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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
China's politics have changed dramatically during the last decade. Schram, in one of the works which have stimulated this review article, has characterized the period since 1978 as one of ‘Economics in Command’ by way of contrast to the exhortation to put ‘Politics in Command’ – the slogan that dominated the last decade of Mao's life and the era of the Cultural Revolution. The drive to economic modernization has replaced ‘class struggle’ as the main goal of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Political reform has been an essential part of that drive, for in its analysis of the failings of the previous three decades the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has argued that economic growth and development could not occur without political stability and institutionalization.
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2 The CCP's review of its post-1949 history was formulated in the Resolution on Party History since the Foundation of the PRC adopted by the 6th Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP in June 1981.
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