The ideological policies of China's founder cost millions of Chinese lives. The Communist Party introduced protective mechanisms against autocrats, but Xi is abolishing them.
Photos and statuettes of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong in a shop: model of “collective leadership” increasingly weakened. Photo: AFP
Beijing. On Wednesday, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the death of state founder Mao Zedong. The dark side of Mao's rule has hardly been addressed so far. The protective mechanisms that the party had put in place to avoid violent excesses like those during the Cultural Revolution were gradually undermined by Xi. He is considered the most powerful ruler in China since Mao.
The way we deal with the Mao era is still determined today by the CPC Central Committee's resolution on history from June 1981: "Mao Zedong's merits are primary, his faults secondary. Overall, his merits outweigh his faults. Seven parts merits, three parts faults."
Nevertheless, the resolution expressed criticism of the personality cult surrounding the “Great Helmsman” and his arbitrary one-man rule. As a lesson, the party leadership around Deng Xiaoping decided to strengthen so-called collective leadership and prevent the concentration of power on individual people.
Term and age limits were intended to prevent concentration of power
In 1982, a new constitution was adopted that set a two-term limit for top state offices such as president or prime minister. However, it did not apply to the office of CP general secretary or to that of chairman of the military commission. However, an informal age limit of 68 years was established in the party.
Under party leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, these rules were institutionalized. Xi, who took office as general secretary in 2012 and became president in 2013, broke with tradition: At the 2018 party congress, he suspended the two-term limit for president.
No obvious successor was named to the Politburo Standing Committee at the 2022 party conference. Xi's possible successor has not yet been identified for the party congress in October next year. The now 73-year-old doesn't even adhere to the informal age limit.
China's state and party leader Xi Jinping at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party: Break with tradition. Photo: IMAGO/Xinhua
In addition, under his aegis, Xi has transferred more and more power from state institutions back to the party, thereby strengthening its influence again. To this end, he created central commissions within the party, for example on foreign policy, finance, economic and reform policy, the rule of law, as well as technology and science. Competences were withdrawn from the previously responsible state institutions such as ministries.
The party thus makes greater decisions on strategic issues, and the state manages and implements them. Xi personally leads many of the commissions. That is why he is popularly referred to as “Chairman of Everything”. In doing so, he weakens the model of “collective leadership”.
Intra-party competition weakened
Before Xi came to power, there was also greater intra-party competition among various factions such as the Communist Youth League around Hu Jintao and the so-called Shanghai Clique around Jiang Zemin. Xi has gradually weakened rival power centers in the party that are not part of his network.
The way his predecessor Hu Jintao was led out of the Great Hall of the People at the 2022 party congress in front of cameras is symbolic. Hu's protégés were replaced in the Central Committee by Xi's followers.
Hu Jintao: The former head of state and party leader will be led out of the hall at the 2022 party congress. Photo: AP
Xi now also has all the power in the military. In January, he removed the highest-ranking General Zhang Youxia and Chief of Staff Liu Zhengli from power. The People's Liberation Army newspaper wrote at the time that Zhang and Liu were accused of more than just political and economic corruption. They are also said to have “seriously trampled on and undermined the responsibility system of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)” – i.e. the authority of Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping.
In August they were officially removed from the ZMK. This means that of the former seven members, only two remain, one of whom is Xi himself. Experts expressed concern about the increasing concentration of power. He has as much power as Mao did recently.
Great leap forward ends in historic famine
Mao was one of the co-founders of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. After the Red Army's victory over the Kuomintang Party in the Chinese Civil War, he proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949 from the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
His attempt to transform China into a wealthy, influential industrial country starting in 1958 with the so-called “Great Leap Forward” ended in disaster. The forced collectivization of agriculture, but also the secondment of many farmers for industrial and infrastructure construction projects, led to a shortage of food. An estimated 15 to 55 million people died in the Great Chinese Famine, considered the deadliest in history.
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State and party leader Mao Zedong in 1964 with a rifle: His “merits are the primary, his mistakes are the secondary.” Photo: AFP
In order to stay in power, Mao had political opponents and intellectuals brutally eliminated by his followers, the Red Guards, in the so-called “great proletarian cultural revolution” starting in 1966. In Beijing's Red August 1966 alone, thousands of people are said to have been murdered and tens of thousands displaced. Estimates of how many people died in the political purges range from hundreds of thousands to 20 million dead, depending on the source. Countless cultural treasures were destroyed.
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