General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to Georgy Malenkov, possibly to test him as a potential successor. In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's leadership. His request, voiced through Malenkov, to be relieved of his duties in the party secretariat due to his age, was rejected by the party congress, as delegates were unsure about Stalin's intentions. In the end, the congress formally abolished Stalin's office of General Secretary, though Stalin remained one of the party secretaries and maintained ultimate control of the Party. When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov was the most important member of the Secretariat, which also included Nikita Khrushchev, among others. Under a short-lived troika of Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov, Malenkov became Chairman of the Council of Ministers but was forced to resign from the Secretariat nine days later on 14 March, leaving Khrushchev in effective control of the body. Khrushchev was elected to the new office of First Secretary at the Central Committee plenum on 14 September of the same year. Originally conceived as a collective leadership, Khrushchev removed his rivals from power in both 1955 and (especially) 1957 and reinforced the supremacy of the First Secretary.
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Andropov was elected the party's General Secretary on 12 November 1982 by a decision of the Central Committee. The Central Committee meeting was held less than 24 hours after the announcement of Brezhnev's death. A.R. Judson Mitchell claims that the Central Committee meeting which elected Andropov as General Secretary, was little more than a rubber stamp meeting. Andropov was in a good position to take over the control of the party apparatus; three big system hierarchs, Brezhnev, Kosygin and Suslov had all died. A fourth, Kirilenko, was forced into retirement. At the Central Committee meeting of 22 November 1982, Kirilenko lost his membership in the Politburo (after a decision within the Politburo itself), and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee, was elected to the Secretariat. Ryzhkov became the Head of the Economic Department of the Central Committee, and became the leading Central Committee member on matters regarding economic planning. Shortly afterwards, Ryzhkov, after replacing Vladimir Dolgikh, began to oversee the civilian economy. At the 14–15 June 1983 Central Committee meeting, Vitaly Vorotnikov was elected as a candidate member of the Politburo, Grigory Romanov was elected to the Secretariat and five members of the Central Committee were given full membership. The election of Romanov in the Secretariat, weakened Chernenko's control considerably. Later, Yegor Ligachev was appointed as Head of the Party Organisational Work Department of the Central Committee. Certain Brezhnev appointees were kept, such as Viktor Chebrikov and Nikolai Savinkin. With these appointments, Andropov effectively wielded the powers of the nomenklatura. Even so, by the time he had succeeded in dominating the Central Committee, Andropov fell ill. He was unable to attend the annual parade celebrating the victory of the October Revolution. Chernenko, the official second-ranking secretary, competed for power with Mikhail Gorbachev. The meetings of the Central Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union were postponed to the last possible moment because of Andropov's health. Changes continued however, and the Andropov appointees continued Andropov's course of introducing new blood into the Central Committee and Party apparatus. Vorotnikov and Mikhail Solomentsev were given full membership in the Politburo, Chebrikov was elected a candidate member of the Politburo and Ligachev became a member of the Secretariat. Chernenko's position began to look precarious; Gorbachev was getting stronger by the day. Four days after Andropov's death, on 9 February 1984, Chernenko was elected as the party's General Secretary.