User:Bogdanbiv/Romanian communist party cell

Every institution or organisation in the communist state was doubled by a "party cell" formed by people who worked there. The position of a party leader in such an institution was often thought as higher than the actual director or head of the organization. The party leader is a misnomer since no-one in the party could claim "de jure" control of the party, the was no President, but "de facto" the party was run by a Party Secretary who had veto right on any decision the Party take.

The party was responsible for decisions on all aspects of life in organisation and outside it, it decided the output of the factory they where working on and could take punitive actions on "immoral" members of the party. If a man or a woman cheated on their consort this was a matter to be analysed in the party organisation and the individual was looked down upon to the extend of exclusion out of the Party and sometimes even out of the organisation (factory or other). As a result misfit families rarely asked for a divorce and even then individuals were hard pressed to ask their consort to ask a divorce under mutual agreement terms.

Party Secretaries often had strong ties to the Secret Police and were seen as the public face of the police state. A special case was with army units where the Party Secretary had double subordination: first to his army unit commander under the Ministry of Defense and second to the Secret Police commander at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The party cells were set up in such a way that the General Secretary was in direct control of every activity run by the citizens.

Other responsibilities of the Party Secretary were to bring all people from their work organisation to field work for collecting crops, to public celebrations of the Communist Party where mass games took place.