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102-860: The Central Committee is, formally, the "party's highest organ of authority" when the National Congress is not in a plenary session . According to the CCP's constitution , the Central Committee is vested with the power to elect the General Secretary and the members of the Politburo and its Standing Committee, as well as the Central Military Commission . It endorses the composition of the Secretariat and

204-465: A confirmation vote (i.e., vote "yes", "no", or abstain) on a candidate list, where the number of candidates exceed the number of available seats. Unlike the Politburo, whose membership has historically been determined by informal deliberations that include incumbent Politburo members and retired Politburo Standing Committee members, the method of candidate selection for the Central Committee membership receives less coverage, though it appears to be managed by

306-588: A full member or an elevation of an alternate member, are confirmed through passing a formally adopted resolution at Central Committee plenary sessions. Most members of the Central Committee are provincial governors or government ministers. For example, officials holding, or expected to hold the following positions at the time of a new party congress can be generally expected to hold a seat on the Central Committee: Occasionally officials of vice-ministerial rank could also hold membership on

408-603: A man "trained by one of the world's greatest experts in the abuse of human bodies and minds: the head of the Soviet NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov " As Mitter explains, Kang Sheng was the mastermind behind the "pain and friction" that underlay the Rectification process. He used a classic Soviet technique of accusing loyal party members of being Nationalist spies. Once they had confessed under torture, their confessions could then set off an avalanche of accusations and arrests. As

510-752: A meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing. As Byron and Pack write The challenges that Kang faced during the early months of 1956 underscored the dangers he would have risked by continuing his retreat. As soon as he reappeared, Kang encountered serious problems that caused his position in the hierarchy to fluctuate dramatically. After the purge of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi in 1954, he had ranked sixth, below Chairman Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Chen Yun. But in February 1956, just weeks after his return to public life, he

612-566: A multiple game. On the one hand he was humoring Stalin, but at the same time he was betraying his confidence. Similarly, he had made contact with the Trotskyists , and had considered joining their movement, but he had also taken steps to infiltrate and sabotage their Fourth International… Tito made these comments to Hua Guofeng on his only visit to China, in 1977 after Kang was dead, and certainly had his own agenda in doing so, but as Faligot and Kauffer remark, "in any case, Tito certainly got

714-457: A perfect excuse for the rival, yet parallel, states [in Chongqing, Nanjing and Yan'an] to use similar techniques, from blackmail to bombing, to achieve their ends, and mute the criticisms of their opponents. If each of them paid tribute to Sun Yat-sen in public, they also each paid court to the thinking and techniques of Stalin in private. In the person of Kang Sheng, Mao had at his disposal

816-441: A provincial leadership post may also be rejected by the "more candidates than seats" voting method – as appeared to be the case with Li Yuanchao (then Jiangsu party chief) in 2002, and Yang Xiong (mayor of Shanghai) in 2012. In contrast to full membership, alternate membership of the Central Committee is more varied in its composition, and there are fewer institutional rules governing its membership list. Generally speaking, since

918-595: A session may include a broad range of content, from keynotes to panel discussions , and is not necessarily related to a specific style of presentation or deliberation. The term comes from the Latin word 'plenus' meaning 'gathered', and has come to be used in academic settings, such as conferences, just before, or after, breaking into smaller groups. This can be a time for summarising information, and may encourage class participation or networking. A plenary 'sitting' may refer to legislative gatherings, such as those held by

1020-477: A severe reversal of fortune at the Central Committee plenum that followed the first session of the CCP's Eighth Congress, when he was demoted to alternate, nonvoting membership of the Politburo. Roderick MacFarquhar writes: The reasons for Kang Sheng's reduction to alternate membership of the Politburo are not clear. … The immediate reason for his demotion may have been the general revulsion against secret police within

1122-783: A small group of military and political leaders (the Secretariat or the Politburo), and, beginning at the Zunyi Conference in 1935, Mao held great power personally. Moreover, during the Second Sino-Japanese war and the Chinese Civil War between 1937 and 1949, the Central Committee rarely convened, partly because of the logistical difficulties of bringing together leading cadres involved in different theatres of war and agitation. Beginning in 1949 at

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1224-532: A supporter of Wang Ming for leadership of the CCP. After returning to China in the late 1930s, Kang Sheng switched his allegiance to Mao Zedong and became a close associate of Mao during the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Chinese Civil War , and after. He remained at or near the pinnacle of power in the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1975. After

1326-776: A teenager, he entered into an arranged marriage with Chen Yi, in 1915, with whom he had two children, a daughter, Zhang Yuying, and a son, Zhang Zishi. After graduating from the German School, Kang taught in a rural school in Zhucheng, Shandong in the early 1920s before leaving, possibly for a sojourn in Germany and France, and ultimately for Shanghai, where he arrived in 1924. After arriving in Shanghai , Kang enrolled in Shanghai University , an institution under

1428-671: A year at a plenary session. The plenums typically open and close in the State Banquet Hall of the Great Hall of the People , with the working meetings of the plenum being held at the military run Jingxi Hotel in Beijing. The plenums of the Central Committee are the most important annually occurring event in Chinese politics . Normally, seven plenums are held over a five-year term of the Central Committee; two plenums are held at

1530-402: A year at a plenum, and functions as a top forum for discussion about relevant policy issues. The committee operates, however, on the principle of democratic centralism ; i.e., once a decision is made, the entire body speaks with one voice. The role of the Central Committee has varied throughout history. While it generally exercises power through formal procedures defined in the party constitution,

1632-558: A year, it did not convene at all in 1951–53, 1960, 1963–65, and 1967. Informal and 'extraordinary' mechanisms were sometimes used for the purposes of discussing party policy, for example, the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in 1962, meant to be a summation of the lessons of the Great Leap Forward. Mao did not hold absolute power over the Central Committee, as evidenced by the debates surrounding

1734-466: Is transferred to a different post, they maintain their CC membership. For example, a Governor of Shandong who is transferred to a position of less significance does not lose his seat on the CC, neither will his successor gain a seat on the CC. This has created situations in which individuals who do not sit on the Central Committee assume provincial leadership positions. An individual already provisionally named to

1836-453: The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests , and on top leadership changes in its aftermath, such as the purge of then General Secretary Zhao Ziyang , were made by "party elders" and a small group of top leaders, without first convening the Central Committee. Zhao questioned the legality of his removal in his memoirs released in 2006. While Central Committee meetings do not usually serve as forums for substantive debate, they have sometimes 'fine-tuned'

1938-690: The 28 Bolsheviks , who took control of the Party Politburo at the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee on January 13, 1931. Kang allegedly demonstrated his loyalty to Wang Ming by betraying to the Kuomintang secret police a meeting convened on January 17, 1931, by He Mengxiong , who had been strongly opposed to Li Lisan and was disgruntled by Pavel Mif's high-handed role in securing the ascendancy of Wang within

2040-605: The 9th Party Congress in April 1969 was largely handpicked by Mao and a small group of radical allies. The decisions at the Congress were later deemed to be "wholly and absolutely wrong" by official party historians. Since economic reforms began in 1978, the Central Committee has usually been composed of the leading figures of the party, government, the provinces, and the military. In contrast to Party Congresses, which have always been essentially ceremonial exercises, full meetings of

2142-755: The Anti-Rightist Campaign that followed, marked a profound turning point in the history of the People's Republic of China. As Maurice Meisner wrote The period of the Hundred Flowers was the time when the Chinese abandoned the Soviet model of development and embarked on a distinctively Chinese road to socialism. It was the time that China announced its ideological and social autonomy from the Soviet Union and its Stalinist heritage. It

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2244-572: The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection . It also oversees the work of various executive national organs of the CCP. The administrative activities of the Central Committee are carried out by the Central Committee's General Office . The General Office forms the support staff of the central organs that work on the Central Committee's behalf in between plenary sessions (plenums). The Committee usually convenes at least once

2346-607: The European Parliament . In these sessions, if it is not fully attended by members, it must at least achieve a quorum . Likewise, in the General Assembly of the United Nations , a Plenary Meeting requires minimum number of members to continue its procedures; and the same may apply to other groups depending on their charter or bylaws . Some organisations have standing committees that conduct

2448-596: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the Japanese invasion of China, Stalin dispatched Wang and Kang to Yan'an on a specially provided Soviet plane. Kang had played a wily game in the complex and murky world of Stalin's Moscow, earning the following comment from Josip Broz Tito , who had met Kang in Moscow in 1935: It can be said without any shadow of a doubt that at that time Kang Sheng was playing

2550-805: The Soviet Union , used Kang during this period as a valuable source of information about Soviet affairs. Mao was also suspicious of the Russians and, soon after aligning himself with Mao, Kang also began to speak out against the Soviet Union and its agents in China. Peter Vladimirov , the Comintern agent sent to Yan'an, recorded that Kang kept him under constant surveillance and even forced Wang Ming to avoid meeting him. Vladimirov also believed that Kang delivered biased reports of Soviet affairs to Mao. When Stalin shifted his support from Wang Ming to Mao Zedong,

2652-764: The death of Mao and the subsequent arrest of the Gang of Four , Kang Sheng was accused of sharing responsibility with the Gang for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and in 1980 he was expelled posthumously from the CCP. Kang Sheng was born in Dataizhuang (大臺莊, administered under Jiaonan County since 1946), Zhucheng County to the northwest of Qingdao in Shandong Province to a landowning family, some of whom had been Confucian scholars. Kang

2754-441: The 18th Party Congress, the Central Committee plenums in 2013 and 2014 were given significant media coverage, as they marked the beginning of another round of comprehensive economic and social reforms (2013) and legal reforms (2014), respectively. In 2016, a Central Committee plenum was held, focusing mainly on in-party discipline and supervision. This plenum also gained a significant media coverage in China and abroad. According to

2856-407: The 1980s onwards, an average of 62% of the membership of the outgoing Central Committee has been replaced at each party congress. Since most members are at least 50 years old when they enter the body, the mandatory retirement age essentially serves as a 'term limit' on the entire membership of the Central Committee, whereby no member or group of members could conceivably serve longer than three terms on

2958-451: The 1980s, alternate membership in the Central Committee is composed of officials of provincial-ministerial rank or sub-provincial (vice-minister) rank. They are selected based on a combination of experience and the institutions that they represent. Many are heads of provincial party departments or party chiefs of big cities. Prominent academics with no political experience and state-owned enterprise chief executives often hold alternate seats on

3060-484: The 1980s, the membership of the Central Committee has experienced rapid turnover, mostly due to the institutionalization of the system of promotions for party officials as well as an informally mandated retirement age, currently set at 65 for minister-level officials (which comprise the majority of the members of the Central Committee). The average age of members in the 18th Central Committee is 56.1 years. From

3162-691: The CCP Politburo assigned Kang to inspect land reform in his home province of Shandong. Early in 1948, he was appointed deputy chief of the Party's East China Bureau , under Rao Shushi . Some commentators speculate that the private humiliation of being placed under a former subordinate may be one reason why Kang "fell ill" and largely disappeared from view until after Rao's fall in 1954. Of course, Kang may really have been ill. Mao's personal physician, Li Zhisui , later recorded that doctors responsible for Kang's treatment at Beijing Hospital told him that Kang

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3264-409: The Central Committee can be called upon in the interim to make extremely far-reaching decisions, or at least legitimize a change in direction mandated by the Politburo or other party leaders. The Central Committee must also be theoretically convened to prepare for a National Congress; for example, to determine its dates, delegate selection, agenda, and so on. The Central Committee has the power to elect

3366-593: The Central Committee have occasionally emerged as arenas in which there were substantive debates and decisions on party policy. An example of this was the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CCP Central Committee in 1978, at which China formally embarked on a project of economic reform . Deng Xiaoping also attempted to increase the level of "intra party democracy" in the 1980s by introducing so-called "more candidates than seats" election method ( Cha'e xuanju ). The Cha'e method meant that not everyone who

3468-406: The Central Committee, though only in rare and exceptional circumstances. For example, Ma Xingrui , the party chief of Shenzhen (as of 2015), was a member of the 18th Central Committee. While institutional rules has, since the 1980s, played a major role in the selection of Central Committee members, it does not guarantee that holders of a specific office will gain a seat on the CC. If a CC member

3570-416: The Central Committee. It also makes forming enduring political factions difficult. Chinese politics analyst Cheng Li noted that this makes the body much more fluid than most national legislatures, for which term limits do not generally apply. Plenary session A plenary session or plenum is a session of a conference or deliberative assembly in which all parties or members are present. Such

3672-454: The Central Committee. Some alternate members therefore hold no other political positions. Younger alternate members are also generally seen to be "up-and-coming" national leaders. Though all nominations for the Central Committee are decided beforehand, since the 13th Party Congress in 1987, in the spirit of promoting "inner-party democracy", the number of candidates up for election for both full members and alternate members have been greater than

3774-512: The Chinese Communist Party. On the night of February 7, 1931, He Mengxiong and 22 others were executed by the Kuomintang police at Longhua, Shanghai. Among those murdered were five aspiring writers and poets, including Hu Yepin , lover of Ding Ling and father of her child, later canonized as a martyr by the Party. The April 1931 arrest and defection to the Kuomintang of Gu Shunzhang, former Green Gang gangster and member of

3876-455: The Chinese in Moscow had fallen victim to purges. Soviet authorities had made numerous arrests at Moscow Sun Yat-sen University during the late 1920s; students disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. But Kang worked his own variation: in the past, the Chinese had been purged by the Soviets; now, under Kang, they were liquidated by their fellow Chinese. Stalin was more tolerant of

3978-521: The Chinese in Moscow than he was of other foreign Communists, who were purged along with their Soviet comrades. This may have been motivated by a concern about the potential threat of a Japanese invasion of the Soviet Far East. In any case, at this time Stalin began to promote the idea of a united front of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang against the Japanese, a policy that Wang Ming and Kang quickly endorsed. In November 1937, following

4080-500: The Comintern, returning to China in 1937. While in Moscow, Kang was elected a member of the Politburo of the CCP, perhaps as early as 1931 but more probably in January 1934. As Byron and Pack put it, "Kang had no cause to regret working with Wang in Moscow. His own prestige and power grew ever greater, and his cocoon of privilege insulated him from the irritations of daily life. But being in Moscow also excluded Kang and Wang Ming from

4182-840: The Communist base in Jiangxi Province in August 1931, he left Kang in charge of the Special Work Committee, a position he held for two years. In this role, Kang was "in charge of the entire Communist security and espionage apparatus, not only in Shanghai but throughout KMT China." In July 1931, Wang Ming removed himself to Moscow and assumed the position of chief Chinese representative on the Comintern. Kang and his wife Cao Yi'ou followed two years later. Kang remained in Moscow for four years, acting as Wang's deputy on

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4284-475: The Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, the Central Committee is tasked with "carrying out the decisions of the National Congress, leading the work of the party, and representing the party internationally." The Central Committee is therefore technically the "party's highest organ of authority" when the National Congress is not in session. The National Congress is convened only once every five years, so

4386-607: The ECCI Personnel Department memorandum] as his foes. He even tried to defend Kang Sheng in one of his letters to [Georgii] Dimitrov. "Kon Sin [Kang Sheng]," Mao wrote, "is reliable." While in Yan'an, Kang oversaw intelligence operations against the Party's two principal enemies, the Japanese and the Kuomintang, as well as potential opponents of Mao within the Party, including the campaign against Trotskyites. Chang and Halliday write that " Shi Zhe observed that Kang

4488-563: The General Secretary and the members of the Politburo, its Standing Committee, and the Central Military Commission. These elections take place in the form of confirmation votes; i.e., there is only one candidate, a delegate can choose to vote for or against or abstain for that candidate. In some instances write-in candidates may also be allowed. In practice, for important posts such as the General Secretary or

4590-580: The Japanese army. This directive, which Kang later denied even existed, was resisted by some Manchurian leaders and later criticized by Mao Zedong as evidence of Wang Ming having stifled Manchuria's revolutionary potential. Following the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Joseph Stalin commenced his great purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Following this example, and with Wang Ming's support, Kang established in 1936

4692-599: The March 1927 worker's insurrection alongside Gu Shunzhang and under the leadership of Zhao Shiyan , Luo Yinong, Wang Shouhua and Zhou Enlai . When the uprising was put down by the Kuomintang with the crucial assistance of Du Yuesheng 's Green Gang in the Shanghai massacre of April 12, 1927, Kang was able to escape into hiding. Also in 1927, Kang married a Shanghai University student and fellow Shandong native, Cao Yi'ou  [ zh ] (born Cao Shuqing), who

4794-644: The Office for the Elimination of Counterrevolutionaries and worked closely with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD , in purging perhaps hundreds of Chinese then in Moscow. As Byron and Pack put it: Kang gained great power from the Elimination Office, which he used to silence opponents and witnesses to any embarrassing episodes in his past, especially his arrest in Shanghai. … This was not the first time

4896-533: The Party Congress, and they in turn vote for the new Politburo, standing committee, and general secretary. The Central Committee has full members (委员 – weiyuan ) and alternate or candidate members (候补委员 – houbuweiyuan ). The practice of having "full" and "alternate" members is consistent with other Leninist parties in history, such as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Communist Party of Vietnam . Members are elected by National Congresses through

4998-405: The Party's Intelligence Cell, led to serious breaches in Party security and the arrest and execution of Xiang Zhongfa , the Party's General Secretary. In response, Zhou Enlai created a Special Work Committee to oversee the Party's intelligence and security operations. Chaired by Zhou personally, the committee included Chen Yun, Pan Hannian , Guang Huian and Kang Sheng. When Zhou left Shanghai for

5100-647: The Personnel Department of the executive committee of the Comintern (the "ECCI") included Kang's name on a list of CCP cadres who should not be included in the leadership. According to Pantsov and Levine, Once again, the ECCI and, standing behind it, Stalin himself, helped Mao to consolidate his power. This time they even overdid it. Mao did not view Kang Sheng, who had already openly switched to his side, nor several of these other party officials [named in

5202-513: The Politburo Standing Committee, there is no known occasion since 1949 where the Central Committee voted against a candidate already vetted by the top party leadership in advance. The Central Committee also confirms membership of the Secretariat, the organ in charge of executing party policy, whose membership is determined through nomination by the Politburo Standing Committee. The Committee usually convenes at least once

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5304-406: The Politburo, the Politburo Standing Committee, and the General Secretary. The second plenum, held in February or March of the following year, typically approves a list of candidates for state positions, as well as a plan to overhaul Party and State organizations, which are then approved during a National People's Congress (NPC) session held immediately afterwards. The third plenum, generally held in

5406-780: The Propaganda Department at the CCP's Sixth Congress, which for security reasons and proximity to the Comintern's congress was held outside Moscow in mid-1928. Several months after the Sixth Congress, Kang was named director of the Organization Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee, which controlled personnel matters. In 1930, while in Shanghai, Kang was arrested along with several other Communists, including Ding Jishi, and later released. Ding's uncle Ding Weifen,

5508-611: The Seventh Party Congress did not protect them permanently against Kang. During the Cultural Revolution, he searched many of them out, arrested them and charged them again with being traitors or renegades. A standard item of evidence used against them was a record of their arrest in Yan'an during the Rectification Movement—;phony charges from the 1940s appeared twenty years later as "proof" of an individual's disloyalty. After his fall from

5610-444: The ability for it to affect outcomes of national-level personnel decisions is limited, as that function has generally been, in practice, carried out by the Politburo and retired party elders who retain influence. Nonetheless, Central Committee plenums function as venues whereby policy is discussed, fine-tuned, and publicly released in the form of "resolutions" or "decisions". The Central Committee's role has varied throughout history. It

5712-430: The autumn of the year after the Party Congress, focuses on economic issues, and is generally the session when major economic and reform decisions are made and announced. The fifth plenum focuses on finalizing the upcoming five-year plan , which is then approved by the NPC in the following spring. The fourth and sixth plenums do not have a fixed theme, and usually focus on CCP ideology or Party building. The seventh plenum,

5814-402: The beginning of the end of international Communism." While Kang remained a member of the Politburo, he had no concrete role and no power base, which led him to take on a series of diverse assignments and to align himself as closely as possible with Mao, who was devising his response to de-Stalinization and its effects within the leadership of the CCP. His responses, in the Hundred Flowers and

5916-406: The charges against Jiang Qing. Invoking his background as head of the Organization Department and as an expert on security and espionage matters, Kang vouched for Jiang Qing. She was a Party member in good standing, he declared, and had no affiliations that would bar marriage to Mao. Kang's personal knowledge of Jiang Qing's past was fragmentary and certainly insufficient to allow him to prove that she

6018-420: The communist bloc after Khrushchev's Secret Speech . Kang Sheng's emergence during the cultural revolution as one of the most important Maoist stalwarts suggests that…it is not unlikely that at the 8th Congress Mao saved Kang from even greater humiliation. Mao's own position was weakening, as evidenced by the decision of the CCP's Eighth Congress to delete the phrase "guided by the thought of Mao Zedong" from

6120-544: The control of the CCP and the intellectual leadership of Qu Qiubai . After about six months at the university, he joined the Communist Party Youth League. Kang then joined the Party itself. At the direction of the Party, Kang worked underground as a labor organizer. He helped organize the February 1925 strike against Japanese companies that culminated in the May 30th Movement, a huge Communist-led demonstration, and brought Kang into close contact with Party leaders Liu Shaoqi , Li Lisan and Zhang Guotao . Kang participated in

6222-466: The domain of a small group of elites at the very top of the party hierarchy. Since the 17th Party Congress, the Central Committee has seen an increase in the number of regional leadership figures. The 17th Central Committee formed with every province-level Party Secretary and Governor gaining a full seat on the Central Committee. The rise of regional party representation came at the expense of that of government ministries. Since Xi Jinping's rise to power at

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6324-437: The drama that was unfolding in China at the time." That "drama" included the epic retreat of the Communists from Jiangxi Province to Yan'an , which became known to history as the Long March , and the ever-growing power within the CCP of Mao Zedong . As the French military historian Jacques Guillermaz observed, The Long March helped the Chinese Communist Party to achieve a greater independence of Moscow. Everything tended in

6426-432: The early stages of the Cultural Revolution , the Central Committee essentially ceased to function; it was convened in August 1966 (11th Plenum of the 8th CC) to cement decisions already made by Mao on launching the Cultural Revolution. Mao faced some opposition at the 11th Plenum but ultimately most delegates were goaded into ratifying Mao's decisions. Many members were politically disgraced or purged thereafter. The committee

6528-409: The founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central Committee gradually transformed from a revolutionary organ to a governing one, though again the day-to-day work and most political power resided with a few leaders, most notably the Politburo, then de facto chaired by Liu Shaoqi , and the Secretariat, then under Deng Xiaoping. Although the Central Committee was required to convene at least once

6630-416: The handful of elites in favour of "inner-party democracy" involving bodies such as the Central Committee. However, the Beidaihe meetings resumed in July 2007, when political deliberation took place in anticipation of the 17th Party Congress ; the same Bedaihe retreat also took place in 2011 in anticipation of the 18th Party Congress . This indicated that important personnel and policy decisions continued to be

6732-484: The incumbent Politburo and its Standing Committee. Since the 1980s membership patterns in the Central Committee have gradually stabilized. For example, provincial governors and party secretaries are almost guaranteed a seat on the Central Committee. The primary difference between full members and alternate members is that full members have voting rights. Alternate members attend Central Committee plenary sessions, and can presumably voice their views on issues, but do not have

6834-445: The injustices and insults they had suffered, both real and imagined, at the hands of "the landlord bullies." Often these meetings would end with the masses, led by the land reform teams, shouting "Shoot him! Shoot him!" or "Kill! Kill! Kill!" The cadre in charge of proceedings would rule that the landlords had committed serious crimes, sentence them to death, and order that they be taken away and eliminated immediately. In November 1947,

6936-470: The last held before the end of a Central Committee's term, focuses on preparations for the upcoming Party Congress. The Central Committee houses three important party departments: (1) the Organization Department , (2) the Publicity Department , and (3) the United Front Work Department . It has a secretariat which performs routine tasks including arranging leadership's schedules and document flows. Central Committee members are elected every five years during

7038-433: The measure of Kang's psychology: a multifaceted game of mirrors was certainly his style, even in the 1930s." When Kang Sheng arrived in the Party's redoubt at Yan'an in late November 1937 as part of Wang Ming's entourage, he may have already realized that Wang Ming was falling out of favor, but he initially supported Wang and the Comintern's efforts to guide the Chinese Communists back into line with Soviet policy, especially

7140-502: The need to align with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. Kang also brought Stalin's obsession with Trotskyism to play in helping Wang defeat the efforts of Zhou Enlai and Dong Biwu to bring Chen Duxiu —then the informal leader of Trotskyists in China—back into the Party. After assessing the situation on the ground in Yan'an, however, in 1938 Kang decided to re-align himself with Mao Zedong. Kang's motives are easy to imagine. For Mao's part, as MacFarquhar put it, Kang Sheng

7242-475: The new Party constitution and by re-establishing the role of General Secretary, abolished in 1937. The dangers of exalting a single leader and the desirability of collective leadership had been perhaps the most direct point of Khrushchev's Secret Speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (the "CPSU") in February 1956, in which he condemned Stalin, Stalin's methods and his cult of personality and which, according to Archie Brown, "was

7344-493: The number of available seats. Nominees for the Central Committee who receive the lowest number of votes from Party Congress delegates are thus unable to enter the Central Committee. At the 18th Party Congress, a total of 224 candidates stood for election for full membership for a total of 205 seats. A total of 190 candidates stood for election for a total of 171 alternate seats. This meant that 9.3% of full member candidates and 11.1% alternate member candidates were not elected. Since

7446-414: The number of votes received when they were elected at the previous Party Congress. Alternate members may be elevated to full members if a full member dies in office, resigns, or is removed from the body. Priority of ascension to full member status is given to the alternate member who received the highest number of votes in favour at the previous Party Congress. Membership changes, such as the expulsion of

7548-713: The organisation's business between congresses, conferences, or other meetings. Such committees may themselves have quorum requirements and plenary sessions. So, Standing Committees of the Northern Ireland Assembly must have a quorum of five members in order for the committee to proceed. This organization-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Kang Sheng Kang Sheng ( Chinese : 康 生 ; pinyin : Kāng Shēng ; 4 November 1898 – 16 December 1975), born Zhang Zongke ( simplified Chinese : 张宗可 ; traditional Chinese : 張宗可 ; pinyin : Zhāng Zōngkě ),

7650-506: The patina of a theorist, and he was a fluent writer. At Yan'an, Kang was close to Jiang Qing , who may have been Kang's mistress when he visited Shandong in 1931. In Yan'an, Jiang became the lover of Mao Zedong, who later married her. In 1938, Kang earned Mao and Jiang's gratitude by supporting their liaison against the opposition of more socially conservative cadres, who were aware of her past and uncomfortable with it. Byron and Pack assert that Kang acted decisively to protect Mao and rebut

7752-486: The peasants to settle scores by killing landlords and rich peasants." In March 1947, Kang put his methods into practice in Lin County, Shanxi Province. These methods included special scrutiny and persecution of landlords known to have Communist sympathies and investigation of the backgrounds of the Party's land reform teams themselves. In April 1948, Mao singled out Kang for praise in his handling of land reform, with

7854-561: The policies agreed upon at the Politburo level. But the Central Committee does not, by convention, overturn policies decided at higher levels. The Central Committee is larger and has a somewhat more diverse ideological spectrum than the Politburo. Since its plenary sessions is a rare event that concentrates almost all of China's top leaders in one location, it could also be seen as a convenient venue for informal deal-making. Hu Jintao's administration (2002–2012) attempted to embrace collective leadership, as well as more "intra-party democracy"; Hu

7956-555: The policies of the Great Leap Forward, as well as the economic policies of the early 1960s. However, Mao used Central Committee meetings as a platform to project authority or legitimize decisions which have been made in advance, such as at the Lushan Conference of 1959, when the Central Committee ratified the decision to denounce Peng Dehuai , who had spoken out in opposition of the Great Leap Forward . During

8058-404: The result that Agrarian reform cut a bloody swath through much of rural China. Squads of Communist enforcers were sent to the most remote villages to organize the local petty thieves and bandits into so-called land reform teams, which inflamed the poor peasants and hired laborers against the rich. When resentment reached fever pitch, peasants at staged "grievance meetings" were encouraged to relate

8160-442: The right to vote. At party plenary sessions, members of the Politburo seats at the front of the auditorium or meeting hall, facing the rest of the Central Committee. Full members are ordered by protocol, and seated, according to " surname stroke order " ( xingshi bihua paiming ), an impartial ordering system that is roughly equivalent of alphabetizing the names. Alternate members follow a different protocol sequence: they are arranged by

8262-483: The same direction—Mao Zedong's appointment as Chairman of the Party, happening as it did in unusual conditions, practical difficulties in maintaining contact, the Comintern's tendency to remain in the background to help the creation of popular fronts, under cover of patriotism or anti-fascism. In fact, after the Zunyi Conference , the Russians seem to have had less and less influence in the Chinese Communist Party's internal affairs. In light of more recent history, this

8364-469: The security posts, in December 1946 Kang was assigned by Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Liu Shaoqi to review the Party's land reform project in Longdong, Gansu Province. He returned after five weeks with the view that land reform needed to be more severe and that there could be no compromise with landlords. "Kang whipped up hatred for the landlords and their retainers. In the name of social justice, he encouraged

8466-425: The war worsened in 1943, and the Communist area become more isolated, Kang stepped up the speed and ferocity of the purges. Kang was sufficiently brutal in his methods to arouse the opposition of senior cadres, including Zhou Enlai, Nie Rongzhen and Ye Jianying . At the same time, Mao was not keen to have a single man in such a position of power. Accordingly, following the CCP's Seventh Congress in April 1945, Kang

8568-482: The year of the Party National Congress, another two held in the following year, and one held in each of the other three years. The first, second and seventh plenums generally deal with procedures around the five-yearly power transition process, containing no major policy announcements. The first plenum, held a day after the conclusion of a Party National Congress, elects the top leadership, including

8670-538: Was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, best known for having overseen the work of the CCP's internal security and intelligence apparatus during the early 1940s and again at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A member of the CCP from the early 1920s, he spent time in Moscow during the early 1930s, where he learned the methods of the Soviet NKVD and became

8772-536: Was a valuable catch for Mao as he strove to consolidate the power he had won at the Zunyi Conference in January 1935. Kang could betray all the secrets of Wang Ming and his supporters. He was au fait with Moscow politics and police/terror methods, and sufficiently fluent in Russian to act as a major contact with Soviet visitors. He had absorbed sufficient Marxism-Leninism and Stalinist polemicizing to affect

8874-525: Was behind, at Mao's behest, the attempt by Li Fuchun and Jin Maoyao to murder Wang Ming by means of mercury poisoning, although this claim remains controversial. Kang was deeply involved with the Yan'an Rectification Movement launched by Mao in February 1942, which was "central to Mao's mission of a thorough reinvention of Chinese society." As Rana Mitter writes, China's wartime existential crisis provided

8976-525: Was born Zhang Zongke but he adopted a number of pseudonyms—most notably Zhao Rong, but also (for his painting) Li Jushi—before settling on Kang Sheng in the 1930s. Some sources give his year of birth as being as early as 1893, but it has also been variously given as 1898, 1899 and 1903. Kang received his elementary education at the Guanhai school for boys and later at the German School in Qingdao. As

9078-403: Was founded in 1927 as a successor organization to the "Central Executive Committee" ( 中央执行委员会 ), a group of party leaders charged with executing party work during the pre-revolutionary days of the CCP. Over the next several decades it served to confirm the party leadership lineup and legitimize military, strategic, and foreign relations decisions of the party. In practice, power was concentrated in

9180-547: Was head of the Kuomintang Central Party School in Nanjing , where he worked with Chen Lifu , head of the Kuomintang's secret service. Kang later denied he had ever been arrested, as the circumstances of his release suggested that he had, as Lu Futan alleged in 1933, "sold out his comrades" in order to secure his freedom. As Byron and Pack note, however, "Kang's arrest in itself is no proof that he

9282-515: Was listed below Peng Zhen . By the end of April he was reported in tenth place, even below Luo Fu , the only member of the 28 Bolsheviks who still held a Politburo seat. Yet on May Day of 1956—the international socialist celebration—Kang was suddenly back in sixth place. His position, at least going by public reports and official bulletins, remained unchanged from then until the Eighth Congress four months later. Kang suffered

9384-419: Was living in a state of deep fear of Mao in this period" because of his murky past, which had been raised with Mao in many letters from cadres and by the Russians, yet "[f]ar from being put off by Kang's murky past, Mao positively relished it. Like Stalin, who employed ex- Mensheviks like Vyshinsky , Mao used people's vulnerability as a way of giving himself hold over subordinates." Vladimirov believed that Kang

9486-448: Was mainly based on political calculation. Kang's familiarity with Wang Ming enabled him to provide Mao with valuable information about Wang's subservience to the Soviets. Although cadres such as Chen Yun , who had been in Moscow with Wang and Kang, were aware of Kang's previous slavish support for Wang, Kang strenuously sought to change that history and obscure previous affiliations. In addition, Mao, who in these years had not yet visited

9588-502: Was nominated would be elected to the Central Committee. Despite experimenting with power separation on a broad scale in the 1980s, including the separation of party and state leadership positions, real decision-making power continued to reside in the hands of a dozen or so party elites, including party elders that formed the Central Advisory Commission (later abolished). For instance, the decision to crack down on

9690-570: Was not a KMT agent, but he doctored her record, destroyed adverse material, discouraged hostile witnesses, and coached her on how to answer the probing questions of high-level interrogators who hoped to discredit Mao. This episode is believed by many to have been key to Kang's future success, which depended not only on his considerable talents but also on his relationship with Mao. In addition to politics, Kang and Mao also shared an interest in classical culture, including poetry, painting and calligraphy. Mao's relationship with Kang, in Yan'an and later,

9792-431: Was not a strong "core" figure in the same sense as Mao or Deng Xiaoping. The Central Committee thus gained more prominence as a bona fide consultation body. In 2003, Hu also cancelled the traditional August leadership retreat at the coastal town of Beidaihe , while giving more media coverage to the Central Committee plenums held in the fall. This was seen as an indication that Hu wanted to eschew informal decision-making by

9894-536: Was perhaps one of the major consequences of the Long March. Wang Ming's influence over the main Communist forces was minimal after Mao Zedong's emergence from the Zunyi Conference of January 1935 as the undisputed head of the Party. From Moscow, Wang and Kang did seek to maintain control over Communist forces in Manchuria , which were ordered by them to conserve their strength and avoid direct confrontation with

9996-615: Was replaced as head of both the Social Affairs Department and the Military Intelligence Department. Byron and Pack write that "In spite of Kang's decline, his influence on the security and intelligence system was visible for decades to come. The methods he popularized in Yan'an shaped public security work through the Cultural Revolution and beyond." Moreover, [f]or many victims of Rectification, release and rehabilitation in 1945 after

10098-676: Was suffering from schizophrenia . Writing before Li's book was published, Byron and Pack offered other possible diagnoses based on symptoms Kang seems to have displayed, including manic-depressive psychosis and temporal lobe epilepsy. Kang's re-emergence on the political stage in the mid-1950s occurred at roughly at the same time as the Gao Gang -Rao Shushi Affair and the affair of Yu Bingbo . Faligot and Kauffer see these affairs as each showing signs of involvement by Kang Sheng, who they believe used them as means to return to power. In January 1956, Kang made his first public appearance in years at

10200-543: Was then convened again in October 1968 (12th Plenum) to ratify the decision to expel then head of state Liu Shaoqi from the Party. At the 12th plenum, less than half the members actually attended, as many had fallen victim to the Cultural Revolution. In a letter to Mao "evaluating" the members of the Central Committee at the time, Kang Sheng wrote that some 70% of CC members were considered "traitors, spies, or otherwise politically unreliable". The Central Committee membership at

10302-453: Was to become a lifelong political ally. He entered the employment of Yu Qiaqing , a wealthy businessman with strong Kuomintang sympathies, as Yu's personal secretary. At the same time, Kang remained an active but secret Party organizer, and was named to the Party's new Jiangsu Provincial Committee in June 1927. In the late 1920s, Kang worked closely with Li Lisan, who had been made head of

10404-417: Was turned by his captors or forced into long-term cooperation with them. KMT [Kuomintang] prisons were notoriously chaotic and corrupt." After Li Lisan's adventurism and the failed Changsha operation of June 1930 lost Li the support of the Party, Kang moved adroitly to align himself with the Comintern's new favorite, Wang Ming , and Pavel Mif 's young students from Sun Yat-sen University , later known as

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