Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only official party of the Soviet Union. It was started in January 1912 by Lenin, and led the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Communist Parties still exist in Russia, including the modern Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Communist Workers Party of Russia, although in elections these parties have won only 51 seats in the Parliamentary elections.
Contents
Aspect
In 1917 the party seized power in Russia as the vanguard of the working class, and it has continued throughout the Soviet period to rule in the name of the proletariat. The party sought to lead the Soviet people toward communism, defined by Karl Marx as a classless society that contains limitless possibilities for human achievement. Toward this end, the party has sought to effect a cultural revolution and create a "new Soviet man" bound by the strictures of a higher, socialist morality.
The party's goals required that it control all aspects of Soviet government and society in order to infuse political, economic, and social policies with the correct ideological content. Vladimir I. Lenin, the founder of the Communist party and the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, justified these controls. Lenin formed a party of professional revolutionaries to effect a proletarian revolution in Russia. In the late 1980s, however, the party no longer sought to transform society and was apparently attempting to withdraw itself from day-to-day economic decisions. Nevertheless, it continued to exert control through professional management. Members of the party bureaucracy were full-time, paid officials. Other party members held full-time positions in government, industry, education, the armed forces, and elsewhere. In addition, Lenin argued that the party alone possesses the correct understanding of Marxist ideology. Thus, state policies that lacked an ideological foundation threatened to retard society's advance toward communism. Hence, only policies sanctioned by the party have contributed to this goal. Lenin's position justified party jurisdiction over the state. The CPSU enforced its authority over state bodies from the all-union level to that of the district and town. In the office, factory, and collective farm, the party has established its primary party organizations (PPOs) to carry out its directives.
The role of ideology in the political system and the party's efforts to enforce controls on society demonstrated the party leadership's continuing efforts to forge unity in the party as well as among the Soviet people. Democratic centralism, the method of intraparty decision making, directed lower party bodies unconditionally to execute the decisions of higher party bodies. Party forums from the town and district levels up to the Central Committee bring together party, government, trade union, and economic elites to create a desired consensus among policymakers. Party training, particularly for officials of the CPSU's permanent bureaucracy, shaped a common understanding of problems and apprised students of the party's approaches to ideology, foreign affairs, and domestic policy. Party training efforts demanded particular attention because of the varied national, class, and educational experiences of CPSU members.
The party exercised authority over the government and society in several ways. The CPSU has acquired legitimacy for its rule; that is, the people acknowledged the party's right to govern them. This legitimacy derived from the party's incorporation of elites from all parts of society into its ranks, the party's depiction of itself as the representative of the forces for progress in the world, and the party's postulated goal of creating a full communist society. Paradoxically, the party's legitimacy was enhanced by the inclusion of certain prerevolutionary Russian traditions into its political style, which provided a sense of continuity with the past. A different source of authority lies in the power of PPO secretaries to implement party policies on the lowest rungs of the Soviet economy. The CPSU obligated members participating in nonparty organizations to meet regularly and ensure that their organizations fulfilled the directives the party has set for them. Finally, as part of the nomenklatura system, the party retaind appointment power for influential positions at all levels of the government hierarchy (higher party bodies hold this power over lower party bodies as well). Taken together, the legitimacy accorded to it and the prerogatives it possessed enabled the party to perform its leading role within the Soviet political system.
Lenin's conception of the CPSU
The origins of the CPSU lie in the political thought and tactical conceptions of Lenin, who sought to apply Marxism to an economically backward, politically autocratic Russia. Toward this end, Lenin sought to build a highly disciplined, monolithic party of professional revolutionaries that was to act as the general staff of the proletarian movement in Russia. Lenin argued that this underground party must subject all aspects of the movement to its control so that the actions of the movement might be guided by the party's understanding of Marxist theory rather than by spontaneous responses to economic and political oppression. Lenin envisaged democratic centralism as the method of internal party decision making best able to combine discipline with the decentralization necessary to allow lower party organs to adapt to local conditions. Democratic centralism calls for free discussion of alternatives, a vote on the matter at hand, and iron submission of the minority to the majority once a decision is taken. As time passed, however, centralism gained sway over democracy, allowing the leadership to assume dictatorial control over the party.
Party legitimacy
The legitimacy of the CPSU derived from various sources. The party has managed to recruit a significant percentage of members having occupations carrying high status in Soviet society. In addition, the party has served as a vehicle of upward mobility for a significant share of the citizenry. By joining the party, members of the working class could ensure a secure future for themselves in the political apparatus and access for their children to a good education and high-status jobs. The party also justified its right to rule by claiming to embody the "science" of Marxism- Leninism and by its efforts to lead society to full communism. In addition, the CPSU appealed to the patriotism of the citizenry. In the more than seventy years of the party's rule, the Soviet Union (and its current successor, Russia) had emerged as a superpower, and this international status was a source of pride for the Soviet people. Finally, tradition bolstered the legitimacy of the CPSU. The party located its roots in Russian history, and it has incorporated aspects of Russian tradition into its political style.
The CPSU was an elite body. In 1989 it comprised about 9.7 percent of the adult population of the Soviet Union. Among the "movers and shakers" of society, however, the percentage of party members was much higher. In the 1980s, approximately 27 percent of all citizens over thirty years of age and with at least ten years of education were members of the party. About 44 percent of all males over thirty with at least ten years of education belonged to the CPSU.
Among certain occupations, party saturation (the percentage of party members among a given group of citizens) was even higher. In 1989 some occupations were restricted to party members. These positions included officers of youth organizations, senior military officers, and officials of government bodies such as the ministries, state committees, and administrative departments. Occupations with saturation rates ranging from 20 to 50 percent included positions as mid-level economic managers, scholars and academics, and hospital directors. Low saturation existed among jobs that carried low status and little prestige, such as industrial laborers, collective farmers, and teachers. Thus, the party could represent itself as a legitimate governing body because it commanded the talents of the most talented and ambitious citizens in society.
The CPSU derived some legitimacy from the fact that it acted as a vehicle for upward mobility in society. People who have entered the party apparatus since the 1930s have come from a working-class background. The party widely publicized the working-class origins of its membership, which led members of that class to believe they could enter the elite and be successful within it.
Another source of party legitimacy lay in Marxist-Leninist ideology, which both promised an absolute good - communism - as the goal of history and shrouds its understanding of the means to that goal with the aura of science. The party justified its rule as leading to the creation of a full communist society. Hence, the CPSU claimed that the purpose of its rule was the common good and not the enrichment of the rulers. The party also identified Marxism-Leninism and the policies that it developed on the basis of this ideology with the absolute truth of science. The CPSU maintained that the laws of this science hold with the same rigor in society as the laws of physics or chemistry in nature. In part, the party justified its rule by claiming that it alone could understand this science of society.
During its 74 years of rule the CPSU altered its ideology to ensure its continued legitimacy, despite the inability to fulfill the promises contained in Marxism- Leninism. One modification had been the rejection of some of Marxism-Leninism's original ideological tenets. For example, in the early 1930s the party renounced an egalitarian wage structure. A second modification has been the indefinite postponement of goals that cannot be realized. Thus, the party continued to assure the populace that the achievement of economic abundance or the completion of proletarian revolutions in developed Western countries would take place, but it did not specify a date. A third modification has been the ritualization of some of the goals whose fulfillment the party has postponed. For example, in his first public address as general secretary in 1984, Konstantin U. Chernenko averred that concern for the development of the new Soviet man remained an essential part of the CPSU's program. In the late 1980s, few accorded that goal much practical import, but the reaffirmation of that objective probably reassured the party faithful that the new leadership would remain true to the CPSU's ideology and traditions.
The party attempted to strengthen its legitimacy with appeals to the pride Soviet citizens feel for their country. The party has led Soviet Russia from the devastation the country suffered in the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War (1918-21) to victory in World War II over an ancient Russian enemy and then to superpower status. In 1989, moreover, the CPSU could still claim to lead a world communist movement. Since World War II, Soviet influence had extended to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A feeling of patriotic pride for these accomplishments united the Soviet elite, and it bound the elite to the masses.
The CPSU had incorporated aspects of traditional Russian culture into its political style. The party drew upon Russia's revolutionary tradition and represented itself as the culmination of a progressive and revolutionary movement that began with the "Decembrists' revolt" of 1825. Most aspects of this revolutionary tradition centered on Lenin. The fact that the state preserved his remains in a mausoleum on Red Square echoed an old Russian Orthodox belief that the bodies of saints do not decay. In addition, the regime bestowed Lenin's name on the second largest city of the Soviet Union (Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg), a bust or picture of Lenin decorated all party offices, and quotations from his writings appeared on billboards throughout the country. All Soviet leaders since Lenin have tried to show that they follow Lenin's policies. The CPSU had sought to maintain and strengthen its legitimacy by drawing upon the legacy of this charismatic figure.
Another element of old Russian culture that has entered the CPSU's political style was the cult of the leader (also referred to as cult of personality). The Soviet cult of the leader appropriated a cultural form whose sources lay deep in the Russian past. Cults of saints, heroes, and the just tsar had long existed in Russia. In the 1920s, the cult of Lenin emerged as part of a deliberate policy to gain popular support for the regime. Joseph Stalin, who built the most extensive cult of the leader, was reported to have declared that the "Russian people is a tsarist people. It needs a tsar." Stalin assumed the title of generalissimo during World War II, and throughout his rule he was referred to by the title vozhd (leader). Other titles appropriated by Stalin included "Leader of the World Proletariat", "Great Helmsman", "Father of the Peoples", and "Genius of Mankind".
Soviet leaders since Stalin have also encouraged the development of their own cults, although on a smaller scale than that of Stalin. These cults of the party leaders replicated that of the just tsar. Like the cult of the just tsar, who was depicted as having remained true to his faith of Russian Orthodoxy, the cults of party leaders such as Khrushchev and Leonid I. Brezhnev represented them as leaders who remained true to their faith in Marxism-Leninism. Like the just tsar, who was depicted as being close to the common people, these leaders represented themselves as having the interests of the common people at heart.
Central party institutions
In a political organization like the CPSU, which aims to be monolithic and centralized, central party institutions assume supreme importance. Central institutions in the CPSU included the party congress, the Central Committee, the Central Auditing Commission, the Party Control Committee, the Politburo (political bureau), the Secretariat, and the commissions. These organs made binding decisions for intermediate and local party bodies down to the PPO.
According to the Party Rules, the party congress was the highest authority in the party. This body was too large and unwieldy to exert any influence, however, and its members were appointed either directly or indirectly by those whom it ostensibly elected to the Central Committee and Politburo. Moreover, the party congress met only once every five years. Another large party body of note was the party conference, which met infrequently upon the decision of the Central Committee. The Central Committee itself, which met every six months, theoretically ruled the party between congresses. Although more influential than the party congress and the party conference, the Central Committee wielded less power than the Politburo, Secretariat, and the party commissions.
The Politburo, the Secretariat, and the party commissions paralleled a set of central governmental institutions that included the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The distinction between party and government institutions lay in the difference between policy formation and policy implementation. Stated briefly, the central party institutions made policy, and the government carried it out. The distinction between policy formation and policy implementation was often a narrow one, however, and party leaders frequently involved themselves in carrying out policies in the economic, domestic political, and foreign policy spheres. This problem, known in the Soviet Union as podmena (substitution), occurred throughout all party and government hierarchies.
The distinction between policy formation and policy execution also characterized the differences between the Politburo, on the one hand, and the Secretariat and the commissions, on the other hand. The Politburo made policy for the party (as well as for the Soviet Union as a whole). The Secretariat and, apparently, the party commissions produced policy alternatives for the Politburo and, once the latter body made a decision, carried out the Politburo's directives. In fulfilling these roles, of course, the Secretariat often made policy decisions itself. The Secretariat and the commissions administered a party bureaucracy that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Through this apparatus, the CPSU Secretariat and the party commissions radiated their influence throughout the middle and lower levels of the party and thereby throughout the government, economy, and society.
The general secretary, as a member of the Politburo and the leader of the Secretariat, was the most powerful official in the CPSU. The general secretary was the chief policymaker, enjoyed the greatest amount of authority in party appointments, and represented the Soviet Union in its dealings with other states. The absence of a set term of office and the general secretary's lack of statutory duties meant that candidates for this position had to compete for power and authority to attain it. Once having been elected to this position, the general secretary had to maintain and increase his power and authority in order to implement his program.
