Legacy of the CCP'S Revolutionary Experiences

The preceding discussion demonstrates that the party's major expansion took place only when it had strong military forces to protect its operation.^[84] The CCP's membership grew rapidly during the first united front in the areas which the KMT forces physically controlled, and then in the Jiangxi Soviet area, where the party set up a state within a state. After the Long March, the enhanced military capability of the CCP, operating in the power vacuum created by the Japanese invasion, facilitated a large increase in party membership. During the civil war, the party again expanded most rapidly in Manchuria, which it controlled militarily. This reliance on the military to create a political atmosphere conducive for implementing party policies has had a long-term effect on Chinese leaders' view of political power.

The crucial role played by the military, however, does not diminish the organizational skill and capability that party leaders demonstrated. Without superb organizational capabilities, party leaders could not have exploited the political, economic, and social grievances of various classes and groups in China while adjusting their programs and policies to the changing situation. As Roy Hofheinz rightly concludes, neither "contextual" nor "motivational" theories that do not take into account the behavior of the Chinese Communists themselves can explain the success of the CCP.^[85] Without the flexible and skillful leadership of the party, whatever revolutionary potential Chinese society had would have remained as mere potential.

One of the CCP's remarkable organizational capabilities was its

[84] For the latest publication on this issue, see Yung-fa Chen, Making Revolution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986).

[85] Roy Hofheinz, "The Ecology of Chinese Communist Success," in A. Doak Barnett, ed., Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington, 1969), 3–77.

adaptability to the changing socioeconomic conditions of China and its ability to restructure itself in line with a new task. When the pre-Mao era leaders insisted on building the proletarian party exclusively on the working class, their policy was doomed from the beginning, not because of any logical flaws in Marxism-Leninism, but because they overlooked China's concrete conditions. Under Mao's leadership the party shifted its focus to rural problems, adopted a mild land reform policy, and recruited party members from a broader segment of the population. The united front allowed the party to utilize the expertise and knowledge of intellectuals while minimizing the potential resistance of landlords and rich peasants. However, when the CCP renewed class warfare in rural areas for land reform in 1946, it shifted the focus of recruitment to poor peasants and hired hands, while discriminating against intellectuals, most of whom came from the well-to-do social class. In this sense, the revolution was made by the counter-elite rather than "coming by itself" out of the structural conditions of China.^[86] Any explanation of the CCP's success in political revolution has to take into account Mao's role in selecting a "feasible alternative" revolutionary strategy.

The most amazing organizational skill that the CCP leadership demonstrated during this period was not their success in building a dedicated revolutionary party along Leninist principles, but their masterful development of several layers of organization that still kept the party at the core. They set up the anti-Japanese mass organizations, peasants associations, workers associations, and other types of mass organizations, while maintaining the party's control over them through dedicated party members. By keeping the membership requirements for each mass organization broad and general, but preserving the strict requirements for its membership, the party mobilized different social groups, while maintaining control over them. This concept of a layered organization appears to be at the heart of Mao's political strategy; even when he stressed the need to be "unified with 95 percent of the people," the implicit assumption was that a core leadership existed. Although the notion of auxiliary organizations first came from Lenin, Mao

[86] Theda Skocpol, State and Social Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

used it very effectively, thereby compensating for the deterministic thread of thinking in original Marxism.

These layered organizations helped the CCP achieve two seemingly conflicting tasks in eastern and central China during the anti-Japanese war: building an effective administrative hierarchy at all levels while allowing peasants at the basic level to seize power almost spontaneously from the traditional local elite, the two concomitant processes that, according to Yungfa Chen, eventually led the CCP to its final victory.^[87] They also provided the CCP with the organizational channels necessary for effective use of the mass line, mass mobilization, and mass campaigns.

By the time the CCP captured political power, it had accumulated thirty years of revolutionary experience with almost 4.5 million seasoned party members. Most were poorly educated young people from the most disadvantaged social groups.^[88] For instance, among 18,903 party members in Heilongjiang province, the family background of 21 percent was worker, 49 percent hired hand, and 25 percent poor peasant. These three categories comprised 95 percent of the party membership.^[89] Fifty-one percent of the Heilongjiang party membership was illiterate, and 23 percent "could barely recognize the characters," the sum of the two amounting to 74 percent. Those who had attended primary school constituted 23.4 percent, whereas only a mere 2.4 percent attended middle schools.^[90] The overall educational level of CCP members in 1949 was much lower than that of their counterparts in the Soviet Union in 1927.^[91]

Although we do not have national aggregate data showing the percentage of party members holding cadre positions, it is fair to assume that the rate was very high at that time and that those without official positions became cadres after 1949. For instance, in a Heilongjiang county with 600 party members, the "cadres-party members" constituted 95 percent.^[92] These figures are extremely

[87] Chen, Making Revolution .

[88] Among all the party members of Heilongjiang, 37 percent belonged to the 18–25 age group and 54.4 percent to the 25–40 age group. Jiandang , 59.

[89] Ibid.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Jerry Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980), 28.

[92] Jiandang , 119.

high for a time when only 0.65 percent of the rural population and about 0.2 percent of the urban population were party members.^[93]

Heilongjiang may be an extreme case. However, in every sense, the party members were from the least educated and the most disadvantaged social groups in the rural area. Nonetheless, they served the party well when its main task was fighting a guerrilla war. The type of leaders needed by the party at that time was a heroic, selfless guerrilla fighter dedicated to the cause, rather than an educated professional with specialized knowledge or administrative skills. An effective guerrilla commander had to take care of all the needs of a given base area's members by mobilizing the support of the available sources. The peasant youth could readily provide these leadership qualities.^[94]

To summarize, the type of leadership, the policy goals of the CCP, the organizational setting, the techniques of mass line and mass mobilization, and the practice of recruiting political leaders from poor peasants—all these factors complemented one another in helping the CCP to achieve its political victory in 1949. However, some of these factors, ironically, turned out to be constraints when the CCP faced its new task of state building and economic development. Among the many revolutionary experiences that influenced the CCP's political process after the foundation of the People's Republic of China, the most obvious continuity consisted of the former revolutionaries who first founded the new regime, then ruled China for the next thirty years, most remaining as generalists, except for a few working in the economy.^[95]

[93] In 1948 already 40–45 percent of all cadres in Heilongjiang province were party members. Ibid.

[94] James Scott identifies geographical isolation, pervasive personal ties, the absence of a division of labor, self-reliance, millenarian idealism, and egalitarianism as prominent features of a peasant society. "Hegemony and the Peasantry," Politics and Society , no. 3, 1977, 267–96.

[95] Of course, there were exceptions. For instance, Yao Yiyuan and Zhao Ziyang became experts on economics and finance. For those who developed a speciality in economics, see Kenneth Liberthal and Michel Oksenberg, Bureaucratic Politics and Chinese Energy Development (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1986).