Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:49:09.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The “Next Generation” of Chinese Communist Leaders1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Donald W. Klein
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The question of who will succeed Mao Tse-tung is a fascinating and important question. The related question of the composite group of leaders which will emerge in about a decade is, if less fascinating, of at least equal importance, particularly given the increasing complexities of an industrialising society on the China mainland.

Are we actually nearing a period when the present hierarchy will begin to fade away? Seemingly we are, as a quick flashback to 1949 will illustrate. When the Chinese Communists came to power thirteen years ago, they were rightfully considered a young group of leaders. Their triumphant general in the field, Lin Piao, was just over forty, Chou En-lai just over fifty, and Mao himself in his mid-fifties. Among his international peers, Mao was fifteen years younger than Stalin, eleven younger than Attlee, and almost ten younger than Truman. To emphasise their youth hi another way, only two men among the forty-four elected as full Central Committee (CQ members hi 1945 died a natural death from that time until 1960.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 57 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 For a thorough treatment of the succession issue, see Hinton, Harold C., “The Succession Problem in Communist China,” Current Scene (Hong Kong), Vol. I, No. 7, 07 19, 1961.Google Scholar

3 The two men were Kuan Hsiang-ying and Jen Pi-shih, who died in 1946 and 1950, respectively. Two others (Wang Jo-fei and Ch'in Pang-hsien) died in an air-crash in 1946. The case of Ch'en Tan-ch'iu remains a bit of a mystery; apparently he was killed (or executed) in Sinkiang prior to the Seventh Congress in 1945, a fact then unknown to the Party. Kao Kang was reported by the Communists to have committed suicide following his purge in 1954–55. The specific facts about Kao's accomplice, Jao Shu-shih, are unknown, but it seems safe to assume that he is either in prison or was executed. The person who died in 1960 was Politburo member Lin Po-ch'ü.

4 The nineteen full members of the Chinese Politburo average sixty-three years; the six alternates average fifty-nine. The combined figure, sixty-two years, is the one used here.

5 The 1945 Party Constitution, in Article 33, rather clearly indicates that the alternates are considered non-voting members: they “may” attend plenary sessions where they “have the right to state their opinions.” There is no specific mention of the alternates in the parallel article (number 30) in the 1956 Constitution; however, it seems fair to assume that the practice remains the same. In fact, “voting” is probably academic for the present, but recent developments in the Soviet Union suggest that it may not be permanently academic.

6 Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien and Cheng Wei-san, for example, are apparently in ill-health. Though now fairly active again, Lin Piao may still suffer from the illness that kept him inactive in the early 1950s.

7 Information is lacking on the birthplace of five persons in the total sample. North China is loosely defined as Manchuria, Inner Mongolia (including Suiyuan), Hopei, Shantung, Honan, Shansi, Shensi, Sinkiang, Kansu and Chinghai (though only one is known to hail from Sinkiang, and none from Kansu and Chinghai); the balance of the provinces are defined here as Central-South.

8 For a recent article depicting—in a romanticised form—this flight to the Communist guerrilla areas, see Selections from China Mainland Magazines (SCMM) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), Nos. 296 and 297, dated 01 15 and January 22, 1962Google Scholar, respectively. These contain an article written by Ch'ang, Li (Group V) for Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien (Chinese Youth), No. 22, 11 16, 1961.Google Scholar

9 Several years ago, Whiting, Allen S. conducted a series of interrogations of Chinese soldiers who refused repatriation to the China mainland after the Korean War (“The New Chinese Communist,” World Politics, Vol. VII, No. 4, 07 1955, pp. 592–605)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Among other things, he found a high correlation of what might be termed anti-Soviet attitudes among those from the North-East, as opposed to those from the Central-South or Interior provinces. These interrogations were of men with extremely limited educational backgrounds, and while not explicitly relevant to the elite considered here, it is suggestive of attitudes which may prevail even at more sophisticated levels.

10 These figures are computed from the statistical information on Party membership contained in Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 411, 09 27, 1956, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

11 See, for example, the who's who section in Hsin Ming-tz'u Tz'u-tien (New Terminology Dictionary) (Shanghai, 1952), pp. 9001–9026Google Scholar, which contains a number of brief biographical sketches. In the rare instances in which family background data is listed, it is almost always something like “poor farm” family. A similar manipulation of data in the Soviet Union is suggested by Herman Akhminov in “Obituaries as a Key to the Soviet Elite,” Bulletin (Munich: Institute for the Study of the USSR), Vol. VIII, No. 7, 07 1961, pp 37–43Google Scholar. Of the 266 obituaries examined, only eighty-two listed social origin. “If it assumed that wherever the question of social extraction is ignored in the obituaries the person concerned originated from some other class than the peasantry or the proletariat, the conclusion emerges that the proportion of non-working-class origin among the Soviet elite is very high.”

12 The term “college-level training” is quite uneven as used here. In a number of cases this means a fairly substantive education, including advanced graduate work. In even more instances, however, “college” is used rather charitably.

13 Information for Groups I and II is fairly complete, but is rather inadequate for Groups III through V. The percentages used here are based on those for which information is available.

14 See note 13.

15 As noted above in dealing with “college-level training” (note 12), a “foreign education” must be taken with at least a partial grain of salt. For example it is often rather casually noted that such famous leaders as Chou En-lai are “French-educated.” According to the preliminary findings of Dr. Conrad Brandt, who is now preparing a detailed study of the Chinese who went to France in the early 1920s, it is clear that few received more than a smattering of a higher education. According to Dr. Brandt, Nieh Jung-chen appears to be one of the few of the prominent contemporary leaders who clearly profited from a purely educational standpoint.

16 These figures are overlapping, i.e., a number of these men went to two or more countries.

17 See Lindbeck, John M. H., “The Organisation and Development of Science,” The China Quarterly, No. 6, 04–06 1961, pp. 98–132Google Scholar, especially pp. 111–112. Dr. Lindbeck reports that by May 1957, 7,075 students had been sent to fourteen different countries for study, all tout 500 of them to the Soviet Union. By 1960, 3,700 had returned to China following two to five years of study, with an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 having advanced degrees, “most of these in engineering and fields of applied science.”

18 It has been estimated that 40 to 50 per cent, of the delegates to the 1961 CPSU Congress were engineers. (See Science, Vol. 135, No. 3499, 01 19, 1962, p. 204.)Google Scholar It is obvious that not even a fraction of the Chinese counterparts have this sort of background. But it seems equally obvious that there will be a trend in this direction as the years pass and as the stress on industrialisation continues.

19 See Kun, Joseph C., “Higher Education: Some Problems of Selection and Enrolment,” The China Quarterly, No. 8, 10–12 1961, pp. 135–148, especially the table on p. 139.Google Scholar

20 For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see my “Peking's Leaders: A Study in Isolation,” The China Quarterly, No. 7, 07–09 1961, pp. 35–43Google Scholar, as well as the exceptions taken to this article in “Comment,” The China Quarterly, No. 9, 01–03 1962, p. 198.Google Scholar

21 These figures are based on information through the early days of 1962.

22 The reader will realise that a number of these men (e.g., Chou En-lai) have been abroad a number of times.

23 in Mao Tse-tung's famous report to the Second Session of the Seventh CC, March 1949, he stated: “The 53,000 cadres now ready to leave with the army for the [yet ‘unliberated’] south are very inadequate for the vast new areas we shall soon hold, and we must prepare to turn all the field armies, 2,100,000 strong, into a working force. … We must look upon the field armies with their 2,100,000 men as a gigantic school for cadres.” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. IV (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), p. 363.Google Scholar

24 Readers will appreciate the fact that for the 1949–50 period, it is virtually impossible to state with certainty the main function of any given leader, so overlapping were his tasks at that period. The assigned “functions,” therefore, can only be considered a crude reckoning. By 1962, on the other hand, it is relatively easy to identify the chief tasks of the elite members.

25 One man—Cheng Wei-san—has been deleted from this calculation. He has apparently been in ill-health from the late 1940s and living in semi-retirement.

26 Though complete information is lacking, of the twenty-three men in Group V, it appears that only four held significant military posts prior to the Long March (1935), twelve held such posts only after the Long March, and that seven have no significant military record in any period.

27 These awards were first given in September 1955. The three awards, together with the era for which they are applicable, are: Order of August 1 (1927–45); Order of Independence and Freedom (1937–1945)Google Scholar; and Order of Liberation (1946–1950)Google Scholar. For a detailed analysis of these awards, see CB. No. 368, 11 15, 1955.Google Scholar

28 One man—Cheng Wei-san—has been deleted from these calculations. See note 25.

29 In the 1953 period at least thirteen political commissars of provincial military districts served concurrently as the ranking Party Secretary. On the other hand, only two provincial military district commanders served concurrently as the ranking Secretary. It is on this evidence, in part, that the assertion is made that the political commissar was the ranking figure in the provinces.

30 See note 24.

31 Province is used here loosely. Specifically, the men and the posts involved are as follows: Tao Chu, Kwangtung First Secretary, as Political Commissar of the Canton Military Region; Yeh Fei, Fukien First Secretary, as Foochow Military Region Political Commissar; Chiang Wei-ch'ing, Kiangsu First Secretary, as Kiangsu Military District (MD) Political Commissar; Wu Te, Kirin First Secretary, as Kirin MD Political Commissar; Huang Huo-ch'ing, Liaoning First Secretary, as Liaoning MD Political Commissar; Chang P'ing-hua, Hunan First Secretary, as Hunan MD Political Commissar; Ch'en P'i-hsien, a Secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee, as Shanghai Garrison Command Political Commissar; and, Liu Jen, Second Secretary of the Peking Party Committee, as Peking Garrison Command Political Commissar.

32 In addition to the partial counter-shift of Party leaders being returned, in part, to military assignments, there are signs of a counter-development to the general trend of gravitation from the provinces to Peking. In 19S4 the Party abolished six regional bureaux which, structurally, stood between the provinces and the Party Centre. Then in early 1961 these were recreated “… to act for the CC in strengthening leadership over the Party committees in the various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.” (For the text, see The China Quarterly, No. 6, 04–06 1961, pp. 184–186.)Google Scholar Although the evidence is slim, it is of interest that at least three members of the elite who had been working in Peking have been sent to provincial areas as ranking figures in the regional bureaux. The outstanding example is that of Sung Jen-ch'iung (Group n) who has been made First Secretary of the North-East Bureau.

33 Hsieh, Alice Langley, Communist China's Strategy in the Nuclear Era (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1962), p. 9Google Scholar. This quotation may do an injustice to Mrs. Hsieh's overall thesis. She holds, for example, that there has been an awareness of the import of nuclear weapons since at least 1954 (p. 23), and that the debate over the appropriate military posture has been a vigorous one (passim).

34 H. F. Schumann has put it this way: “Though external control systems are important, more important is internal group control through cadre supervision and group indoctrination. Significant is the relatively minor role played by the secret police. The Chinese communists have always held it crucial to manipulate and control an organised group from within, rather than simply to maintain a firm hold on the group through external coercion.” (“The Roots of Social Policy,” Reprint No. 12, Centre for Chinese Studies, Institute of International Studies, University of California, p. 165Google Scholar; reprinted from Survey, No. 38, 10 1961.)Google Scholar

35 In the past year, the régime has moved to a more “liberal” position on many fronts, and “persuasion” still appears far more important than naked coercion as a system of control. This writer would be the last to deny the skilled tactical manoeuvring of the elite, but the acid test might arise if the population outruns the food supply on a grand scale. At such a juncture there is little doubt that open coercion would be used if it meant the security of the régime.

36 For an interesting development of this theme, see Rostow, W. W., “Russia and China Under Communism,” World Politics, Vol. VII, No. 4, 07 1955, pp. 513–531CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pages 522–525.

37 Some readers may find comfort in Rostow's suggestion (ibid., p. 531) that it is “… much harder to organise and plan aggression when many voices make high policy and when command over resources is diffuse.”

38 The necessity of a personal allegiance to Mao can only be guessed at. One set of facts urges that Mao put his imprimatur on several leaders raised to the Politburo and to Central Committee alternate status in 1958. Over the 1957–58 winter, Mao travelled extensively throughout China. Seemingly he came into personal contact with five or six regional leaders who were subsequently elevated to the Central Committee in May 1958. More significant, however, is the fact that he apparently had personal contacts with Li Ching-ch'üan and K'o Ch'ing-shih, both of whom were elevated to the Politburo. The cases of Li and K'o stand out if only because they were jumped over dozens of other leaders, including six alternate Politburo members.

39 Lasswell has observed that “… in crises … old ways of doing things rapidly grow obsolete, and leaders are superannuated at a faster rate than usual.” Lasswell, Harold D., Lerner, Daniel, and Rothwell, G. Easton, The Comparative Study of Elites, An Introduction and Bibliography (Stanford Un. Press, 1952), p. 9Google Scholar. See also some interesting observations on the purge by North, Robert C., “Recruiting Policies of the Chinese Communist Party,” mimeographed, 14 pages, prepared for delivery at the 1961 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, St. Louis, 09 6–9, 1961.Google Scholar

40 Information on those who made the Long March is somewhat lacking in Groups III through V. The estimated percentages for those who made the Long March is 61, 62, 62, 52 and 35 for Groups I through V, respectively. Group I would be raised to 78 per cent, if those who were ordered to stay behind were included, and to 92 per cent, if those then in Moscow were included.

41 The number of ministries over the past thirteen years has averaged about thirty-five; currently there are thirty-nine. From 1949 to 1954, the cabinet was known as the Government Administration Council; after 1954 as the State Council. “Ministry” as used here also includes the “Commissions” which are on the same level. However, bureaus (e.g., the State Statistical Bureau) are not included. Any given ministry will have about five to ten Vice-Ministers. If the constant shuffling of these Vice-Ministers were added to the figure for the Ministers, the total might well approach 1,000 different men in the past thirteen years.

42 As in the case with the purges (see note 39 above), unless a personal reshuffle assumes great proportions, it may be possible to interpret any given change as a mark of increasing efficiency rather than the reverse.

43 Of the eleven, seven were leaders of the various “democratic parties,” three were intellectuals or “democratic personages,” and one was an ex-Kuomintang general.

44 Technically, only ten of the thirty-nine are non-Communists, two “democratic personages” (Li Szu-kuang and Mme. Li Te-ch'üan) having been granted Party membership in late 1958 as a reward for their steadfastness during the 1957–58 cheng feng campaign. This has been ignored in the basic calculation above as an obvious gesture having no importance in the higher reaches of Party policy making.

45 This fact has not been lost upon the Communists. See, for example, “On the Problem of the Relationship Between Young and Old Intellectuals,” in People's Daily (Jen-min Jih-pao), 08 26, 1961Google Scholar; translated in Survey of China Mainland Press (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 2573, 09 7, 1961, pp. 14–19Google Scholar. Essentially, the article is a plea for co-operation between the young and the old, “especially between the young intellectuals among Party members on the one hand and the veteran professors and veteran experts who are not Party members on the other.”