General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party



General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Генеральный секретарь ЦК КПСС) was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union. Throughout its history the office had four other names; Technical Secretary (1917–1918), Chairman of the Secretariat (1918–1919), Responsible Secretary (1919–1922) and First Secretary (1953–1966). Joseph Stalin elevated the office to overall command of the Communist Party and by extension the whole Soviet Union.[1] {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents
[hide] *1 History of the office
 * 2 List of General Secretaries
 * 3 See also
 * 4 Notes
 * 5 Bibliography
 * }

[edit] History of the office
In its first two incarnations the office performed mostly secretarial work. The post of Responsible Secretary was then established in 1919 to perform administrative work..[2] In 1922 the office of General Secretary followed as a purely administrative and disciplinary position, whose role was to do no more than determine party membership composition. Stalin, its first incumbent, used the principles of democratic centralism to transform his office into that of party leader, and later leader of the Soviet Union.[1] In 1934, the 17th Party Congress did not elect a General Secretary and Stalin was an ordinary secretary until his death in 1953, although he remained the de facto leader without diminishing his own authority.[3]

In order to test Georgy Malenkov as a potential successor, in the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to him.[4] In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's leadership and formally abolished the office of General Secretary.[5] When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov was the most important member of the Secretariat, which also included Nikita Khrushchev among others. Malenkov became Chairman of the Council of Ministers but was forced to resign from the Secretariat on 14 March 1953, leaving Khrushchev in effective control of the body.[6] Khrushchev was elected First Secretary at the Central Committee plenum on 14 September 1953. Originally conceived as a collective leadership, Khrushchev removed his rivals from power in both 1955 and 1957 and reinforced the supremacy of the First Secretary.[7]

In 1964 opposition within the Politburo and the Central Committee led to Khrushchev's removal as First Secretary. Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khrushchev to the post and the office was renamed General Secretary in 1966.[8] During the Brezhnev Era the collective leadership was able to limit the powers of the General Secretary.[9] Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were obliged by protocol to rule the country in the same way as Brezhnev had.[10] Mikhail Gorbachev ruled the Soviet Union through the office of General Secretary until 1990, when the Communist Party lost its monopoly of power over the political system. The office of President of the Soviet Union was established so that Gorbachev still retained his role as leader of the Soviet Union.[11] Following the failed August coup of 1991, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary.[12] He was succeeded by his deputy, Vladimir Ivashko, who only served for five days as Acting General Secretary before Boris Yeltsin, the President of Russia, suspended all Communist Party activity.[13] Following the party's bann, the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP–CPSU) was established by Oleg Shenin in 1993. The UCP–CPSU works as a framework for reviving and restoring the CPSU. The organisation has members in all the former Soviet republics.[14] Its current leader is Gennady Zyuganov, the current First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.[15]

[edit] See also

 * Communist Party of the Soviet Union

[edit] Notes

 * 1) ^ a b Merle & Hough 1979, pp. 142–146.
 * 2) ^ a b Merle & Hough 1979, p. 126.
 * 3) ^ "Secretariat, Orgburo, Politburo and Presidium of the CC of the CPSU in 1919–1990 – Izvestia of the CC of the CPSU." (in Russian). 7 November 1990. http://vivovoco.rsl.ru/VV/PAPERS/HISTORY/KPSS/HISTORY.HTM#1924. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
 * 4) ^ Z. Medvedev & R. Medvedev 2006, p. 40.
 * 5) ^ a b Brown 2009, pp. 231–232.
 * 6) ^ Ra'anan 2006, pp. 29–31.
 * 7) ^ Ra'anan 2006, p. 58.
 * 8) ^ a b Service 2009, p. 378.
 * 9) ^ a b McCauley 1997, p. 48.
 * 10) ^ a b c Baylis 1989, p. 98.
 * 11) ^ a b Kort 2010, p. 394.
 * 12) ^ a b Radetsky 2007, p. 219.
 * 13) ^ a b McCauley 1997, p. 105.
 * 14) ^ Backes & Moreau 2008, p. 415.
 * 15) ^ March 2002, p. xx.
 * 16) ^ a b McCauley 1997, p. 117.
 * 17) ^ Clements 1997, p. 140.
 * 18) ^ Fairfax 1999, p. 36.
 * 19) ^ Williamson 2007, p. 42.
 * 20) ^ Zemtsov 2001, p. 132.
 * 21) ^ Noonan 2001, p. 183.
 * 22) ^ Rogovin 2001, p. 38.
 * 23) ^ Phillips & 2001 20.
 * 24) ^ Grill 2002, p. 72.
 * 25) ^ Brown 2009, p. 59.
 * 26) ^ Rappaport 1999, pp. 95–96.
 * 27) ^ Ulam 2007, p. 734.
 * 28) ^ Taubman 2003, p. 258.
 * 29) ^ Ra'anan 2006, p. 69.
 * 30) ^ a b c Chubarov 2003, p. 60.
 * 31) ^ Brown 2009, p. 403.
 * 32) ^ Baylis 1989, pp. 98–99 & 104.
 * 33) ^ Nikolaevna & 1994 218.
 * 34) ^ White 2000, p. 211.
 * 35) ^ Service 2009, pp. 433–435.
 * 36) ^ Service 2009, p. 435.
 * 37) ^ McCauley 1998, p. 314.

[edit] Bibliography

 * Backes, Uwe; Moreau, Patrick (2008). Communist and Post-Communist Parties in Europe. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-36912-8.
 * Baylis, Thomas A. (1989). Governing by Committee: Collegial Leadership in Advanced Societies. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-88706-944-4.
 * Brown, Archie (2009). The Rise & Fall of Communism. Bodley Head. ISBN 978-0061138799.
 * Chubarov, Alexander (2003). Russia's Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and post-Soviet Eras. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0826413505.
 * Clements, Barbara Evans (1997). Bolshevik Women. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521599207.
 * Fainsod, Merle; Hough, Jerry F. (1979). How the Soviet Union is Governed. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674410305.
 * Fairfax, Kaithy (1999). Comrades in Arms: Bolshevik Women in the Russian Revolution. Resistance Books. ISBN 090919694X.
 * Grill, Graeme (2002). The Origins of the Stalinist Political System. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521529365.
 * March, Luke (2002). The Communist Party In Post-Soviet Russia. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6044-1.
 * Kort, Michael (2010). The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-2387-4.
 * McCauley, Martin (1998). Gorbachev. Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0582437586.
 * McCauley, Martin (1997). Who's who in Russia since 1900. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13898-1.
 * Medvedev, Zhores; Medvedev, Roy (2006). The Unknown Stalin. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1585675029.
 * Nikolaevna Vasilʹeva, Larisa (1994). Kremlin Wives. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1559702607.
 * Noonan, Norma (2001). Encyclopedia of Russian Women's Movements. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0313304385.
 * Phillips, Steve (2001). The Cold War: conflict in Europe and Asia. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0435327361.
 * Ra'anan, Uri (2006). Flawed Succession: Russia's Power Transfer Crises. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0739114025.
 * Radetsky, Peter (2007). The Soviet Image: A Hundred Years of Photographs from Inside the TASS Archives. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0811857987.
 * Rappaport, Helen (1999). Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1576070840.
 * Rogovin, Vadim (2001). Stalin's Terror of 1937–1938: Political Genocide in the USSR. Mehring Books. ISBN 978-1893638082.
 * Service, Robert (2009). History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0674034938.
 * Taubman, William (2003). Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393051445.
 * Ulam, Adam (2007). Stalin: The Man and His Era. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. p. 734. ISBN 978-1-84511-422-0.
 * White, Stephen (2000). Russia's New Politics: The Management of a Postcommunist Society. Cambridge University Press. ASIN B003QI0DQE.
 * Williamson, D.G. (2007). The Age of the Dictators: A Study of the European Dictatorships, 1918–53 (1st ed.). Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0582505803.
 * Zemtsov, Ilya (2001). Encyclopedia of Soviet Life. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0887383502.