At lower levels, the organizational hierarchy was managed by Party Committees, or
partkoms (партком). A partkom was headed by the elected "partkom bureau secretary" ("partkom secretary", секретарь парткома). At enterprises, institutions,
kolkhozes, etc., they were called as such, i.e., "partkoms". At higher levels the Committees were abbreviated accordingly:
obkoms (обком) at
oblast (zone) levels (known earlier as
gubkoms (губком) for
guberniyas),
raikoms (райком) at
raion (district) levels (known earlier as
ukoms (уком) for
uyezds),
gorkom (горком) at city levels, etc. The same terminology ("raikom", etc.) was used in the organizational structure of
Komsomol. The bottom level of the Party was the
primary party organization (первичная партийная организация) or
party cell (партийная ячейка). It was created within any organizational entity of any kind where there were at least three communists. The management of a cell was called
party bureau/partbureau (партийное бюро, партбюро). A partbureau was headed by the elected
bureau secretary (секретарь партбюро). At smaller party cells, secretaries were regular employees of the corresponding plant/hospital/school/etc. Sufficiently large party organizations were usually headed by an
exempt secretary, who drew his salary from the Party money. ==Main offices==