Central Committee

A central committee , or CC for short , is one of the highest decision-making bodies in the power structure of communist parties . Based on the structure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the creation, tasks and meaning of the Central Committees in the other CPs were identical down to the last detail. After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union and the subsequent decline in the importance of the large Western European communist parties, these structures are, with a few exceptions, a thing of the past.

The choice and the tasks

The Central Committee was a permanent administrative and, above all, executive body of the Communist Party between two party congresses , which were nominally the highest party authority.

In countries in which the communist parties were in power, the central committee of the party controlled the central power organs of the state and social institutions by means of party organizations and party cells integrated there on the one hand and through the fact that key representatives of the state were also members of the central committee, on the other hand.

The central committee was elected by a party congress. The so-called plenum consisted of members (full members with voting rights) and candidates (not entitled to vote). The plenary usually met several times a year, depending on the party statutes. The Central Committee appointed the Secretary General, the Politburo and the Secretariat from among its members.

Secretariat, Politburo, Secretary General

Because the Central Committee is also not a constantly meeting organ, further narrower and permanent top organs were created (as early as 1919 in the CPSU) according to the principle of the narrowing hierarchy, which determine the work between the plenary meetings of the Central Committee.

The interrelationship and hierarchical gradation between these three organs cannot be clearly determined; it was different in different historical epochs, depending on the concrete situation and from country to country. The role of the general secretary cannot automatically be defined as that of sole ruler. In addition, in most countries of the former Eastern Bloc, for example, the election of a general secretary required the approval of the Politburo of the CPSU.

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The secretariat (or secretariat of the Central Committee), elected by the plenum of the Central Committee, directed the ongoing work, in particular it monitored the implementation of the resolutions and the selection of cadres (personnel policy) and was thus the executive body of the party.

Politburo

The Politburo (abbreviation for political office), at times also called the Presidium or Political Executive Committee, was also elected by the plenum of the Central Committee and was the political core and the actual power center of the party.

The Politburo usually consisted of full members and non-voting candidates; They were secretaries of the Central Committee, supplemented by other leading functionaries of the party or the government, trade unions, etc. The agenda of the meetings included not only the most important questions of the party itself, but also important measures for the management of the state such as draft laws and government work , Parliament's program, etc. That is why non-members of the body were invited to the meetings if necessary.

Secretary General

The general secretary, at times also the chairman or first secretary, was elected by the Central Committee and at the same time chaired the Politburo.

Other Central Committee organs and bodies

The work of the Central Committee was supported by technical commissions (or departments) that were specialized in certain areas (economic, agricultural, ideological commissions, youth commissions, etc.) and the number of which often varied.

The (central) control and revision commission , which dealt with the internal affairs of the party and was not determined by the central committee, but by the party congress, had a special role .

The tasks of education and training of the party functionaries were primarily taken over by the respective political party college, with the party school of the CPSU playing a special role. There were also numerous institutes (institutes of Marxism-Leninism) and similar institutions.

The Orgbüro was a temporary entity within the CPSU (1919–1952), which was later merged with the Politburo.

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Klaus Westen: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet State. A constitutional investigation (Treatises on Eastern Law, Vol. 6, edited by the Institute for Eastern Law at the University of Cologne and others). Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1968, especially chapter The hierarchy of executive bodies, p. 251ff.
Komunistická strana Československa, stranické orgány (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, party organs), online at: www.totalita.cz , Czech, accessed July 25, 2010