History of the Soviet Union (1953–64) Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Georgi Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. However the central figure in the immediate post-Stalin period was the former head of the state security apparatus, Lavrentiy Beria. Stalin had left the Soviet Union in an unenviable state when he died. At least 2.5 million people languished in prison and in labor camps, science and the arts had been subjugated to socialist realism, and agriculture productivity on the whole was meager. The country had only one quarter of the livestock it
Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union money. Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was nominally based on the principles of democratic centralism. The governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the Party Congress, which initially met annually but whose meetings became less frequent, particularly under Joseph Stalin (dominant from the late 1920s to 1953). Party Congresses would elect a Central Committee which, in turn, would elect a Politburo. Under Stalin, the most powerful position in the party became the General Secretary, who was elected by the Politburo. In