CPSU are the initials by which the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union is often known. Until the revolutionary changes initiated by Gorbachev from the late 1980s, the party completely controlled political and social life in the Soviet Union. About 10% of the population were members, membership being much prized and by no means automatic. In some sectors, the army for example, as many as 75% would be party members. The principal means by which the party exercised control was through what was called the Nomenclatura, which was simply a list of jobs which had to be filled by party members, and concerning which the party was given a deciding voice in appointments. As a result nearly all of the most important managerial, administrative and intellectual jobs were filled by loyal party members. (As a further result of this, such positions would continue to be filled by those who at least had been members, whatever their current profession, for a long time after the fall of the CPSU from power in 1991.) In addition the party organized much of social life, controlled the trade unions, and had the sole right to put up candidates in elections. However, because of the sheer size of the party, the degree of organized and uniform control it exercised was sometimes questionable, although its command over education and the media helped it to prevent any serious and widespread doubts about its legitimacy. Senior party members gained many privileges, such as access to imported goods and better educational opportunities for their children, providing yet another incentive for membership.
The party was always careful to make sure that it could check the power of potential rivals. This was especially true of the armed forces, each unit of which had, in addition to the military commander, a political officer from the party who shared command. At the end of the party’s period of dominance the number of political officers in the Soviet military was bigger than the whole of Britain’s Army of the Rhine (i.e. over 55,000).
Once these monopoly powers were taken away, mainly by the glasnost doctrine, the gates were opened for Soviet citizens to demonstrate their feelings, which were more often indifference than loathing, but which made retention of control impossible. The tentacles which the CPSU spread into Soviet society were so complex that untangling its influence will take decades. For example, the party owned a huge proportion of the entire real estate of the Soviet Union, because legal ownership of land was forbidden to individuals and most institutions. A major problem for any successor organization will be that, though there is no legal reason why it cannot compete electorally under a system of pluralism, it is impossible to imagine what it could stand for, given that its raison d’être was specifically the need to lead the people during the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Despite this, ‘reformed’ communist parties under that or a similar name continue to be politically viable not only in the former Soviet Union and some parts of Eastern Europe, but also in Italy. They vary in their programme, but tend towards the sort of state-intervention socialism of the social-democratic parties of the 1950s and 1960s.
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