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‹ Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Who is behind the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?

Also known as Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), CPSU

Shows documented founders, leaders, board members, funders and owners.

Not who made decisions, or why.

7 links · 1 account · 8 Mar 1918 – 1991

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A connection is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Over time
  1. Led by Joseph Stalin (General Secretary) 1922 – 5 Mar 1953
  2. Led by Nikita Khrushchev (First Secretary) Sep 1953 – 14 Oct 1964
  3. Led by Leonid Brezhnev (First Secretary (General Secretary from April 1966)) 14 Oct 1964 – 10 Nov 1982
  4. Led by Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary of the Communist Party) Mar 1985 – Aug 1991

On the record

Sourced links that no one presents as their own account, as recorded so far. Others may exist.

Led by

Money in

Each account

One account recorded. Others may exist.

Disputed

Listed apart, each with the reason, and never counted.

Proof 11 sources
  1. Revelations from the Russian Archives: Internal Workings of the Soviet Union, Library of Congress. Primary record
    Having come to power in October 1917 by means of a coup d'état, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks spent the next few years struggling to maintain their rule against widespread popular opposition.
  2. Address by the President of the Russian Federation, 21 February 2022, Russian government, 21 Feb 2022. Primary record Archived copy
    In 1922, Stalin occupied the positions of both the General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the People’s Commissar for Ethnic Affairs.
  3. Soviet Union: A Country Study, Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1991. Scholarship & press
    Malenkov found a formidable rival in Nikita S. Khrushchev, whom the Presidium elected first secretary
    Khrushchev removed from power; Leonid I. Brezhnev becomes CPSU first secretary.
  4. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972: list of persons, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Primary record
    Khrushchev, Nikita S., former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers (1953–1964)
  5. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIV, Soviet Union: list of persons, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Primary record
    Brezhnev, Leonid I., First Secretary (General Secretary after April 1966), Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from October 1964
  6. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume III, Soviet Union, January 1981–January 1983: list of persons, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Primary record
    Brezhnev, Leonid, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until his death on November 10, 1982
  7. U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1981-1991 (Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations), U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Primary record
    The March 1985 appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union provided Reagan with a viable negotiating partner.
  8. The Collapse of the Soviet Union (Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations), U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Primary record
    He resigned his leadership as head of the Communist party shortly thereafter—separating the power of the party from that of the presidency of the Soviet Union.
  9. Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915-1918: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, Oxford University Press, 1958. Primary record
    It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda
  10. The Bolsheviks' 'German Gold' Revisited: An Inquiry into the 1917 Accusations, The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1995. Scholarship & press
    The report published the next day alleged that Lenin had been sent to Russia by the German government to rally support for a separate peace with Germany
  11. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Arlington House, 1974. Scholarship & press
    that he (Thompson) contributed $1 million to the Bolshevik Revolution for propaganda purposes.
How this answer is built

Lines on the record come first: sourced links that no one presents as their own account, each with its strongest source. Then every account recorded here gets its own column, A to Z, none ranked above another. A column quotes only that account's own words and shows the strength of its own sources. Disputed lines are listed apart, with the reason, and lines still being verified come last. Neither is counted. Withdrawn lines are never shown.

What was recorded about an earlier form of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the same body under an older name, answers too, and each such line says so.

When a list is longer than the page shows, the links the public methodology ranks strongest stay (methodology 0.3), and the rest open in the explorer.

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