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It came as no surprise that First Secretary and Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress predicted the next historical period will witness "the further increase in the role of the Party as the higher form of public and political organization, the strengthening of its directing influence in all sections of communist building…." What is the nature of this projected party role and how does it differ from past practice? What problems have been encountered by the Khrushchev regime in directing the state through the party apparatus and how has it attempted to cope with these difficulties? By focusing on the Party's changing role since 1953, what light can be shed on modifications in the composition, procedures, and structure of the Party during the Khrushchev era?

The Soviet Union, as an administrative state par excellence, is a Parkinsonian nightmare. Although the leadership is armed with broad powers and unhampered by formal restraints in its control of the bureaucracy, it is nevertheless hard pressed to keep the huge administrative structures of the Soviet system efficient and responsive to central direction. The success or failure of a regime depends in large measure on how effectively it can get its policies translated into action by the bureaucracy.Most schematic descriptions of the Soviet system by Western commentators, especially those written in the early 1950's, emphasized the division of the state into several highly centralized, vertically structured, and functionally specialized administrations—party, police, armed forces, and the economic bureaucracy. Within these broad categories there was frequently even further vertical-functional fractionization. For example, within the industrial bureaucracy there were various specialized ministries and a separation between planners and managers.