Sessions Ruling central committees normally can convene for three meeting types: sessions (also called plenums), extraordinary sessions, and joint sessions. These three types have two sub-forms: a closed session and an enlarged session in which non-members are invited to participate. Central committee sessions dealing with non-party issues are often enlarged, even if what is discussed is routine in nature. These sessions are in most cases organised identically, and the key speech is often delivered by a
central committee secretary responsible, for example, for economic affairs or international affairs. The discussions at the sessions are very seldom made public, but adopted resolutions are sometimes made public and session communiques are nearly always distributed to the public. In some instances, the number of non-members exceeds that of central committee members. The
Romanian Communist Party (RCP) did this, and the
Central Committee of the 12th RCP Congress convened an enlarged session on 1 June 1982 attended by 360 guests to discuss the "current stage of building socialism in Romania". Sessions dealing exclusively with party affairs are usually closed. These sessions' most common agenda item is "organisational matters", meaning personnel changes in party and state organs. The communiques published by these sessions are usually brief and say little to nothing about the reason for the changes. But this was not abnormal. For instance, the official communique of the 13th Session of the
Central Committee of the 7th Congress of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), held on 11–12 December 1980, only notes that two politburo members,
Günter Mittag and
Gerhard Schürer, spoke at the session, that fifteen central committee members participated in session discussions and that it approved the
SED Politburo's report and the proposed economic plan for 1981. The same rule regards extraordinary sessions, both ordinary and enlarged, as well. In some cases, these sessions were made public long after the fact. For example, the
Central Committee of the
Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) reported that an "important" Central Committee session had taken place 1–2 July 1976, but only informed the public that "measures to ensure the consistent and all-round implementation of the decisions of the 11th BCP Congress" had been adopted and discussed. What these measures were was not made public. The importance of the session was indicated by the fact that
Todor Zhivkov, the first secretary of the BCP Central Committee, "read a detailed report" to the session. However, the report's content was not made public either. Despite the meeting's secretive nature, and the low level of transparency about it, the BCP Central Committee's main newspaper
Rabotnichesko delo wrote, "the entire population is called upon to fulfill the 'program' contained in the report." That is, the Bulgarian people were called to participate in implementing resolutions they were not acquainted with. In other more extreme cases, details of the "historic" central committee were kept a secret. For instance, the contents of the BCP Central Committee session on 17 April 1956 that removed
Valko Chervenkov as general secretary were deemed too sensitive to be published even thirty years after the event took place. Central committee sessions could also produce transparent communiques and resolutions. Scholar Hazan contends, "As a rule, this is only the case after a routine [session], when nothing unusual has happened." These communiques were structured similarly throughout the communist world. Such sessions usually dealt with public matters, such as the economic plan and the state budget. For example, the HSWP Central Committee session held on 3 December 1981 transparently informed about which guests participated in the session and specifically stated what was discussed. In this, the communique stated, "The Central Committee discussed and approved: a report submitted by Comrade
Andreas Gyenes, secretary of the Central Committee, on topical international issues; and a proposal submitted by Comrade
Ferenc Havasi, member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee, on guiding principles for the 1982 plan and state budget." The ensuing communique summarised the international policy stance of the HSWP and outlined the basic features of the 1982 plan and budget. However, in other instances, the session makes public the resolutions adopted. For instance, the RCP Central Committee session on 9 February 1982 made public the resolution on "Resetting of Prices and Augmentation of Remuneration of Working Personnel". According to Hazan, the RCP Central Committee took this move to help justify the price increases to the population. In other cases, as with the PUWP Central Committee sessions from 1980 to 1982 and those of the LCY more generally, the agenda and proceedings of the sessions were made entirely public. In the PUWP, proceedings were aired live by state radio and television, while in Yugoslavia, public broadcasting of central committee sessions had been a normal occurrence since the early 1950s. For example, the 3rd Extraordinary Session of the
Central Committee of the 6th LCY Congress, held on 16–17 January 1954, was both publicly broadcast and made public in written form in the LCY Central Committee's theoretical journal,
Komunist. This is against the norm in most communist parties as the majority of them did, and still do, keep proceedings secret. Sessions have, on several occasions, produced documents of an authoritative ideological nature. For instance, the RCP Central Committee session of 25 March 1981 clarified the party's foreign affairs policy and how it differed from other Eastern European communist parties. In other situations, as was a normal occurrence in former communist Europe (bar Yugoslavia), the central committee convened to express support for
Soviet foreign policy. This occurred at the CPCZ Central Committee session on 21 April 1982, where
Vasiľ Biľak, a member of the
CPCZ Presidium, accused the United States of being an anti-Soviet state that refused "to reconcile itself to the fact that it has lost its dominating position in the world policy and economy". The session made clear its support for "The Soviet peace initiatives aim at averting the danger of a world nuclear war" which it argued corresponded "to the vital interests and peace wishes of the Czechoslovak people."
Working organs A central committee, not always the case in non-ruling parties, has two components: one composed of elected officials and another composed of non-elected officials. The non-elected officials compose the working organs of the central committee, which makes up the central committee apparatus. The activity of a central committee is constant and does not cease in between its sessions. The central committee usually has several internal departments, commissions, committees, newspapers and other organs working continuously when not in session. These organisational sub-units do everything from greeting foreign delegations, issuing regulations, monitoring the party as a whole and preparing agenda items and dossiers for politburo meetings. Because of the central committee's role in the political system of communist states, foreign observers often state that it has functions resembling
parliaments in
liberal democracies. For example, the central committee apparatus of the former communist ruling parties of Europe had twenty to thirty organisational subunits that covered everything from foreign relations and trade to sports and science, similar to parliamentary
special committees. Some organisational units are deemed
party secrets and not publicly acknowledged. Many organisational units are shared by all communist parties, such as having organisational units for
agitation and propaganda and organisation. At the same time, others are unique, such as the
Department of Western Affairs of the
SED Central Committee. These organs are supervised by the
secretariat, and this institutional function is usually vaguely stated in the party statute. The difference between elected and non-elected personnel in the apparatus is blurred, according to scholars
Jerry F. Hough and
Merle Fainsod, and using the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as an example, since "each secretary has responsibility for one or more departments, and hence the departmental officials work as the staff assistants of the secretaries." The working organs are often organised on branch lines. For example, the CPSU Central Committee had the
Administrative Organs Department responsible for supervising the works of the ministries of
Civil Aviation,
Defence and the
KGB, while the Chinese Communist Party has a
Publicity Department responsible for supervising party and state media across China. Outside of these departments, central committees usually have other units as well, such as a publishing house, party schools, scholarly institutes and a capital construction section, for example. The leaders of these working organs are usually called "heads". The Secretariat is organised on similar lines as the working organs. In some instances, the secretaries head working organs in tandem with their supervisory responsibilities.
Leading organs The leading organs of a central committee, commonly designated as
central leading organs, were elected organs delegated with all or some of the central committee's powers when it was not in session. Every ruling communist party had a
politburo and
secretariat, albeit the name might differ from party to party. Other central committees also elected a
control commission, responsible for party discipline work, a
central military commission, responsible for military affairs, an
orgburo, responsible for organisational questions, or other organs. The politburo was the highest political organ of the central committee and directed party work between central committee sessions. While formally accountable to the central committee, and despite reporting on its work to it, the politburo often ends up controlling the central committee. The politburos is often a small organ composed of anywhere from 10 to 30 members. In some parties, as in the RCP and in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the politburo has a standing committee that leads politburo work. In China, it is known as the
Politburo Standing Committee, and in Romania, it was known as the
Political Executive Committee. The members of a politburo are the highest-standing officials of the given communist party and are, in practice, the country's leading political elite. Members usually have varied political backgrounds and experience from party, executive, legislative, and judicial work. The secretariat is responsible for overseeing the execution of the decisions of the politburo and the central committee, communicating with the nationwide party organisation and being responsible for personnel appointments throughout the party. For example, the
CPSU statute, adopted at the
22nd Congress in 1961, stated that the
CPSU Secretariat was "to direct current work, chiefly the selection of personnel and the verification of the fulfilment of Party decisions." The most powerful individuals in the communist state system were politburo members who concurrently served as secretariat members, also referred to as secretaries of the central committee. The party leader, most often known as
general secretary of the central committee, led the secretariat's work. As such, several scholars, like
Darrell P. Hammer,
Archie Brown and
Wu Guoguang, have referred to the general secretary as the central committee's
chief executive officer. While all ruling central committees have had secretariats at some points, some opted to abolish them. For example, the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) opted to abolish its secretariat in 1966 to divide powers more equally. Later, in 1978, the
11th LCY Congress turned the
Presidency, the Yugoslav counterpart to the politburo, into a "political-executive organ" in which no member could concurrently be a member and a secretary. Political work was headed by the
president of the LCY Presidency, the party leader, and no member of the presidency could concurrently serve as a secretary, called executive secretary in the LCY. Executive work was led by the
secretary of the LCY Presidency, and the officeholder was assisted by executive secretaries, who could not concurrently serve in the LCY Presidency but had to be members of the LCY Central Committee to be eligible to serve. A control commission is also widespread in communist parties, but the electoral procedure varies. For instance, the
Communist Party of Vietnam's control organ, the
Central Inspection Commission, is elected by a session of the central committee. In contrast, the CCP counterpart, the
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, is elected by the
party congress. Control commissions in all these parties, whether elected by the central committee or congress, bear more or less the same functions and responsibilities. They are responsible for investigating disciplinary issues, screening party members, handling appeals against party decisions, combatting
political corruption and, in instances where control and auditing functions have been merged, auditing the party's economic and financial affairs. In most cases, bar a few exceptions, these organs, no matter if they are elected by congress or a central committee session, work under the central committee's leadership. The LCY Control Commission worked under the central committee's leadership until the
9th LCY Congress, held in 1969, which transformed it into the only statutory review organ of a ruling communist party, the
Commission on Statutory Questions. The
9th Extraordinary PUWP Congress, held in 1981, amended the
party statute to state explicitly that the
Control Commission worked independently of the PUWP Central Committee. In some parties, as in the CPCZ and the HSWP, the chairman and ordinary members of the party control commission are barred from holding office in the central committee. In other parties, as in China, the head of the control commission is also a member of its Central Committee,
Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee. ==Membership==