The Twentieth Party Congress

Abstract

On July 14, 1955, the Central Committee announced that on February 14, 1956, the Twentieth Party Congress would be called into session. 1 This was another example of the regime’s post-Stalin efforts to introduce more regularity into political life and to rejuvenate Party meetings in particular. Aside from desiring to revamp the CPSU’s Central Committee in the light of changing conditions, the regime’s most important reason for calling a Party Congress eight months before the full four years specified by its statutes had elapsed was its need to obtain a new mandate for its authority. Technically, it still operated under the one issued to Stalin in late 1952. Normally this would have continued to be sufficient since it was under no compulsion to present its program to a Party Congress for ratification despite the statutory requirements. However, in this case a new one was necessary because under the pressure of modifying Stalin’s policies it was progressively undercutting the very factors upon which it based its claim to speak for the Soviet state.