Gitlow reached the summit of his political life as a Communist Party leader shortly after the conclusion of the 1928 campaign, when on March 16, 1929, Gitlow was named to the three-man Secretariat at the helm of the Communist Party, assuming the post of Executive Secretary. His time at the top proved to be momentary, however, as on March 23 he boarded an ocean liner for Moscow as part of a 10-person delegation seeking to appeal the Comintern's decision to expel Jay Lovestone from the Communist Party. The job of Executive Secretary was turned over to factional ally Robert Minor in the interim.