Organizations of Russia

COUNTRY: Russia

HEADLINE: Organizations

Academy of Sciences

The Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1724 by Peter the Great as the Russian Academy of Sciences. It later became the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and then the Imperial Academy of Sciences. From the 1917 Revolution until 1925 it was known as the Academy of Sciences of Russia, and from then until the breakup of the Soviet Union as the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

The Academy of Sciences is the chief coordinating body for scientific research and membership constitutes the highest honor in the scientific community. Academies of Sciences existed in all republics. In 1986 a 75-year age limit was established along with four-yearly elections for the president and council and biannual general meetings to elect new members. It has 300 full members, who are mainly established but largely retired scientists, and 600 corresponding members, who are active scientists. The academy became independent of the state in 1990.

After the failed coup against the regime of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the organization was renamed the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, another organization with the same name was created around the same time. The new grouping is merely an honorary society with no institutions or research funds. Its leaders have been pressing the original academy to merge, a move that some say would undermine the scientific integrity of the academy because the new grouping is open to nonscientists.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; Science]

Central Committee

The highest organ of the Soviet Communist Party, the Central Committee directed all party activities between congresses. Members were formally elected at party congresses every five years, with the membership actually selected in advance of the congresses by the party leadership.

Party statutes declared the Central Committee to be the party's most important continuing body. In theory, the Politburo and the Secretariat reported to the Central Committee. In practice, the Central Committee's power was severely limited by its infrequent meetings and large membership, and true power lay with the Politburo and Secretariat. The committee's major function was to provide a sense of legitimacy and national consensus for Politburo decisions, with major decisions being issued in its name. The committee met twice a year, with sessions lasting one or two days. Plenary (full) sessions would be held before a major event, such as the introduction of a five-year plan or to announce the selection of a new general secretary. The committee was supported by a staff of about 1,500 people.

The Central Committee was first created at the Bolshevik Congress of 1898. From 1917 to 1934, the Central Committee acted as a quasi-parliament, with room for discussions and factions, even outvoting Joseph Stalin on some occasions. To free himself from dependency on majority support in the Central Committee, Stalin purged 70% of the body between the 17th and 18th party congresses (1934-39) and installed his own supporters. Thus, until Stalin's death, its role was greatly diminished. During the period of collective leadership, after Stalin's death, the membership was selected to represent key elements of society and leaders again had to win support of the various factions of the committee. Wider in scope than the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers, the Central Committee was the main tool of the government following World War II. Its members included republic party leaders, key ministerial figures, representatives of the military and security forces, and major economic and scientific figures. Following the failed hard-line coup in 1991 the committee dissolved itself.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; The European Political Dictionary]

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), now known as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was founded in 1898 as the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. A major figure in the party's early days was Vladimir Lenin, one of the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that overthrew the political system that communists believed exploited and destroyed people. Following the revolution, the Bolsheviks, under Lenin, emerged as the single, dominant party and adopted the name Communist Party. The party was originally seen as the leader of the working class and devoted to developing a society in which everyone was equal and no one was exploited by their employers. Under Joseph Stalin the party grew from a relatively small, elite group to a ruling bureaucracy with a much larger membership. Rules binding party members to obey all decisions of the central party leadership helped make the party increasingly bureaucratic. The CPSU came to be run by officials who had more lavish lifestyles than ordinary people. The average citizen often had to share small apartments with other families and had limited access to plentiful supplies of basic food. Party officials had country homes and ate caviar.

According to the rules adopted by the 22nd Congress of the party on Oct 31, 1961, the Communist Party "unites, on a voluntary basis, the more advanced, politically more conscious section of the working class, collective-farm peasantry, and intelligentsia of the USSR." Its principal objectives are to build a communist society by means of gradual transition from socialism to communism, to raise the material and cultural level of the people, to organize the defense of the country, and to strengthen ties with the workers of other countries.

The CPSU was the Soviet Union's only legal party until the late 1980s, when organized opposition groups began forming inside and outside the party. Because of the party's powerful role and its status as the nation's only legal party, the general secretary of the Central Committee was effectively the head of state.

The supreme organ was the party congress. Ordinary congresses were convened not less than once in four years. The congress elected a Central Committee, which met at least every six months, carried on the work of the party between congresses, and guided the work of central Soviet and public organizations through party groups within them.

The Central Committee formed a political bureau ( Politburo) to direct the work of the committee between plenary meetings, a secretariat to direct day-to-day work, and a commission of party control to consider appeals against decisions about expulsion. Similar rules held for the regional and territorial party organizations. Every republic of the Soviet Union (except for Russia) had its own Communist Party organization. The Politburo was the party's effective policymaking body.

The party's most important principle was democratic centralism, which includes three basic ideas:

1. Monolithic unity is fundamental to Marxism-Leninism (the political philosophy of Soviet communism).

2. All party decisions are irrevocably binding on party members.

3. Any restriction or questioning of party policy is considered revision, which is contrary to the CPSU's role as the only interpreter of Marxist-Leninism.

In 1990 the Communist Party had 19,228,217 members (about 9% of the adult population). Women accounted for 30% of membership and Russians for 59%.

In February 1990 the CPSU denounced its constitutional guarantee of monopoly power. The following month, the Congress of People's Deputies repealed Article six of the Soviet Constitution, which had guaranteed political power for the party. The CPSU's position was undermined when many key members of the party participated in the Aug 18, 1991 coup that failed to oust reformist President Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev resigned from the Communist Party leadership on Aug 24, 1991, ending the traditional link between party and political leadership, and on Aug 29, the Supreme Soviet voted to suspend the CPSU's activity indefinitely. However, in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union, many hard-line republic leaders who had been able to retain their power have since legalized republic Communist parties. A virtual opposition bloc, the party dominated December 1995 State Duma elections under the stewardship of longtime apparatchik Gennady Zyuganov.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; The European Political Dictionary]

Congress of People's Deputies

Under the constitutional reforms of 1988 the Soviet Union's Congress of People's Deputies formally became the highest body of state authority. It was empowered to pass legislation and elect the Supreme Soviet, which performed the more important legislative activities. However, effective political power was held by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and its constituent organs. The Congress of People's Deputies was also mandated to adopt and amend the Soviet Constitution and ratify the election of the Supreme Court and the chairperson of the Council of Ministers.

Under the 1988 amendments to the Constitution, the Congress consisted of 2,250 deputies elected to five-year terms by universal suffrage. One third of the Congress' membership was reserved for the main all-union public organizations such as the CPSU, trade unions, the Komsomol ( communist youth), women's councils, the Academy of Sciences, and so on. Only 100 seats were saved for party members, but most of the deputies were communists who gained election to the Congress through other avenues. The remaining two thirds of the members were elected from the nation's republics and regions, with 750 being directly elected in territorial constituencies and 750 representing national-territorial areas (union republics, autonomous republics, autonomous regions, and autonomous districts).

The Congress met five times and its last act was to approve arrangements for an interim government after the failed coup of August 1991.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; Europa World Year Book; World Almanac of the Soviet Union]

KGB

KGB is the abbreviation of Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, the Committee of State Security, which was the Soviet security service from 1953 to 1991. In 1991 the KGB merged with the Interior Ministry to form the Russian Security and Internal Affairs Ministry. Earlier similar organizations have been the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, and MGB. All these organizations served as instruments of control for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). There now exist a Federal Security Service (FSB) and a Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

Prior to the 1991 reforms, the KGB was charged with preserving the power of the state and maintaining surveillance over civilians. The agency was responsible for both foreign and domestic security. The KGB's responsibilities included:

1. foreign and domestic espionage

2. intelligence gathering and analysis

3. counterintelligence

4. political control over the population

5. protecting borders

6. covert activities and disinformation

The KGB was divided into main directorates, independent directorates, and departments, all of which had subordinate agencies. The main directorates included:

* First Directorate, responsible for clandestine foreign activities and counterintelligence

* Second Directorate, responsible for domestic intelligence

* Third Directorate, responsible for military counterespionage

* Fifth Directorate, control of dissent

At its height, the KGB employed more than 200,000 border guards, security troops, and a secret service. It was organized along military lines, with its members having military ranks.

During Joseph Stalin's rule, the secret service was responsible only to him and conducted a reign of terror. Nikita Khrushchev, the CPSU leader from 1953 to 1964, brought the organization more under party control. Under Leonid Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, the organization was devoted more to foreign affairs.

Although it was nominally subordinate to the Council of Ministers, the KGB was actually solely responsible to the CPSU, with operatives present at all levels of government and within all industrial and other organizations. The KGB wielded great influence over the secret police forces of other Eastern bloc nations.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; The European Political Dictionary; The Soviet and East European Dictionary]

Liberal Democratic Party

Originally founded by Vladimir Bogachev, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was chaired by the extreme right-wing populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky beginning in 1990. After being expelled by the party leadership for his incendiary rhetoric, Zhirinovsky claimed the party name for himself in 1991 with the reputed connivance of officials from the Soviet-era KGB, or secret police.

The LDP is an ultranationalist grouping whose membership consists largely of former and current members of the military, pensioners, communists, and nationalists, but it also includes a growing contingent of mainstream supporters from Russia's emerging business class. The party was considered a negligible extremist grouping until Zhirinovsky's favorable showing in 1991 presidential elections in which he secured roughly 8% of the vote, or over 6 million votes.

In December 1993 legislative elections the LDP took the most votes of any party in the popular vote component of the election 64 of 225 elected seats in an upset that has subsequently made President Boris Yeltsin and other moderate politicians more respectful of nationalist political sentiment. The party effectively controlled about one-fifth of the seats in the State Duma until 1995 elections, when it lost a substantial amount of representation. At the LDP's fifth party congress in April 1994 its 340 deputies granted Zhirinovsky absolute control of the organization and nominated him as their candidate in 1996 presidential elections, in which he placed a distant fifth.

[Sources: Europa World Year Book; Political Handbook of the World]

National Salvation Front

The National Salvation Front is a Russian grouping of communist hard-liners and right-wing nationalists. It was founded on Oct 24, 1992 and banned by President Boris Yeltsin three days later. Its leaders were drawn from military, antireform, and anti-Semitic groups. The party advocated Yeltsin's overthrow. In February 1993, a court ruling overturned Yeltsin's ban, although the group had never ceased its activities in the first place. It advocates a halt to further privatization.

Leader: Valery Smirnov

[Source: Facts on File World News Digest]

Politburo

The Politburo was the political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the most powerful institution of the party. It was responsible for party work between plenary sessions of the Central Committee. It was the chief policymaking organ of the party and it consisted of 14 full members and eight candidate (nonvoting) members, although the numbers sometimes varied. Its membership included the nation's most important politicians, with seats in the Politburo being the most tangible indication of power in the Soviet Union.

The Politburo was first constituted by Vladimir Lenin in October 1917 to direct the Bolshevik Revolution and was the true locus of power for most of Soviet history. It made policy for both the government and the party, although technically its mandate extended only to the party. The fusion of power stemmed from the fact that leading party personnel held key government posts and party discipline assured the implementation of party policy by all government organs. The Politburo's main areas of focus were international affairs, the economy, and national security.

The members of the Politburo were selected informally by the body's own membership through a secret process. The Politburo was formally responsible to the Central Committee, with its membership subject to the approval of that body. The body included full and candidate members and only once had a woman member. Although it had no formally designated head, the Politburo was effectively led by the general secretary of the party. An inner circle of about six members generally constituted the Politburo Secretariat, the ultimate seat of power for the communist regime.

Its role changed in 1990 when the 28th Congress agreed on the transfer of power to parliamentary institutions. The Politburo ceased activities in August 1991.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; The Soviet and East European Dictionary]

Socialist Workers Party

The Russian Sotsialisticheskaya Partiya Trudiashchikhsia (Socialist Workers Party) was led by former dissident historian Roy Medvedev, who is now a member of the State Duma (legislature). A small leftist organization, it has sought alliances in the past with communist and agrarian parties.

[Source: Political Handbook of the World]

State Duma

The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly, the bicameral legislature approved in a new December 1993 Constitution as a replacement for the Supreme Soviet. It is a 450-member body of which 225 seats are filled by proportional representation, the other half in single member constituencies. Its formal powers are somewhat circumscribed by the comprehensive executive powers that President Boris Yeltsin wrote into the Constitution as a result of past power struggles with recalcitrant deputies of the Soviet-era legislature. The State Duma's counterpart is the upper-house Federation Council, a 178-member chamber comprising two deputies each from Russia's 89 regions and republics.

[Sources: Keesing's Record of World Events; Political Handbook of the World; Time]

Supreme Soviet

The Supreme Soviet was the highest legislative organ of the Soviet Union and was empowered to pass constitutional amendments. Most legislation was initiated by the Cabinet or the Presidium and most of the Supreme Soviet's work was carried out by functionally specific committees that developed from the 1960s onwards. However, the dominance of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the effective instrument of government meant that legislative processes were not clear and, given the duplication in membership of various party and government organs, whether a legislative proposal originated in the Politburo, Presidium, or Council of Ministers was difficult to determine and probably not important. Key positions in the Supreme Soviet were held by members of the Communist Party, although it was a highly representative body in that it also included women, nonparty members, peasants, young people, and workers.

The Supreme Soviet consisted of two chambers with equal legislative rights, elected for a term of five years. The Soviet of the Union represented individuals and the Soviet of Nationalities represented the constituent units of the Soviet federation. The Soviet of the Union was elected on the basis of electoral districts that were all the same size, with one deputy for every 300,000 people. In 1989 there were 750 members. The Soviet of Nationalities was elected on the basis of 25 deputies from each union republic, 11 from each autonomous republic, five from each autonomous region, and one from each autonomous area, but the deputies were not required to be, and very often were not, of the nationality they were supposed to represent. In 1989 there were 750 members. Constitutional amendments in 1988 provided for the election in 1989 of a 2,250-member Congress of People's Deputies, which would elect a 542-member Supreme Soviet.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; The Soviet and East European Dictionary]

Tass

Founded in 1925, Tass (Telegraphic Agency of the Soviet Union) was the official Soviet news agency. For most of its existence it was a government "mouthpiece." It was recognized for providing some of the frankest reporting during glasnost, but during the failed hard-line coup of August 1991 it issued statements from the leaders of the insurrection. As a result, the director general was replaced following the unsuccessful coup. The agency is now a pool for news agencies from the Commonwealth of Independent States. Press releases from Russia are labeled Itar-Tass. In 1990, Tass had 1,300 reporters, photographers, and editors in 113 countries.

[Sources: Encyclopedia of Russian History; Time]

Writers' Union

The Writers' Union was founded in the Soviet Union by party decree in 1932 and was established in 1934. It was the only professional organization for Soviet writers and nonmembers could not be published. Members were required to follow the union doctrine of socialist realism and criticism of the regime was not permitted. By 1977 it had 7,955 members. It controlled two publishing houses: Literaturnaja gazeta and Sovetskij pisatel. The union's newspaper was Literaturnaja gazeta. It published several journals, including Novy Mir (New World).

The Writers' Union was notoriously conservative, and in the 1930s and 1940s it informed on its own members. After the failed Soviet coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, liberals in the organization took over a meeting and ousted the union's hard-line secretariat. The liberals wanted to assure the continued existence of a centralized organization representing writers throughout the former republics of the Soviet Union, although the Baltic and Georgian branches of the union had left the group before the coup attempt. The future of the group is uncertain, in part because of the secession of republican groups and also because the government has mounted some challenges to the union's ownership of its property and to the Litfund, which provides money to support writers.

Among the writers expelled by the Writers' Union were Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

[Sources: The Soviet Union Figures-Facts-Data; World Almanac of the Soviet Union]

LOAD-DATE: February 18, 1998

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