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The Structure of Communist Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Richard C. Thornton
Richard C. Thornton
Affiliation:
The George Washington University
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Extract

The past decade has witnessed a general advancement in comparative studies of communism. Yet, in comparing the conceptual development of the Soviet-East European and Chinese Communist fields, one is struck by the peculiarly arrested state of the Chinese side. By comparison, the “Kremlinologists” have produced a veritable storehouse of analytical tools with which they have contributed to the explanation of the nature and functioning of the Soviet political process and Soviet-East European interrelationship. Relatively little conceptual development is discernible in the China field. In this brief essay on comparative developments in the study of communism, I will attempt to compare the concepts which Western scholars have evolved to analyze the politics of the Communist world, account for different approaches, and analyze Chinese political history to determine the most meaningful approach. I speak of the nature and functioning of the political process in a restricted sense—the ways in which leaders interact, how political positions are attained and maintained, and, in general, the structure of leadership politics in the Communist world.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , July 1972 , pp. 498 - 517
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1972

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References

1 The most recent attempt to bring together these analytical concepts is by s Ploss, Sidney I., ed., The Soviet Political Process: Aims, Techniques, and Examples of Analysis (Waldiam, Mass. 1971)Google Scholar.

2 For a summary and bibliography of the debate, see Linden, Carl A., Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, 1957–1964 (Baltimore 1966), 2–7Google Scholar.

3 Respectively, Schwartz, Benjamin I., “The Reign of Virtue: Some Broad Perspectives on Leader and Party in the Cultural Revolution,” China Quarterly, No. 35 (July-September 1968), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schram, Stuart, “The Man and His Doctrines,” Problems of Communism, xv (September-October 1966), 1–7Google Scholar; Walker, Richard L., China Under Communism: The First Five Years (New Haven 1955)Google Scholar; Lifton, Robert Jay, Revolutionary Immortality (New York 1968)Google Scholar; Tsou, Tang, “Revolution, Reintegration, and Crisis in Communist China: A Framework for Analysis,” in Ho, Ping-ti and Tsou, Tang, eds., China in Crisis (Chicago 1968), Vol. i, Book 1, 277–347Google Scholar.

4 See Chang, Parris H., “Research Notes on the Changing Loci of Decision in the Chinese Communist Party,” China Quarterly, No. 44 (October-December 1970), 169–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 I am not concerned in this essay with the question of the extent of integration between the two, or with social organization, but with the workings of the political system among the leadership.

6 See Gelman, Harry, “Mao and the Permanent Purge,” Problems of Communism, xv (November-December 1966), 2–14Google Scholar, and Bridgman, Philip, “Mao's Cultural Revolution: Origins and Development,” China Quarterly, No. 29 (January-March 1967), 1–35Google Scholar.

7 Whitson, William, “The Field Army in Chinese Communist Military Politics,” China Quarterly, No. 37 (January-March 1969), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Jen Min Jih Pao [People's Daily], July 1, 1950.

9 China News Analysis, No. 43, July 9, 1954, p. 5Google Scholar.

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11 Ibid.

12 China News Analysis, No. 41, June 25, 1954, p. 2Google Scholar.

13 Jen Min Jih Pao, April 10, 1955.

14 The last official mention of Kao Kang occurs on January 1, 1954, when his name headed the list of guests at a banquet feting the visiting Soviet Minister of Metallurgy, Tevosyan, I. F.. Survey of the China Mainland Press, No. 719, January 1–4, 1954, p. 18Google Scholar.

15 Jen Min Jih Pao, February 18, 1954.

16 Ibid., 6.

17 ibid.

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19 Ibid., 6.

20 Jen Min Jih Pao, April 5, 1955.

21 Jao Shu-shih was also Director of the Organization Department of the Central Committee from 1953, and was accused of having “actively carried out activities to split the Party” in his capacity as Director. Afterwards, the Organization Department was dissolved and replaced by a Control Department

22 Survey of the China Mainland Press, No. 453, November 15–17, 1952, p. 20Google Scholar.

23 Biographical data were obtained from Chung Rung Jen Ming Lit [Who's Who in Communist China] (Taipei 1967)Google Scholar.

24 China News Analysis, No. 80, April 22, 1955, p. 4Google Scholar.

25 Pravda, March 10, 1953.

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29 Organic Law of the Central People's Government, art. 7; promulgated September 29, 1949.

30 Organic Law, National People's Congress, art 20; promulgated September 28, 1954.

31 Mao Tse-tung, speech to the Central Committee Work Conference, October 23, 1966.

32 Ibid.

33 Jen Min Jih Pao, May 25, 1958.

34 China News Analysis, No. 231, June 6, 1958, p. 6Google Scholar.

34 “Communique of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee,” December 17, 1958, in Bowie, Robert R. and Fairbank, John K., Communist China 1955–1959, Policy Documents With Analysis (Cambridge, Mass. 1962), 484Google Scholar.

36 Ibid