The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which evolved out of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1912, can roughly be divided into the following periods; the early years of the Bolshevik Party in clandestinity and exile, the period of the October Revolution, consolidation of the party as the governing force of the Soviet Union, the Great Purge of the 1930s, Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods, the Gorbachev era of reform which eventually led to the break-up of the party in 1991. The history of the regional/republican branches of the party does however differ from the all-Russian/all-Union party on several points. In January 1912, the Bolshevik fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party convened a 6th All-Russian Party Conference, in the absence of their Menshevik adversaries.

Over twenty Party organizations were represented. In the eyes of the Bolsheviks the conference had, therefore, the significance of a regular Party congress. In the statement of the conference which announced that the shattered central apparatus of the Party had been restored and a new Central Committee set up.

"Not only have the banner of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, its program and its revolutionary traditions survived, but so has its organization, which persecution may have undermined and weakened, but could never utterly destroy"—the statement of the conference declared. Moreover, the conference declared the Mensheviks expelled from the party. Thus the RSDLP was effectively split, with the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks constituting separate political parties (Both groups would continue to use the name RSDLP.

The Bolshevik party added '(bolshevik)' to their name to differentiate themselves from the Mensheviks.) In its resolution on the reports presented by the local organizations, the conference noted that "energetic work is being conducted everywhere among the Social-Democratic workers with the object of strengthening the local illegal Social-Democratic organizations and groups." The conference noted that the most important rule of Bolshevik tactics in periods of retreat, namely, to combine illegal work with legal work within the various legally existing workers’ societies and unions, was being observed in all the localities.

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