Program of the CPSU
EDITOR'S NOTE
The CPSU has grown from the first party of Communists organized by V.I. Lenin over 80 years ago to a Party of over 19 million members (one-tenth of the adult population of the USSR). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union encompasses a cross-section of the Soviet people with more than one hundred nationalities in its ranks and leadership.
The first Program of the Bolshevik Party was acted upon in 1903, with the goal of ending czarist rule and establishing working-class power. A second program, enacted after the October Revolution of 1917, set the basis for building the world's first socialist society. After the victory over fascism and reconstruction of the extensive war damage, a third program was adopted in 1961 for the advance to a communist society. This 1961 program has now been amended and recast as a new edition (not a new program), taking into account the experiences of the last twenty-five years and the pace of social development that is now possible.
Industrial workers comprise over 44% of the membership of the CPSU at the present time. Collective farmers are approximately 12%, and the professional technical and white collar workers make up 43%. That many of the latter work directly in industrial enterprises is shown by the fact that 73.2% of the total party membership works in branches of material production. One member in six works in "science, education, public health or culture" while only 8.9% are in bodies of state administration, management, or Party or public organizational apparatus.
Over five million women are members of the CPSU and their percentage of the total grows at an increasing rate. Whereas women were 25.7% of new members in 1970, they were 34.3% in 1982 and this acceleration has continued. [Over one-third of the deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR are women; more than half at the republic, regional and local levels.]
Workers in industry and on the farms account for over 42% of the members and alternate members of Party district, city and area committees; over 31% are members of similar bodies at the regional level or higher, including the Central Committee of the CPSU and of the Party in each republic.
The CPSU incorporates the Communist Parties of 14 constituent Soviet Republics. The 15th, the Russian Federation, has no party organization of its own but its major regions, territories and autonomous areas work under the direct guidance and assistance of the CPSU Central Committee.
There is hardly a workplace or community without a branch of the CPSU. As of 1983, the number of these primary Party organizations was nearly 426,000.
Source:
The Challenges of Our Time. Disarmament and Social Progress.
Highlights, 27th Congress, CPSU.
New York: International Publishers, 1986.
ISBN 0-7178-0642-1