The Political Secretariat of the Executive Committee
The Political Secretariat is elected by the Presidium of the Executive Committee and is the executive organ of the Communist International. It is empowered to make decisions, issue statements, and draw up proposals for the E.C.C.I. and its Presidium. The Political Secretariat directs the day-to-day work of the International between meetings of the Presidium.
The current Political Secretariat consists of ten members, elected at the most recent World Congress. Biographical information is published to the extent consistent with the security of the comrades concerned and the conditions under which their Sections operate.
Nosipho Mthembu · General Secretary
South African Communist Party
Comrade Mthembu has served as General Secretary of the Communist International since her election at the most recent World Congress. She was trained in the underground structures of the liberation movement during the apartheid period and has held leading positions in the SACP’s organizational and international departments. She previously served on the Presidium of the E.C.C.I. before her election as General Secretary. She is responsible for the general direction and coordination of the International’s work.
K. Jayachandran Pillai
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Comrade Pillai entered the revolutionary movement through the coir workers’ organizations of Kerala’s coastal districts and has served in the CPI(M)’s district and state-level bodies, including the Kerala state legislature. He was trained at party schools in India and the Soviet Union. Within the Political Secretariat, he is responsible for the agrarian and peasant question and for coordinating with the South Asian Sections. He serves on the editorial committee of International Correspondence.
Yórgos Papadopoulos
Communist Party of Greece
Comrade Papadopoulos is a former shipyard electrician and trade union organizer in the Piraeus dockworkers’ sector. He joined the KNE during the final years of the military junta and studied economics in the German Democratic Republic. He has been a member of the KKE Central Committee since 1996 and serves as the party’s representative to the International. Within the Political Secretariat, he holds responsibility for questions of ideological work and relations with the European Sections.
Catalina Castañeda Ríos
Communist Party of Chile
Comrade Castañeda is an agronomist by training with long experience in peasant cooperative work and indigenous land-rights organizing in the Araucanía region of southern Chile. She entered the revolutionary movement through the Juventudes Comunistas during the final period of the Pinochet dictatorship and has held positions in the PCCh’s international department. Within the Political Secretariat, she is responsible for questions of ecological destruction and the relationship between class struggle and indigenous movements. She coordinates the International’s Commission on Land and Natural Resources.
Tarek Haddad
Lebanese Communist Party
Comrade Haddad is a political journalist and economist who has written for the party press and international publications for over thirty years. He entered the LCP through its student organization during the Lebanese Civil War and has extensive experience with communist organizing across sectarian lines in the Arab world. Within the Political Secretariat, he is responsible for West Asia and the International’s Palestine solidarity work. He serves as the principal drafter of E.C.C.I. editorials and on the editorial committee of International Correspondence.
Maria Ivanova
Russian Communist Workers’ Party
Comrade Ivanova is a philosopher and labor organizer from the industrial regions of the Urals. She studied at Ural State University and has organized among industrial workers in the post-Soviet economy. She entered the RKRP rather than the reconstituted formations of the former CPSU, and has written extensively on the political economy of capitalist restoration and the defeat of the Soviet working class. Within the Political Secretariat, she is responsible for the post-Soviet space and for theoretical work on socialist construction and its reversals.
Amara Kouyaté
Union for Rebirth/Sankarist Party
Coordinator of the Pan-African Bureau of the Communist International. Comrade Kouyaté is a labor organizer and political economist from Burkina Faso with a decade of experience organizing in the informal economy — market workers, transport workers, and artisanal miners — across Francophone West Africa. He was educated in Ouagadougou and Dakar and entered the revolutionary movement through the student campaigns against structural adjustment in the late 1990s. Within the Political Secretariat, he holds responsibility for the African Sections, the question of neocolonialism and the CFA franc zone, and the International’s work among migrant laborers.
Nguyễn Thị Lan Hương
Communist Party of Vietnam
Comrade Nguyễn is a graduate of the Nguyễn Ái Quốc Party Academy and holds advanced qualifications in political economy. She has served in the CPV’s external affairs apparatus in diplomatic and liaison capacities in Geneva and New Delhi. She is the permanent representative of the Communist Party of Vietnam to the International. Within the Political Secretariat, she holds responsibility for relations with ruling Communist Parties and for questions of trade policy and industrial development in socialist-oriented states.
Jean-Marc Deschamps
French Communist Party
Comrade Deschamps is a former shipyard worker and Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) shop steward from Saint-Nazaire with over twenty years of experience in trade union organizing in the maritime and energy sectors. Within the Political Secretariat, he is responsible for coordinating with the Western European trade union movement and for the International’s work in the global transport, port, and energy sectors. He also coordinates the distribution of the International’s French-language publications.
Remedios Salazar
Communist Party of the Philippines
Comrade Salazar is a labor organizer from Mindanao with extensive experience in urban mass-organization work among the urban poor and workers in the electronics assembly and business process outsourcing sectors. Within the Political Secretariat, she holds responsibility for maritime and logistics labor, overseas workers’ questions, and the International’s work in Southeast Asia. She coordinates the International’s Maritime Labour Commission, which organizes among seafarers and dockworkers across multiple Sections.
The Communist International 