MARX VERSUS PARKINSON: BUREAUCRATIC DIFFICULTIES IN THE USSR

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• Collection: General CIA Records
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• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 27, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: October 28, 1963
• Content Type: BRIEF

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CONFIDENTIAL
Current Support Brief
MARX VERSUS PARKINSON:
BUREAUCRATIC DIFFICULTIES IN THE USSR
CIA/RR CB 63-91
28 October 1963
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Research and Reports
CONFIDENTIAL
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declassification
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This material contains information affecting
the National Defense of the United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 18, USC, Sees. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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MARX VERSUS PARKINSON:
BUREAUCRATIC DIFFICULTIES IN THE USSR
A persistent campaign by Soviet leaders against "bureaucratism"
forced down the proportion of administrative-managerial personnel in
the labor force from 14. 6 percent in 1952 to 8. 9 percent in 1960.
Since 1960 the leadership has lost ground in its fight and has had to
step up the volume and intensity of its campaign, although in 1962 the
proportion of administrative personnel in the labor force had risen to
only 9. 2 percent. These data denote a generally successful campaign,
but they obscure actual developments that make this success question-
able. In its efforts to defy Parkinson's Law, the USSR is experiencing
evasive reporting tactics by some enterprise managers on the one hand
and inefficient use of its professional personnel on the other. The eva-
sion by enterprise managers consists of carrying administrative per-
sonnel on their payrolls as production workers. More importantly, pro-
fessional personnel are being burdened with administrative work that
could be accomplished more economically by clerical personnel -- a
development that runs counter to current efforts by the USSR to use its
professional manpower more effectively.
1. Administrative-Managerial Personnel
The size and structure of the administrative and managerial staffs
are controlled by the Ministry of Finance, which must approve for all
enterprises the number of each type of administrative or managerial
position as well as the salary scale for each such position. By contrast,
control by the financial. authorities over the remainder of the labor force
of an enterprise is limited generally to approving the over-all wage
fund. 1 /
To check on the trends in the size of the administrative staffs, the
Central Statistical Administration periodically conducts a survey of the
number of "administrative -managerial" (administrativno-upravlenschekiy)
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personnel employed in the Soviet economy. The results of this peri-
odic survey, shown in Table 1, indicate that the number of su.chpe?rrsonnel
declined after 1952 to a low point of 5. 6 million in 1959. This decline
occurred almost entirely in the public administration sector and was
accomplished in large part during 1954-56 by the numerous transfers
of personnel from government offices to machine tractor stations. 4/
After remaining practically unchangedduring the latter part of the
1950's, the number of administrative -managerial personnel increased
between 1960 and 1962 both in government agencies and in industrial
and other enterprises. Recent Soviet articles on this subject, however,
have ignored developments in the government sector and have aimed
their criticism at enterprise managers who defy existing regulations.
The Deputy Minister of Finance, F. Manoylo, writing in Izvestiya for
1 August 1963, referred to serious shortcomings in the organizational
structure of the management of production and to the discovery by the
financial agencies of illegal expenditures on administration amounting
to 80 million rubles in 1962 alone. Similar criticisms were expressed
by other members of the Ministry of Finance in articles in the issues
of Sotsialisticheskiy trud (Socialist Labor) and Finansy SSSR (Finances
of the USSR) for July 1963.
These articles also charged that managers circumvent the limita-
tions imposed by the finance authorities by carrying administrative
employees on the payrolls as production workers. In one instance cited,
the jobs of four telephone operators were abolished, but the operators
were retained at their posts and reclassified as electrical repair workers.
Professional Personnel and Clerical Work
When directed to reduce their administrative staff, enterprise
managers often have abolished clerical positions and transferred the
clerical duties to the managerial and professional staff. Such actions,
which do not conform fully to the intention of existing regulations, are
not mentioned in the articles cited above but have been attacked by
Soviet economists engaged in research on manpower utilization. Accord-
ing to the results of a study on the use of engineers conducted in 1961
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USSR: Administrative-Managerial Personnel a/
Selected Years, 1952-62
(4)
(2)
Total as a
(1)
Public
(3)
Percent of the
l
T
t
Administration
Other
State Labor Force
Year
o
a
1952
6,232
1,786
4,446
14.6
1954
6,io4
1,726 J
4,378
13.8
1955
5,697
1,361
4,336
12.2
1958
5,579
1,294
4,285
10.0
6
1959
5,554
1,273
4,281
9.
1960
5,753
1,245
4,508
8.9
1961
N.A.
1,295
N.A.
N.A.
1962
6,500
1,330
5,170
9.2 e/
a. Unless otherwise indicated, data are from source ?J. Positions included are
directors of enterprises, institutions, and organizations and their deputies;
directors of subdivisions of enterprises, institutions, and organizations who are
not employed directly in production; chief specialists (except those employed on
technological, design, and project work); engineers, technicians, and other
specialists employed in the administrative apparatus (except engineers and tech-
nicians employed on technological, design, and project work); planning-control,
accounting-bookkeeping, and statistical personnel; clerical personnel; legal
personnel; dispatchers (except line dispatchers in transport and communications
enterprises); trade specialists, agents, inspectors, and warehousemen (except in
trade and dining establishments); rate setters (except in transportation and ex-
cluding grain price setters); invoice clerks; superintendents; junior service
personnel, workers serving the administrative apparatus, and other workers
employed in the administrative apparatus; all personnel of government and eco-
nomic administration, credit, and insurance (except for personnel such as con-
trollers of local examining boards of the Committee on Standards, Measures, and
Measuring Instruments); art and editorial personnel of the State Committee for
Radio and Television; nonstaff agents of the state insurance system who conclude
property and individual insurance contracts with individuals; and cashiers in
branches of the state banking system. The data in columns 1 and 4 for 1952 are
as of April; for 1954 and 1955, as of January; and for 1958, 1959, 1960, and
1962, as of September. Figures for public administration are annual averages.
b. Derived by subtracting column 2 from column 1.
c. Figure is for 1953.
d. Estimated by applying the percentage in column 4 to the estimate of state
labor force for September 1962.
e. J
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by the Academy of Sciences, USSR, the abolition of clerical positions
heads the list of reasons for the extensive amount of routine clerical
work performed by department heads and their deputies in Soviet
factories. The study revealed that heads of departments, chiefs of
work shifts, and foremen devote an average of only 30 minutes daily
to operations that require engineering knowledge. Each of them spends
more than 1 hour daily on routine paperwork alone. 5/
The tendency of Soviet managers to limit the number of clerical
personnel is reflected in the official statistics on employment in cler-
ical occupations, as shown in Table 2. The number of persons em-
ployed in clerical and other office occupations such as planning and
accounting was not much greater in 1959 than in 1939. During this
period, however, employment more than doubled among heads of shops
and other subdivisions of Soviet enterprises and almost tripled among
foremen. Large gains in employment also were registered among
engineers and technicians.
The relatively small number of typists and stenographers in the
USSR in 1959 -- 130, 324 -- is illustrative of the extremely limited
clerical assistance that is available to Soviet management. Managers
of Party and government offices, factories, and farms, who constitute
the first three occupations shown in Table 2, outnumber the typists and
stenographers by six to one. Thus a typist or stenographer is avail-
able for only one out of every six managers in the USSR. Moreover,
there is less than one clerical person of any kind (typist, stenographer,
secretary, or other) for each Soviet manager.' Typing service, whoever
performs it, is related, of course, to the number of typewriters in the
USSR, which is estimated currently at about 400, 000. By comparison
the number of typewriters in the US was estimated at "some 6 million"
early in 1956, 7/ and annual production in the US in recent years has
exceeded 1 million.
Although the financial authorities are busily engaged in trying to
limit the growth of administrative-managerial personnel, another
agency of the government is expressing the inevitability of an expansion
in the relative proportion of such personnel. A report published by the
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USSR: Employment in Selected Occupations a/
1939 and 1959
Persons 1959 as a
Percent
1939... 1959 of 1939
Selected administrative-Managerial
occupations
Heads of government agencies, Party,
and trade union organizations
445,244
392,131
88
Directors of enterprises
231,348
292,181
126
Chairmen of collective farms and
their deputies
278,784
102,768
37
Economists, planners, and
statisticians
282,096
208,289
109
Bookkeepers and accountants
1,785,397
1,816,878
102
Clerical personnel
489,357
535,897
110
Typists and stenographers N.A. 130,324 N.A.
Secretaries and other clerical
personnel N.A. 405,573 N.A.
Selected engineering and technical
occupations
Heads of departments, flights,
workshops, and sections 165,191 363,821 220
Foremen 267,762 753,521 281
Engineers 247,265 834,335 337
Technicians 274,044 513,173 187
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Scientific-Research Institute for Labor, which is under the direction
of the State Committee for Labor and Wages, USSR, stated 8/:
The relationship between expenditures for labor for the
control of production and expenditures for activity that is
directly productive may serve as an index of technical prog-
ress and the stage of automation and mechanization: the
higher this stage is, the higher will be the proportion of en-
gineering and technical workers and of the managerial appa-
ratus in the total number of those employed.
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Analyst:
Coord:
Sources:
25X1A
1. Commerce, Bureau of the Census. The Soviet Statistical
System: Labor Force Recordkeeping and Reporting, by
Murray Feshbach, Washington, 1960, p. 16. U.
2. USSR, Central Statistical Administration. Narodnoye
khozyaystvo SSSR v 1958 godu (The National Economy of
the USSR in 1958), Moscow, 1959, p. 658-9. U.
USSR, Central Statistical Administration. Narodnoye
khozyaystvo SSSR v 1959 godu (The National Economy of
the USSR in 1959), Moscow, 1960, p. 589, 595. U.
USSR, Central Statistical Administration. Narodnoye
khozyaystvo SSSR v 1960 godu (The National Economy of
the USSR in 1960), Moscow, 1961, p. 637, 644. U.
USSR, Central Statistical Administration. SSSR v tsifrakh
v 1962 godu (The USSR in Figures in 1962), Moscow, 1963,
p. 268. U.
3. Sots ialisticheskiy trud, no 7, Jul 63, p. 90. U.
4. Arutyunyan, Yu. V. Mekhanizatory sel'skogo khozyaystva
SSSR v 1929-1957 gg? (Mechanized Personnel of USSR
Agriculture in 1929-1957), Moscow, 1960, p. 189. U.
5. Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, no 11, 16 Mar 63, p. 24. U.
6. USSR, Central Statistical Administration. Itogi vsesoyuznoy
perepisi:naseleniya 1959 goda SSSR (Results of the All-Union
Census of Population of 1959 for the USSR), Moscow, 1962,
p. 164-lb6. U.
7. New York Times, 22 Jan 56. U.
8. Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, no 11, 16 Mar 63, p. 10-11. U.
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