Conference at at Cde. Yu. V. Andropov's

CONFERENCE at Cde. Yu. V. ANDROPOV’s

CC Secretaries who attended: Cdes. M. S. Gorbachev, G. V. Romanov, K. U. Chernenko, V. I. Dolgikh, and N. I. Ryzhkov

[Translator’s note: handwritten at the bottom of the first page: “Archive. 6^th Sector”, followed by an illegible signature].

YU. V. ANDROPOV. There is a need for us to consult on some questions of work.

The first question is about making some partial changes in the distribution of responsibilities between CPSU CC Secretaries.

In connection with the assertion of Cde. G. V. Romanov it is intended to charge him with overseeing the Department of Machinebuilding as a CC Secretary besides the Department of the Defense Industry. The Department of Machinebuilding includes power engineering. It would be advisable to hand over the sectors handling power engineering in the Heavy Industry Department and henceforth name this Department the Department of Heavy Industry and Power Engineering. Such an important sector as power engineering would thereby be assigned the very name of the department. 

The Departments of Heavy Industry and Power Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Construction,  and Transport and Communications will remain with Cde. V. I. Dolgikh. Such a distribution of responsibilities will be more rational, intending that questions of machinebuilding be very closely connected with questions of the defense industry, which Cde. G. V. Romanov handles.

G. V. ROMANOV. This is correct inasmuch as right now power engineering forms part of machinebuilding, and the Department of Machinebuilding obviously ought to be reorganized.

ANDROPOV YU. V. The request is to Cdes G .V. Romanov and V. I. Dolgikh to prepare the appropriate proposals, and we will consider them.

ALL. Right.

ANDROPOV YU. V. The second thing about which [I] would like to speak is about the most important questions which we face right now, in the middle of the third year of the five-year plan, the decisive year. It’s worth noting that things have gotten better with us right now.  But we ought not try and raise many questions, we need to concentrate our attention on the main ones, the main ones of them. This will help us better not only fulfill the plan of the third year of the five-year plan, but to also make up for what was lost in the previous two years.

The Secretariat obviously ought to concentrate namely on these main questions. Cde. Ryzhkov, who handles the economy and the work of Gosplan for us, should more expeditiously prepare such questions and submit them for the consideration of the CPSU CC. It’s worth noting that Gosplan has been removed from deciding many pressing questions of the development of the economy and displays little initiative. Therefore the main task is to step up the work of Gosplan, namely on the most important sectors of the development of our economy.

The second question is gathering the harvest. It has already begun in many regions of the country. It can be said that a reasonably good harvest has been raised in a number of regions. I think that the total gross production will not be less than last year, and possibly more. But provided that we direct serious attention to a high quality of collecting [the harvest] right now, that is, to the timely harvesting, threshing, and elimination of losses. The matter needs to be posed so as to eliminate harvest losses. There’s no concealing the fact that we still lose a lot of grain and other crops when the harvest is collected.

Questions connected with the gathering of the harvest need to be solved expeditiously, comprehensively. First of all it is necessary to ensure the concerted efforts of the entire available fleet of agricultural harvesting machinery and supply the tractors and combines with fuel. Special attention needs to be paid to preparing for the winter period. These tasks are the main ones in the work of M. S. Gorbachev. But V. I. Dolgikh should deal with providing agriculture with fuel.

If any shortcomings are observed somewhere, I would say that all CC Secretaries should immediately deal with their elimination.

I won’t list all the questions which each of us should deal with. You know your tasks well. But the main thing is not to overlook anything. All questions should be decided expeditiously and in a timely manner. The work of the entire Secretariat should be harmonious and friendly.

The next question is the question of the monitoring and verification of implementation. But all the same monitoring and verification of implementation in a number of Party organizations, soviet and administrative bodies is being done in the old way. Monitoring should be constant, I would say, worker’s [monitoring]. But this is just absent in many organizations. We are doing correctly in the Secretariat that we listen to Party bodies and ministers, but only a very limited number of Party bodies and ministries can get through the Secretariat. Evidently it is necessary for Secretaries to supplement this form of monitoring by listening to individual questions of the leaders of Party bodies, ministries, and agencies in CC departments. By the way, it is our fault that we summon few ministers to CC departments and Secretaries to give a report. But some departments, it needs to be frankly said, do this work absolutely poorly.

This conference of ours is not the first. We have held such conferences before. They were good discussions. But we did not strengthen the departments. And this is our very important mission. It will be necessary, without putting it off, to closely look what elements require strengthening.

We have to have a great many things with papers because, as before, the stream of them is very large. Cannot a task be posed of reducing correspondence by 15-20%? Approach the questions which come to us in a differentiated manner, without having to make a decision on each letter. It is especially necessary to step up the consideration of questions which come to the CC, the departments, and CPSU Secretaries.

A good form of supervision and familiarization with the state of affairs at the local level is visits and business trips by our officials. But there are few of these visits and business trips. As a result of this the communication between the Communist Parties, oblast’ committees, and rayon committees with the CC is poor.

We are still insufficiently informing the workers of those measures which we are carrying out. Sometimes we begin a matter well, and then attention to it in CC departments slackens, and the attention of other organizations also slackens. Take such a question as labor discipline. Regarding an increase of labor discipline we have begun well, I will frankly say. The results were effective. And we have received letters about this, the people have spoken about this. But then attention toward questions of increasing labor discipline slackened, and again one can encounter people during working time idly loafing in stores and other public places. This question was correctly posed to the leaders of ministries and departments, but we did not ask them as we should have. But right now, as I have said, we have slacked off this request. Here is the result.

V. I. DOLGIKH Yuriy Vladimirovich, we need to make the decision on questions of increasing discipline which has been prepared. It has already been prepared and it can be considered.

ANDROPOV, YU V. Right. Enough time has already passed. It is time is to consider this question right now.

I was speaking of decisions. I have a memo about decisions for the first half of 1983 adopted by the Politburo and Secretariat. What conclusion suggests itself if one looks at this memo? First of all I ought to say that they mainly have an economic orientation, an economic nature, but we need to approach each question from Party positions. We ought not duplicate soviet and administrative bodies. In my opinion, it is necessary to strengthen Party political work. This is our direct responsibility, and should not lose sight of it for a minute.

After each Plenum we usually make appropriate decisions, give specific assignments to ministries and agencies, but rarely [slabo] ask them about the fulfillment of these assignments. It is necessary to increase inquiries of ministers and heads of agencies for the fulfillment of those assignments which the Party Central Committee gives.

According to the results of the last Plenum the Secretariat adopted a decision. This [was] necessary. But now the task is for Party and soviet bodies, ministries and departments, and other organizations to fulfill the assignments given them; [we] need to make demands of them to do this. 

The next question concerns strengthening of our ties with Party bodies and workers’ collectives. It would be good if CC Secretaries spoke to workers’ collectives and Party committees. In a word, the June CC Plenum provided a good influence on all Party organizations, and its results are having a proper influence. Right now it is important not only not to reduce, it is necessary in every possible way to increase the political and labor activity which was called for by the decisions of the Plenum. We need to ensure the fulfillment of the decisions of the June Plenum with respect to the development and mastering of questions of theory, ideological, and mass political work. [We] ought to pay serious attention to increasing the effectiveness of the mass media, especially television and the press.

It is good that at each meeting the Secretariat listens to leaders of Party bodies or ministers and departments. But it also often happens such that a minister or oblast’ committee secretary reports to the CPSU CC, and then forgets the decision which was adopted and which he should carry out. It seems to me that at each meeting of the Secretariat [we] need to listen specifically for what was done concerning the fulfillment of a particular decision. This especially concerns ministries which often display an impermissible forgetfulness in this matter.

Consequently I would like to talk about the CC General Department. It could do more to increase monitoring the fulfillment of decisions. The General Department could also not allow departments to rewrite incoming papers and submit them to the Secretariat in the form in which they came from the ministries and departments or oblast’ committees and the CC’s of the Parties of union republics. Active work on documents, strict verification, and monitoring are needed here. It is especially important not to allow CC departments to write off unfulfilled decisions to the archives. In a word, questions of monitoring need to pursued to the end.

We have adopted a good decision that papers should be limited to a size of five to eight pages. I do not want this matter to come down to have a disastrous nature. But, as a rule, in a majority of questions a bloating of paperwork cannot be permitted. The General Department should also take appropriate steps in this regard.

The question of adopting joint decrees is important. Right now joint decrees of the CC and USSR Council of Ministers which are very great in size are often adopted. They are massive and a majority have an administrative nature. I have been speaking about this question with Cde. N. A. Tikhonov, and he agrees that fewer joint decrees be taken, especially ones of an administrative and current nature. Why adopt a joint decree if it has 80-100 pages of various attachments, numerical materials, etc. We need to prepare concise, specific, political decisions of two or three pages which would give direction to Party, soviet, and other bodies on how to decide given questions. But all the administrative details, including the attachments, should be in decisions of the USSR Council of Ministers.

Those are all those questions about which I would like to talk with you.

Who wants to speak?

K. U. CHERNENKO. Comrades, I think that Yuriy Vladimirovich has raised all the questions very correctly. These are the most topical questions. They concern the regulation of our work, the improvement of the style of the  activity of the entire headquarters apparatus, and indeed not only of the headquarters. I would say that it is also a change of the nature of work of all Party bodies, ministries, and departments. Of course, [we] might talk about other questions, too. The Secretariat needs to draw the appropriate conclusions from what Yuriy Vladimirovich said.. I think that we will take steps in this respect.

In accordance with your instructions given at past conferences we have tried to limit the influx of paperwork to the Central Committee from ministries and departments. Many documents have been returned. Documents have been returned because they were too massive and did not meet CPSU CC rules, were unclear, or poorly prepared. The role of the departments is very great here, as Yuriy Vladimirovich has correctly noted. But the departments either do not know what is being done in the ministries and departments, or do not consult with CC Secretaries, and often prepare drafts on such questions which were recently considered and a decision has already been made on them, or they were prepared unclearly, shallowly, and without substantiation. We Secretaries of the CC also evidently undemandingly approaching both departments, specific officials, chiefs of departments, and deputy chiefs of departments in this question who are the direct facilitators of our instructions. Therefore the formulation of such a question by you, Yuriy Vladimirovich, is completely correct.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. Old burdens weigh down many of our officials, and we are replacing soviet and administrative bodies. I have already said that Cde. N. I. Ryzhkov deals with economic questions, but Gosplan, Gossnab [the State Supply Committee], and other bodies stand apart. Or, for example, Cde. V. I. Dolgikh sometimes prepares a number of administrative question which ought to be prepared either in the Council of Ministers or in ministries.

M. S. GORBACHEV. Everything of which Yuriy Vladimirovich has spoken is a principled guideline, and we should immediately accept it for direct implementation. Yuriy Vladimirovich, in your speech we heard what should serve as a basis for the style of work of each Secretary, department chief, and the Secretariat as a whole. I completely support your thought about the improvement of the style of work of our apparatus and an increase of the monitoring of implementation. From our side organizational work should be the main method in this matter. Not to write additional papers, but to directly organize work to verify the implementation on the spot - in Party, soviet, and administrative bodies, and in ministries and departments. Our nature of the preparation of some questions is not changing. It exists now as it has before. But this means that some of our comrades and our staff have grown old, they need to be supported. Strengthening the apparatus has produced its own effect and the matter has improved. But this is only a beginning. It is obvious that it is necessary to pursue this work further. 

The formulation of the question about the role of local organizations is absolutely correct, Yuriy Vladimirovich. By the way, there are very good people there and many skilled officials. Our task, as Cde. Yuriy Vladimirovich has correctly noted, consists of constantly strengthening ties with local bodies, seeking a reduction of paperwork, being present more often at the local level, and supporting the results of trips with organizational matters. I stress this especially, having the nature of agricultural production in mind. More person-to-person communications are needed here. And indeed lively, direct communications with the local level will improve matters for other comrades.

G. V. ROMANOV. I want to express words of great gratitude for the trust which has been shown me. To deal with questions of the defense industry and machinebuilding is a quite responsible matter, and I view this as an important commission which the Central Committee of the Party has given me. I think that we have a good base for the defense industry and we have achieved this thanks to the constant attention of the Central Committee to questions of improving the work of the defense industry sectors.

The defense sectors not only perform much work in its direct focus. They also product a large quantity of consumer goods. Take the Biryusa refrigerator, for example. This is a good, high-quality refrigerator. It is also sold in foreign countries. But if one speaks of refrigerators we already have many brands. The same can be said of televisions. But the quality level of many goods, in particular refrigerators and televisions, and also of other instruments, does not meet high requirements, and they do not have demand abroad. Often great fragmentation in the manufacture of individual parts by different ministries prevents us from improving the quality of items. Take electronic clocks for example. One ministry makes the clocks themselves, but another makes the batteries for them.

I fully support the suggestion made by Yuriy Vladimirovich regarding strengthening ties with the local level, and with ministries and departments. I was especially well convinced of this when I worked as the secretary of an oblast’ committee. Some days ago I spoke with Cde. Khomyakov, Secretary of the Tambov Oblast’ Committee. There are many defense industry enterprises in Tambov Oblast’. The oblast’ committee oversees these enterprises reasonably well, but Cde. Khomyakov expressed the thought that there be a special secretary for the defense industry.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. I think that we don’t need to break the structure. The first secretary deals with the defense industry. He also ought to deal with it. It is illogical to divorce him from this matter.

V. I. DOLGIKH. It is an absolutely correct demand for the clearer and more harmonious work which we should have, especially in the CPSU CC apparatus. The conferences which you hold with us, Yuriy Vladimirovich, and this is already not the first, help us. Here we have an opportunity to not only hear out one another, but to also exchange opinions and see our shortcomings. I think that our task is to convey to all CC departments and the minister which we oversee the instructions which you, Yuriy Vladimirovich, have given at this conference. I completely agree that we actually prepare many draft decisions, and especially those which we should not be preparing, but should be prepared in Gosplan, Gossnab, the Council of Ministers, and other ministries and departments. We have prepared drafts of big decisions together with Gosplan and the Council of Ministers: about an improvement of the administrative mechanism, about capital construction, about scientific and technical progress, and about strengthening labor discipline. We will submit these drafts in the next few days.

I think the formulation of the question about improvement of work with personnel is correct. The instructions of the November Plenum and the last June CC Plenum about improvement of work with personnel was greeted at the local level very well. We still have such ministers who are no longer able to manage their sector as required, and in the ministries there are officials who not deserving of trust. For example, many letters come in about Cde. Shibayev. But he works as deputy minister of Cde. Shkabardnya.

I completely agree with Yuriy Vladimirovich’s suggestion that all our officials, to also include Secretaries, go to the field more often, talk with managers, worker’s collectives, and become familiar with production, [not] from memos, but on site, and to speak before them.

K. U. CHERNENKO We should have a strict procedure in this respect.

V. I. DOLGIKH Yuriy Vladimirovich correctly raised the question of increasing attention to machinebuilding. This department needs to be strengthened.

N. I. RYZHKOV. I think that the questions raised by Yuriy Vladimirovich are quite urgent for us. First of all I want to talk about the fulfillment of the five-year plan. This year is actually the middle one for us. Today half of the five-year plan has just been accomplished. The main questions associated with the fulfillment of the five-year plan ought to be taken under special monitoring. The reduction of the tempo of production needs to be stopped. It needs to be said that this year will obviously be different from previous years in that we have already achieved a growth of production of 4 to 4.1%. This task is to not only fulfill the current year’s plan, but to cover the underfulfillment of previous years. I think that it is necessary to finally stop the adjustment of plans. This is not a method of work. But to do this it is already necessary right now to verify how the plan is being fulfilled by ministries. We will report to the Secretariat and the Politburo about this question.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. We are not going to discuss the question of the results of the half year at the Politburo?

N. I. RYZHKOV. Yuriy Vladimirovich, we are planning on this and are preparing a corresponding question. We will prepare a report both about the results of the five-year plan and are outlining forecasts for the future.

Now the question about personnel. The decision of the November Plenum about personnel turned out to be very productive.  A planned replacement of the personnel of the leaders of ministries and departments and oblast’ secretaries is occurring. This work reflects very well on executive discipline. I think that this work also needs to be continued regularly. For example, we need to change the leadership of the Committee on State Standards.

In my view, the middle management link of our ministries is weak. These are the deputy ministers and their corresponding comrades. The ministers work with their deputies poorly. This needs to be frankly noted. Sometimes deputy ministers do not match their role, but all the same continue to remain and occupy posts.

About monitoring and the verification of implementation. I fully support the suggestion of Yuriy Vladimirovich. We have a great many questions coming for the consideration of the Politburo and Secretariat.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. Should we monitor all questions? Possibly we ought to approach this such that some points which are important and subject to monitoring from us are monitored by us, but let others be monitored by the appropriate ministries and departments.

N. I. RYZHKOV. Yuriy Vladimirovich, I think that you have correctly noted that in this matter it is necessary to raise the role of the departments. We will work with the departments in this respect.

V. I. DOLGIKH Not long ago we held a meeting of Party activists of ministries concerning the commissioning of facilities. We intend to hold a conference on capital construction.

M. S. GORBACHEV. We lose a great deal of time in the preparation of documents and reading paperwork.

YU. V. ANDROPOV But nevertheless the main work is work with personnel and verification of implementation, organizational work.

V. I. DOLGIKH Yuriy Vladimirovich, you have spoken correctly about the joint decrees of the CC and Council of Ministers. But in the Council of Ministers, where these drafts are prepared, they are not at all studied deeply, and some drafts are poor.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. Cde. N. A. Tikhonov is drawing us into all commissions in the Council of Ministers and you are going there. The Council of Ministers should prepare these drafts independently and then submit [them] to the CC.

M. S. GORBACHEV. We make many decisions and very important [ones]. But their implementation, actually, as [we] have noted here, is far from complete. Why? Because many important points are fulfilled together with annual plans, and there they plan to perform them only halfway. For example, the May CC Plenum approved allocations for the agroindustrial complex, but right now these allocations are already being reduced by five percent.

YU. V. ANDROPOV. The question of hard-currency proceeds is very important. We cannot reduce hard-currency reserves. These are also questions of defense and the production of important goods, including consumer goods.

V. I. DOLGIKH. The growth of hard-currency proceeds might be achieved at the expense of oil sales. But for the time being the price of oil on the world market is not high.

YU. V. ANDROPOV I want to say, the question of hard currency needs to be raised very seriously. Oil is become cheaper, and natural gas is also becoming cheaper. Our defense industry is working directly on defense by about 40%, but it gives 60% [for] consumer goods. Consequently it is necessary to pay special attention in order for us to increase the accumulation of hard currency by selling machinebuilding products, and to do this it is necessary to produce machines which would successfully compete with foreign brands so that they are better than [those] abroad. For it is a fact that some Western countries buy our tractors and other machines, and then replace domestic equipment with [their] own. Only an outer shell remains. It is necessary, as the comrades have correctly stated here, to look into televisions. Many brands of televisions are produced. There is essentially no demand for black-and-white televisions. The German firm Grunding is ready to buy our televisions for 25 rubles each. In a word, we need to seriously raise the question of hard currency income. I request that all the comrades take on this matter. The defense sectors can do an especially large amount here. It is desirable to have suggestions on this question in the near future.

K. U. CHERNENKO. Recently our automobiles have become hard to sell on the foreign market. It means their quality does not meet the high demands of the foreign buyer.

G. V. ROMANOV Correct, Yuriy Vladimirovich. Our televisions need to be redesigned.

YU. V. ANDROPOV On the other hand, we need to limit the purchase of such goods abroad which we can do without.

V. I. DOLGIKH We are lowering the hard-currency earnings by selling items of gold for 2,500,000,000 rubles.

YU. V. ANDROPOV To speak of increasing hard-currency earnings means to speak of how to get more gold, to produce gold items. We can increase the earnings by selling wood and timber. This question is very complex, comrades, but it needs to be solved.

N. I. RYZHKOV I want to say a couple of words about the sale of natural gas. I don’t know whether we will fulfill the plan for the sale of 60 billion cubic meters of gas abroad since they are taking just 30 billion. Nevertheless we will need to free up part of the oil from sale and try to refine it ourselves into such articles which would help up avoid importing many goods from abroad.

YU. V. ANDROPOV In a word, it is necessary to search for a way out of this situation.

N. I. RYZHKOV [We] have already said here that we buy much equipment abroad. This is correct. It is especially bad that we sometimes buy such equipment which we don’t need. For example, we were about to buy licenses from the French firm Citroen for the production of a passenger car for two billion rubles. Of course, this would have been very irrational for us. 

V. I. DOLGIKH I think that Yuriy Vladimirovich correctly raises the question about increasing the earning of hard currency and its correct and reasonable use. All the expenditures of hard currency need to be approved at the Politburo.

G. V. ROMANOV For example, at the Kirov plant the equipment is foreign. At one time it was bought for a large sum, but it is used very badly. Our machine tools, for example, are no worse, and even better, and they could have been used. How did it turn out that foreign machine tools were bought for the plant? At one time Cde. Kostousov, the Minister of Machine Tool Construction and the Instrument Industry, gave a task to buy these machine tools abroad.

M. S. GORBACHEV. Many big questions get an “OK” in Gosplan, but they are very often prepared superficially.

YU. V. ANDROPOV Possibly [we] ought to put CC representatives in the hard currency committee?

V. I. DOLGIKH N. I. Ryzhkov monitors the operation of the hard currency committee for us. Maybe also include him in this committee?

YU. V. ANDROPOV. The question of prices is also very important for us. At one time we adopted a decision about reducing prices for some goods. These goods were quickly snapped up. This decree played a big role. Everyone says that this decision was very good.

V. I. DOLGIKH I would ask, Yuriy Vladimirovich, for permission to be given to hold a conference in the CC on questions of balance [sbalansirovannost’] on a nationwide scale. We will prepare the material. Such a conference could be held at the end of the year.

YU. V. ANDROPOV Such a conference could be held.

Now about a draft decree about strengthening labor discipline. How will you promote this?

V. I. DOLGIKH We distributed a draft to the Politburo. Then we distributed [it] to [the] 15 large Party organizations. [We] received comments. All useful comments have been taken into consideration. The Council of Ministers (Cde. Tikhonov) says that the draft decree turned out well.

YU. V. ANDROPOV But there are all the same still many people loafing without work, there are slackers. How is this question considered in the draft?

V. I. DOLGIKH Yuriy Vladimirovich, these question have been taken into consideration in the draft. We have outlined broad measures to tighten labor discipline. The draft turned out not at all bad. We intend to first examine it in the Secretariat, and then submit [it] to the Politburo. The appropriate interested departments, public organization, in particular the VTsSPS {All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions] (Cde. Shalayev), took part in the preparation of this draft. 

YU. V. ANDROPOV  Do the comrades have more questions? If not, then we can end the conference at this. I think that the CC Secretaries will convey everything that was said at the conference to the officials of the departments and take steps so that the preparation of drafts of decisions, the holding of conferences, and the procedure for going to the local level and much else finds practical change in our work.

recorded by K. Bogolyubov