Promoting Leningrad Cadres in the First Post-War Years

Abstract

The article examines the mechanism, scale and reasons for promoting Leningrad cadres to central and regional bodies in 1946–1949. The prevailing opinion in Russian historiography is that during the first post-war years, hundreds of executives from Leningrad received significant posts in Moscow and different regions of the country thanks to A. A. Kuznetsov. The study of personnel policies of the 1940s reveals that A. A. Kuznetsov, as the head of the Cadre Department of the Central Committee, was responsible for the preparation of issues concerning cadres, but the decisions were made by the Secretariat and Politburo. The country’s top leadership, and especially J. V. Stalin, carefully controlled all key personnel reshuffles, so A. A. Kuznetsov could not freely promote his people. An analysis of the archival documents shows that there was no large-scale expansion of Leningrad cadres in the first post-war years. In 1945–1948, only 20–30 people from Leningrad annually received high positions. In contrast to appointees from other regions, they more often headed obkoms and oblispolkoms, and yet their share in the regional leadership of the USSR was small. The active promotion of Leningrad leaders was primarily due to the fact that many of them had university degrees and solid managerial experience. The Central Committee tried to overcome the shortage of qualified middle-ranking managers with the help of Leningraders, as well as employees of central and metropolitan departments. For the same reason, some regional leaders were also interested in Leningraders. The promotion of Leningrad cadres continued even when G. M. Malenkov became again responsible for their selection and was stopped only because of the “Leningrad affair”.