China's Leaders. David Shambaugh
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CCP norms for dealing with deviant behavior are the twin methods of reeducation and rectification. Early in the 1950s, when the CCP was actively dealing with the 2 percent of “enemies” that were remnants of the “old regime,” Mao put forward the instruction to “cure the disease but save the patient.” In other words, through “reeducation” (brainwashing and indoctrination), deviant tendencies could be “corrected,” “proper” behavior inculcated, and many “enemies of the people” could be remolded so that they could rejoin society. Mao said this was the appropriate way to deal with “non-antagonistic contradictions among the people.” The same principle was applied to deviant Party members—the practice of “rectification” (整 风). Yet not all rectification movements in CCP history (and they have been numerous) practiced reeducation and rehabilitation. Chinese Communist history has been replete with purges. Tens of millions of Party members have been purged from the Party, stripped of their membership and “rights,” usually incarcerated for periods, and subject to lifelong stigmatization.
Ideology and Correct Thought. Another core operative norm for the CCP and all Chinese leaders is the imperative of ideology and enforcement of “correct thought” (正确思想) among Party members and all citizens.30 To be sure, this is not unique to the PRC, as it has deep roots in imperial and republican Chinese history. Ever since Confucius and his orthodoxy, one of the principal responsibilities of all subsequent emperors was to reinterpret the original doctrine for contemporary times. The orthodoxy therefore was supposed to evolve with the times. Today’s core doctrinal orthodoxy is known as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” which of course is based on Marxism-Leninism but Sinicized over time. Each leader adds his own element to the canon. According to the CCP Constitution, the current liturgy is as follows: “The Communist Party of China uses Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents [Jiang Zemin], the Scientific Outlook on Development [Hu Jintao], and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its guides to action.”31 The CCP, principally via its Propaganda Department (中央宣传部), is the principal enforcer of “correct thought,” conformity of narrative (提法), and “unifying thinking” (统一思想) among Party members and the public.
Secrecy. The CCP thrives and operates on secrecy. All policy decisions are made in secret by Party leaders and cadres, and many are implemented via secret internal (秘密内部) channels. Internal Party deliberations and procedures are obscure, if known at all. The personal lives, families, and health of senior leaders are not known in any detail. One manifestation of this system is that information is highly prized and compartmentalized. There is limited freedom of information in China. Much information about official decision-making that is normally made public in democracies remains secret in China. Divulging such information brings heavy punishment, discipline is enforced, and as a result leaks do not occur. Consequently, leadership dynamics and normal policy deliberations remain out of public view, and no other institutional checks and balances exist to scrutinize leaders’ decisions and actions. The CCP’s Central Secrets Bureau (中央机密局), the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (中央纪委), and National Supervisory Commission (中国人民共和国国家检查委员会) are the principal internal monitors to enforce secrecy.
Oscillation Between Hard versus Soft Leninism and the “Fang-Shou Cycle.” The final normative feature of the CCP as a Leninist party has been the repetitive oscillation between tight control and loosened control and modest liberalization. As the great Sinologist and political scientist Lucian Pye astutely observed in his book on Chinese political culture more than 30 years ago, “The rhythm of Chinese politics is not the left-right swings of Western systems, but the up and down motion of tightening and loosening controls, of centralization and decentralization; any increase in anxiety on the part of the leadership is likely to translate into a greater degree of repression.”32 All communist parties have experienced periods where they have experimented with allowing modest liberalization and personal freedoms—only to be followed by periods of retrenchment and enhanced repression. These periods of brief liberalization are usually the result of a combination of two factors: built-up pressure from below combined with more liberalminded leaders who decide to relatively relax the draconian controls over society. Thus, what I call “hard Leninism” (or hard authoritarianism) is the main pattern, but these periodic bursts of relaxation represent reformist “soft Leninism” (or soft authoritarianism).33 In Chinese this is known as the fang-shou cycle (放-手周期). Think of Ulbricht’s East Germany in 1953, Khrushchev’s Soviet Union in 1956, Nagy’s Hungary in 1956, Dubček’s Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on. In China, Mao flirted with such a liberalization during the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1956 (prior to the ensuing crackdown), but otherwise the Mao era was one long totalitarian period of hard Leninism. Post-Mao, however, we have witnessed repeated periods of liberalization oscillating with tightened controls. These are depicted in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2: China’s Political Orientation Since Mao
| Period/Leader | Political Orientation |
| 1978–1983 Deng Xiaoping/Hu Yaobang | Democracy Wall & Political Relaxation |
| 1984 Deng Xiaoping/Hu Yaobang | Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign |
| 1985–1986 Deng Xiaoping/Hu Yaobang | Neo-Authoritarianism |
| 1987 Deng Xiaoping/Zhao Ziyang | Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign |
| 1988–1989 Deng Xiaoping/Zhao Ziyang | Neo-Authoritarianism |
| 1989–1992 Deng Xiaoping/Jiang Zemin/Li Peng | Neo-Totalitarianism |
| 1993–1997 Jiang Zemin | Soft Authoritarianism |
| 1998–2008 Jiang Zemin/Hu Jintao | Soft Authoritarianism & Political Reform |
| 2009–present Hu Jintao/Xi Jinping | Hard Authoritarianism/Neo-Totalitarianism |
Thus, it is not so simple as to describe the Chinese political system as Leninist, because there has been a repetitive pattern of oscillation back and forth between periods of relative relaxation followed by periods of tightening and repression. Beginning three years before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the CCP has entered its longest stretch of repression and tightened control since the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Keeping these cultural and systemic characteristics that affect all Chinese leaders in mind, let us now move sequentially to five successive chapters on individual Chinese leaders since 1949. In Chapter 7 we will consider them together as a group and offer concluding observations on China’s leaders from 1949 to 2020.
Notes
1 1. See Orville Schell and John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the 21st Century (New York: Random House, 2014).
2 2. Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919): https://web.archive.org/web/20130319092642/http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf.
3 3.