Politics of China

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT / Kuomintang / Guomindang)

The KMT was the Nationalist Party founded by Sun Yat-sen that ruled the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek (1928-49); it built a Leninist-style party-state but lost the civil war to the CCP and retreated to Taiwan in 1949.

• Founded 1912 on Sun's Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, people's livelihood) (outside)

• Reorganized in 1924 as a Leninist party with Soviet help, with its own party army trained at Whampoa; allied with the CCP in the First United Front (1923-27) (Esherick; outside for Whampoa)

• Chiang's 1927 purge of Communists ended the alliance; the KMT ruled from Nanjing (1927-37) and fought the CCP with encirclement campaigns and the Pao Chia system (Johnson)

• Lost the civil war (1946-49) amid hyperinflation, corruption and war exhaustion (outside)

• Johnson argues KMT nationalism was elite and urban — "a head and no body" — and never reached the peasants, so the CCP captured peasant nationalism during the war with Japan

• Esherick argues the KMT was "as much the precursor of the Chinese Revolution as its political enemy": its Leninist party, party-army and state building paved the way for the CCP

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

The CCP, founded in 1921, grew from a small urban Marxist party into a peasant-based revolutionary movement that won power in 1949 by mobilizing the countryside during the war against Japan.

• Founded in Shanghai in 1921 by intellectuals (Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao) with Comintern help; organized on Leninist lines (Perry; outside for founders)

• Nearly destroyed by Chiang's 1927 purge; retreated to rural soviets (Jiangxi), made the Long March (1934-35) and rebuilt at Yan'an

• Expanded through guerrilla bases behind Japanese lines (1937-45); won the civil war and founded the PRC on Oct. 1, 1949 (Johnson)

• Johnson argues the CCP won by harnessing "peasant nationalism" stirred up by the Japanese invasion, not through class revolution or land reform

• Esherick argues the CCP was a complex social organization, "not an organizational weapon of obedient apparatchiks," and its victory was contingent rather than inevitable

• Perry argues the CCP "Sinicized" Soviet practices like work teams, which helps explain why it outlasted the Soviet Communist Party

Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi)

Chiang Kai-shek was the KMT leader who ruled Nationalist China (1928-49), prioritizing the destruction of the CCP over resisting Japan — a choice that weakened his nationalist credibility and contributed to his defeat.

• Rose as head of the Whampoa Military Academy; led the Northern Expedition (1926-28) and the 1927 purge of Communists (outside; Esherick)

• Followed "internal pacification first, then external resistance": his encirclement campaigns drove the CCP out of Jiangxi in 1934 (outside; Johnson)

• Kidnapped in the Xi'an Incident (Dec. 1936) and forced into the Second United Front against Japan; ran the war from Chongqing (Johnson; Esherick)

• Lost the civil war and retreated to Taiwan in 1949, where he ruled until his death in 1975 (outside)

• Johnson argues Chiang's regime "ruled a people indifferent to or unaware of government" and rested on alliances among military leaders, so it could not mobilize peasant nationalism

• Esherick argues his half-hearted response to Japan after 1931 was his "Achilles' heel," and the 1927 purge let the CCP claim to be Sun Yat-sen's true heir

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was the CCP leader who built the Party's peasant-based strategy, took control during the Long March, founded the PRC in 1949 and later launched the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

• From Hunan; early peasant organizer who stressed the revolutionary potential of the peasantry (Perry; outside)

• Gained influence at the Zunyi Conference (Jan. 1935) during the Long March; consolidated power through the Yan'an Rectification Campaign (1942-44) (Esherick)

• Developed the theory of guerrilla warfare and people's war (Johnson; outside)

• Mao himself said that without Japan's invasion the CCP "would never have been able to seize state power" (Goodman, quoting Mao)

• Esherick argues Mao "Sinicized" Marxism but was more shaped by Stalinist texts and Soviet influence than official histories admit

• Perry argues Mao and his comrades deserve credit for turning Soviet mobile units into distinctively Chinese work teams

Yan'an (Yenan)

Yan'an was the remote town in northern Shaanxi that served as CCP headquarters (~1937-47); it became the symbol of the "Yan'an Way" — the wartime model of mass mobilization, cadre discipline and Mao's leadership.

• Base after the Long March; capital of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region (Esherick; outside for dates)

• Site of the 1942-44 Rectification Campaign that consolidated Mao's leadership (Esherick)

• Thousands of patriotic urban students came to study at schools like Kangda during the United Front (Johnson)

• Under KMT blockade after 1939-41, the Party launched self-sufficiency production drives and raised demands on peasants (Esherick)

• Johnson argues Yan'an's success came from leading nationalist resistance; Japanese propaganda named Yan'an as "the enemy," which boosted the CCP's patriotic credentials

• Esherick argues Yan'an was not "a little Moscow," but Soviet influence there (security work, ranks and privileges) was greater than official histories admit

Long March

The Long March (1934-35) was the Red Army's roughly 6,000-mile retreat from the Jiangxi Soviet to northern Shaanxi; it nearly destroyed the CCP but brought Mao to power and became the Party's founding legend.

• Began after Chiang's fifth encirclement campaign broke the Jiangxi Soviet (outside)

• Of ~86,000 who started, only a few thousand reached Shaanxi (Esherick says fewer than 4,000) (Esherick)

• Mao gained leadership at the Zunyi Conference (Jan. 1935); famous episodes like the Luding Bridge crossing were later mythologized (Esherick)

• Johnson argues the CCP was at its lowest point after the March — "in its worst straits just prior to the Japanese invasion"

• Esherick argues the March shows the revolution was contingent: the Party survived through determination, incompetent adversaries and "plain old luck"; survivors became fiercely committed to the revolutionary myth

Xi'an Incident

The Xi'an Incident (Dec. 1936) was the kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek by his own generals, which forced him to stop fighting the CCP and form the Second United Front against Japan — saving the Communists at their weakest moment.

• On Dec. 12, 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng detained Chiang in Xi'an (Esherick; outside for date)

• They wanted Chiang to drop "internal pacification first" and unite against Japan (Johnson)

• Chiang was released on Dec. 25 after agreeing to cooperate; Zhou Enlai helped negotiate; the Second United Front followed in 1937 (outside; Johnson)

• Zhang Xueliang was kept under house arrest for decades (outside)

• Johnson argues it "gave birth to the anti-Japanese United Front" and was the culmination of popular pressure on the government to resist Japan

• Esherick argues it shows contingency — without it, the surrounded Red Army in Shaanxi probably would not have survived — but was not pure accident, growing out of anti-Japanese agitation

United Front

The United Front was the CCP-KMT alliance, formed twice (1923-27 against warlords; 1937-41 against Japan); each time the CCP used it to survive and grow under KMT protection before the alliance collapsed.

• First United Front (1923-27): Soviet-brokered; CCP members joined the KMT; ended by Chiang's 1927 purge (Perry; Esherick)

• Second United Front (1937): followed the Xi'an Incident; the Red Army became the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army; land confiscation was replaced by rent reduction (Johnson)

• Effectively ended by the New Fourth Army Incident (Jan. 1941), when KMT troops attacked CCP forces (Johnson; Esherick)

• Today the CCP's United Front Work Department still co-opts non-Party groups (outside)

• Johnson argues the United Front was NOT how the CCP came to power — it was "irrelevant to the peasantry"; CCP expansion happened in Japanese-occupied areas

• Esherick argues the CCP did benefit: the First United Front's "protective wing" let it grow to ~57,000 members

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is irregular fighting by small, mobile units relying on local support; Mao made it the CCP's core strategy, and fighting the Japanese this way let the CCP build base areas and win peasant loyalty.

• Mao's formula: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue"; the guerrilla is like "a fish in the sea" of the people (outside)

• Practiced by the Eighth Route Army behind Japanese lines in North China (Johnson)

• The 1940 Hundred Regiments Offensive damaged railways and mines but provoked brutal Japanese reprisals (Johnson)

• Johnson argues guerrilla resistance socially mobilized peasants and turned them into a "national population"; Japanese reprisals against guerrillas pushed peasants toward the CCP

• Esherick argues early Red Army bands were made up of bandits and secret-society members — a "miniscule portion of the rural population" — before mass mobilization began

Mopping-up campaign

Mopping-up campaigns were Japanese military operations (1938-45) to wipe out Communist guerrillas and the villages that supported them in North China; their brutality drove peasants into the arms of the CCP.

• Most extreme form: General Okamura's "Three-All" policy ("kill all, burn all, destroy all"), adopted in 1941-42 after the Hundred Regiments Offensive (Johnson)

• Population in North China's Communist areas fell from 44 million to 25 million in 1941-42 (Johnson)

• Estimates of civilian deaths run from about 2 to over 3 million (outside)

• Johnson argues the campaigns "confirmed the charges made against the Japanese by the Communists" — instead of separating peasants from the Communists, they drove them "together into closer alliance"

• Esherick notes the 1941-42 counterattacks cut CCP forces and territory roughly in half — a near-disaster the Party survived

Puppet government

Puppet governments were collaborationist Chinese regimes set up by Japan, most importantly Wang Jingwei's Nanjing regime (1940-45); their dependence on Japan and their anti-Communism ended up boosting the CCP's nationalist claims.

• Examples: Manchukuo (1932), the Provisional Government in Beijing (1937), the Reformed Government in Nanjing (1938) and the Wang Jingwei regime (1940) (Johnson)

• Wang, a former senior KMT leader, claimed his regime was the true KMT and used its flag and slogans (Johnson)

• Dissolved in Aug. 1945 after Japan's surrender; many leaders were tried as traitors (outside)

• Johnson argues the puppets failed because they could never show legitimacy independent of the Japanese army

• Johnson argues their loud anti-Communism helped Yan'an: it singled out the CCP as Japan's main enemy and blurred the line between the anti-Communist KMT and the puppets

Pao Chia (Baojia) System

The Pao Chia system was a traditional Chinese method of collective responsibility and mutual surveillance among households; the KMT and the Japanese revived it in the 1930s-40s to control villages and fight Communists.

• Dates to the Song dynasty; households grouped into units (10 households = 1 jia, 10 jia = 1 bao) (Johnson; outside for Song origins)

• Each unit was collectively responsible for members' behavior; used for census, policing, taxes and conscription (Johnson)

• The KMT used it against the Jiangxi Soviet in the early 1930s; the Japanese and puppet governments used it in occupied China (Johnson)

• Johnson argues it worked fairly well in Central China as part of the "Rural Pacification Movement," but failed in North China, where it was just a census device without stable government

• Perry notes CCP work teams in 1941 approached local baojia heads to help convene meetings — working through existing structures

Mass campaign (e.g., Yan'an Rectification, Land Reform, Four Cleans)

A mass campaign is the CCP's signature way of governing: an intense, top-down mobilization of the population for a set period to achieve a political goal, using rallies, study sessions, struggle meetings and work teams.

• Yan'an Rectification (1942-44): unified the Party around Mao, eliminated Wang Ming's faction, disciplined cadres and intellectuals (Esherick)

• Land Reform (1947-52): work teams staged "speak bitterness" meetings where poor peasants denounced landlords; destroyed the old rural elite (Perry)

• Four Cleans (1963-65): part of the Socialist Education Movement; millions of work-team members investigated cadre corruption (Perry)

• Campaigns continue today, e.g., Xi's anti-corruption drive (outside)

• Esherick calls Rectification "one of the most important turning points in China's revolutionary history," turning the CCP into an effective "organizational weapon" — though its texts were Stalinist

• Perry argues later campaigns were more restrained than Land Reform and that the Four Cleans deflected blame for the Great Leap famine onto local cadres

Work team

A work team is a temporary group sent by higher Party or government organs down to the grassroots to carry out a policy through mass mobilization; Perry argues it is a key, flexible tool that helped the CCP govern and survive.

• Perry's definition: teams "dispatched to the grassroots for a limited period to carry out their assignment by means of mass mobilization"

• Roots in Soviet Bolshevik practices, brought to China by Comintern advisers in the 1920s (Perry)

• Methods: "squatting on a point," the "three togethers" (live, eat, work with villagers), finding local activists, "speak bitterness" meetings (Perry)

• Used for Land Reform, Collectivization and the Four Cleans; in 1966 Liu Shaoqi's work teams in universities triggered Mao's anger and were withdrawn (Perry; outside for 1966 detail)

• Perry argues Chinese work teams differed from Soviet ones: staffed by students and intellectuals, better trained and staying longer, so they were less violent

• Perry's main argument: work teams are an extra-bureaucratic way to bridge center and locality, "making Communism work" and helping explain why the CCP outlasted the USSR

Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward (1958-60) was Mao's campaign to rapidly industrialize and leap toward communism through mass mobilization instead of capital; it collapsed into the deadliest famine in history.

• Launched in 1958 after the Soviet-style First Five-Year Plan stalled; Mao rejected Chen Yun's balanced, incentive-based approach (Lieberthal)

• Methods: substitute labor for capital, set impossible targets (e.g., steel), backyard furnaces, people's communes, ignore experts (Lieberthal)

• False reporting of yields led to excessive grain procurement; tens of millions died (estimates run from ~15 to 30+ million) (Bernstein; Lieberthal)

• Re-radicalized after the 1959 Lushan Conference; retreat began in 1960-62 (Bernstein)

• Bernstein argues Mao was "directly responsible" through "wilfulness": he knew of starvation by late 1958 but revived radicalism after Lushan

• Kung & Chen argue variation in radicalism came from career incentives: provinces led by alternate Central Committee members procured more grain, raising death rates

Collectivization

Collectivization was the process of merging private peasant farms into collective units (1953-56), which put agriculture under state control and set the stage for the people's communes.

• Followed Land Reform (1947-52) and moved in stages: mutual aid teams → lower-stage cooperatives → fully collective cooperatives, then communes (1958) (outside; Perry)

• Mao sped it up in 1955 (the "high tide"); most peasants were in collectives by 1956 (Lieberthal; outside)

• After the GLF, some provinces tried "individual responsibility" farming, but Mao blocked decollectivization in 1962 (Lieberthal)

• Dismantled after 1978 by the Household Responsibility System (outside)

• Perry argues China's collectivization was far less violent than Stalin's because Land Reform had already destroyed rural elites and better-trained work teams stayed longer and won local cooperation

• Kung & Chen use each province's speed of collectivization as a measure of its political radicalism

People's Communes

People's communes were giant rural units created in 1958 that merged collectives and combined local government with economic management; their egalitarian excesses were a major cause of the GLF famine.

• Made official at the Aug. 1958 Beidaihe Conference; ~25,000 communes controlled farming, local industry, schools and militia (Lieberthal)

• Features: communal mess halls with free food, military-style labor, confiscation of private plots (Lieberthal; Bernstein)

• Proved too large: by 1962 the production team (about a village) became the basic accounting unit (Lieberthal)

• Dissolved in the early 1980s and replaced by townships (outside)

• Bernstein argues the "wind of communism" — egalitarian distribution, mess halls, transferring village resources — destroyed incentives and fueled the famine; Mao clung to mess halls until 1961

• Lieberthal notes Khrushchev publicly criticized the communes in 1959, feeding Mao's suspicion that Peng Dehuai was colluding with Moscow

Lushan Conference

The Lushan Conference (July-Aug. 1959) was the Party meeting where Peng Dehuai criticized the Great Leap Forward and Mao purged him, re-radicalizing the GLF and breaking the norms of open debate inside the leadership.

• Originally meant to continue reining in GLF excesses (Bernstein)

• Peng Dehuai wrote Mao a private letter criticizing "petty-bourgeois fanaticism"; Mao circulated it and counterattacked, branding Peng's group an "anti-Party clique" (Bernstein; Lieberthal)

• Peng was dismissed as defense minister and replaced by Lin Biao; an Anti-Right Opportunist campaign followed (Lieberthal)

• The renewed leap caused the worst of the famine in 1960 (Bernstein)

• Lieberthal argues Lushan "broke the unwritten rules" of elite politics: leaders could no longer criticize policy freely, sowing bitterness that fed the Cultural Revolution

• Bernstein argues Mao reacted so harshly because many shared Peng's view, and after Lushan Mao "wilfully" ignored lessons he had already learned

Peng Dehuai

Peng Dehuai was a PLA marshal and defense minister (1954-59) who was purged for criticizing the Great Leap Forward at Lushan; his fall became a symbol of Mao's intolerance of dissent.

• Long March veteran; commanded Chinese forces in the Korean War (Lieberthal)

• Wanted a modern, professional, Soviet-style army; disliked the GLF's demands on the PLA (Lieberthal)

• At Lushan (1959) wrote a letter criticizing GLF "fanaticism" and complained that "one person makes all the decisions"; purged and replaced by Lin Biao (Bernstein; Lieberthal)

• Persecuted in the Cultural Revolution; died in custody in 1974; rehabilitated in 1978 (Lieberthal; outside for rehabilitation)

• Lieberthal argues events of 1959-61 "essentially vindicated what Peng Dehuai had said," and blocking his 1962 rehabilitation further damaged Party norms

• Lieberthal notes Jiang Qing claimed the play "Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" was a veiled defense of Peng — the spark of the Cultural Revolution

Lin Biao

Lin Biao was a PLA marshal and Mao loyalist who replaced Peng Dehuai as defense minister (1959), built Mao's personality cult in the army, became Mao's designated successor, and died in 1971 after an alleged coup plot.

• Made the PLA a model of Mao Zedong Thought; produced "Quotations from Chairman Mao" (the Little Red Book) (Lieberthal)

• Key ally (with Jiang Qing and Kang Sheng) in launching the Cultural Revolution (Lieberthal)

• Named Mao's official successor in the 1969 Party constitution (outside)

• Died in a plane crash in Mongolia in Sept. 1971 while fleeing after an alleged coup plot (outside)

• Lieberthal argues Lin was "more than simply a puppet of the Chairman": an ambitious man who tied his fortunes to Mao and deliberately worsened Mao's relations with other leaders

• Walder (Wk 7) notes the Lin Biao affair let Zhou Enlai begin rebuilding the Party and state bureaucracy

Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi was Mao's designated successor and PRC head of state (1959-68) who led the pragmatic recovery after the Great Leap Forward and became the top target of the Cultural Revolution.

• Became head of state in 1959 when Mao stepped back to the "second line" (Lieberthal)

• Supported the GLF in 1958, then led the recovery with Deng Xiaoping, restoring experts and material incentives (Lieberthal)

• At the 1962 Seven Thousand Cadres Conference said the famine was 70% man-made (Lieberthal)

• Denounced as "China's Khrushchev" and a "capitalist roader"; purged in 1968 and died in detention in 1969 (Lieberthal; outside for dates)

• Lieberthal argues Liu and his colleagues "tried to meet Mao more than halfway," did not see a showdown coming, and were "proved disastrously wrong"

• Lieberthal notes Mao objected that Liu's Socialist Education Movement targeted corruption rather than revisionism — a key step toward the split

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping was a veteran CCP leader who helped run the Great Leap Forward, led the recovery after it, was twice purged by Mao, and then became paramount leader (1978-97) who launched "reform and opening."

• As General Secretary, ran the Party Secretariat from 1956; prominent in the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign (Lieberthal)

• After the GLF, backed household farming: "It does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice" (1962) (Lieberthal)

• Purged in the Cultural Revolution, returned in 1973, purged again in 1976, and took power at the Dec. 1978 Third Plenum (outside)

• Approved the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown (outside; Baum)

• Lieberthal notes Mao complained Deng had "not listened to him since 1959" — showing the growing split between Mao and the Party bureaucracy

• Baum (Wk 8) argues Deng "personally embodied" the tension between fang (loosening) and shou (tightening)

Sino-Soviet Split

The Sino-Soviet Split was the breakdown of the alliance between China and the USSR from the late 1950s into open ideological rivalry; it convinced Mao that socialist revolutions could degenerate into "revisionism."

• Roots: Khrushchev's 1956 de-Stalinization speech, disputes over military cooperation and the GLF (outside; Lieberthal)

• Khrushchev canceled nuclear help (1959), criticized the communes, and suddenly withdrew all Soviet advisers (1960) (Lieberthal)

• Open polemics in 1963-64; border clashes in 1969 pushed China toward the U.S. (Lieberthal; outside for 1969)

• Lieberthal argues the 1960 withdrawal "shocked" Mao into concluding the USSR had become "revisionist," meaning any revolution could be reversed — which motivated the Cultural Revolution

• Lieberthal notes Mao used the anti-Khrushchev polemics to attack his own colleagues indirectly; Liu Shaoqi was later called "China's Khrushchev"

• Bernstein notes the conflict distracted Mao in 1960 as the famine worsened

Socialist Education Movement

The Socialist Education Movement (1962-66) was Mao's rural rectification campaign against corruption and "revisionism"; disputes over how to run it deepened the split between Mao and Liu Shaoqi that led to the Cultural Revolution.

• Launched after Mao warned of capitalist restoration at the 10th Plenum (1962) (Lieberthal)

• Also called the "Four Cleans": cleaning up cadres' accounts, granaries, property and work points (outside; Perry)

• Competing documents: Mao's "Former Ten Points" relied on peasant associations; Liu's version sent huge work teams to take over villages; Mao's "Twenty-three Articles" (1965) refocused on "people in authority taking the capitalist road" (Lieberthal)

• Lieberthal argues Mao objected that Liu narrowed the target from revisionism to corruption and relied on work teams rather than the masses — a key step toward the Cultural Revolution

• Perry argues the 3.5+ million work-team members deflected blame for the GLF famine onto local cadres and were more restrained than in Land Reform

Peasant Associations

Peasant associations were organizations of poor peasants that the CCP used to mobilize the countryside and break the power of local elites, from the 1920s through Land Reform and the Socialist Education Movement.

• 1920s: built by CCP organizers (Peng Pai, Mao) in Guangdong and Hunan; praised in Mao's 1927 Hunan Report (Perry; outside for Hunan Report)

• Perry argues they were modeled on the Soviet "Committees of the Village Poor" (1918)

• In Land Reform, work teams set up poor peasants' associations to redistribute land (Perry)

• In 1963 Mao's Former Ten Points created "poor and lower-middle peasants' associations" to supervise cadres (Lieberthal)

• Lieberthal argues the bureaucracy soon sidelined them in favor of work teams, leaving them "essentially without a significant task" — showing the Party's preference for keeping rectification internal

Anti-Rightist Campaigns (1957 and 1959)

The Anti-Rightist Campaigns were purges of critics: in 1957 against intellectuals who spoke out during the Hundred Flowers, and in 1959 against officials who doubted the Great Leap; both silenced dissent and helped cause the famine.

• 1957: after Mao invited criticism in the Hundred Flowers (1956-57), about half a million people were labeled "rightists"; Deng Xiaoping helped run it (Lieberthal; outside for Hundred Flowers)

• 1959: the "Anti-Right Opportunist" campaign after Lushan; Bernstein counts ~3.65 million cadres and Party members labeled

• Lieberthal argues the 1957 campaign discredited experts and intellectuals, clearing the way for the GLF's mobilizational approach

• Bernstein argues the 1959 campaign was a major cause of the famine: cadres feared being labeled "rightist," so they exaggerated output and ignored starvation

• Kung & Chen use the number of "rightists" in each province as a measure of radicalism

Nomenklatura

The nomenklatura is the Soviet-style system by which the Communist Party controls appointments to all important positions; it gives the Party power over officials' careers and shapes how they behave.

• The Party keeps lists of key posts and approved candidates (Kung & Chen)

• "Hierarchical in structure and bureaucratic in procedure"; concentrates power in a small elite (Kung & Chen)

• Still run today by the CCP's Central Organization Department (outside)

• Kung & Chen argue it created patron-client ties: ambitious alternate Central Committee members signaled loyalty to Mao by acting radically during the GLF, increasing deaths

• Kung & Chen's broader lesson: career incentives, not just ideology, drive radicalism; without checks and balances bad policies "seldom get corrected"

• Tsai & Kou (Wk 9) show the reserve cadre system as a modern extension of this personnel control

CCP organization (Central Committee, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee)

The CCP is organized as a pyramid: the Party Congress elects a Central Committee, which selects the Politburo and its Standing Committee — the small group of leaders who actually make the key decisions.

• National Party Congress: meets about every five years; formally the highest body (Kung & Chen; outside for schedule)

• Central Committee: a few hundred full and alternate members; meets in "plenums"; alternates can speak but not vote (Kung & Chen)

• Politburo: ~20-25 members, "clearly the pinnacle of China's political power" in the 1950s (Kung & Chen)

• Politburo Standing Committee: 5-9 top leaders (currently 7); the General Secretary heads the Party (outside)

• Lieberthal argues Mao's post as Party Chairman sat "apart from and above" the system, with "no effective institutional curbs" on his power

• Kung & Chen show the ladder (Politburo > full member > alternate) created strong career incentives

Hai Rui Dismissed from Office

"Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" was a 1961 historical play by Wu Han about an honest Ming official punished for criticizing the emperor; Mao's allies attacked it as a veiled defense of Peng Dehuai, and that attack launched the Cultural Revolution.

• Wu Han was a Ming historian and deputy mayor of Beijing under Peng Zhen (Harding; Lieberthal)

• Jiang Qing argued the play defended Peng Dehuai, purged at Lushan (Lieberthal)

• Nov. 1965: Yao Wenyuan published a harsh critique in Shanghai, reviewed by Mao himself (Harding)

• Peng Zhen tried to keep it an academic debate (the "February Outline," 1966); Mao attacked him, and the May 16 Circular created the CCRG (Harding)

• Lieberthal argues the Peng Dehuai reading was "plausible but probably wrong," and Yao's article was a trap: it tested Peng Zhen, who would lose either way, and showed Mao relying on forces outside Beijing

• Harding notes Mao "may well have encouraged Wu to write the play in the first place"

Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG)

The Central Cultural Revolution Group was the small radical body Mao created in May 1966 to direct the Cultural Revolution; it bypassed the Party bureaucracy and mobilized students and rebels against officials.

• Created by the May 16, 1966 Circular, reporting directly to Mao's Standing Committee (Harding)

• Members: Chen Boda (head), Jiang Qing (deputy), Kang Sheng, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and others (Harding)

• Encouraged Red Guards, fed them targets (Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping) and took over many powers of the Politburo and State Council in 1967 (Harding)

• Jiang Qing's July 1967 slogan "attack with words, defend with force" endorsed armed struggle; its most radical members were purged later in 1967 (Harding)

• Harding calls them "imperial favorites": radical intellectuals with no stake in the system, useful to Mao for propaganda

• Lieberthal argues they were "people of ideas, not ... organizational skills," and "disastrously inadequate at managing the economy"

Big Character Wall Posters

Big-character posters (dazibao) were large handwritten posters used to criticize officials publicly; Mao's endorsement of them in 1966 legitimized mass attacks on the Party establishment.

• May 25, 1966: Nie Yuanzi put up a poster attacking Peking University's leaders, encouraged by a team linked to Kang Sheng (Harding)

• Mao had it broadcast nationally on June 1, 1966, and posters spread to schools nationwide (Harding)

• Aug. 1966: Mao wrote his own poster, "Bombard the Headquarters," aimed at Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (Harding; outside for title)

• Used again in the 1978-79 Democracy Wall movement; the right to write them was removed from the constitution in 1980 (outside)

• Harding argues posters were a key tool for turning elite conflict into mass mobilization, giving Red Guards the right to attack Party committees at all levels

Red Guards

Red Guards were student militants mobilized by Mao in 1966 to attack "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders"; they spread chaos and violence, split into warring factions, and were disbanded and sent to the countryside in 1968.

• Formed in mid-1966 to resist Liu Shaoqi's work teams; Mao endorsed them and reviewed ~13 million at Tiananmen rallies (Aug.-Nov. 1966) (Harding)

• Attacked the "four olds" (old ideas, culture, customs, habits): ransacking homes and beating or killing teachers and "class enemies" (Harding)

• July 1968: Mao sent worker propaganda teams into the universities, ending the Red Guard phase (Harding)

• Harding argues Red Guards split along class lines: children of cadres formed "loyalist" groups defending the Party, while children of intellectual/bourgeois families formed "rebel" groups attacking it

• Perry argues Mao's withdrawal of work teams in favor of "unmediated mass activism" "unleashed a torrent of violence that even he could not abide"

January Revolution

The January Revolution (Jan. 1967) was the wave of power seizures in which rebel groups, starting in Shanghai, overthrew local Party committees; it ended not in mass rule but in military-backed revolutionary committees.

• Shanghai rebel workers (with Wang Hongwen) and CCRG member Zhang Chunqiao ousted the city's Party leaders (Harding)

• Jan. 22, 1967: People's Daily urged rebels nationwide to "seize power"; the PLA was ordered to "support the left" (Harding)

• Shanghai declared a "people's commune" on the Paris Commune model, but Mao replaced the name with "revolutionary committees" (Harding)

• Harding argues it was "a revolution from above," not a true mass revolution; its main purpose was "less to overthrow authority than to restore order"

• Harding (citing Walder) notes the Shanghai Commune was backed by under a quarter of politically active workers and relied on the PLA to survive

Revolutionary Committees

Revolutionary committees were the new governing bodies created after the 1967 power seizures to replace Party committees; in practice they were dominated by the military.

• Based on the "three-in-one combination": rebel mass organizations, "revolutionary" cadres and PLA officers (Harding)

• Formed slowly — the last provincial ones only in Sept. 1968 (Harding)

• Military dominated: of 23 provincial chairmen, 12 were troop commanders and 5 political commissars (Harding)

• Replaced by regular local governments by 1979-80 (outside)

• Walder argues they were "a thinly disguised form of military dictatorship" that dismantled the party-state bureaucracy, sending officials to May 7th Cadre Schools

• Harding argues the new order differed little in structure from the old one; what changed was staffing — more soldiers and less qualified officials

February Adverse Current

The February Adverse Current (Feb. 1967) was a clash in which senior marshals and vice-premiers openly criticized the Cultural Revolution; Mao saw it as a challenge to himself, and it led to the movement's re-radicalization.

• Participants included Marshals Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen and Xu Xiangqian and Vice-Premiers Chen Yi, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian and Tan Zhenlin (Harding)

• In meetings chaired by Zhou Enlai, they confronted the CCRG over attacks on veteran officials and disruption of the army (Harding)

• Mao was furious; radicals labeled it an "adverse current" (Harding)

• Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were then attacked by name, and Zhou Enlai was targeted as a "backstage supporter" (Harding)

• Harding argues it resembled the 1959 Lushan Conference: criticism of a disruptive Maoist campaign was taken as a challenge to Mao and re-radicalized the movement

Wuhan Incident

The Wuhan Incident (July 1967) was a mutiny-like confrontation in which local troops and a conservative mass group seized CCRG envoys sent by Beijing; it showed how divided the army had become.

• Local commander Chen Zaidao backed the conservative "Million Heroes" and suppressed radical rebels (Harding)

• When Mao and Zhou ordered the radicals restored, the Million Heroes and soldiers seized and beat CCRG envoy Wang Li (Harding)

• Zhou freed Wang; loyal forces took control of Wuhan; Chen was dismissed (Harding)

• Aftermath: radicals called to "drag out a handful in the army," and violence spread, including the burning of the British mission (Harding)

• Harding argues it showed regional commanders tended to side with conservative groups, and the resulting chaos led Mao to back the PLA over the mass movement

May 7th Cadre Schools

May 7th Cadre Schools were rural labor camps where officials and intellectuals were sent for "re-education" through farm work and political study, emptying out the party-state bureaucracy.

• Named after Mao's May 7, 1966 directive calling for people to combine study, labor and military training (Harding; outside for directive)

• Perhaps 3 million cadres were sent; meant to create a "more selfless and efficient style of work" (Harding)

• Up to 70% of officials in some provinces were sent down (Walder)

• Closed after the 1971 Lin Biao affair as Zhou Enlai rebuilt the bureaucracy (Walder)

• Walder argues this destruction of the bureaucracy left no entrenched interests to block Deng's market reforms — unlike in Gorbachev's USSR

Sent-Down Youth

Sent-down youth were the ~17 million urban young people sent to live and work in the countryside ("up to the mountains, down to the countryside") from 1968, partly to end the Red Guard chaos.

• Followed Mao's Dec. 1968 call for "educated youth" to be "reeducated by the poor and lower-middle peasants" (Honig & Zhao; Harding)

• Their household registrations (hukou) were moved to the countryside; Shanghai alone sent 1.1 million (Honig & Zhao)

• Memoirs stress lost education, hardship and betrayal; most returned to cities after 1978 (Honig & Zhao; outside for return)

• Harding argues the movement was used to demobilize the Red Guards

• Honig & Zhao argue sent-down youth unintentionally drove rural development: their families' urban connections channeled tractors, machinery and skilled workers to remote counties, bypassing central planning

Peng Zhen

Peng Zhen was a Politburo member and Beijing's Party boss who led the original group in charge of the Cultural Revolution; his attempt to protect Wu Han made him one of the movement's first senior victims.

• Headed the Five-Man Group on cultural revolution (from 1964) (Harding)

• Protected his deputy mayor Wu Han, treated "Hai Rui" as an academic matter and issued the "February Outline" (1966) (Harding)

• Purged in 1966 after Mao attacked him; the May 16 Circular dissolved his group (Harding)

• Rehabilitated after Mao's death; later chaired the National People's Congress Standing Committee (1983-88) and was a conservative elder in 1989 (outside)

• Lieberthal notes Mao may once have considered Peng as a successor, and Peng had subordinates investigate the GLF in a report that blamed the Politburo — making him a threat

Jiang Qing

Jiang Qing was Mao's wife, a former actress who became a leader of the radical left in the Cultural Revolution and the head of the "Gang of Four," arrested after Mao's death.

• Went to Yan'an in 1937; leaders let her marry Mao on condition she stay out of politics (Harding; Lieberthal)

• Campaigned to "revolutionize" Beijing Opera; pushed the attack on "Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" (Lieberthal)

• Deputy head of the CCRG; endorsed armed struggle with "attack with words, defend with force" (1967) (Harding)

• Arrested in Oct. 1976; tried in 1980-81 and sentenced to death (commuted); died by suicide in 1991 (outside; Harding)

• Lieberthal argues she wanted both to transform Chinese culture and "to avenge the many years of slights" from the cultural establishment

Zhou Enlai

Zhou Enlai was PRC Premier (1949-76) and the CCP's leading administrator and diplomat, who supported Mao publicly during the Cultural Revolution while trying to limit its damage and protect officials.

• Long-time CCP leader; helped negotiate Chiang's release in the Xi'an Incident (outside)

• Kept key agencies running and protected officials during the Cultural Revolution; mediated the Wuhan Incident (Harding)

• Rebuilt the bureaucracy after Lin Biao's fall (1971); led the opening to the U.S. (Walder; outside for U.S.)

• His death in Jan. 1976 prompted the April 1976 Tiananmen mourning protests (Walder; outside for link)

• Lieberthal argues he was a "willow branch" who always sided with Mao in open clashes, and his support in 1966 was "crucial" to launching the Cultural Revolution

• Harding argues he represented the interests of cadres against the radicals and became their ultimate target in 1967

Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng was Mao's chosen successor who became Party Chairman and Premier in 1976, arrested the Gang of Four, but was pushed aside by Deng Xiaoping by 1978-81 because he lacked a power base and stuck to Maoist policy.

• Hunan official who rose by loyalty to Mao, including after Lushan (Lieberthal)

• Became Premier and Mao's successor in 1976 (outside)

• Arrested the Gang of Four in Oct. 1976 (Walder; outside for details)

• Associated with the "Two Whatevers" — uphold whatever Mao decided and said; still praised the Cultural Revolution in 1977 (Harding; outside for Two Whatevers)

• Lost power to Deng at the 1978 Third Plenum; removed from his top posts in 1980-81 (Walder; outside for dates)

• Walder argues Hua, like Gorbachev, held the top posts but lacked a support network, which let Deng supplant him

Fang-shou cycle

The fang-shou cycle is Baum's term for the repeated pattern of loosening (fang) and tightening (shou) political and economic control in 1980s China, which grew more intense with each round until it exploded at Tiananmen in 1989.

• "Fang" = letting go/relaxing; "shou" = tightening up (Baum)

• The pattern: a reform step → release of pent-up demand (panic buying, student protests) → conservative backlash → crackdown on "liberal" ideas → pressure builds to relax again (Baum)

• Began in 1979 with the closing of Democracy Wall and Deng's Four Cardinal Principles (Baum)

• Three cycles: Anti-Spiritual Pollution (1983); student protests and Hu Yaobang's fall (1986-87); inflation crisis and Tiananmen (1988-89) (Baum)

• Baum argues each cycle had greater "amplitude," polarizing the leadership until it became "an acute struggle for survival" in 1989

• Baum argues Deng "personally embodied all the complex antinomies of fang and shou," wanting both markets and a monistic political order

Central Advisory Commission (CAC)

The Central Advisory Commission (1982-92) was a Party body Deng created to ease elderly revolutionaries into retirement, but it became a powerful "shadow cabinet" of conservative elders who helped oust reformers and approve the 1989 crackdown.

• Created at the 12th Party Congress (1982); members kept their salaries, ranks and perks (Baum)

• Deng chaired it at first; members could attend Central Committee plenums (Baum)

• Conservative elders (Chen Yun, Bo Yibo, Li Xiannian, Wang Zhen) used it to push the ousters of Hu Yaobang (1987) and Zhao Ziyang (1989) (Baum)

• Abolished at the 14th Party Congress (1992) (outside)

• Baum calls it "a virtual shadow cabinet, parallel and powerful" that "played a key role in fashioning the June 1989 military crackdown"

• Baum argues Deng's reliance on such personalized tools was "the very antithesis of the system he sought to create"

Third echelon

The "third echelon" was the Deng-era program to promote a younger, better-educated, technically skilled generation of cadres to replace the aging revolutionaries — the forerunner of today's reserve cadre system.

• First echelon = revolutionary elders (Deng, Chen Yun); second = current leaders (Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang); third = future successors (Baum; Tsai & Kou)

• Promoted in the 1983-85 Party rectification; Li Rui led the search (Baum; Tsai & Kou)

• 1985: 64 older Central Committee members retired; new members were mostly college-educated, average age ~50 (Baum)

• Rising names included Hu Jintao, Li Peng and Hu Qili (Baum)

• Baum argues the younger technocrats saw corruption as an institutional problem and pushed reform, while elders blamed moral decay

• Tsai & Kou (Wk 9) argue the third echelon evolved into the reserve cadre system that sustains CCP elite unity

Bourgeois liberalization

"Bourgeois liberalization" was the Party's label for Western liberal ideas — democracy, free speech, individualism — that conservatives saw as threatening socialism; campaigns against it marked the tightening phases of the 1980s.

• Campaigns: Anti-Spiritual Pollution (1983) and the 1987 campaign after the Dec. 1986 student protests (Baum)

• Hu Yaobang was ousted in 1987 for being soft on it; Fang Lizhi, Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang were expelled from the Party (Baum)

• Deng (1986): the struggle against it "will last for at least twenty years" (Baum)

• Deng called Tiananmen "a confrontation between the four cardinal principles and bourgeois liberalization" (June 9, 1989) (Baum)

• Baum argues the central dispute of the 1980s was "precisely how much 'bourgeois liberalization,' if any, could be countenanced" in a Marxist-Leninist society

Four Cardinal Principles

The Four Cardinal Principles, announced by Deng in March 1979, set the political limits of reform: the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, Communist Party leadership, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.

• Announced as Democracy Wall was shut down — the start of Baum's fang-shou pattern (Baum)

• Meaning: economic opening was allowed, but challenges to one-party rule were not (Baum)

• Part of the line "one central task, two basic points": economic development, plus upholding the four principles and reform/opening (Baum; Tsai & Kou)

• Reaffirmed after Tiananmen; written into the Party constitution (Joseph)

• Baum argues Deng saw no conflict between reform and the principles; the 1989 crisis came because they weren't "thoroughly implemented"

• Joseph (Wk 9) argues they resemble Mao's 1957 criteria for acceptable criticism — continuity with Leninist limits

Special Economic Zones (SEZs)

Special Economic Zones were coastal areas with tax breaks and market freedoms created from 1980 to attract foreign investment and technology; they drove China's opening but also sparked conservative attacks over corruption and foreign influence.

• First four in 1980: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen (outside; Baum)

• 1984: 14 coastal cities opened; Hainan became an SEZ province in 1988 (Baum)

• The 1984-85 Hainan scandal: officials imported tens of thousands of cars and TVs for resale with state funds (Baum)

• Deng's 1992 Southern Tour to Shenzhen relaunched reform after Tiananmen (outside; Yan)

• Baum argues conservatives attacked SEZs as sources of smuggling, crime and "bourgeois corrosion," comparing them to colonial concessions — but Deng insisted "China's doors will be opened even wider"

Gaogan zidi

Gaogan zidi ("children of high-level cadres") are the sons and daughters of senior officials, whose use of family connections to profit from reform in the 1980s became a major source of public anger before Tiananmen.

• Used connections to set up trading companies and win loans and scarce goods (Baum)

• Central to "guandao" (official profiteering) — exploiting gaps between planned and market prices (Baum)

• Rarely punished; Deng's son Deng Pufang was linked to a company that was later broken up (Baum)

• Today's "princelings" are a related concept (outside)

• Baum argues their corruption fed student anger in 1989, when protesters demanded publication of leaders' and their children's incomes

Hu Yaobang

Hu Yaobang was Deng's reformist protégé and CCP General Secretary (1982-87), forced out for being soft on student protests and "bourgeois liberalization"; his death in April 1989 sparked the Tiananmen protests.

• Former Communist Youth League leader; rehabilitated Cultural Revolution victims after 1977 (Baum; outside)

• Reformer on politics and economics: promoted the third echelon, defended intellectuals, opposed the Anti-Spiritual Pollution campaign (Baum)

• Forced to resign in Jan. 1987 after the Dec. 1986 student protests (Baum)

• Died April 15, 1989; student mourning became the Tiananmen movement (Baum)

• Baum argues his fall shows the power of conservative elders and the fang-shou cycle: Deng sacrificed his own successor to appease them

Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Ziyang was Premier (1980-87) and General Secretary (1987-89) who pushed market and political reform; he opposed martial law in 1989, was purged, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

• Pioneered rural reform in Sichuan (outside)

• At the 13th Congress (1987) presented the "primary stage of socialism" and proposed separating Party and government (Baum)

• Weakened by the 1988 inflation crisis (Baum)

• May 19, 1989: visited hunger strikers — "We've come too late" — then was purged for "splitting the Party" (Baum)

• House arrest until his death in 2005 (outside)

• Baum links him to "neoauthoritarianism": a strong reformist leader pushing markets with limited, consultative participation rather than Western democracy

Jiang Zemin

Jiang Zemin was the Shanghai Party boss whom Deng chose as General Secretary after Tiananmen (1989-2002); he presided over rapid growth and is known ideologically for the "Three Represents."

• Shanghai mayor and Party secretary; joined the Politburo in 1987 (Baum)

• Shut down the liberal World Economic Herald in April 1989 (Baum)

• Chosen as General Secretary at the June 1989 plenum as a compromise candidate (Baum)

• Led China to WTO entry (2001) and the Hong Kong handover (1997) (outside)

• Baum argues Deng chose him because he was centrist, outside the factions, firm on ideology, and handled Shanghai's protests without martial law

• Yan notes he expanded political and patriotic education after Tiananmen

Li Peng

Li Peng was Premier (1987-98) and a conservative, Soviet-trained engineer who favored cautious reform and became the public face of the 1989 martial law and crackdown.

• Adopted son of Zhou Enlai; rose as a third-echelon leader (Baum)

• Favored central planning and "stability first"; took over economic policy after the 1988 crisis (Baum)

• Pushed the hard-line April 26, 1989 editorial calling protests "turmoil" (Baum)

• Declared martial law in Beijing in May 1989 (Baum)

• Later NPC chairman (1998-2003); championed the Three Gorges Dam (outside)

• Baum notes his televised confrontation with student hunger strikers (May 18) and argues his role "tainted" him, helping Jiang Zemin get the top post

Fang Lizhi

Fang Lizhi was an astrophysicist and China's most prominent dissident of the 1980s, whose speeches calling for democracy inspired the 1986 student protests and made him a symbol of "bourgeois liberalization."

• Vice-president of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei (Baum)

• Urged students to demand rights: "Democracy granted by leaders is not true democracy" (Baum)

• The Dec. 1986 protests began at his university and followed his speaking tour (Baum)

• Expelled from the Party in 1987 at Deng's demand (Baum)

• After June 4, 1989, took refuge in the U.S. Embassy, then went into exile (Baum)

• Baum argues Fang's open challenge to Marxism and call for "complete Westernization" made him the conservatives' prime example of liberalization

Communist Youth League (CYL)

The Communist Youth League is the CCP's youth organization, which trains and recruits future Party members and leaders and helps the Party control students.

• Ages ~14-28; founded in 1922 (outside)

• Hu Yaobang and Hu Jintao both led it; its alumni formed the "tuanpai" faction (Baum; outside for tuanpai)

• Weakened under Xi Jinping (budget and status cut in 2016) (outside)

• Yan argues the CYL is one of the three pillars of student control on campuses: it approves student groups, controls resources, runs political meetings and monitors online forums

• Yan notes it tightens control during "critical and sensitive periods"

"Critical and sensitive periods"

"Critical and sensitive periods" (mingan qi) are times the Party-state marks for tighter political control on campuses to stop student protests — such as around the June 4 anniversary or during crises.

• Three types: regular (June 4 anniversary, NPC sessions), predictable events, and unpredictable crises (e.g., 1999 embassy bombing, 2009 Xinjiang riots) (Yan)

• Goal: to stop activists from turning a "triggering event" into a movement (Yan)

• Measures: extra political meetings, check-ins with targeted students, cancelled club activities, informants, and 24-hour online monitoring (Yan)

• Yan argues post-Deng control of students is "depoliticized, bureaucratic and pragmatic" — managing students as "professionals-in-waiting" instead of mobilizing them

• Yan warns this may breed cynicism and "silent defiance"; no major student movement has occurred since 1989

Marxism (influence on Chinese communism)

Marxism is Karl Marx's theory that history is driven by class struggle and moves through economic stages toward communism; it gave the CCP its goals and worldview, but Chinese leaders heavily adapted it to Chinese conditions.

• Core ideas: class struggle drives history; the economic "base" shapes politics and culture; history moves from feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism (Joseph)

• The industrial working class (proletariat) is the revolutionary class; socialism is the "lower stage" of communism (Joseph)

• Marx dismissed peasants as "a sack of potatoes" without class consciousness (Joseph)

• Came to China after the 1917 Russian Revolution and May Fourth Movement (1919) (outside)

• Joseph argues China's Marxism was heavily "Sinified": Mao's voluntarism (human will can reshape reality) departs sharply from Marx's economic determinism

• Joseph notes the CCP still claims Marxism as its foundation; Xi calls his ideology the "Marxism of contemporary China and the 21st century"

Leninism (influence on Chinese communism)

Leninism is Lenin's theory of revolutionary organization — a disciplined vanguard party leading the masses and ruling through democratic centralism; it shaped the CCP's structure from 1921 to today.

• Vanguard party: workers can't make revolution alone; a party of professional revolutionaries must lead them (Joseph)

• Democratic centralism: debate before a decision, then strict obedience; in practice centralism dominates (Joseph)

• Dictatorship of the proletariat and the idea that backward countries can skip stages of capitalism (Joseph)

• The CCP was built on Leninist lines with Comintern help in 1921; the KMT was too (Joseph; outside for KMT)

• Joseph argues Mao "was, at bottom, a faithful Leninist" with a populist streak — every Maoist mass mobilization ended "with a firm reassertion of Leninist authority"

• Tsai & Kou argue Leninist personnel control (the reserve cadre system) is a key source of the CCP's "resilient authoritarianism"

Mao Zedong Thought

Mao Zedong Thought is the CCP's official name for Mao's ideology — the "Sinification" of Marxism-Leninism to fit Chinese conditions — stressing peasants, the mass line, human will and continuous class struggle.

• Made the Party's guiding thought in the 1945 constitution; named "Thought" rather than "Maoism" (Joseph)

• Key elements: peasants as a revolutionary force, the mass line, voluntarism, contradiction, and class struggle as the "key link" (Joseph)

• Late Mao: a "bourgeoisie" exists inside the Party and socialism can slide back into capitalism — justifying the Cultural Revolution (Joseph)

• The 1981 Resolution kept Mao Zedong Thought but condemned the Cultural Revolution; its "living soul" = seek truth from facts, the mass line, and independence (Joseph)

• Joseph notes scholars debate how Marxist Mao really was — creative Marxist or peasant nationalist using Marxist language

• Harding argues the Cultural Revolution came from Mao's "populist faith in the value of mass mobilization" and quest for "revolutionary purity"

Rural Populism

Rural populism is Mao's faith in the peasantry as the main revolutionary force and source of virtue — a major break from Marx and Lenin that drove both the CCP's victory and Mao's later disasters.

• Joseph defines populism as claiming to represent ordinary people against elites, with "a deep faith in the wisdom of the masses"

• Marx dismissed peasants; Lenin saw them only as allies; Mao made them the main force — "surrounding the cities from the countryside" (Joseph)

• Mao called China's people "poor and blank" — a blank page for revolution (1958) (Joseph)

• Seen in the GLF communes and in sending youth to be "re-educated" by peasants (Joseph)

• Joseph argues Mao was "torn between the two poles of Leninism and populism," and his populist episodes ended in catastrophe and Leninist crackdowns

• Joseph notes Mao's vision was not pastoral: he wanted to modernize the countryside and erase the gap between town and country

Mass Line

The mass line is Mao's method of leadership — "from the masses, to the masses" — in which the Party gathers people's ideas, refines them through Marxist-Leninist theory and brings them back as policy; it gave CCP rule a populist feel while keeping authority with the Party.

• Formalized in Mao's 1943 directive on methods of leadership (Joseph)

• Cadres live among the people, gather their views, turn them into policy, explain it back and test it in practice (Joseph; outside for detail)

• Meant to avoid both "commandism" (orders from above) and "tailism" (just following the crowd) and to fight bureaucratism (Joseph; outside for terms)

• One of the three "living soul" principles in the 1981 Resolution; Xi revived it with a 2013-14 Mass Line campaign (Joseph; outside for campaign)

• Joseph argues it is only "quasi-democratic": leaders draw on the masses but answer to higher Party levels, not to the people

Permanent Revolution

Permanent (continuous) revolution is Mao's idea that revolution must keep going after the Communists take power, moving from stage to stage without pause to prevent the revolution from hardening into a privileged bureaucracy.

• Chinese term: buduan geming ("uninterrupted revolution"); Mao urged striking "while the iron is hot" (1958) (Joseph)

• Used to justify rapid collectivization, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (Joseph)

• Mao held that struggle continues even under socialism — including against a "bourgeoisie inside the Party" (Joseph)

• Rejected after Mao: Deng ended "class struggle as the key link" (Joseph)

• Joseph argues it reflects Mao's voluntarism and fear that China would turn "revisionist" like the USSR

• Harding argues Mao's "restless quest for revolutionary purity in a postrevolutionary age" drove the Cultural Revolution

Seeking Truth from Facts

"Seeking truth from facts" is a Mao-era principle that policy should be based on practical evidence, not dogma; Deng later used it to justify abandoning Maoist policies while claiming continuity with Mao.

• Rooted in Mao's "On Practice" (1937): practice is the test of truth — to know a pear's taste, you must eat it (Joseph)

• "No investigation, no right to speak" (1930) (Joseph)

• Used at Yan'an against Soviet-trained "dogmatists" (Joseph)

• Deng used it against Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers"; endorsed at the 1978 Third Plenum (Joseph; outside for Plenum)

• Joseph cites Teiwes's distinction between a "romantic" Mao and a "pragmatic" Mao who sought truth from facts

• Joseph argues Deng used Mao's own words to legitimize pragmatism — breaking with Maoist policy while claiming to follow Mao Zedong Thought

Deng Xiaoping Theory

Deng Xiaoping Theory is Deng's ideological contribution: it made economic development, not class struggle, the Party's central task and justified markets — while insisting on one-party rule through the Four Cardinal Principles.

• Added to the Party constitution in 1997; "Theory" ranks a notch below Mao's "Thought" (Joseph)

• Redefined China's main problem as backward production rather than class conflict (Joseph)

• Key sayings: "Poverty is not socialism"; the "black cat, white cat" saying; "Let some people get rich first" (Joseph)

• "Primary stage of socialism": China will need markets for a long time (Joseph)

• Political limits: the Four Cardinal Principles (1979) (Joseph)

• Joseph argues it was pragmatism wrapped in Marxist language: economic liberalization without political liberalization

Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

"Socialism with Chinese characteristics" is the CCP's formula, from 1982, that China must build socialism suited to its own conditions — in practice justifying markets, private business and foreign investment under Party rule.

• Introduced by Deng at the 12th Party Congress (1982) (outside)

• "Socialist market economy" adopted at the 14th Congress (1992) (Joseph)

• Justified by the "primary stage of socialism" (Joseph)

• Every later leader frames his ideology within it, including Xi Jinping Thought (Joseph)

• Critics call it "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" (outside)

• Joseph argues its flexibility let the CCP adapt ideology to almost any policy while claiming Marxist continuity

• Ji & Jiang argue that after Mao, the regime turned to "performance legitimacy" — economic and social modernization — to replace faith in communist ideology

Three Represents

The Three Represents is Jiang Zemin's ideological contribution (2000): the CCP should represent advanced productive forces, advanced culture and the interests of the overwhelming majority — opening the Party to private entrepreneurs.

• Announced in Feb. 2000 during Jiang's tour of Guangdong (Joseph)

• Practical meaning: the Party should represent "new social strata" like entrepreneurs and professionals, not just workers and peasants; entrepreneurs could join from 2001 (Joseph)

• Written into the Party constitution in 2002 (Joseph)

• Joseph argues it marked the shift from a "revolutionary party" to a "governing party," despite leftist opposition

• Ji & Jiang see it as the culmination of efforts to recruit younger, more educated members — partly why Party members now hold more modern views than the public

Scientific Development Concept

The Scientific Development Concept is Hu Jintao's ideological contribution, calling for "comprehensive, balanced and sustainable" development that put people first and tackled the costs of growth — inequality, rural poverty and pollution.

• Introduced in 2003; written into the Party constitution in 2007 (Joseph; outside for constitution steps)

• Slogans: "putting people first" and building a "harmonious socialist society" (Joseph)

• Policies included expanded health insurance and abolishing the agricultural tax (Joseph; outside for tax)

• Joseph argues it had a "populist tinge," but policy-based rather than Mao's mass mobilization

• Joseph argues it was an implicit critique of Jiang's "growth-at-any-cost and rather elitist" strategy, and it faced resistance from coastal interests

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era

Xi Jinping Thought is Xi's ideology, written into the Party constitution in 2017 with his name attached, which reasserts Party control over everything and aims at the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" by 2049.

• Named after a sitting leader — putting Xi alongside Mao (Joseph)

• Goals: the "Chinese Dream" and the Two Centenary Goals (2021 and 2049) (Joseph)

• "The Party leads everything"; presidential term limits were removed in 2018 (Joseph; outside for term limits)

• Themes: common prosperity, ecological civilization, national security, and Party-centered patriotism (Joseph)

• Joseph argues Xi has revived ideology to an extent "not seen since the Cultural Revolution," seeing ideological decay as the cause of the USSR's collapse

• Ji & Jiang warn Xi's "authoritarian turn" could alienate the Party's modern-minded members and weaken the regime

Reserve Cadres

Reserve cadres are younger officials selected and trained by the CCP as future leaders; Tsai & Kou argue this system creates an ideologically unified elite that helps explain the regime's resilience.

• Chinese term: houbei ganbu; Tsai & Kou call them the Party's "disciples"

• Grew out of the 1980s "third echelon"; ~50,000 reserve cadres at three levels by 2010 (Tsai & Kou)

• Selected for "correct" political thinking and youth (Tsai & Kou)

• Trained at Party schools (studying Marxist texts, visiting revolutionary sites) and through temporary postings to hard jobs like attracting investment and handling petitions (Tsai & Kou)

• Problems include patronage and bribery (Tsai & Kou)

• Tsai & Kou argue it prevents the elite splits that led to democratization elsewhere (USSR, KMT Taiwan), supporting Nathan's idea of "resilient authoritarianism"

Mass-Elite Ideological Differences

Mass-elite ideological differences are the gaps between the political values of regime insiders and ordinary citizens; Ji & Jiang find that CCP members are actually more liberal and modern-minded than the Chinese public.

• Common view challenged: authoritarian regimes draw support from illiberal, traditional people (Ji & Jiang)

• Data: seven national surveys with 80,000+ respondents covering gender, politics and openness to the world (Ji & Jiang)

• Finding: Party members are more modern than the public in every area (Ji & Jiang)

• Causes: mostly selection (recruiting the educated explains ~72%), plus socialization, especially of older, less-educated members (Ji & Jiang)

• Ji & Jiang argue China is a "modernizing autocracy" with an "enlightened" base — so democratization might empower more conservative, nationalist views

• Contrast: Tsai & Kou stress elite unity on Party rule; Ji & Jiang show members can be socially liberal while still supporting one-party rule