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Soviet Union [USSR] Politburo
Two weeks before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the
Bolshevik leadership formed the Politburo as a means to further
centralize decision making and to permit effective adaptation of
party policies to rapidly changing circumstances. Since the
Bolshevik Revolution, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the
CPSU has consisted of the highest party and government officials in
the Soviet Union. Despite the importance of this body, only a small
amount of space was devoted to it in the Party Rules, which
noted only that the Central Committee chose the Politburo for
"leadership of the work of the party between plenums of the Central
Committee." The Politburo formed the highest decision- making body
in the Soviet Union. Its full and candidate members served on the
Politburo by virtue of their party or government positions.
The Politburo was a standing subcommittee of the Central
Committee. Like the Central Committee, the Politburo was composed
of full and candidate (nonvoting) members. The Party Rules
neither specified the size of the Politburo nor mentioned candidate
status.
Four general career patterns determined accession to membership
in the Politburo. Officials of the central party apparatus could
rise within that hierarchy to acquire a position that led to a seat
on the Secretariat. In 1989 several secretaries of the Central
Committee sat on the Politburo. Other officials, such as Mikhail A.
Suslov (the party's leading ideologist under Brezhnev) and
Aleksandr Iakovlev, who also made his career in ideology, attained
membership in the Politburo because of their expertise. The
technical or economic specialist was a third pattern. For example,
Nikolai Sliun'kov probably was brought into the Politburo because
of his expertise in economic administration. Finally, a successful
career in the provinces often led to a call to Moscow and a career
in the central apparatus. Volodymyr Shcherbyts'kyy exemplified this
career pattern.
Several interlocking trends have characterized the Politburo
since Stalin's death in 1953. Membership in the Politburo has
become increasingly representative of important functional and
territorial interests. Before 1953 the party leadership
concentrated on building the economic, social, and political bases
for a socialist society. In the post-Stalin period the leadership
has sought instead to manage society and contain social change.
Management of society required a division of labor within the
Politburo and the admission of people with specialized expertise.
Stalin kept the lines of responsibility ambiguous, and he tightly
controlled the kinds of information his comrades on the Politburo
received. Since 1953 Politburo members have had greater access to
information and hence more opportunity to develop consistent policy
positions. Because the party leadership eliminated violence as an
instrument of elite politics and restrained the secret police after
Stalin's death, Politburo members began advancing policy positions
without fear of losing their seats on this body, or even their
lives, if they found themselves on the wrong side of the policy
debate.
Data as of May 1989
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