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
At the 19th Conference, the first since 1941, Mikhail Gorbachev called for the establishment of Commissions of the Central Committee to allow Central Committee members more leeway in actual policy implementation. On 30 September 1988, a Central Committee Resolution established six Commissions, all of which were led either by Politburo members or Secretaries. The Commission on International Affairs was led by Alexander Yakovlev; Yegor Ligachev led the Commission on Agriculture; Georgy Razumovsky led the Commission on Party Building and Personnel; Vadim Medvedev became head of the Commission on Ideology; the Commission of Socio-economic Questions was led by Nikolay Slyunkov; and Viktor Chebrikov became the head of the Commission on Legal Affairs. The establishment of these commissions was explained in different ways, but Gorbachev later claimed that they were established to end the power struggle between Yakovlev and Ligachev on cultural and ideological matters, without forcing Ligachev out of politics. Ligachev, on the other hand, claimed that the commissions were established to weaken the prestige and power of the Secretariat. The number of meetings held by the Secretariat, following the establishments of the commissions, decreased drastically, before the body was revitalised following the 28th Party Congress (2 July 1990 – 13 July 1990) (see "Secretariat" section).