The division of labour of state organs is a Marxist–Leninist principle of communist state governance. It refers to the arrangement where the supreme state organ of power (SSOP), as the holder of the unified powers of the state, delegates parts of its powers to other, more specialised state organs. These state organs are either internal organs of the SSOP or make up the unified state apparatus. The SSOP establishes this delegation formally through the communist state constitution. In every communist state, the SSOP has established a permanent organ, the supreme executive and administrative organ, the supreme judicial organ, and the supreme procuratorial organ, but there are countless of examples of it establishing other specialised organs if deemed necessary. While specialised, these organs are not functionally separate from the SSOP; they report their work and are fully accountable to it, maintaining the SSOP's status as the supreme organ of the state and thereby rejecting the doctrines of fusion and separation of powers.
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👉 Division of labour of state organs in the context of National People's Congress
The National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Per the principle of unified power, the NPC heads China's unified state apparatus, and per the division of labour of state organs all state organs from the State Council to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) are accountable to it. With 2,977 members in 2023, it is the largest legislative body in the world. The NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Under China's Constitution, the NPC is structured as a unicameral legislature, with the power to amend the Constitution, legislate and oversee the operations of the government, and elect the major officers of the National Supervisory Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Central Military Commission, and the state. Since Chinese politics functions within a communist state framework based on the system of people's congress, the NPC works under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some observers characterize the branch as a rubber stamp body. Most delegates to the NPC are officially elected by local people's congresses at the provincial level, local legislatures which are indirectly elected at all levels except the county-level. The CCP controls the nomination and election processes at every level in the people's congress system.
Division of labour of state organs in the context of Communist state constitution
A communist state constitution is the supreme and fundamental law of a communist state. In Marxist–Leninist theory, a constitution is understood both as a juridical act that establishes the structure of the state and its legal order, and as the formal expression of the prevailing class system controlled by the ruling class. Communist constitutions codify the political and economic programme of the ruling communist party and are considered to hold supreme legal force, providing the foundation for all legislation and state activity. Unlike liberal constitutional systems, communist state constitutions reject the separation of powers and judicial review, vesting the unified powers of the state in a supreme state organ of power (SSOP). The constitution defines the structure and functioning of other state organs as an act of the SSOP’s self-organisation, not as an imposition upon it in accordance with the division of labour of state organs.
Communist constitutions share a broadly similar structure: a preamble outlining ideological goals; chapters on the political and economic system, often emphasising the leading role of the party, providing a normative framework for the transition to a communist society, public ownership and planned economic development; sections defining the organisation of state power, including the SSOP, its permanent organ, the supreme executive and administrative organ, the supreme judicial organ, the supreme procuratorial organ, and other state organs if needed; and chapters detailing citizens' rights and obligations. Rights are paired with corresponding obligations, reflecting the view that rights are not natural entitlements but contingent upon fulfilling social obligations. Legal systems operate under the principle of socialist law, which requires state organs, transmission belt mass organisations, and citizens to observe the constitution and laws. The procuracy typically supervises legality; constitutional enforcement is ordinarily vested in the SSOP or its permanent organ (with occasional specialised committees or courts).
Division of labour of state organs in the context of Highest state organ of power
The supreme state organ of power (SSOP) is a type of legislature and the highest representative institution in communist states operating under the Marxist–Leninist principle of unified power. As the sole holder of unified power, the SSOP serves as the institutional apex of the pyramid-like state structure known as the unified state apparatus, providing the structural precondition for the practice of democratic centralism. Unlike systems based on the fusion or separation of powers, the SSOP holds legislative, executive, judicial, and all other forms of state power, but commonly delegates these powers to inferior state organs in line with the division of labour and formalises this in the communist state constitution. Formally regarded as the embodiment of popular sovereignty, its activities in practice are closely shaped by the ruling communist party.
The SSOP's theoretical origins trace back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's idea of a “supreme power” of the people, Karl Marx’s call for unity of state power, and Vladimir Lenin’s vision of soviets as working organs which combined lawmaking and execution. The world's first SSOP was the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, established after the 1917 October Revolution, and it became the prototype for similar institutions in other communist states.