The personal relationship in the highest leadership of the CPSU as a factor of the political proccess during the "perestroika" in the USSR (1985–1991)

The article is dedicated to personal relationship in the highest leadership of the CPSU, presented by the Politbyuro and the Secretariate. The leaders of the CPSU are considered as having both common traits due to their participation on the top of the political system and specialities brought by their career trajectories in the party. The relationship inside the highest leadership are analyzed together with the sociocultural characteristics, career trajectories, ideological positions, personal sympathies and antipathies of the leaders of the CPSU. The evolutionary proccess of the change of relationships between the leaders of the CPSU and its coinfluence with the political reforms of "perestroika" are considered together. The personnel rotation brought by both objective and subjective reasons is referenced as a side of that proccess. M. S. Gorbachev's person and personnel policy have the utmost attention. The article is written with a wide source material, including both documents of the party and personal documents. The relationship between the leaders of the CPSU and its influence on the political proccess of the CPSU is reconstructed on the basis of comparison of the authentic sources and memoirs. The attempt to analyze the leadership of the CPSU as a subject of political proccess and thus to define the role of the subjective factor in the reforms of "perestroika" is a core of the articles novelty. As a result of the research it is concluded that personal relationship in the leadership of the CPSU defined the state of the party during the end of "perestroika" in the USSR. It is revealed that the leaders of the party was inclined to assemble a team of reformists who would provide adecquate policy. Yet the personnel policy of the leaders of the CPSU were not free from subjective biases: the recruitment of newest leaders often was based on personal sympathies rather than professional characteristic. Even so the development of the crisis in the USSR brought on the avant-scene the discordance in the Politbyuro and the Secretariate. As a result, these factors led to the dissociation of the general secretary and his allies. The deisre to form a team of supportive reformists was not realized.

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'