Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Stalinist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the committee would typically be made up of delegates elected at a party congress. In those states where it constituted the state power, the Central Committee made decisions for the party between congresses, and usually was responsible for electing the Politburo. In non-ruling Communist parties, the Central Committee is usually understood by the party membership to be the ultimate decision-making authority between Congresses once the process of democratic centralism has led to an agreed-upon position.
Organizations besides Communist ones also have Central Committees, such as the Mennonite Church Menonite Central Commitee web site and Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (to war). In the United States the Democratic and the Republican Parties both have Central Committees; these act as the leading body of those organizations at the national/administrative level, as well as local committees in a similar capacity within the local Democratic or Republican governments of individual counties and states.
List of Central Committees
- Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in the People's Republic of China
- Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba
- Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union
- Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
- Central Committee of the Hungarian Workers' Party
- Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania
- Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan in the Republic of Afghanistan
- Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party in People's Republic of Poland
- Central Committee of the South African Communist Party
- Korean Worker's Party Central Committee in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)