Political discourse must persuade, therefore its author has to take into consideration real and potential addressees.

In the political career of the Bolshevik speakers we can distinguish at least three stages: before, during, and after attaining power. As a consequence, explicit and implicit addressing of their political writings varies. Trotzky experienced all three stages, as well as Khrustchov and Gorbachev after him. But some speakers did not have the third stage because of biological death (Lenin and Stalin) or political death (Bukharin).

Intended addressees are the audience the writer has in mind when conceiving his discourse. Interpreters, basing on the texts, can only tentatively reconstruct the personal and social (even linguistic) traits of the intended audience. The portrait of intended addressees need not coincide with the features of those whom the writer explicitly addresses. Philological analysis of political writings can only deal with features of implied, i.e.  hypothetically ascribable, addressees. Analyzing implied addressing we analyze author’s intentions. Comparing the result with characteristics of historically known actual addressees gives a deeper insight into the atmosphere of the totalitarian society. To this end, a linguistic classification of implied addressing of political discourse is proposed.