A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics

Abstract

Until the Cultural Revolution, the predominant western view of contemporary Chinese elite conflict was that it consisted of “discussion” (t'ao-lun) within a basically consensual Politburo among shifting “opinion groups” with no “organized force” behind them. The purges and accusations which began in 1965 and apparently still continue, have shaken this interpretation, and a number of scholars have advanced new analyses - sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, sometimes of general application, sometimes applied only to a particular time span or segment of the political system. Of these new views, perhaps the most systematic - and at the same time the one which represents the least change from the pre-Cultural Revolution “opinion group” model - is the “policy making under Mao” interpretation, which sees conflict as essentially a bureaucratic decision-making process dominated by Mao.