ABSTRACT
The Communist party of Czechoslovakia has about 1.5 million members, and they can be categorized according to their reasons for joining the party. Participants in the struggle to establish the monopoly of power are heavily represented. A member’s situation in the party is determined by the party’s role as backbone of a power monopoly. The communist leadership keeps watch over the development of the membership base, especially its social structure. On the basis of resolutions from the center, the district and regional organizations deal with these matters every month, the center at least twice a year. The district and regional committees do not in any way function as party organs that actually exercise control within the realm of their authority but rather as mere auxiliaries of their presidia having insignificant actual power.
