General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union more than determine party membership composition. Stalin, its first incumbent, used the principles of democratic centralism to transform his office into that of party leader, and later leader of the Soviet Union. In 1934, the 17th Party Congress refrained from formally re-electing Stalin as General Secretary. However, Stalin was re-elected into all other positions and remained leader of the party without diminishment. In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to Georgy Malenkov, possibly to test him as a potential successor. In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's
1937 Soviet Union legislative election 1937 Soviet Union legislative election Elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in the Soviet Union on 12 December 1937. It was the first election held under the 1936 Soviet Constitution, which had formed the Supreme Soviet to replace the old legislature, the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union. On 11 December, on the eve of the election, Joseph Stalin gave a speech to voters in Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, greeted by a loud ovation lasting for several minutes with cries of "Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!" "Hurrah for Comrade Stalin, the creator of the Soviet Constitution, the most democratic