Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee
소련 공산당 중앙위원회 서기국
The body, elected by plenums of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that ran the day-to-day work of the party and the Central Committee. Policy was made by the Politburo; the Secretariat directed the Central Committee’s departmental apparatus, the placement of cadres and the execution of decisions. Its head, the General Secretary (First Secretary in 1953–1966), was the leader of the party.
In depth
In March 1917 Elena Stasova was appointed secretary of the Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee, and Yakov Sverdlov took over its organisational work. On 6 August (19 August New Style) 1917 a meeting of the Central Committee defined the Secretariat as an organisational and technical body and elected Dzerzhinsky, Muranov and Sverdlov as full members and Joffe and Stasova as candidates; after the October Revolution the others took up other duties, and Sverdlov and Stasova in effect ran the Secretariat. The Eighth Congress in March 1919 resolved that the Central Committee should set up a Politburo, an Orgburo and a Secretariat, the last consisting of one responsible secretary, a member of the Orgburo, and five technical secretaries. Its staff grew from 30 in 1919 to 600 in 1921 and 767 by 1925.
By 1922, when the post of General Secretary was created and given to Stalin, the Secretariat had turned from a technical committee into one of the party’s most important organs, responsible for its day-to-day operations. Secretaries could attend Politburo meetings with a consultative voice, and the branch departments of the Central Committee apparatus under the Secretariat handled the practical work. Under Stalin, Molotov (until 1930) and Kaganovich (1930–1935) were in effect second secretaries, and when the Nineteenth Congress abolished the Orgburo in October 1952 its functions passed to the Secretariat. Dual membership of the Secretariat and the Politburo was reserved for two or three of the most senior leaders, and after Stalin’s death in 1953 it became the stepping-stone to supreme power: Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev were all senior secretaries before they led the party. Under Brezhnev the ideology secretary Mikhail Suslov chaired the Secretariat’s meetings.
In July 1988 a Central Committee plenum decided to cut the party apparatus sharply, abolish the branch departments and reduce the number of secretaries; in November standing commissions headed by secretaries were created. The Secretariat stopped meeting and was in effect abolished, though it formally existed until 1991. On 5 September 1991, after the failed August coup, Deputy General Secretary Vladimir Ivashko gathered what remained of the Secretariat to decide on the dissolution of the Central Committee apparatus and all party bodies.