General Secretary of the Communist Party

General Secretary or First Secretary is the official title of leaders of most communist 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	Ref.
				Took office	Time in office
China	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party		Xi Jinping (born 1953)	15 November 2012	10 years, 203 days	Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (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	2 years, 48 days	—
Cyprus	General Secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People		Stefanos Stefanou (born 1965)	4 July 2021	1 year, 337 days	—
France	National Secretary of the French Communist Party		Fabien Roussel (born 1969)	25 November 2018	4 years, 190 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	3 years, 319 days	—
	General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)		Sitaram Yechury (born 1952)	19 April 2015	8 years, 48 days	—
Italy	General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party		Mauro Alboresi	26 June 2016	6 years, 345 days	—
Japan	General Secretary of the Japanese Communist Party		Kazuo Shii (born 1954)	24 November 2000	22 years, 194 days	—
North Korea	General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea		Kim Jong-un (born c. 1982)	11 April 2012	11 years, 56 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	2 years, 142 days	Chairman of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (1991–2006)
Portugal	General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party		Paulo Raimundo (born 1976)	12 November 2022	206 days	—
Russia	First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation		Gennady Zyuganov (born 1944)	14 February 1993	30 years, 112 days	—
Spain	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain		Enrique Santiago (born 1964)	8 April 2018	5 years, 59 days	—
United Kingdom	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain		Robert Griffiths (born 1952)	1 January 1998	25 years, 156 days	—
United States	General Secretary of the Communist Party USA		Rossana Cambron & Joe Sims (as co-chairs)	23 June 2019	3 years, 348 days	—
Vietnam	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam		Nguyễn Phú Trọng (born 1944)	8 January 2011	12 years, 149 days	Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–69) First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam (1951–76)
Greece	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece		Dimitris Koutsoubas (born 1955)	14 April 2013	10 years, 53 days	Chairman/President (Unofficial)
Australia	General Secretary of the Communist Party of Australia		Andrew Irving (unknown birth date)	14 April 2019	4 years, 53 days	—

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