Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

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The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Центральный комитет Коммунистической партии Советского Союза - ЦК КПСС, Tsentralniy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza - TsK KPSS), abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (TsK VKP(b)) was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). According to Party rules, the Central Committee directed all Party and government activities between each Party Congress. Members of the committee were elected at the Party Congress every five years.

History

Lenin Era: 1917–1922

The Central Committee, according to Vladimir Lenin, was to be the supreme authority of the party. Leon Trotsky criticised this view, stating "our rules represent 'organisational nonconfidence' of the party toward its parts, that is, supervision over all local, district, national and other organisations [...] the organisation of the party takes place of the party itself; the Central Committee takes the place of the organisation; and finally the dictator takes the place of the Central Committee."

During the first years in power, under Lenin's rule, the Central Committee was the key decision-making body in both practice and theory, and decisions were made through majority votes. For example, the Central Committee voted for or against signing a peace treaty with the Germans between 1917 and 1918 during World War II; the majority voted in favour of peace when Trotsky backed down in 1918. The result of the vote was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During the heated debates in the Central Committee about a possible peace with the Germans, Lenin did not have a majority of his own; both Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin had more support for their own position than Lenin, the leader of the Soviet Union, had. Only when Lenin sought a coalition with Trotsky and others was negotiations with the Germans voted through with a simple majority. Criticism of other officials were allowed during these meetings, for instance, Karl Radek said to Lenin (criticising his position of supporting peace with the Germans) "If there were five hundred courageous men in Petrograd, we would put you in prison." The decision to negotiate peace with the Germans only came to being when Lenin threatened to resign, which in turn led to a temporary coalition between Lenin's supporters and those of Trotsky and others. No sanctions were invoked by on the opposition in the Central Committee following the decision.

The system had many faults, and opposition to Lenin and what many saw as his excessive centralisation policies came to the leadership's attention during the 8th Party Congress (March 1919) and the Ninth Party Congress (March 1920). At the Ninth Party Congress the Democratic Centralists, a opposition faction within the party, accused Lenin and his associates, of creating a Central Committee consisted of a "small handful of party oligarchs [...] was banning those who hold deviant views." Several delegates to the Congress were quite specific in the criticism, one of them accusing Lenin and his associates of making the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as a place of exile for opponents. Lenin reply was evasive, but he conceded that faults had been made, but noted that if such policies had in fact been carried out the criticism of him during the Ninth Party Congress could not have occurred. During the 10th Party Congress (March 1921) Lenin condemned the Workers Opposition, a faction within the Communist Party, for deviating from communism and accused Trotsky of factionalism. Lenin did state that factionalism was allowed, but only allowed before and during Party Congresses when the different sides needed to win votes. Several Central Committee members who were members of the Workers Opposition offered their resignation to Lenin, but their resignations were not accepted, and they were instead asked to submit to party discipline. The 10th Party Congress also introduced a ban on factionalism within the Communist Party; however, what Lenin considered to be platforms, such as the Democratic Centralists and the Workers Opposition, were allowed. Factions, in Lenin's mind, were groups within the Communist Party subverted party discipline.

Despite the ban on factionalism, the Workers' Opposition continued its open agitation against the policies of the Central Committee, and before the 11th Party Congress (March 1922) the Workers' Opposition made an ill-conceived bid of winning support for their position in the Comintern. The Comintern, not unexpectedly, supported the position of the Central Committee. During the 11th Party Congress Alexander Shliapnikov, the leader of the Workers' Opposition, claimed that certain individuals from the Central Committee had threatened him. Lenin's reply was evasive, but stated that party discipline needed to be strengthened during "a retreat" – the New Economic Policy was introduced at the 10th Party Congress. The Eleventh Party Congress would prove to be the last congress chaired by Lenin, he would suffer a stroke in May 1922, paralysed by a second in December later that same year, removed from public life in March 1923 and he died on 21 January 1924.

Post-Stalin: 1953–1985

The frequency of Central Committee meetings decreased sharply under Joseph Stalin, but increased again following his death. After Nikita Khrushchev's consolidation of power, the number of Central Committee meetings decreased yet again, but it increased during his later rule, and together with the Politburo, the Central Committee voted to remove Khrushchev as First Secretary. In 1957, the Central Committee overturned a decision by the Presidium (the renamed Politburo) to remove Khrushchev as First Secretary. Khrushchev, with the assistance of Defence Minister Georgy Zhukov, rallied the support of the Central Committee against what he called the Anti-Party Group.

The number of Central Committee meetings rose again when Leonid Brezhnev was elected First Secretary, but the number of meetings, and for how long these meetings lasted, steadily decreased during Brezhnev's rule. Before Stalin's consolidation of power, the Central Committee featured open debate, where even leading officials could be criticised. From 1966 to 1976, Alexei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny and Mikhail Suslov, all leading officials, attended a Central Committee meeting only once, it was in 1973 to ratify the Soviet Union's treaty with West Germany. No Politburo or Secretariat members during the Brezhnev era were speakers during Central Committee meetings. The speaker at the Central Committee meeting which elected the Council of Ministers (the Government) and the Politburo was never listed during the Brezhnev era. Because the average length of a Central Committee meetings decreased, and the decrease in the number of Central Committee meetings held, many Central Committee members were unable to speak during meetings. Some Central Committee members consulted with the leadership beforehand, some did not, to ask to speak during meetings. For instance, during the May 1966 Central Committee plenum, Brezhnev openly complained that only one Central Committee member had asked him personally to be allowed to speak. The majority of speakers at Central Committee plenums were high-standing officials.

Gorbachev Era: 1985–1991

The Central Committee, which had played a crucial role in confirming both Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretaries, was revitalised during Mikhail Gorbachev's rule. Gorbachev's policy of glasnost (literally openess) ment the gradual democratisation of the party. Because of this, the role of the Central Committee was strengthened. Several leading members of the Central Committee were replaced by more open-minded officials during the Gorbachev era. The plan was to make the Central Committee an organ were discussion took place, in this Gorbachev succeeded.

Following the failed coup of August 1991, the Central Committee was dissolved as was the Communist Party itself.

Duties and responsibilities

The Central Committee was a collective organ elected at the annual party congress where it was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme organ. Over the years, membership in the Central Committee increased; in 1934 there were 71 full members, in 1976 there were 287 full members. Members of the Central Committee were elected by the offices they held, not their personal merite. 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, 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 Secretariat was legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee (or the Secretariat in 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 like the Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, as the party's leading collective organ. However, as the membership in the Central Committee steadily increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between congresses the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source for legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s, and it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during the Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was forced to convene at least twice a year to discuss political matters (but not matters relating to military policy).

Departments

Main article: Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

A variety of departments made up the Central Committee apparatus; some departments are worthy of note. 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 several were abolished in 1989. Among these departments there was a Central Committee Department responsible for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, and one for the chemical industry, among others. The party abolished these departments in an effort 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.

Politburo

Main article: Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Secretariat

Main article: Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and implementation of party policies. The Secretariat also carried political weight because many of its members sat on the Politburo.

The members of the Secretariat supervised the work of the Central Committee departments. Department chiefs, who normally sat on the Central Committee, were subordinate to the secretaries.

See also

• Bednota - daily newspaper for peasants, from March 1918 till January 1931
• Organisation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Bibliography

• Getty, John (1987). Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521335706. 
• Fainsod, Merle; Hough, Jerry F. (1979). How the Soviet Union is Governed. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674410300. 
• Sakwa, Richard (1998). Soviet politics in Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 9780415071536.