ABSTRACT
The principal tendencies at the highest level of the leadership had started showing signs of conflict and this reflected in the changes the Central Committee underwent immediately prior to and at the 27th Party Congress in February 1986. The reformist section of the leadership seemed to believe that changes in personnel would bring about the desired change. The economic reforms were to be coupled with an active social policy and socialist justice, which would involve updating the forms and methods of work of political and ideological institutions, the deepening of socialist democracy and overcoming inertia, stagnation and conservatism with a greater involvement of people. Given the nature of the Soviet political system and the importance of the Central Committee in it, its composition was an obvious choice as a key area for reform. Members of the Central Secretariat and the central apparatus were “described as executive agents of the collective Party committees”.
