The 27th Congress witnessed the greatest turnover of Central Committee members in the party's history since 22nd Party Congress (held in 1961) during Nikita Khrushchev's leadership. The numbers of full membership were reduced from 319 in the 26th Central Committee to 307, while candidate membership was increased from 151 to 170. Of the 307 full members elected to the 27th Central Committee, 102 (making up 33 percent of membership) were newcomers. 25 officials, who had previously served as candidate members in the 26th Central Committee, were promoted to full membership. In total 125 new full members were appointed, making up 41 percent. 182 members (59 percent) were reelected to the 27th Central Committee, a decrease from the 26th Congress, in which 238 (75 percent) were reelected. Of the 170 candidate members, 54 (32 percent) were reelected, while the other 116 were newcomers. The 1st Plenary Session elected Lev Zaykov (then First Secretary of the Leningrad City Party Committee) to full membership in the Politburo, while Nikolay Slyunkov (Communist Party of Byelorussia First Secretary) and Yuri Solovyev (First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee) were given Politburo candidate membership. The plenum elected five newcomers to the Secretariat; Alexandra Biryukova (the first women to hold high party office since Yekaterina Furtseva in the Khrushchev era), Anatoly Dobrynin, Vadim Medvedev, Georgy Razumovsky and Alexander Yakovlev. The 1st Plenary Session reelected Mikhail Gorbachev to the office of the general secretary.