General Secretary of the Communist Party

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General Secretary or First Secretary is the official title of leaders of most Communist political parties. When a Communist party is the ruling party in a Communist-led one-party state, the General Secretary is typically the country's de facto leader—though sometimes this leader also holds state-level positions (such as a presidency or premiership) in order to hold de jure leadership of the state as well. One exception to this rule is the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1990 where the chairman and then General Secretary of the Communist Party were subordinate to elder Deng Xiaoping who was the de facto Paramount leader of China.

Leaders of current communist parties[]

Country	Official title	Portrait	Name	Term of office		Other names
				Took office	Time in office
China	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China		Xi Jinping (born 1953)	15 November 2012	9 years, 136 days	Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1922–25 & 1943–82)
Cuba	First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba		Miguel Díaz-Canel (born 1960)	19 April 2021	346 days	N/A
Cyprus	General Secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People		Andros Kyprianou (born 1955)	21 February 2009	13 years, 38 days	N/A
France	National Secretary of the French Communist Party		Fabien Roussel (born 1969)	25 November 2018	3 years, 123 days	General Secretary of the French Communist Party (1921–1994)
India	General Secretary of the Communist Party of India		D. Raja (born 1949)	21 July 2019	2 years, 252 days	N/A
	General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)		Sitaram Yechury (born 1952)	19 April 2015	6 years, 346 days	N/A
Italy	General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party			26 June 2016	5 years, 278 days	N/A
Japan	General Secretary of the Japanese Communist Party		Kazuo Shii (born 1954)	24 November 2000	21 years, 127 days	N/A
North Korea	General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea		Kim Jong-un (born c. 1982)	11 April 2012	9 years, 354 days	Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (1946–1966) General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (1966–1997) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (1997–2012) First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (2012–2016) Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea (2016–2021)
Laos	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party		Thongloun Sisoulith (born 1945)	15 January 2021	1 year, 75 days	Chairman of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (1991–2006)
Portugal	General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party		Jerónimo de Sousa (born 1947)	27 November 2004	17 years, 124 days	N/A
Russia	First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation		Gennady Zyuganov (born 1944)	14 February 1993	29 years, 45 days	N/A
Spain	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain		Enrique Santiago (born 1964)	8 April 2018	3 years, 357 days	N/A
United Kingdom	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain		Robert Griffiths (born 1952)	1 January 1998	24 years, 89 days	N/A
United States	General Secretary of the Communist Party USA		& (as co-chairs)	23 June 2019	2 years, 281 days	N/A
Vietnam	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam		Nguyễn Phú Trọng (born 1944)	8 January 2011	11 years, 82 days	Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–69) First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–76)

Leaders of former communist parties[]

Official title	Last	Term end	Other names
First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania	Ramiz Alia	4 May 1991
General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party	Petar Mladenov	15 January 1990
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea	Pol Pot	8 December 1981
General Secretary of the People's Revolutionary Party of Benin	Mathieu Kérékou	1 March 1990
General Secretary of the New Jewel Movement	Maurice Bishop	19 October 1983
General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia	Mengistu Haile Mariam	21 May 1991
General Secretary of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party	Siad Barre	26 January 1991
General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan	Mohammad Najibullah	16 April 1992
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union	Mikhail Gorbachev	24 August 1991	Technical Secretary of the Bolshevik Party (1917–18) Chairman of the Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1918–19) Responsible Secretary of the RCP(b) (1919–22) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953–66)
General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party	Károly Grósz	7 October 1989
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia	Karel Urbánek	20 December 1989
First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party	Mieczysław Rakowski	29 January 1990
General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party	Nicolae Ceaușescu	22 December 1989
General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany	Egon Krenz	3 December 1989
President of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia	Milan Pančevski	30 June 1990

See also[]

• Secretary (title)
• Secretary-general

External links[]

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