The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), also known by various other names during its history, was the founding and ruling party of the Soviet Union. 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, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system.
The organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was based on the principles of democratic centralism.
Vladimir Antonovich Ivashko was a Soviet Ukrainian politician, briefly acting as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the period from 24 to 29 August 1991. On 24 August Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from the post, and on 29 August the CPSU was suspended by the Supreme Soviet. Before becoming General Secretary he had been voted Gorbachev's Deputy General Secretary within the Party on 12 July 1990, a newly created position as a result of the 28th Congress of the Communist Party.
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) that by the late 1920s had evolved into the most powerful of the Central Committee's various positions. Seldom in Soviet history would any other office trump the authority of General Secretary. From 1929 until the union's dissolution, the holder of the office was the de facto leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled both the CPSU and the Soviet government. The power of the office can be traced to Joseph Stalin when he elevated the office to overall command of the Communist Party and by extension the whole Soviet Union. Once Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky and removed his major political rivals through purges, the General Secretary exercised total control of party and nation. Nikita Khrushchev renamed the post First Secretary in 1953 as part of de-stalinization. The change was reverted in 1966. The office grew out of less powerful secretarial positions within the party: Technical Secretary (1917–1918), Chairman of the Secretariat (1918–1919), and Responsible Secretary (1919–1922).
The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was responsible for managing and directing the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while the Politburo was charged with the policy-making aspects of the party. The Secretariat was a component agency of the party's Central Committee.
Dinmukhamed Akhmetuly "Dimash" Kunaev was a Kazakh Soviet communist politician who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.
Grigory Vasilyevich Romanov was a Soviet politician and member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1985, he was considered Mikhail Gorbachev's main rival in the succession struggle after the death of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985, the third Soviet leader to die in just a few short years.
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was generally perceived as covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. The date 1912 is often identified as the time of the formation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a distinct party, and its history since then can roughly be divided into the following periods:
Demokratizatsiya was a slogan introduced by Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in January 1987 calling for the infusion of "democratic" elements into the Soviet Union's single-party government. Gorbachev's Demokratizatsiya meant the introduction of multi-candidate—though not multiparty—elections for local Communist Party (CPSU) officials and Soviets. In this way, he hoped to rejuvenate the party with progressive personnel who would carry out his institutional and policy reforms. The CPSU would retain sole custody of the ballot box.
Kirill Trofimovich Mazurov was a Soviet Byelorussian partisan, politician, and one of the leaders of the Belarusian resistance during World War II who governed the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia from 1956 until 1965, when he became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU.
Ismail Abdurasulovich Yusupov was a member of the Uyghur minority and a Soviet Communist political figure in the Kazakh SSR. From 1962 to 1964 he was first secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR. After Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Yusupov was replaced with Dinmukhamed Kunayev, a close friend of Brezhnev's. Until his retirement in 1971, he held several lower functions in the field of agriculture.
The Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, commonly referred to as the Moscow CPSU gorkom, was the position of highest authority in the city of Moscow roughly equating to that of mayor. The position was created on November 10, 1917, following the October Revolution and abolished on August 24, 1991. The First Secretary was a de facto appointed position usually by the Politburo or the General Secretary himself. Until the abolition of the CPSU monopoly on power on March 14, 1990, he had actual power in Moscow.
Decommunization in Russia is the process of dealing with the communist legacies in terms of institutions and personnel that tends towards breaking with the Soviet past. Compared with the decommunization efforts of the other former constituents of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, it has been restricted to half-measures, if conducted at all.
Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva was a Soviet and Russian chemist, teacher, author, political activist, and social critic. A supporter of classical Soviet principles, she wrote an essay entitled I Cannot Forsake My Principles that defended many aspects of the traditional Soviet system, and criticized General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his closest supporters for not being true communists. In the rebuke published in the official party newspaper Pravda the essay was called The Manifesto of Anti-Perestroika Forces.
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Uglanov was a Russian Bolshevik politician and Soviet statesman who played an important role in the government of the Soviet Union as a Communist Party leader in the city of Moscow during the 1920s. Uglanov was closely associated with the so-called "Right Deviation" associated with Soviet party leader Nikolai Bukharin and he fell from his leadership position during the mass collectivization campaign of 1929. Uglanov was arrested in the summer of 1936 and was executed the following spring during the secret police terror of 1937–38.
Nikolay Grigoryevich Ignatov was a prominent Soviet politician during the 1950s and 1960s who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Republic briefly in 1959 and again from 1962 until his death.
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov 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 party apparatus in exchange for remaining Premier and first among equals within the Soviet collective leadership. He then became embroiled in a power struggle with Nikita Khrushchev that culminated in his removal from the premiership in 1955 as well as the Presidium in 1957.
The Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, commonly referred to as the Leningrad CPSU obkom, was the position of highest authority in Leningrad Oblast during most of the existence of the Soviet Union. The position was created on 1 August 1927, and abolished on 29 August 1991 although most authority was lost in June that year to the position of Governor of Leningrad Oblast. The First Secretary was a de facto appointed position usually by the Politburo or the General Secretary himself.
Pyotr Antonovich Zalutsky was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist Party organiser, who was executed for his involvement in the Left Opposition.
Nikolai Pavlovich Komarov was a Russian Soviet politician, statesman and Communist Party official.