CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY(CCP)

Parti Komunis Cina (PKC)

Party Constitution• The party constitution adopted in September 1982 at the Twelfth National Party Congress clearly defines the powers and functions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and it assigns the party a pivotal role in guiding national efforts toward a communist social system.

• Although the party constitution sets legal limits on CCP activities, the party's role in areas of political, ideological, and organizational leadership is authoritative and unquestioned.

• The organizational principle that drives the Chinese political system is democratic centralism.

• Within the system, the democratic feature demands participation and expression of opinion on key policy issues from members at all levels of party organization.

• It depends on a constant process of consultation and investigation.

• At the same time, the centralist feature requires that subordinate organizational levels follow the dictates of superior levels.

• Once the debate has reached the highest level and decisions concerning policy have been made, all party members are obliged to support the Central Committee.

• In the party constitution, and in other major policy statements, the CCP diminished the role of centralism by abolishing the post of party chairman, by prohibiting any future cult of personality, and by emphasizing the importance of collective leadership.

• Most of the aged revolutionary veterans who had worked for years under the highly centralized party organization dominated by Mao Zedong were made honorary advisers, elected to the Central Advisory Commission initiated at the Twelfth Congress.

• Although their prestige remained intact, these leaders were effectively removed from direct participation in the policy-making process.

• This development permitted their replacement by younger leaders more supportive of the Four Modernizations.

• In addition, the new party constitution emphasized the party's role in promoting socialist democracy, in developing and strengthening a socialist legal system, and in consolidating public resolve to carry out the modernization program.

• The priorities expounded at the Twelfth National Party Congress were designed not only to improve the organizational cohesion and morale of the party and government but also to hasten prosperity and foster national power.

• The congress endorsed programs from the Eleventh National Party Congress that stressed stability and unity, balance between ideology and technical skill, collective rather than individual leadership, party discipline, training of successors at all levels of party organization, and a more relaxed climate for intraparty debate on major national and local issues.

• The economic policies of the Twelfth National Party Congress continued to be oriented toward growth, but the party's subsequent direction emphasized a more controlled growth program.

National Party CongressesKongres PKC Nasional

• The National Party Congress is in theory the highest body of the CCP.

• It should be distinguished from the National People's Congress.

• After its ascent to power in 1949, the party held no congress until 1956. This was the eighth congress since the party's founding in 1921; (see table 1, Appendix B).

• The Ninth National Party Congress convened in April 1969, the tenth in August 1973, the eleventh in August 1977, and the twelfth in September 1982.

• The Thirteenth National Party Congress was scheduled for October 1987.

• The National Party Congress reviews reports on party activities since the last session, revises the party constitution, ratifies the party program for a specific period, and elects the Central Committee, which serves as the highest organ of the CCP when the National Party Congress is not in session.

• The congress has, however, neither the independence to generate legislative bills nor the effective power to check and balance the party and government bureaucracies.

• Although limited in its role--in effect it is a pro forma approval body--the National Party Congress performs a useful function as a forum for rising party cadres who represent all regions, ethnic groups, and functional groups.

• The delegates (there were 1,545 for the Twelfth National Party Congress) can observe firsthand the working of the party machine at the national level, gain a better perspective on the direction of political transformation planned by the leadership, and serve as communicators of party policies to the grass roots.

• Further, delegates can provide the top party leadership a sense of the response and progress made concerning key party programs in their home districts

Central Committee and Political Bureau

Pusat Majlis dan Biro Politil

• Political power is formally vested in the much smaller CCP Central Committee and the other central organs answerable directly to this committee.

• The Central Committee is elected by the National Party Congress and is identified by the number of the National Party Congress that elected it.

• Central Committee meetings are known as plenums (or plenary sessions), and each plenum of a new Central Committee is numbered sequentially.

• Plenums are to be held at least annually.

• In addition, there are partial, informal, and enlarged meetings of Central Committee members where often key policies are formulated and then confirmed by a plenum.

• For example, the "Communique of the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee" (December 1978), which established the party's commitment to economic modernization, resulted from a month-long working meeting that preceded the Third Plenum.

• The Central Committee's large size and infrequent meetings make it necessary for the Central Committee to direct its work through its smaller elite bodies:

• the Political Bureau and the even more select Political Bureau's Standing Committee—

• both of which the Central Committee elects.

• The Twelfth Central Committee consisted of 210 full members and 138 alternate members.

• The Political Bureau had twenty-three members and three alternate members.

• The Standing Committee--the innermost circle of power--had six members who were placed in the most important party and government posts.

• These six leaders were Hu Yaobang (who was demoted from party general secretary in January 1987), Ye Jianying (who died in October 1986, a year after resigning his Standing Committee post), Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang (who was named acting general secretary in January 1987), Li Xiannian, and Chen Yun.

• The leadership was altered significantly at a special conference of delegates called the National Conference of Party Delegates, held September 18-23, 1985.

• The conference was convened on the authority of Article 12 of the 1982 party constitution, which provides for holding conferences of delegates between full congresses.

• These national conferences of delegates appear to be more authoritative than regular plenums.

• The conference was attended by 992 delegates, and it elected 56 new full members and 35 new alternate members to the Central Committee, while accepting the resignations of 65 full and alternate members, including Ye Jianying and nine other senior Political Bureau members.

• The Fifth Plenum, which immediately followed the conference, elected six new members to the Political Bureau, dropped three from the party Secretariat, and added five new members to the latter body.

• The conference thus produced a sizable turnover in the senior party leadership and in a direction very favorable to Deng's reform program. Younger and better educated leaders who supported Deng's reforms replaced aging and long-inactive leaders.

• The other major accomplishment of the conference was its adoption of the "Proposal on the Seventh Five-Year Plan" (1986-90), the framework for developing the actual plan adopted at the Sixth National People's Congress in 1986.

CCP Secretariat• The day-to-day work of the CCP is carried out by the Secretariat and its various departments--all placed under the direction of the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee.

• Headed by Hu Yaobang until January 1987, the Secretariat (suspended in 1966) was reestablished in February 1980 as the administrative center of the party apparatus, or, more aptly, as the party's inner cabinet.

• The Secretariat and its general secretary are elected by the CCP Central Committee.

• In early 1987 seven of the eleven members of the Secretariat held concurrent positions on the Political Bureau.

• This overlap in responsibilities permitted reform leaders to exercise greater control than in the past over policy implementation.

• In the same way, Secretariat members sitting on the Political Bureau have acquired a role in party policy making.

• The Secretariat evidently is used as a proving ground for successors to senior party leaders.

Central Military Commission

• The CCP's Central Military Commission is also elected by the Central Committee and exercises authority over the military through the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

• Since 1982 the party Central Military Commission has had a counterpart organization in the state Central Military Commission.

• In fact, the leadership of both bodies is identical. Nevertheless, because the party Central Military Commission reports directly to the powerful Central Committee, it is the authoritative body in matters of military policy.

Other Party Organs• Another body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, is chartered to monitor the implementation of party policy and to handle disciplinary matters regarding party organizations and members.

• The Central Advisory Commission was established by the 1982 Party Constitution to facilitate the transfer of power from the Long March generation to younger and better educated successors.

• This body has consultative rather than decision-making powers. Its chairman is an ex-officio member of the Political Bureau's Standing Committee.

• Deng Xiaoping was made the first chairman of this body, both to lend it prestige and to encourage older leaders to retire.

• Below the central level, party committees and congresses were formed in the twenty-one provinces, five autonomous regions, and three special municipalities directly under the central government.

• Taiwan was listed as a province but, of course, was not under China's administration.

• The party also was represented in various county subdivisions (which included the prefectures) and within the PLA from regional headquarters down to regimental level.

• At the bottom of the party hierarchy were three kinds of basic organizations: general party branches, primary party committees, and party branches.

• These were set up in factories, shops, schools, offices, neighborhoods, PLA companies, and other places, depending on local circumstances and subject to approval by the appropriate party committees.

• Party committees at the provincial level are elected by the provincial-level congresses that convene every five years and have as additional functions the election of a discipline inspection commission, advisory commissions, and delegates to the National Party Congress.

• The county-level party congress convenes every three years and elects a committee, standing committee, and secretary.

• Below the county and PLA regimental levels, the general branch committee meets twice a year and is elected for a two-year term.

• The party branch, or lowest level of party organization, meets four times a year and elects a branch committee for a two-year term.

• Every party member must be a member of a branch committee.

• Party branch committees and their members at the grass-roots level are the backbone of the party organization.

• This is also the level where admission and expulsion of party members takes place.

• Branch members exchange views on issues, become thoroughly informed concerning party goals and policies, and learn to accept party discipline.

CCP MembershipAhli CCP

• In 1987 the CCP had 46 million members (4.3 percent of the national population).

• To qualify as party members, applicants must be at least eighteen years of age and must go through a one-year probationary period.

• Emphasis is placed on the applicant's technical and educational qualifications rather than on ideological criteria.

• Members are expected, however, to be both "red" and "expert", and the need to make the party apparatus more responsive to the demands and wishes of the masses of the people is stressed.

• A major corollary of the self-improvement and self-cleansing activities is an ongoing campaign to weed out corrupt and dishonest party officials from all levels of the party organizations.

• Ideally this is accomplished by persuasion, but if necessary by punishment.

• The party's seriousness concerning this campaign was underlined with its September 1986 expulsion of the governor and party deputy secretary of Jiangxi Province for "violations of law and discipline" and "unhealthy tendencies" that purportedly included corruption, moral degeneration, abuse of official power, intercession in favor of relatives and friends, leaking of secret information, and many other charges.

• Significantly, the party also experimented with the direct election of its party committee members.

• In late 1984 Hu Yaobang prescribed election procedures for direct election under a limited franchise of the Shaanxi Province party secretary.

• This election process included involvement of a large number of cadres down to the county level, open nominations, and a series of runoff elections, reportedly with no interference from either the central party Secretariat or the provincial party committee.

• In addition, party election procedures required that the number of candidates be greater than the number of persons to be elected.

• In 1987 efforts to upgrade organizational effectiveness, unity, and discipline were proceeding in accordance with a document adopted in September 1986 by the Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth Central Committee.

• The "Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Guiding Principles for Building a Socialist Society with an Advanced Culture and Ideology" shifted attention away from the controversial issue of "unhealthy tendencies" in the party to focus on the need for academic freedom, mass supervision of the party, and other aspects of political reform.

• The stated goal was to build a truly communist society, but one defined authoritatively as "socialism with Chinese characteristics.“

• Party energies and discipline were to be directed at achieving this goal and removing all obstructions and obstructionists.

• Thus, while earlier the party had identified corruption as a prime target, this concern was replaced with attention to "indigenous feudal tendencies" that might hinder success in economic modernization.

• The plenum endorsed the party's commitment to political reform and the extension of "socialist democracy and improving the socialist legal system, all for the purpose of facilitating socialist modernization."