The Keng Shen Reform

Abstract

In February 1980, immediately following the Fifth Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Party center issued to cadres at all levels two important documents for discussion. One was the Draft of the New Revised Constitution of the Party, and the other a Resolution Concerning Some Historical Questions of the Party. The two documents signaled one of the most significant reforms of the Party and government of the People's Republic of China since its founding in 1949. Indeed, some Chinese historians are already calling this movement the Keng Shen Reform, due to the fact that it was initiated in 1980 which, according to the traditional Chinese way of counting years, was the year of Keng Shen. What does it imply for the Chinese Communist Party, the government of the People's Republic of China, and the Chinese people? Is it a genuine democratic reform intended to streamline the political machinery of Communist China, or a temporary strategic retreat designed to build a new political alignment? Is it the end of Maoism and the revival of revisionism? Above all, what does it tell us about politics on the mainland? What are the possible consequences and future prospects of this reform? Owing to the extensive damage done during the Cultural Revolution to almost every aspect of national life in China, the Chinese leadership is now compelled to overhaul and restructure the entire political machine if it is to have any realistic hope of carrying out the program of the Four Modernizations. China is at this moment facing an institutional crisis of historic dimensions. The direction in which