From revolution to politics: Chinese communists on the long march

Diaoyan (investigation and research) occupies a special place in the politics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The concept can be broken down into two distinct types: symbolic diaoyan, and standard diaoyan. The former refers to the phenomenon of top leaders promoting and initiating the coordinated implementation of a particular political line. Leaders first promote their ideas through symbolic trips and speeches, and observe the extent of support for their political line within the ranks of the party elite. If support is forthcoming, the leader will then mobilize other central leaders to carry out standard diaoyan. This refers to investigation carried out by the central leaders into their own area of political responsibility within the scope of this overarching political line, with the aim of accumulating information and model experiences to inform specific policy decisions. These two types function in tandem: symbolic diaoyan promotes an abstract political line, and standard diaoyan fleshes out its substance. This article uses the term “adaptive mobilization model” to denote the use of diaoyan in the CCP’s policy making, and discusses two specific cases of Hu Jintao’s Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping’s China Dream to illustrate how regime adaptation and legitimization of the political line occur through the process of diaoyan.

The Soviet Revolution in China began in 1927 and ended in 1936. This period not only marked the closest association between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) but also presented a historical opportunity that forced the CCP to start moving toward independence and self-reliance. The Mao Zedong–style rural base areas that were beyond Moscow’s plans and experiences displayed a strong vitality. Russian-style mass uprisings were replaced by military struggles. Although the Soviet Republic of China built after the Russian model eventually was unable to defeat the military campaign launched by the Nationalist Party, Mao, a native-bred leader who possessed rich guerrilla warfare experience, was able to rise above a large number of CCP leaders who had been trained in the Soviet Union.

THE Chinese Communists have always been proud of their line. Liu Shao-ch'i, whose position in Chinese Communist Party is second only to that of Mao Tse-tung, has said that the mass line is fundamental political and organizational line of our Party. The Constitution of Chinese Communist Party declares that Communists establish wide connections with masses of workers, peasants, and all other revolutionary people and pay constant attention to strengthening and broadening these connections, and that every Party member must listen attentively to voice of people, understand their urgent needs, and help them to organize in order to struggle for satisfaction of their needs. A central purpose of Communist propaganda and agitation is to arouse people to an awareness of their needs (as interpreted to them by Communists, vanguard of people) and to organize masses in support of program and policies of Communist Party (which presumably reflect basic needs and aspirations of the people). An application of mass line to state policy in China today appears in utilization of many organizations (called people's organizations) and movements through which state maintains touch with masses and mobilizes them in support of its program. The people's organizations range from such powerful groups as All-China Federation of Labor, All-China Democratic Women's Federation, All-China Federation of Democratic Youth and other national bodies to local trade unions and neighborhood organizations. They are channels through which government communicates its wishes and directives to people and means by which it organizes masses for desired action. They are, in effect, powerful organs of state control. The mass action desired at any given time depends on what policy or program state wishes people to support. What people should support and how they should do so are carefully stipulated in movements which state launches and asks mass

The Nepali communist cultural group Raktim Pariwar (literally “Family of Blood”) stands out among the many such groups in Nepal for their songs and especially for their dances. Active since 1987, their ideology and aesthetics have been strongly influenced by Chinese communism. While this is true of most Nepali communist parties and associated cultural groups, Raktim was the first to seriously engage with the Chinese Cultural Revolution Model Works and incorporate aspects of their choreography into their own dances. Striving to make dance revolutionary and international while grounded in local realities, they aimed to synthesize Chinese styles with Nepali folk styles in order to express and awaken “revolutionary spirit” in performers and audiences. The style they created has since come to characterize Nepali revolutionary dance across political party lines. This article examines three decades of Raktim’s engagement with Cultural Revolution ideologies and artistic products within the broader international leftist emphasis on bodily training as cultivation of revolutionary persons, and shows how dance remains central to their efforts to develop “revolutionary spirit” to this day.

This chapter discusses that the negative wartime image of opium as a drug of conquest may have aided in inspiring political resolve and popular support that allowed the Communist Party to mount suppression campaigns in 1950 and 1952. It notes that this would bring the trade to an end within just a few years of the party's assumption of state power. The chapter explains that the scarcity of materials in Chinese Communist campaigns to suppress opium was attributed to the pressured international environment in which they were carried out, at a time when Chinese government did not wish its difficulties with opium to be made known to a hostile United States, with which it was unofficially at war in Korea. It notes that the success of the suppression campaign in the early 1950s was relatively complete, although the campaign has been eroded since the 1980s with the decline of state socialism.

This paper is an interpretative attempt to explore the rise of what the author calls 'popular journalism with Chinese characteristics'. Inspired by the concept of 'popular journalism' discussed in numerous European works, the author uses this term for a new kind of market-driven, readership-oriented journalism that has emerged in the People's Republic of China along with the country's shift from the Soviet-style planned economy to a 'socialist market economy'. Like popular journalism of the Western brand, 'popular journalism with Chinese characteristics' caters to reader interest and needs. Nevertheless, it is government-bound, and has to follow the Chinese Communist Party's political line and policies. For this reason, its role in politics is limited to promoting the Party's cause. Popular journalism with Chinese characteristics is an unintended social consequence in the reform era, not a result of a planned move for political reforms. Despite that, no student of Chinese affairs can afford to make light of its influence on Chinese society even though such influence is often imperceptible.-

The political socialisation of cadres in party schoolsIn this and the following two chapters, we will examine Xi Jinping's institutional centralisation effort from the perspective of the management of cadres.Broadly speaking, cadre management is also part of the leadership system, as it plays a special role in consolidating the authority of leaders.As Mao Zedong put it, 'once the political line is determined, cadres become the decisive factor'. 1 There are two qualities of cadres that were crucial under Mao and remain so today: political loyalty (that is, adherence to Mao's or Xi's political thought and his position as leader) and administrative ability (that is, their ability to resolve any problems that might be encountered in government administration).The party schools that are the subject of this chapter help the CCP maintain its hold on power in two ways: first, through ideological education, the schools ensure that cadres remain loyal to the party and are familiar with its political tenets; second, they enhance cadres' administrative abilities through practical courses, giving them the skills they need to put their leaders' policies into practice.Most of the existing literature on party schools focuses on those at the central and provincial levels; there have been no systematic studies of county-level party schools. 2 Several scholars have examined the history of 1 Mao Zedong, 'The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War', in Selected Works of Mao Zedong.Volume 2 (Beijing, China: People's Publishing House, 1966), 492. 2County schools are the lowest of the four levels of party schools.Although some studies of party schools, such as those by Lee and Pieke, do mention county-level schools, their focus is directed elsewhere.

As a result of the repeated failure of his revolutionary efforts, Sun Yat-sen decided to borrow from the Soviet Union's successful experience. But his advocacy of a total revolution by the whole people was essentially contradictory to the proletarian revolution of Soviet Union. After the Guomindang (KMT) reorganized and began to admit members of the Chinese Communist Party, they gained considerable power within the KMT and were able to influence its political line, which gave rise to an eruption of ideological contradiction. Within the KMT, controversies erupted between the left and the right, and in society conflicts emerged between merchants and workers. By this time Guangdong merchants were already in a state of discontent with the revolutionary government, because they had been subjected to a range of severe harassments stemming from levies imposed by both the government and visiting armies. After its reorganization, the KMT headquarters established peasants' and workers' bureaus, but lacked any corresponding merchants' bureau. Its propaganda and policy were biased toward the peasantry and workers to the neglect of merchants, which caused the latter to suspect the KMT of promoting communism. As far this point is concerned, the conflict between merchant militia and the government was based on both ideological differences and practical fears. As well the left and the right within the KMT and the CCP all engaged actively in the conflict, in a struggle for revolutionary leadership. The right cultivated the power of merchants and promoted party organizational reform, while the left established an additional bureau of merchants in its fight against the right. The establishment of this bureau by the KMT headquarters was on the one hand a measure to pacify merchants in the wake of the conflict with merchant militia, while on the other hand it implied a conflict of revolutionary line. However, although the left established a merchants' bureau, it had no clear plan as to how to define the status of merchants in a revolutionary program based primarily on the peasantry and workers. Not until the second plenary conference of national representatives of the KMT, was a merchants' movement adopted as party policy. But owing to the fundamental contradictions between the two ideologies and revolutionary lines of the KMT and the CCP, the issues surrounding merchants were to constantly reappear without resolution.

Now I shall discuss my estimate of the present situation. First there occurs the problem of a line suitable for our strategy. A strategy that causes us to mobilize and organize the broad worker-peasant masses and consolidate our own (viz., the Party's) ranks is a correct strategy and the main task of the present. It is extremely clear that in order to mobilize the broad masses and to unite our ranks there must be certain political slogans, a certain kind of political line, a specific prospect for growth, and a specific goal that the Party should attain now. I shall discuss slogans, goals, and so forth, later; at present I plan to discuss another question — the question of a general political line within the Party.

566 SEER, 84, 3, JULY 2006 Frolov has, nevertheless,unearthed importantnew informationconcerning the wartime actions of Soviet partisansin Finnish territory.To this day, the wanton cruelties of the partisans against the civilian population, including the destruction of whole villages and their inhabitants, remain a source of bitterness. The Soviet Union never admitted any wrongdoing, and presentday Russia has adopted the same unflinching line. Occasional demands for clarificationor war crimes charges against the survivingmembers of partisan groups known to have taken part in atrocitieshave met with official silence. Frolov convincingly documents some of the atrocities,but evidentlyfeels that he has to balance this disclosure by appealing to Soviet reports of cruelties committed by the Finns against Soviet prisonersof war (p. 132). This is beside the point. While there is no arguing againstthe fact that Finnishtroops were also guiltyof cruel, unjustand calloustreatmentof theircaptives,the methodical depravities of the partisans against civilians make this kind of tu quoquecomparison superfluous.Thus, Frolov's ultimate conclusion that both 'sides did not always follow [the principles ofl the Geneva agreement, but instead occasionally treated captives cruelly and even killed them' (p. I38), seems carefulto the point of timidity. Frolov'stext is translatedfrom a Russian original,and footnotes to Russian sourcesand literatureare given, as a rule, in Cyrillic.However, the translation often betrayslinguisticusagesalien to Finnish.It is the dutyof the translatorto check the terminologyand, if necessary,suggestalternativesmore in line with the targetlanguage. Perhapsthe most unhappy choice of termsin this sense is the use of the Soviet 'Great PatrioticWar' throughoutthe text. Frolov can be partly excused by the palpable difficultiesthe consistent naming of the wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union poses. However, particularly in a work intended for foreign readership,this kind of lip-serviceto Stalinist linguisticsis irritating.Professionalhistorianswould do well in trying to find less politicallyladen terminologyto tell their stories. These criticismsaside, Frolov's work makes an important and interesting introductionto a topic thought by many to be too difficultand unapproachable . Here Frolov has shown that the material does indeed exist and that many questions can be answeredby diligent archivalwork. National Archives ofFinland OULASILVENNOINEN Helsinki Heinzig,Dieter. TheSovietUnionand Communist China,I945-I950: 7he Arduous RoadtotheAlliance. An East Gate Book. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY and London,2004. xix + 53ipp. Appendices.Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?70?50? IN the wake of the Sino-Soviet dispute of I960, it became commonplace in Westernscholarshipto assumethat relationsbetween the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Soviet Union had always been fraught, as the Chinese struggled to achieve independence from Moscow. Since the repudiation of Maoism in the People's Republic of China and the fall of the Soviet Union, REVIEWS 567 crucialsource-materialon relationsbetween the two partieshas become available , the effect of which has generally been to demonstrate that the Soviet contributionto the Chinese revolutionwas much greaterthan Maoist mythology maintained.The proliferationof new material,however, has not produced much consensus as to the general characterof relationsbetween Moscow and Yenan. Some continue to insist that their leitmotif was the determinationof the CCP to define its own political line, whereas others, notably Michael Sheng, BattlingWestern Imperialism: Mao, StalinandtheUnitedStates(Princeton, NJ, I998), argue that policies were largely in accord with those laid down by Moscow. In this impressive study of the forging of the Sino-Soviet alliance between 1945 and I949, Dieter Heinzig steersa middle course,arguing that after I938 the CCP listened to Moscow attentively but not necessarily completely; yet he insists that the road to the friendshiptreaty of February I950 was 'arduous',beset with tensions rooted in fundamental differencesof strategicand political interest.His massivelyresearchedstudy draws on Russian materialsfrom the PresidentialArchive, the ForeignMinistryarchiveand the archiveof the formerCPSU, as well as on new workby PRC scholarswho have had access to archives.The studybegins with the makingof the treatyof August I945 between the Soviet Union and the Kuomintang (KMT) government , which led to the involvement of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan, and ends with the friendshiptreatyof I950. In between, Heinzig examines in detail Stalin's'duplicitousdiplomacy'with the KMT, on the one hand, and the CCP, on the other, between I945 and I948; Stalin's reluctance to recognize Mao as more than a 'partisanleader';his effortsto achieve a more equal relationshipwith the...

The choice of the goals in political reform and the design of policy options are made with different purposes and considerations in mind. The policy selection process is filled with political interactions and games between the parties. However, the legitimacy, influence and authority possessed by all parties cannot be equal. The dominant party often can take advantage of superior political resources to lead the direction of political reform, to decide on the choice of reform policies, and translate their policy preferences and realistic political needs into substantive policies and actions. In China’s current constitution system, the Chinese Communist Party is the only legitimate ruling party and is therefore in a position of leadership in the political life of the country. The party’s political line and guiding ideology play a leading role in the political development of the country. In the on-the-ground operation of the political system, the Party’s central leadership is in fact the dominant head of the political reform process from beginning to end. In order to safeguard the long-term peace and stability of the country and the steady implementation of reform policy, the central leadership has explored and chosen a top-down progressive step by step political reform, under the conditions of many uncertainties in the reform.

From The Editors

Soviet Revolution in South China

NEWLY RELEASED SOVIET DOCUMENTS reveal that during the 1920s the Soviet Foreign Ministry East Asian specialists assigned growing significance to the British crown colony of Hong Kong. One may credibly argue that, at least in Britain's case, Cold War conflicts with the Soviet Union for influence over existing colonies, for example, Hong Kong, and in such developing countries as China, began in 1920. This article examines the interactions and issues generated by the collision of British Hong Kong, the Soviet Union and China during the 1920s. It investigates the extent of Soviet involvement in Hong Kong and South China, the reasons why the communist movement collapsed so drastically in both places by the late 1920s, divisions between Comintern and Soviet Foreign Ministry (MID) officials over Soviet policy toward the area, and Hong Kong's significance in Soviet policies toward both China and colonial

Hong Kong and Communist Guerrilla Resistance in South China, 1937-1945 By Gordon Y.M. Chan Throughout its history as a British colony, Hong Kong's politico-economic uniqueness had always been regarded. as a valuable asset by revolutionaries and political dissidents in modem China. For instance, it is well known that Sun Yatsen and his followers had actively exploited the colony's differences with the mainland to try to overthrow the rule of the. Qing Dynasty. They used Hong Kong as their important operational base and organized there no less than eight revolutionary attempts during the years between 1895 and 1911.1 However, a far less recognized and analyzed fact is that Hong Kong had also performed quite a substantial role in the Chinese Communist revolution. Indeed, for a long time before 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had made Hong Kong its headquarters for directing revolutionary activities in Guangdong and sometimes even the whole of South China. Surprisingly, despite Hong Kong's significant involvement in the Communist movement, which can be dated back to the movement's inception in 1921, it has so far attracted little scholarly attention.2 Therefore, it is the objective of the present paper to shed light on this underexplored topic by examining Hong Kong's relationship with the Communists' guerrilla resistance in the province of Guangdong during the Anti-J apanese War (1937-1945). China's war with Japan is generally believed to be a pivotal period for the rise of the CCP, which succeeded in seizing rural control by launching largescale guerrilla activities behind the enemy lines. Although the main arena for thjs guerrilla warfare was in North China, the Communists were far from absent in the south even after Chiang Kai-shek's repeated "encirclement campaigns" to expunge them. In particular, the Party3 was able to develop its guerrilla forces in Guangdong and established there its only two wartime bases in South China, one in the East River valley and the other on Hainan Island.4 It is normal for many scholars, who are obsessed with explaining the Communists' wartime success , to belittle these two small Communisthases. Unfortunately, such endeavor obscures the fact that in the last years of the war their existence actually gave rise to Mao Zedong's ambitious plan for a rapid expansion of Communist power in South C.hina. This plan would very likely have come to realization had it not been thwarted by the Japanese surrender in August 1945.5 Twentieth-Century China, Vol. 29, No.1 (November,2003): 39-63 40 Twentieth-Century China Nevertheless, it is true that the Communist bases in Guangdong were less consolidated than their northern counterparts, and precisely for that reason, as this paper will argue, their survival depended considerably on their connections with Hong Kong. While Hong Kong possessed many advantages, its real importance to wartime Communism in South China cannot be fully appreciated unless they are viewed in light of the Party's position in Guangdong during the AntiJapanese War. The relationship between these two issues will therefore be taken up in the first part of this paper, while the second part focuses on elucidating Hong Kong's contributions to the Communists' guerrilla resistance. These contributions can be divided into four areas: providing manpower to the guerrilla forces, supplying them with funding and other material aid, acting as a communication link between the local Communist bases and the Party Center inYan' an and serving as an arena for the Party's pursuit of the anti-Japanese united-front propaganda. A~ REASONS FOR HONG KONG'S IMPORTANCE Hong Kong's politico-economic advantages. Originally a small fishing village, Hong Kong emerged rapidly into a commercial city after its cession to the British in 1842. With its good harbor and well-established commercial facilities , Hong Kong prospered tremendously from its entrepot trade and, by the end of the nineteenth century, had already become an economic hub of Southeast China.6 Due to this development, Hong Kong possessed an efficient system of communication, which also conveniently linked Guangdong with other parts of the world. For instance, many migrants from Guangdong, the province which probably boasts the largest number of Chinese abroad...