Abbreviation for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was one of the main power structures in the USSR, along with the Red Army and the KGB. Many Presidents (or Premiers) of the Soviet Union, including Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, came from the CPSU, and the position of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU was frequently more powerful than the position of Premier -- for example, Josef Stalin was never Premier.
The CPSU disappeared with the Soviet Union, although the Communist Party is still strong in Russia and the CIS