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173-651: The Communist International was established at a gathering convened in Moscow at the behest of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) . As early as December 24, 1918, a radio appeal had been issued by the ruling party of Soviet Russia calling on "communists of all countries" to boycott any attempts of reformists to reestablish the Second International , but to instead "rally around the revolutionary Third International." The formal call for

346-500: A Berlin prison, was symbolically selected as Secretary of ECCI, although the actual functions fell to Angelica Balabanov , albeit only for a few weeks. Zinoviev also served as editor of the official magazine of ECCI, Kommunisticheskii Internatsional ("The Communist International"), which began appearing regularly as soon as the Founding Congress came to a close. Although no more than the nucleus of an actual organization

519-426: A Tito–Stalin split , which marked the beginning of international sectarian division within the world communist movement. After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev rose to the top post by overcoming political adversaries, including Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov , in a power struggle. In 1955, Khrushchev achieved the demotion of Malenkov and secured his own position as Soviet leader. Early in his rule and with

692-529: A campaign against religion was waged in which the Russian Orthodox Church , which had long been a political arm of Tsarism before the revolution, was ruthlessly repressed, organized religion was generally removed from public life and made into a completely private matter, with many churches, mosques and other shrines being repurposed or demolished. The Soviet Union was the first to warn of the impending danger of invasion from Nazi Germany to

865-538: A command economy was implemented. After recovering from the Second World War , reforms were implemented which decentralized economic planning and liberalized Soviet society in general under Nikita Khrushchev . By 1980, various factors, including the continuing Cold War , and ongoing nuclear arms race with the United States and other Western European powers and unaddressed inefficiencies in

1038-703: A cult of personality . Collective leadership split power between the Politburo , the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system. By contrast, Stalin's period as leader was characterized by an extensive cult of personality . Regardless of leadership style, all political power in the Soviet Union was concentrated in

1211-637: A Central Committee in the downtown of Moscow. Led by Béla Kun , the inner circle of the freshly established party returned to Budapest from Moscow on 16 November. On 24 November, they created the Party of Communists from Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja , KMP). The name was chosen instead of the Hungarian Communist Party because the vast majority of supporters were from the urban industrial working class in Hungary which at

1384-770: A Hungarian withdrawal at the request of the Triple Entente. Later that month, there was an attempted coup by the Social Democrats of Budapest, which was retaliated by the communist government. On 20 July, the republic launched a new attack on the Romanian posts who were deep in Hungary at the Tisza river. After a few days of the Hungarian advance, the Romanians managed to stop the offensive and break through

1557-714: A Section of the Communist International in that country. The decisions of the ECCI were obligatory for all the Sections of the Communist International. And although the Sections had the right to appeal against decisions of the ECCI to the World Congress, they had to execute them, pending the decision of the World Congress. On the other hand, ECCI had the right “to expel from the Communist International, entire Sections, groups and individual members who violate

1730-574: A campaign of violence against communists, leftists , and Jews , known as the White Terror . Many supporters of the Hungarian Soviet Republic were executed without trial; others, including Péter Ágoston , Ferenc Bajáki , Dezső Bokányi , Antal Dovcsák , József Haubrich , Kalmár Henrik , Kelen József , György Nyisztor , Sándor Szabados, and Károly Vántus , were imprisoned by trial ("comissar suits"). Actor Bela Lugosi ,

1903-467: A conference of revolutionary socialist political parties and radical trade unions espousing revolutionary industrial unionism had been issued on January 24, 1919, with the gathering originally slated to commence in Moscow beginning on February 15. The conference which ultimately declared itself the Founding Congress of the Communist International was postponed to March 2, 1919, owing to

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2076-536: A damaging peace to end the war with the Germans in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transferring estates and imperial lands to workers' and peasants' soviets. In this context, in 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). Outside of Russia, social-democrats who supported the Soviet government began to identify as communists, while those who opposed it retained the social-democratic label. In 1921, as

2249-611: A demonstration turned violent on 20 February and the protesters attacked the editorial office of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary's official newspaper called Népszava ( People's Word ). In the ensuing chaos, seven people, some policemen, were killed. The government arrested the leaders of the Communist party, banned its daily newspaper Vörös Újság , and closed down the party's buildings. The arrests were particularly violent, with police officers openly beating

2422-582: A druggist from Buffalo, New York who sat ostensibly as the delegate of the Socialist Labor Party of America , had been away from home for two years and had no formal authorization to represent his party. Similarly, Endre Rudnyánszky , a former prisoner of war stranded in Russia represented Hungary , while Christian Rakovsky , a Romanian , sat for the nearly defunct Balkan Socialist Federation . A commission ( standing committee ) chaired by

2595-530: A higher participation rate. An organized opposition was established within the legislature under the name Inter-Regional Group of Deputies by dissident Andrei Sakharov . An unintended consequence of these reforms was the increased anti-CPSU pressure; in March 1990, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the party was forced to relinquish its political monopoly of power, in effect turning

2768-753: A human face ", all non-conformist reform attempts in the Soviet Union were stopped. During his rule, Brezhnev supported détente , a passive weakening of animosity with the West with the goal of improving political and economic relations. However, by the 25th Congress held in 1976, political, economic and social problems within the Soviet Union began to mount, and the Brezhnev administration found itself in an increasingly difficult position. The previous year, Brezhnev's health began to deteriorate. He became addicted to painkillers and needed to take increasingly more potent medications to attend official meetings. Because of

2941-669: A manifesto on the Versailles Peace (May 13, 1919), and a manifesto on foreign intervention in Soviet Russia (June 18, 1919). The early ECCI was, in short, to a large extent a propaganda body, aiming to stir the working class to socialist revolution . In the estimation of historian E.H. Carr , the summer and fall of 1920 marked the high-water mark for the prestige of the Comintern and its hopes of promoting world revolution. There would be, however, other functions for

3114-443: A matter of principle and direction in revolutionary strategy and tactics from Moscow, the home of the only successful proletarian revolution as logical and natural. Although Jane Degras in an appendix to her 1956 three volume compendium of Comintern documents intimates that the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern directly elected the membership of ECCI, the stenographic proceedings of the congress published in 1991 indicates that this

3287-583: A nationalist military coup which received supported from Germany and Italy, in 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, later jointly invading and partitioning Poland to fulfil a secret protocol of the pact, as well as occupying the Baltic States, this pact would be broken in June 1941 when the German military invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, beginning

3460-550: A newspaper, called Vörös Újság ( Red News ) and concentrated on attacking Károlyi's liberal government. The party became popular among the Budapest proletariat, it also promised that Hungary would be able to defend its territory even without conscription . Kun promised military help and intervention of the Soviet Red Army , which never came, against non-communist Romanian, Czechoslovak, French and Yugoslav forces. During

3633-491: A number of conflicts with the local population, some of which turned violent. The situation of the Hungarian Communists began to deteriorate in the capital city Budapest after a failed coup by the Social Democrats on 24 June; the newly composed Communist government of Sándor Garbai resorted to large-scale reprisals. Revolutionary tribunals ordered executions of people who were suspected of having been involved in

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3806-462: A number of reformers, including Yegor Ligachev , Nikolay Ryzhkov , and Mikhail Gorbachev , to important positions. He also supported a crackdown on absenteeism and corruption. Andropov had intended to let Gorbachev succeed him in office, but Konstantin Chernenko and his supporters suppressed the paragraph in the letter which called for Gorbachev's elevation. Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and

3979-446: A practical pursuit in the economically undeveloped country. In 1929, as Joseph Stalin became the leader of the party, Marxism–Leninism , a fusion of the original ideas of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx , and Lenin, became formalized by Stalin as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. The party pursued state socialism , under which all industries were nationalized, and

4152-571: A readership of 320,000. This was roughly halved after the repression of the Bolsheviks following the July Days demonstrations so that even by the end of August, the principal paper of the Bolsheviks had a print run of only 50,000 copies. Despite this, their ideas gained them increasing popularity in elections to the soviets. The factions within the soviets became increasingly polarized in the later summer after armed demonstrations by soldiers at

4325-652: A series of military victories against the Czechoslovak army, the Hungarian Red Army started to disintegrate due to tension between nationalists and communists during the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic. The concession eroded support of the communist government among professional military officers and nationalists in the Hungarian Red Army; even the chief of the general staff Aurél Stromfeld, resigned his post in protest. When

4498-402: A similarly proletarian relationship to their labor through the policies of collectivization , which turned feudal-style farms into collective farms which would be in a cooperative nature under the direction of the state. These two shifts changed the base of Soviet society towards a more working-class alignment. The plan was fulfilled ahead of schedule in 1932. The success of industrialization in

4671-458: A speech titled " The Personality Cult and its Consequences ". Despite delegates to Congresses losing their powers to criticize or remove party leadership, the Congresses functioned as a form of elite-mass communication . They were occasions for the party leadership to express the party line over the next five years to ordinary CPSU members and the general public. The information provided

4844-589: A treaty of alliance with the Russian SFSR. The Russian SFSR refused because it was itself tied down in the Russian Civil War . On 23 March, Lenin gave an order to Béla Kun that Social Democrats must be removed from power, so that Hungary could be transformed into a socialist state ruled by a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Accordingly, the Communists started to purge the Social Democrats from

5017-457: The 11th Congress , the 3rd Statute was adopted with only minor amendments being made. New statutes were approved at the 17th and 18th Congresses respectively. The last party statute, which existed until the dissolution of the CPSU, was adopted at the 22nd Congress. General Secretary of the Central Committee was the title given to the overall leader of the party. The office was synonymous with

5190-541: The CPSU Moscow City Committee . On 13 March 1988, Nina Andreyeva , a university lecturer, wrote an article titled " I Cannot Forsake My Principles ". The publication was planned to occur when both Gorbachev and his protege Alexander Yakovlev were visiting foreign countries. In their place, Yegor Ligachev led the party organization and told journalists that the article was "a benchmark for what we need in our ideology today". Upon Gorbachev's return,

5363-604: The Central Auditing Commission were approved beforehand by the Politburo and the Secretariat. A Congress could also provide a platform for the announcement of new ideological concepts. For instance, at the 22nd Congress , Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would see " communism in twenty years "— a position later retracted. A Conference, officially referred to as an All-Union Conference,

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5536-665: The Civil War was drawing to a close, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP), a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and post-war recovery. The NEP ended a brief period of intense rationing called " war communism " and began a period of a market economy under Communist dictation. The Bolsheviks believed at this time that Russia, being among the most economically undeveloped and socially backward countries in Europe, had not yet reached

5709-678: The Cold War . In Europe, Yugoslavia , under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito , acquired the territory of Trieste , causing conflict both with the Western powers and with the Stalin administration who opposed such a provocative move. Furthermore, the Yugoslav communists actively supported the Greek communists during their civil war , further frustrating the Soviet government. These tensions led to

5882-490: The Communist International (Comintern). A central tenet of Leninism was that of the vanguard party. In a capitalist society, the party was to represent the interests of the working class and all of those who were exploited by capitalism in general; however, it was not to become a part of that class. Lenin decided that the party's sole responsibility was to articulate and plan the long-term interests of

6055-621: The Communist Labor Party of America , John Anderson (Kristap Beika) of the Communist Party of America , S.J. Rutgers of the Netherlands , in addition to others from Korea, China, Norway, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Finland. During this interval the Comintern, through ECCI and the permanent staff of the organization, began to fund the various communist parties of the world, attempting to add practical support to

6228-593: The Czechoslovak Army crossed the northern borders. On 13 November, the Romanian Army crossed the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary . During the rule of Károlyi's pacifist cabinet, Hungary lost control over approximately 75% of its former pre-World War I territories (325,411 km²) without armed resistance and was subject to foreign occupation. For their part, the neighboring countries used

6401-552: The February Revolution , the first phase of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the party worked underground as organized anti-Tsarist groups. By the time of the revolution, many of the party's central leaders, including Lenin, were in exile. After Emperor Nicholas II (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917) abdicated in March 1917, a republic was established and administered by a provisional government , which

6574-579: The Great Patriotic War . The Communist International was dissolved in 1943 after it was concluded that such an organization had failed to prevent the rise of fascism and the global war necessary to defeat it. After the 1945 Allied victory of World War II , the Party held to a doctrine of establishing socialist governments in the post-war occupied territories that would be administered by communists loyal to Stalin's administration. The party also sought to expand its sphere of influence beyond

6747-569: The Hungarian Soviet Republic due to an early mistranslation in the press) was a short-lived communist state that existed from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919 (133 days), succeeding the First Hungarian Republic . The Hungarian Soviet Republic was a small communist rump state which, at its time of establishment, controlled approximately only 23% of Hungary 's historic territory. The head of government

6920-577: The Lenin Boys formed a mobile detachment under the leadership of József Cserny . This detachment was deployed at various locations around the country where counter-revolutionary movements were suspected to operate. The Lenin Boys as well as other similar groups and agitators killed and terrorised many people (e.g. armed with hand grenades and using their rifles' butts they disbanded religious ceremonies). They executed victims without trial, and this caused

7093-462: The Minister of Defence , each with highly contrasting visions for the future direction of the country. Trotsky sought to implement a policy of permanent revolution , which was predicated on the notion that the Soviet Union would not be able to survive in a socialist character when surrounded by hostile governments and therefore concluded that it was necessary to actively support similar revolutions in

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7266-505: The October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by conservative CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev . The CPSU was a communist party based on democratic centralism . This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within

7439-468: The Romanian forces. It is often referred to as the Hungarian Soviet Republic in English sources, but this is a mistranslation: the literal translation is "Republic of Councils in Hungary"; this was chosen to avoid any strong Hungarian ethnic connotation, and to express the proletarian internationalist doctrine of the new Communist regime . Austria-Hungary 's Habsburg monarchy collapsed in 1918, and

7612-563: The Romanian Army in the east. Despite promises for the restoration of the former borders of Hungary, the Communists declared the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic in Prešov on 16 June. After the proclamation of the Slovak Soviet Republic, the Hungarian nationalists and patriots soon realized that the new communist government had no intention of recapturing the lost territories, only in spreading communist ideology and

7785-599: The Soviet Communist Party ( SCP ), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union . The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution , which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism–Leninism . The party

7958-545: The Swiss radical Fritz Platten was appointed by this Founding Congress to construct an organizational apparatus for the new Third International. This commission recommended the establishment of two deliberative bodies, an Executive Committee , to handle matters of policy, and a 5-member Bureau , to handle day-to-day activities. The governing Executive Committee was to be headquartered in Moscow and to include representatives from

8131-467: The Vix Note proved fatal to the government, which was by then devoid of significant support. Károlyi and Berinkey had been placed in an untenable situation when they received a note from Paris ordering Hungarian troops to further withdraw their lines. It was widely assumed that the new military lines would be the postwar boundaries. Károlyi and Berinkey concluded that they were not in a position to reject

8304-699: The Young Communist International . In the aftermath of the 2nd Word Congress, a five-member "little bureau" was also chosen to coordinate the day-to-day activities of the Comintern. This group included the Russians Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Mikhail Kobetsky , the Hungarian Rudniansky, and the German Ernst Meyer . The composition of this "little bureau" was presumably named by ECCI itself. This bureau

8477-470: The unilateral self-disarmament of the Hungarian Army . This happened under the direction of Minister of War Béla Linder , on 2 November 1918. Due to the unilateral disarmament of its army, Hungary was to remain without a national defence at a time of particular vulnerability. The Hungarian self-disarmament made the occupation of Hungary directly possible for the relatively small armies of Romania,

8650-420: The "Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist International" rapidly came to supplant the World Congresses of the Comintern. The 4th World Congress established the Organization Bureau ("Orgburo") of the Comintern. This committee controlled placement of Comintern cadres throughout the world and supervised international agitation and propaganda work, leaving political questions to ECCI. The Comintern Orgburo

8823-403: The "trust in cadres" policy implemented by his administration, the CPSU leadership evolved into a gerontocracy . At the end of Brezhnev's rule, problems continued to amount; in 1979 he consented to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to save the embattled communist regime there and supported the oppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland. As problems grew at home and abroad, Brezhnev

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8996-442: The 19th Conference in 1988, the Politburo alongside the Secretariat controlled appointments and dismissals nationwide. In the post-Stalin period, the Politburo controlled the Central Committee apparatus through two channels; the General Department distributed the Politburo's orders to the Central Committee departments and through the personnel overlap which existed within the Politburo and the Secretariat. This personnel overlap gave

9169-553: The 19th Congress and the 1st Plenum of the 19th Central Committee , Stalin ordered the creation of the Bureau of the Presidium, which acted as the standing committee of the Presidium. On 6 March 1953, one day after Stalin's death, a new and smaller Presidium was elected, and the Bureau of the Presidium was abolished in a joint session with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers. 1919 Hungarian Revolution The Socialist Federative Republic of Councils in Hungary (widely known in English sources as

9342-411: The Brezhnev period saw the rise of neo-Stalinism . While Stalin was never rehabilitated during this period, the most conservative journals in the country were allowed to highlight positive features of his rule. At the 23rd Congress held in 1966, the names of the office of First Secretary and the body of the Presidium reverted to their original names: General Secretary and Politburo, respectively. At

9515-425: The British government to have been a forgery. It was the Political Secretariat of the Comintern that de facto governed the Comintern , in Stalinist era intended to be an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Subordination of national Communist Parties to the Communist International was complete: in any given country there can be only one Communist Party affiliated to the Communist International and each represented

9688-445: The British researcher of Russian affairs, Archie Brown , the democratization of the Soviet Union brought mixed blessings to Gorbachev; it helped him to weaken his conservative opponents within the party but brought out accumulated grievances which had been suppressed during the previous decades. In reaction to these changes, a conservative movement gained momentum in 1987 in response to Boris Yeltsin 's dismissal as First Secretary of

9861-430: The CPSU General Secretary a way of strengthening his position within the Politburo through the Secretariat. Kirill Mazurov , Politburo member from 1965 to 1978, accused Brezhnev of turning the Politburo into a "second echelon" of power. He accomplished this by discussing policies before Politburo meetings with Mikhail Suslov , Andrei Kirilenko , Fyodor Kulakov , and Dmitriy Ustinov among others, who held seats both in

10034-432: The CPSU and independent candidates. Other organized parties were not allowed. The CPD was elected in 1989 ; one-third of the seats were appointed by the CPSU and other public organizations to sustain the Soviet one-party state . The elections were democratic, but most elected CPD members opposed any more radical reform. The elections featured the highest electoral turnout in Russian history; no election before or since had

10207-402: The CPSU launched the August 1991 coup , which overthrew Gorbachev but failed to preserve the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resumed control (21 August 1991) after the coup's collapse, he resigned from the CPSU on 24 August 1991 and operations were handed over to Ivashko. On 29 August 1991 the activity of the CPSU was suspended throughout the country, on 6 November Yeltsin banned the activities of

10380-480: The Comintern's directing body, was staffed exclusively with Russians during the 1919-1920 period, however. In addition to representatives of the Russian Communist Party Angelica Balabanova , Jan Antonovich Berzin , Nikolai Bukharin , V.V. Vorovsky , Grigorii Zinoviev, and G. Klinger , a number of radicals from around the world had at various times taken part in ECCI's activities. Among this group were László Rudas of Hungary, Jacques Sadoul of France, John Reed of

10553-401: The Comintern, as did its predecessor. Instead, it decided that the four parties which had been allocated 40 votes at the congress should send two delegates to ECCI, and the 14 parties with 20 to 30 votes should send one delegate. By virtue of its size and status, the Russian Communist Party was allocated five delegates to ECCI, while all other parties were to be entitled to a consultative voice on

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10726-410: The Communists was also heavily dependent on their promise of restoring Hungary's former borders. The government took steps toward normalizing foreign relations with the Triple Entente powers in an effort to gain back some of the lands that Hungary was set to lose in the post-war negotiations. The Communists remained bitterly unpopular in the Hungarian countryside, where the authority of that government

10899-399: The Franco-Serbian army and the armed forces of the newly established Czechoslovakia. On the request of the Austro-Hungarian government, an armistice was granted to Austria-Hungary on 3 November by the Allies. Military and political events changed rapidly and drastically thereafter. On 5 November, the Serbian Army , with the help of the French Army , crossed southern borders. On 8 November,

11072-411: The French promised the Hungarian government that Romanian forces would withdraw from the Tiszántúl , Kun withdrew his remaining military units who had remained loyal after the political fiasco in Upper Hungary; however, following the Red Army's retreat from the north, the Romanian forces were not pulled back. Kun then unsuccessfully tried to turn the remaining units of the demoralized Hungarian Red Army on

11245-415: The Great Purge. According to party rules, the Central Committee was to convene at least twice a year to discuss political matters—but not matters relating to military policy. The body remained largely symbolic after Stalin's consolidation; leading party officials rarely attended meetings of the Central Committee. The Central Auditing Commission (CAC) was elected by the party Congresses and reported only to

11418-429: The Hungarian Red Army were recruited from the volunteers of the Budapest proletariat. In June, the Hungarian Red Army invaded the eastern part of the newly forming Czechoslovak state (today's Slovakia ), the former so-called Upper Hungary . The Hungarian Red Army achieved some military success early on: under the leadership of Colonel Aurél Stromfeld , it ousted Czech troops from the north, and planned to march against

11591-579: The Hungarian lines. Kun and most of the government fled to Vienna. The Social-Democrat–Communist government was succeeded by an exclusively Social Democratic one on 1 August. The communists left Budapest and went abroad. Despite the opposition from the Entente, the Romanians entered Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on 4 August. The Hungarian heads of government applied controversial doctrinal measures in both foreign (internationalism instead of national interests during wartime) and domestic policy (planned economy and heightened class struggle) that made them lose

11764-420: The Kerensky led provisional government's legitimacy. The provisional government, insistent on maintaining the universally despised war effort on the Eastern Front because of treaty ties with its Allies and fears of Imperial German victory , had become socially isolated and had no enthusiastic support on the streets. On 7 November (25 October, old style), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection, which overthrew

11937-406: The Kerensky provisional government and left the soviets as the sole governing force in Russia. In the aftermath of the October Revolution , the soviets united federally and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , the world's first constitutionally socialist state, was established. The Bolsheviks were the majority within the soviets and began to fulfill their campaign promises by signing

12110-411: The Party's second conference. Martov's followers were called the Mensheviks (which means minority in Russian); and Lenin's, the Bolsheviks (majority). (The two factions were in fact of fairly equal numerical size.) The split became more formalized in 1914, when the factions became named the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). Prior to

12283-404: The Politburo and faced few constraints from party leaders. In the summer of 1990 the party convened the 28th Congress . A new Politburo was elected, previous incumbents (except Gorbachev and Vladimir Ivashko , the CPSU Deputy General Secretary) were removed. Later that year, the party began work on a new program with a working title, "Towards a Humane, Democratic Socialism". According to Brown,

12456-455: The Politburo and the Secretariat. Mazurov's claim was later verified by Nikolai Ryzhkov , the Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Gorbachev. Ryzhkov said that Politburo meetings lasted only 15 minutes because the people close to Brezhnev had already decided what was to be approved. The Politburo was abolished and replaced by a Presidium in 1952 at the 19th Congress. In the aftermath

12629-426: The Politburo did during the post-Stalin era, serving as the party's governing body. However, as the membership in the Central Committee increased, its role was eclipsed by the Politburo. Between Congresses, the Central Committee functioned as the Soviet leadership's source of legitimacy. The decline in the Central Committee's standing began in the 1920s; it was reduced to a compliant body of the Party leadership during

12802-636: The Presidium), the Secretariat and the Orgburo (until 1952). The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary , Premier or head of state , or two of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time. The party leader was the de facto chairman of the CPSU Politburo and chief executive of the Soviet Union. The tension between

12975-488: The Romanian Army broke through the weak lines of the Hungarian Red Army on 30 July. Béla Kun, together with other high-ranking Communists, fled to Vienna on 1 August with only a minority, including György Lukács , the former Commissar for Culture and noted Marxist philosopher, remaining to organise an underground Communist party. Before they fled to Vienna, Kun and his followers took along numerous art treasures and

13148-413: The Romanians with Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919 . The Hungarian Soviet found it increasingly difficult to fight Romania with its small force of communist volunteers from Budapest, and support for both the war and the Communist party was waning at home. After the demoralizing retreat from northern Hungary (later part of Czechoslovakia), only the most dedicated Hungarian Communists volunteered for combat, and

13321-427: The Secretariat by the plenums of the Central Committee. In between Central Committee plenums, the Politburo and the Secretariat were legally empowered to make decisions on its behalf. The Central Committee or the Politburo and/or Secretariat on its behalf could issue nationwide decisions; decisions on behalf of the party were transmitted from the top to the bottom. Under Lenin, the Central Committee functioned much as

13494-420: The Soviet Union into a liberal democracy . The CPSU's demise began in March 1990, when state bodies eclipsed party elements in power. From then until the Soviet Union's disestablishment, Gorbachev ruled the country through the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union . Following this, the central party apparatus did not play a practical role in Soviet affairs. Gorbachev had become independent from

13667-570: The Soviet Union led Western countries, such as the United States , to open diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. In 1933, after years of unsuccessful workers' revolutions (including a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic ) and spiraling economic calamity, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, violently suppressing the revolutionary organizers and posing a direct threat to the Soviet Union that ideologically supported them. The threat of fascist sabotage and imminent attack greatly exacerbated

13840-448: The Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and might have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms. Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986 the new leadership of the party called for uskoreniye ( Russian : ускоре́ние , lit.   'acceleration'). Gorbachev reinvigorated

14013-473: The Triple Entente that would lead to the lifting of the economic blockade, the improvement of the new borders or the recognition of the new government by the victorious powers of World War I . A small volunteer army was organized mostly from Budapest factory workers and attempts were made to recover the territories lost to neighboring countries, an objective that had widespread support from many working class people in some larger cities, not only those favorable to

14186-815: The Union Republics became independent and underwent various separate paths of reform. In Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation emerged and has been regarded as the inheritor of the CPSU's old Bolshevik legacy into the present day. The origin of the CPSU was in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). This faction arose out of the split between followers of Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin in August 1903 at

14359-648: The United States, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, the Far East (Korea), and the Middle East (Iran). No specific individuals were voted upon by the assembled delegates. This decision seems to have been rapidly modified by ECCI itself after conclusion of the congress, as Degras lists by name a 26-member body that was in place over the course of

14532-454: The abolition of aristocratic titles and privileges, the separation of church and state , codified freedom of assembly and freedom of speech , and implemented free education and language and cultural rights to minorities. The Communist government also nationalized industrial and commercial enterprises and socialized housing, transport, banking, medicine, cultural institutions, and all landholdings of more than 40 hectares . Public support for

14705-542: The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis , Khrushchev's position within the party was substantially weakened. Shortly before his eventual ousting, he tried to introduce economic reforms championed by Evsei Liberman , a Soviet economist, which tried to implement market mechanisms into the planned economy. Khrushchev was ousted on 14 October 1964 in a Central Committee plenum that officially cited his inability to listen to others, his failure in consulting with

14878-613: The already existing tensions within the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. A wave of paranoia overtook Stalin and the party leadership and spread through Soviet society. Seeing potential enemies everywhere, leaders of the government security apparatuses began severe crackdowns known as the Great Purge . In total, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were posthumously recognized as innocent, were arrested and either sent to prison camps or executed. Also during this time,

15051-553: The article was discussed at length during a Politburo meeting; it was revealed that nearly half of its members were sympathetic to the letter and opposed further reforms which could weaken the party. The meeting lasted for two days, but on 5 April a Politburo resolution responded with a point-by-point rebuttal to Andreyeva's article. Gorbachev convened the 19th Party Conference in June 1988. He criticized leading party conservatives—Ligachev, Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Solomentsev . In turn, conservative delegates attacked Gorbachev and

15224-539: The attempted coup. This became known as the Red Terror , and greatly reduced domestic support for the government even among the working classes of the highly industrialized suburb districts and metropolitan area of Budapest. In late May, after the Entente military representative demanded more territorial concessions from Hungary, Kun attempted to fulfill his promise to adhere to Hungary's historical borders. The men of

15397-417: The call of the Bolsheviks and an attempted military coup by commanding Gen. Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the socialists from the provisional government. As the general consensus within the soviets moved leftward, less militant forces began to abandon them, leaving the Bolsheviks in a stronger position. By October, the Bolsheviks were demanding the full transfer of power to the soviets and for total rejection of

15570-591: The close, party-to-party relations that he wanted. While the Thaw reduced political oppression at home, it led to unintended consequences abroad, such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and unrest in Poland, where the local citizenry now felt confident enough to rebel against Soviet control. Khrushchev also failed to improve Soviet relations with the West, partially because of a hawkish military stance. In

15743-452: The committee, but no decisive vote. ECCI was subsequently enlarged in 1921-22, as new Communist Parties were allotted delegates with consultative votes while other parties were allowed a second vote. The countries exercising two votes on ECCI at the time of the 4th World Congress of the Comintern late in 1922 were Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and the United States. Although not originally envisioned as such, formal gatherings of

15916-464: The communists. This resulted in a wave of public sympathy for the party among the masses of Budapester proletariat. On 1 March, Vörös Újság was given permission to publish again, and the Communist party's premises were re-opened. The leaders were permitted to receive guests in prison, which allowed them to keep up with political affairs. On 20 March, Károlyi announced that the government of Prime Minister Dénes Berinkey would resign. The presentation of

16089-472: The difficulties entailed by foreign delegates in crossing the blockade of Soviet Russia established by the Allied Nations at the end of World War I . Only a comparatively few delegates did manage to make the trip, with a number of the places filled on an ad hoc basis by individuals already in Soviet Russia not bearing formal credentials from their home organizations. For example, Boris Reinstein ,

16262-576: The direct participation of the workers' councils (soviets) from which it took its name, the newly united Socialist Party created a government called the Revolutionary Governing Council, which proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and dismissed President Károlyi on 21 March. In a radio dispatch to the Russian SFSR , Kun informed Lenin that a dictatorship of the proletariat had been established in Hungary and asked for

16435-402: The direction of a market economy once again. Gorbachev and his allies envisioned the introduction of an economy similar to Lenin's earlier New Economic Policy through a program of " perestroika ", or restructuring, but their reforms, along with the institution of free multi-candidate elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the banning of

16608-537: The dissolution of the governing structures of the CPSU and the governing structures of its republican organization—the Communist Party of the RSFSR. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian adherents to the CPSU tradition, particularly as it existed before Gorbachev, reorganized themselves within the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Today a wide range of parties in Russia present themselves as successors of CPSU. Several of them have used

16781-405: The economy, led to stagnant economic growth under Alexei Kosygin , and further with Leonid Brezhnev and growing disillusionment. After the younger, vigorous Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in 1985 (following two short-term elderly leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko , who quickly died in succession), rapid steps were taken to transform the tottering Soviet economic system in

16954-409: The end of his life, Lenin warned of the danger that the party could be taken over by bureaucrats, by a small clique, or by an individual. Toward the end of his life, he criticized the bureaucratic inertia of certain officials and admitted to problems with some of the party's control structures, which were to supervise organizational life. The Congress, nominally the highest organ of the party,

17127-568: The establishment of other communist states in Europe, thus sacrificing Hungarian national interests. The Hungarian patriots in the Red Army and the professional military officers saw this as a betrayal, and their support for the government began to erode (the communists and their government supported the establishment of the Slovak Communist state, while the Hungarian patriots wanted to keep the reoccupied territories for Hungary). Despite

17300-443: The favor of the majority of the population. The attempt of the new executive to profoundly change the lifestyle and the system of values of the population proved to be a resounding failure; After the withdrawal from Slovakia, the application of some measures aimed at regaining popular support was ordered, but without great success; in particular, the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages was repealed, and attempts were made to improve

17473-419: The following months, the Communist party's power-base rapidly expanded. Its supporters began to stage aggressive demonstrations against the media and against the Social Democratic Party. The Communists considered the Social Democrats as their main rivals, because the Social Democrats recruited their political supporters from the same social class: the industrial working class of the cities. In one crucial incident,

17646-566: The founder of the country's National Trade Union of Actors (the world's first film actor's union), managed to escape. Most were later released to the Soviet Union by amnesty during the reign of Horthy, after a prisoner exchange agreement between Hungary and the Russian Soviet government in 1921. In all, about 415 prisoners were released as a result of this agreement. Kun himself, along with an unknown number of other Hungarian communists, were executed during Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of

17819-472: The fundamental problems of the Soviet economy. The standard of living for ordinary citizens did increase; 108 million people moved into new housing between 1956 and 1965. Khrushchev's foreign policies led to the Sino-Soviet split , in part a consequence of his public denunciation of Stalin. Khrushchev improved relations with Josip Broz Tito 's League of Communists of Yugoslavia but failed to establish

17992-480: The gold stocks of the National Bank. The Budapest Workers' Soviet elected a new government, headed by Gyula Peidl , which lasted only a few days before Romanian forces entered Budapest on 6 August. In the power vacuum created by the fall of the soviet republic and the presence of the Romanian Army, semi-regular detachments (technically under Horthy 's command, but mostly independent in practice) initiated

18165-673: The government on the next day. The government was formally led by Sándor Garbai, but Kun, as the Commissar of Foreign Affairs, held the real power because only Kun had the acquaintance and friendship with Lenin. He was the only person in the government who met and talked to the Bolshevik leader during the Russian Revolution, and Kun kept the contact with the Kremlin via radio communication. The ministries, often rotated among

18338-507: The greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism . In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), reflecting that

18511-603: The impossibility of joining forces with the Red Army because of the ongoing Russian Civil War contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Republic. When the Republic of Councils in Hungary was established in 1919, it controlled about 23% of the territory of Hungary 's previous pre-World War I territories (325,411 km ). It was the successor of the First Hungarian Republic and lasted from 21 March to 1 August of

18684-592: The independent First Hungarian Republic was formed after the Aster Revolution . The official proclamation of the republic was on 16 November and the liberal Count Mihály Károlyi became its president. Károlyi struggled to establish the government's authority and to control the country. The Hungarian Royal Honvéd army still had more than 1,400,000 soldiers when Mihály Károlyi was announced as prime minister of Hungary. Károlyi yielded to United States president Woodrow Wilson 's demand for pacifism by ordering

18857-474: The international community. The Western powers, however, remained committed to maintaining peace and avoiding another war breaking out, many considering the Soviet Union's warnings to be an unwanted provocation. After many unsuccessful attempts to create an anti-fascist alliance among the Western countries, including trying to rally international support for the Spanish Republic in its struggle against

19030-539: The leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s. Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. The office was formally titled First Secretary between 1953 and 1966. The Political Bureau (Politburo), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, was the highest party organ when the Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. Until

19203-444: The literary fusillade which emanated from Moscow. Over time this financial aid provided by the Comintern would help to bind the various national parties to the central body. Still, it would be facile to reduce loyalty to the Comintern and its governing body, ECCI, to mere finances. The array of national communist parties saw themselves in a very real sense as national subdivisions of a single world party and they accepted centralization as

19376-419: The local party committee, the local party committee elected the regional committee, the regional committee elected the Central Committee, and the Central Committee elected the Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat. Lenin believed that the party needed to be ruled from the center and have at its disposal power to mobilize party members at will. This system was later introduced in communist parties abroad through

19549-477: The member organizations of the Communist International. The parties of Russia, Germany , Austria , Hungary, the Balkan Federation, Switzerland, and Scandinavia were each to "immediately send representatives to the first Executive Committee." All parties joining the Comintern before the convention of the 2nd World Congress were similarly to be allowed a representative on this body. Until the arrival of

19722-618: The members of the Presidium, his establishment of a cult of personality, his economic mismanagement, and his anti-party reforms as the reasons he was no longer fit to remain as head of the party. He was succeeded in office by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers . The Brezhnev era began with a rejection of Khrushchevism in virtually every arena except one: continued opposition to Stalinist methods of terror and political violence. Khrushchev's policies were criticized as voluntarism, and

19895-433: The monetary situation and food supply. Unable to apply these policies effectively, the republic had already lost the support of the majority of the population between June and July, which led, together with the military defeats, to its downfall. The failure of internal reform was compounded by the political and economic isolation imposed on Hungary by the Triple Entente, the military failures against neighboring countries, and

20068-486: The more advanced capitalist countries. Stalin, however, argued that such a foreign policy would not be feasible with the capabilities then possessed by the Soviet Union and that it would invite the country's destruction by engaging in armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should, in the meantime, pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country . Ultimately, Stalin gained

20241-518: The name "CPSU". However, the CPRF is generally seen (due to its massive size) as the heir of the CPSU in Russia. Additionally, the CPRF was initially founded as the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR in 1990 (sometime before the abolition of the CPSU) and was seen by critics as a "Russian-nationalist" counterpart to the CPSU. The style of governance in the party alternated between collective leadership and

20414-570: The name of the Hungarian Socialist Party. President Károlyi, who was an outspoken anticommunist, was not informed about the merger. Thus, he swore in what he believed to be a Social Democratic government, only to find himself faced with one dominated by Communists. Károlyi resigned on 21 March. Béla Kun and his fellow communists were released from the Margit Ring prison on the night of 20 March. The liberal president Károlyi

20587-528: The necessary conditions of development for socialism to become a practical pursuit and that this would have to wait for such conditions to arrive under capitalist development as had been achieved in more advanced countries such as England and Germany. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), of which Lenin

20760-466: The new regime. Initially, thanks to patriotic support from conservative officers, the republican forces advanced against the Czechoslovaks in north Hungary, after suffering a defeat in the east at the hands of the Romanian Army in late April, which led to a retreat on the banks of the Tisza . In mid-June, the birth of the Slovak Soviet Republic was proclaimed, which lasted two weeks until

20933-485: The next year. Included, in addition to the five Russian delegates, were two Americans (one each from the rival Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party of America ), two delegates from the Netherlands, as well as one delegate each from Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Scandinavia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, the "Far East" (Korea), the "Near East" (Iran), Finland, Poland, Hungary, Georgia, Java (Indonesia), plus one representative of

21106-493: The note although they believed that accepting it would endanger Hungary's territorial integrity. On 21 March, Károlyi informed the Council of Ministers that only Social Democrats could form a new government, as they were the party with the highest public support in the largest cities and especially in Budapest. To form a governing coalition, the Social Democrats started secret negotiations with the Communist leaders, who were still imprisoned, and decided to merge their two parties under

21279-532: The occupied territories, using proxy wars and espionage and providing training and funding to promote communist elements abroad, leading to the establishment of the Cominform in 1947. In 1949, the communists emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War , causing an extreme shift in the global balance of forces and greatly escalating tensions between the communists and the Western powers, fueling

21452-465: The oppressed classes. It was not responsible for the daily grievances of those classes; that was the responsibility of the trade unions . According to Lenin, the party and the oppressed classes could never become one because the party was responsible for leading the oppressed classes to victory. The basic idea was that a small group of organized people could wield power disproportionate to their size with superior organizational skills. Despite this, until

21625-439: The organization and the executive committee which directed it. Owing to poor communications and the difficulty of individuals crossing the frontier during the blockade and civil war , of those originally invited to participate only the Communist Party of Hungary was able to send its permanent representative to ECCI prior to the convocation of the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern on July 19, 1920. This did not mean that ECCI,

21798-416: The organization of the CPSU. Democratic centralism is an organizational principle conceived by Lenin. According to Soviet pronouncements, democratic centralism was distinguished from " bureaucratic centralism", which referred to high-handed formulae without knowledge or discussion. In democratic centralism, decisions are taken after discussions, but once the general party line has been formed, discussion on

21971-511: The party Congress. It had about as many members as the Central Committee. It was responsible for supervising the expeditious and proper handling of affairs by the central bodies of the Party; it audited the accounts of the Treasury and the enterprises of the Central Committee. It was also responsible for supervising the Central Committee apparatus, making sure that its directives were implemented and that Central Committee directives complied with

22144-716: The party Statute. The Statute (also referred to as the Rules, Charter and Constitution) was the party's by-laws and controlled life within the CPSU. The 1st Statute was adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party —the forerunner of the CPSU. How the Statute was to be structured and organized led to a schism within the party, leading to the establishment of two competing factions; Bolsheviks (literally majority ) and Mensheviks (literally minority ). The 1st Statute

22317-424: The party and the state ( Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union ) for the shifting focus of power was never formally resolved. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy , commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy , which allowed for capitalist practices to resume under the Communist Party dictation in order to develop the necessary conditions for socialism to become

22490-474: The party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of the successor Russian Federation . A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of " glasnost " (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost

22663-421: The party ideology, adding new concepts and updating older ones. Positive consequences of this included the allowance of "pluralism of thought" and a call for the establishment of "socialist pluralism" (literally, socialist democracy). Gorbachev introduced a policy of glasnost ( Russian : гла́сность , meaning openness or transparency ) in 1986, which led to a wave of unintended democratization. According to

22836-593: The party in Russia and Gorbachev resigned from the presidency on 25 December; the following day the Soviet of Republics dissolved the Soviet Union. On 30 November 1992, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation recognized the ban on the activities of the primary organizations of the Communist Party, formed on a territorial basis, as inconsistent with the Constitution of Russia , but upheld

23009-529: The party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the Party Congress , which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo , (previously

23182-418: The popularity of their program, notably calling for an immediate end to the war, land reform for the peasants, and restoring food allocation to the urban population. This program was translated to the masses through simple slogans that patiently explained their solution to each crisis the revolution created. Up to July, these policies were disseminated through 41 publications, Pravda being the main paper, with

23355-599: The program and rules of the Communist International or the decisions of the World Congress and of the ECCI”. The Communist International was dissolved by resolution of the Presidium of the ECCI, May 22, 1943. Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ), at some points known as the Russian Communist Party , All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party , and sometimes referred to as

23528-464: The program reflected Gorbachev's journey from an orthodox communist to a European social democrat . The freedoms of thought and organization which Gorbachev allowed led to a rise in nationalism in the Soviet republics, indirectly weakening the central authorities. In response to this, a referendum took place in 1991 , in which most of the union republics voted to preserve the union in a different form . In reaction to this, conservative elements within

23701-542: The reformers. According to Brown, there had not been as much open discussion and dissent at a party meeting since the early 1920s. Despite the deep-seated opposition to further reform, the CPSU remained hierarchical; the conservatives acceded to Gorbachev's demands in deference to his position as the CPSU General Secretary. The 19th Conference approved the establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) and allowed for contested elections between

23874-523: The remaining poor. The combination of these tensions led the party leadership to conclude that it was necessary for the government's survival to pursue a new policy that would centralize economic activity and accelerate industrialization. To do this, the first five-year plan was implemented in 1928. The plan doubled the industrial workforce, proletarianizing many of the peasants by removing them from their land and assembling them into urban centers. Peasants who remained in agricultural work were also made to have

24047-403: The republics outside of Russia proper were no longer part of an all-encompassing Russian state. The acronym was usually transliterated as VKP(b), or sometimes VCP(b). Stalin sought to formalize the party's ideological outlook into a philosophical hybrid of the original ideas of Lenin with orthodox Marxism into what would be called Marxism–Leninism . Stalin's position as General Secretary became

24220-466: The revolution towards the transformation of the ongoing war into a war of the working class against capitalism. The rebellion proved not yet to be over, as tensions between the social forces aligned with the soviets (councils) and those with the provisional government now led by Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970, in power 1917), came into explosive tensions during that summer. The Bolsheviks had rapidly increased their political presence from May onward through

24393-410: The same year. Though the de jure leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic was president Sándor Garbai , the de facto power was in the hands of foreign minister Béla Kun , who maintained direct contact with Vladimir Lenin via radiotelegraph. It was Lenin who gave the direct orders and advice to Béla Kun via constant radio communication with the Kremlin . It was the second socialist state in

24566-435: The so-called "struggle against communism ", first against the capitalist and liberal government of Count Mihály Károlyi and later against the soviet republic of communist Bela Kun, as a justification for their expansionist ambitions. An initial nucleus of a Party of Communists in Hungary had been organized in a hotel on 4 November 1918, when a group of former Hungarian prisoners of war and other communist proponents formed

24739-492: The start of his premiership, Kosygin experimented with economic reforms similar to those championed by Malenkov, including prioritizing light industry over heavy industry to increase the production of consumer goods. Similar reforms were introduced in Hungary under the name New Economic Mechanism ; however, with the rise to power of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, who called for the establishment of " socialism with

24912-457: The subject must cease. No member or organizational institution may dissent on a policy after it has been agreed upon by the party's governing body; to do so would lead to expulsion from the party (formalized at the 10th Congress ). Because of this stance, Lenin initiated a ban on factions , which was approved at the 10th Congress. Lenin believed that democratic centralism safeguarded both party unity and ideological correctness. He conceived of

25085-553: The support of several members of the Presidium, Khrushchev initiated the Thaw , which effectively ended the Stalinist mass terror of the prior decades and reduced socio-economic oppression considerably. At the 20th Congress held in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, being careful to omit any reference to complicity by any sitting Presidium members. His economic policies, while bringing about improvements, were not enough to fix

25258-412: The system after the events of 1917 when several socialist parties "deformed" themselves and actively began supporting nationalist sentiments. Lenin intended that the devotion to policy required by centralism would protect the parties from such revisionist ills and bourgeois deformation of socialism. Lenin supported the notion of a highly centralized vanguard party, in which ordinary party members elected

25431-515: The time was largely made up of people from non-Hungarian ethnic backgrounds, with ethnic Hungarians a minority in the new party itself. The party recruited members while propagating its ideas, radicalising many members of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in the process. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals and ethnic minorities. Kun founded

25604-456: The top executive position within the party, giving Stalin significant authority over party and state policy. By the end of the 1920s, diplomatic relations with Western countries were deteriorating to the point that there was a growing fear of another allied attack on the Soviet Union. Within the country, the conditions of the NEP had enabled growing inequalities between increasingly wealthy strata and

25777-495: The various elected delegates, representatives of the Russian Communist Party were to perform the functions of this Executive Committee of the Communist International. This organizational plan was approved unanimously by the Congress, without debate. Selected as President of ECCI was Grigorii Zinoviev , an old associate of V.I. Lenin and top figure in the Russian Communist Party. Karl Radek , then ensconced in

25950-411: The various members of the government, were: After the declaration of the constitution changes took place in the commissariat. The new ministries were: This government consisted of a coalition of socialists and communists, but with the exception of Kun, all commissars were former social democrats. Under the rule of Kun, the new government, which had adopted in full the program of the Communists, decreed

26123-532: The world to be formed, preceded only by Soviet Russia after the October Revolution in Imperial Russia which brought the Bolsheviks to power. The Hungarian Republic of Councils had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania , the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , and the evolving Czechoslovakia . It ended on 1 August when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to

26296-527: Was Sándor Garbai , but the influence of the foreign minister Béla Kun of the Party of Communists in Hungary was much stronger. Unable to reach an agreement with the Triple Entente , which maintained an economic blockade of Hungary, in dispute with neighboring countries over territorial disputes, and beset by profound internal social changes, the Hungarian Soviet Republic failed in its objectives and

26469-404: Was a collective body elected at the annual party congress . It was mandated to meet at least twice a year to act as the party's supreme governing body. Membership of the Central Committee increased from 71 full members in 1934 to 287 in 1976. Central Committee members were elected to the seats because of the offices they held, not on their personal merit. Because of this, the Central Committee

26642-475: Was abolished a few months after its existence. Its main figure was the Communist Béla Kun, despite the fact that in the first days the majority of the new government consisted of radical Social Democrats . The new system effectively concentrated power in the governing councils , which exercised it in the name of the working class . The new Communist government failed to reach an agreement with

26815-552: Was arrested by the new Communist government on the first day; in July, he managed to make his escape and flee to Paris. For the Social Democrats, an alliance with the KMP not only increased their standing with the industrial working class but also gave them a potential link to the increasingly powerful Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , as Kun had strong ties with prominent Russian Bolsheviks. Following Vladimir Lenin 's model but without

26988-584: Was at this time in exile in Switzerland where he, with other dissidents in exile, managed to arrange with the Imperial German government safe passage through Germany in a sealed train back to Russia through the continent amidst the ongoing World War . In April, Lenin arrived in Petrograd (renamed former St. Petersburg ) and condemned the provisional government, calling for the advancement of

27161-404: Was based upon Lenin's idea of a centralized vanguard party. The 4th Congress , despite a majority of Menshevik delegates, added the concept of democratic centralism to Article 2 of the Statute. The 1st Statute lasted until 1919 when the 8th Congress adopted the 2nd Statute. It was nearly five times as long as the 1st Statute and contained 66 articles. It was amended at the 9th Congress . At

27334-480: Was commonly considered an indicator for Sovietologists to study the strength of the different institutions. The Politburo was elected by and reported to the Central Committee. Besides the Politburo, the Central Committee also elected the Secretariat and the General Secretary —the de facto leader of the Soviet Union. In 1919–1952, the Orgburo was also elected in the same manner as the Politburo and

27507-433: Was convened between Congresses by the Central Committee to discuss party policy and to make personnel changes within the Central Committee. 19 conferences were convened during the CPSU's existence. The 19th Congress held in 1952 removed the clause in the party's statute which stipulated that a party Conference could be convened. The clause was reinstated at the 23rd Congress, which was held in 1966. The Central Committee

27680-485: Was convened every five years. Leading up to the October Revolution and until Stalin's consolidation of power, the Congress was the party's main decision-making body. However, after Stalin's ascension, the Congresses became largely symbolic. CPSU leaders used Congresses as a propaganda and control tool. The most noteworthy Congress since the 1930s was the 20th Congress, in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin in

27853-511: Was created, hampered by difficult communications in the isolation of the blockade, the skeleton ECCI immediately began to issues a series of declarations and manifestos to the workers and nations of the world. These included a manifesto of ECCI to the workers and sailors of all countries on the Hungarian Revolution (March 28, 1919), a message to the Bavarian Soviet Republic (April 1919), a May Day manifesto (April 20, 1919),

28026-574: Was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the economic stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. In the final years of the CPSU's existence, the Communist Parties of the federal subjects of Russia were united into the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). After the CPSU's demise, the Communist Parties of

28199-405: Was elected leader. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924, only thirteen months after the founding of the Soviet Union, of which he would become regarded as the founding father. After Lenin's death, a power struggle ensued between Joseph Stalin , the party's General Secretary , and Leon Trotsky ,

28372-594: Was enlarged in 1921 by the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern by the addition to these five of the Hungarian Béla Kun , Alfred Rosmer of France, Bernard Koenen of Germany, and the Polish-born Soviet citizen Karl Radek . The Comintern also maintained an extensive staff of professional functionaries . The 3rd World Congress of the Comintern , held in Moscow from June 22 through July 12, 1921, did not directly elect an executive committee of

28545-420: Was general, ensuring that party leadership retained the ability to make specific policy changes as they saw fit. The Congresses also provided the party leadership with formal legitimacy by providing a mechanism for the election of new members and the retirement of old members who had lost favor. The elections at Congresses were all predetermined and the candidates who stood for seats to the Central Committee and

28718-457: Was increasingly ineffective in responding to the growing criticism of the Soviet Union by Western leaders, most prominently by US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan , and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . The CPSU, which had wishfully interpreted the financial crisis of the 1970s as the beginning of the end of capitalism, found its country falling far behind the West in its economic development. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982, and

28891-409: Was largely dominated by the interests of the military, former nobility, major capitalists business owners and democratic socialists. Alongside it, grassroots general assemblies spontaneously formed, called soviets , and a dual-power structure between the soviets and the provisional government was in place until such a time that their differences would be reconciled in a post-provisional government. Lenin

29064-411: Was not actually the case. At the close of the final regular session of the congress, held on August 6, 1920, a list of ECCI participants was hurriedly discussed and adopted by a vote of the delegates. Russia, by virtue of the size and importance of its party, was allocated five delegates on the executive committee, to be joined by one delegate each from the following nations: Great Britain, Germany, France,

29237-413: Was often nonexistent. The Communist party and their policies had real popular support among only the proletarian masses of large industrial centers, especially in Budapest, where the working class represented a high proportion of the inhabitants. The Hungarian government was left on its own, and a Red Guard was established under the command of Mátyás Rákosi . In addition, a group of 200 armed men known as

29410-420: Was outlawed under Russian President Boris Yeltsin 's decree on 6 November 1991, citing the 1991 Soviet coup attempt as a reason. The party started in 1898 as part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . In 1903, that party split into a Menshevik ("minority") and Bolshevik ("majority") faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin , is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in

29583-489: Was patterned after a similar institution in the Russian Communist Party that had been established in March 1919. The Zinoviev letter , purporting to be instructions to British communists to begin preparations for revolution, is on its face written as a letter from the ECCI on 15 September 1924. Although validated as genuine by the Secret Intelligence Service at the time, the letter is now accepted by

29756-534: Was succeeded by Yuri Andropov on 12 November. Andropov, a staunch anti-Stalinist, chaired the KGB during most of Brezhnev's reign. He had appointed several reformers to leadership positions in the KGB, many of whom later became leading officials under Gorbachev. Andropov supported increased openness in the press, particularly regarding the challenges facing the Soviet Union. Andropov was in office briefly, but he appointed

29929-533: Was succeeded by Chernenko. The elderly Cherneko was in poor health throughout his short leadership and was unable to consolidate power; effective control of the party organization remained with Gorbachev. When Chernenko died on 10 March 1985, his succession was already settled in favor of Gorbachev. The Politburo did not want another elderly and frail leader after its previous three leaders, and elected Gorbachev as CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When Gorbachev acceded to power,

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