He headed the party in 1946 as Secretary General, a post that was hastily transferred to Nicolas el-Shawi as he traveled to Paris and London to study Marxism. He was further alienated from the party after his criticism of the USSR for approving the 1947 resolutions in United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. But he remained a staunch communist and member of the party although he was chastised for his views on USSR. During the Soviet Stalinist hegemony on the Lebanese Communist Party, he was blamed for criticizing the Soviet Union and after a big rift with the pro-Stalinist wing represented by Khalid Bakdash, was forced to write his own "confessions" and "admitting of mistakes" in a document known as "Risalat Salem" (رسالة سالم) in a bid to remain in the party. In the 1950s, his party actively opposed the rule of President Camille Chamoun in what was known as the 1958 uprising.