviet economy; Soviet economic reform.

The relations of the political bureaucracy with the economic sector (and for that mat- ter with other sectors) were characterized... by its attempt at detailed supervision of, and intervention in, each phase and aspect of management. (Bialer, 1980). In Murmansk, at Kindergarten-Nursery No. 101, I saw one group of toddlers where the tea tables were perflectly set up for all the dolls. When the children started to play, large women in white gowns enveloped one child after another and guided them, in warm tones, where to sit, how to sit, how to handle the dolls, how to play in general. (Smith, 1976)

CONTROL AND DEPENDENCY

Soviet-style parenting is both warm and controlling. "Russian children are brought up with a combination of indulgence and discipline which sur-

'Department of Psychiatry and Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

67

0162-895X/86/0300-0067$05.00/1 ? 1986 International Society of Political Psychology

rounds them both with more affection and with more restrictions than American children" (Jacoby, 1974). Parents tend to be overprotective and intrusive. Children are spoiled not by being allowed too much license, i.e., behavioral freedom, but by being given too many things, i.e., consumptive freedom (see Smith, 1976; Hechinger, 1967a,b; Jacoby, 1974). (Obviously this description cannot apply to every child and every family. It is instead an expression of a cultural norm. This pattern constitutes a modal upbringing.) In the face of the grayness and scarcity that characterizes the Soviet scene, observers are struck by the supplies of toys and the resources expended on child-care facilities, albeit they are still meager by Western standards. Parents discipline their children by withdrawing affection. Many toddlers are toilet trained by 18 months, quite early by Western standards. Three- and four-year-olds are strapped in harnesses connected to leashes to keep them close when out on a walk. Perhaps for lack of space, perhaps to main- tain supervision, children are included in adult gatherings, becoming passive spectators. Teenagers are discouraged from having chores or earn- ing money. Childhood thus becomes a training ground for both passive dependency and compliance with an intrusive authority.

In its emphasis on group activity and the importance of group membership, the early childhood education and the advice given in parent- ing manuals resemble treatment for delinquency and drug abuse in the United States (see Minuchin et al., 1967; Yablonsky, 1965). Perhaps coin- cidentally, Anton Makarenko, the guiding light of Soviet early education and the Dr. Spock of Russian childrearing since the early 1930s, did his early work with delinquent youths orphaned in the Russian Revolution and civil war (Makarenko, 1951).

In treatment programs in the United States, drug users - self-centered, narcissistic petty criminals for whom other people are objects and not really persons with feelings of their own to be considered-are placed in an in- tensely controlled and highly structured social environment. "The Com- munity," as it is called, actively monitors the behavior of every one of its members. People are rewarded and punished in accordance with the rigid rules of the community. As they progress through the program, the members are rewarded with authority over other members. Punishment consists of shaming and isolation, as well as the loss of privileges and responsibilities. The rules force members to care about social expectations; they glue the members into a social structure.

In Soviet education the relevent group is called "the collective," not "the community," but it functions in much the same way. In nursery schools, children's behavior is closely regulated by caring but highly con- trolling guardians. All activities are group activities, forcing continuous social interaction. Explicit behavioral expectations are centrally prescribed Two- and three-year-olds, for example, are expected to notice missing but-

Klugman 68

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

tons, to wash their hands if dirty, to use napkins, and to do their own but- tons. Although these expectations are not always fulfilled, they nonetheless set a tone by their very existence. Art is copied from models, identically rendered, and must be realistically colored. [Note that rigidity is inversely proportional to distance from the center. Latvian and Georgian children produce art that is more varied and individual than that produced by youngsters in Moscow and Leningrad (Jacoby, 1974).] Conformity to detailed and explicit expectations is the rule. Deviance, if severe enough, is punished by exclusion from the group, echoing the pattern of parental discipline via withdrawal of affection. By Western standards, Soviet children are treated as if they were all born with anti-social personalities, as if they were "anti-socialists" in need of intensive socialization.

A child growing up so controlled and so cared for has two choices, psychologically. [The psychodynamically derived picture presented here and below has a different vocabulary, but corresponds in essence, to the results of psychological testing of Russian emigres. Those results also show that elites are less emotionally expressive than the norm, but this is compati- ble with the idea that elites may express the same relationships in more in- strumental modes (Inkeles, 1968).] He can become passive and (at least ex- ternally) compliant, or he can identify with the controller and become con- trolling. There is in either case no psychological autonomy, but a sticky, enmeshing emotional relationship centered around issues of control and dependency. Most often, both kinds of behavior will be exhibited, but at different times or in different relationships. Whichever side is played, it's the same game.

Strong identification with the controller eventually can be expressed via membership in the Communist Party, which controls and "cares for" the needs of the population. Since the major route to success is through the Par- ty, most talented and ambitious people become Party members. Of males over 30 years of age, half of the college graduates and one third of the high school graduates are members. [This figure understates the breadth of membership in a sense, since nonmember college graduates are concen- trated in scientific research and the arts, and so are geographically and in- stitutionally concentrated (Hough and Fainsod, 1979).] Anyone with much responsibility in management, administration, the Army, law, and so on, has joined the Party.

Party membership does not express just the controlling, intrusive side of the model relationship, however. Party members must submit to party discipline, which is more demanding than the discipline required of the rest of the population. In return, party members, themselves, are especially well cared for (see Zaslovsky, 1980; Smith, 1976; and Simis, 1982). Various "goodies" are available to Party members-special stores, health care facilities, and vacation spas. Use of these facilities is contingent upon con-

69

tinued membership and office holding. The State retains ownership of the dachas used by the highest elite, for example. Privileges remain the dispen- sation of the State; they are never the autonomous right of the individual. The State has an ongoing nurturant relationship with the thus dependent elite. Via the indulgent privileges accorded to members, the need for sup- port from above for both membership and advancement, and the required submission to Party discipline, Party membership expresses the passive dependent side of the original parenting relationship.

RESISTANCE TO REFORM

When Westerners talk of a need for major reform in the Soviet economy, they speak in terms of decentralization-reduced central plan- ning, and increased autonomy for managers. The absence of such reform is usually explained by opposition from entrenched elites whose privileges and positions would be threatened. However, even if the leadership wanted to implement such radical reform, they would require, among other things, appropriate human capital. The individual autonomy required by such reform, however, has not been available in the personality stock of the Soviet Union. (I do not mean to imply here a form of psychological deter- minism. I merely assume that the social system has psychological, cultural, economic, and political subsystems, that these enhance stability to the degree that they are congruent, and that incongruent change will be resisted by each subsystem, from each according to its ability, and according to the degree of incongruity. I also think that ongoing experience by post-Stalin administrators in work collectives is gradually changing the possibilities, but that is a subject for another paper.)

How would a modal Soviet personality, so concerned with issues of control and dependency, react to decentralizing reforms? Both central authorities and local managers would experience a fear of disconnection and a sense of disorientation. Exclusion, isolation, and disconnection are after all a form of punishment in Russian society. (I do not address the ac- tivities of second economy entrepreneurs, who represent the rebellious, counter-dependent and narcissistic flip side of the implicitly official modal personality.)

A central planner who is given responsibility for a sector or industry will feel enormous anxiety if he cannot guide his charge in the only way he knows how. Similarly, local managers will be anxious if they are to be judg- ed on their performance, and influenced in their careers, by people who cannot supply guidance on exactly how to perform. If local management is disconnected from central control, both groups will find ways to reconnect.

Klugman 70

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

Managers, for example, will spend a major part of their energies look- ing for subtle signals of what the authorities truly desire. [Janusz Zielinski has observed that reforms did not have much impact when introduced into what he called the Traditional Economic System in Poland - direct planning at the enterprise level and the ratchet principle of increasing production goals with each new plan. New elements were either neutralized, producing no impact at all, or mutated into something congruent with the old system. His conclusion was that only radical change could have an impact. I do not believe, however, that he fully explained why the 'new elements' did not work, and so I remain skeptical that larger new elements would do any better. Of course, Poland may have different human capital with a different personality stock (Zielinski, 1978).]

Managers have gotten to their positions of authority within the system as it is, and as much as they might complain about various constraints, they are security minded. They most likely want to do better within the system they know, with an incremental increase in their own authority, rather than shift to an unfamiliar system in which they might not succeed. Workers, too, fear unemployment, and so are chary of reform. It is not just the central elite which is threatened by major reform, it is every participant in Soviet industry. (Zielinski points out that unskilled workers as well as central bureaucrats oppose reform, but ignores middle management as a potential source of opposition.) They all must want incrementalism, if they want any change at all. At every level of management, they want a bit more freedom from those above, and a bit more control over those below.

When Stalin died, there was a fear of panic because of a sense of discon- nection from central authority and thus a sense of potential chaos. Decen- tralizing reform would produce a reaction similar in psychological content, and perhaps just as dramatic behaviorally. Psychological resistance is one reason that such reform is so difficult: the desire for security is experienced at all levels of Soviet society and (given the childrearing patterns), security must flow from gratified dependency, external control, and a sense of membership, as well as feelings of mastery and the privilege of intrusive authority for those who have incorporated the need for control. Servility up and arrogance down means that eveyone securely knows his place within the hierarchy.

THE OFFICIAL WORLD OF PUBLIC BEHAVIOR

If one polarity in Soviet society is between the Party and the masses, another is the tension between what is public and waht is private [see Tucker (1971) for one description of this phenomenon from Czarist times to the pre-

71

sent]. The individual "has a role and self-identity in official Russian, but also a hidden unofficial existence and identity" (Tucker, 1971). Children must be taught what is to be kept within the family. Sharing an anti-regime joke is no longer life threatening, as in the days of Stalinist terror (when privacy was restricted to the inside of one's skull), but it still establishes a con- spiratorial intimacy. "The inner emigration," withdrawal into the private satisfactions of work and family, studiously ignoring the public world of politics, is the choice of many Soviets.

It takes three people to make a meeting public. Every factory, every store, every organization, has its primary Party organization, provided there are at least three Party members working there (Hough and Fainsod, 1979). (The executive committee of the primary party organization functions as a kind of board of directors for the enterprise, monitoring the functioning of the management and workers.) In early party history, a local Party group, or cell, also required three members. Two's privacy, three's a crowd.

The "official," public world has the social structure and behavioral norms of a Western corporation. [Jowitt points out that the identity of what is official and what is public is peculiar to this system, and does not characterize Western societies (Jowitt, 1983). Meyer explicitly compares the structure of the Communist Party to a corporation (Meyer, 1967).] Like a corporation, "the state has come to be regarded as an abstract entity, with interests entirely different from those of the human beings composing it..." [Donald MacKenzie Wallace, quoted in Tucker (1971). [Lenin spoke ex- plicitly of "the transformation of all citizens into workers and employees of one big "syndicate," namely, the state as a whole" (quoted in Tucker, 1971).] Managers are expected to be company men, loyal to the organization more than to the individuals in it, arranged in hierarchic authority relationships, and at the disposal of the company. The higher one goes, the more one's private life is taken up by company business. Management views workers as there to do a job, not to participate in management. Wages and benefits are provided, but management has an interest in minimizing both, balanced against its need to spur productivity via incentives.

Public behavior, including public speech, must be in accord with of- ficial expectations, and expectations become more exacting as one ascends the ranks. A positive attitude and expressions of loyalty must be produced on demand, whatever one's internal thoughts. Private disbelief, if present, doesn't matter; what is important is public adherence. If the inner emigra- tion means more attention is given to work, so much the better. If everyone follows the rules, does it matter if no one believes in them?

The Soviet masses correspond to a workforce in a (management dominated) company union, living in a company town, buying at company stores. Dissent and resistance to central directives are not tolerated. It is not considered appropriate for unhappy employees to camp on the doorstep of

72 Klugman

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

the chairman of the board, or to approach outside media, for example. One goes through channels. The Soviet Union suppresses dissidence for reasons analogous to those for which Western corporations punish deviance. Dissidents are not especially dangerous as individuals, but they are dealt with harshly because they challenge the integrity, the cohesion, and the authority of the whole organization.

Like most shareholders' annual meetings, Soviet elections and the se- miannual meetings of the official Soviet legislature rubber stamp the actions of the management, and overwhelmingly support the current board of direc- tors. (In Western corporations, shareholders have the option of selling their stock if they don't like the management. Soviet citizens supposedly are the joint owners of the means of production, but their ownership rights resem- ble the feudal sharing-out of the land in the primitive, family-like, village commune. They can't sell their shares.) Soviet man, with his passivity and his desire to be taken care of, and with the Party threatening dire results for disobedience, puts in a public appearance and, for all his complaining, "when it comes time to vote, votes 'yes,'" "count me in." (A Soviet joke says that the six wonders of the Soviet Union are that everyone has a job, but nobody works; nobody works, but everyone is paid; everyone is paid, but there is nothing to buy; there is nothing to buy, but nobody goes without; nobody goes without, but everyone complains; and everyone complains, but when it comes to to vote, everyone votes "yes.") Soviet elections, to the degree that they have any psychological content, are not expressions of choice, but affirmations of membership.

Conformist public behavior is what supports and maintains the official Soviet system. One may say, in fact, that public behavior constitutes that system, while private behavior has no "presence" at all. The psychological themes expressed in the official, public Soviet system revolve around cohe- sion and control; everyone's public self is glued into the Whole, a modern, soulless version of Khomiakov's religious concept of sobornost' the gather- ing of individuals into organic union [for Khomiakov, on the universal Church, see Riasanovsky (1955)].

Lenin thought that eventually all the members of the Whole would become essentially the same, equal and interchangeable. There would be a kind of decentralization via the standardization of behavior. He wrote that the withering away, or transcendance, of the State would occur as people developed Socialist habits along with a kind of job rotation (Lenin, 1943). Every chambermaid was to be a potential minister of the government, since the tasks of the state were to become routinized and reflected in the behavior of every individual citizen.

This is not what has occurred. Although habits of public behavior have become quite routinized and conformist, authority remains highly centraliz- ed and jobs highly specialized. Interchangeable in his loyal public conformi-

73

ty, the individual is not interchangeable when fulfilling his productive function for the State. In fact, his productive function defines the individual for socie- ty, and constitues his "official individuality," institutionalized via medals and titles (Jowitt, 1983). The private person, invisible to the state, might just as well be interchangeable.

The split between the public and the private will be overcome, in theory, to produce "the New Soviet Man" (see McLeish, 1975; Bauer, 1952). In the New Soviet Man, the private will be absorbed by the public. Even now, "elite membership ideally enlists the whole of a person's identity" (Jowitt, 1983). The New Soviet Man will be fully identified with the State, and eager to fulfill his role in the State. In caricature, as in Orwell's 1984, the New Soviet Man would have intercourse with his mate only to produce new citizens for the State. In a more sophisticated version, he would be sexually active to main- tain his own happiness and that of his marriage and family unit, so that all family members would function better within the State. Just as each cell in a body has its individual metabolism, its individual need for oxygen and food and to have its wastes removed, so the individual member of the State has his own personal needs for food and also for recreation and relaxation, so he can function optimally in his State role. Private needs serve public ends. The happiness of the individual is fully compatible with and contributory to the successful functioning of the State.

LABOR INDISCIPLINE

The nice conjunction between personal happiness and official duties is dependent upon full identification with the State, upon incorporation of both sides of the control-dependency relationship. Although Party member- ship includes both sides of the relationship, the Party is reserved for an "elite vanguard," and those outside the Party, at the bottom of the hierarchy, can be dependent but cannot control.

Those who do not join the Party, who choose compliance instead of control as their predominant mode, get their dependency needs met by being "cared for," not as well, but with less effort than Party members. A welfare mentality pervades the Russian population. The nation is like a large family; everyone is a member, and no one will be turned out into the cold. One of the six wonders of the Soviet Union is that although there's nothing to buy, nobody goes without, and of course jobs are guaranteed, and food and housing (as available) subsidized.

The choice of passivity does include a potential for unofficial control- passive resistance and noncompliance as an outlet for resentment of the ex-

74 Klugman

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

ternal control. Soviet workers are seen by their own government as all too often lax, undisciplined, and with poor morale, as evidenced by the work discipline campaign immediately following the accession of Yuri Andropov. Workers frequently report for work drunk, or not at all. People leave during working hours to go shopping, standing in lines for hours to try to buy scarce and shoddy goods, the product of Soviet labor. Dissembling is an important form of resistance to control, as a Soviet adage attests: "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."

Service workers-waiters, repairmen, and clerks dealing with the public - are notorious for their discourtesy and poor performance. Aside from the economic disincentives of the ratchet principle, these workers experience a lack of prestige because of their positions. This lack of prestige derives not just from the low priority accorded services by central planners, but also from the fact that the structure of the service relationship does not encompass the quid pro quo of the parenting relationship.

Service workers have to care for their clients, but are supposed to be controlled by their clients; they resent the control implicit in every client's request for service. Service is degrading. If service workers could be in a posi- tion to authoritatively tell their clients what to do, what to buy, and what to eat, services would improve. Short of this reform, service workers will control the relationship with passive noncompliance. (Waiters seem to take special pleasure in telling customers that their first several choices are not available, effectively controlling what patrons may eat. Unfortunately, this power must remain covert, and therefore ungracious.)

When clients nurture service workers with blat, they establish the legitimacy of their controlling requests for service. "Blat typically refers to ties of reciprocity, not to impersonal, strictly accountable, exchanges of stan- dardized value" (Jowitt, 1983). Blat actually makes the parent-child relation- ship work both ways, since the service worker also has established control, via withholding, and then is in a position to take care of his client. Blat establishes a relationship; it is no mere pay-off.

For the masses who do not identify with the control and authority of the regime, the public world becomes a fantasy of "Socialist realism," heroic workers and leaders marching together in a two dimensional poster. The split between official truth and private reality turns into dissembling and doublethink, coats left on the backs of chairs to signify that someone is of- ficially at work, although not physically present, and workers reading books while officially, albeit lackadaisically, watering public gardens. If public- spiritedness is only a shared fantasy, a shell disconnected from the private self, the proper subject of jokes whose humor comes from pointing to the disparity between reality and official "truth," dissembling and noncompliance become easy choices.

75

Along with passive resistance, the Russian people release themselves from their feelings of external control, from their "normal corsets" (Dicks, 1952) with drink. The scope of Soviet alcohol consumption is indicated by the forty thousand Soviet deaths in 1976 from alcohol poisoning (acute over- dosage, not cirrhosis or other chronic effects). In the United States, in a com- parable total population, 400 died of the same cause (Lapidus, 1983).

The masses and the Party, in fact, relate to each other like an alcoholic marriage. The Party, the wife in this marriage, alternately berates her hus- band and gives him pep talks, telling him to be more sober, to work harder, to straighten up. The masses reply by saying "Sure honey, I'll try harder," and going out and getting drunk. In his drunken state, the husband may become abusive. The two hurt and humiliate each other, the wife with her attempts at discipline, cajoling, and persuasion, the husband with his constant "failures," combined with a public show of (resentful) agreement and (guilty) compliance, and perhaps a good intention or two.

The Soviet system is a bad marriage in many ways, brutal, exploitative, and corrupt. The masses cannot file for divorce, however, and the Party wouldn't want to. Resistance to foreign influences constitutes a quasi-religious objection, and most potential leaders learn to succeed within the system, leav- ing no one to lead a new Russian revolution. Spontaneous revolts, demonstra- tions, and strikes can occur, but this is like the occasional violence of the alcoholic spouse, frightening and destructive, but essentially an expression of powerless rage.

What does it feel like to be on top in the control relationship? Although the psychological testing data available (Inkeles, 1968) applies directly only to those on the bottom, we should be able to derive the experience of being on top. Although those on the bottom desire a nurturant, intrusive kind of maternal authority, they expect a stern, intrusive paternal authority. They also expect that self-abasement and flattery will elicit a kind of noblesse oblige from authority figures.

This is again reminiscent of the alcoholic marriage: the controlling spouse feels exasperated, angry, and superior in every way. When the drinker confesses his sins and begs for forgiveness, he is given another chance because this act confirms the fundamental, somewhat smug, superiority of the con- troller. There is never the slightest questioning by either party of the legitimacy of the authority of the controller. (I think the question of the legitimacy of the Soviet regime is a Western fabrication, not relevant to the psychological functioning of the vast majority of the populace.)

The system is stable. The Communist regime is not an alien rule im- posed on the Soviet people from above. It is a disturbance of internal regula- tion, an alien rule imposed from within.

76 Klugman

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

CORRUPTION

Soviet citizens and (even) Party members in fact only imperfectly em- body the official ideal of the New Soviet Man. Since the Party is the major route to success, individuals will enter the Party for less than altrustic reasons. In these people remain the urgings of private needs as opposed to State needs, feelings of resentment against the external control with which they have not fully identified, and a desire for self-serving, irresponsible, narcissistic gratification. The widespread corruption of Soviet officials (Simis, 1982; Jowitt, 1983) represents the absorption of the public by the private, instead of vice versa, as public power is subverted to serve private ends. Soviet cor- ruption turns the new Soviet man upside down.

In the West, ideals of personal integrity help individuals resist corrup- tion. In the Soviet Union, officials' resistance to corruption cannot be based on personal values, since private morality, judging one's own behavior, is a kind of secession of the individual from the State, and so itself a form of dissidence. There are, for those who have partially incorporated official values, no private values to be served by resisting corruption. Personal resistance to corruption must be based solely on the strength of the iden- tification of the individual with public values.

Split off from the public world, however, the private world enlists all the energies not channelled into official activities. Personal relationships and friendships become all the more intense. Personal loyalties, as opposed to official ones, compete with the interests of the State. "You-scratch-my-back- and-I'll-scratch-yours" relationships work against central control, even though they may help local operations proceed, for example by helping factories ob- tain needed supplies. (The blat relationships established by tolkachi express the hunger and neediness, the economics of shortage, of the Soviet system. In the West, these "pushers" would be salesmen, not purchasing agents. Note that these relationships have the same structure as blat relationships with service workers, allowing caretaking to go along with control.)

This pattern of local networks of loyalties has been called "familyness" (Bauer et al., 1956), and is highly threatening to the system, since it tears apart the integrated fabric of the centralized State. Loyalty is supposed to flow only up, and only to the highest, central authorities, without any in- termediate or intervening loyalties, let alone ones in other directions entire- ly. [The impermissability of loyalty to intermediate individuals or organizations is an echo of Czarist times. Members of the nobility served administrative roles far from their homes, and were frequently transferred, to discourage ties of loyalty or affection between them and the local residents (Dziewanowski, 1979). The villages, where most people were related by

77

marriage or blood, were organized as family-like primitive communes (Blum, 1961). Here, again, we see the themes of membership and belonging for the Russian masses, while the ruling elite identifies with a centralized and autocratic authority.]

For Party elites, however, loyalty to the overarching Soviet system can degenerate into personal loyalty to political allies. This again represents a failure of full identification with the system, but follows from system characteristics. Since advancement is dependent on support from above, elite members must learn to please superiors. Superiors may be replaced by those beneath them, however, leading to potential competition between officials and those immediately beneath them, and preventing effective delegation of authority. [At the highest levels of the regime, Stalin dealt with the problem of competition from inferiors by having a number of competing advisors whom he played off against one another. Khrushchev was eventually replaced by his heir apparent, Brezhnev, who learned the lesson and for much of his rule had no heirs apparent. Andropov, and then Chernenko, had enough of an age difference from the next generation of leaders so as not to experience direct competition with possible successors, so Gorbachev could be trained without creating fear in the General Secretary (see Hough, 1983).] The desire for intrusive control also interferes with delegation. To advance, then, one must convince superiors of one's loyalty. A non-altruistic concern with survival in office, as well as advancement, puts a premium on personal loyalty from inferior to superior.

Leaders concerned with private and not just public ends (and who may lack sufficient and objective criteria of the competency of inferiors) equate personal loyalty with "political reliability." Fuller identification with the system would make relationships less personal and more instrumental. In- stead, personal contact becomes crucial for success, witness under Brezhnev the advancement of personnel from regions in which powerful leaders have worked and established reliable loyalties. The efficiacy of coattail riding itself reinforces establishment of loyalties from below. The intensity of local and personal loyalty, however, is by its nature competitive with a colder, more abstract loyalty to the system as a whole.

Another factor which has undermined loyalty to the system as a whole is individual security. The elite's desire for security was expressed in their apparent agreement after Stalin's death to stop shooting one another (with the only exception being the execution of the chief of the secret police and a few of his subordinates). After the various reorganizations attempted by Krushchev, security was extended from physical security to job security, "stability of cadres," and personnel turnover was remarkably low in the Brezhnev years.

Klugman 78

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

Effective lifetime tenure during the Brezhnev regime removed the dependency on those above, and reduced controls on those below. Cut off from the chain of dependency up and control down, office holders were cast adrift. For psychological reasons among others, there was then a tendency for local networks of recriprocal loyalties to be formed, renewing a sense of membership. Then, however, control became more localized and still less impersonal. District cadres became tribal chiefs, emotionally dissociated from the nation. [Jowitt (1983, 1978) called this process "neotraditional degenera- tion" of the Leninist system, the formation of a traditional social system to replace the charismatic-bureaucratic amalgam which is Leninism.]

Cut off from above, local leaders tended to become the autocrats of their districts. This cutting off from above was promoted by a number of factors. Job security, as mentioned before, reduced the need for support from above. Lack of advancement opportunities also reduced ties to superiors. Advancement was of course limited by the tenure of those above, and perhaps also by career development patterns. District leaders, for example, seeming- ly did not become regional leaders (Bialer, 1980). If the local leader was im- perfectly identified with the system, i.e. if he was not properly utopian, then as the local autocrat he looked to his personal needs and satisfactions, not to the interests of the State, and thus he succumbed to "corruption." From his perspective, such corruption is merely the appropriate expression of his importance in the local order.

If a manager fully identifies himself with his local institution, there is nothing to hinder his using institutional resources to private ends. It feels appropriate for someone who might say "L'institution, c'est moi." (The psychological process of the collective encourages this attitude in its leader.) He is getting his due.

CONCLUSIONS

There are two ways to improve job discipline and reduce corruption in the Soviet Union. One is to help the populace internalize controls, instead of having control imposed; the other is to tighten external controls.

The two sides of the parenting relationship are too split, too polarized, however, for control to be internalized as full-fledged self-control. Even Party members only incorporate a sense of control by gaining authority over others, while remaining in a dependent relationship with the Party-State. For self- motivation to run the Soviet system without destroying the sense of closeness and membership so cultivated in Soviet child-rearing, that is, without destroy- ing socialism, control issues in relationships would have to disappear. Parents

79

would have to foster autonomy, as would the schools. Superiors would have to respect their inferiors, viewing them as colleages, and ultimately there could be no hierarchy, for hierarchy implies external control. Only if the State withers away, as in Lenin's vision, can the New Soviet Man be truly born.

The other way to improve job discipline and reduce corruption is to tighten the "moral corset" via discipline campaigns, decreased job security, and stern punitive measures directed against those who undermine central controls. After all, the externality of control makes corruption easy only in a psychological sense. The degree of that external control is an important variable in determining whether the illicit choice will in fact be made. Job security, for example, implies a severe limit on the degree of discipline, as does the absence of terror. Here again, as with economic reform, it appears that an incremental approach consonant with the available personality stock is more feasible.

Central authority must be more impersonal if it is to be effective, since personalism itself undermines identification with system. Personal authori- ty creates personal loyalties instead of systemic loyalty. It promotes local networks at the expense of central integration. It promotes self-serving behavior in superiors, and flattery and bribery by inferiors. It gives cause for resentment in inferiors, and thus leads to poor discipline. It prevents ap- propriate delegation of authority.

Personal authority is undisciplined authority. To promote discipline without resorting to terror, authority itself must be disciplined. Personal ties and personal loyalties must no longer be the sine qua non of political reliabili- ty; more objective criteria of competency must be used. Earlier in this paper, I compared the official social structure and behavioral norms of the Soviet system to those of a Western corporation. In the terms of that metaphor, the changes described here represent a shift from the personal (often dictatorial) entrepreneurial management style that occurs early in a corporate history, as under Stalin, to a more rationalized, professional style of manage- ment towards which corporations evolve. For dealing with corruption, poor discipline, and inefficiencies in economic management, there is only one path that is realistically consistent with the personality stock: increased discipline, impersonally administered, and delegation, not decentralization, of authority. (The Soviet Union must become a better bureaucracy to overcome its degeneration into traditionalism.)

There is, in fact, some evidence that these changes are happening. First, in the Andropov period there was indeed a discipline and anti-corruption campaign, as well as increased personnel turnover (and so a recentralizing decrease in job security) among regional leaders and on the Central Com- mittee. Second, in light of the responsibilities delegated to Gorbachev, Andropov was apparently training a successor (Hough, 1983). It is notable that Gorbachev's earlier advancement was during the Brezhnev era, so that his choice by Andropov was not based upon personal loyalties, but upon

80 Klugman

The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform

an impersonal estimation of his competencies and/or an impersonal agree- ment between Andropov and Chernenko. There is also evidence that Romanov was being trained to succeed Ustinov in many or all of his defense responsibilities, and that Aliyev was being groomed in the areas of ideology, education, and culture, Chernenko's successor in these areas. This new phenomenon of Soviet leaders training replacements for themselves implies a more impersonal and altruistic attitude towards the system.

One interpretation of these data is that under Andropov the Politburo was reorganized into a more corporate, collective, and impersonal body. The more senior members welcomed relief from some of their domestic chores, becoming an executive committee retaining supervisory authority domestically as well as primary responsibility for external relations. (Surely, Western business leasers will often put younger heirs apparent in positions of respon- sibility for further training and final evaluation.) Future assignments of responsibilities in the Politburo will reveal if this analysis is correct. One key fact is that Gorbachev retained his position as heir under Chernenko. The fact that Andropov and Chernenko both trained the same man as eventual successor imples a much more business-like, impersonal Politburo.

Choosing personnel on the basis of competency instead of personal ties encourages systematic, as opposed to personal, loyalties. Talented individuals can feel more hopeful of success in a more rational system. A number of studies have pointed to an increasing professionalism-higher education and specialized career paths-among elites (see Bialer, 1980; Hough, 1980), but they do not address the question of whether advancement occurs on a per- sonal or impersonal basis. Candidates may be better qualified as a group, but choices for promotion could still be based on personal loyalty. It can be expected, however, that professionally trained people will over time put more and more emphasis on professional, impersonal qualifications.

The Stalinist purges and the consequent synchronization of elites, coupled with the elite's reaction of desiring increasing personal and job securi- ty, resulted in longstanding, aged office-holders who no longer needed to compete with potential successors. Having seen many colleagues die (and of natural causes), they were faced with their own deaths. Their reaction was to identify (again?) with something larger than themselves, looking after the long-term interests of the system as a whole, as the fruits of personal power seemed more and more ephemeral. This set a good example to the leaders who are following, who labored for years under the supervision of the oldsters. The new impersonality, disciplined authority, must flow down from the top like legitimacy itself; only it has the potential to revitalize the system.

REFERENCES

Bauer, R. A. (1952). The New Man in Soviet Psychology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

81

Bauer, R. A., Inkeles, A., and Kluckholn, C. (1956). How the Soviet System Works, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Bialer, S. (1980). Stalin's Successors, Cambridge Univ. Press, New York. Blum, J. (1961). Lord and Peasant in Russia, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J. Dicks, H. (1952). Observations on Contemporary Russian Behavior. Human Relations 5:111-175. Dziewanowski, M. K. (1979). A History of Soviet Russia, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Hechinger, F. (1967a). Education: The Preschool Child. In Salisbury, H. E. (ed.), The Soviet

Union: the Fifty Years, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York. Hechinger, F. (1967b). Education: Triumphs and Doubts. In Salisbury, H. E. (ed.), The Soviet

Union: the Fifty Years, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York. Hough, J. (1980). Soviet Leadership in Transition, The Brookings Institution, Washington. Hough, J. (1983). Andropov's First year. Problems of Communism, Nov.-Dec., 40-57. Hough, J., and Fainsod, M. (1979). How the Soviet Union is governed, Harvard University

Press, Cambridge. Inkeles, A. (1968). Social Change in Soviet Russia, Simon and Schuster, New York. Jacoby, S. (1974). Inside Soviet Schools, Hill and Wang, New York. Jowitt, K. (1978). The Leninist Response to National Dependency, Institute of International

Studies, Berkeley. Jowitt, K. (1983). Soviet neotraditionalism: The political corruption of a Leninist regime. Soviet

Studies 35: 275-297. Lapidus, G. (1983). Social Trends. In Byrnes, R. (ed.), After Brezhnev, Indiana University Press,

Bloomington. Lenin, V. I. (1943). State and Revolution, International Publishers, New York. Makarenko, A. (1951). The Road to Life, Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow. McLeish, J. (1975). Soviet Psychology: History, Theory, Content, Methuen & Co., London. Meyer, A. (1967). Communism, Random House, New York. Minuchin, S., et al., (1967). Families of the Slums, Basic Books, New York. Riasanovsky, N. V. (1955). Khomiakov on Sobornost'. In Simmons, E. J. (ed.), Continuity

and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought, Harvard U. Press, Cambridge. Simis, K. M. (1982). USSR-The Corrupt Society, Simon and Schuster, New York. Smith, H. (1976). The Russians, Ballantine Books, New York. Tucker, R. C. (1971). The Soviet Political Mind, Norton, New York. Yablonsky, L. (1965). Synanon: the Tunnel Back, Penguin, Baltimore. Zaslovsky, V. (1980). Socioeconomic inequality and changes in Soviet Ideology. Theory Soc.

9: 383-407. Zielinski, J. (1978). On system remodelling in Poland: A pragmatic approach. Soviet Studies

30: 3-37.

82 Klugman

Article Contentsp. 67p. 68p. 69p. 70p. 71p. 72p. 73p. 74p. 75p. 76p. 77p. 78p. 79p. 80p. 81p. 82

Issue Table of ContentsPolitical Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Mar., 1986), pp. 1-216Front MatterPresidential AddressOn the Political Psychology of Peace and War: A Critique and an Agenda [pp. 1 - 21]Antinuclear Admirals: An Interview Study [pp. 23 - 52]Leadership as Political Mentorship: The Example of Wayne Morse [pp. 53 - 65]The Psychology of Soviet Corruption, Indiscipline, and Resistance to Reform [pp. 67 - 82]Political Parties and Foreign Policy: A Structuralist Approach [pp. 83 - 101]Coalition Formation in Parliamentary Situations as a Function of Simulated Ideology, Resources, and Electoral Systems [pp. 103 - 116]Work and Politics: A Decomposition of the Concept of Work and an Investigation of Its Impact on Political Attitudes and Actions [pp. 117 - 140]

The ForumComments on "Cognitive Functioning and Socio-Political Ideology Revisited" [pp. 141 - 147]Context Theory Revisited: A Response to Ward [pp. 149 - 151]Predicaments of Freudian Organizational Analysis: A Reply [pp. 153 - 157]Response to Commentary by Cynthia McSwain [pp. 159 - 162]

Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 163 - 168]untitled [pp. 169 - 170]untitled [pp. 171 - 173]

News and Notes [pp. 175 - 216]Back Matter