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Soviet Union [USSR] PRIMARY PARTY ORGANIZATION
In 1987 primary party organizations (PPOs) numbered 441,851.
The PPO was the lowest rung on the party's organizational ladder.
(PPOs were called party cells until 1934.) One existed in every
factory, office, collective farm, military unit, and education
institution having more than three party members (see table 22,
Appendix A). According to the Party Rules, the highest organ
of the PPO was the party meeting, which comprised all party members
in a given work unit. PPOs having more than fifty members could be
divided into groups led by steering committees. Party meetings
generally convened at least once a month, although the interim
could be longer for PPOs having more than 300 members. The party
meetings elected a bureau of two or three persons to supervise the
affairs of the PPO. The secretary of the PPO, nominally elected by
the party meeting but actually appointed by the next highest party
organization, managed the work of the PPO and was a full-time,
salaried member of the party.
The PPO performed many important tasks. It admitted new members
into the party; apprised rank-and-file party members of their
duties, obligations, and rights within the party; organized
agitation and propaganda sessions to educate party members in the
ideology of Marxism-Leninism; stimulated productivity in the
enterprise; encouraged efficiency and effectiveness of production
methods and innovation; and disciplined party members for
dereliction of their duties. An enumeration of the activities of
the PPO only begins to suggest the importance of this organization
to the party. For several reasons, the PPO was an important factor
underlying the party's control over society. The PPO possessed what
was known as the right of verification (pravo kontrolia),
checking how managers met the demands of their position and how
faithfully they implemented the plan for their enterprise. This
power led to the PPO secretary's involvement in the day-to-day
affairs of the enterprise. Moreover, factory managers or chairmen
of collective farms, as well as chiefs of the enterprise trade
unions normally were party members; consequently, they were bound
by democratic centralism to follow the orders and suggestions of
their party leader, the PPO secretary. Thus, the PPO secretary and
not the manager carried primary responsibility to the party for the
work of the enterprise.
The PPO itself was also critical to the implementation of the
economic plan. The state devised its economic plan on the basis of
party requirements. The government implemented the party's plan,
and therefore the norms of democratic centralism obligated the PPOs
to enforce it. At the enterprise level, the principal activity of
the PPO secretary and of all party members was to stimulate
production. Party members had to set an example with their work and
encourage nonmembers to fulfill their production quotas and improve
their labor productivity.
The PPO not only conveyed party policies to nonmembers in the
enterprise but also apprised the party hierarchy of the mood of the
masses and prevented the formation of groups to promote grass-roots
change. Rank-and-file party members were scattered throughout the
Soviet Union. Party members had hands-on experience in their jobs
and knew nonparty members personally. Because of this intimate
knowledge of their surroundings, party members were in a position
to inform their superiors about the concerns and problems of people
in all walks of life. With this knowledge, the party could take
steps to stem potential sources of unrest, to institute new methods
of control, and, more generally, to tailor its policies toward the
maintenance of the population's political quiescence.
Data as of May 1989
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