Before the
October 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. After the Bolshevik victory in the
Russian Civil War, the Office of General Secretary was created by
Vladimir 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 appointed
Joseph Stalin to be General Secretary. Over the next few years, Stalin was able to use the principles of
democratic centralism to transform his office into that of party leader, and eventually
leader of the Soviet Union. Trotsky attributed his appointment to the initial recommendation of
Grigory Zinoviev. This view has been supported by several historians. According to Russian historian,
Vadim Rogovin, Stalin's election to the position occurred after the
Eleventh 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. Some historians have regarded the premature death of prominent Bolshevik
Yakov Sverdlov to have been a key factor in facilitating the elevation of
Joseph Stalin to the position of leadership in the Soviet Union. Sverdlov served as the original chairman of the party secretariat and was considered a natural candidate for the position of General Secretary. Prior to Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin's tenure as General Secretary was already being criticized. In Lenin's final months, he
authored 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 of
Grigory Zinoviev and
Lev 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 the
de facto leader of the USSR, while the position of General Secretary became the highest office in the nation. In 1934, the
17th 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. In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to
Georgy Malenkov, possibly to test his abilities as a potential successor. In October 1952, at the
19th 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. In the end, the congress formally abolished Stalin's office of General Secretary, although Stalin remained the
highest-ranked party secretary and maintained ultimate control of the party. When
Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov was considered to be the most important member of the Secretariat, which also included
Nikita Khrushchev, among others. Under a short-lived
troika consisting of Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov, Malenkov became
Chairman of the
Council 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, 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 his
political reforms. He was able to comprehensively remove Malenkov, Molotov and
Lazar Kaganovich (one of Stalin's oldest and closest associates) from power in
1957, an achievement which also helped to reinforce the supremacy of the position of First Secretary. In 1964, opposition within the
Politburo and the
Central Committee, which had been increasing since the aftermath of the
Cuban 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 a
collective leadership, forming another troika with Premier
Alexei Kosygin and Chairman
Nikolai Podgorny. The office was renamed to General Secretary in 1966. The collective leadership was able to limit the powers of the General Secretary during the
Brezhnev Era. Brezhnev's influence grew throughout the 1970s as he was able to retain support by avoiding any radical reforms. After Brezhnev's death,
Yuri Andropov and
Konstantin Chernenko were able to rule the country in the same way as Brezhnev had.
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 of
President of the Soviet Union was established so that Gorbachev could still retain his role as leader of the Soviet Union. Following the failed
August coup of 1991, Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary. He was succeeded by his deputy,
Vladimir Ivashko, who only served for five days as Acting General Secretary before
Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected
President of Russia, suspended all activity in the Communist Party. Following the party's ban, the
Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP–CPSU) was established by
Oleg Shenin in 1993, and is dedicated to reviving and restoring the CPSU. The organisation has
members in all the former Soviet republics. == List of officeholders ==