ABSTRACT
The intimate relationship in the USSR between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the network of popular assemblies (soviets) has conventionally been treated in short order in Western literature as a case of tight control and apparently unnecessary duplication. That the party actually leads or directs the soviets is as readily accepted in Western as it is in Soviet writing about the subject. Only recently has the necessity for this link been satisfactorily explained and the lack of uniformity (assumed to flow from the party’s centralized leadership) been identified.
