# Politburo **The Politburo** (Political Bureau) is the senior decision-making body of a communist party. In the [[Soviet Union]] it was the effective seat of power — outranking the formal organs of the state, which is the structural point: the party body, not the government, was where decisions were made, so reading Soviet politics through state institutions produced systematic errors. The People's Republic of China retains the structure. ## See Also - [[Soviet Union]] - [[Russia]] - [[China]] - [[General Secretary]]