The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the highest organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between two congresses. According to party statutes, the committee directed all party and governmental activities. The Party Congress elected its members.
CPSU Central Committee staff headquarters in 1920s-1991, current Administration of the President of Russia at Staraya Square.
The victors of the 15th Congress; Rykov (left), Mykola Skrypnik (center) and Stalin (right)
Stalin on 1937 portrait. Under his rule the Central Committee lost effective control over policymaking.
Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. To this day, the value of Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary remains debated by historians.
Brezhnev's Residence house that he lived in from 1929 to 1936
Brezhnev (right) in the rank of commissar giving a Communist Party membership-card to a soldier (1942)
Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Brezhnev's main patron.