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Soviet Union [USSR] Chapter 7. The Communist Party
THE COMMUNIST PARTY of the Soviet Union (CPSU) governs the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union). In 1917 the party
seized power in Russia as the vanguard of the working class, and it
has continued throughout the Soviet period to rule in the name of
the proletariat. The party seeks to lead the Soviet people to
communism, defined by Karl Marx as a classless society that
contains limitless possibilities for human achievement. Toward this
end, the party has sought to effect a cultural revolution and
create a "new Soviet man" bound by the strictures of a higher,
socialist morality.
The party's goals require that it control all aspects of Soviet
government and society in order to infuse political, economic, and
social policies with the correct ideological content. Vladimir I.
Lenin, the founder of the
Bolshevik (see Glossary) party and the
leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, justified these controls. Lenin
formed a party of professional revolutionaries to effect a
proletarian revolution in Russia. In the late 1980s, however, the
party no longer sought to transform society and was apparently
attempting to withdraw itself from day-to-day economic decisions.
Nevertheless, it continued to exert control through professional
management. Members of the party bureaucracy are full-time, paid
officials. Other party members hold full-time positions in
government, industry, education, the armed forces, and elsewhere.
In addition, Lenin argued that the party alone possesses the
correct understanding of Marxist ideology. Thus, state policies
that lack an ideological foundation threaten to retard society's
advance toward communism. Hence, only policies sanctioned by the
party can contribute to this goal. Lenin's position justifies party
jurisdiction over the state. The CPSU enforces its authority over
state bodies from the
all-union (see Glossary) level to that of the
district and town. In the office, factory, and collective farm, the
party has established its primary party organizations (PPOs) to
carry out its directives.
The role of ideology in the political system and the party's
efforts to enforce controls on society demonstrate the party
leadership's continuing efforts to forge unity in the party as well
as among the Soviet people. Democratic centralism, the method of
intraparty decision making, directs lower party bodies
unconditionally to execute the decisions of higher party bodies.
Party forums from the town and district levels up to the Central
Committee bring together party, government, trade union, and
economic elites to create a desired consensus among policymakers.
Party training, particularly for officials of the CPSU's permanent
bureaucracy, shapes a common understanding of problems and apprises
students of the party's current approaches to ideology, foreign
affairs, and domestic policy. Party training efforts demand
particular attention because of the varied national, class, and
educational experiences of CPSU members.
The party exercises authority over the government and society
in several ways. The CPSU has acquired legitimacy for its rule;
that is, the people acknowledge the party's right to govern them.
This legitimacy derives from the party's incorporation of elites
from all parts of society into its ranks, the party's depiction of
itself as the representative of the forces for progress in the
world, and the party's postulated goal of creating a full communist
society. Paradoxically, the party's legitimacy is enhanced by the
inclusion of certain prerevolutionary Russian traditions into its
political style, which provides a sense of continuity with the
past. A different source of authority lies in the power of PPO
secretaries to implement party policies on the lowest rungs of the
Soviet economy. The CPSU obligates members participating in
nonparty organizations to meet regularly and ensure that their
organizations fulfill the directives the party has set for them.
Finally, as part of the nomenklatura system, the party
retains appointment power for influential positions at all levels
of the government hierarchy (higher party bodies hold this power
over lower party bodies as well). Taken together, the legitimacy
accorded to it and the prerogatives it possesses enable the party
to perform its leading role within the Soviet political system.
Data as of May 1989
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