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The Eighth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party: A Study of an Elite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Franklin W. Houn
Franklin W. Houn
Affiliation:
The Hoover Institute and Library
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Extract

At its national congress, September 15 to 27, 1956, the Chinese Communist Party, among other items of business, elected a new group of leaders officially known as the Eighth Central Committee. For some time to come this group of men and women will have a highly influential role in the affairs of their party and of the Chinese nation. What they say and do may also affect the course of world events.

What kind of people are they? What are their social and educational backgrounds? How long have they been in the Communist movement? By what roads have they been able to reach the summit of their party hierarchy? What kinds of influence can they exert in the various fields of national affairs? To what extent did their election to the central committee represent a “status mobility” within the party? Answers to these and similar questions should illuminate some broader questions: (1) whether the Chinese Communist Party is really led by the working class as the Communists themselves have claimed; (2) what are the typical features of the Chinese Communist leadership; (3) how the characteristics of that leadership have been conditioned by those of Chinese society; and (4) what are the strengths and weaknesses of the Communist leadership? This paper is addressed to these questions.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1957 , pp. 392 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1957

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References

1 (1)Pao-shê, Chou-mo, compiler, Hsin-Chung-kuo Jên-wu Chih [Eminent Persons in the New China] (Hong Kong, 1950)Google Scholar; (2) Ta-kung Book Company, compiler, Jên-min Nien-chien, 1950 [People's Yearbook, 1950] (Hong Kong, 1950)Google Scholar; (3) Perleberg, Max, Who's Who in Modern China (Hong Kong, 1954)Google Scholar; (4) Hatano, Ken'ichi, Mô Taku-tô Chûgoku no kôsei [Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Red Stars] (Tokyo, 1946)Google Scholar; (5) Shimbun-sha, Asahi, Tôa-bu, , Chûgoku kyôsan-tô [The Chinese Communist Party] (Tokyo, 1946)Google Scholar; and (6) Foreign Ministry of Japan, compiler, Gendai Chûgoku Chôsen jimmeiroku [Who's Who in Modern China and Korea] (Tokyo, 1953)Google Scholar.

2 Of the other four alternate members of the Seventh Central Committee, three were reelected and the fourth is the only one of the whole group who failed to get any central party post this time. The victim is Tsêng Ching-ping, currently serving as chairman of the Fukien Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Since the 73 alternate members of the Eighth Central Committee have only a consultative voice in the party leadership, they will not be included in this study.

3 North, Robert C., Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Elites (Stanford, California, 1952), p. 52Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 62.

5 Ibid., p. 72.

6 Ibid., p. 58.

7 Ibid., p. 51.

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