Third Program of the CPSU

The Third Program of the CPSU was a party platform of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, adopted at its 22nd Congress on 31 October 1961. The main goal of the program was to create a plan for the construction of communism. (It was the first and only program that was approved while the party had this name; previous programs were approved when the party was named RSDLP and VKP(b).)

The core of the new approach to building communism was an attempt to replace Stalin's harsh administrative "pressure from above" with socialist self-government based on the principles of communist morality.^[1] The moral code of the builder of communism was an integral part of the Third Program, and so are the renewal of Druzhinas and Comrades' courts,^[2] and the general introduction of the moral principles of collectivism, initiative, comradely mutual assistance, and personal responsibility for the collective good.^[3] Many of these social reforms later formed the basis of understanding the 1960 in the Soviet Union (Khrushchev Thaw and early Stagnation).^[4]