Ideological orientations of the highest leadership of the CPSU in 1985–1991

The subject of the article is the ideological orientations in the highest leadership of the CPSU, represented by the Politbyuro and Secretariate of the Central Committee. The leader of the CPSU are characterized as having both common grounds and distinctive disagreements on the core questions of the economical and political order of the country. As their common grounds are brought their commitment to the socialist ideals and confidence in the neccesity of the reforms of the social systems in the USSR. The proccess of evolution of the views of the party's leaders is presented in interrelation with radical reforms in economy and politics. The consequence of the proccess was the crystallization of discordances between different groups in the leadership of the CPSU, which was the reaction on the already happened social transformatons, and influenced the proccess of reformation of the system. The research is written on the wide sources, including both documents of the party and personal records. The conceptual analysis of the public speeches and discussions in the Politbyro is developed. As a result of the research is concluded that at the beginning of the "perestroika" the leaders of the CPSU were united by the consesus on the neccesity of the reforms, yet there were hidden discordances between them. The reformation of the economy and political system led to detection of these discrodances and to the division of the CPSU on conservatives and reformists parts. It is defined that inefficiency of the moderate changes accumulated further radicalization of the leaders of the CPSU. It is also noted that depsite the orthodox rhetoric, the conservatives quite easily accepted the adoption of the market economy. Main discordances between conservatives and reformists were about the issues of the democratization of the political system and the decline of ideological control.

Perestroika, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, M. S. Gorbachev, Central Commitee of the CPSU, The Politbyuro, The Secretariate, A. N. Yakovlev, E. K. Ligachev, The USSR decline, Glasnost'