The party’s nomenclature system gives the CCP the powerful political weapon of being able to determine who will join and who will remain in the elite at all levels of the system. Interlocking directorates further consolidate party control by placing many individuals who hold key government positions onto the party committee in charge of that territory as a whole. But even these devices understate considerably the real power of the party over the state apparatus. The core organization of this power is hidden from view because it is sculpted around a series of secret bodies the leadership small groups and the party core groups that do not appear on organization charts.