| General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | |
|---|---|
| Генеральный секретарь ЦК КПСС | |
 Emblem of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | |
| Central Committee of the Communist Party | |
| Style | ComradeGeneral Secretary (informal) |
| Type | Party leader |
| Status | Country leader |
| Member of | andSecretariat |
| Residence | Kremlin Senate[1] |
| Seat | Kremlin, Moscow |
| Appointer | Central Committee |
| Term length | Life tenure |
| Formation | 3 April 1922; 103 years ago (1922-04-03) |
| First holder | Joseph Stalin |
| Final holder | Vladimir Ivashko (acting) |
| Abolished | 29 August 1991; 34 years ago (1991-08-29) |
| Superseded by | Chairman of the Union of Communist Parties |
| Deputy | Second Secretary |
| Salary | 10,000 Rbls annually[dubious –discuss][citation needed] |
TheGeneral Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union[a] was theleader of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until thecountry's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognizedleader of the Soviet Union.[2][3] Prior toJoseph Stalin's accession, the position was not viewed as an important role inVladimir Lenin's government[4][5] and previous occupants had been responsible for technical rather than political decisions.[6]
Officially, the General Secretary solely controlled the Communist Party directly.[dubious –discuss] However, since the party had amonopoly on political power, the General Secretaryde facto had executive control of theSoviet government. Because of the office's ability to direct both the foreign and domestic policies of the state and preeminence over the Soviet Communist Party, it was thede facto highest office of the Soviet Union.
Before theOctober Revolution, the job of the party secretary was largely that of a bureaucrat. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, the Office of the Responsible Secretary was established in 1919 to perform administrative work.[7] After the Bolshevik victory in theRussian Civil War, the Office of General Secretary was created byVladimir Lenin in 1922 with the intention that it serve a purely administrative and disciplinary purpose. Its primary task would be to determine the composition of party membership and to assign positions within the party. The General Secretary also oversaw the recording of party events, and was entrusted with keeping party leaders and members informed about party activities.
When assembling his cabinet, Lenin appointedJoseph Stalin to be General Secretary. Over the next few years, Stalin was able to use the principles ofdemocratic centralism to transform his office into that of party leader, and eventuallyleader of the Soviet Union.[8] Trotsky attributed his appointment to the initial recommendation ofGrigory Zinoviev.[9] This view has been supported by several historians.[10][11] According to Russian historian,Vadim Rogovin, Stalin's election to the position occurred after theEleventh Party Congress (March–April 1922), in which Lenin, due to his poor health, participated only sporadically, and only attended four of the twelve sessions of the Congress.[12]
Some historians have regarded the premature death of prominent BolshevikYakov Sverdlov to have been a key factor in facilitating the elevation ofJoseph Stalin to the position of leadership in the Soviet Union. In part, because Sverdlov served as the original chairman of the party secretariat and was considered a natural candidate for the position of General Secretary.[13][14]
Prior to Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin's tenure as General Secretary was already being criticized.[15] In Lenin's final months, heauthored a pamphlet that called for Stalin's removal on the grounds that Stalin was becoming authoritarian and abusing his power. The pamphlet triggered a political crisis which endangered Stalin's position as General Secretary, and a vote was held to remove him from office. With the help ofGrigory Zinoviev andLev Kamenev, Stalin was able to survive the scandal and remained in his post. After Lenin's death, Stalin began to consolidate his power by using the office of General Secretary. By 1928, he had unquestionably become thede facto leader of the USSR, while the position of General Secretary became the highest office in the nation. In 1934, the17th Party Congress refrained from formally re-electing Stalin as General Secretary. However, Stalin was re-elected to all the other positions he held, and remained leader of the party without diminution.[16]
In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body toGeorgy Malenkov, possibly to test his abilities as a potential successor.[17] In October 1952, at the19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's leadership. His request, voiced through Malenkov, to be relieved of his duties in the party secretariat due to his age, was rejected by the party congress, as delegates were unsure about Stalin's intentions.[18] In the end, the congress formally abolished Stalin's office of General Secretary, although Stalin remained thehighest-ranked party secretary and maintained ultimate control of the party.[19][20] WhenStalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov was considered to be the most important member of the Secretariat, which also includedNikita Khrushchev, among others. Under a short-livedtroika consisting of Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov, Malenkov becameChairman of theCouncil of Ministers, but was forced to resign from the Secretariat nine days later on 14 March. This effectively left Khrushchev in control of the government,[21] and he was elected to the new office of First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the Central Committee plenum on 14 September that same year. Khrushchev subsequently outmanoeuvred his rivals, who sought to challenge hispolitical reforms. He was able to comprehensively remove Malenkov, Molotov andLazar Kaganovich (one of Stalin's oldest and closest associates) from power in1957, an achievement which also helped to reinforce the supremacy of the position of First Secretary.[22]
In 1964, opposition within the Politburo and the Central Committee, which had been increasing since the aftermath of theCuban Missile Crisis, led to Khrushchev's removal from office.Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khrushchev as First Secretary, but was initially obliged to govern as part of acollective leadership, forming another troika with PremierAlexei Kosygin and ChairmanNikolai Podgorny.[23] The office was renamed to General Secretary in 1966.[24] The collective leadership was able to limit the powers of the General Secretary during theBrezhnev Era.[25] Brezhnev's influence grew throughout the 1970s as he was able to retain support by avoiding any radical reforms.[26] After Brezhnev's death,Yuri Andropov andKonstantin Chernenko were able to rule the country in the same way as Brezhnev had.[27]Mikhail Gorbachev ruled the Soviet Union as General Secretary until 1990, when the Communist Party lost its monopoly of power over the political system. The office ofPresident of the Soviet Union was established so that Gorbachev could still retain his role as leader of the Soviet Union.[28] Following the failedAugust coup of 1991, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary.[29] He was succeeded by his deputy,Vladimir Ivashko, who only served for five days as Acting General Secretary beforeBoris Yeltsin, the newly electedPresident of Russia, suspended all activity in the Communist Party.[30] Following the party's ban, theUnion of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP–CPSU) was established byOleg Shenin in 1993, and is dedicated to reviving and restoring the CPSU. The organisation hasmembers in all the former Soviet republics.[31]
| Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Duration | |||
| Chairman of theSecretariat of theCentral Committee of theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1918–1919) | |||||
 | Yakov Sverdlov (1885–1919)[32] | 8 March 1918 | 16 March 1919 † | 1 year, 8 days | Sverdlov was one of five secretaries elected to the first Secretariat at the6th Party Congress on 19 August 1917, and rose to first among them before being elected chairman at the7th Congress. Until Stalin, the office was mainly responsible for technical rather than political matters.[6] |
| Responsible Secretary of theCentral Committee of theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1919–1922) | |||||
 | Elena Stasova (1873–1966)[33] | 25 March 1919 | 29 November 1919 | 249 days | Stasova previously served as the original secretary of the Central Committee, appointed on 13 March 1917, and as a member of the first Secretariat, where her title was Technical Secretary. She was elected Responsible Secretary at the8th Party Congress.[34] |
 | Nikolay Krestinsky (1883–1938)[35] | 29 November 1919 | 16 March 1921 | 1 year, 107 days | When Krestinsky was elected Responsible Secretary, Stasova was demoted to Secretary.[34] |
 | Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986)[36] | 16 March 1921 | 3 April 1922 | 1 year, 18 days | Molotov was elected Responsible Secretary at the10th Party Congress. The Congress decided that the office of Responsible Secretary should have a presence at Politburo plenums. As a result, Molotov became a candidate member of the Politburo.[37] |
| General Secretary of theCentral Committee of theAll-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1922–1952) | |||||
.jpg) | Joseph Stalin (1878–1953)[38] | 3 April 1922 | 16 October 1952 | 30 years, 196 days | Stalin, elected General Secretary at the11th Party Congress, used the office to appoint loyalists to positions in the party and create a strong power base for himself. He was not formally re-elected as General Secretary at the17th Party Congress in 1934,[39] and the office was rarely mentioned after that.[40] On October 16, 1952, Stalin formally abolished the position at the19th Party Congress, but he retained ultimate power and his position as Chairman of the Council of Ministers until his death on 5 March 1953.[20] At a tenure of 30 years, 7 months, Stalin was the longest-serving General Secretary, serving almost half of the USSR's entire existence. |
| First Secretary of theCentral Committee of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (1953–1966) | |||||
 | Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971)[41] | 7 September 1953 | 14 October 1964 | 11 years, 30 days | After Stalin's death,Georgy Malenkov briefly ranked first in the Secretariat until he was forced to give up his position to Khrushchev on 14 March 1953. In September, Khrushchev was elected First Secretary, reestablishing the office.[42] Khrushchev was removed as leader in 1964, and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.[24] |
 | Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982)[43] | 14 October 1964 | 8 April 1966 | 1 year, 176 days | Brezhnev was part of acollective leadership. He formed an unofficialTriumvirate (also known by its Russian nametroika) alongside the country'sPremier,Alexei Kosygin, andNikolai Podgorny who became in 1965 aChairman of the Presidium.[23] The office of First Secretary was renamed General Secretary at the23rd Party Congress in 1966.[25] |
| General Secretary of theCentral Committee of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (1966–1991) | |||||
| Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982)[43] | 8 April 1966 | 10 November 1982 † | 16 years, 216 days | Brezhnev's powers and functions as the General Secretary were limited by the collective leadership.[26] By the 1970s, Brezhnev's influence exceeded that of Kosygin and Podgorny as he was able to retain support by avoiding any radical reforms. |
 | Yuri Andropov (1914–1984)[44] | 12 November 1982 | 9 February 1984 † | 1 year, 89 days | He emerged as Brezhnev's most likely successor as the chairman of the committee in charge of managingBrezhnev's funeral.[45] Andropov ruled the country in the same way Brezhnev had before he died.[27] |
_(cropped).jpg) | Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985)[43] | 13 February 1984 | 10 March 1985 † | 1 year, 25 days | Chernenko was 72 years old when elected to the post of General Secretary and in rapidly failing health.[46] Like Andropov, Chernenko ruled the country in the same way Brezhnev had.[27] |
.jpg) | Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022)[47] | 11 March 1985 | 24 August 1991 | 6 years, 166 days | The 1990Congress of People's Deputies removedArticle 6 from the1977 Soviet Constitution resulting in theCommunist Party loss of its position as the "leading and guiding force of the Soviet society." The powers of the General Secretary were drastically curtailed. Throughout the rest of his tenure, Gorbachev ruled through the office ofPresident of the Soviet Union.[28] He resigned from his party office on 24 August 1991 in the aftermath of theAugust Coup.[29] |
 | Vladimir Ivashko (1932–1994) Acting[48] | 24 August 1991 | 29 August 1991 | 5 days | Ivashko was elected Deputy General Secretary at the28th Party Congress. He became acting General Secretary following Gorbachev's resignation, but by then the Party was politically impotent. Its activities were suspended on 29 August 1991,[30] and it was banned on 6 November.[49] |
The Second Secretary was the deputy to the General Secretary, They sat along side the General Secretary on theSecretariat and often in practice Chaired the meetings of the Secretariat because the General Secretary was busy fulfilling other duties. They were often very powerful and sat on the Politburo as well. The Second Secretary was seen as a stepping stone to General Secretary and were often in charge of Party Personnel. Prominent Second Secretaries includeMikhail Suslov,Frol Kozlov, andNikolai Podgorny as well as all Post Stalin General Secretaries.
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