From 1930 to 1935 Kaganovich was at the height of his power as Stalin's deputy and a full member of the Politburo. As party deputy he balanced Molotov as chairman of Sovnarkom. The stresses associated with the ‘revolution from above’ brought profound changes in the organization of the work of the party and in its ideology. Kaganovich played a pivotal role in strengthening the party apparatus, which assumed a key role in setting and enforcing policy. The central party apparatus and Sovnarkom became the main directing centres of the developmental dictatorship of the command administrative economy. They set priorities, coordinated subordinate institutions and resolved conflicts. The party assumed the key role in mobilizing support behind this programme and in training cadres to staff the state and economic institutions. The regime became increasingly detached from society. The breakneck pace of industrialization precipitated a deepening crisis in agriculture that resulted in the famine of 1932–33.

The nature of the Soviet political leadership underwent a marked change as the defeat of the Rightists saw the consolidation of the power of the Stalin group. The former Trotskyist V. N. Maksimovsky clearly believed that Stalin already had dictatorial power by 1929. He stressed the historic role of personal dictatorship as a means of resolving difficult issues, but drew a sharp distinction between dictatorship and tyranny and warned of the dangers of dictatorship turning into tyranny.