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
Stalin Society Stalin Society The Stalin Society is a British discussion group for individuals who see Joseph Stalin as a great Marxist–Leninist and wish to preserve his legacy, which they believe to be positive. The society originated as a consequence of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and what the members perceived as a subsequent increase in the criticism of Stalin. According to the Stalin Society's website, "[t]he Stalin Society was formed in 1991 to defend Stalin and his work on the basis of fact and to refute capitalist, revisionist, opportunist and Trotskyist propaganda directed against him." The society is based on