1918–1991

Control and inspection bodies

The party's control commissions, which enforced party discipline, and the state control bodies that inspected the administration.

People who worked in this line →

Organizational Lineage

State Control 1918–1920

Workers' control after the revolution and the Central Control Board of January 1918 gave way in July 1918 to the People's Commissariat of State Control, a bureaucratic audit office built on the tsarist one. Stalin headed it from March 1919.
Rabkrin and the Central Control Commission 1920–1934

In 1920 State Control became the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (Rabkrin), meant to draw workers and peasants into inspection, and the party set up a control commission for breaches of discipline and "bureaucratic degeneration". In his last writings Lenin proposed merging the two as a check on the Central Committee, and from 1923 the chairman of the Central Control Commission also served as People's Commissar of Rabkrin. In practice the pair became the instrument for disciplining and expelling the oppositions.
Party Control and Soviet Control 1934–1952

The Seventeenth Congress of 1934 replaced the elected Central Control Commission with a Commission of Party Control under the Central Committee, and Rabkrin with the Commission of Soviet Control under the Council of People's Commissars. Party control was now a subordinate organ of the Central Committee, not an independent check, and it handled the vetting and expulsions of the Great Purge.
Ministry of State Control 1940–1957

In 1940 Soviet Control became the People's Commissariat of State Control, and in 1946 the Ministry of State Control, a powerful ministry held by Stalin's men such as Mekhlis and Merkulov. It was abolished in 1957, with Molotov its last minister, in the fall of the "Anti-Party Group".
Party and state control merged and separated 1952–1965

In 1952 the Commission of Party Control became the Party Control Committee, and after Stalin's death it reviewed the rehabilitation of repression victims under Shvernik. In 1962 Khrushchev merged party and state control into Shelepin's Party-State Control Committee; after his fall it was split again in 1965. While they were merged, a Party Commission of the Central Committee handled party discipline.
People's Control and settled party control 1965–1990

The state side became the People's Control Committee, an inspection network with millions of volunteer controllers, while the Party Control Committee under Pelshe heard members' personal cases for seventeen years. Under perestroika its chairman Solomentsev led the Politburo's rehabilitation commission, which reopened the cases of the victims of the 1930s to 1950s.
The Central Control Commission revived, then ended 1990–1991

The Twenty-eighth Congress of 1990 merged the Party Control Committee and the Central Auditing Commission into a congress-elected Central Control Commission again. People's Control was abolished at the end of the same year and replaced in 1991 by a Control Chamber answerable to the Supreme Soviet. The party commission ended when the party was banned in November 1991.

Party control commissions

Central Control Commission (1920–1934) → Commission, later Committee, of Party Control (1934–1990) → CPSU Central Control Commission (1990–1991). There was no chairman in 1920–1923. The Party Commission of the Central Committee, which handled discipline while party control was folded into Party-State Control (1962–1966), is included. Yezhov's end date is Andreyev's appointment.

State control

State Control → Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (Rabkrin) → Commission of Soviet Control → Commissariat, then Ministry, of State Control → Commission of Soviet Control and State Control Commission → Party-State Control → People's Control → Control Chamber. The RSFSR Rabkrin after 1923 is not listed. The post was vacant in 1937–1938, in 1957 and in 1973–1974. Sources put Manyakin's release in April or June 1989; Oleg Solovyov acted in between.