Cadres Issue in the Post-war Baltic Republics: Characteristics and Solution

The article analyzes the main qualitative characteristics and features of the leadership and specialists’ formation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in the period of “late Stalinism.” The main sources for the article were the archival documents of the thematic cases of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks and the materials of the “Survey of executives and specialists as of November 1, 1947” - a unique closed census, the results of which were reported only to the top Soviet leadership. The article analyzes the total number of employees in specific industries, the proportion of the workers of the “indigenous” nationality and the number of managers who came to work to the republics after the end of the war. The latter data are of particular importance, since they made it possible to calculate the proportion of workers in certain industries who lived in the republics during the occupation. Special attention is paid to the management system and political campaigns that exerted direct influence on cadres policy. The analysis carried out by the authors showed that the proportion of leaders and specialists of “indigenous nationalities” did not exceed 85 %, and most often was 50-60 %. At the same time, at the level of uyezds and volosts, the proportion of “indigenous” nationalities increased to 95 %, i.e. at the grassroots level, most of the leaders and professionals were local residents, usually non-members, who had spent the war years under the occupation. Probably, this circumstance caused concern of the central authorities and led to a number of political campaigns in the late 1940s - early 1950s. Only after J.V. Stalin’s death did the reform of cadres policy begin; L.P. Beria and N.S. Khrushchev can be considered its authors.