The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the party's name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1925 the party became All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and then, in 1934, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) and finally in 1952 it became simply the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This article follows the course of the party from 1918 until its dissolution in 1991. For information on the pre-1918 party see Bolshevik Party.
Once the Third International or Comintern was formed in 1919, the Marxist-Leninist structure of the CPSU was copied by the other Comintern members resulting in Communist parties being formed around the world.
Structure
The governing body of the CPSU was the Party Congress which initially met annually but whose meetings became less frequent, particularly under Stalin. Party Congresses would elect a Central Committee which, in turn, would elect a Politburo. Under Stalin the most powerful position in the party became the General Secretary who was elected by the Politburo. Under Krushchev the title of General Secretary became First Secretary and the Politburo became the Presidium before reverting to their former names under Brezhnev. In theory, supreme power in the party was invested in the Party Congress, however, in practice the power structure became reversed and, particularly after the death of Lenin, supreme power became the ___domain of the General Secretary.
Civil War
Initially the Bolsheviks dealt leniently with "enemies of the revolution", in one case releasing a tsarist general if he agreed not to join the Whites. He agreed and promptly joined the counter-revolution on his release. As the Civil War progressed, and particularly after the attempted assassination of Lenin by Fanya Kaplan of the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks became more ruthless with political enemies by instituting the Red Terror, although their counter-revolutionary opponents used equally violent methods against suspected Bolsheviks and their partisans.
The execution of ex-Tsar Nicholas II and his family on July 16, 1918 on the orders of the Yekaterinburg soviet caused a particularly strong reaction from foreign governments.
In December 1917, the Bolshevik government established a security force, the Cheka, which took over the role of the former Tsarist Okhranka. In 1918, the Communist government began to send political opponents to forced labor camps, typically in Siberia and the extreme North of Russia. The labor camps were inherited from the Tsarist penal system of forced labour (katorga).
See also: Russian Civil War
Party development
The ruling body of the party was the 27 member Central Committee elected annually. In 1919 a smaller Politburo was created initially with five members, to run the party on a day to day basis. The first members of the Politburo were Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky.
Tenth Party Congress
The party initially allowed free and open debate at party meetings, but this changed due to the Civil War. At the Tenth Party Congress of 1921, factions were banned in the party, including the Workers Opposition, and in 1922 the Communist Party became the only legal political party.
Stalin vs Trotsky
The authority of the party increased as a result, as did its control over the government, and within the party the power of the Politburo grew. Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party in April 1922. This became the most important position within the party after Lenin's death in January 1924, and particularly after Trotsky was removed from his party offices in 1925. See also: History of the Soviet Union (1917-1927)
Purge of the Old Bolsheviks
In the 1930s Joseph Stalin instigated a series of purges against senior members of the party, culminating in the Great Purge of 1936. Trotsky had been expelled from the party in 1928 and in the 1930s other senior Communists, many of whom had been Stalin's allies were removed and many of them were executed or died in mysterious circumstances, including Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin. See also: History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)
Stalinism
The labor camps were expanded into the infamous Gulag system under Stalin's in his war agaisnt so-called "class enemies". Stalin also undertook massive resettlements of Kulaks, similarly to Tsarist penal system of ssylka (resettlement in remote areas) - which had been established to deal with political dissidents and common criminals without executing them.
Post-Stalin
The Twentieth Party Congress held in 1956 marked the party's formal break with Stalin (three years after his death) when First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev gave his famous Secret Speech denouncing the crimes and excesses of Stalin. This ushered in a period of destalinisation which saw an end to the personality cult which had grown around Stalin, the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners and a thaw in political and cultural discourse. Khruschev was removed from power by the Presidium in October 1964 bringing destalinisation to a halt under the new General Secretary, Leonid Brezhnev. See also: History of the Soviet Union (1953-1985)
Gorbachev
End of Communist rule
In February of 1990, the CPSU called for the end of its constitutional guarantee of power. In March, the Congress of Peoples Deputies repealed Article Six of the Soviet Constitution, which had guaranteed a political monopoly for the party.
Following the August coup in 1991, the CPSU was banned by Boris Yeltsin on all Russian soil. The KGB was disbanded as were other CPSU-related agencies and organisations. Yeltsin's action was later declared unconstitutional but by this time the USSR had ceased to exist.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the organization became known as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Related articles
Organization of the Communist Party of the USSR, Communist Party, List of socialists