The Central Committee of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) sat from 10 February 1934 until the convening of the 18th Congress on 10 March 1939. Its 1st Plenary Session elected the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...

, Secretariat and Orgburo. The 17th Congress was labelled the "Congress of Victors" to mark the success of the first five-year plan and the collectivization of agriculture. The CC 1st Plenary Session elected Joseph Stalin

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

of the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...

, and

Lazar Kaganovich Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, also Kahanovich (russian: Ла́зарь Моисе́евич Кагано́вич, Lázar' Moiséyevich Kaganóvich; – 25 July 1991), was a Soviet politician and administrator, and one of the main associates of ...

continued to serve as Stalin's deputy, an informal post referred to by

Sovietologists Kremlinology is the study and analysis of the politics and policies of the Soviet Union while Sovietology is the study of politics and policies of both the Soviet Union and former communist states more generally. These two terms were synonymous unt ...

as Second Secretary, and was empowered to manage party business and sign Politburo resolutions when Stalin was away from Moscow. This Central Committee composition saw the de-formalisation of politics; for example, the number of Politburo meetings was reduced to 16 for the year of 1934. Politburo decisions were made either by polling the members or informal meeting between Stalin and other Politburo members. According to Ukrainian historian

Oleg Khlevniuk Oleg Vitalyevich Khlevniuk ( rus, Олег Витальевич Хлевнюк, born 7 July 1959 Vinnytsia, Ukrainian SSR) is a historian and a senior researcher at the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow.Vadim Rogovin, "During the period of the Great Purge, the rights of the Central Committee and its members were restricted even more", noting that CC members lost the right to attend Politburo sessions or being informed on the decisions taken by the Politburo, Secretariat or the Orgburo. When looking back, Nikita Khrushchev lamented the situation; "by 1938, the earlier democracy in the Central Committee had already been greatly undermined. For instance, as a candidate member of the Politburo, I did not receive materials of our sessions. ... I received only the material which Stalin sent to me on his own orders." Of the 139 full members and candidate members elected at the 17th Party Congress, 98 people were killed in the period 1936–1940. Of these 44 (out of 71) were full members, while 55 (out of 68) were candidate members. Of those arrested, over 80 percent of them were below the age of 50. When the

18th Party Congress The 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held November 8-15, 2012 at the Great Hall of the People. It was preceded by the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Due to term and age limits restrictions, seven o ...

convened in 1939, 31 individuals remained in the Central Committee. Of these, seven were not reelected, and of them five were pensioned or relieved of leading offices (

Grigory Petrovsky Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky (russian: Григо́рий Ива́нович Петро́вский, uk, Григо́рій Іва́нович Петро́вський, translit=Hryhorii Ivanovych Petrovskyi) (3 February 1878 - 9 January 1958) wa ...

, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky,

Grigory Broydo Grigory Isaakovich Broydo (; 7 November 1883 – 23 May 1956) was a Soviet politician who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan was the head of the C ...

, Mikhail Chuvyrin and

Isaak Schwartz Isaac was one of the patriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths. Isaac may also refer to: * Isaac (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname of Isaac and its variants Organizations * International Society ...

) while

Tikhon Yurkin Tikhon Alexandrovich Yurkin (1898, Moscow, Russian Empire – 1986, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) was a Soviet statesman. Biography He was born on June 29, 1898, in the family of a water carrier. Russian. Member of the Rus ...

and

Avraami Zavenyagin Lieutenant-General Avraami Pavlovich Zavenyagin (1 May 1901, Uzlovaya – 31 December 1956; his first name is also sometimes given as Avram or Abraham) was a leading figure in the Soviet nuclear projects of the 1940s and 1950s. Richard Lee Mi ...

were reelected to the CC at the

19th Party Congress The 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (commonly referred to as ''Shíjiǔ Dà''; ) was held at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, between 18 and 24 October 2017. 2,280 delegates represented the party's estimated 89 mill ...

(in 1952) and the 20th Party Congress (in 1956) respectively. Of the 24 reelected at the 18th Party Congress, four would be subject to violent repression (

Mikhail Kaganovich Mikhail Moiseyevich Kaganovich (russian: Михаи́л Моисе́евич Кагано́вич; 16 October 1888 – 1 July 1941) was a Soviet politician. He was the older brother of Lazar Kaganovich. He was born in Kiev Governorate. Kaganovich ...

in 1941, Solomon Lozovsky in 1952, Lavrentiy Beria in 1953 and Mir Jafar Baghirov in 1956).

Klavdiya Nikolayeva Klavdiya Ivanovna Nikolayeva (russian: Клавдия Ивановна Николаева; 13 June 1893 – 28 December 1944) was a Russian revolutionary, syndicalist, feminist, Old Bolshevik and Soviet politician. Early life The daughter of ...

became the only CC member who had previously been active in intra-party opposition to survive the purge. XVII съезд ВКП (б)

When asked in an interview how the Central Committee approved its own destruction (the decision to expel a member from the CC or for a member to be arrested by the authorities had to be approved by the CC itself through a plenary session), Vyacheslav Molotov replied; "In the first place, on

democratic centralism Democratic centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of professional revo ...

—Listen, it did not happen that a minority expelled a majority. It happened gradually. Seventy expelled 10–15 people, then 60 expelled another 15. All in line with majority and minority. ... Essentially, it happened that a minority of the composition of the TsK Cremained of this majority, but without formal violation

f democratic centralism F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

" According to J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov the CC "In the name of party unity and with a desperate feeling of corporate self-preservation, the

nomenklatura The ''nomenklatura'' ( rus, номенклату́ра, p=nəmʲɪnklɐˈturə, a=ru-номенклатура.ogg; from la, nomenclatura) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key admi ...

committed suicide." However, there were some within the CC who breached party tradition and spoke against the purges, such as Grigory Kaminsky and Osip Piatnitsky for example.

Plenums

The CC was not a permanent institution. The CC was convened for fourteen plenary sessions between the 17th Congress and the 18th Congress. When the CC was not in session, decision-making powers were transferred to inner bodies of the CC itself; the

, Secretariat and Orgburo (none of these bodies were permanent either, but convened to decide on crucial matters).

Apparatus

Individuals employed by Central Committee's bureaus, departments and newspapers made up the apparatus between the 17th Congress and the 18th Congress. The bureaus and departments were supervised by the Secretariat, and each secretary (member of the Secretariat) supervised a specific department. The leaders of departments were officially referred to as Heads, while the titles of bureau leaders varied between chairman, first secretary and secretary.

Composition

Members

Candidates

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1934 establishments in the Soviet Union 1939 disestablishments in the Soviet Union