The U. S. S. R.: Social Change and Party Adaptability

Abstract

This article explores ways in which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) has adapted to changing circumstances, manifesting a capacity for modification both in its internal composition and structures and in its functioning in society. Moreover, the article argues that this adaptability is likely to continue in the future as the tasks that face the CPSU, as a ruling party, develop and expand. At the same time, the CPSU remains the product of its Leninist and Stalinist past, and this provides a measure of continuity, while also serving to inhibit certain kinds of perhaps desirable change. The changes that have been evident in recent years reflect the more pragmatic approach to government in the Brezhnev era, concentrating more on the administration of the complex society of today than on the utopian goal of reaching communism tomorrow-an important shift of emphasis aptly characterized by Alex Pravda as that of from getting there to being here.2 It was quite clear to Lenin that the party in the first decade of the century had to be specifically designed for its purpose and role. In its early history, the party-the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party-had one clear goal: to overthrow the tsarist system in revolution and impose its own rule on behalf of the working class of Russia. The circumstances in which the party had to operate are well-known: it was perforce a clandestine organization, hounded by the political police, penetrated by informers and agents, its leadership dispersed and frequently in exile in Siberia or abroad. Given those circumstances, certain organizational principles were adopted on Lenin's insistence in order to keep the party alive and permit it to function as effectively as possible in spreading the ideas of Marxism and generally preparing the working class of Russia and its intellectual allies for revolution. In those terms can be understood the principle of centralism, the cellular structure of the party, based on places of work, and the insistence on active membership. The first of these was a necessary compromise with more open democratic principles; the second facilitated the organization of the working class for revolutionary purposes and the maintenance of secrecy, as well as fitting the