Incommunist andsocialist theory,collective leadership is a shared distribution of power within an organizational structure. A single officer, such as theGeneral Secretary orparty Chair, is supposed to be onlyprimus inter pares on the relevant leadership body.
Collective leadership in thePeople's Republic of China (PRC) and theChinese Communist Party (CCP) is generally considered to have begun with reformistDeng Xiaoping in the late 1970s during the same time period as theChinese economic reform, who tried to encourage theCCP Politburo Standing Committee to rule by consensus in order to prevent a resurgence ofautocracy underMaoist rule.CCP general secretaryJiang Zemin formally established himself as the "first among equals". Some political analysts has alleged that this era of collective leadership has been said to end withXi Jinping, following the abolition ofterm limits in 2018 under his tenure.[1]
Xi has taken deliberate steps to establish his personal dominance within the Chinese political system, effectively rising above his peers in the Politburo Standing Committee. He has done so by creating key bodies such as the National Security Commission, which holds sway over party, state, and military organizations.[citation needed] Furthermore, Xi heads the Small Leadership Group on Comprehensively Deepening Reform, a pivotal entity responsible for designing and executing various reform initiatives. His leadership of this group underscores his intention to personally oversee institutional reforms.[citation needed]
Xi has also made it clear that he will have the final say in economic and financial matters, foregoing the tradition of shared responsibility with the Premier. Consequently, Xi's purview now extends to encompass military affairs, security, foreign policy, economic reform, state-building, economic policymaking, and social governance.[2] This concentration of power has led to concerns that Xi's actions might be undermining essential party norms and pushing China toward a more personalistic dictatorship, a notion reinforced by the party machine and state media's vigorous promotion of his image and authority through various channels such as publishing his speeches and writings, public appearances, and the creation of cartoons portraying him as a strong leader.[3]
Currently, the central authority of theChinese government and CCP is concentrated in the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, which is composed of seven members of the Communist Party and headed by the CCP general secretary.[4] Nevertheless, while the CCPde jure maintains collective leadership of government, the position of the CCP general secretary has palpably become more powerful underXi's administration, with him being the most powerful paramount leader sinceMao Zedong.[5]
In theSocialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) under theCommunist Party of Vietnam (CPV), when the country was ruled byLê Duẩn, collective leadership involved powers being distributed from the office ofGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party and shared with the Politburo Standing Committee while still retaining one ruler.[citation needed]
Today, there is not one paramount leader in Vietnam; power is shared between the General Secretary,President, thePrime Minister as well as theNational Assembly Chairmain along with collegial bodies such as thePolitburo,Secretariat and theCentral Committee.[citation needed]
Collective leadership (Russian:коллективное руководство,kollektivnoye rukovodstvo) or Collectivity of leadership (Russian:коллективность руководства,kollektivnost rukovodstva), was considered an ideal form of governance in theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Its main task was to distribute powers and functions among thePolitburo, theCentral Committee, and theCouncil of Ministers to hinder any attempts to create aone-man dominance over the Soviet political system by a Soviet leader, such as that seen underJoseph Stalin'srule. On the national level, the heart of the collective leadership was officially the Central Committee of theCommunist Party, but in practice, was the Politburo. Collective leadership is characterized by limiting the powers of theGeneral Secretary and theChairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier) as related to other offices by enhancing the powers of collective bodies, such as the Politburo.[citation needed]
Vladimir Lenin was, according toSoviet literature, the perfect example of a leader ruling in favour of the collective. Stalin was also claimed to embody this style of ruling, with most major policy decisions involving lengthy discussion and debate in the Politburo and/or Central Committee; afterhis death in 1953,Nikita Khrushchevaccused Stalin ofone-man dominance, leading to controversy surrounding the period of his rule. At the20th Party Congress, Stalin's reign was criticized by Khrushchev as a "personality cult". As Stalin's successor, Khrushchev supported the ideal of collective leadership butincreasingly ruled in an autocratic fashion, his anti-Stalin accusations followed by much the same behaviour which led to accusations of hypocrisy. In 1964, Khrushchev was ousted and replaced byLeonid Brezhnev as General Secretary and byAlexei Kosygin as Premier. Collective leadership was strengthened during theBrezhnev years and thelater reigns ofYuri Andropov andKonstantin Chernenko.Mikhail Gorbachev'sreforms helped spawn factionalism within the Soviet leadership, and members of Gorbachev's faction openly disagreed with him on key issues. The factions usually disagreed on how little or how much reform was needed to rejuvenate theSoviet system.[citation needed]
Aside fromCommunist states,left-wing tofar-leftgreen andsocialist parties inliberal democracies often also practice collective leadership under socialist ideals, either through male and female co-leaders or through several co-spokespersons. For green parties, this practice is often justified by their movement's emphasis onconsensus decision making andgender equality.
The directorial system is a system of government in which executive power is held by a group of people who operate under a system ofcollegiality.[13] While there may be a nominal leader, the post is considered to be ceremonial or afirst among equals and it typically rotates among its members.
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