“On Partial Delatvization of Altgubcom”: The Personnel Policy of the Regional Party Leadership of Siberia Towards the Altai Provincial Committee of the RCP(B) (March - June 1924)

Abstract

The functioning of any organization depends, in many ways, on the personnel policy. The implementation of the directives of the Russian Communist party and any changes in the political course required dedicated and efficient cadre. In scientific literature one can often come across the statement according to which the party authority successfully resisted political clans, formed at the local level, through intensive personnel replacements. This article aims to describe the human resource policy of the Siberian regional party administration towards to the Altai provincial Committee of the RCP(b) in March - June 1924. In particular, the author planned to find out whether employee transfers were actually effective, who made decisions about the replacement of the staff members and how they reacted to these replacements. Studying historical sources, that were found in the State archive of the Novosibirsk region and the State archive of the Altai territory, the author revealed the staffing structure of the Bureau of the Altai gubkom and analyzed the relationships bound themembers of this organization. The research showed that the Altai gubkom secretary A. I. Podneck and the chairman of the provincial executive committee L. E. Goldich completely failed cooperation work, and this circumstance forced the Siberian krai committee of RCP(b) to start personnel replacements, which mainly meant sending away high-ranking officials-Latvians from the province. The paper concludes by arguing that in the first half of the 1920s, employee transfers were a universal means of fighting political clans. However, Siberian regional party leadership used them only as a last resort, because of the difficulties to find an appropriate successor for the dismissed official.