The 1st Central Committee of the Workers' Party of North Korea (WPNK) was elected by the 1st Congress on 30 August 1946 through the merger of the Communist Party of North Korea and the New People's Party of Korea, and remained in session until the election of the 2nd Central Committee on 30 March 1948. In between party congresses and specially convened conferences the Central Committee is the highest decision-making institution in the party and North Korea. Forty-three members were elected to the 1st Central Committee, of which thirty-one were re-elected at the 2nd Congress. Its members convened for the 1st Plenary Session on 31 August 1946 and elected the 1st Organisation Committee, 1st Standing Committee and the 1st Political Committee, and voted in Kim Tu-bong as the WPNK Chairman and Kim Il-sung and Chu Yong-ha were elected vice chairmen. A feature of North Korean politics was its factionalism. Four loosely defined factions had taken shape by this time; Kim Il-sung's partisans, domestic communists, the Yan'an group and the Soviet Koreans. (Full list...)