WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 So imagine you're appointed as the CEO of a superpower's 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:06.919 entire economy. Which is just a massive job to 00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:09.240 even comprehend. Right. I mean, you control the 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:13.119 military supply lines, the heavy industry, the 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.160 agricultural output. You're essentially managing 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.699 11 time zones of continuous production. Exactly. 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:20.920 But there is a massive catch to all this. A shadow 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:23.760 board of directors can override your every single 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:26.539 move based purely on like political ideology. 00:00:26.780 --> 00:00:28.219 And the public doesn't even know the names of 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:29.899 the people sitting on your own executive committee. 00:00:30.059 --> 00:00:32.820 Yeah, it is wild. So today we are opening the 00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:36.619 absolute black box of the Soviet Council of Ministers. 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:39.479 Quite the maze. It really is. We are going to 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:43.140 extract the hidden, deeply intricate mechanics 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:45.600 of how the USSR actually governed itself from 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:48.219 the ashes of World War II all the way to its 00:00:48.219 --> 00:00:51.039 collapse in 1991. And, you know, if you visualize 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:54.399 the backdrop for this deep dive, picture a moody 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:56.960 mid -century Moscow cityscape. Oh, I like that. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.780 Or maybe a massive dimly lit room filled floor 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:03.920 to ceiling with gray heavily redacted bureaucratic 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.620 files. Very Cold War spy thriller. Exactly. Because 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:10.019 while the title, Council of Ministers, sounds 00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:13.439 like a very standard, very visible European government 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:15.900 cabinet, the reality was entirely different. 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:19.299 Right. This was the highest executive and administrative 00:01:19.299 --> 00:01:21.519 organ of state authority in the Soviet Union. 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:23.799 Yeah. I mean, this was the engine that ran absolutely 00:01:23.799 --> 00:01:26.200 everything. And for anyone listening who loves 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:29.780 untangling how massive complex systems actually 00:01:29.780 --> 00:01:33.480 operate behind closed doors, this is the ultimate 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:35.519 structural puzzle. Oh, without a doubt. We are 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:37.340 not just looking at a list of politicians here. 00:01:37.379 --> 00:01:40.120 We are looking at a story of raw administrative 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:42.579 power. Yeah. And vast economic experiments that 00:01:42.579 --> 00:01:45.480 affected millions of lives. Plus some incredibly 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:47.659 high stakes bureaucratic backstabbing, which 00:01:47.659 --> 00:01:51.260 is always fascinating. It really is. But to understand 00:01:51.260 --> 00:01:54.299 how this engine actually operated, and why it 00:01:54.299 --> 00:01:56.519 ultimately proved so volatile, we have to look 00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:58.659 at the foundation they built right after the 00:01:58.659 --> 00:02:01.219 Second World War. Right, the big shift in 1946. 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:03.799 Yeah, in 1946, the Soviet government underwent 00:02:03.799 --> 00:02:06.680 this massive reorganization. Up until that point, 00:02:07.019 --> 00:02:09.740 the state was run by an entity called the Council 00:02:09.740 --> 00:02:12.789 of People's Commissars. Catchy name. Right, very 00:02:12.789 --> 00:02:15.590 revolutionary. But they rebranded the entire 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:19.169 apparatus to the Council of Ministers, and those 00:02:19.169 --> 00:02:22.509 individual commissariats simply became ministries. 00:02:22.789 --> 00:02:25.370 Okay, let's unpack this for a second. Because 00:02:25.370 --> 00:02:28.569 on the surface, changing your title from commissar 00:02:28.569 --> 00:02:31.919 to minister just sounds like, uh... Like a PR 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.039 move. Just dressing it up for the West. Yeah, 00:02:34.039 --> 00:02:36.060 exactly. Just to sound a little more conventional 00:02:36.060 --> 00:02:38.719 on the global stage. But when you look at the 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:42.080 scope of what this newly minted council was legally 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:45.199 obligated to do, it's staggering. It really was 00:02:45.199 --> 00:02:47.699 all -encompassing. They were actively responsible 00:02:47.699 --> 00:02:50.120 for the day -to -day management of the entire 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:52.699 national economy. The whole thing. Right. They 00:02:52.699 --> 00:02:55.000 were the ones actually formulating the massive 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.919 five -year plans for social and economic development. 00:02:58.300 --> 00:03:01.360 They drafted the state budget. economics either. 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.379 No, not at all. They handled public order, state 00:03:04.379 --> 00:03:07.139 security, and the general policies for the armed 00:03:07.139 --> 00:03:09.800 forces. Including exactly how many citizens would 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:11.919 be drafted into the military. Which is a huge 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:14.360 amount of power. What's fascinating here is the 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:16.800 sheer administrative reach they possessed on 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:20.560 paper. If the Council of Ministers issued a decree 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:24.400 or a declaration. It had obligatory jurisdictional 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:27.259 power across all the constituent republics of 00:03:27.259 --> 00:03:29.800 the Soviet Union. So everywhere. Everywhere. 00:03:30.180 --> 00:03:33.539 From Moscow to Vladivostok, if the council issued 00:03:33.539 --> 00:03:36.539 a rule, every local organization, every factory, 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.919 every regional government had to obey it. And 00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:42.860 I think this is the crucial distinction that... 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.580 They were not actually the supreme power in the 00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:47.400 land. No, they definitely weren't. The Communist 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:50.099 Party of the Soviet Union, specifically its Central 00:03:50.099 --> 00:03:52.900 Committee and the Politburo, was de facto more 00:03:52.900 --> 00:03:55.719 powerful. Right. The most important nation -altering 00:03:55.719 --> 00:03:58.139 decisions were not made by the Council of Ministers 00:03:58.139 --> 00:04:00.800 alone. They were issued via joint declarations 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:02.759 with the Central Committee of the Communist Party. 00:04:03.180 --> 00:04:05.060 And if we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:04:05.500 --> 00:04:08.800 that dynamic creates an incredible inherent tension 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.740 right at the heart of the superpower. Oh, absolutely. 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:14.939 friction this causes. The Council of Ministers 00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:17.860 had the immense technical responsibility for 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:19.720 the nation's survival. So if things go wrong, 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:22.879 it's on them. Exactly. If the wheat harvest failed, 00:04:23.339 --> 00:04:25.259 or if the train supplying a new city stopped 00:04:25.259 --> 00:04:27.860 running, it was the council's fault. Yeah. But 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:31.319 they ultimately lacked absolute ideological supremacy. 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:34.439 I see it exactly like a massive corporate structure. 00:04:34.459 --> 00:04:38.370 OK, yeah. Where the ministers... are the C -suite 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:41.449 executives, the CEO, the CFO, the chief operating 00:04:41.449 --> 00:04:44.230 officer. They are the ones actually keeping the 00:04:44.230 --> 00:04:46.589 lights on and managing the supply chains. Right, 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:48.750 doing the actual work. But the Communist Party 00:04:48.750 --> 00:04:50.610 Central Committee is the board of directors. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.819 holding the actual leash. I like that analogy. 00:04:53.879 --> 00:04:56.980 Yeah, because the C -suite can mandate new factory 00:04:56.980 --> 00:05:00.240 quarters or reorganize a domestic industry. But 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:02.259 if the board of directors suddenly decides on 00:05:02.259 --> 00:05:05.259 a radical new ideological direction, the C -suite 00:05:05.259 --> 00:05:08.060 just has to swallow it. They fall in line and 00:05:08.060 --> 00:05:10.420 figure out how to execute it. Exactly. It is 00:05:10.420 --> 00:05:13.740 a classic, highly volatile case of having immense 00:05:13.740 --> 00:05:16.459 practical responsibility without having ultimate 00:05:16.459 --> 00:05:19.040 unquestionable authority. Which sounds incredibly 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.939 stressful. Oh, it was. You have to constantly 00:05:21.939 --> 00:05:25.220 navigate the political will of a party apparatus 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:28.120 that might not even understand the logistical 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.300 realities of the very economy you were trying 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:33.160 to run. And because those ministers, specifically 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:35.040 the chairman of the council who was effectively 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:37.720 the premier of the USSR held the practical keys 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:41.019 to the kingdom, that top job became the ultimate 00:05:41.019 --> 00:05:43.790 prize. course. If you control the factories and 00:05:43.790 --> 00:05:46.009 the budgets, you have an enormous amount of leverage, 00:05:46.410 --> 00:05:49.050 which meant the moment Joseph Stalin died in 00:05:49.050 --> 00:05:52.529 1953, the position of premier became the center 00:05:52.529 --> 00:05:55.329 of a brutal power struggle. This is where the 00:05:55.329 --> 00:05:57.449 Soviet Game of Thrones truly kicks into high 00:05:57.449 --> 00:06:00.680 gear. Grab the popcorn. Seriously. The tension 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:02.240 we just talked about, the government executives 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:05.040 versus the party ideologues, explodes right into 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.680 the open. You have two main factions vying for 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:10.279 total control. OK, who are the players? The government 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:13.040 apparatus is championed by Georgi Malenkov, who 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:15.459 manages to take over as the premier. On the other 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:18.240 side, the party apparatus is led by Nikita Khrushchev, 00:06:18.439 --> 00:06:20.160 who takes over as the first secretary of the 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.839 Communist Party. So it's the ultimate showdown 00:06:22.839 --> 00:06:25.740 between the CEO of the government and the chairman 00:06:25.740 --> 00:06:27.639 of the ideological board. That's exactly it. 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:31.000 And the board wins, right? They do. By 1955, 00:06:31.579 --> 00:06:35.800 Malenkov loses this power struggle and is unceremoniously 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:38.339 demoted from his office as chairman of the Council 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:41.839 of Ministers. Ouch. Yeah. He is replaced by a 00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:46.959 man named Nikolai Bulganin. But Bulganin doesn't 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:50.240 even last. Wait, really? No, Contrecha eventually 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:53.079 dismisses them entirely. And the reason why is 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.199 wild. Bulganin apparently offered assistance 00:06:56.199 --> 00:06:59.259 to a faction called the Anti -Party Group. The 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:01.959 Anti -Party Group? That sounds ominous. Very. 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:04.779 and their entire goal was to oust Khrushchev 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:07.480 from power in 1957. So, wait, I have to jump 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:09.180 in here because this sounds like an absolute 00:07:09.180 --> 00:07:11.839 bureaucratic Wild West. Oh, what? You have the 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:13.639 guy running the economy trying to fire the guy 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:15.639 running the ideology who then turns around and 00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:18.120 fires the economy guy? It is a ruthless piece 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:20.540 of political maneuvering. There is zero job security 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:22.660 at the absolute pinnacle of this superpower. 00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:25.800 None. Khrushchev essentially purges the premier 00:07:25.800 --> 00:07:28.240 of the country because the premier tried to help 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:31.120 overthrow him first. And with Bolganin gone, 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.060 Khrushchev consolidates an enormous amount of 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:36.699 power, essentially fusing the influence of the 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:38.639 party and the government back together under 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.459 his own umbrella. But history shows us that Khrushchev's 00:07:41.459 --> 00:07:44.220 victory lap wasn't permanent either. Not at all. 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:48.600 He himself gets ousted in 1964. And the new leaders 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.300 who step into the vacuum, Leonid Brezhnev and 00:07:51.300 --> 00:07:54.139 Alexei Kosygin, decide they have to put a stop 00:07:54.139 --> 00:07:56.519 to this constant turf war. Right. They attempt 00:07:56.519 --> 00:07:59.579 to hardwire a structural fix. A central committee 00:07:59.579 --> 00:08:02.480 plenum establishes a strict new rule. Which was? 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:05.259 No single person is ever allowed to hold both 00:08:05.259 --> 00:08:07.579 the first secretary role and the premier role 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:10.839 concurrently. Oh, interesting. Yeah, they legally, 00:08:11.399 --> 00:08:13.379 formally separated the top party job from the 00:08:13.379 --> 00:08:16.220 top government job to prevent another Khrushchev 00:08:16.220 --> 00:08:18.819 -style consolidation of power. But did that new 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:21.120 rule actually balance the power, or did it just 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:24.199 give the party leader a cleaner way to sideline 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:26.579 the premier? That is the pivotal question, honestly. 00:08:26.829 --> 00:08:29.110 and the mechanics of what happened next proved 00:08:29.110 --> 00:08:31.689 that it heavily sidelined the premier over time. 00:08:32.330 --> 00:08:34.789 At first, it looked like a genuine collective 00:08:34.789 --> 00:08:38.149 leadership. Alexei Kosygin takes over as the 00:08:38.149 --> 00:08:40.710 premier of the Council of Ministers, and he has 00:08:40.710 --> 00:08:42.789 handed the reins of economic administration. 00:08:43.129 --> 00:08:47.269 And Brezhnev. Meanwhile, Leonid Brezhnev, as 00:08:47.269 --> 00:08:49.509 the general secretary of the party, takes control 00:08:49.509 --> 00:08:51.929 of overall domestic matters and state policy. 00:08:52.289 --> 00:08:54.789 So they slice the pie right down the middle. 00:08:54.970 --> 00:08:58.360 On paper, yes. But whoever controls the party 00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:01.299 apparatus in a one -party state inevitably controls 00:09:01.299 --> 00:09:03.620 the trajectory of the entire nation. That makes 00:09:03.620 --> 00:09:06.899 sense. As the Brezhnev era wore on, the job of 00:09:06.899 --> 00:09:10.139 premier slowly but surely lost its rank. It actually 00:09:10.139 --> 00:09:12.980 lost its status as the second most powerful position 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:15.799 in the USSR. To what? It fell behind the chairman 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:18.139 of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:20.440 was the chief of state role. So the executive 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:22.740 actually managing the day -to -day survival of 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:25.360 the economy gets functionally demoted in the 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:27.700 unofficial hierarchy. Precisely. And this wasn't 00:09:27.700 --> 00:09:31.019 accidental. By 1977, when a key figure named 00:09:31.019 --> 00:09:33.259 Nikolai Podgorny was dismissed as chief of state, 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:35.779 Brezhnev absorbed those duties. Just to come 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:38.679 on himself. Yeah, and strengthened his own control 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:41.500 over the government apparatus even further. He 00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:44.039 didn't need to take Kosygin's title of premier 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:47.080 to box him in. He just elevated the powers around 00:09:47.080 --> 00:09:50.399 him. Exactly. which actively reduced Kosigin's 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.580 role in the day -to -day management of government 00:09:52.580 --> 00:09:56.279 activities. The rule forbidding one man from 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:59.659 holding both jobs didn't create a perfect balance 00:09:59.659 --> 00:10:02.409 at all. It just ensured that the party leader 00:10:02.409 --> 00:10:05.269 could slowly build an invisible cage around the 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:07.929 government leader. Unifully put, yes. Well, with 00:10:07.929 --> 00:10:10.350 the premier essentially locked into this specific 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:13.350 box of managing the economy, we really need to 00:10:13.350 --> 00:10:15.730 look at the actual tools they had to do that 00:10:15.730 --> 00:10:18.049 job. It's a massive job. Right, because we are 00:10:18.049 --> 00:10:20.750 talking about managing a country spanning 11 00:10:20.750 --> 00:10:24.330 time zones, encompassing incredibly diverse geographies 00:10:24.330 --> 00:10:26.669 and industries. It's almost unimaginable. So 00:10:26.669 --> 00:10:29.149 their main levers of power were divided into 00:10:29.149 --> 00:10:31.899 two high distinct categories, the ministries 00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:34.320 and the state committees. And this is where the 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:36.299 structural engineering of the Soviet state gets 00:10:36.299 --> 00:10:39.000 highly intricate. The ministries were formed 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:42.399 to manage specific vertical topics. A ministry 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:45.179 was responsible for the ordinary decision making 00:10:45.179 --> 00:10:48.009 for a single industry. You would have a ministry 00:10:48.009 --> 00:10:51.110 for agriculture, a ministry for coal, a ministry 00:10:51.110 --> 00:10:53.289 for foreign affairs. And these weren't just mid 00:10:53.289 --> 00:10:55.750 -level managers. When you look at the 25th Party 00:10:55.750 --> 00:10:59.269 Congress, 73 % of the ministers were elected 00:10:59.269 --> 00:11:01.210 as full members of the Central Committee. Yeah, 00:11:01.269 --> 00:11:03.570 that's huge. And the ministers of the really 00:11:03.570 --> 00:11:06.809 major portfolios, like foreign affairs or defense, 00:11:07.330 --> 00:11:09.710 were full members of the Politburo. They had 00:11:09.710 --> 00:11:13.450 serious clout. They did. But alongside those 00:11:13.450 --> 00:11:15.750 vertical ministries, you had the state committees. 00:11:16.250 --> 00:11:18.830 And these were fundamentally different. How so? 00:11:18.889 --> 00:11:21.169 A state committee was not responsible for just 00:11:21.169 --> 00:11:24.429 one specific topic or a single industry. They 00:11:24.429 --> 00:11:26.350 were responsible for cross -cutting functions 00:11:26.350 --> 00:11:28.769 that applied to multiple, sometimes all parts 00:11:28.769 --> 00:11:30.210 of the government. What kind of functions are 00:11:30.210 --> 00:11:31.950 we talking about here? Functions like research 00:11:31.950 --> 00:11:34.789 and development, building construction, publishing, 00:11:35.330 --> 00:11:38.549 archiving. Crucially, standardization across 00:11:38.549 --> 00:11:41.879 all industries. Oh, I see. most famously state 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:45.700 security. The KGB was a state committee. Really? 00:11:45.860 --> 00:11:47.940 I didn't know that. Yeah. While the distinction 00:11:47.940 --> 00:11:49.740 between a ministry and a state committee could 00:11:49.740 --> 00:11:52.899 sometimes seem obscure to an outsider, the general 00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:55.179 rule was that state committees had jurisdiction 00:11:55.179 --> 00:11:58.120 over common activities performed by all the different 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:00.159 vertical ministries. Here's where it gets really 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:02.759 interesting, I think. Let's upgrade how we visualize 00:12:02.759 --> 00:12:05.360 this. Think of the ministries as the vertical 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:08.419 pipes in a massive continental plumbing system. 00:12:08.440 --> 00:12:11.580 Oh, I like this. Water, or in this case, commands 00:12:11.580 --> 00:12:14.240 and resources, flows straight down from Moscow 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:17.120 to a local steel mill, or straight down to a 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:20.250 collective farm. completely siloed. Right. But 00:12:20.250 --> 00:12:23.149 the state committees are the horizontal shutoff 00:12:23.149 --> 00:12:25.909 valves cutting right across all of those vertical 00:12:25.909 --> 00:12:28.450 pipes. A standardization committee could step 00:12:28.450 --> 00:12:31.409 in and dictate the exact metric system the steel 00:12:31.409 --> 00:12:33.529 guys and the agriculture guys both have to use. 00:12:33.610 --> 00:12:36.110 That's right. Or the KGB could step in and turn 00:12:36.110 --> 00:12:38.250 the valve on your pipe, stopping everything, 00:12:38.409 --> 00:12:40.610 investigating your factory, no matter what your 00:12:40.610 --> 00:12:43.149 specific minister of coal or agriculture said. 00:12:43.409 --> 00:12:45.730 That is a brilliant way to conceptualize it. 00:12:46.049 --> 00:12:48.820 Vertical silos intersected by horizontal enforcement 00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:51.259 and coordination valves. It makes it so much 00:12:51.259 --> 00:12:54.039 easier to picture. And those state committees 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:57.200 were absolutely vital for keeping this vast, 00:12:57.460 --> 00:13:00.899 incredibly complex Soviet economic system integrated 00:13:00.899 --> 00:13:02.960 and coherent. But leadership just couldn't leave 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:05.379 well enough alone. No, they could not. In the 00:13:05.379 --> 00:13:08.120 late 1950s, Khrushchev looks at this intricate 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:11.700 plumbing system and decides to try a massive, 00:13:11.980 --> 00:13:15.610 frankly terrifying economic experiment. He attempts 00:13:15.610 --> 00:13:18.629 to decentralize the entire chain of command. 00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:21.750 He was a bold move. To put it mildly, he eliminates 00:13:21.750 --> 00:13:24.950 a huge number of those vertical ministries entirely, 00:13:25.429 --> 00:13:27.110 completely ripping the pipes out of the walls, 00:13:27.590 --> 00:13:29.870 and replaces them with a network of regional 00:13:29.870 --> 00:13:33.210 and local councils called soft narcos? Yes. He 00:13:33.210 --> 00:13:35.450 placed these regional councils under the supervision 00:13:35.450 --> 00:13:37.990 of the Supreme Soviet of the national economy. 00:13:38.090 --> 00:13:40.659 Why, though? What was the point? His underlying 00:13:40.659 --> 00:13:42.919 theory was to push decision making down to the 00:13:42.919 --> 00:13:45.019 local level, hoping it would spur efficiency. 00:13:45.289 --> 00:13:47.669 But if you are a factory manager in Ukraine during 00:13:47.669 --> 00:13:49.789 this time, wasn't Khrushchev essentially taking 00:13:49.789 --> 00:13:53.169 a deeply integrated continental monopoly and 00:13:53.169 --> 00:13:55.590 violently smashing it into pieces without a blueprint? 00:13:55.669 --> 00:13:58.330 Pretty much. Because the result was disastrous. 00:13:58.769 --> 00:14:01.549 It completely severed regional economic relations. 00:14:01.669 --> 00:14:04.070 It was a spectacular failure. This raises an 00:14:04.070 --> 00:14:05.970 important question. Why did it fail so quickly? 00:14:06.590 --> 00:14:09.669 It was a catastrophic miscalculation of how a 00:14:09.669 --> 00:14:12.549 command economy actually functions. How so? Well, 00:14:12.970 --> 00:14:15.480 in a free market. If a steel plant in Ukraine 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:18.240 needs coal, market prices and localized trade 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:20.179 naturally connect the buyers and the sellers. 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:22.980 They figure it out organically. But the Soviet 00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:25.820 economy had no natural market prices. The only 00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:27.919 thing telling the coal mine in Siberia to send 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:30.840 shipments to the steel plant in Ukraine was that 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:33.879 vertical ministry in Moscow. When Khrushchev 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:36.860 smashed the ministries, he essentially deleted 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:39.960 the country's economic software. The coal mine 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.470 literally didn't know where to send the coal, 00:14:42.789 --> 00:14:44.169 because the central nervous system was gone. 00:14:44.289 --> 00:14:46.450 That is wild. He didn't just reorganize them, 00:14:46.629 --> 00:14:48.809 he blinded them. Absolutely blinded them. And 00:14:48.809 --> 00:14:51.190 you can see how devastating that was by how quickly 00:14:51.190 --> 00:14:53.549 they reversed it. As soon as Khrushchev is ousted 00:14:53.549 --> 00:14:57.139 in 1964, The very next year, the new premier, 00:14:57.460 --> 00:15:00.559 Alexei Kosygin, hits the massive undo button. 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:03.940 He had to. He immediately reestablishes the vertical 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:07.080 ministries. He brings back 28 industrial ministries 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:10.700 right out of the gate in 1965. Kosygin recognized 00:15:10.700 --> 00:15:13.340 that you cannot run a command economy without 00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:16.000 a commander. That makes sense. He initiated his 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:18.480 own economic reforms, but rather than destroying 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:20.539 the central structure, he tried to work within 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:23.759 it. His goal was to keep those vertical ministries 00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:26.860 intact, but give individual enterprises slightly 00:15:26.860 --> 00:15:30.179 more economic freedom and introduce profit incentives 00:15:30.179 --> 00:15:32.080 so they would naturally want to be more efficient. 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:35.679 So coordinating all of these resurrected vertical 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:38.299 ministries, managing the horizontal state committees, 00:15:38.740 --> 00:15:41.419 and overseeing massive structural reforms across 00:15:41.419 --> 00:15:44.860 11 time zones required a highly sophisticated 00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:47.580 central command. It did. And that brings us to 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:50.139 what has to be the most mysterious, fascinating 00:15:50.139 --> 00:15:52.799 part of the entire Soviet government apparatus, 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.899 the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. This 00:15:55.899 --> 00:15:58.360 is where the bureaucratic black box becomes entirely 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.200 opaque. Completely opaque. The Presidium was 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:04.519 formally established in March 1953, growing out 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:07.299 of a special bureau from 1944 that was originally 00:16:07.299 --> 00:16:09.820 designed to supervise government institutions. 00:16:10.259 --> 00:16:12.940 But throughout its existence, the Presidium operated 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:15.860 in the shadows. First -world observers in the 00:16:15.860 --> 00:16:18.519 West knew almost nothing about it. We didn't 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:20.580 know its exact functions, we didn't know its 00:16:20.580 --> 00:16:23.220 internal hierarchy, we didn't even know how often 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:25.600 it met. And this wasn't just a matter of keeping 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:27.799 secrets from Western spies. Right. You know, 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.019 it was hidden from their own people. Which is 00:16:30.019 --> 00:16:33.720 just wild to me. In Soviet textbooks, and when 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:35.720 officials vaguely alluded to it, it was just 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:39.740 described as an internal organ. So vague. British 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:42.320 historian Leonard Shapiro theorized it worked 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:44.799 somewhat as an inner cabinet for policy making. 00:16:45.580 --> 00:16:47.720 But even historians who dedicated their lives 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:50.220 to studying the Soviet Union couldn't determine 00:16:50.220 --> 00:16:52.440 its exact power compared to other government 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:54.820 organs. They were just guessing. During the 50s 00:16:54.820 --> 00:16:56.960 and 60s, Western analysts weren't even totally 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.080 sure if the Presidium was actively holding meetings. 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:01.440 It's incredible. It's like having a shadow board 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.820 of directors running the day -to -day operations 00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:06.819 of your country and no one is quite sure if they 00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.950 even exist. It really is. There's this amazing 00:17:09.950 --> 00:17:12.569 anecdote where a political scientist, Robert 00:17:12.569 --> 00:17:15.809 C. Tucker, is visiting the USSR. He's trying 00:17:15.809 --> 00:17:18.630 to map out this labyrinth. And he finally just 00:17:18.630 --> 00:17:21.910 straight up asks Mansur Mirza Akhmetov, who was 00:17:21.910 --> 00:17:24.289 the premier of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic 00:17:24.289 --> 00:17:27.109 at the time, does the Presidium still function 00:17:27.109 --> 00:17:30.309 as an inner policymaking body? Which is an incredibly 00:17:30.309 --> 00:17:33.609 bold question to ask a high ranking Soviet official 00:17:33.609 --> 00:17:35.589 during the height of the Cold War. Right. He 00:17:35.589 --> 00:17:37.789 just goes right for it. But the official actually 00:17:37.789 --> 00:17:40.359 says Yes, he gives Tucker this ultra rare peek 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:42.819 behind the curtain. What did he tell him? He 00:17:42.819 --> 00:17:45.160 explains that the Presidium consisted of the 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:48.200 premier, two first deputy chairman, four regular 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.240 deputy chairman, the minister of finance, and 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.859 the minister of agriculture. OK, so a tight group. 00:17:54.140 --> 00:17:56.000 Exactly. So it wasn't a sprawling parliament. 00:17:56.059 --> 00:17:59.039 It was a highly concentrated, incredibly exclusive 00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:02.019 brain trust of the most vital economic and administrative 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:04.839 leaders in the empire. And yet. Authorities kept 00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:08.039 it entirely under wraps for decades. It wasn't 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:11.299 until the 1977 Soviet Constitution that they 00:18:11.299 --> 00:18:14.460 officially legally defined the Presidium as a 00:18:14.460 --> 00:18:16.759 permanent organ of the Council of Ministers. 00:18:16.859 --> 00:18:19.559 Finally on the books. Right. Established specifically 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:23.079 to secure economic leadership. But even after 00:18:23.079 --> 00:18:26.099 it was codified in the 1977 Constitution and 00:18:26.099 --> 00:18:29.640 later in the 1978 USSR law, the actual names 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:32.430 of its members other than the premier, were never 00:18:32.430 --> 00:18:34.549 officially disclosed to the public. So what does 00:18:34.549 --> 00:18:36.349 this all mean? I really have to push back on 00:18:36.349 --> 00:18:38.769 the logic of this system. Kill for it. How do 00:18:38.769 --> 00:18:41.089 you successfully run the economy of a global 00:18:41.089 --> 00:18:44.450 superpower when your top executive board operates 00:18:44.450 --> 00:18:47.609 like a secret society? If the citizens, the factory 00:18:47.609 --> 00:18:49.589 workers, the soldiers don't even know the names 00:18:49.589 --> 00:18:52.210 of the men sitting on the presidium, how is there 00:18:52.210 --> 00:18:54.309 any accountability for the decisions they make? 00:18:54.710 --> 00:18:57.990 Because you are applying a democratic expectation 00:18:57.990 --> 00:19:00.690 to a fundamentally different operating architecture. 00:19:00.890 --> 00:19:03.849 Fair point. In a system that prioritizes absolute 00:19:03.849 --> 00:19:06.630 state security and top -down control over transparency, 00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:09.700 secrecy wasn't a flaw. Secrecy was the primary 00:19:09.700 --> 00:19:12.279 feature. By hiding the membership in the meetings 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.259 of the Presidium, the Soviet leadership completely 00:19:15.259 --> 00:19:17.579 insulated their economic planning away from public 00:19:17.579 --> 00:19:20.420 scrutiny, and crucially, away from broad governmental 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:23.849 scrutiny. So they didn't want lower -level bureaucrats 00:19:23.849 --> 00:19:25.710 questioning the math on the five -year plans. 00:19:26.250 --> 00:19:28.549 Exactly. It functioned as an untouchable shadow 00:19:28.549 --> 00:19:31.509 committee right below the Paula Perot. It allowed 00:19:31.509 --> 00:19:34.730 a tiny, deeply insulated group of men to make 00:19:34.730 --> 00:19:37.589 massive, sweeping decisions about resource allocation, 00:19:38.369 --> 00:19:40.569 industrial development, and state funding. without 00:19:40.569 --> 00:19:42.690 ever having to justify those decisions to the 00:19:42.690 --> 00:19:44.809 public. Or even to the wider Supreme Soviet. 00:19:45.150 --> 00:19:47.549 In this architecture, accountability only ever 00:19:47.549 --> 00:19:50.529 flowed upward to the party leadership. It never 00:19:50.529 --> 00:19:52.930 flowed downward to the citizens. Which is just 00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:56.069 a staggering, almost alien way to run an empire 00:19:56.069 --> 00:19:58.599 for nearly half a century. It really is. And 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.140 it brings us right back to why a deep dive into 00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:04.140 an extinct Soviet bureaucratic organ matters 00:20:04.140 --> 00:20:06.539 to you listening to this today. This isn't just 00:20:06.539 --> 00:20:09.960 dry history. It is an absolute master class in 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:12.839 how massive organizations actually function behind 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:15.319 closed doors. Absolutely. It shows us how job 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:17.980 titles can be completely deceiving, where the 00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:20.059 person with the grand title of premier might 00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:22.400 actually be slowly boxed in and losing power 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:24.740 to the guy running the party apparatus. It also 00:20:24.740 --> 00:20:27.839 highlights the extreme danger of structural whiplash. 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:32.349 When you look at Khrushchev's attempt to decentralize 00:20:32.349 --> 00:20:35.309 by destroying the ministries, it caused absolute 00:20:35.309 --> 00:20:38.329 economic chaos because he didn't understand the 00:20:38.329 --> 00:20:40.170 load bearing walls of his own system. Exactly. 00:20:40.170 --> 00:20:42.690 You can't just delete the central command software 00:20:42.690 --> 00:20:44.750 of a command economy and expect the hardware 00:20:44.750 --> 00:20:46.970 to keep running. No, you can't. And of course, 00:20:46.970 --> 00:20:50.809 it shows how real tangible power often sits entirely 00:20:50.809 --> 00:20:53.609 in the shadows like the Presidium, making decisions 00:20:53.609 --> 00:20:56.069 that alter millions of lives without ever stepping 00:20:56.069 --> 00:20:58.549 up to a podium or revealing their names. It is 00:20:58.549 --> 00:21:01.029 a profound study in the anatomy of institutional 00:21:01.029 --> 00:21:03.549 power. It really is. And I want to leave you 00:21:03.549 --> 00:21:06.470 with one final lingering thought to mull over 00:21:06.470 --> 00:21:08.950 drawn from the very end of this history. OK. 00:21:09.250 --> 00:21:12.990 In 1991, as the Soviet system was rapidly unraveling, 00:21:13.269 --> 00:21:15.690 the authorities finally dissolved the entire 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:18.210 Council of Ministers. They replaced it with a 00:21:18.210 --> 00:21:20.829 newly established cabinet of ministers, seemingly 00:21:20.829 --> 00:21:22.890 to modernize the government. Right. The final 00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.670 rebrand. But that new cabinet disappeared just 00:21:25.670 --> 00:21:28.109 months later because the entire Soviet Union 00:21:28.109 --> 00:21:30.960 collapsed. It really makes you wonder, did the 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.299 larger collapse of the empire simply wipe out 00:21:33.299 --> 00:21:37.420 this new cabinet? Or did the sudden final dismantling 00:21:37.420 --> 00:21:41.660 of that 45 -year -old executive engine, the boring 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:44.400 shadowy bureaucrats who were quietly forcing 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:47.559 the supply chains to work, actually trigger the 00:21:47.559 --> 00:21:50.299 final fatal shatter of the superpower? That is 00:21:50.299 --> 00:21:52.910 quite the question. Without the Council of Ministers 00:21:52.910 --> 00:21:55.190 physically forcing the pipes and valves to stay 00:21:55.190 --> 00:21:57.430 connected, did the whole thing just instantly 00:21:57.430 --> 00:21:59.569 fall apart? Just something to think about the 00:21:59.569 --> 00:22:02.369 next time your company announces a major structural 00:22:02.369 --> 00:22:04.630 reorganization. And you have to wonder if they 00:22:04.630 --> 00:22:06.650 actually know which walls are load -bearing. 00:22:06.829 --> 00:22:08.789 Definitely a sobering thought. Thank you so much 00:22:08.789 --> 00:22:10.509 for joining us on this deep dive. We will catch 00:22:10.509 --> 00:22:11.009 you next time.