How long did it last -- National Organization for Women at UH

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Date Posted: 04:59:52 11/28/04 Sun
Author: Carol
Subject: How long did it last

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the party's name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1925 the party became All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Всесоюзная коммунистическая партия (большевиков), ВКП(б)); both VKP(b) and AUCP(b) abbreviations are in use. In 1934 it became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). Finally in 1952 it became simply the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPSU. This article follows the course of the party from 1918 until its dissolution in 1991. For information on the pre-1918 party see Bolshevik.

Once the Third International or Comintern was formed in 1919, the Marxist-Leninist structure of the CPSU was copied by the other Comintern members resulting in Communist parties being formed around the world.

For most of the history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, the Communist Party was virtually indistinguishable from the government. Consequently, the history of the USSR and the CPSU are deeply intertwined and overlapping. Therefore, it is useful for those interested in the history of the CPSU to also consult the History of Russia series of articles.

Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev became the party's general secretary in 1985 following an interegnum after Brezhnev's death in 1982 when the party was led first by Yuri Andropov and then by Konstantin Chernenko. Unlike previous successions there was no pretence of a collective leadership replacing Brezhnev. When Brezhnev died Andropov was proclaimed General Secretary within days and by the official coverage in the Soviet media it was clear that he was the leader. Andropov died on February 9, 1984 and Chernenko was elected his replacement on February 13 but Chernenko was a compromise, stopgap candidate as Gorbachev, Andropov's protege, lacked sufficient support in the Politburo. However, Chernenko he was already an ill man and his duties were increasingly carried out by others, particularly Gorbachev who was nominated by Andrei Gromyko to become General Secretary when Chernenko died. There are indications Gorbachev may have been in control prior to Chernenko's death as he was announced as the new General Secretary the day after Chernenko died on March 10, 1985.

Gorbachev instituted policies of glasnost, perestroika, and acceleration. Glasnost allowed freedom of speech in the Soviet Union and a flourishing of political debate within the Communist Party to a degree not seen since the Russian Revolution, perestroika was an attempt to restructure the political and particularly the economic organisation of the country, while acceleration meant faster development of the economy. This period of liberalisation ultimately ended in the dissolution of the Soviet bloc in eastern Europe.

At the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986, Boris Yeltsin became a candidate member of the Politburo and offended party members in a speech that attacked the hidden privileges of the party elite.

At the 1988 Party Conference Gorbachev launched reforms to reduce the party's control over the government including proposals for multicandidate elections to regional and local legislatures and the positions of local and regional party first secretaryships.While Gorbachev was able to receive approval for his reforms from the party, the membership of the CPSU was becoming increasingly resistant to Gorbachev's policies and rather than being a locus for change became a bulwark of conservativism. Increasingly, Gorbachev bypassed the party in order to implement his reforms relying instead on governmental bodies.

In 1990, Gorbachev obtained the repeal of Article Six of the USSR constitution which gave the party supremacy over all institutions in society.

By the time of the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress in July 1990, the party was largely regarded as being unable to lead the country and had, in fifteen republics, split into opposing factions favouring either independent republics or the continuation of the Soviet Union. Stripped of its leading role in society the party lost its authority to lead the nation or the cohesion that kept the party united.

End of Communist rule

The growing likelihood of the dissolution of the USSR itself led conservative elements in the CPSU to launch the August Coup in 1991 which temporarily removed Gorbachev from power. On August 19, 1991, a day before a Union Treaty was to be signed devolving power to the republics, a group calling itself the "State Emergency Committee" seized power in Moscow declaring that Gorbachev was ill and therefore relieved of his position as president. Soviet vice-president Gennadiy Yanayev was named acting president. The committee's eight members included KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Defense Minister Dmitriy Yazov, and Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov. The coup dissolved due to large public demonstrations and the efforts of Boris Yeltsin who became the real power in Russia as a result. Gorbachev returned to Moscow as president but resigned as General Secretary and vowed to purge the party of conservatives. Yeltsin had the CPSU formally banned within Russia. The KGB was disbanded as were other CPSU-related agencies and organisations. Yeltsin's action was later declared unconstitutional but by this time the USSR had ceased to exist.

Restructuring the Soviet system

To restructure the Soviet administrative command system to effect a transition to capitalism, Yeltsin's shock program, employed days following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, cut subsidies to money-losing farms and industries, decontrolled prices, moved toward convertibility of the ruble, and moved toward restructuring the largely state-owned economy. Existing institutions, however, were abandoned before the legal structures of a market economy that govern private property, oversee the financial market, and enforce taxation were functional, despite the fact that the two major components of a macroeconomy are a banking system and the state budgetary system.

Market economists believed that the dismantling of the administrative command system in Russia would raise GDP and living standards by allocating resources more efficiently. They also thought the collapse would create a movement outward towards production possibilities by eliminating central planning, substituting a decentralized market system, eliminating huge distortions through liberalization, and providing incentives through privatization.

However, Russia currently faces many problems, including the 25% of the population that now lives below the poverty line, the drop in life expectancy, a low birthrate, and the drop in GDP, which halved after the USSR's collapse.

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