Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Efficiency was not Slava's biggest headache; his immediate priority was deciding what the disciplinary committee should focus on first.

The corruption of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not like a tumor that could be located, removed, and stitched up; the corruption of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union stemmed from too many things.

From the Khrushchev era to the Brezhnev era to Andropov to Chernenko, a set of "informal operating rules" developed within the CPSU over several decades. These rules differed from those written in the Party Constitution, which stated that the promotion and appointment of cadres should be based on ability and contribution. In reality, however, the promotion of cadres was often based on relationships, loyalty, and exchanges of benefits.

Want to rise from a district party secretary to a prefectural party secretary? You need someone powerful, a patron, a benefactor. How do you gain this patron? You have to give them benefits—not necessarily money, but perhaps doing something for them, speaking up for them in a crucial vote, or transferring certain resources within your jurisdiction, such as houses, cars, or special supplies, to them.

This system had become an ecosystem over the decades of the Soviet Communist Party's history, especially during times of scarcity, with corruption acting as a lubricant for the entire system.

It's almost impossible for a truly pure and selfless Communist Party member to climb to the top ranks of the CPSU, never accepting bribes, never offering favors, never cultivating relationships, and rising solely through ability and contribution? Dream on!

Sometimes it's easier to infiltrate Moscow than to get into Moscow through the entrance exam.

The Soviet Communist Party had not had a normal system of cadre rotation for a long time. Often, a cadre would be promoted and work in a certain position until he died, or until he had to retire due to health reasons, or "request retirement due to health reasons".

Even the clearest pond will turn into a stinking ditch if it doesn't flow for a long time, let alone a system that can't receive fresh blood for a long time.

Yes, there are indeed a few high-level leaders who want to solve this terrible situation. However, they lack the prestige to fight this cancer that has been ingrained in the alliance for decades. They can only use this system to promote some new people, manually cut open the blood vessels to bleed them out and introduce fresh blood.

But no one can guarantee whether the new blood introduced is pure or infected with AIDS. Just like the young cadres promoted by Andropov during his tenure included both Slava and Gorbachev. Gorbachev's resume before taking office was very impressive, which can only be said to be that Andropov was bad at judging people.

When a high-ranking leader promotes a young person with shallow roots, he naturally expects a reward. The first requirement is loyalty. At the top level, without a cadre loyal to the network, it is easy to be brought down by internal party struggles. The second requirement is ability.

The "young people" promoted by top leaders are only relatively young; essentially, they are a bunch of younger middle-level managers. No one would suddenly announce that they would promote a low-level clerk in a county to provincial governor. Without making some outstanding achievements, one doesn't even qualify for the selection list of top leaders.

To climb from the bottom to the middle, you have to navigate the bureaucratic ecosystem. If you don't offer bribes, no one will speak up for you. If you don't cultivate relationships, no one will promote you. If you stick to your principles, you'll be reassigned to a remote, unwanted position where you'll never rise.

This means that almost every cadre in the CPSU was involved in "gray" affairs to some extent. If the disciplinary commission arrested everyone associated with corruption, the CPSU would essentially be hollowed out.

From the central government to local governments, from ministries to grassroots levels... very few people were able to stay.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was still engaged in the Cold War and playing a game with the United States. It had to complete internal reforms and develop productivity while also guarding against foreign infiltration. If the cadre ranks were emptied, who would do the work? Would the United States take advantage of the situation?

So the question of what to focus on first and how hard to crack down on it frustrated Slava for several days.

The director noticed that Slava had been quieter than usual since returning home these past few days, eating less dinner, staying up late reading documents, and often tossing and turning at night, unable to sleep.

Sunday, August 15th.

In the afternoon, Slava finished processing the last batch of documents in his office. By the time he closed the folder, it was already past six in the evening.

Director Nian came to see him from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Elbow?” she asked.

"Let's go."

The two men emerged from the Kremlin. They usually took a car home, but today Slava hadn't called one, so the KGB had to make arrangements in advance along the General Secretary's route home.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

Director Nian glanced at him.

"it is good."

The Moscow sun hadn't completely set in the August evening, and the sky gradually changed from orange-red to deep blue. The onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral in the direction of Red Square shimmered in the sunset, and there weren't many pedestrians—most people had already gone home on a Sunday evening.

The two men walked along the banks of the Moscow River, with several plainclothes KGB bodyguards following at a distance.

After walking for a while, Slava spoke.

"Boss, you've been to so many countries."

"Ok?"

"How do you think the West deals with corruption? Are there any aspects we can learn from it?"

Director Nian thought about it for a moment.

Do you want to hear the truth or the theory?

"Of course it's the truth."

"The truth is that corruption does exist in the West. Corruption in the West is just as systemic as ours, it's just dressed in a different guise."

She began to speak.

In the West, especially in the United States, the core form of corruption is lobbying.

Corporate and interest groups, such as defense contractors, financial institutions, and pharmaceutical companies, hire professional lobbying firms to influence members of Congress and government officials to push for or block legislation, secure government contracts, or obtain regulatory exemptions.

The lobbying industry in the United States was already a massive industry in the 90s, with effects essentially no different from direct bribery of officials, but completely legal. Italy's Clean Hands movement of 1992-1993 exposed the systematic infiltration of bribery into the entire political system, involving almost all major political parties.

France also experienced a series of scandals during the final days of Mitterrand's rule, Britain had the "705u.com-Reading Club" weapons-for-aid scandal, and Japan was frequently embroiled in political donation scandals.

Many of the lobbyists are former government officials or congressional aides who use their connections and relationships built up in government to serve their clients.

"This is legal in the United States. Registered lobbying firms can operate openly, and they spend billions of dollars on lobbying every year."

What is the essence of lobbying? It's that wealthy people buy influence. If you have money to hire a lobbying firm, your voice is louder; if you don't, your voice is quieter. What's the fundamental difference between this and our officials exchanging bribes for promotions? It's all about exchanging resources for power! The only difference is that it's legal in the US, but it was a gray area in the Soviet Union.

She continued.

"Revolving door transactions are a feature of their system."

Government officials leave their posts to become senior executives in companies, using the connections and expertise they accumulated in the government to serve those companies. Meanwhile, corporate executives enter the government and bring corporate interests into the policy-making process.

"When a U.S. Secretary of Defense leaves the Pentagon to become a vice president at Boeing or Lockheed Martin, he might return to the government a few years later for another position. When making decisions in the government, is he thinking about the national interest or the interest of the company he'll be joining?"

In the Soviet Union, we called this "abuse of public power for private gain"; in the United States, it's called "career development."

The director also discussed political donations.

American elections require a lot of money—candidates' campaign expenses can easily reach millions or tens of millions of dollars. Where does this money come from? From donors.

Who donated the most money? Businesses and the wealthy!

“After you are elected, how do you repay the favors you owe to those who donated money to you? Naturally, you repay them through policies and funding, and through the tightening or loosening of supervision. This is not called bribery—because there is no ‘explicit exchange’ between donations and policies, but everyone knows that there is a cause-and-effect relationship there.”

She looked at Slava.

"During my few days dealing with American politicians in Washington, I got the impression that corruption in the United States was no less than in the Soviet Union. But American corruption was better disguised; it wore a legal cloak, while Soviet corruption wore a gray cloak. There was no law to protect it, but there was also no law to really punish it."

"So the question is never 'whether there is corruption'. Every country has it. As long as human society exists, corruption and the pursuit of personal gain will inevitably exist. Selfishness is the instinct of life, and altruistic behavior is the minority!"

So instead of trying to completely eliminate corrupt officials from the cadre ranks in one fell swoop, we should think about how to create a favorable environment to curb corruption and kill those big flies that keep defecating on our greatest work.

Without the shade of a parasol, maggots won't survive long under the intense sunlight.

Slava remained silent for a moment.

The two continued walking hand in hand along the Moscow River, the last rays of the setting sun reflecting off the water, orange fragments dancing on the surface.

Then he spoke.

"Having been a leader for so many years, I think the root of our corruption lies in one thing."

"What?"

"privilege."

Director Nian watched him and waited for him to continue.

"The privileges of CPSU members, especially high-ranking cadres, were the root of corruption in the Soviet Union. It wasn't the only one, but it was definitely the thickest one!"

The first privilege was an envelope salary.

In addition to their regular salaries, high-ranking Soviet cadres received an extra cash allowance in an envelope. The amount depended on the cadre's rank; the higher the rank, the thicker the envelope. This allowance was not deposited into their accounts, was not taxed, and was not even included in party dues.

According to unspoken rules, those who receive the envelopes must keep the secret, and those who leak information will be severely punished.

Therefore, the salary envelopes were never made public, and most Soviets were unaware of their existence—but every cadre who reached a certain rank knew about them.

During the Stalin era, a minister's monthly envelope contained approximately 2000 new rubles. This extra cash was typically two to three times his official salary, serving as both an economic reward for his work and compensation for the intense workload and the risk of being purged, with the aim of securing greater loyalty.

After Khrushchev came to power, he launched the first proactive attack on this system in the history of the Soviet Communist Party, wanting to abolish the envelope system, free villas, and official cars, and also significantly reduce the salaries of high-ranking officials. However, Khrushchev's reforms did not truly eradicate these privileges.

After Brezhnev came to power, most of the privileges that had been abolished were quietly restored, albeit in a different form.

Because Emperor Xunzong discovered that sending red envelopes was a really effective tactic. The state used the money in the envelopes to bribe its officials, making them feel that "the system is good to me," which motivated them to maintain the system and also created an unspoken rule that if you take the money, you should keep quiet.

Once you take the envelope, you become part of the community of shared interests, and you cannot oppose the system—because you are eating the system's food!

The second is the special supply system.

High-ranking Soviet officials had their own special stores, which were not open to ordinary citizens. Only officials with specific-level passes and their families could enter.

The origin of the special supply system actually has a reasonable beginning. During Lenin's era, due to the extreme scarcity of resources after the revolution, Lenin suggested establishing sanatorium canteens so that cadres who worked day and night for the country could have enough to eat.

This was an understandable emergency measure at the time. But what became of this "sanatorium canteen" half a century later? Only high-ranking Soviet cadres with special credentials could enter and exit the unmarked building, and every weekend the street was jammed with cars.

The store offers a wide variety of foreign luxury goods and domestically scarce items, including French brandy, Scotch whisky, American cigarettes, Swiss chocolates, Italian ties, Austrian leather shoes, British woolens, German radios, and Japanese tape recorders.

During Brezhnev's era, there were over a hundred such special supply stores in Moscow alone. The entire special supply network was strictly hierarchical, with each level of party and government agency having its own internal supply network of shops, restaurants, cold storage facilities, etc., and enjoying different levels of special supplies according to official rank and status.

The supplies for a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee and the supplies for a secretary of a prefectural party committee are not at all at the same level.

In addition to the special supply system for cadres, there is also a "Little Birch Tree" foreign guest store.

The Little Birch Shop was originally a store established by the Soviet Union to purchase goods using foreign currency. It generally served only foreigners, but also provided scarce food and foreign luxury goods to privileged classes such as Soviet government officials.

The shops operated on three payment models: one for diplomatic missions using "д" series checks, another for foreigners using foreign currency cash, and the third for Soviet citizens using "А" series checks, generally reserved for high-ranking CPSU officials. Each shop also had further hierarchical classifications regarding the types of goods sold and access permissions.

To avoid public discontent, these shops are located in relatively quiet areas, with only concealed white birch tree signs on the storefronts and opaque signs covering the windows to minimize visibility.

Initially, only privileged individuals such as diplomats, military experts, and athletes could enter, but as basic consumer goods became increasingly scarce, more and more ordinary Soviet citizens found ways to shop there—mainly by exchanging foreign currency or shopping checks on the black market.

Fortunately, in recent years the Soviet Union's supply of consumer goods and the level of its light industry have greatly improved. The increasingly close exchanges between the Soviet Union and Europe have made previously scarce high-end foreign goods less scarce. The computerized planned economy and many reform policies for people's livelihood have greatly improved people's living standards.

According to an official Soviet investigation, by June 1993, the size of the black market across the Soviet Union had shrunk by more than 74% compared to 1983. The Little Birch Tree Shop was gradually being phased out due to the development of the Soviet people's livelihood and economy.

The third is the specialized supply system.

The Soviet Union had a very robust logistical support system for high-ranking officials. They had their own central clinical hospitals with the best equipment and doctors in the entire Soviet Union. Ordinary Soviet citizens could wait in line for months for a medical check-up, while officials could see specialists at any time.

Officials have dedicated residential areas—government buildings. These are much larger than ordinary apartments, with far higher standards of decoration than ordinary housing, and some even have private chefs and nannies—of course, the costs are borne by the state.

As for official vehicles, that goes without saying; high-ranking officials are even assigned dedicated drivers. Moscow's streets have dedicated lanes for government vehicles only, allowing officials' cars to travel freely in these lanes while ordinary people are stuck in traffic.

Cadres also have their own exclusive vacation and sanatoriums, which are located all over the Black Sea coast, in Crimea, and in the mountains of the Caucasus, with beautiful environments, first-class facilities, and attentive service.

Most of the Soviet working people's vacations were collective vacations organized by trade unions, and they stayed in workers' sanatoriums with relatively simple conditions but still free of charge. They could only have about 20 days of paid vacation each year.

These factors combined to create a parallel world: cadres and their families lived in a world completely different from that of ordinary Soviet citizens, artificially creating isolation and exacerbating the trend of alienation from the masses.

The fourth is judicial immunity.

Cadres at a certain level enjoy de facto immunity from the law—although there is no explicit legal provision that members of the Politburo are not subject to legal constraints, in practice, if a member of the Politburo commits a crime, unless the Politburo itself decides to deal with him, the procuratorate will not touch him, the court will not sentence him, and the KGB will not investigate him!

Finally, there is the special pension system.

Similar to how American politicians often take up high-paying jobs in corporations after leaving office, the Soviet pension system had a special category called "individual pensions." Individual pensions were divided into three levels: all-Union, republic, and local. On average, the amount received by pensioners was more than three times the salary of ordinary workers.

In addition to the high amount, individual pension recipients also enjoy a 50% discount on utility bills, the right to receive additional subsidies for childbirth or special needs, and access to food orders containing scarce commodities through a closed distribution channel.

In other words, they can still access the special system after retirement.

Nominally, this system is meant to reward people who have made special contributions to the country, but in practice, it has essentially become a channel for senior officials to continue enjoying privileges after retirement.

When these privileges are put together, it is easy to see that the core logic is not corruption or bribery—it does not require corruption, and many of the privileges enjoyed by officials do not even require payment!

Entering a cadre position opened up a parallel world that ordinary Soviet citizens could never see. This reward system also functioned as an incentive and a means of social control, forming a triangular structure of "loyalty-privilege-immunity," which became the basis for a fear-driven solidarity within the cadre class.

If you are loyal to the system, the system will grant you privileges; if you enjoy these privileges, the system can threaten to revoke them; and your immunity from illegal acts further binds you to this system.

Historically, Gorbachev attempted to win public support by opposing privilege, threatening to close the Little Birch Tree Shop and reduce villas. However, this also angered the vested interests of the cadre class, accelerating their shift towards Yeltsin.

If everything is tackled at once, it will create a climate of fear among the cadre ranks, much like Khrushchev's frontal offensive in history—and a cadre ranks filled with fear is the CIA's best recruitment pool in the context of the Cold War.

A mid-to-high-ranking official who has been stripped of his privileges, harbors resentment, and possesses a wealth of secrets is precisely the ideal target for defection.

What he needs is an anti-corruption measure that doesn't create a large number of disillusioned individuals, one that can strike at the heart of the problem, eliminating the big tigers and flies that are most capable of creating and spreading corruption, while also leaving enough room for more "not-so-pure but still doing their jobs" gray-area cadres to be restrained under the new system.

Neither of them thought about what to do first, and silently walked to a bridge over the Moscow River. The evening breeze on the bridge brushed against their faces.

Slava leaned against the bridge railing.

"My first list is ready, it's all those people in the construction committee. They're all bloated with money, and who knows how much of the hundreds of billions of rubles of the plan has been swallowed up. You might not believe it, but one of the directors was found to have 32 villas and gold bars worth millions of rubles all over the Soviet Union. I don't know what they can do with all that."

"It's used to reward subordinates. Some people give him gifts because they need something from him. Just because he doesn't need them right away doesn't mean his subordinates don't need them. It's a reward for these soldiers' loyalty to their commander."

It's another case of individuals pledging allegiance to the internet; every time one is taken down, a new batch is raised within a few years.

"So, where should the Discipline Inspection Commission strike first?"

"I don't know," Director Nian said.

"Aren't you the system girl? How come you don't know?"