and the right to address the court in their own language. According to Article 165, the Procurator General was appointed to the office by the Supreme Soviet. The Procurator General was responsible and accountable to the Supreme Soviet, or between sessions of the Supreme Soviet to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The Procurator General supervised most activities of Soviet agencies such as ministries, state committees and local Prosecutor Generals. Subordinate agencies of the Procurator General exercised their functions independent from meddling by the Soviet state and were subordinate only to the Prosecutor General's office. The organisation and procedures of these subordinates were defined in the law on the Procurator General's Office of the Soviet Union. Role of the Communist Party According to Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, the "leading and guiding force of 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 was officially a Marxist-Leninist communist party which determined the general development of Soviet society both in domestic and foreign policy. It also directed the "great work" of building communism through central planning of the economy and the struggle for the victory of communism. All Communist Party organisations had to follow the framework laid down by the 1977 Soviet Constitution. After mounting pressure against him by the reformers, Mikhail Gorbachev removed the phrase "the leading and guiding force" and replaced it with "the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and other political parties". The nomenklatura was the Soviet Union's ruling group and remained one of the main reasons why the Soviet Union existed as long as it did. Members of the nomenklatura were elected by the Communist Party to all important posts in Soviet society which could mean a locally or nationally significant office. Along with the Communist party's monopoly on power, this led to the gradual physical and intellectual degeneration of the Soviet Union as a state. As long as the General Secretary of the Communist Party commanded the loyalty of the Politburo, he would remain more-or-less unopposed and in all probability become the leader of the country. Organization The Communist Party controlled the government apparatus and made decisions affecting the economy and society. The Communist Party followed the ideology of Marxism–Leninism and operated on the principle of