1945-1953 - Limits to State Power

• There were some limits to the centralised control of the USSR in this period.
• The sheer size of the country continued to mean that the ability of political authorities in Moscow to control the regions was not total.
• Regional party bosses continued to wield huge influence over their areas and could ignore certain decrees from central government if they did not fit with their local priorities.
• The scale and geographical spread of the gulag system also meant that total control was hard to achieve.
• A report in 1952 revealed that 32% of gulag inmates did not fulfil their labour norms and there were occasional strikes and revolts within individual labour camps.