They were called commissars. Their job was to insure that workers stuck to the party line. They called it democratic centralism; a reversal of Western democracy.

There was a Politburo member allocated to develop ideology; appoint the commissars and coordinate their activities to ensure that a coherent and ideologically pure thought process percolated from the top of the bottom of the Soviet state. His name was Mikhail Suslov and from 1965 until his death in 1982 he was the number two man in the Soviet hierarchy.

Suslov made few speeches. His public appearances were rare. He was a backroom puppeteer who controlled the strings of appointed apparatchiks. He never sought the top job. He knew that real power was as the mastermind of ideas. You crossed Suslov at your peril and usually placed one on the fast road to Siberia or an unmarked grave outside the Lubyanka Prison.  It was the death of Suslov, not Brezhnev, that many historians believe opened the way to Gorbachev and glasnost.

Dominic Cummings is the Conservative Party’s Mikhail Suslov. His insistence on controlling hand-picked Special Advisers (aka SPADS) in every Whitehall Department is reminiscent of the party-controlled and ideologically-driven state. And, as Sajid Javid discovered, you cross Cummings at your peril.

SPADS entered the political scene in 1964 during the Wilson government. The rationale behind their creation was that ministers needed political input and it was wrong to ask this of the civil service who had to be apolitical. There are not a huge number of SPADS, about 70 at the last count. In 2000 there was an attempt to place a cap on their number. It came to nought; a failure that may come to haunt Whitehall under Cummings.

Until the Johnson government and Cummings, SPADs were chosen by the minister they served. They were usually associates with whom the ministers had an existing relationship. Their political beliefs were allied with that of the minister; and as both the Labour Party and the Conservatives are broad church institutions, that has not always been in lock step with Downing Street. But that is good. That is the way the system is meant to work. Dissent is important. It is necessary to identify both problems and opportunities and an essential ingredient of progress.

Dominic Cummings disagrees. Dissent is bad.  It slows things down. That is why he wants to muzzle the press and review the power of the courts. Ministers are now banned from speaking to journalists and only selected correspondents are allowed into lobby briefings. The law is nuisance because it forces the government to act according to legal precedent rather than political expediency. Difficult ministers are exiled to the backbenches, the House of Lords or out of Parliament altogether. Hitler built the autobahns. Stalin inherited an agricultural backwater and turned it into an industrial powerhouse. But at what price?

* Journalist Tom Arms is a member of Wandsworth Lib Dems and a regular contributor to Lib Dem Voice. He is also the author of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and his book on Anglo-American relations (America: Made in Britain) is due to be published later this year.