<Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Council of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the ultimate policymaker in the country . </P> <P> At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences . The Central Committee in turn voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952--1966), Secretariat and the General Secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union . Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above . </P> <P> The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state largely through its control over the system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU . Of the party heads themselves, Stalin in 1941--1953 and Khrushchev in 1958--1964 were Premiers . Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . </P>

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