China's Governance: Political Reform in a Turbulent Environment

1989 ◽  
Vol 119 ◽  
pp. 481-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Turbulent Environment ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
China’S Economy ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

In 1989, after 40 years in power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is faced with its worst crisis since the Cultural Revolution (1966–69) over the issue of reform of the Stalinist political system. Arguing that political reform was the necessary pre–condition for further change in China's economy, the reform wing of the CCP confronted conservatives who feared that the Party was losing its monopoly of Chinese politics. The result was that thousands of unarmed civilians in Central Beijing were killed by the army in the J early hours of 4 June 1989.

Control and Style: Discipline Inspection Commissions Since the 11th Congress

1984 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 24-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Young
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The legacies of the Cultural Revolution have been nowhere more enduring than in the Chinese Communist Party organization. Since late 1967, when the process of rebuilding the shattered Party began, strengthening Party leadership has been a principal theme of Chinese politics; that theme has become even more pronounced in recent years. It is now claimed that earlier efforts achieved nothing, and that during the whole “decade of turmoil” until 1976, disarray in the Party persisted and political authority declined still further. Recent programmes of Party reform, therefore, still seek to overcome the malign effects of the Cultural Revolution in order to achieve the complementary objectives of reviving abandoned Party “traditions” and refashioning the Party according to the new political direction demanded by its present leaders.

The Cultural Revolution and China's Search for Political Order

1974 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 249-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byung-joon Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Since her traditional empire collapsed China has experimented with many political institutions. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a revolutionary one-party regime, the pattern of political order has shifted from one form to another. Intra-Party conflicts preceded these shifts, of which the Cultural Revolution represented the culmination. But in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution another shift is taking place, so it too has raised a series of important questions about Chinese politics.

The Unique “Blooming and Contending” 1961–62

1969 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merle Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Main Trend ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

From its inception until at least the Cultural Revolution, the Communist regime in China has had a twofold aim for its intellectuals: it has sought to indoctrinate them with the exclusive ideologies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and it has tried to utilize their skills to develop an industrialized and modernized society. The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to implement these two policies by an insistence on the strict orthodoxy of thinking individuals, on the one hand, and by the encouragement of intellectuals to work creatively at their jobs on the other. This contradictory approach has resulted in a policy toward the intellectuals that has been alternatively severe and relaxed. Though the main trend is usually in one direction or the other, there have always been counter-currents present which can be revived when necessary.

The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution

1967 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Neuhauser
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The recent events in China are surely drama of the highest order, but at times it has seemed that the actors themselves were not entirely sure who was writing the lines. In fact what we seem to be witnessing is a form of commedia dell'arte: improvisation within a certain tacitly understood framework. The cultural revolution appears to have taken new turns and to have broken into new channels precisely because the actors have been faced with new and unforeseen circumstances as it has run its course. No faction in the struggle has been able to impose its will on the Party or the country by fiat; new devices and stratagems have been brought into play in what has looked like desperate attempts to gain the upper hand. It has clearly been a battle of the utmost seriousness, but there appear to have been limitations on the resultant chaos. Economic disorganisation does not seem to have occurred on the scale of the later stages of the Great Leap Forward. Nor, despite the clashes, confusion and bitter infighting, have new centres of power, totally divorced from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself, arisen. The cultural revolution has been pre-eminently a struggle within the Party.

Military Regions and Provincial Party Secretaries: One Outcome of China's Cultural Revolution

1973 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 294-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Unexpected Findings ◽  
New Distribution ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

During the Cultural Revolution, “Party life” (tang ti sheng-huo) was temporarily interrupted when leading members of Communist Party organizations at all levels were called (or “dragged”) out to defend themselves against the criticisms of revolutionary mass factions. As these issues were resolved, new coalitions formed and Party organs were carefully restructured to reflect the new distribution of power. The analysis here is of the 158 secretaries and deputy secretaries elected by the new provincial committees of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 4 December 1970 and 24 August 1971. It yields some unexpected findings.

The Ninth Central Committee

1971 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 37-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald W. Klein ◽  
Lois B. Hager
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
China Mainland ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

In the half-century history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), only nine congresses have been held. Since six of these were convened during the first seven years, only three congresses have been held since the Sixth Congress in 1928. If the Seventh Congress in 1945 can be characterized as the consolidation of Mao's rule over the CCP, and the Eighth Congress in 1956 as the consolidation of the CCP's mastery over the China mainland, then the Ninth Congress, held in 1969, is the story of the victors and victims of the Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution and the Attack on the “Three Family Village”

1966 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Uhalley
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The current cultural rectification campaign in Communist China, which is to “sweep away all monsters” and “touch people to their very souls,” surpasses all previous campaigns in intensity, but more importantly it has revealed a serious political breach within the Chinese Communist Party itself.

The Reign of Virtue: Some Broad Perspectives on Leader and Party in the Cultural Revolution

1968 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin I. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Organisational Structure ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

One of the most arresting aspects of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has been the confrontation between Mao Tse-tung (or the Maoist group) and the Chinese Communist Party. There is, to be sure, an area of vagueness and uncertainty concerning this whole matter. Have the Maoists attacked the party as such? What indeed is the party as such? The party may be conceived of as the sum total of its actual members—of its human composition. It may be conceived of in terms of its organisational structure—its “constitution,” rules and established mechanisms. To any genuine Marxist-Leninist, it is, of course, more than its cells and anatomy. It is a metaphysical organism which is more than the sum of its parts. The “soul” of this collective entity incarnates all those intellectual and moral capacities which Marx had attributed to the industrial proletariat.

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