[citation needed] The General Secretary of the CPSU, who was also a Politburo member, was the leader of the Secretariat and of the Party.

Dual membership in the Secretariat and the Politburo was in practice reserved for two or three very senior members of the Soviet leadership, and in the post-Stalin era (after March 1953) was a stepping-stone to ultimate power.

Additionally, Georgy Malenkov was briefly the leader of the Party for around a week after Stalin's death by virtue of being the top member of the Secretariat.

[2] The Central Committee established the Secretariat on 6 August 1917; it initially comprised Felix Dzerzhinsky, Matvei Muranov and Yakov Sverdlov as full members and Adolph Joffe and Elena Stasova as candidate members (or alternates).

Following the October Revolution of November 1917, Sverdlov and Stasova in effect handled the work of the Secretariat as the other members of the body assumed other duties.