Communist Party of the Soviet Union (TheodoresTomfooleries)

Communist Party of the Soviet Union Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза
Abbreviation	CPSU КПСС
General Secretary	Sabrican Garayev
Founded	January 5, 1912 (1912-01-05)
Preceded by	Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP
Headquarters	4 Staraya Square, Moscow
Newspaper	Pravda
Youth wing	Little Octobrists (Ages 7-9) Young Pioneers (Ages 9-14) Komsomol (Ages 14 - 28)
Membership (2023)	37,192,980
Ideology	Communism Marxism-Leninism Socialist patriotism (Soviet)
Political position	Far-left
National affiliation	Bloc of Communists and Non-Partisans
International affiliation	IMCWP
Subnational affiliation	List Communist Party of Russia Communist Party of Byelorussia Communist Party of Ukraine Communist Party of Kazakhstan Communist Party of Kirghizia Communist Party of Uzbekistan Communist Party of Tajikistan Communist Party of Turkmenia Communist Party of Azerbaijan Communist Party of Armenia Communist Party of Kartvelia Communist Party of Moldavia Communist Party of Estonia Communist Party of Latvia Communist Party of Lithuania
Slogan	"Workers of the world, unite!"
Anthem	"The Internationale"
Supreme Soviet	1,749 / 2,000
Soviet of Nationalities	874 / 1,000
Soviet of the Union	875 / 1,000
Party flag
Website
en.kpss.su

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) is the founding and sole-legal party of the Soviet Union. The Soviet constitution gives the CPSU a monopoly on all political and state power. Soviet press often refer to the CPSU as simply "the Party" (партия). As of 2023, the CPSU has more than 37 million members, which makes it among the largest political parties by membership in the world.

The CPSU was founded as the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1903. Under the leadership of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in October 1917 and established the first communist state in history. It reorganized itself first as the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and then as the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) after the union of the soviet republics, becoming the sole ruling party in the Soviet Union.

The CPSU is a Marxist-Leninist communist party organised on the basis of democratic centralism. The highest institution of the CPSU is the Party Congress, which convenes every five years and elects the Central Committee. The Central Committee oversees party affairs between party congresses and elects the Politburo and Secretariat, and appoints the General Secretary, the highest party office. It considers itself the "party of the entire people", has disavowed class conflict, and emphasizes Soviet patriotism. The CPSU participates in the annual International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Party.

History

Names

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union originated as the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Following the Prague Conference, which the Bolsheviks claimed leadership of the RSDLP, the RSDLP titled itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) (Russian: Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия (большевиков), or RSDLP(b). This name continued until 8 March 1918, when the party renamed itself to the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Russian: Российская коммунистическая партия (большевиков))). Shortly after the creation of the Soviet Union, the party renamed itself again on 31 December 1925 to the All-Union Communist Party (Russian: Всесоюзная коммунистическая партия (большевиков)). Shortly before Stalin's death, on 14 October 1952, the party was renamed finally to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Early history (1898-1924)

Origins

Main article: [[:Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]]

The Bolsheviks were originally a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a Marxist and socialist party in the Russian Empire that united various revolutionary organizations. A young intellectual, known by his pen name Vladimir Lenin, had joined the party in 1898. Vladimir Lenin's belief that the RSDLP should be a vanguard party of disciplined and committed revolutionaries put him at odds with others in the party that favored a mass approach to membership in the RSDLP. This split of ideals resulted in the emergence of two factions: On the one end, the Bolsheviks, coming from the Russian bolshinstvo ("majority"), and the Mensheviks, menshinstvo (minority). At the 2nd Party Congress, a question of the definition of party membership appeared. The Bolsheviks supported Lenin's idea that the RSDLP should be an elite party of dedicated and disciplined revolutionaries. Lenin defined a member of the party as "one who accepts its program and who supports the party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organizations". On the other hand, the Mensheviks, represented by Julius Martov, proposed a more broad definition of a party member: "A member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts the Party's programme, supports the Party financially, and renders it regular personal assistance under the direction of one of its organizations". Initially, Martov's broader definition of party membership won 28-23. This majority was mostly the result of {[wp|Bundist}} and Economist members who favored his definition. However, following their exit from the party, Lenin's stricter definition of party membership won a majority. From this, the two factions got their names.

Following the congress, the party permanently split into two factions which over time split the party into what would soon become two entirely separate parties. Differences in beliefs became no longer just ideological, as the Bolsheviks believed that only the proletariat and peasantry could carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks in Russia, while the Mensheviks believed that the proletariat and peasantry should seek out progressive members of the liberal bourgeoisie to carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks. The Bolsheviks fundamentally believed that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution had to be carried out without the participation of the bourgeoisie and that the peasantry could serve as a replacement for them, while the Mensheviks saw the liberal bourgeoisie ass their main allies.

By the time of the {[wp|5th Party Congress of the RSDLP|5th Party Congress}} in 1907, the Bolshevik faction de-facto had become the dominant faction in the RSDLP. In January 1912, Lenin called for a Conference in Prague, in which they expelled the Bolshevik's rival factions, both within and outside the Bolshevik movement. The result of this split was the creation of two separate parties, one which would go on to be the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), while the Mensheviks established the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). All future attempts to unite the two branches of the party failed. Both parties would operate underground until the February Revolution in 1917.

Russian Revolution and Civil War

Main articles: [[:Russian Revolution]] and [[:Russian Civil War]]

The leadership of the RSDLP(b), as a result of Tsarist suppression, had been forced either into exile across Europe, imprisoned, or sent underground. The Bolsheviks, despite having a majority in their own party- were among the smaller socialist groups in the Russian Empire at the time. The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries (or SRs) were a more popular force. Indeed, upon Tsar Nicholas II's abdication in March 1917 (in the Julian Calendar February) as a result of the ongoing February Revolution, a provisional government was formed that was dominated by the interests of these democratic socialists, alongside the military and capitalists. The provisional government lifted the ban on the RSDLP, and Lenin negotiated with the German Empire to permit him safe passage through Germany back to Russia. Lenin arrived back in Saint Petersburg in April and condemned the provisional government in his April Theses, where he called for the various workers' councils (known as soviets) that had popped up throughout Russia to take control of the state and to rebel against the provisional government. The Bolshevik's support of immediate peace to the unpopular war, land reform to the peasants, and the restoration of food allocation to the urban population resulted in their support skyrocketing from a largely unknown force in Russian socialism to among its largest factions.

Such was the support of the Bolsheviks and their ideals that mass unrest in July resulted in their suppression once again. Even despite this repression, the Bolsheviks continued to gain popularity within the Soviets, which were quickly beginning to supersede the provisional government both in authority and popularity. The Bolsheviks were tremendously bolstered both in numbers and in power when it was called upon them by Kerensky's government to stop General Lavr Kornilov's putsch, being supplied vital weapons and ammo in the process. Unsurprisingly, when the Bolsheviks were asked to return the wepaons given to them, they refused: and by October, the Bolsheviks were actively demanding the full transfer of state power to the Soviets, which they mostly controlled. The provisional government at this point had lost nearly all popular support as a result of their continuance of the incredibly unpopular war in the east. On 7 November (25 October in the Julian calendar), the Bolsheviks led an insurrection in which they, for the most part, 'peacefully' captured key government buildings in Saint Petersburg, the nation's capital. The Soviets became the dominant political force in Russia following the revolution, and united into the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Bolshevik-controlled Soviets elsewhere in the former Russian Empire also began to pop up in areas such as the Baltics, Byelorussia and Ukraine. Fulfilling their campaign promises, the Bolsheviks signed a devastating peace to end the war with Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and transfer the estates and former imperial lands to the workers' and peasants' soviets. Seeking to distance themselves from the social-democratic label, in March 1918 the RSDLP(b) renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Social-democrats who supported the Bolsheviks would identify as communists, while those who opposed them continued to call themselves social democrats.

The Bolshevik government did not have universal recognition however, especially from the Entente, and consequentially the Russian Civil War began between the Reds, which were almost entirely represented by the Bolsheviks, and the Whites, which were a loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces. Initially close to defeat in 1919, by 1920 and soon 1921 the Bolsheviks had secured dominance over Russia and much of the former Russian Empire. The Kronstadt rebellion, which was a rebellion of anti-Bolshevik forces near Saint Petersburg, resulted in the banning of nearly all political parties in the Soviets save for the Bolsheviks, which established one-party rule in both Russia and its soviet republic satellites.

In December 1922, following the federation of Russia and the other soviet republics into the Soviet Union, the various satellite parties of the Russian Communist Party merged into the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) shortly after Lenin's death.