ABSTRACT
At 10 am on Tuesday 25 February 1986 over 5,000 men and women thunderously applauded General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as he strode briskly to the podium in the great marble and glass Hall of Congresses within the ancient walls of the Kremlin to declare the 27th Congress of the CPSU open. And there, right up to the morning of 6 March, this great assembly, which included the leading figures in all walks of life both in the Soviet capital and in every constituent republic and province, was to sit for many hours each day (with the exception of the Sunday, when they rested from their creative labours) listening to scores of speeches, before finally endorsing the resolutions of the congress and the new composition of the party’s Central Committee. What was there about this gathering that required all the top-echelon officials of a mighty but troubled superpower to devote to it over a week of their busy time? Surely Soviet party congresses cannot be the empty formality they are sometimes imagined.
