[Special Feature: How to Perceive China] Ryosei Kokubun: 100 Years of the Chinese Communist Party—A Ruling Party That Remains a Revolutionary Party

2021/08/05

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its 100th anniversary on July 1st of this year. Officially, the history began on July 23, 1921, when the 1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in the French Concession of Shanghai. At that time, there were said to be just over 50 party members nationwide, and the number of participants in the party congress is said to be either 12 or 13. Currently, the number of party members is approximately 95 million, which calculates to about one in every 15 people among China's population of 1.4 billion.

If we divide the 100-year history of the CCP into periods, it would likely be split into before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Before that, it was a revolutionary party aiming to overthrow existing power; afterward, it became a ruling party in the stage of nation-building. However, despite this clear turning point, the CCP seems to have maintained a consistent character throughout its 100 years.

I believe three points can be identified as characteristics that run through the history of the CCP: (1) the lack of intra-party democracy and constant power struggles, (2) the overwhelming presence and negative legacy of Mao Zedong, and (3) the ambiguity of the ideology known as "Chinese characteristics."

From its time as a revolutionary party to its current status as a ruling party, the CCP has lacked not only elections to determine the next successor but also formal systems or internal regulations. In other words, intra-party democracy does not exist, and as a result, power struggles over personnel and vested interests have constantly occurred. In most cases, the predecessor chooses the successor, but leaders or groups who oppose this choice inevitably emerge, leading to fierce power struggles as if they were a regular event. Let us examine this historically.

Two individuals associated with Peking University, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, were involved in the founding of the CCP. However, Chen Duxiu later fell from power as a "right-wing opportunist" and disappeared from Communist Party history, leaving Li Dazhao as the central figure. Subsequently, leadership was seized by figures such as Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, and Wang Ming. What they had in common was that they were members of the Russian faction with deep ties to the Soviet Union, and they attempted to follow a revolutionary style in China that emphasized urban workers, similar to the Russian Revolution*1. However, all of these leaders struggled in the fight against the Kuomintang, and their urban-focused revolutionary lines repeatedly failed. Consequently, all of these top leaders were later criticized and removed from the center of power and the party's orthodox history.

Mao Zedong gained power in January 1935 at the Zunyi Conference in Guizhou Province during the so-called Long March, while fleeing pursuit by the Kuomintang. While earlier revolutionaries had deployed the Russian Revolution's urban-focused strategy, they repeatedly failed in China, where urban workers were insufficient in both quality and quantity. Ultimately, they joined Mao Zedong, who had been developing a rural revolution. After gaining power, Mao led a disciplinary movement called the Yan'an Rectification Movement to establish his leadership and liquidate the negative legacies of past leaders*2.

After the Zunyi Conference, Mao Zedong went through the Anti-Japanese War and the Civil War to achieve revolutionary victory and establish the People's Republic of China in 1949. Even after the Communist Party became the ruling party, he maintained supreme power and ultimately remained in a lifelong position of power until his death in 1976. During that time, Mao placed Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping as successors in the 1960s, but he eventually developed strong distrust toward them regarding policy and other matters. To reclaim the power he had lost through retirement, he triggered the Cultural Revolution. During this revolution, he designated the military man Lin Biao as his successor, but two years later, in 1971, Lin was alleged to have plotted Mao's assassination and died when the plane he used to flee the country crashed. Just before his death, Mao designated Hua Guofeng as his successor, but Hua was easily ousted by Deng Xiaoping, who subsequently seized power.

Deng Xiaoping also failed twice in designating successors. One was Hu Yaobang, and the other was Zhao Ziyang. Hu became the General Secretary of the CCP in the 1980s and was the leader of the next generation, but he was ousted because he promoted the retirement of elders and the appointment of younger people, and was sympathetic to the democratization movement. Zhao Ziyang, who succeeded him, was naturally ousted for sympathizing with the student movement during the Tiananmen Square protests. Both were direct successor designations by Deng Xiaoping, but their dismissals were also his decisions*3.

Afterward, Deng Xiaoping designated Jiang Zemin as the leader for the 20th century and Hu Jintao as the leader for the 21st century before passing away. There are various theories regarding the designation of Xi Jinping, but it is said to have been a product of compromise between the Jiang Zemin faction, the Hu Jintao faction, and the party elders. However, after gaining power, Xi Jinping eliminated the Jiang Zemin faction, checked the Hu Jintao faction, and amended the constitution himself to abolish the provision for the presidency—which had been established during the Deng Xiaoping era as two five-year terms—and is now aiming for long-term rule. The Xi Jinping administration is not eternal. A period of transition will inevitably arrive. However, in China, where no institutional mechanism exists to determine the next successor, a fierce secret struggle for power will occur as usual.

Of the 100-year history of the CCP, the 41 years from the Zunyi Conference in 1935 to his death in 1976 constitute the Mao Zedong era. His overwhelming presence and influence are deeply ingrained in the character of the CCP. The CCP was supposed to change from a revolutionary party to a ruling party with the founding of New China in 1949. However, in reality, there was no essential change in the character of the CCP amidst this major systemic shift. This is largely due to the presence of Mao Zedong.

The Communist Party after the founding of the state was supposed to become a ruling party, but it ultimately retained its character as a revolutionary party. This was due to the influence of Mao Zedong's views on revolution and humanity. Even under a socialist regime and system, people constantly yearn for the old system and capitalism, plotting to change the nature of the system. This manifests particularly in human thought and political action, eventually eroding even the economic system. Therefore, the revolution must continue even after reaching a socialist society. This is Mao Zedong's theory of continuous (uninterrupted) revolution.

Based on this theory of continuous revolution, Mao Zedong pushed forward with the Anti-Rightist Campaign to suppress intellectuals critical of the socialist system; the Great Leap Forward and People's Commune movement, which planned massive production increases based on spiritualism but ended in total failure and caused tens of millions of deaths by starvation; the Socialist Education Movement, which expressed concern over the policies of Liu Shaoqi and others; and when that failed, he plunged into the Cultural Revolution, which exploded with dissatisfaction and threw society into chaos.

The Cultural Revolution continued until Mao Zedong's death. Afterward, with the ousting of the Gang of Four, including Mao's wife Jiang Qing, who were obsessed with continuous revolution, and the fall of Hua Guofeng, who had received Mao's successor designation, Deng Xiaoping seized real power and finally shifted to a modernization line aimed at economic development. While the pillar of Deng Xiaoping's policy was the economy, he attempted certain changes to the political system, such as introducing term limits in state and government organs, taking Mao Zedong's lifelong rule as a lesson. This was a major step forward.

However, triggered by events such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he established the so-called socialist market economy as the foundation, which allowed for the marketization of the economy but did not tolerate political democratization. Regarding the evaluation of Mao Zedong during the Deng Xiaoping era, it was held that while he made mistakes in his later years, such as the Cultural Revolution, his achievements were greater overall.

Subsequently, the Deng Xiaoping line was followed during the eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, with economic growth as the primary objective and a consistent stance of not tolerating Western-style freedom and democracy regarding the political system. Entering the Xi Jinping administration, what stands out is the further strengthening of political control amidst an economic slowdown, and a trend toward Sinicization of ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs—in other words, the strengthening of central authority. Similar harsh measures are being taken in Hong Kong, where "One Country, Two Systems" should be promoted. At the same time, propaganda work praising Mao Zedong and his era is being deployed in society and the media, creating a situation that seems to go against the times.

Ultimately, throughout history, let alone a total denial of Mao Zedong, even the negative legacies such as the Cultural Revolution ended with ambiguous evaluations. In the recent Xi Jinping era, a regressive phenomenon has even occurred where Xi is placed alongside Mao. Why is this? It is because it is believed that denying Mao would lead to the denial of the legitimacy of the CCP itself.

The success of the Chinese Revolution was also the success of the rural revolution promoted by Mao Zedong. As mentioned earlier, previous party leaders focused on organizing urban workers, following the success of the Russian Revolution. However, in China, where there were few urban workers and the Kuomintang's rule and surveillance were strict in cities, it was impossible to simply introduce the Russian Revolution style into Chinese society. In this context, the revolutionary style suited to Chinese society—the formation of rural revolutionary base areas by Mao Zedong—proved effective. This was the "Sinicization of Marxism." In other words, Mao Zedong during this period was realistic in that he deployed a revolution based on the actual conditions of China.

However, after the founding of the state, where Mao should have embarked on nation-building, he instead pursued his unique continuous revolution as mentioned above. Mao first declared a "lean-to-one-side" policy toward the Soviet Union and decided to learn from the nation-building of his predecessor, the USSR. As a result, the Soviet (Stalinist) model of prioritizing heavy industry was deployed in all fields, but this eventually began to cause friction in the agrarian Chinese society. Mao also became dissatisfied with the Soviet response and decided to break away from the Soviet model. The result was "self-reliance" through the Great Leap Forward and People's Commune movement, which ultimately ended in total failure. Afterward, cracks surfaced in the Sino-Soviet relationship, once said to be monolithic, in the early 1960s, and from the late 60s, both countries even harbored fears of nuclear war. This led to the rapprochement between the US and China in the early 70s.

After Mao Zedong's death, Deng Xiaoping's concern lay in ideology. Especially facing the Tiananmen Square protests, the collapse of the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, how would the CCP survive? The answer was the socialist market economy proposed by Deng Xiaoping during his inspection of southern China in 1992. In short, to avoid following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union, he showed a certain flexibility by allowing the marketization of the economy while refusing to permit freedom and democracy in politics. Deng Xiaoping named this "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." Foreign capital responded sensitively to a China awakened to marketization, and semi-marketization progressed in China, putting it on the track of high economic growth.

However, while it functioned effectively in the early stages of economic development, as it moved from the Jiang Zemin era to the Hu Jintao era, economic growth eventually began to slow down, and political corruption became rampant as the Communist Party maintained the authority to grant market licenses. Ultimately, due to incomplete marketization caused by the party's political intervention, issues such as the lack of transparency in stocks, private property rights, and the legal system became problematic. In other words, the essence of the problem lay in the political system of marketization under Communist Party dictatorship.

The first and greatest theme for the Xi Jinping administration was how to deal with the rampant political corruption of the Communist Party. Therefore, Xi placed the anti-corruption struggle as a pillar and began to tackle factional struggles involving personnel and vested interests. The main target was the Jiang Zemin faction, which controlled all sorts of fields of intra-party power, and it can be said that Xi's first term was spent entirely on this. However, he cannot pursue this to the very end. This is because, to a greater or lesser extent, almost all Communist Party officials were corrupt. To pursue it to the end, he would have to address the contradiction of a market economy led by the Communist Party. That is something unacceptable to the party officials who have already become part of the vested interest class.

In China, the communist ideal is effectively dead. "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and the socialist market economy are not ideologies but means of policy. To put it bluntly, the Communist Party is the ruling party of an authoritarian regime, and the maintenance of power is the objective itself; there is no ideology or philosophy that creates new values. The current Xi Jinping administration frequently uses "Marxism," but who would take it seriously? In a China that has effectively become a fierce class society, some might objectively see Marxism as necessary, but no intellectual among China's vested interest class would think so seriously. It would lead to self-denial.

The CCP has consistently sought "Chinese characteristics" or a "China model." Its content has been consistently ambiguous, and even now, a unified set of values to rally the people remains unclear. Words like the "Chinese Dream" or a "Community with a Shared Future for Mankind" are being touted, but there is no discussion about their specific content. They appear to be nothing more than empty slogans.

When considering the historical character of the CCP's 100 years as described above, what can be said in conclusion? In a word, the Communist Party remains a revolutionary party and has not fully become a ruling party. To go a step further, even after 1949, China has not fully become a normal nation-state. It is a political system where the Communist Party reigns over the state and government—in other words, the Communist Party maintains superiority over the constitution. In a sense, it is a strange political system where the CCP exists above the People's Republic of China. Of course, formally it takes the appearance of placing the state in a superior position, but in actual operation, the party's superiority over the state is guaranteed. This is the so-called "party-state system"*4.

The People's Liberation Army remains the army of the Communist Party, not the army of the state. It saves the party in crisis, but will it save the people in crisis? According to Mao Zedong, the opposite concept of "the people" is "the enemy." How is "the enemy" defined? It is an extremely arbitrary concept; simply put, if you oppose the Communist Party's policies, you can become "the enemy." There is an argument that Mao Zedong's continuous revolution has ended for now, but the final part has not been made clear. In short, the People's Republic of China is a republic of "the people."

In the past, attempts to rectify the party-state system were indeed made. This was particularly prominent in the 1980s. Based on Deng Xiaoping's own proposal, the "separation of party and government" was experimentally advanced, mainly in the economic sector, but ultimately resistance arose from within the party over how to maintain the party's leadership system. In the end, these attempts were thwarted by the Tiananmen Square protests. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, as a result of Gorbachev positioning the president above the General Secretary of the Party, the party-state system collapsed, and the Soviet Union also dissolved in 1991. For the 30 years since then, China has maintained the party-state system where the party is superior to the state. In reality, it can be said that this has been further strengthened since the Xi Jinping administration.

The economic system and the political system are two wheels of a cart. Russia changed its political system, but its economic foundation was insufficient, which affected the political system as well; while it is a democracy in form, it is actually an authoritarian regime. China achieved economic growth through partial marketization, but afterward, the one-party dictatorship system hindered a breakthrough toward healthy marketization, and amidst the growth slowdown, there is no path left other than strengthening the party's dictatorship. It is a narrow path, and in the long run, a path toward instability.

Generally speaking, the CCP succeeded when it adhered to realism and failed when it became hardline. Unfortunately, current China appears to be walking the latter path.