This abbreviation, which is almost not used now, was once known to every child and was pronounced almost with reverence. CPSU Central Committee! What do these letters mean?
About the title
The abbreviation that interests us means the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or simply the Central Committee. Given the importance of the Communist Party in society, its governing body could well be called the kitchen in which the crucial decisions for the country were “cooked”. The members of the CPSU Central Committee, the country's main elite, are “cooked” in this kitchen, and the “chef” is the Secretary General.
From the history of the CPSU
The history of this public education began long before the revolution and the proclamation of the USSR. Until 1952, its names changed repeatedly: RSDLP, RSDLP (b), RCP (b), VKP (b). These abbreviations reflected both the ideology specified each time (from the workers' social democracy to the Bolshevik Communist Party) and the scale (from Russian to the All-Union). But the essence is not in the names. From the 1920s to the 1990s, a one-party system functioned in the country, and the Communist Party had a sovereign monopoly. In the 1936 Constitution, it was recognized as the governing core, and in the country's main law of 1977 it was proclaimed to be the guiding and guiding force of society. Any directives issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU instantly gained the force of law.
All this, of course, did not contribute to the democratic development of the country. In the USSR, inequality on the basis of party affiliation was actively propagated. Even members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union could apply for small leadership positions, from which one could ask for blunders on the party line. One of the worst punishments was the deprivation of a membership card. The CPSU positioned itself as a party of workers and collective farmers, so there were quite strict quotas for its replenishment with new members. It was difficult to be in the party ranks for a representative of the creative profession or a mental worker; no less strictly the CPSU followed its national composition. Thanks to this selection, the really best ones are far from always getting into the game.
From the party charter
In accordance with the Charter, all the activities of the Communist Party were collegial. In primary organizations, decisions were made at general meetings, but in general, the governing body was a congress held every few years. About once every six months a party plenum was held. In the intervals between plenums and congresses, the CPSU Central Committee was the leading unit responsible for all party activities. In turn, the highest body, which was in charge of the Central Committee itself, was the Politburo, headed by the General (First) Secretary.
The functional responsibilities of the Central Committee included personnel policy and local control, expenditure of the party budget, and management of public structures. But not only. Together with the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU determined all ideological activity in the country, resolved the most responsible political and economic issues.
About Soviet specifics
It is difficult for people who did not live in the Soviet Union to understand this. In a democratic country, where a number of parties operate, their activities do not bother a simple layman — he only remembers them before the election. But in the USSR, the leading role of the Communist Party was even emphasized constitutionally! At factories and collective farms, in military units and in creative collectives, the party organizer was the second (and often often the first) head of this structure. Formally, the Communist Party could not control economic or political processes: for this there was a Council of Ministers. But in fact, the Communist Party was everything. No one was surprised by the fact that both the most important political problems and the five-year economic development plans were discussed and determined by party congresses. The CPSU Central Committee directed all these processes.
About the main person in the party
Theoretically, the Communist Party was a democratic entity: from the time of Lenin until the last moment there was no one-man management, there were no formal leaders. It was assumed that the secretary of the Central Committee was just a technical position, and the members of the governing body were equal. The first secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, more precisely the RCP (B.), Were really not very prominent figures. E. Stasova, Ya. Sverdlov, N. Krestinsky, V. Molotov - although their names were well known, these people had no relation to the practical leadership. But with the advent of I. Stalin, the process went differently: the “father of peoples” managed to crush all power under him. A corresponding position has also appeared - the Secretary General. It must be said that the names of party leaders periodically changed: the First Secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee replaced the Generals, then vice versa. With the light hand of Stalin, regardless of the name of his post, the party leader at the same time became the main face of the state.
After the death of the leader in 1953, N. Khrushchev and L. Brezhnev were in this post, then Yu. Andropov and K. Chernenko occupied the post for a short time. The last party leader was M. Gorbachev - concurrently the only President of the USSR. The era of each of them was significant in its own way. If many consider Stalin a tyrant, then Khrushchev is called a voluntarist, and Brezhnev is called the father of stagnation. Gorbachev, on the other hand, went down in history as a man who at first collapsed and then buried a huge state - the Soviet Union.
Conclusion
The history of the CPSU was an educational discipline, obligatory for all universities of the country, and every student in the Soviet Union knew the main milestones of the development and activities of the party. The revolution, then the civil war, industrialization and collectivization, the victory over fascism and the post-war reconstruction of the country. And then virgin land and space flights, large-scale all-Union construction projects - the history of the party was closely intertwined with the history of the state. In each case, the role of the CPSU was considered to be dominant, and the word "communist" was a synonym for a true patriot and just a worthy person.
But if you read the story of the game in a different way, between the lines, you get a terrible thriller. Millions of repressed, exiled peoples, camps and political killings, reprisals against objectionable, persecution of dissenters ... We can say that the author of each black page of Soviet history is the Central Committee of the CPSU.
In the USSR they liked to quote Leninist words: "The party is the mind, honor and conscience of our era." Alas! In fact, the Communist Party was neither one nor the other nor the third. After the 1991 coup, the activities of the CPSU in Russia were banned. Is the Russian Communist Party the heiress of the All-Union? Even experts are at a loss to explain this.