The most important directorates were the: Directorate of Cadres and Organizations, headed by Hysni Kapo, the third ranking man in the Party hierarchy; Directorate of Agitation and Propaganda, headed by Ramiz Alia; Directorate of Education and Culture, headed by Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of the first secretary; Directorate of State Administrative Organs, headed by Llazi Stratoberdha; and Directorate of Mass Organizations, headed by Politburo member Adil Carcani.

When important policy issues were decided by the Politburo, special commissions were created in the Central Committee to draft implementing guidance for a specific decision. Thus, for instance, in the spring of 1968 the Politburo decided on a complete reorganization and reorientation of the country's educational system. A Central Commission on Education was immediately created in the Party Central Committee; the commission was headed by Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu and included some fifty experts in the ideological, academic, and military aspects of education.

After a year's work the commission completed its report and, in June 1969, submitted it to the Central Committee, which gave its formal stamp of approval. In December of the same year the government submitted a bill to the People's Assembly for the reorganization of the educational system; in its preamble the bill said that it was based on the report of the previous June as approved by the Party Central Committee ([see ch. 5], Social System).

The Central Committee was the next highest echelon in importance in the Party organization. In 1970 it was composed of sixty-one regular and thirty-six candidate members. It was to the Central Committee that the Politburo submitted its policy decisions for formal approval. As a rule, in recent years the Central Committee has approved Politburo reports and decisions with little, if any, debate. But there have been occasions when the Central Committee has been called upon to decide on issues of the utmost importance for the country. For example, in February 1948 the Central Committee was convened to discuss and decide the issue of a possible merger of Albania with Yugoslavia. Although the forces favoring such a merger were in the majority, the dissenting voices were sufficient to block the proposed merger. Another Central Committee meeting, held in September of the same year, purged the top Party group that had advocated the merger with Yugoslavia. A similar crucial issue arose in the fall of 1961 on the question of relations with the Soviet Union. The Central Committee approved the Politburo decision to break with Moscow and issued a declaration to that effect.

The Party's ideological principles, tasks, and organizational structure were delineated in the Party's statute, originally adopted by the First Party Congress in 1948 and amended several times since then. In it, control by the Party was detailed specifically, and the statute rather than the Constitution was the fundamental law of the land. According to the statute, the highest leading organ of each organization was: the general meeting for the basic Party organizations; the conference for the Party organizations of districts and cities; and the congress for the entire Party.

The guiding principle of the ideological and organizational structure of the Party was the Leninist dictum known as democratic centralism. As described in the statute, this principle provided in theory that the leading organs of the Party were elected from bottom to top at general meetings, conferences, and congresses; these organs were obliged from time to time to give account of their activities before their Party organizations.

Strict Party discipline was to be maintained under any circumstances, the minority being subject to the majority; decisions were to be reached on the basis of so-called free discussions but, from the moment a decision was reached, unanimously or by a majority of votes, all Party members were obliged to execute it without question; and the decisions of the higher Party organs were binding on the lower organs. The statute also provided that collective leadership was the highest principle of the leadership of the Party and that the elected organs as well as the basic Party organizations examined and solved collectively all Party problems.

The Party statute considered the Party Congress as the highest Party organ. The congress, usually called every four years, heard, examined, and approved the reports of the Central Committee and of other central Party organs; reviewed and made changes in the Party program and statute; determined the Party's tactical line on major policy problems; and elected the Central Committee and the Central Control and Auditing Commission and fixed the number of members of these two bodies. In actual practice, however, the Party Congress merely heard and approved reports submitted by the Politburo.

According to the statute, the Central Committee, which should meet in plenum at least once every four months, performed such formal functions as electing both the Politburo for guiding the affairs of the Central Committee between sessions and the Secretariat for "guiding the day-to-day affairs of the Party, especially for organizing the control of the execution of decisions and for the selection of cadres." During the period between two congresses the Central Committee guided the activities of the Party; represented the Party in its relationships with other parties, organizations, and institutions; organized and guided different Party institutions; named the editors of the Party's central press organs and granted permission for publication of the local Party press; distributed the cadres and the means of the Party and administered the central treasury; and guided and controlled the activities of the central organs of the people's democratic authority and social organizations by means of Party groups in them.

Regional Organization