Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union


The organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was based on the principles of democratic centralism.
The governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the Party Congress, which initially met annually but whose meetings became less frequent, particularly under Joseph Stalin. Party Congresses would elect a Central Committee which, in turn, would elect a Politburo and a Secretariat. Under Stalin, the most powerful position in the party became the General Secretary, who was elected by the Politburo and Secretariat. In 1952 the Politburo became the Presidium.
In theory, supreme power in the party was invested in the Party Congress. However, in practice the power structure became reversed and, particularly after the death of Lenin in January 1924, supreme power became the domain of the General Secretary.

Higher levels

In the late Soviet Union the CPSU incorporated the communist parties of the 15 constituent republics. Before 1990 the communist party organization in Russian oblasts, autonomous republics and some other major administrative units were subordinated directly to the CPSU Central Committee.

Lower levels

At lower levels, the organizational hierarchy was managed by Party Committees, or partkoms. A partkom was headed by the elected "partkom bureau secretary". At enterprises, institutions, kolkhozes, etc., they were called as such, i.e., "partkoms". At higher levels the Committees were abbreviated accordingly: obkoms at oblast levels, raikoms at raion levels, gorkom at city levels, etc.
The same terminology was used in the organizational structure of Komsomol.
The bottom level of the Party was the primary party organization or party cell. It was created within any organizational entity of any kind where there were at least three communists. The management of a cell was called party bureau/partbureau. A partbureau was headed by the elected bureau secretary.
At smaller party cells, secretaries were regular employees of the corresponding plant/hospital/school/etc. Sufficiently large party organizations were usually headed by an exempt secretary, who drew his salary from the Party money.

Main offices