"
Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4
Staraya Square,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, general_secretary =
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
(first)
Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder =
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
, newspaper = ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
''
, position =
Far-left
Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...
, international =
, religion =
State Atheism
State atheism is the incorporation of positive atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. It is a form of religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically l ...
, predecessor =
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the
RSDLP
, successor =
UCP–CPSU
, youth_wing =
Little OctobristsKomsomol
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...
, wing1 =
Young Pioneers
, wing1_title =
Pioneer wing
, affiliation1_title =
, affiliation1 =
Bloc of Communists and Non-Partisans (1936–1991)
, membership = 19,487,822 (early 1989 )
, ideology =
, colours =
Red
, country = the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),; abbreviated in Russian as or also known by
various other names during its history, was the founding and
ruling party
The ruling party or governing party in a democratic parliamentary or presidential system is the political party or coalition holding a majority of elected positions in a parliament, in the case of parliamentary systems, or holding the executi ...
of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. The CPSU was the
sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the
Congress of People's Deputies modified
Article 6 of the
1977 Soviet Constitution
The 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union, officially the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was the constitution of the Soviet Union adopted on 7 October 1977 until its dissolution on 21 December 1991 ...
, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party has its roots in the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist po ...
(RSDLP). The RSDLP was founded in 1898, when
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
was ruled by an
absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constituti ...
. The broad anti-Tsarist ideology was the driving factor in its initial growth. Russians across the political spectrum flocked to the party, as
Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
, socialists, and centrists made up its ranks. Despite the Tsar's harsh oppression including imprisoning and even executing party members, the RSDLP continued to grow, albeit underground. Initially the party operated in a unified and cohesive manner, but by 1900 cracks within party unity began to show.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
, one of the leading Marxists, engaged in fierce debates with others over revolutionary tactic and theory. Lenin believed that the party, led by a small committee, should be the vehicle that mobilizes the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
to carry out a
socialist revolution and oust the
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the te ...
. These radical views were initially unpopular and further ostracized him in the RSDLP.
The CPSU was a
communist party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
based 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 revol ...
. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the
Party Congress
The terms party conference ( UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party mem ...
, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the
Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in 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 contractio ...
, (previously the Presidium), the
Secretariat and the
Orgburo (until 1952). The
party leader
In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political ...
was the
head of government
The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, ...
and held the office of either
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 derive ...
,
Premier
Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier.
A premier will normally be a head of govern ...
or
head of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state (polity), state#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international p ...
, or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the ''de facto'' chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between the party and the state (
Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Совет министров СССР, r=Sovet Ministrov SSSR, p=sɐˈvʲet mʲɪˈnʲistrəf ɛsɛsɛˈsɛr; sometimes abbreviated to ''Sovmin'' or referred to as the '' ...
) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved.
A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "
glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the
economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the
federal subjects of Russia
The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation (russian: субъекты Российской Федерации, subyekty Rossiyskoy Federatsii) or simply as the subjects of the federation (russian ...
were united into the
. After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of the Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) is a left-wing nationalist and c ...
emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
legacy into the present day.
History
Name
* May 1917 – 8 March 1918: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) (russian: Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия (большевиков); РСДРП(б), Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (bol'shevikov); RSDRP(b))
* 8 March 1918 – 18 December 1925: Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (russian: Российская коммунистическая партия (большевиков); РКП(б), Rossiyskaya kommunisticheskaya partiya (bol'shevikov); RKP(b))
* 18 December 1925 – 5 October 1952: All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (russian: Всесоюзная коммунистическая партия (большевиков); ВКП(б), Vsesoyuznaya kommunisticheskaya partiya (bol'shevikov); VKP(b))
* 5 October 1952 – 6 November 1991: Communist Party of the Soviet Union (russian: Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза; КПСС, Kommunisticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza; KPSS)
Early years (1898–1924)
The origin of the CPSU was in the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist po ...
(RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of
Julius Martov
Julius Martov or L. Martov (Ма́ртов; born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum; 24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was a politician and revolutionary who became the leader of the Mensheviks in early 20th-century Russia. He was arguably the close ...
and
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
in August 1903 at the Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to the
February Revolution, the first phase of the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
s of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile.
With Emperor
Nicholas II
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
(1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), deposed in February 1917, a
republic was established and administered by a
provisional government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
, which was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called
soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
s, and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin was at this time in exile in
Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the
Imperial German
', literally translated "Germans of the ", is an archaic term for those ethnic Germans who resided within the German state that was founded in 1871. In contemporary usage, it referred to German citizens, the word signifying people from the Germ ...
government safe passage through Germany in a
sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing
World War
A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I, Worl ...
. In April, Lenin arrived in
Petrograd
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
(renamed former
St. Petersburg) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of the revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early Novembe ...
(1881–1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer.
The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through the popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' being the main paper, with a readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the
July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets.
The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at the call of the Bolsheviks and an
attempted military coup by commanding Gen.
Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of the Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the
Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its
Allies and fears of
Imperial German victory, had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew the Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia.
In the aftermath of the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, the soviets united federally and the
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing a damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's ...
and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label.
In 1921, as the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...
was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism ...
(NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called "
war communism" and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached the necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR
joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
(USSR), of which Lenin was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father.
Stalin era (1924–53)
After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, the party's
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 derive ...
, and
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
, the
Minister of Defence, each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of
permanent revolution
Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and ...
, which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in the more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build
socialism in one country.
Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...
. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), reflecting that the republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the
original ideas of Lenin with
orthodox Marxism
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Fi ...
into what would be called
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a List of communist ideologies, communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its Soviet satellite state ...
. Stalin's position as General Secretary became the top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy.
By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with Western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and the remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the
first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have a similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of
collectivization
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
, which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932.
The success of industrialization in the Soviet Union led Western countries, such as the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived
Bavarian Soviet Republic
The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (german: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik),Hollander, Neil (2013) ''Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I''. McFarland. p.283, note 269. was a short-lived unre ...
) and spiraling economic calamity,
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated the already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
. In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time, a
campaign against religion was waged in which the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
, which had long been a political arm of Tsarism before the revolution, was targeted for repression and organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished.
The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
to the international community. The Western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the Western countries, including trying to rally international support for the
Spanish Republic in its struggle against a fascist military coup supported by Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a
non-aggression pact with Germany which would be broken in June 1941 when the German military
invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning the
Great Patriotic War
The Eastern Front of World War II was a Theater (warfare), theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland and other Allies of World War II, Allies, which encom ...
.
The
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945
Allied victory of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the
post-war occupied territories that would be administered by Communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond the occupied territories, using
proxy wars and
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tang ...
and providing training and funding to promote Communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
in 1947.
In 1949, the
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
emerged victorious in the
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...
, causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the Communists and the Western powers, fueling the
Cold War. In Europe,
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
, under the leadership of
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
, acquired the territory of
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...
, causing conflict both with the Western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Communists actively supported the
Greek Communists
The Communist Party of Greece ( el, Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a political party in Greece.
Founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and adopted its curren ...
during their
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...
, further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to a
Tito–Stalin split
The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
, which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement.
Post-Stalin years (1953–85)
After Stalin's death,
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev ...
rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
and
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov ( – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. However, at the insistence of the rest of the Presidium, he relinquished control over the p ...
, in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with the support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the
Thaw, which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the
20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965.
Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Le ...
, in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
's
League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish the close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hung ...
and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In the aftermath of the
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the Unite ...
, Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by
Evsei Liberman, a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy.
Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with the members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and ...
as First Secretary and
Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Prem ...
as
Chairman of the
Council of Ministers.
The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of
Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and the Brezhnev period saw the rise of
neo-Stalinism. While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule.
At the
23rd Congress
The 23rd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1 ...
held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At the start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name
New Economic Mechanism; however, with the rise to power of
Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of "
socialism with a human face
Socialism with a human face ( cs, socialismus s lidskou tváří, sk, socializmus s ľudskou tvárou) is a slogan referring to the reformist and democratic socialist programme of Alexander Dubček and his colleagues, agreed at the Presidium of ...
", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped.
During his rule, Brezhnev supported ''
détente
Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...
'', a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the
25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of the "
trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a
gerontocracy. At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled
communist regime there and supported the oppression of the
Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti ...
movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...
and
Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
. The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the
financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and was succeeded by
Yuri Andropov on 12 November.
Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the
KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed a number of reformers, including
Yegor Ligachev,
Nikolay Ryzhkov and
Mikhail Gorbachev, to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but
Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko uk, Костянтин Устинович Черненко, translit=Kostiantyn Ustynovych Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the seventh General Secretary of the Comm ...
and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. Throughout his short leadership, Chernenko was unable to consolidate power, and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in. office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985.
Gorbachev and the party's demise (1985–91)
The Politburo elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms.
Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for ''
uskoreniye'' (russian: ускоре́ние , lit = acceleration). Gorbachev reinvigorated the party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of
"pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "
socialist pluralism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the econ ...
" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of
glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
( ru , гла́сность, meaning ''openness'' or ''transparency'') in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to the British researcher of Russian affairs,
Archie Brown, the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades.
In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
's dismissal as First Secretary of the
CPSU Moscow City Committee. On 13 March 1988,
Nina Andreyeva, a university lecturer, wrote an article titled "
I Cannot Forsake My Principles". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege
Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return, the article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article.
Gorbachev convened the
19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservativesLigachev,
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (russian: Андрей Андреевич Громыко; be, Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка; – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet communist politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served a ...
and
Mikhail Solomentsev. In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and the reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s.
Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the
Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between the CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was
elected in 1989; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet
one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
. The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had a higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name
Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for nu ...
. An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...
, the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning the Soviet Union into a
liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
.
The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power. From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of
President of the Soviet Union
The president of the Soviet Union (russian: Президент Советского Союза, Prezident Sovetskogo Soyuza), officially the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), abbreviated as president of the USSR (), was ...
. Following this, the central party apparatus did not play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from the Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the
28th Congress. A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and
Vladimir Ivashko
Vladimir Antonovich Ivashko (russian: Влади́мир Анто́нович Ива́шко, link=no; ua, Володимир Антонович Івашко, ''Volodymyr Antonovych Ivashko''; 28 October 1932 – 13 November 1994) was a Sovie ...
, the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown, the program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European
social democrat
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
. The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a
referendum took place in 1991, in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a
different form. In reaction to this, conservative elements within the CPSU launched the
August 1991 coup, which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of the party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the
Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union.
On 30 November 1992, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized the ban on the activities of the primary organizations of the Communist Party, formed on a territorial basis, as inconsistent with the
Constitution of Russia
The Constitution of the Russian Federation () was adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993. Russia's constitution came into force on 25 December 1993, at the moment of its official publication, and abolished the Soviet system of gov ...
, but upheld the dissolution of the governing structures of the CPSU and the governing structures of its republican organizationthe Communist Party of the RSFSR.
After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) is a left-wing nationalist and c ...
(CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used the name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the
Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU.
Governing style
The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and a
cult of personality
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
. Collective leadership split power between 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 contractio ...
, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as the leader was characterized by
an extensive cult of personality. Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in the organization of the CPSU.
Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from "
bureaucratic
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on the subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the
10th Congress). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a
ban on factions, which was approved at the 10th Congress.
Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of the system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such
revisionist ills and bourgeois deformation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected the local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through the
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
(Comintern).
Vanguardism
A central tenet of
Leninism
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...
was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of the oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...
s. According to Lenin, the party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until the end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life.
Organization
* Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Armenia (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Azerbaijan (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Bukhara
**
Communist Party of Byelorussia
The Communist Party of Byelorussia (CPB; russian: Коммунистическая партия Белоруссии; be, Камуністычная партыя Беларусі) was the ruling communist party of the Byelorussian Soviet Social ...
(Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Estonia
The Communist Party of Estonia ( et, Eestimaa Kommunistlik Partei, abbreviated EKP) was a subdivision of the Soviet communist party which in 1920-1940 operated illegally in Estonia and, after the 1940 occupation and annexation of Estonia by the ...
(Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Georgia (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of the Karelia-Finland SSR (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Kazakhstan
The Communist Party of Kazakhstan ( kk, Қазақстан Коммунистік партиясы, ''Qazaqstan Kommunistık Partiasy'', QKP; russian: Коммунистическая партия Казахстана) is a banned political pa ...
(Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Kirgizia (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Khorezm
* Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Latvia
The Communist Party of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Komunistiskā partija, LKP) was a political party in Latvia.
History Latvian Social-Democracy prior to 1919
The party was founded at a congress in June 1904. Initially the party was known as the Latvia ...
(Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Lithuania (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Lithuania and Byelorussia (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Moldavia–Moldova (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of the Russian SFSR (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Tajikistan (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Turkestan (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Turkmenistan (Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Ukraine
The Communist Party of Ukraine, Abbreviation: KPU, from Ukrainian and Russian "" is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine which was banned in 1991 (accord ...
(Central Committee)
**
Communist Party of Uzbekistan (Central Committee)
Congress
The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party, was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a speech titled "
The Personality Cult and its Consequences".
Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of
elite-mass communication. They were occasions for the party leadership to express the
party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit.
The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and the
Central Auditing Commission
Central Auditing Commission (CAC), (russian: Центральная ревизионная комиссия КПСС), Centralnaya revizionnaya komissiya) was a supervisory organ within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Similar organs exis ...
were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the
22nd Congress
The 22nd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 183 ...
, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see "
communism in twenty years" a position later retracted.
A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference, was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee.
19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence.
The
19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened.
The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966.
Central Committee
The Central Committee was a
collective body elected at the annual
party congress
The terms party conference ( UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party mem ...
. It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee was commonly considered an indicator for
Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the
Secretariat and the
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 derive ...
the ''de facto'' leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the
Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom.
Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political mattersbut not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee.
Central Auditing Commission
The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to the party Congress.
It had about as many members as the Central Committee.
It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee.
It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with the party Statute.
Statute
The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the
2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held during July 30–August 23 (July 17–August 10, O.S.) 1903, starting in Brussels, Belgium (until August 6) and ending in London. Probably as a result of diplomatic pressure ...
the forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions;
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
(literally ''majority'') and
Mensheviks
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
(literally ''minority''). The 1st Statute was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The
4th Congress, despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of
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 revol ...
to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the
8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the
9th Congress. At the
11th Congress, the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the
17th
17 (seventeen) is the natural number following 16 and preceding 18. It is a prime number.
Seventeen is the sum of the first four prime numbers.
In mathematics
17 is the seventh prime number, which makes seventeen the fourth super-prime, as s ...
and
18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress.
Central Committee apparatus
General Secretary
General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with the leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled ''First Secretary'' between 1952 and 1966.
Politburo
The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until the 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the
General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave the CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat.
Kirill Mazurov
Kirill Trofimovich Mazurov ( be, Кіры́ла Трафі́мавіч Ма́зураў, russian: Кири́лл Трофи́мович Ма́зуров; 25 March 1914, Rudnia-Pribytkovskaya, Mogilev Governorate – 19 December 1989) was a Soviet ...
, Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with
Mikhail Suslov,
Andrei Kirilenko,
Fyodor Kulakov and
Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in the Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by
Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved.
The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath the 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the
19th Central Committee 19th Central Committee may refer to:
* Central Committee of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1952–1956
*19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
19 (nineteen) is the natural number following 18 and pre ...
, Stalin ordered the creation of the
Bureau of the Presidium
Bureau ( ) may refer to:
Agencies and organizations
*Government agency
*Public administration
* News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location
* Bureau (European Parliament), the administrat ...
, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (russian: Президиум Верховного Совета, Prezidium Verkhovnogo Soveta) was a body of state power in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).[Council of People's Commissars
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...]
; first by Lenin, then by
Aleksey Rykov, Molotov, Stalin and Malenkov. After 1922, when Lenin was incapacitated,
Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev. ('' né'' Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician.
Born in Moscow to parents who were both involved in revolutionary politics, Kamenev attended Imperial Moscow U ...
as Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars chaired the Politburo's meetings. This tradition lasted until Khrushchev's consolidation of power. In the first post-Stalin years, when Malenkov chaired Politburo meetings, Khrushchev as First Secretary signed all Central Committee documents into force. From 1954 until 1958, Khrushchev chaired the Politburo as First Secretary, but in 1958 he dismissed and succeeded
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; – 24 February 1975) was a Soviet politician who served as Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955– ...
as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. During this period, the informal position of Second Secretarylater formalized as Deputy General Secretarywas established. The Second Secretary became responsible for chairing the Secretariat in place of the General Secretary. When the General Secretary could not chair the meetings of the Politburo, the Second Secretary would take his place. This system survived until the dissolution of the CPSU in 1991.
To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve in the Central Committee. The Central Committee elected the Politburo in the aftermath of a party Congress. Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo having only one candidate for each seat; for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The greater the power held by the sitting CPSU General Secretary, the higher the chance that the Politburo membership would be approved.
Secretariat
The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. It was legally empowered to take over the duties and functions of the Central Committee when it was not in the plenum (did not hold a meeting). Many members of the Secretariat concurrently held a seat in the Politburo. According to a Soviet textbook on party procedures, the Secretariat's role was that of "leadership of current work, chiefly in the realm of personnel selection and in the organization of the verification of fulfillment of party-state decisions". "Selections of personnel" (russian: podbor kadrov, script=Latn) in this instance meant the maintenance of general standards and the criteria for selecting various personnel. "Verification of fulfillment" (russian: proverka ispolneniia, script=Latn) of party and state decisions meant that the Secretariat instructed other bodies.
The powers of the Secretariat were weakened under Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Central Committee Commissions took over the functions of the Secretariat in 1988. Yegor Ligachev, a Secretariat member, said that the changes completely destroyed the Secretariat's hold on power and made the body almost superfluous. Because of this, the Secretariat rarely met during the next two years. It was revitalized at the 28th Party Congress in 1990, and the Deputy General Secretary became the official head of the Secretariat.
Orgburo
The Organizational Bureau, or Orgburo, existed from 1919 to 1952 and was one of three leading bodies of the party when the Central Committee was not in session. It was responsible for "organizational questions, the recruitment, and allocation of personnel, the coordination of activities of the party, government and social organizations (e.g., trade unions and youth organizations), improvement to the party's structure, the distribution of information and reports within the party". The 19th Congress abolished the Orgburo and its duties and responsibilities were taken over by the Secretariat. At the beginning, the Orgburo held three meetings a week and reported to the Central Committee every second week. Lenin described the relation between the Politburo and the Orgburo as "the Orgburo allocates forces, while the Politburo decides policy". A decision of the Orgburo was implemented by the Secretariat. However, the Secretariat could make decisions in the Orgburo's name without consulting its members, but if one Orgburo member objected to a Secretariat resolution, the resolution would not be implemented. In the 1920s, if the Central Committee could not convene the Politburo and the Orgburo would hold a joint session in its place.
Control Commission
The Central Control Commission (CCC) functioned as the party's supreme court. The CCC was established at the
9th All-Russian Conference in September 1920, but rules organizing its procedure were not enacted before the 10th Congress. The 10th Congress formally established the CCC on all party levels and stated that it could only be elected at a party congress or a party conference. The CCC and the CCs were formally independent but had to make decisions through the party committees at their level, which led them in practice to lose their administrative independence. At first, the primary responsibility of the CCs was to respond to party complaints, focusing mostly on party complaints of
factionalism and
bureaucratism
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
. At the 11th Congress, the brief of the CCs was expanded; it became responsible for overseeing
party discipline. In a bid to further centralize the powers of the CCC, a Presidium of the CCC, which functioned in a similar manner to the Politburo in relation to the Central Committee, was established in 1923. At the 18th Congress, party rules regarding the CCC were changed; it was now elected by the Central Committee and was subordinate to the Central Committee.
CCC members could not concurrently be members of the Central Committee. To create an organizational link between the CCC and other central-level organs, the 9th All-Russian Conference created the joint CC–CCC plenums. The CCC was a powerful organ; the 10th Congress allowed it to expel full and candidate Central Committee members and members of their subordinate organs if two-thirds of attendants at a CC–CCC plenum voted for such. At its first such session in 1921, Lenin tried to persuade the joint plenum to expel
Alexander Shliapnikov from the party; instead of expelling him, Shliapnikov was given a severe reprimand.
Departments
The leader of a department was usually given the title "head" (russian: zaveduiuschchii, script=Latn). In practice, the Secretariat had a major say in the running of the departments; for example, five of eleven secretaries headed their own departments in 1978. Normally, specific secretaries were given supervising duties over one or more departments. Each department established its own cellscalled sectionswhich specialized in one or more fields. During the Gorbachev era, a variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus.
The Party Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel in the
nomenklatura system.
The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the Procuracy.
Before 1989, the Central Committee had several departments, but some were abolished that year.
Among these departments was the Economics Department that was responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, one for the chemical industry, etc.
The party abolished these departments to remove itself from the day-to-day management of the economy in favor of government bodies and a greater role for the market, as a part of the
perestroika process.
In their place, Gorbachev called for the creations of commissions with the same responsibilities as departments, but giving more independence from the state apparatus. This change was approved at the 19th Conference, which was held in 1988. Six commissions were established by late 1988.
''Pravda''
''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' (''The Truth'') was the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union. The Organizational Department of the Central Committee was the only organ empowered to dismiss ''Pravda'' editors. In 1905, ''Pravda'' began as a project by members of the
Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party.
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
was approached about the possibility of running the new paper because of his previous work on Ukrainian newspaper ''Kyivan Thought''. The first issue of ''Pravda'' was published on 3 October 1908 in
Lvov
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
, where it continued until the publication of the sixth issue in November 1909, when the operation was moved to
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. During the Russian Civil War, sales of ''Pravda'' were curtailed by ''
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes ...
'', the government run newspaper. At the time, the average reading figure for ''Pravda'' was 130,000. This Vienna-based newspaper published its last issue in 1912 and was succeeded the same year by a new newspaper dominated by the Bolsheviks, also called ''Pravda'', which was headquartered in
St. Petersburg. The paper's main goal was to promote Marxist–Leninist philosophy and expose the lies of the
bourgeoisie.
In 1975, the paper reached a circulation of 10.6 million.
It is currently owned by the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) is a left-wing nationalist and c ...
.
Higher Party School
The Higher Party School (HPS) was the organ responsible for teaching cadres in the Soviet Union.
It was the successor of the
Communist Academy
The Communist Academy ( Russian: Коммунистическая академия, transliterated ''Kommunisticheskaya akademiya'') was a higher educational establishment and research institute based in Moscow. It included scientific institutes o ...
, which was established in 1918.
The HPS was established in 1939 as the Moscow Higher Party School and it offered its students a two-year training course for becoming a CPSU official. It was reorganized in 1956 to that it could offer more specialized ideological training. In 1956, the school in Moscow was opened for students from socialist countries outside the Soviet Union. The Moscow Higher Party School was the party school with the highest standing. The school itself had eleven faculties until a 1972 Central Committee resolution demanded a reorganization of the curriculum. The first regional HPS outside
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
was established in 1946 and by the early 1950s there were 70 Higher Party Schools. During the reorganization drive of 1956, Khrushchev closed 13 of them and reclassified 29 as inter-republican and inter-oblast schools.
Lower-level organization
Republican and local organization
The lowest organ above the
primary party organization (PPO) was the district level. Every two years, the local PPO would elect delegates to the district-level party conference, which was overseen by a secretary from a higher party level. The conference elected a Party Committee and First Secretary and re-declared the district's commitment to the CPSU's program. In between conferences, the "
raion
A raion (also spelt rayon) is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French (meaning 'honeycomb, department'), and is co ...
" party committeecommonly referred to as "raikom"was vested with ultimate authority. It convened at least six times a year to discuss party directives and to oversee the implementation of party policies in their respective districts, to oversee the implementation of party directives at the PPO-level, and to issue directives to PPOs. 75–80 percent of raikom members were full members, while the remaining 20–25 were non-voting, candidate members. Raikom members were commonly from the state sector, party sector, Komsomol or the trade unions.
Day-to-day responsibility of the raikom was handed over to a Politburo, which usually composed of 12 members. The district-level First Secretary chaired the meetings of the local Politburo and the raikom, and was the direct link between the district and the higher party echelons. The First Secretary was responsible for the smooth running of operations. The raikom was headed by the local apparatthe local agitation department or industry department. A raikom usually had no more than 4 or 5 departments, each of which was responsible for overseeing the work of the state sector but would not interfere in their work.
This system remained identical at all other levels of the CPSU hierarchy. The other levels were cities, oblasts (regions) and republics. The district-level elected delegates to a conference held at least held every three years to elect the party committee. The only difference between the oblast and the district level was that the oblast had its own Secretariat and had more departments at its disposal. The oblast's party committee in turn elected delegates to the republican-level Congress, which was held every five years. The Congress then elected the Central Committee of the republic, which in turn elected a First Secretary and a Politburo. Until 1990, the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
was the only republic that did not have its own republican branch, being instead represented by the CPSU Central Committee.
Primary party organizations
The primary party organization (PPO) was the lowest level in the CPSU hierarchy. PPOs were organized cells consisting of three or more members. A PPO could exist anywhere; for example, in a factory or a student dormitory. They functioned as the party's "eyes and ears" at the lowest level and were used to mobilize support for party policies. All CPSU members had to be a member of a local PPO. The size of a PPO varied from three people to several hundred, depending upon its setting. In a large enterprise, a PPO usually had several hundred members. In such cases, the PPO was divided into bureaus based upon production-units. Each PPO was led by an executive committee and an executive committee secretary. Each executive committee is responsible for the PPO executive committee and its secretary. In small PPOs, members met periodically to mainly discuss party policies, ideology, or practical matters. In such a case, the PPO secretary was responsible for collecting party dues, reporting to higher organs, and maintaining the party records. A secretary could be elected democratically through a secret ballot, but that was not often the case; in 1979, only 88 out of the over 400,000 PPOs were elected in this fashion. The remainder were chosen by a higher party organ and ratified by the general meetings of the PPO. The PPO general meeting was responsible for electing delegates to the party conference at either the district- or town-level, depending on where the PPO was located.
Membership
Membership of the party was not open. To become a party member, one had to be approved by various committees, and one's past was closely scrutinized. As generations grew up having known nothing before the Soviet Union, party membership became something one generally achieved after passing a series of stages. Children would join the
Young Pioneers and, at the age of 14, might graduate to the
Komsomol
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...
(Young Communist League). Ultimately, as an adult, if one had shown the proper adherence to party disciplineor had the right connections, one would become a member of the Communist Party itself. Membership of the party carried obligations as it expected Komsomol and CPSU members to pay dues and to carry out appropriate assignments and "social tasks" ().
In 1918, party membership was approximately 200,000. In the late 1920s under Stalin, the party engaged in an intensive recruitment campaign, the "Lenin Levy", resulting in new members referred to as the
Lenin Enrolment {{no footnotes, date=August 2014
The Lenin Enrolment or the Lenin's call to the party (Lenin Levy) (after Vladimir Lenin) was an effort from 1923 to 1925 to enroll more members of the proletariat into the Communist party
A communist party is a p ...
, from both the working class and rural areas. This represented an attempt to "proletarianize" the party and an attempt by Stalin to strengthen his base by outnumbering the
Old Bolsheviks and reducing their influence in the Party. In 1925, the party had 1,025,000 members in a Soviet population of 147 million. In 1927, membership had risen to 1,200,000. During the collectivization campaign and industrialization campaigns of the first five-year plan from 1929 to 1933, party membership grew rapidly to approximately 3.5 million members. However, party leaders suspected that the mass intake of new members had allowed "social-alien elements" to penetrate the party's ranks and document verifications of membership ensued in 1933 and 1935, removing supposedly unreliable members. Meanwhile, the party closed its ranks to new members from 1933 to November 1936. Even after the reopening of party recruiting, membership fell to 1.9 million by 1939. Nicholas DeWitt gives 2.307 million members in 1939, including candidate members, compared with 1.535 million in 1929 and 6.3 million in 1947. In 1986, the CPSU had over 19 million membersapproximately 10% of the Soviet Union's adult population. Over 44% of party members were classified as industrial workers and 12% as collective farmers. The CPSU had party organizations in 14 of the Soviet Union's 15 republics. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic itself had no separate Communist Party until 1990 because the CPSU controlled affairs there directly.
Komsomol
The All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was the party's youth wing. The Komsomol acted under the direction of the CPSU Central Committee. It was responsible for indoctrinating youths in communist ideology and organizing social events. It was closely modeled on the CPSU; nominally the highest body was the
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, followed by the
Central Committee,
Secretariat and 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 contractio ...
. The Komsomol participated in nationwide policy-making by appointing members to the collegiums of the
Ministry of Culture, the
Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, the
Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
and the
State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. The organization's newspaper was the ''
Komsomolskaya Pravda
''Komsomolskaya Pravda'' (russian: link=no, Комсомольская правда; lit. "Komsomol Truth") is a daily Russian tabloid newspaper, founded on 13 March 1925.
History and profile
During the Soviet era, ''Komsomolskaya Pravda'' wa ...
''. The
First Secretary First Secretary may refer to:
* First minister, a leader of a government
* Secretary (title), a leader of a political party (especially Communist parties), trade union, or other organization
* First Secretary (diplomatic rank), a role within an emba ...
and the Second Secretary were commonly members of the Central Committee but were never elected to the Politburo. However, at the republican level, several Komsomol first secretaries were appointed to the Politburo.
Ideology
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology. It explained and legitimized the CPSU's right to rule while explaining its role as a vanguard party. For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened. It was represented as the only truth in Soviet society; the party rejected the notion of multiple truths. Marxism–Leninism was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, but it was not used as a means to an end. The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent; most policy decisions were made in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could notby its very naturebecome outdated.
Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets. The main tenet was the party's status as the sole ruling party. The
1977 Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union".
State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported
privatization
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the
commanding heights of the economy
In Marxian economics, the "commanding heights of the economy" are certain strategically important sectors of private industry. Some examples of industries considered to be part of the commanding heights include public utilities, natural resource ...
. Unlike
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for ...
, Marxism–Leninism stressed the role of the individual as a member of a
collective rather than the importance of the individual. Individuals only had the right to
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...
if it safeguarded the interests of a collective. For instance, the 1977 Constitution stated that every person had the right to express his or her opinion, but the opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society". The number of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and the state could remove these rights if it saw fit. Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
; the Soviet media portrayed every victory of the state as a victory for the
communist movement as a whole. Largely, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic
Russian nationalism. Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism; the Soviet press wrote about progressive and reactionary forces while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory and that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favor. The ideology professed
state atheism
State atheism is the incorporation of positive atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. It is a form of religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically l ...
; party members were not allowed to be religious.
Marxism–Leninism believed in the feasibility of a
communist mode of production. All policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's achievement of that stage.
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organization of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a
dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby th ...
as a political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production developed by Lenin. Since
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
rarely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve. Lenin's main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class. He conceived the vanguard party as a highly knit, centralized organization that was led by intellectuals rather than by the working class itself. The CPSU was open only to a small number of workers because the workers in Russia still had not developed
class consciousness
In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...
and needed to be educated to reach such a state. Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them. The vanguard party would know what was best for the workers because the party functionaries had attained consciousness.
Lenin, in light of the
Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country. He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, to be the dictatorship of the majority. The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth. Lenin believed that the transition from the
capitalist mode of production to the
socialist mode of production would last for a long period. According to some authors, Leninism was by definition authoritarian. In contrast to Marx, who believed that the
socialist revolution would comprise and be led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led or to comprise the working class alone. Instead, he said that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.
Stalinism
Stalinism, while not an ideology ''per se'', refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies. Stalin's introduction of the concept "
Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was an important moment in Soviet ideological discourse. According to Stalin, the Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society. Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and
central planning. In the early 1930s, he initiated the
collectivization
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
of
Soviet agriculture by de-privatizing agriculture and creating peasant cooperatives rather than making it the responsibility of the state. With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "
Cult of Lenin"a
cult of personality
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
centered upon himself. The name of the city of Petrograd was changed to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...
became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hung in public squares, workplaces and elsewhere. The increasing bureaucracy which followed the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state". Stalin explained the reasoning behind it at the
16th Congress held in 1930;
We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic.
At the 1939 18th Congress, Stalin abandoned the idea that the state would wither away. In its place, he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism. Two key concepts were created in the latter half of his rule; the "two camps" theory and the "capitalist encirclement" theory. The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers and
Soviet propaganda
Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication to promote class conflict, internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself.
The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, ...
began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, saying that the country would crumble without the leader. Stalin deviated greatly from
classical Marxism
Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Marxism–Leninism.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (5 May 1818, ...
on the subject of "subjective factors"; Stalin said that party members of all ranks had to profess fanatic adherence to the party's line and ideology, if not, those policies would fail.
Concepts
Dictatorship of the proletariat
Lenin, supporting Marx's theory of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power. According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class. He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism". The
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim, which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution. The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for
direct democracy was replaced because of Russia's level of development withaccording to their own assessmentsdictatorship. The reasoning was Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers, and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.
Marx and Lenin did not care if a bourgeois state was ruled in accordance with a
republican,
parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
or a
constitutional monarchical system since this did not change the overall situation. These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were all dictatorships of the bourgeoisie who implemented policies in defense of capitalism. However, there was a difference; after
the failures of the world revolutions, Lenin argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The reasoning came from practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the party reintroduce parliamentary democracy because that was not in synchronization with its ideology and would lead to the party losing power. He, therefore, concluded that the form of government has nothing to do with the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin; both said that the revolution had destroyed the old but had failed to create anything new. Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but would rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realized". From 1920 to 1921, Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism; hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things. From then, the two terms had different meanings; Russia was in transition from capitalism to socialismreferred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism was the intermediate stage to communism and communism was considered the last stage of social development. By now, the party leaders believed that because of Russia's backward state, universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage.
In early Bolshevik discourse, the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...
. However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning altered from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline. By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world. The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was, in turn, to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists
y Communists he referred to the Party. In a letter to
Gavril Myasnikov in late 1920, Lenin explained his new interpretation of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat":
Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' .
Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature and that these states were maintained through
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
. This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie". The main problem with this analysis is that the party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeois. Its worst enemy remained the moderates, which were considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class". The term "bourgeoisie" became synonymous with "opponent" and with people who disagreed with the party in general. These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system. Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management. Considering the situation, the party believed it had to use the same powers as the bourgeoisie to transform Russia; there was no alternative. Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, like the bourgeoisie, did not have a single preference for a form of government and because of that, the dictatorship was acceptable to both the party and the proletariat. In a meeting with party officials, Lenin statedin line with his economist view of socialismthat "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we
he Party
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
do not promise any democracy or any freedom".
Anti-imperialism
The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, ''
Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism'' (published in 1917). It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism's recovery in the 19th century. According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as
state monopoly capitalism
The theory of state monopoly capitalism (also referred as stamocap) was initially a Marxist thesis popularised after World War II. Lenin had claimed in 1916 that World War I had transformed laissez-faire capitalism into ''monopoly capitalism'' ...
. The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism's resurgence after the great depression of the late 19th century.
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Social democracy, social democratic Marxist theorist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Bernstein had held close association to Karl ...
from the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) considered capitalism's revitalization as proof that it was evolving into a more humane system, adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state but to take power through elections.
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels ...
, also from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view; he said that there was no crisis within Marxist theory. Both of them denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis. In contrast, Lenin believed that the resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage was created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.
Lenin did not know when the imperialist stage of capitalism began; he said it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however, said it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe). Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation of the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks. In ''Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism'', Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital". Lenin defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.
The 1986 Party Program claimed the Tsarist regime collapsed because the contradictions of imperialism, which he held to be the gap "between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation" manifesting itself in wars,
economic recessions
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
, and exploitation of the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
, were strongest in Russia. Imperialism was held to have caused the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
and the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...
, with the
1905 Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
presented as "the first people's revolution of the imperialist epoch" and the October Revolution is said to have been rooted in "the nationwide movement against imperialist war and for peace."
Peaceful coexistence
"Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule. While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it as a continuation of the conflict in every area except in the military field. The concept said that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy".
Peaceful coexistence was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought. Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle; in the 1940s Stalin stressed the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the
non-aligned movement
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath ...
and the national
liberation movements. Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought. He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, saying that it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict. Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence to be a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, but not based on armed conflict. Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economic.
The emphasis on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. It continued to uphold the creed that socialism was inevitable and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism. With the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system.
Socialism in One Country
The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of
permanent revolution
Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and ...
. In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet ''
Lessons of October'', in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began. Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "
October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution
October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôct ...
". In it, Stalin stated that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, and that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable". Stalin held the view common among most Bolsheviks at the time; there was a possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation. While
Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
together with Stalinopposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, their views on the way socialism could be built diverged.
According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the
14th Conference held in 1925, which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness". Despite this cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev believed that a defective form of socialism could be constructed. At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the Soviet Union. After the conference, Stalin wrote "
Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because they had a self-interest in preserving it. Stalin said the contradictions which arose within the peasantry during the socialist transition could "be overcome by our own efforts". He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.
In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' On Questions of Leninism
On, on, or ON may refer to:
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* ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995
* ''On'' (Gary Glitter album), 2001
* ''On'' (Imperial Teen album), 200 ...
'', which contains his best-known writings on the subject. With the publishing of ''
Leninism
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...
'', Trotsky began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, writing that socialism in one country was only possible only in the short term, and said that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeois relations". Zinoviev disagreed with Trotsky and Bukharin, and Stalin; he maintained Lenin's position from 1917 to 1922 and continued to say that only a defective form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution. Bukharin began arguing for the creation of an
autarkic
Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems.
Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especiall ...
economic model, while Trotsky said that the Soviet Union had to participate in the
international division of labor
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
to develop. In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, in 1938, Stalin said that a world revolution was impossible and that Engels was wrong on the matter. At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, saying that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country. He rationalized this by saying that the state could exist in a communist society as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism. However, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin said that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union and that to survive, the other states had to follow the Soviet line.
Reasons for demise
Western view
There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985.
The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country and one-party rule, and the Soviet Union was in its peak of influence in world affairs.
The immediate causes for the Soviet Union's dissolution were the policies and thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the CPSU General Secretary.
His policies of perestroika and glasnost tried to revitalize the Soviet economy and the social and political culture of the country.
Throughout his rule, he put more emphasis on democratizing the Soviet Union because he believed it had lost its moral legitimacy to rule.
These policies led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and indirectly destabilized Gorbachev's and the CPSU's control over the Soviet Union.
Archie Brown said:
The expectations of, again most notably, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians were enormously enhanced by what they saw happening in the 'outer empire' astern Europe and they began to believe that they could remove themselves from the 'inner empire'. In truth, a democratized Soviet Union was incompatible with denial of the Baltic states' independence for, to the extent that those Soviet republics became democratic, their opposition to remaining in a political entity whose center was Moscow would become increasingly evident. Yet, it was not preordained that the entire Soviet Union would break up.
However, Brown said that the system did not need to collapse or to do so in the way it did.
The democratization from above weakened the party's control over the country and put it on the defensive.
Brown added that a different leader than Gorbachev would probably have oppressed the opposition and continued with economic reform.
Nonetheless, Gorbachev accepted that the people sought a different road and consented to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991.
He said that because of its peaceful collapse, the fall of Soviet communism is "one of the great success stories of 20th-century politics".
According to Lars T. Lih, the Soviet Union collapsed because people stopped believing in its ideology. He wrote:
When in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed not with a bang but a whimper, this unexpected outcome was partly the result of the previous disenchantments of the narrative of class leadership. The Soviet Union had always been based on the fervent belief in this narrative in its various permutations. When the binding power of the narrative dissolved, the Soviet Union itself dissolved.
According to the Chinese Communist Party
The first research into the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were very simple and did not take into account several factors. However, these examinations became more advanced by the 1990s, and unlike most Western scholarship, which focuses on the role of Gorbachev and his reform efforts, the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...
(CCP) examined "core (political) life and death issues" so that it could learn from them and not make the same mistakes. Following the CPSU's demise and the Soviet Union's collapse, the CCP's analysis began examining systematic causes. Several leading CCP officials began hailing Khrushchev's rule, saying that he was the first reformer and that if he had continued after 1964, the Soviet Union would not have witnessed the
Era of Stagnation began under Brezhnev and continued under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. The main economic failure was that the political leadership did not pursue any reforms to tackle the economic malaise that had taken hold, dismissing certain techniques as capitalist, and never disentangling the planned economy from socialism.
Xu Zhixin from the CASS
Institute of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, argued that Soviet planners laid too much emphasis on heavy industry, which led to shortages of consumer goods. Unlike his counterparts, Xu argued that the shortages of consumer goods were not an error but "was a consciously planned feature of the system". Other CPSU failures were pursuing the policy of state socialism, the high spending on the military-industrial complex, a low tax base, and the subsidizing of the economy. The CCP argued that when Gorbachev came to power and introduced his economic reforms, they were "too little, too late, and too fast".
While most CCP researchers criticize the CPSU's economic policies, many have criticized what they see as "Soviet totalitarianism". They accuse Joseph Stalin of creating a system of mass terror, intimidation, annulling the democracy component of democratic centralism and emphasizing
centralism
Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a partic ...
, which led to the creation of an inner-party dictatorship. Other points were Russian nationalism, a lack of separation between the party and state bureaucracies, suppression of non-Russian ethnicities, distortion of the economy through the introduction of over-centralization and the collectivization of agriculture. According to CCP researcher
Xiao Guisen, Stalin's policies led to "stunted economic growth, tight surveillance of society, a lack of democracy in decision-making, an absence of the rule of law, the burden of bureaucracy, the CPSU's alienation from people's concerns, and an accumulation of ethnic tensions". Stalin's effect on ideology was also criticized; several researchers accused his policies of being "leftist", "dogmatist" and a deviation "from true
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a List of communist ideologies, communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its Soviet satellite state ...
." He is criticized for initiating the "bastardization of Leninism", of deviating from true democratic centralism by establishing a one-man rule and destroying all inner-party consultation, of misinterpreting Lenin's theory of imperialism and of supporting foreign revolutionary movements only when the Soviet Union could get something out of it.
Yu Sui, a CCP theoretician, said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union and CPSU is a punishment for its past wrongs!" Similarly, Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Alexei Kosygin and Konstantin Chernenko have been criticized for being "dogmatic, ossified, inflexible,
or having a
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bureaucratic ideology and thinking", while Yuri Andropov is depicted by some of having the potential of becoming a new Khrushchev if he had not died early.
While the CCP concur with Gorbachev's assessment that the CPSU needed internal reform, they do not agree on how it was implemented, criticizing his idea of "humanistic and democratic socialism", of negating the leading role of the CPSU, of negating Marxism, of negating the analysis of class contradictions and class struggle, and of negating the "ultimate socialist goal of realizing communism". Unlike the other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev is criticized for pursuing the wrong reformist policies and for being too flexible and too rightist. The
CCP Organization Department said, "What Gorbachev in fact did was not to transform the CPSU by correct principles—indeed the Soviet Communist Party —but instead he, step-by-step, and ultimately, eroded the ruling party's dominance in ideological, political and organizational aspects".
The CPSU was also criticized for not taking enough care in building the primary party organization and not having inner-party democracy. Others, more radically, concur with
Milovan Đilas
Milovan Djilas (; , ; 12 June 1911 – 30 April 1995) was a Yugoslav communist politician, theorist and author. He was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as well as in the post-war government. A self-identified democr ...
assessment, saying that a new class was established within the central party leadership of the CPSU and that a "corrupt and privileged class" had developed because of the nomenklatura system. Others criticized the special privileges bestowed on the CPSU elite, the nomenklatura systemwhich some said had decayed continuously since Stalin's ruleand the relationship between the Soviet military and the CPSU. Unlike in China, the Soviet military was a state institution whereas in China it is a party (and state) institution. The CCP criticizes the CPSU of pursuing
Soviet imperialism
''Soviet Empire'' is a political term which is used in Sovietology to describe the actions and power of the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on its dominant role in other countries.
In the wider sense, the term refers to the country's foreign po ...
in its foreign policies.
Electoral history
Presidential election
Supreme Soviet elections
See also
*
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) is a left-wing nationalist and c ...
Communist parties within the Warsaw Pact
*
Bulgarian Communist Party
The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; bg, Българска Комунистическа Партия (БКП), Balgarska komunisticheska partiya (BKP)) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 198 ...
*
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed be ...
*
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germ ...
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Hungarian Working People's Party
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Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
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Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...
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Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party ( ro, Partidul Comunist Român, , PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that wou ...
Other ruling communist parties
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People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), ''Hezb-e dimūkrātĩk-e khalq-e Afghānistān'' was a Marxist–Leninist political party in Afghanistan established on 1 January 1965. Four members of the party won seats in the 1965 Afg ...
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Party of Labour of Albania
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People's Revolutionary Party of Benin
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Communist Party of Kampuchea
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Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...
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Communist Party of Cuba
The Communist Party of Cuba ( es, Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th ...
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Workers' Party of Ethiopia
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New Jewel Movement
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Workers' Party of Korea
The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) is the founding and sole ruling party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. Founded in 1949 from the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of ...
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Lao People's Revolutionary Party
The Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) is the founding and sole ruling party of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The party's monopoly on state power is guaranteed by Article 3 of the Constitution of Laos, and it maintains a unitary s ...
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Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party
The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSP), , it, Partito Socialista Rivoluzionario Somalo was the ruling party of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1976 to 1991.
History
SRSP was created by the military regime of Siad Barre under S ...
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Communist Party of Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), also known as the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of Nor ...
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League of Communists of Yugoslavia
Footnotes
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Articles and journal entries
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External links
Executive Bodies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917–1991)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
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Parties of one-party systems
Political parties established in 1912
Political parties disestablished in 1991
Banned communist parties
Soviet internal politics
Eastern Bloc
Formerly ruling communist parties
1912 establishments in the Russian Empire
Banned political parties in Russia
Banned communist parties in Ukraine
Communist parties in Armenia
Communist parties in Azerbaijan
Communist parties in Belarus
Communist parties in Estonia
Communist parties in Europe
Communist parties in Georgia (country)
Communist parties in Kazakhstan
Communist parties in Kyrgyzstan
Communist parties in Latvia
Communist parties in Moldova
Defunct communist parties
Defunct communist parties in Russia
Defunct political parties in Belarus
Defunct political parties in Estonia
Defunct political parties in Georgia (country)
Defunct political parties in Kyrgyzstan
Defunct political parties in Latvia
Defunct political parties in Moldova
Defunct political parties in Ukraine
Defunct political parties in Uzbekistan
Political parties in Tajikistan
Political parties in Turkmenistan
Far-left political parties
Far-left politics in Russia