Eighteen months later Stoecker was returned to the (significantly expanded) party central committee at that years' party congress, held at Leipzig during January/February 1923. He was also given an important regional position as senior "Polleiter" ("loosely, "head of policy"") for the Communist Party's "region west", which comprised approximately the area covered since 1947 by North Rhine-Westphalia. According to at least one source he had effectively been filling an equivalent role on a less formal basis since 1921. The party had its regional headquarters at Cologne. During 1923 he was much involved in preparation for the October uprising in Hamburg (which failed in its objectives), though the extent and precise details of his involvement have remained undisclosed. Parliament was dissolved in October 1924 in anticipation of the general election scheduled for December, which the authorities saw as an opportunity to issue an arrest warrant against Stoecker in respect of his suspected involvement in the uprising the previous year. The question of whether his parliamentary immunity could be set aside because parliament was not actually in session remained untested, however, since the arrest warrant was never executed. He may have stayed away from the Frankfurt party congress in April 1924, since the record indicates that his membership of the party central committee was not renewed on that occasion.