The supreme state organ of power (SSOP) is a type of legislature and the highest representative institution in communist states operating under the Marxist–Leninist principle of unified power. Unlike systems based on the fusion or separation of powers, the SSOP holds legislative, executive, judicial, and all other forms of state power. Formally regarded as the embodiment of popular sovereignty and the head of the unified state apparatus, its activities in practice are closely shaped by the ruling communist party.
The SSOP's theoretical origins trace back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's idea of a “supreme power” of the people, Karl Marx’s call for unity of state power, and Vladimir Lenin’s vision of soviets as working organs which combined lawmaking and execution. The world's first SSOP was the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, established after the 1917 October Revolution, and it became the prototype for similar institutions in other communist states.
