ABSTRACT
Khrushchev’s rise to power in the post-Stalin period has traditionally been linked with the struggle for influence between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) apparatus and the state organs dominated by Khrushchev’s rivals.1 This chapter analyses the evolution of the Central Committee (CC) apparatus, one of the CPSU central decision-making organs, during Khrushchev’s time in power.2 I argue that the introduction of the territorial principle and attempts at simplification of the apparatus in the 1950s reflected broader aims of decentralization and fighting against bureaucracy. Together they constituted Khrushchev’s project for a revival of the party’s special role in society and government which was an important part of his political programme. However, tensions between alternative approaches meant that no single pattern of CC organization ever emerged. The economic difficulties of the early 1960s led to a radical reform of the party apparatus, which signalled the end of the revivalist project. Although the post-Khrushchev leadership returned to the pre-1956 organizational patterns, the party apparatus’s retention of its dominant role over state institutions proved to be the lasting legacy of the Khrushchev period. However, its supremacy was that of a bureaucratic institution rather than a revived mobilizing force as Khrushchev had intended.
