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The leading role of the party is a constitutional principle most common in communist states. It holds that the ruling party leads the state by virtue of being the vanguard of the proletariat.

The leading role of the party was first enshrined in Article 126 of the Stalin Constitution, which described the Soviet Communist Party as "the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state."

Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution reiterated the role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as the "leading and guiding force of the Soviet society". The text of the article follows in English translation.

The leading and guiding force of the Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organisations and public organisations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU exists for the people and serves the people.

The Communist Party, armed with Marxism–Leninism, determines the general perspectives of the development of society and the course of the home and foreign policy of the USSR, directs the great constructive work of the Soviet people, and imparts a planned, systematic and theoretically substantiated character to their struggle for the victory of communism.

All party organisations shall function within the framework of the Constitution of the USSR.

Similar provisions were found in the constitutions of other Communist states.

On 15 March 1990 Article 6 was amended by the 3rd Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union,^[1] to read as follows:

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, other political parties as well as labor, youth and other public organisations and mass movements, through their representatives elected to the Councils of People's Deputies and in other forms participate in the policy-making of the Soviet state, in the management of state and public affairs.

This move was introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in tandem with the creation of the office of the president of the USSR (which he viewed largely as an office for himself), and as a means to formalize the transition to a multi-party political system.^[2] After the amending of Article 6 of the Constitution, the CPSU effectively lost its right to rule the Soviet Union's government apparatus; paving the way towards a multi-party democracy.

Similar articles are or were in constitutions of many other countries. For example, the Chinese constitution states that "The defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Communist Party of China",^[3] while the constitution of the Chinese Communist Party declares the party to be the "highest force for political leadership".^[4]