List of General Secretaries
| Name (birth–death) |
Portrait | Term of office | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical Secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (1917–1918) | |||
| Elena Stasova (1873–1966) |
April 1917–1918 | As Technical Secretary, Stasova and her staff of four women, were responsible for maintaining correspondence with provincial party cells, assigning work, keeping financial records, distributing Party funds, formulating party structure policy and appointing new personnel. | |
| Chairman of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (1918–1919) | |||
| Yakov Sverdlov (1885–1919) |
1918 – 16 March 1919 | Sverdlov remained in office until his death on 16 March 1919. During his tenure he was mainly responsible for technical rather than political matters. | |
| Elena Stasova (1873–1966) |
March 1919 – December 1919 | When her office was dissolved, Stasova was not considered a serious competitor for the post of Responsible Secretary, the successor office to the Chairman of the Secretariat. | |
| Responsible Secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (1919–1922) | |||
| Nikolay Krestinsky (1883–1938) |
December 1919 – March 1921 | The office of Responsible Secretary functioned like a secretary, a somewhat menial position given that Krestinsky was also a member of the Party's Politburo, Orgburo and Secretariat. Nevertheless, Krestinsky never tried to create an independent power base as Joseph Stalin later did during his time as General Secretary.. | |
| Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986) |
March 1921 – April 1922 | Was elected Responsible Secretary at the 10th Party Congress held in March 1921. The Congress decided that the office of Responsible Secretary should have a presence at Politburo plenums. As a result Molotov became a candidate member of the Politburo. | |
| General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) (1922–1952) | |||
| Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) |
3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952 | Stalin used the office of General Secretary to create a strong power base for himself. Vladimir Lenin later accused him of manipulating the powers of the General Secretary. Stalin nearly lost his post at the 17th Party Congress in 1934, but the death of his chief rival Sergey Kirov weakened the motion to remove him. He offered his resignation in 1934, but was re-elected as an ordinary secretary and was rarely referred to as General Secretary after that. The office was abolished at the 19th Party Congress in October 1952. | |
| First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953–1966) | |||
| Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) |
14 September 1953 – 14 October 1964 | Khrushchev reestablished the office on 14 September 1953 under the name First Secretary. In 1957 he was nearly removed from office by the Anti-Party Group. Georgy Malenkov, a leading member of the Anti-Party Group, worried that the powers of the First Secretary were virtually unlimited. Khrushchev was removed as leader on 14 October 1964, and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. | |
| Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) |
14 October 1964 – 8 April 1966 | The office of First Secretary was renamed General Secretary at the 23rd Party Congress. | |
| General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1966–1991) | |||
| Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) |
8 April 1966 – 10 November 1982 | At first there was no clear leader of the collective leadership with Brezhnev and Premier Alexei Kosygin ruling as equals. However, by the 1970s Brezhnev's influence exceeded that of Kosygin's and he was able to retain this support by avoiding any radical reforms. The powers and functions of the General Secretary were limited by the collective leadership during Brezhnev's tenure. | |
| Yuri Andropov (1914–1984) |
12 November 1982 – 9 February 1984 | He was seen as the most likely candidate for the General Secretary when it became known he had been the chairman of the committee in charge of arranging, managing and preparing Brezhnev's funeral. Andropov was obliged by protocol to rule the country in the same way Brezhnev had before he died. | |
| Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) |
13 February 1984 – 10 March 1985 | Chernenko was 72 years old when elected to the post of General Secretary and in rapidly failing health. Chernenko was also obliged by protocol, as Yuri Andropov had been, to rule the country in the same way Brezhnev had. | |
| Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931) |
11 March 1985 – 24 August 1991 | The 1990 Congress of People's Deputies voted to remove Article 6 from the 1977 Soviet Constitution. This meant that the Communist Party lost its position as the "leading and guiding force of the Soviet society" and the powers of the General Secretary were drastically curtailed. Throughout the rest of his tenure Gorbachev ruled through the office of President of the Soviet Union. He resigned from his post on 24 August 1991 in the aftermath of the August Coup. | |
| Vladimir Ivashko (1932–1994) |
24 August 1991 – 29 August 1991 | He was elected Deputy General Secretary, another name for deputy leader, at the 28th Party Congress. Ivashko became acting General Secretary following Gorbachev's resignation, but by then the Party was politically impotent and on 29 August 1991 it was banned. | |
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