The leading role of the party is a constitutional principle of communist states. It holds that the ruling party leads the state by virtue of being the vanguard of the proletariat, a communist party.
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Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution in the context of Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and sometimes referred to as the Bolshevik Party and Soviet Communist Party, was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism–Leninism. The party was outlawed under Russian president Boris Yeltsin's decree on 6 November 1991, citing the 1991 Soviet coup attempt as a reason.
The party started in 1898 as part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, that party split into a Menshevik (m) ("minority") and Bolshevik (b) ("majority") faction; the latter, led by Vladimir Lenin, is the direct ancestor of the CPSU and is the party that seized power in the October Revolution of 1917. Its activities were suspended on Soviet territory 74 years later, on 29 August 1991, soon after a failed coup d'état by conservative CPSU leaders against the reforming Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution in the context of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Перший Секретар ЦК КПУ, romanized: Pershyi Sekretar TsK KPU, Russian: Первый Секретарь ЦК КПУ) was a party leader of the republican branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The office's name alternated throughout its history between First Secretary and the General Secretary.
The secretary was the de facto leader of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic through Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, which made the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the "leading and guiding force of the Soviet society". These powers were revoked with the revision to Article 6 on 24 October 1990 that removed the Communist Party's monopoly on power.