POLITBURO

The Politburo, or Political Bureau, was the most important decision-making and leadership organ in the Communist Party, and has commonly been seen as equivalent to the cabinet in Western political systems. For most of the life of the Soviet system, the Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966) was the major focus of elite political life and the arena within which all important issues of policy were decided. It was the heart of the political system.

The Politburo was formally established at the Eighth Congress of the Party in March 1919 and held its first session on April 16. Formed by the Central Committee (CC), the Politburo was to make decisions that could not await the next meeting of the CC, but over time its smaller size and more frequent meeting schedule meant that effective power drained into it and away from the CC. There had been smaller groupings of leaders before, but these had never become formalized nor had they taken an institutional form. The establishment of the Politburo was part of the regularization of the leading levels of the Party that saw the simultaneous creation of the Orgburo and Secretariat, with these latter two bodies meant to ensure the implementation of the decisions of leading Party organs, in practice mostly the Politburo.

From its formation until late 1930, the Politburo was one arena within which the conflict between Josef Stalin and his supporters on the one side and successive groups of oppositionists among the Party leadership was fought out, but with the removal of Mikhail Tomsky in 1930, the last open oppositionist disappeared from the Politburo. Henceforth the body remained largely controlled by Stalin. Its lack of institutional integrity and power is illustrated by the fact that various of its members were arrested and executed during the terror of the mid-to late 1930s. After World War II, the Politburo ceased even to meet regularly, being effectively replaced by ad hoc groupings of leaders that Stalin mobilized on particular issues and when it suited him.

Following Stalin's death in 1953, the leading Party organs resumed a more regular existence, although Nikita Khrushchev's style was not one well suited to the demands of collective leadership; he often sought to bypass the Presidium. Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Politburo became more regularized, and the overwhelming majority of national issues seem to have been discussed in that body, although an important exception was the decision to send troops into Afghanistan in 1979. For much of the Mikhail Gorbachev period, too, the Politburo was at the heart of Soviet national decision making, although the shift of the Soviet system to a presidential one and the restructuring of the Politburo at the Twenty-Eighth Congress in 1990 effectively sidelined this body as an important institution.

The Politburo was always a small body. The first Politburo consisted of five full and three candidate (or nonvoting) members; at its largest, when it was elected at the Nineteenth Congress in 1952 and was probably artificially large because Stalin was planning a further purge of the leadership (it was also envisaged that there would be a small, inner body), it comprised twenty-five full and eleven candidate members. Generally in the post-Stalin period it had between ten and fifteen full and five to nine candidates. Membership has tended to include a number of CC secretaries, leading representatives from state institutions (although the foreign and defense ministers did not become automatic members until 1973) and sometimes one or two republican party leaders. Gorbachev changed this pattern completely in 1990 by making all republican party leaders members of the Politburo along with the general secretary and his deputy, and eliminating candidate membership. It was over-whelmingly a male institution, with only two women (Ekaterina Furtseva and Alexandra Biriukova) gaining membership, and it was always dominated by ethnic Slavs, especially Russians.

While the frequency of Politburo meetings is somewhat uncertain for much of its life, it seems to have met on average about once per week in the Brezhnev period and after, with provision for a further meeting if required. Meetings were attended by all members plus a range of other people who might be called in to address specific items on the agenda. In addition, some issues were handled by circulation among the members, thereby not requiring explicit discussion at a meeting. No public differences of opinion between Politburo members were aired before the breakdown of many of the rules of Party life under Gorbachev, and public unanimity prevailed. It is not clear that votes were actually taken; issues seem to have been resolved through discussion and consensus. Whatever the process, the Politburo was the central leadership site of the Party and the Soviet system as a whole.

See also: brezhnev, leonid ilich; central committee; communist party of the soviet union; gorbachev, mikhail sergeyevich; presidium of supreme soviet; stalin, josef vissarionovich

bibliography

Laird, Roy D. (1986). The Politburo: Demographic Trends, Gorbachev and the Future. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Lowenhardt, John; Ozinga, James R.; and van Ree, Erik. (1992). The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Politburo. London: UCL Press.

Graeme Gill

Politburo The highest policy-making committee of Communist Parties, modelled on the organizational structures of the Soviet Union. There, it was founded after the Russian Revolution of February 1917 to realize Lenin's organizational ideas for an elite cadre of leaders to guide the revolution. Once Communism had been established, it continued in its function as the highest executive organ of the Communist Party and the state. Its real workings changed over time. Under Stalin, its members were increasingly subject to the dictator's will. Khrushchev successfully invoked its theoretical responsibility to the Party Central Committee to overrule its decision in 1957 to topple him. Under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko, it became more the collective body it had originally been designed to be. It was abolished under Gorbachev. As the model for the governments of all the Communist Eastern Bloc countries, it was largely abandoned with the collapse of Communism 1988–9.

politburo the former central policy-making and governing body of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and, with minor variations, of other Communist parties. It was first created on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, but it did not become fully functional until the Eighth Party Congress in Mar., 1919. Nominally elected by the central committee to direct the party between the committee's plenary sessions, the politburo, in reality, governed the country. The size of the politburo in the Soviet Union varied; from 1952 until 1966 it was called the presidium.

po·lit·bu·ro / ˈpälətˌbyoŏrō; ˈpō-/ • n. (pl. -ros) the principal policymaking committee of a Communist Party. ∎  (Politburo) this committee in the former Soviet Union, founded in 1917. Also called (1952–66) the presidium.

Politburo The highest policy-making committee of the former USSR and its satellites. The Soviet Politburo was founded, together with the Ogburo (Organizational Bureau), in 1917 by the BOLSHEVIKS to provide leadership during the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. Both bureaux were later re-formed to control all aspects of Soviet life.

politburo (political bureau) Administrative and policy-making body of the Soviet Communist Party. Formerly called the presidium, it consisted of 11–12 full members and 6–9 candidate members chosen by the Party's central committee.

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