My interests in Chinese politics started in 1973–5 when I was receiving “reeducation” in a remote mountain village in Yunnan Province. In addition to heavy manual labor in the field, all the readings available to me there were the four-volume Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and the Yunnan Daily and People's Daily, which always arrived a week late. A tennager hungry for everything, material and spiritual, I virtually devoured every word in these publications. What fostered my interests in CCP politics, however, were the many questions I had in reading Mao's works and the gap between the newspaper propaganda and reality. I soon indulged myself in frequent correspondences with my friends in which we exchanged our ideas, knowledge, and opinions drawn from questions in Mao's works and the constantly changing situation during those turbulent years. Although such exchanges would continue for years, I actually tried to suppress my interests in CCP politics after I entered college, where I majored in English literature and later earned an M. A. degree in history. An essential reason was that the study of CCP politics was seen as a dangerous activity in China, for any steps outside the official line could result in a purge. Yet I could not really give up my interests in Chinese politics because my life experiences in the CCP political system made my desire for the answers insuppressible.

I was fortunate to sit in Roderick MacFarqhuar's class at Harvard University in 1987.

FACTIONALISM IN LEADERSHIP RELATIONS AND DECISION MAKING

Factionalism, a politics in which informal groups, formed on personal ties, compete for dominance within their parent organization, is a wellobserved phenomenon in Chinese politics. In addition to frequent references to factional activities in the literature, a few studies focus on this topic specifically: Andrew Nathan explores factionalism in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics in terms of clientalism; William Whitson attributes factional tendencies in the military to the CCP's Field Army system during the war; Lucian Pye elucidates factionalism from the perspective of Chinese political culture; and Frederick Teiwes depicts the 1954 Gao-Rao Affair as essentially an outcome of factional struggles among the elite members.

The study of factionalism in CCP politics, however, remains strikingly deficient. There are few thorough and systematic examinations of how factionalism has developed in CCP politics. Theoretically, it is hard to imagine how factions, which tend to divide the Party, can exist in the CCP, not necessarily because the CCP leadership has always vowed to eliminate factional activities in the Party, but because the CCP is a Leninist party, the unity of which is vital for its rule. More pragmatically, if factionalism forms the essential dynamics in the policy process, how can we distinguish a genuine policy dispute from the unprincipled factional conflicts? Or, as some may suggest, if the two entangle, to what extent can factional activities affect a policy outcome, or vice versa? Furthermore, how can factionalism affect the overall political development in China?

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DENG XIAOPING'S DOMINANCE

Deng Xiaoping's Comeback

The coalition of beneficiaries and survivors, led by Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying, “smashed” the Gang of Four, which had little support from mountaintops except Shanghai, four weeks after Mao's death on September 9,1976. The new leadership was haunted immediately by Deng's case. Little evidence shows that the survivors abandoned Hua for Deng, as the official account implies. But their continuous support of Hua was half-minded, not only because they realized that Deng's return was inevitable, given his control of mountaintops in both the Party and military systems, but also because their own power rested essentially on the support from the veteran cadres and officers rather than those who rose to power during the CR. Allegedly, Ye Jianying sent his children for Deng “immediately” after the Gang of Four was arrested on October 6. Ye told Deng not only of the Gang's arrest but also the details about the Politburo conference on the aftermath. Li Xiannian also said to Hua privately a few days after the Gang's arrest that the verdict on the Tiananmen Incident in April 1976 “appeared shaky” (kao buzhu), hinting that Deng's verdict should be reconsidered because Deng was officially brought down by the allegation that he was behind the “anti-Party and anti-Mao” Tiananmen Incident.

CONFLICT MODELS AND THEIR EXPLANATIONS OF FACTIONALISM

From Unity to Conflict

Factional politics is a politics of conflict. Before the Cultural Revolution (CR) unfolded in 1966, factionalism was barely noticed in the study of Chinese politics because the field was predominated by unity analyses. These analyses see Chinese politics as a united entity, integrated by ideology and organizations, maintained by discipline and a strong leadership, and safeguarded by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanded by the Party.

A totalitarian model was applied in the 1950s and the early 1960s. As Oksenberg points out, this model stresses the Soviet-like qualities of the CCP regime: “the adherence of its leaders to Marxism-Leninism, the totalitarian grip of the top political leaders upon the entire society and culture, and the centrally planned economy in which resources were allocated through political command”. Ironically, this description corresponds to the CCP's nostalgic view, which sees the initial years of the PRC as “a period not only when the Party's policies were usually correct, but also when leadership relations were marked by a high degree of unity and democracy”.

Indeed, this was a period of startling accomplishment for the CCP: a Stalinist system was established, the confrontation with the hostile forces led by the United States in the Korean War boosted national confidence, the economy recovered and was molded into the Soviet central-planning model with an astonishing speed.

MAO ZEDONG STRIVES TO ACHIEVE THE PARTY LEADERSHIP

Mao's Command over the CCP Forces

Mao pointed out that “the Chinese revolution was made by many mountaintops”. These mountaintops, however, were barely a unified force when the Long Marchers settled down in northern Shaanxi in 1937. They had been isolated from each other since their establishment, and, moreover, a political hierarchy among their leaders was yet to be established. What kept them together were their shared ideological faith and strong enemies. Those who assumed the CCP leadership before Mao Zedong – Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, and Wang Ming – were the messengers who knew how best to explain the ideology, rather than the organizers who had developed these mountaintops. Thus, whenever the CCP suffered a setback, a new messenger would emerge to reexplain the ideology, and then take over the leadership. The dramatic rise of the Wang Ming faction, formed by the Moscow-trained Chinese students, at the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Party Congress (PC) in January 19312 demonstrated the CCP's incoherence as an organization and adolescence as a communist party.

Furthermore, each time the leadership changed hands, a top-down purge would follow. A typical example was the large-scale purge after the Wang Ming faction seized the Central Committee (CC) leadership.

The centralization started in August 1952: the Northeastern People's Government was downgraded into an administrative council, and the Civil and Military Commissions in the other five regions followed three months later. All the regional leaders were moved to Beijing in 1952–3: Gao Gang from the Northeast; Peng Dehuai and Xi Zhongxun from the Northwest; Rao Shushi from the East; Lin Biao, Deng Zihui, and Ye Jianying from the Central-South; and Deng Xiaoping and He Long from the Southwest. This resulted in an overall redistribution of power, which in turn provoked a fierce power struggle among the Yan'an Round Table members: the Gao-Rao Affair.

Although opinions vary on this event, the CCP official account and the Western analysis appear consistent in their explanations – that a power-hungry Gao Gang “misinterpreted” Mao's intention and “miscalculated” the situation, and that Gao and Rao were purged because their activities jeopardized the Party's unity. Although Teiwes highlighted factionalism in his analysis, its implications are mostly seen in Gao's “search of allies”. But my examination of this event suggests:

1. A power struggle emerged during the centralization that involved a redistribution of power in the Party system. Given the faction-ridden structure of leadership relations, this struggle evolved into a clash between the two major mountaintops, led by Liu Shaoqi and Gao Gang respectively, in the Party.

2. […]