Communist Party of The Soviet Union - Structure CPSU

Structure CPSU

The governing body of the CPSU was the Party Congress which was held once in 1–5 years, depending on the historical period, with an exception of a long break from 1939 to 1952. 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. In 1952 the title of General Secretary became First Secretary and the Politburo became the Presidium before reverting to their former names under Leonid Brezhnev in 1966.

In theory, supreme power in the party was invested in the Party Congress. However, in practice, all executive power was in the hands of the General Secretary.

At lower levels the organizational hierarchy was managed by Party Committees, or partkoms (партком). A partkom was headed by the elected "partkom bureau secretary" ("partkom secretary", секретарь парткома). At enterprises, institutions, kolkhozes, etc., they were called as such, i.e., "partkoms". At higher levels the Committees were abbreviated accordingly: raikoms (райком) at raion level, obkoms (обком) at oblast levels (known earlier as gubkoms (губком) for guberniyas), gorkom (горком) at city level, etc.

The bottom level of the Party was the "primary party organization" (первичная партийная организация) or "party cell" (партийная ячейка). It was created within any organizational entity of any kind where there were at least three communists. The management of a cell was called "party bureau" (партийное бюро, партбюро). A partbureau was headed by the elected "bureau secretary" (секретарь партбюро).

At smaller party cells, secretaries were regular employees of the corresponding factory/hospital/school/etc. Sufficiently large party organizations were usually headed by an "exempt secretary" (освобожденный секретарь), who drew his salary from the Party money. During the 1970s the relative number of communists in Republics of the Soviet Union was as follows:

• Russian SFSR: 7.2%
• Ukraine: 5.35% (1976)
• Moldavia: 3.43% (1975)
• Tajikistan: less than 3%
• The mean value for the Soviet Union was: 5.935% (1974)