Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the sole governing Communist party of the Soviet Union, directly responsible for various mass killings under Communist regimes and indirectly responsible for others by promotion of and by being a role model for other Communist parties and Communist regimes.
The party started in 1898 as the Bolsheviks, a faction from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, thus becoming the first Marxist-Leninist party. It seized power in the October Revolution of 1917.
