>>2986
>Even a small party can be influential, look at the democratic socialist party which lead the soviet union.
What do you mean? The CPSU was the continuation of the Bolsheviks, who had spent two decades carrying out underground activities against Tsarism and had created strong roots among the working-class.
Actual party membership relative to the Soviet population was low because membership standards were (at least intended to be) very high. Party members were meant to be exemplary individuals, helping to set the standard for efficiency and leadership wherever they worked and capable of carrying out propaganda and the directives of the Party. Obviously in practice many careerists wormed their way into it.
Also even though the Party was numerically small, it was able to lead through two ways:
1. Party cells (or party primary organizations as they were later called) tended to direct the activity of industrial enterprises, collective farms, academic institutions, and every other organized entity in the country. So a handful of communist teachers could exert a vital influence over the running of a school, for example.
2. The CPSU had what were called transmission belts, i.e. the trade unions, youth (Komsomol), and a great many other organizations like them. Party cells and party members were responsible for directing their affairs, at least ideologically.
Comparing all this to a random party of like ten people in the United States is a bit silly. This doesn't mean your party sucks, just saying.
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