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Supreme Soviet


The bicameral legislature of the former Soviet Union, with members elected in one house from the population at large and in the other from the constituent national republics.

The Supreme Soviet was described in the 1936 and 1977 constitutions as the "highest organ of State power."

In the USSR, the bicameral Supreme Soviet was the chief, central legislative organ of the Soviet state. The constitutions of 1936 and 1977 followed closely the wording of the two preceding constitutions of 1918 and 1924 in describing the powers and functions of this body (earlier known as the Congress of Soviets) and its executive Presidium.

As in preceding years, the deputies to the Supreme Soviet, elected to four-year terms throughout the republics, regions, provinces and other political-administrative subdivisions of authority throughout the USSR, were said to represent the interests of the workers, peasants, soldiers, and intellectuals. That the deputies would faithfully serve those interests, it was claimed in documents explaining the workings of the central legislature, was guaranteed by fact that the Communist Party at all levels played the determining role in selecting the single-list candidates for election to the legislative body. By the 1936 and 1977 constitutions, non-Party deputies could run for election and be elected. These deputies, too, were carefully vetted by the Party "aktivs." Polling places for election of deputies seldom provided voting booths.

The USSR Supreme Soviet was divided into two chambers, called the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities. The former was based on representation by geographic, political-administrative territorial units nationwide; the latter was based on national, or ethnic, territorial units. The rationale given for this in official documents was that in this way the Soviet people would be represented both by geographic location as well as by ethnicity.

Representation was based on one deputy per every 300,000 of the population. There was no class restriction as found in the first, 1918, constitution.

The numbers of deputies in each body tended to increase over the years. This reflected the growth in population. No officially recognized cap was put on the total number of deputies, yet a limit nevertheless seemed to be in effect. The Soviet authorities apparently preferred to keep both bodies at approximately equal and manageable size. In that sense, the Communist Party leadership exercised control over the size of the legislative bodies as well as the texts of the bills submitted to it for enactment - always enacted unanimously by a show of hands.

From 1937 to the 1960s, the Soviet of the Union increased from 569 to 791 deputies. The members of the second, or lower, chamber during the same period climbed from 574 to 750. The increase in the latter came from the addition of several new Union Republics to the USSR. These were the result of territorial annexations made before and during World War II.

Both chambers met either separately or in joint session in the Supreme Soviet building within the Kremlin. They would meet jointly especially when the powerful executive Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was elected (every four years) along with elections of the USSR Supreme Court and of the Council of Ministers (formerly, Council of People's Commissars), or government and cabinet. The chairman of the Presidium was considered to be, as head of state, the Soviet President. By the constitution the chambers were to meet twice per year in which the closely regulated sessions lasted only about a week. Prior to the 1950s, the two Soviets sometimes met more than twice per year.

Besides effecting indirect Communist Party control over the legislative proceedings, each chamber of the Supreme Soviet established a Council of Elders. This body, though unmentioned in the constitution, served as a further conduit for Party control. Each council numbered approximately 150 elders. It consisted of leading figures from the republics, territories, and provinces. Besides proposing legislation, the councils supervised the formation of legislative committees, known as commissions, within both houses. The committees oversaw affairs concerned with the State budget, legislation, the courts, foreign affairs, credentials, and so forth.

The work of the committees was closely regulated. Often a leading member of the Communist Party Central Committee would chair a committee, such as that concerned with foreign affairs.

Soviet propaganda aimed at a foreign audience boasted of the heterogeneous, democratic makeup of the USSR Supreme Soviet. One such document, Andrei Vyshinsky's Law of the Soviet State (Gosudarstvo i pravo), noted that in the 1930s and 1940s. the Soviet legislature had a far greater proportion of women deputies than Western parliaments or the U.S. Congress. The alleged working-class backgrounds of the deputies was also touted. Party representation in the legislature stood at around 18 percent, or several times that of the percentage of Party members within the population at large. Government officials were said to constitute some 15 percent of the deputies.

Soviet juristic writings explicitly denied that the Soviet Union's political system recognized the Western principle of the separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial organs. Instead, it was claimed, the Soviet political system stressed the merging of executive, legislative, and judicial functions that was further afforded by the system's centralized structure. Such unity was further enhanced by the parallel Communist Party hierarchy that was likewise structured to emphasize unity of function at all levels of administration and political authority.

When the time came for voiced criticism of the system - beginning to surface within the illegal reform movement, or samizdat, of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s - the dissidents, some of whom were put on trial and served sentences in the labor camps, called in some instances for retaining the basic structure of the soviets. Yet they demanded radical overhaul of the functions of the soviets at all levels of authority as well as elimination of exclusive Communist Party supervision of soviet elections and legislative deliberations. Some reformers called for incorporation of the principle of separation of powers.

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Judicial System of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

The existing judicial system of the Russian Federation was formed and is being developed as a result of a judicial reform carried out in Russia from the beginning of the 90s with the purpose to create and maintain the judicial power in the state mechanism as an independent branch of power, free from political and ideological bias, independent in its activities from the executive and legislative branches of power.
Independent, competent law court is an important component of a democratic state based on a rule of law.
The Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 became the main legal basis for the introduction of the judicial reform. For the first time the Constitution contained a Chapter “Judicial Power” according to which the state power in the Russian Federation should be exercised on the basis of its division into legislative, executive and judicial powers, and all these branches of power should be independent.
The structure of the judicial system of the Russian Federation and the sphere of activities of its various parts are determined by the Constitution and federal constitutional laws (paragraph 3 Article 118 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation).

The judicial system of the Russian Federation consists of:
1- The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and constitutional courts of the republics and other subjects of the Russian Federation.
The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation considers cases relating to the compliance of the federal laws, normative acts of the President of the Russian Federation, the Council of the Federation, the State Duma, the Government of the Russian Federation, constitutions of republics, charters and other normative acts of the subjects of Russian Federation with the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 125 of the Constitution);
2- four-tiered system of courts of general jurisdiction. Three-tiered system of the military courts is an integral part of it . The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is the supreme judicial body of this branch ;
3- three-level system of arbitration courts with the Higher Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation as a supreme judicial body competent to settle economic disputes and other cases considered by arbitration courts, exercise judicial supervision over their activities according to the federal law-envisaged procedural forms . The system of the arbitration courts comprises: arbitration courts of the subjects of the Russian Federation; courts of arbitration districts (10) and the Higher Arbitration Court.

The system of general jurisdiction courts has the following structure:
The first tier comprises all general jurisdiction rayon (district) courts -city, intermunicipal and equal to them - acting on the territory of Russia.
Middle tier of general jurisdiction courts includes the supreme courts of the republics, kray ( regional) , oblast (provincial) courts, city courts of Moscow and St.-Petersburg, courts of autonomous provinces and autonomous districts.
The main tier of military courts are the military courts of armies, fleets, garrisons and military formations.
The middle tier of military courts consists of military courts of the branches of the Armed Forces, military districts, districts of antiaircraft defence, navy and separate armies.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is the supreme judicial body for all courts of general jurisdiction, both civil and military.
Rayon courts form the basis of the system of general jurisdiction courts of the Russian Federation.
The law attributes to the jurisdiction of rayon courts all civil cases, overwhelming majority of criminal cases and cases relating to administrative offences.
Rayon courts act as a higher judicial instance for the Justices of the Peace operating on the territory of the appropriate judicial district.
Justices of the Peace are judges of the subjects of the Russian Federation and form an integral part of the system of courts of general jurisdiction.
The reestablishment of the institute of Justices of the Peace in Russia in 2000 is an important step in the course of development of the judicial and legal reform and provides for more operative and accessible judicial protection for the citizens of the country.
The law entrusts the Justices of the Peace with functions and duties equal for all the judges of Russia: to exercise justice observing precisely and strictly the requirements of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, generally recognized rules , norms and principles of the international law and international agreements concluded or joined by the Russian Federation.
The Justices of the Peace are included into the structure of general jurisdiction courts and participate in the work of its bodies.
Courts of general jurisdiction: of kray , oblast, city, of autonomous oblast and autonomous districts act as higher instance courts for rayon courts.
The courts of this tier of the judicial system are empowered to carry out all the powers of a judicial instance, namely to examine cases as a first instance court in the order of cassation, by way of supervision and upon newly discovered evidence. They work in the following composition: presidium of the court, judicial panel for civil cases and judicial panel for criminal cases.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is the supreme judicial body for civil, criminal, administrative and other cases under the jurisdiction of courts of general jurisdiction, carries out judicial supervision over their activities according to the federal law-envisaged procedural forms and provides clarifications on the issues of court proceedings (Article 126 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation). It heads the judicial system of general jurisdiction, representing a supreme tier of this system.
The Supreme Court of Russian Federation has the right of the legislative initiative. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation acts as a court of first instance for cases of special importance or special public interest when it accepts them for consideration according to the legislation. The law determines a category of cases which are included in the sphere of activities of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation as a court of first instance .
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is a cassation instance in relation to the federal courts of general jurisdiction of republics or oblast.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation supervises legality, validity and substantiality of sentences and other decisions of courts of lower level.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is composed of its Chief Justice, first deputy and deputies of the Chief Justice, the justices of the Court and People’s assessors.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has the following structure:
The Plenum of the Supreme Court.

The Plenum of the Supreme Court on the basis of studies and generalisation of the judicial practice and judicial statistics, provides its guidance to courts on the issues of proper application of the legislation of the Russian Federation.
The Plenum hears reports on the activities of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, reports by the judicial chambers chairmen . It has the right to present the legislative body with presentations on issues subject to be resolved in the legislative order.

The Presidium of the Supreme Court.
Apart from consideration of cases by way of supervision and upon newly discovered evidences, the Presidium of the Supreme Court considers and hears issues relating to the organisation of activities of judicial chambers, examines materials of the studies and generalisation of judicial practice, analyses judicial statistics, assists lower courts in correct application of the legislation.

Judicial chambers.
There are three chambers in the structure of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation: Judicial Chamber on Civil Cases; Judicial Chamber on Criminal Cases; and Military Chamber. Within the limits of their powers they consider cases as courts of first instances; in the order of cassation; by way of supervision and on newly discovered evidence, study and generalise judicial practice, analyse judicial statistics.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is assisted in exercising its powers by several offices, departments and other structural units.
At present the Supreme Court has initiated establishment of the all-Russian system of administrative justice . The appropriate draft of a federal law has already been presented to the State Duma.

Administrative courts.
Competence of administrative courts will include appeals and complaints by citizens against unlawful actions of the officials of different levels, normative acts issued by ministries, departments, President’s decrees , Government decisions, acts promulgated by the Chambers of Parliament, laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation . Besides, administrative courts will consider cases on violations of electoral and some tax laws and disputes between bodies of state power .
The basic aspect of these new courts, according to the main concept, is to make administrative courts independent of the state bodies. That is why it has been decided that their territorial structure will be different from that of courts of general jurisdiction when the courts traditionally are established according to the existing administrative - territorial division of the country

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Communist Party of the Russian Federation


The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Kommunisticheskaya partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii), or CPRF, descended from the short-lived Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (CP RSFSR). This was formed as an anti-perestroika organization within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1990. Boris Yeltsin suspended it for its tacit support of the August 1991 coup and banned it on November 6, 1991. A group of CP RSFSR leaders headed by its First Secretary Valentin Kuptsov successfully achieved the partial repeal of the ban in the Russian Constitutional Court in November 1992, and the party reconstituted itself in February 1993 as the CPRF. Gennady Zyuganov became party chair at the party's refoundation as the candidate most likely to unite differing party trends.
The party was modeled on the template of the CPSU as a communist mass party, from primary party organizations (PPOs) in eighty-eight of Russia's regions, up to a 159-member Central Committee representing divisional leaders, a ruling seventeen-person presidium, and a number of deputy chairmen below Zyuganov. Internally, it operated on a relaxed form of hierarchical Leninist discipline known as "democratic centralism."
The CPRF's financial support incited much controversy. Officially it relied on membership subscriptions
Table 1.
CPRF election results
Election Vote
share Parliamentary
seats
SOURCE
: Courtesy of the author.
Dec. 1993 Duma 12.4 47
Dec. 1995 Duma 22.3 157
1996 presidential
first round (Zyuganov) 32.0 -
1996 presidential
second round (Zyuganov) 40.3 -
Dec. 1999 Duma 24.3 113
2000 presidential (Zyuganov) 29.2

-
and the voluntary work of its membership of some 550,000, but the donations of sympathetic "red businessmen," the material resources of the State Duma, and perhaps even former CPSU funds played a role. Increasingly, as the main opposition party, the CPRF attracted the lobbying of Russia's chief financial-industrial groups such as Gazprom and YUKOS, and, in late 2002, Boris Berezovsky caused a scandal by offering the party material support.
The party's internal composition was no less disputed. Although it was publicly unified, and possessed a consolidated leadership troika based around leader Zyuganov and deputy chairmen Kuptsov (in charge of the party's bureaucracy and finances) and Ivan Melnikov, observers identified horizontal and vertical cleavages throughout the party. In terms of the former, Zyuganov's "statist-patriotic communists," who espoused a Great Russian nationalistic position, were the party trend most influential publicly. "Marxist reformers" such as Kuptsov and Melnikov, who espoused an anti-bureaucratic Marxism, were less visible, owing to their vulnerability to allegations of "Gorbachevism." Much of the party professed the more orthodox communist "Marxist-Leninist modernizer" viewpoint. Moreover, whilst the parliamentary leadership was relatively pragmatic, the party's lower ranks were progressively more inclined to traditionalist militancy.
The CPRF program was adopted in January 1995 and only cosmetically modified thereafter. Though there were many concessions made to Russian cultural exceptionalism, the program committed the party to "developing Marxism-Leninism" and a three-stage transition to a classless society with concessions to parliamentary methods and private ownership seen as temporary. The program was strongly anti-capitalist, promising the socialization of property led by the working class, while also promising the replacement of the 1993 "Yeltsin" constitution with a Soviet-style parliamentary republic, and the "voluntary" resurrection of the USSR. In public proclamations and electoral platforms (usually aimed at alliance with a "national-patriotic bloc"), the party was progressively more moderate, promising a mixed economy, not mentioning programmatic aims such as nationalization, and drawing on populist patriotism and social democracy. The contradictions between public and party faces were controversial within and out-side the party.
The party became a significant electoral force in the 1993 Duma election, and by 1995 its greater visibility and organization, along with a deteriorating socio-economic climate, allowed it to become Russia's leading party and parliamentary group. This was confirmed by regional victories between 1996 and 1997, and by the December 1999 parliamentary elections, although better campaigning by pro-government competitors contributed to a loss of Duma seats. The party mobilized a stable electorate, particularly in the rural southern "red belt," but its inability to appeal to many younger urban voters limited its success. Though leader Zyuganov contested the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections (as a national-patriotic candidate), unfriendly media coverage reinforced this trend.
The CPRF was consistently critical of the post - 1991 political system and governing elite, particularly liberal figures such as Yeltsin. It was an "anti-system" party in its rejection of many post - 1991 political values and institutions, and was often regarded as anti-democratic. However, between 1995 and 1999 it increasingly became a "semi-loyal opposition," selectively supportive of more nationalist or socially orientated policies, notably contributing two ministers to the government of Yevgeny Primakov (September 1998 - May 1999). Its failed 1999 attempt to impeach Yeltsin initiated a decline in influence. It was politically marginalized in Vladimir Putin's first presidential term and in April 2002 suffered a schism. Duma chairman Gennady Seleznyov and his supporters were expelled for forming the competitor socialist movement "Russia," although the CPRF's organizational and electoral support was little affected.

Communist Party of the Russian Federation


It is the second major political party in the Russian Federation. It is sometimes seen as a successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Bolshevik Party. However, its structure and ideologies (such as abandoning atheism) differ radically from the original CPSU.

History of the party


The CPRF is led by Gennady Zyuganov, who co-founded the party in early 1993 with senior Soviet politicians Yegor Ligachev and Anatoly Lukyanov among others. Zyuganov had been the protege of Alexander Yakovlev, the "godfather of glasnost", on the CPSU Central Committee, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 he became active in the Russian "national-patriotic" movement[2][3], being the chairman of the National Salvation Front (some authors call him a nationalist[4]). Early external collaborators included Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin who helped to draft earlier party documents and pushed the party in the direction of nationalism.
A new leftist[citation needed] umbrella movement was formed on the initiative of the CPRF on August 7, 1996. It was called People's Patriotic Union of Russia (NPSR) and consisted of more than 30 left-wing and right-wing nationalist organizations, such as the Russian All-People's Union led by Sergey Baburin. Gennady Zyuganov was its chairman. He was supported by the party as a candidate for Russia's presidency during the 1996 Presidential elections and 2000 Presidential elections. During the presidential elections of 1996, the CPRF was supported by prominent intellectual Aleksandr Zinovyev (a former Soviet dissident who became a supporter of Communism at the time of Perestroika). Another prominent supporter of the CPRF is the physicist Zhores Alferov, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000.
Zyuganov called the 2003 elections a 'revolting spectacle' and accuses the Kremlin of setting up a "Potemkin party," Rodina, to steal its votes.
CPRF's former members include many popular politicians, who seceded after their ambitions on party leading collided with Zyuganov's, who held the stronger support. Gennady Seleznev in 2001, Sergey Glazyev in 2003 and Gennady Semigin in 2004 were the most notable "dissenters". Commentators characterize the dominating Zyuganov wing as nationalist[5] or 'popular-patriotic' (which is often used by the party militants themselves), rather than orthodox Marxist-Leninist. Some observers consider only Richard Kosolapov's minority faction of the CPRF as ideologically communist per se[6].
A minority faction criticised the decision to candidate "millionaires" (such as Sergei Sobko, general director and owner of the TEKHOS company) in the CPRF's lists, which was seen as a contradiction to the Marxist-Leninist and anti-oligarchic policies of the Party.
In July 2004 a breakaway faction elected Vladimir Tikhonov as its leader. The faction later formed the All-Russia Communist Party of the Future. The operation wasn't successful and recently Tikhonov's party has suspended active operations, seeking rapprochement with Zyuganov's side.
CPRF was endorsed by Sergey Baburin's People's Union for the 2007 Russian parliamentary elections. [1]
The Russian Federal Registration Service says that 164,546 voters have registered with the government as members of the CPRF.[7]
The official ideology of the party are Marxism-Leninism, Reform-Communism and patriotism. The party has emphasized its uniquely Russian character and it has consistently invoked Russian patriotism and nationalism in addition to the official Marxism-Leninism of the CPSU.[8] Some CPRF members celebrate the rule of Joseph Stalin

Electoral results

In parliament, after an initial slow start with just 12.4% of vote in the first 1993 parliamentary elections, it grew to 22% in the 1995 parliamentary elections, making it by far the biggest Russian party, raised after that, to 24% in the 1999 elections and then declined dramatically by losing almost half of its votes to 13% in the 2003 parliamentary elections, resulting in 51 out of 450 seats. In the 2007 Russian parliamentary elections the party won 11.6% of the vote, a slight decrease in percentage points, although the election resulted in an increase in the number of votes obtained by the party (more than 8 million votes) and in the number of seats held by the party. The CPRF enjoyed highest support in Tambov Oblast (19.17%), Oryol Oblast (17.58%) and Bryansk Oblast (17.09%). As of 2008 the Communist Party continues to be the second largest party in Russia, as well as the largest opposition party.
In all presidential elections since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Communist candidate came second. In the 1996 elections, candidate Gennady Zyuganov rose to 32% of the votes, just short of Yeltsin's 35%. In the 2000 elections, Zyuganov was the communist candidate, and dropped slightly to 29%, but Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory with 53%. In the presidential election held on 14 March 2004, Putin's support rose to 71% and the Communist Party's candidate, Nikolay Kharitonov, won only 14%. Taking into consideration the fact that Kharitonov (a leading member of the Agrarian Party of Russia) was considered to be a "token" candidate, this was a better result than expected, showing that the CPRF still has a substantial base of support. In the 2008 presidential election, CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov ran again for President, placing second with a surprising 17.8% (13,243,550 votes). Zyuganov even managed to beat United Russia's candidate Dimitry Medvedev in some small villages and towns. After the election, Zyuganov said that his supporters had uncovered numerous violations and that he should have gotten at least 30% of the vote and he added that he would challenge the results in court. Some weeks later, Russia's Central Election Commission admitted that most of the complaints by the CPRF regarding violations during the election were well grounded and justified,[2] but wouldn't have changed the outcome of the vote.
In February 2005 the CPRF managed to beat the ruling pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, in elections to the regional legislature of Nenets Autonomous Okrug, obtaining 27% of the popular vote.
In the Moscow Duma election held on 4 December 2005, the Party won 16.75 % and 4 seats. This was the best ever result for the CPRF in Moscow. In some observers opinion, the absence of the Rodina party contributed to the Communists' success.
On March 11, 2007, elections took place for 14 regional and local legislatures. The CPRF performed very well and increased its votes in most of the territories; it came second in Oryol Oblast (23.78%), Omsk Oblast (22.58%), Pskov Oblast (19.21%) and Samara Oblast (18.87%), Moscow Oblast (18.80%), Murmansk Oblast (17.51%) and Tomsk Oblast (13.37%). [3] These results testify that the CPRF is the most significant opposition party in Russia.
On May 21, 2007, the CPRF obtained an important success in the Volgograd's mayoral election. Communist candidate Roman Grebennikov was elected as mayor with 32.47% of the vote. Grebennikov is the youngest mayor of a regional capital.

Electorate

The CPRF has its stronghold in large cities and major industrial and scientific centers ( the so-called "naukograds" ) and in small towns and cities around Moscow.[10] For example, one of the few polling stations that CPRF were a success during Russian legislative election, 2007, was one at Moscow State University.[11]
The Party's electorate is composed mainly of pensioners, industrial workers and not-for-profit organizations' employees. The past few years have also seen a growth in its support of the leftist youth groups,[citation needed] such as the Vanguard of Red Youth. A representative of CPRF was present at "the Other Russia" conference of opposition parties in 2006. Also recent 2007-2007 elections witnessed a growing number of protesting voters who gave their votes to the Party even though not being left-leaning since they saw no tangible alternative.

Criticism

According to Gorbachev Foundation analyst Dmitry Furman, the party's “fascistoid features are so salient that one has to be blind and deaf not to notice them.″[12] Marxist theoretician Boris Kagarlitsky writes: "It is enough to recall that within the Communist movement itself, Zyuganov's party was at first neither the sole organisation, nor the largest. Bit by bit, however, all other Communist organisations were forced out of political life. This occurred not because the organisations in question were weak, but because it was the CPRF that had received the Kremlin's official approval as the sole recognised opposition."[13] Andrei Brezhnev, grandson of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, has criticised the CPRF's abandonment of atheism and Zyuganov's rapprochement with the Russian Orthodox Church,[14] out of respect to the church unlike the USSR's leaders before Gorbachev's abandonment of religious regulations.


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Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the ruling Party in the Soviet Union and, therefore, its most important political institution. The Party experienced a number of name changes during its history from its foundation in 1898 until the dissolution of the USSR and the banning of the Party in 1991: Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) (March 1898 - March 1918), Russian Communist Party (RCP) (March 1918 - December 1925), All-Union Communist Party (AUCP) (Bolsheviks) (December 1925 - October 1952), and Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) (October 1952 - 1991). There were two chief phases in the Party's life: pre-1917, when it was a revolutionary organization seeking the overthrow of the tsarist regime, and after the October Revolution, when it was the ruling Party.

As Revolutionary Organization

The party formally was founded at a congress in Minsk in March 1898, but because most delegates were arrested soon after, the party did not take on a substantial form until its second congress in Brussels and London in July - August 1903. From the beginning, the party was split on two major dimensions. First, because of the activities of the tsarist police, the party could not be a legal entity within Russia, with the result that most of the leaders remained in exile abroad until 1917 while "undergrounders" worked to build the party structure inside Russia. Contacts between these two groups were not easy, with the principal channels between them being the party press, and irregular Party meetings. The second major split within the Party was divisions among the leaders at the top of the Party structure. Such divisions were frequent occurrences, arising over a combination of personal ambitions and differences over strategy and tactics. The most important of these divisions was between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and began in 1902; despite various attempts to patch it up, the division remained an important factor in Party life until the Mensheviks were banned in 1918.

There was little to distinguish the RSDLP from the range of other parties, cliques, and shadowy organizations that constituted the Russian revolutionary movement at this time. Ultimately what was to differentiate the Party from its competitors and give it an edge in 1917 was the single-mindedness and drive of the person who was generally acknowledged as the leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Ilich Lenin. When the tsarist regime disintegrated in February 1917 and Lenin returned to Russia in April, he set about radicalizing the Party's stance from that which had been established by the underground leaders who had come to the fore in his absence, including Josef Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Vyacheslav Molotov. This culminated in the decision in September by the Party's Central Committee to seize power. This they did in October. While the decision to seize power was supported by large numbers of rank-and-file Party members and supporters, it was also opposed by significant elements within the party, including among its leaders (Grigory Zinoviev and Kamenev). The Party was not a tightly disciplined instrument of revolution, but a much looser organization that was able to take advantage of the chaotic conditions late in 1917 to seize power in the capital. Local Party organizations set about replicating this feat throughout the country, but their rule was not to be secure for some years.

As Ruling Party

Having claimed power, the Party now set about consolidating it. In its first three years, the Party banned all other political parties, thereby instituting the single-party state; eliminated independent press organs; sought to institute a radical economic policy (war communism), which would have abolished the basis of independent economic activity; and, principally through the civil war, expanded the geographical area under its control. The failure of war communism forced the Party into a concession, the New Economic Policy, which in turn was replaced by the high-level centralization of economic life through agricultural collectivization and forced pace industrialization beginning in the late 1920s. Throughout this period, too, discipline was consolidated within the party.

In the early years of its rule, the Party was characterized by a continuation of the division and differences within the elite that had been characteristic of the prepower period. All aspects of the Party's life came under vigorous debate within leading Party circles. However, during Vladimir Lenin's lifetime, all of these debates ended with the victory of the position that he espoused. Following his death, the maneuvering between different groups of Party leaders for the succession saw conflict between a group around Stalin and, successively, Leon Trotsky, the Left Opposition, the United Opposition, and the Right Opposition. In all cases, Stalin and his supporters were victorious. With the defeat of the Right Opposition in 1929, Stalin emerged as Party leader. He consolidated his position during the 1930s, especially through the Terror of 1936 to 1938, emerging as the vozhd, or unquestioned leader of the party and the people. This process of a shift from the collective leadership of the Lenin years to the personal dictatorship of Stalin had direct implications for the Party. In the initial years of power, leading Party organs were real arenas of debate and conflict, and although Lenin manipulated Party organs, the principal basis upon which he was victorious in inner-party conflict was his ability to persuade sufficient members to support the position he advocated. With Stalin's personal dictatorship, party organs ceased to be the scene of open political debate and instead became stylized assemblies for the laudation of Stalin. While this was not as much the case at the level of the Politburo, even here the cut and thrust of debate was blunted by the personal dominance of Stalin. In this sense, the party's leading organs were in danger of atrophying.

This process of a shift from a situation in which open conflict and debate was the norm to one in which adherence to strict orthodoxy and the absence of public debate prevailed has been the subject of much debate among scholars. The orthodoxy was for long the view that the emergence of Stalin and the assertion of his personal control was a direct, some even said inevitable, result of the organizational principles and practices that stemmed from Lenin. Lenin was seen to have established a highly authoritarian political structure, said to be symbolized by the principles contained in his 1901 pamphlet entitled "What Is to Be Done?" and the resolution of the Tenth Congress in 1921, entitled "On Party Unity," which closed down discussion and made personal dictatorship highly likely. Alternatively, others argue that a Stalin figure was not inevitable, that there were a number of other possible lines of development available to the party, and that a series of conjunctural developments (including the personality of Stalin) were central to the outcome that emerged. Certainly the authoritarian legacy left by Lenin may have increased the chances of such an outcome, especially in a situation of danger and underdevelopment like that faced by the Bolsheviks, but it was not inevitable. The balance of opinion now favors the second position.

Under Stalin, the party's leading organs were not active bodies; they met when he decided they would meet rather than according to a set timetable, and they exercised little independent initiative. During World War II, important decisions were more often made in the State Defense Committee than in Party bodies, and in the initial seven years of the postwar period, informal groups of leaders organized by Stalin dominated national policy making. When Stalin died, the Party's leading organs became rejuvenated, and for the remainder of the life of the Party, generally they met as scheduled and made most important decisions. At no time during these last almost four decades were these institutions arenas of public contestation, although the publication of some of the Central Committee proceedings under Khrushchev and Gorbachev did provide some sense that there were real differences being aired in some Party forums at some times. Particularly under Gorbachev, and especially from the beginning of 1987, leading Party bodies were often the scene of significant differences of opinion within the elite, with the result that, at least in this regard, leading elite organs returned to something like their Leninist forebears. The return to this situation of a divided elite playing out some of their politics in the leading organs of the Party was one factor contributing to the demise of the USSR and, with it, the CPSU.

Following the attempted putsch in 1991, which discredited the Party even more widely in the people's eyes than it had been in the years leading up to it (see below), General Secretary Gorbachev resigned from the Party and Russian president Boris Yeltsin banned it on the territory of Russia. Although this blanket ban was later overturned in the Constitutional Court, the reversal could not save the CPSU; it was, however, a life giver to the Party's chief successor, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Party Structure

The lowest level of Party organization was the Primary Party organization (PPO), until 1934 called a cell. This was the body that every party member joined. Such an organization had to be established in any institution where there were three Communist Party members. Consequently there were PPOs organized in every institution in the USSR; every factory, farm, university, school, shop, organizational division in the armed forces had their own PPO comprising the members of the Party who worked in that institution. The PPO was thus the principal representative of the Party throughout the institutional structure of the USSR. The structure of the PPO differed depending upon the size, but all PPOs were to meet regularly and involve the Party membership in Party and public life. In 1986, there were 440,363 PPOs.

Above the PPO, the Party structure followed the administrative structure of the Soviet state. Each republic of the USSR had its own republican-level Party organization, except the RSFSR, which, until 1990, was served by the national Soviet-level. Between the republican and PPO levels, there was a hierarchy of Party organizations shadowing the administrative divisions of the country (e.g., region, city, district). At each of these levels there was an assembly, called a conference (congress at the republican level), with the membership notionally elected by the assembly of the level next down; district bodies were elected by the PPOs. The conference at each level would meet at set times, designed to enable it to elect delegates to the conference at the next level. The timing of these was thus set at the national level by the regularity of national congresses. At each level, the conference/congress would elect a committee that, in turn, would elect a bureau. This structure was also to be found at the national, Soviet level.

At the national level, the congress was held annually until the mid-1920s, at which time the frequency and regularity decreased; there were congresses in 1930, 1934, 1939, and 1952. From the Twenty-Second Congress in 1961, congresses occurred every five years. During the early period Party conferences were also often held. These were national-level meetings, usually smaller and with less authority than the congress, but they, too, became much less frequent after the 1920s; the eighteenth conference was held in 1941 and the nineteenth in 1988. The congress was formally the sovereign body of the Party. It adopted resolutions that constituted the Party's policy on particular issues, and it elected its executive body, the Central Committee (CC), to run the Party in the period between congresses. It also formed the central auditing apparatus, responsible for keeping a check on Party finances and procedures, and until 1939 the Party control apparatus, which exercised disciplinary functions. In practice, after the 1920s the congress was too big to debate issues (there were some five thousand delegates at the last, the Twenty-Eighth Congress held in 1990) and in any case that was not its function. Under Stalin it had been transformed from an assembly in which vigorous debate occurred into a tame body that did little except hear reports and ritually vote to confirm them. Even the voting for membership of the CC was nothing more than ratifying a list handed down by the leadership.

The CC began as a relatively small body. In 1922, there were twenty-seven full and nineteen candidate members, but by 1986 this had grown to 307 full and 170 candidate members, so this body, too, became too big to act as an effective forum for the discussion of ideas, although like the congress, discussion was no longer its function after Stalin gained power. Generally CC plena were held twice per year, with each meeting devoted to a particular area of concern, such as agriculture, ideology, industrial development, education, and so forth. The proceedings were stylized and standardized, with usually the Party general secretary presenting a keynote report and then other speakers presenting set-piece speeches. There was no real debate, merely a presentation of views that rarely provided evidence of much difference between the speakers, or at least of much difference from the position taken by the general secretary. This model was, however, disrupted under Gorbachev when, particularly toward the end of the period, such meetings could see quite significant criticism of the general secretary and the course he was following. The CC formed a series of standing executive organs: the Politburo, Secretariat, until 1952 the Orgburo, and from 1939 the central control apparatus; from 1966, the CC formally elected the general secretary. As with the congress election of the CC, election of these bodies simply constituted the formal ratification of lists of candidates passed down by the leadership. Membership of the CC was of two sorts: full and candidate, with the former having the vote while the latter did not.

The most important of the bodies elected by the CC were the Politburo (1952 - 1966 the Presidium) and the Secretariat. Simply put, these were respectively the political decision-making center of the Party and the organization that was meant to ensure that those decisions were carried out. The Politburo was a small body, divided like the CC into full and candidate members. It generally had up to twenty members, although nonmembers were often present when something pertaining to their area of responsibility was being discussed. The Politburo met weekly and was the body in which all of the most important decisions were meant to be made. The CC also elected people called CC secretaries who, collectively, formed the Secretariat. Each secretary had a particular sphere of responsibility, and to assist them in this task they had at their disposal departments of varying sizes. These departments were organized not only so that they could administer the Party's internal affairs (e.g., departments for personnel and ideology), but also so that they could shadow the Soviet government; so, for example, there could be departments for agriculture, industry, and foreign affairs. The personnel within those departments constituted the central machinery of the Party. Some secretaries were generally members of the Politburo, and the leading secretary, the general secretary (1953 - 1966 the first secretary), was acknowledged as the leader of the Party.

It is clear from the above that the electoral principle was central to the Party's formal procedures with each level being elected by those below. However in practice, electoral democracy was little more than a formality throughout most of the Party's life. From early in the Party's life, this principle was undermined by what was to become the chief power axis in the Party, the nomenklatura system. The nomenklatura was first regularized in 1923. Its essence was a list of responsible positions that needed to be filled and another list (or lists) of names of people who were thought to be competent to fill them. Committees at each level of the Party had their own list of positions to be filled and people who could fill them, but by far the biggest list and the one containing all of the crucial positions was lodged in the Party's central organs. Originally justified as a way of ensuring competence and loyalty in the uncertain times of the regime's early years, under Stalin's control it became a weapon of political conflict, enabling him to fill Party bodies with his supporters. This sort of political loyalty remained a consideration in the operation of the nomenklatura throughout its life, but in terms of running the Party, its importance lay in the power it gave to the leadership to fill positions throughout the structure with people acceptable to them. Thus, when elective positions had to be filled, the nomination would come down from above and Party members would ratify it. Only under Gorbachev was there an attempt to change this system and introduce real competition for Party posts, although even then the changes he sought to make had their limitations.

This power over personnel, and therefore power over people's careers, was a crucial mechanism for maintaining loyalty and orthodoxy and for discouraging heterodox and independent thought. It was consistent with the principle that, from 1906, officially governed discussion in the Party, "democratic centralism." Democratic centralism as originally envisaged provided for full and free discussion of an issue until a decision was reached, and then all were expected to fall in behind that decision and support it regardless of their own personal views about it. The problem with this principle is that, in a situation like the mid-late 1920s where the political leadership was keen to close down discussion, it could announce a decision and then invoke the principle to prevent any debate from taking place. This could be backed up by the exercise of Party discipline. Party members found guilty of breaching Party rules were subject to discipline procedures that could include expulsion from the Party and, in the 1930s, loss of life. In the Soviet Union expulsion from the Party was a significant penalty because it could lead to the person losing his job and housing, making it very difficult to survive.

Formally the Party was governed by a set of rules. These rules prescribed the formal structures and processes of Party life. They were adopted by Party congresses and constituted the effective constitution of the Party. Over the Party's life the rules were changed and modified on a large number of occasions, and although they were an expression of the formal rather than the actual way in which the Party worked, they were not a complete fiction. They did prescribe the rhythms of Party life, when congresses were to be held and so forth, and for much of the Party's existence these formal aspects were adhered to. But the rules do not give an accurate picture of the internal dynamics of the Party; they were formal and legitimizing rather than normative.

Party Ideology

The Party was formally guided by an ideology, a structure of ideas that purports to explain the course of historical development and thereby gives the follower the capacity to make decisions consistent with that understanding. This is a basis for legitimacy since it constitutes the claim to be able to make appropriate decisions for the furtherance of the common aim. Arising from Marxism, which constituted the core of the Soviet ideological belief system, that aim was the achievement of communism. Thus the Party seized power in 1917 in the name of achieving the communist utopia. During its life, the Party continually based itself on its claimed adherence to those ideological tenets, variously called Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, and Leninism at different times. The content of that ideology also underwent modification and change over time. The role of ideology is complex. Ideally it should enthuse its believers and persuade them to commit to the achievement of the ultimate ends, and there clearly were very many people for whom the ideology acted in this way. However, there were also many less enthusiastic members, and their numbers grew markedly during the last three decades of the regime's life. These people were cynical of the ideology and its claims, and rather than being true believers hid their lack of belief in a stance of public commitment. For the Soviet system, the ideology was central to its own conception of legitimacy, and for this to remain unimpaired it was important that even if people did not believe, they should not be able openly to proclaim this. This is one of the major reasons why all dissent was harshly dealt with.

The ideology was related to the Party's activities through the Party program. This was a document that purported to lay out the long-term aims of the Party. Party programs were adopted in 1919, 1961, and 1986; the attempt to adopt a new program in 1990 failed because there was too much disagreement, although a draft was adopted for discussion by the CC in June 1991 just before the attempted coup. The 1961 program, adopted at the height of Khrushchev's enthusiasm for the great leap into communism, was the most optimistic of these documents, envisaging the imminent approach of communism within the USSR. But all programs should be seen much more as a set of ideals rather than a specific guide to policy, because in none of them was there a clear indication of policy lines that the political leadership then followed. But the programs were an important stone in the basis of the Party's ideologically based quest for legitimacy.

Party Functions

According to the 1977 State Constitution, the Party was the "leading and guiding force" of Soviet society, and it, in fact, played this role from the founding of the Soviet state in 1917. In essence, this meant that the Party was the institution in which all major decisions about all aspects of life were to be made. In theory, this is why there were Party bodies in all collectives within Soviet society and why the Party shadowed the state structure at all levels; if an issue was coming up in a non-Party body, the corresponding Party organ could meet and make a decision that its members, subject to Party discipline and therefore bound to implement that decision, could carry into the non-Party forum. However, in practice, because at all levels all of the chief figures were Party members, separate Party and non-Party meetings were not always needed. Party members were the dominant figures, and, through them, the Party dominated the decision-making process.

This was most important at the central level, where the Party Politburo was the chief decisionmaking body in the country. It made decisions on all of the major issues of national policy, and, as a result of Party discipline, these decisions were carried forward by Party members at all levels in the institutions within which they worked. In this way, the Party constituted not just the chief decision-making organization, but also the major means of ensuring the enforcement of central decisions. The Party played a crucial role in the way the system as a whole functioned; as both a decision-making organ and the organization that was ultimately responsible for ensuring that policy was carried out by state and other organizations, it was the key to the way the system functioned.

The omnipresence of Party organizations also enabled it to exercise significant control functions throughout society. Through its members, the Party was able to maintain a watching brief on what went on in all parts of Soviet society. One of the tasks of Party members, more important in the early years than later, was to act as the Party's eyes and ears to ensure that any manifestations of oppositionist sentiment were nipped in the bud. The reverse side of this control function was that of education. In principle, this remained a key responsibility of Party organizations and members at all levels, the education of non-Party members in the ethos of the Party and the principles for which it stood. Ideally Party members and organizations were meant to proselytize the Party's ideology and its message, but more realistically they were expected to act as models of appropriate behavior to their non-Party peers. In this sense, the Party was a major educative actor in Soviet society, projecting an idealized image of how good communists should behave and thereby playing a part in the socialization of the Soviet populace with the accepted values.

The all-pervasive nature of the Party plus the highly centralized personnel system means that the Party was the most important element in the staffing of the whole Soviet system. The nomenklatura extended not simply to Party posts, but to all of the leading posts in all of the major institutions of the society. In other words, Party bodies determined who would fill the leading posts in all parts of the Soviet system. The Party was therefore the single most important determinant of the filling of all offices throughout the Soviet Union. In this way the Party not only controlled the filling of office, but was also the primary agent of recruitment in the USSR; no one could gain leading office without approval at higher levels of the Party.

It is clear that the Party was the leading institution in the USSR: it made the most important decisions, it ensured that those decisions were carried out, it selected all leading office-bearers, and it played a significant educational/socialization role in the society. Its control was not complete, because it could never overcome both personal idiosyncrasy and the constraints stemming from the combination of large distances and communication deficiencies, but it was probably the most extensive experienced in any political system.

Party Membership

The Party was never a body that one could join at a whim; members had to be nominated, their backgrounds checked and, once they had been admitted, serve a candidate stage before being accepted into full membership. In the early years, class background was crucial for entry, but from 1939 the formal preference given to members of the working class was dropped and people were admitted regardless of the class to which they belonged; from 1961, the Party was officially a Party of "all the people." Members were always a minority within Soviet society. In 1986, before membership began to plummet in the late 1980s, there were 18,309,693 full and 728,253 candidate members, constituting9.7 percent of the adult population. The Party remained heavily male; in 1986 only 28.8 percent of members were women. Members were subject to Party discipline, had to attend regular Party meetings, obey all Party instructions, pay membership dues, and continually conduct themselves according to the rules of the Party and the principles of what it meant to be a good communist. While the tasks were not onerous for non-office bearers, at various times they did impinge on individuals' lives. This was especially the case if someone became subject to Party discipline, when such an entry on someone's personnel file could have significant future consequences for career advancement; being expelled from the Party was worse than never having been a member.

Party members generally gained few advantages over non-Party citizens. Officeholders were more fortunate in this regard. Just as there was a graduated scale of the power to fill office, there was a similar scale regarding access to privileges and to goods that were not widely available. In a deficit economy like that of the Soviet Union, access to scarce goods was a real bonus, and those who held official positions gained such access. The level and range of availability differed according to the level of position one occupied, but because all of the leading positions were determined by the Party, it was the Party that determined who got access to such goods. The Party was thus the key to access to privilege in the Soviet Union.

Party Funding

Officially, the Party was funded through the membership dues that all members paid and the revenues generated by sale of the Party's publications. However it is clear that, from the time of the Party's ascension to power, such dues were substantially supplemented by funds from the state. The amount of money that was transferred across in this way in unclear, but it was substantial. The Party owned property in all cities and towns in the Soviet Union, paid salaries to its employees, funded a range of publications, made provision for its own daily functioning, and funded sister parties and movements abroad. The annual budget far exceeded the amount of money brought in through fees and publications. The difference was covered by money obtained from the state. As the Soviet Union fell during the late 1980s to the early 1990s, much of this money was secreted abroad, its whereabouts as uncertain as the dimensions of the Party's real annual budget.

The Party's financial dependence on the state and the way in which it was intertwined with the state at all levels led many to argue that it was not really a political party but more a state organ. There is much to this argument, but it was neither coterminous with the state nor reducible to it. It was the first of the sort of organization that became common during the twentieth century, the ruling single party. As such, the CPSU was the prototype for which many would emulate.


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