General Secretary of the Communist Party

General Secretary or First Secretary is the official title of leaders of most Communist political parties. When a Communist party is in power in a 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.

Leaders of current Communist parties

Official title	Incumbent	Term start	Other names
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China	Xi Jinping	15 November 2012	Chairman of the Communist Party of China (1922–25 & 1943–82)
Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea	Kim Jong-un	17 December 2011	Chairman of the Worker's Party of Korea (1949–66) General Secretary of the Worker's Party of Korea (1966–2011) First Secretary of the Worker's Party of Korea (2012–2016)
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba	Raúl Castro	19 April 2011
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam	Nguyễn Phú Trọng	8 January 2012	Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–69) First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–76)
General Secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People	Andros Kyprianou	21 February 2009
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party	Choummaly Sayasone	21 March 2006 (1st term) 21 March 2011 (2nd term)	Chairman of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (1991–2006)
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain	Robert Griffiths	1 January 1998
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation	Gennady Zyuganov	14 February 1993
General Secretary of the Communist Party USA	John Bachtell	15 June 2014

Leaders of former Communist parties

Official title	Last	Term end	Other names
General Secretary of the Albanian Party of Labour	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 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 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

See also

• Secretary (title)
• Secretary-general

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to General Secretary.

Current leaders of socialist states espousing Marxism–Leninism
People's Republic of China	Xi Jinping, General Secretary and head of state Li Keqiang, Head of government (Communist Party of China)
Republic of Cuba	Raúl Castro, First Secretary, head of state and head of government (Communist Party of Cuba)
Lao People's Democratic Republic	Bounnhang Vorachith, General Secretary, Head of state Thongloun Sisoulith, Head of government (Lao People's Revolutionary Party)
Socialist Republic of Vietnam	Nguyễn Phú Trọng, General Secretary Trần Đại Quang, Head of state Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, Head of government (Communist Party of Vietnam)