Did a little searching in order to find out how well the factions have done for themselves in these last few turns, and came up with this:
Podgorny's Faction: Around 80, Good, None (96,94,98=288/300)
Kosygin's Faction: Around 450, Acceptable, Acceptable (36,83,20=139/300)
Masherov's Faction: Around 340, Good, Poor (60,83,80=223/300)
Abramov's Faction: Around 380, Good, Excellent (48,30,18=96/300)
Voznesensky's Faction: Around 150, Decent, None (8,51,46=105/300)
Ashimov's Faction: Around 80, Poor, None (17,70,58=158)
Kleshchev's Faction: Around 70, Excellent, Poor (7,79,88=174)
Do note the numbers above are outdated, and are of the Supreme Soviet as seen by Abramov directly after the elections. Below, I ordered them from best to worst performers.
Podgorny's Faction: Around 80, Good, None (96,94,98=288/300)
Masherov's Faction: Around 340, Good, Poor (60,83,80=223/300)
Kleshchev's Faction: Around 70, Excellent, Poor (7,79,88=174)
Ashimov's Faction: Around 80, Poor, None (17,70,58=158)
Kosygin's Faction: Around 450, Acceptable, Acceptable (36,83,20=139/300)
Voznesensky's Faction: Around 150, Decent, None (8,51,46=105/300)
Abramov's Faction: Around 380, Good, Excellent (48,30,18=96/300)
As you can see, Podgorny suddenly became a political mastermind, and Masherov had, anti-corruption debacles (the first two turns went horribly and we cucked him in the third) aside, a stellar entrance into Soviet politics. Kleschev managed to net in a sligthly above average performance, doing badly at first but then more than recovering from the political missteps of his first turn. Ashimov came in with an average performance overall, with Kosygin following suit. Voznesensky did not do too well at first, and his average performance later on was probably not nearly enough to recover much from his fall from grace in 64 and Smellyakov being caught up in anti-corruption in 65. And last, and least, Abramov. Our boss ate shit, he had an ok start, but then things went downhill from there.
Another aspect of Soviet Politics however, were the Supreme Soviet dice we were assigned as a compromise for letting Klim take charge of the Soviet economy. And the results in it are an indicator of how well each faction of the Troika was able to deliver their political programme:
Bread Program Cancelation 34 (Abramov?)
Cooperatives Reform 71 (Kosygin)
Undo the Wage Freezes 45 (Masherov?)
Unified Passport Zone 75 (Kosygin)
Resumption of Punishments 6 (Abramov)
Codify Convertibility 78 (Kosygin)
An Expanded Food Program 35 (Abramov/Klim)
Labor Reserve Reforms 27 (Masherov)
Inflation Control Measures 41 (Kosygin)
New MNKh Deputy 68 (Abramov)
Now, we don't know for sure exactly which faction pushed what policies, but we can make an educated guess. With than in mind, Kosygin clearly won out, with his initiatives being received well in general with the exception of inflation control measures, which still did ok. Masherov and Abramov were neck to neck in terms of averages, 36 and 37.6 respectively. But I think Abramov kinda loses out since while the labor reserve project which brought Mash's averages down did not do super well, they rolled enough to get something passed I am guessing, while the resumption of punishments did nothing for Abramov asides from getting him tarred as having Stalinist tendencies. One anomaly is that in the second turn Masherov didn't seem to get anything in (Abramov did the punishments for sure, and both Passport and Convertibility seem like a continuation of Kosygin's initiatives), but I think that's explained by the fiasco his anti-corruption initiatives led to.
Anyway, my read from all of this, is that Abramov steadily expended his political power in stuff like appointing us and the bread program, whilst steadily losing control of his faction as his appointee in the MNKh presided over the greatest economic crisis in over 20 years. Meanwhile, Masherov's attacks on corruption were bungled, leading to an event which freaked out the entire CPSU, but Babkov's vision of foreign policy has been working and his undoing of the wage freezes came at an opportune time. It looks he was able to make good headway in the Supreme Soviet and the Party, recovering from those issues pretty decisively. At this point, he needs to only wait one year for Kosygin to retire and he will probably become General Secretary barring any disasters. In the meanwhile, Kosygin successfully did most of the things he wanted to do before he plans to retire while doing ok at keeping his faction together, but probably losing supporters to Podgorny and Masherov from the fact he is going to be out of politics soon.
Also, the leftmost parts of the Party are acquitting themselves well. Ashimov did pretty decently and Kleschev did well. I've been reading the
former's autobiography (which is in Kazakh so its slowgoing), and from what I've read so far he was a idealistic, very personable man who made friends everywhere he went, one of whom was Kleschev himself, who was first secretary in some organization while he was second secretary, so they probably have a good working relationship. He was also extremely interested in agricultural issues (his village suffered greatly from collectivization, being forced to relocate and facing starvation, which led him to leave his home at 15 with no food and water and undergo a days 150km trek on foot to a city so they would have one less mouth to feed. He greatly distrusted the state's involvement in agriculture, and he was even accused of coming from a Kulak family (which was false)). He also supported the August Coup, sending Yazov a letter saying his arrest was an injustice, so he probably has some hardliner tendencies in the internal sphere.
