The Management System of Bureaucracy in Tsarist, Soviet and modern Russia

Abstract

The article attempts to study the transformation of management system of bureaucracy in the Russian state of the 16th–21st centuries. It is the first systematic historical study of the bureaucracy management bodies. The hypothesis suggested and proved is that management bodies of bureaucracy are inherent in any political regime, and their universal function is to ensure the control of the bureaucracy and its adaptation to socio-political changes. Typological, historical-genetic and comparative methods have been used in the research. The database is comprised of the documents from the collections of five federal archives. For the first time a complete chronology of the management bodies of bureaucracy in Russia is presented. Also, it has been proved that these bodies adapt to political changes and correspond to the emerging configuration of political power. Some principles of bureaucracy management have been identified: first, the governing bodies act within the structure of the apparatus of the highest officials and never belong to any branch of power; second, all attempts to create a non-political governing body of bureaucracy have failed; third, personnel centralization is observed during periods of political mobilization; fourth, a combination of enormous power with the lack of transparency generates ineffectiveness of the management bodies of bureaucracy. The study has shown that the main functions of these management bodies were associated with the current administrative work to the detriment of the solution of strategic tasks. Finally, some proposals are put forward: to take into account historical experience for the development of civil service management system: first, to extend state personnel policy to the entire public sector and, second, to give priority of strategic personnel planning over the implementation of routine account and administrative functions.