Politburo, from German Politbüro, short for Politisches Büro des Zentralkomitees (literally the Central Committee's Political Office), (Russian: Политическое Бюро; Politicheskoye Buro), is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.

Marxist-Leninist states

In Marxist-Leninist states, the party is seen as "the vanguard of the people" and therefore usually has the power to control the state, and the non-state party officials in the politburo generally hold extreme power.

In the Soviet Union for example, the General Secretary of the Communist Party did not necessarily hold a state office like president or prime minister to effectively control the system of government. Instead, party members answerable to or controlled by the party held these posts, often as honorific posts as a reward for their long years of service to the party. On other occasions, having governed as General Secretary, the party leader might assume a state office in addition. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev initially did not hold the presidency of the Soviet Union, that office being given as an honour to former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for well over a decade before assuming the governmental position of Premier of the Soviet Union during World War II.

Officially, the Party Congress elects a Central Committee which, in turn, elects a General Secretary. Under Stalin however, this model was essentially reversed and it was the General Secretary who determined the composition of the Politburo and Central Committee.

Trotskyist parties

In Trotskyist parties, the Politburo is a bureau of the Central Committee tasked with taking day-to-day political decisions, which must later be ratified by the Central Committee. It is appointed by the Central Committee from among its members. The post of General Secretary carries far less weight than in the Stalinist model. See, for example, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.

See also

• Orgburo
• Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Politburo of the Communist Party of China
• Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam
• Politburo of the Communist Party of North Korea
• Politburo of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
• Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party
• Politburo of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party
• Politburo of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front
• Politburo of the Party of Labour of Albania
• Eastern Bloc politics

References

1. "Soviet Politburo Warns Poland on Debt to West" NY Times Article 23 AUG 1981
2. "When the Soviet Union nearly blinked BBC Reynolds, Paul. 23 OCT 2006