Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union

During 1946, the All-Union Council of People's Commissars became the Council of Ministers (Russian: Совет Министров, tr.: Sovet Ministrov SSSR), whilst People's Commissars and People's Commissariats became Ministers and Ministries.[21] Ministers were important for ordinary decision-making, with 73 percent of them elected full-members of the Central Committee at the 25th Party Congress.[22]

Nikita Khrushchev's attempt during the late 1950s to decentralise decision-making by reforming the chain of command that was in use since the early times of the Council of People's Commissars to manage local industries and enterprises resulted in major reorganisation of the USSR ministries. A large number of ministries were eliminated and replaced by a network of regional and local sovnarkhoz supervised by the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy.[23] Khrushchev's economic reform proved disastrous as it severed regional economic relations and was abandoned by the Soviet Government after Khrushchev's ousting in 1964. The year later twenty-eight industrial ministries, eleven All-union and seventeen Union ministries were reestablished. The second attempt at decentralising the Soviet economy was in 1965, with Premier Alexei Kosygin initiating a new economic reform aimed at giving enterprises more economic freedom and incentives to be profitable.[24]

Certain major ministries had more influence over the national and international politics of the USSR, with their ministers being full members of Politburo. Among them were notables such as Leon Trotsky, Vyacheslav Molotov and Andrei Gromyko, heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Andrei Grechko and Dmitriy Ustinov, the defence ministers.[25]

USSR state committees were different from the ministries in that a state committee was primarily responsible for several parts of government as opposed to the one specific topic for which a ministry was solely responsible.[26] Therefore, many state committees had jurisdiction over certain common activities performed by ministries such as research and development, standardisation, planning, building construction, state security, publishing, archiving and so on. The distinction between a ministry and a state committee could be obscure as for the case of the Committee for State Security (KGB).[27]

State committees were instrumental in keeping the vast Soviet economic system coherent and integrated.

The Presidium of the Council of Ministers was established during March 1953 as a result of the reorganisation of a special bureau formed during 1944 for the purpose of supervising and coordinating a vast network of government committees, commissions, and other institutions that reported directly to the Council of People's Commissars.

Throughout its existence, the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was a mysterious institution. First World observers knew little of the Presidium's activities and functions, or even the frequencies of its meetings. In Soviet textbooks and by officials it was described as an internal organ of the government. Churchward noted in his 1975 book that it was impossible to determine the importance of the Presidium in comparison with other organs of the Council of Ministers.[28] British historian Leonard Schapiro, writes in his book The Government and Politics of the Soviet Union, that the Presidium worked somewhat as an "Inner Cabinet" for policy-making. Historians Hough and Fainsod believed there to be a "great overlap" between the responsibilities and functions of the Central Committee, Secretariat and the Presidium of the Council of Ministers.[29] However, Schapiro was not sure of the Presidium's membership or if the Presidium had any meetings.[30]

It is unknown whether the Presidium had any importance for ordinary policy-making during the 1950s and 1960s. Soviet works from that period make no mention of a Presidium of the Council of Ministers. Professor T.H. Rigby believes that the duties and responsibilities of the Presidium were at the time largely assumed by the Current Affairs Commission of the Council of Ministers and from 1956 possibly by the State Economic Commission of the Council of Ministers with both Commissions directed by Mikhail Pervukhin.[31] During his visit to the USSR, political scientist Robert C. Tucker asked Mansur Mirza-Akhmedov, the Premier of the Council of Ministers of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, if the Presidium still functioned as an inner policy-making body. The answer he received was yes, and that the Presidium consisted of the Premier, two first deputy chairmen, four deputy chairmen, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture.[32]

During the 1970s Soviet authorities officially defined the Presidium's responsibilities and membership. The 1977 Soviet Constitution referred to the Presidium as a "permanent" organ of the Council of Ministers, which was established to secure good economic leadership and assume other administrative responsibilities. The few documents published provide evidence that the Presidium emphasised economic planning and decision-making as well as making important decisions lesser than those of the Communist Party's Politburo.[33] Article 132 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution and Article 17 of the 1978 USSR Law that regulated the activities of the Soviet Government state that the Premier, the First Deputy, Deputy Chairmen, and other members of the USSR Council of Ministers were members of the Presidium. Regardless, the actual names of its members (other than the Premier) were never disclosed to the public.