Politburo (Russian: Политбюро, literally "Polit(ical) Bureau [of the Central Committee]") is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.

The very first politburo was created in Russia by the Bolshevik Party in 1917 to provide strong and continuous leadership during the Russian Revolution occurring during the same year. However, after the Bolshevik's coup in Petrograd, the politburo was dissolved and the Central Committee became the governing body of Russia. During the twentieth century, nations that had a politburo included the USSR, East Germany, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, and China, amongst others . Today, there are five countries that have a communist politburo system. (China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba.)

In Marxist-Leninist states, the party is seen as "the vanguard of the people" and from that legitimises itself to lead the state. In that way the party officials in the politburo informally lead the state.

In the Soviet Union for example, the General Secretary of the Communist Party did not necessarily hold a state office like president or prime minister to effectively control the system of government. Instead, party members answerable to or controlled by the party held these posts, often as honorific posts as a reward for their long years of service to the party. On other occasions, having governed as General Secretary, the party leader might assume a state office in addition. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev initially did not hold the presidency of the Soviet Union, that office being given as an honour to former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for well over a decade before assuming the governmental position of Premier of the Soviet Union during World War II.