He said he'd get back to us soon, but not exactly when, after he talked it over with his Politburo colleagues.

Like the Burmese junta, President Mugabe and his Politburo colleagues have an absolute monopoly of coercive power, but no legitimacy or moral authority.

He has no military experience, unlike many of his old Politburo colleagues, and his appointment appeared intended to protect his leadership of the party from challenge by the military.

When the surviving Romanovs asked for the house where the Tsar was killed to be turned into a museum, Yeltsin and his Politburo colleagues had it demolished.

A Politburo colleague, asked recently why the general had been chosen for this week's talks with Mr. Walesa, replied: "He's no ordinary police minister.

Mao, supported by Politburo colleagues, proposed the policy known as the Great Leap Forward.

The dispute, however, was also a personal one, between Yel'tsin and his former Politburo colleague, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Kosygin died alone on 18 December 1980; none of his Politburo colleagues, former aides, or security guards visited him.

His Politburo colleagues would see it the same way, old, cautious, and frightened men that they were.

This includes Mr. Nyers, his 66-year old Politburo colleague, who was the architect of the economic changes of the late 1960's.