¹ See, for example, the Editorial Departments of Hung-ch'i (Red Flag) (Peking)Google Scholar and Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily) (Peking), “Along the Socialist or the Capitalist Road?” Jen-min jih-pao, 15 08 1967Google ScholarPubMed, in Peking Review, No. 34 (18 08 1967).Google ScholarPubMed

² Various Central Work Conferences and other types of Party meetings are listed in the Appendix. In the 1950s, few Party meetings were labelled “Central Work Conference” by the Chinese Communists; to the best of my knowledge, prior to 1960, only one Party meeting was so designated. It took place in May 1955 and was presided over by Liu Shao-ch'i in Mao's absence; see Liu, Shao-ch'i, “Confession,” Mainichi (Tokyo), 28–29 01 1967.Google Scholar

³ Most CC plenary sessions lasted less than 10 days, some less than a week; the longest session was the Plenum of 21 September–9 October 1957, which lasted 19 days.Google Scholar

⁴ See Mao, Tse-tung, “Speech at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee,” in Mao chu-hsi tui P'eng-Huang-Chang-Chou fan-tang ti p'i-p'an (Chairman Mao's Criticism of the P'eng-Huang-Chang-Chou anti-Party Clique) n.p., n.d.).Google Scholar An English translation of Mao's speech is in Chinese Law and Government (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press), Vol. I, No. 4 (Winter 1968/1969), pp. 85–93.Google Scholar

⁵ Several items of information concerning this conference are revealed in “From the Defeat of P'eng Teh-huai to the Bankruptcy of China's Khrushchov,” editorial, Hung-ch'i, No. 13 (1967) (also in Peking Review, No. 34 (18 August 1967)).Google Scholar The information that 7,000 Party officials attended the meeting is revealed by a Red Guard publication which stated: “In January [1962] … Liu Shao-ch'i outrageously slandered at a rally of seven thousand people held under his auspices (i.e., the Enlarged Work Conference of the Central Committee, or the meeting of cadres at five levels) …” see Down with Liu Shao-ch'i—Life of Counter-revolutionary Liu Shao-ch'i, as translated in Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 834, 17 08 1967), p. 20.Google Scholar Since the hsien-level cadres from the Peking municipality, according to another Red Guard source, attended the 7,000-cadres Enlarged Work Conference of January 1962, it seems reasonable to infer that the “five-level cadres” consisted of officials from the Party organizations at the central, regional, provincial, special district and hsien levels; see “Before and After the ‘Grandview House’ Counter-revolutionary Incident,” in Selections from China Mainland Magazines (SCMM) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 640 (13 01 1969), p. 31.Google Scholar

⁶ The Central Work Conference of September–October 1965 is known to be a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee “attended also by the leading comrades of all regional bureaux of the Central Committee,”Google Scholar see “Circular of Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party” (16 05 1966), Peking Review, No. 21 (19 May 1967), p. 6. The Hsi-lou Conference of late February 1962, according to Red Guard sources, was also an Enlarged Politburo Standing Committee meeting.Google Scholar

⁷ See Jen-min jih-pao, 18 06 1964, p. 1Google Scholar and “Central Committee Circular” of 16 05 1966, cited above, n. 6. Other sources also contain hints on participants of the Central Work Conference: (1) CB, No. 842, p. 29Google ScholarPubMed (which revealed that Chou Yang, a Deputy Director of the CC Propaganda Department, attended); and (2) the PLA Bulletin of Activities, in J. Chester Cheng, (ed.), The Politics of the Chinese Red Army (Stanford: The Hoover Institution, 1966), p. 405Google Scholar (which suggested that Liu Chih-chien, a Deputy Director of the PLA Political Department, attended the Canton Work Conference of March 1961). In some Central Work Conferences, Party officials who did not belong to the above seven categories were also invited to attend; for instance, members of the Cultural Revolution Group took part in the Central Work Conference of 22 July 1966, see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan-sui (Long Live Mao Tse-tung's Thought) (n.p., 04 1967), in CB, No. 891, p. 60.Google Scholar

⁸ For example, 4 of the 28 provincial-level First Party Secretaries in 1960 were not members of the CC, and this number increased to 8 in 1966; during 1960–66, 4 of the 13 Commanders of the Military Regions were non-CC members.Google Scholar

⁹ In the 1960s, there were more than 20 CC members who were politically inactive; some of them, like Hsu Hai-tung and Hsu T'e-li, were apparently inactive because of their advanced age, but most of them were in political eclipse and were either out of the political picture, like Chang Wen-t'ien, Ch'en Shao-yu, Chia T'o-fu, Hsi Chung-hsun, P'eng Teh-huai, Wang Chia-hsiang and Yang Hsien-chen, or held insignificant positions, such as Li Li-san, Liu Ko-p'ing, Huang K'o-ch'eng and others.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See “Nan pa-t'ien hsi-yu chi” (“The Story of the Southern Emperor's Western Trip”), Chih-k'an nan-yueh (Canton: Editorial Department, Proletarian Revolutionary Rebels of Literary and Art Circles in the Canton Area), No. 3 (1 10 1967).Google Scholar Other sources also indicated that the CC regional bureaux had already been set up prior to the Ninth Plenum (see Li, Shih-fei, “The Party's Middlemen: The Role of Regional Bureaux in the Chinese Communist Party,” Current Scene (Hong Kong: United States Information Service), Vol. III, No. 15 (15 08 1965).Google Scholar

¹¹ See Liao, Lu-yen, “Participate in the Large Scale Development of Agriculture by the Whole Party and the Whole Country,” Hung-ch'i, No. 17 (1 09 1960).Google Scholar Although Liao did not specifically refer to the 1960 summer Work Conference and even asserted that Mao had already put forth the policy of “taking agriculture as the base and industry as the leading factor” in 1959, other sources and circumstantial evidence indicate that it was only after the summer of 1960, and very probably as a result of the Work Conference, that the Party began to shift the line in earnest. An editorial in Nan-fang jih-pao on 16 09 1960Google Scholar, for instance, spoke of “a recent Party meeting” which made decisions on changes in the commune ownership system; and the Shanghai Chieh-fang jih-pao specifically stated: “In August of the same year [1960], the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao issued the great call ‘Let the whole Party give a hand to promote agriculture in a big way,’ …” (see “Outline of the Struggle between the two Lines from the Eve of the Founding of the People's Republic of China through the 11th Plenum of the 8th CCP Central Committee” as translated in CB, No. 884 (18 07 1969), p. 18).Google Scholar It appears that those measures to be taken to salvage the agricultural crisis, as recommended by Liao Lu-yen in his Hung-ch'i article, were the “consensus” reached at the 1960 summer Work Conference.Google Scholar

¹² See “Uncover the Black Mask of Teng Hsiao-p'ing's ‘Petofi Club,’” Tung-fang hung (Peking: Capital Colleges and Universities Red Guard Revolutionary Rebel Liaison Centre), No. 20 (18 02 1967).Google Scholar The approval of this document in this meeting was also revealed in PLA, Bulletin of Activities (see Cheng, J. Chester (ed.), Politics of Chinese Red Army, pp. 405–406, 466–467).Google Scholar

¹³ See “From the Defeat of P'eng Teh-huai to the Bankruptcy of China's Khrushchov,” in Peking Review, No. 34Google Scholar; “The Big Exposure of a Plot to Usurp the Party and the Nation,” Kuang-ming jih-pao (9 08 1967)Google Scholar; and “Look at Liu Shao-ch'i's Ugly Features,” Ching-kang shan (Peking: Ching-kang shan Corps, Tsinghua University, Red Guard Congress), Nos. 6 & 7, 1 01 1967.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Richard, Baum and Teiwes, Frederick C., Ssu-ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–1966 (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1968)Google Scholar, Appendices B and F and “Outline of the Struggle Between the Two Lines …,” in CB, No. 884, p. 23.Google Scholar

¹⁵ While virtually every other important issue had at one time or another been brought before the Central Work Conferences, the available Red Guard sources on these conferences contained few references to military and foreign policy problems (one exception is Mao's speech to the 1962 Tenth CC Plenum in which Mao spoke at some length on Sino-Soviet relations). There is reason to believe that some meetings of the CC Work Conference did discuss these problems, but that information concerning them was perhaps considered to be too sensitive and was classified as top secret and was inaccessible or not made available to Red Guard publications.Google Scholar

¹⁶ When Lin Piao reportedly spoke in defence of the correctness of the Great Leap policies in the Enlarged Work Conference of January 1962, he provoked critical questions and comments from the audience (see Liu Chieh-t'ing, “Li Ching-ch'uan is the Khrushchev of the Great Southwest China,” Radio Kweiyang, 17 June 1967. When Ch'en Po-ta, Director of the CC Cultural Revolution Group, presented a report to the Work Conference of October 1966, a number of participants, according to Chao Tzu-yang, First Secretary of the Kwangtung Provincial Party Committee, challenged Ch'en's assessment of the state of the nations and his proposals, and they offered their own counter-proposalsGoogle Scholar (see “A Bundle of Poisoned Arrows shot by Chao Tzu-yang at the Cultural Revolutionary Group under the CCP, CC,” Hung-ch'i ju-hua (Canton), No. 1 (01 1968)Google Scholar (also in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP), No. 4112, pp. 4–5)).Google Scholar

¹⁷ For an account of the inter-Party dispute over the question of collectivization in this period, see Chang, Parris H., “Struggle Between the Two Roads in China's Countryside,” Current Scene, Vol. VI, No. 3 (15 02 1968).Google Scholar

¹⁸ References to these meetings are in New China News Agency (Peking), 14 September 1956, “The Sinful Ch'en Yun,” Peking Commune, No. 5 (28 01 1967)Google Scholar and Communiqué of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1958), pp. 1–11.Google Scholar

¹⁹ References to the Tsingtao meeting are in Teng Hsiao-p'ing, “Report on the Rectification Campaign,” Jen-min jih-pao, 19 10 1957 (also in CB, No. 477)Google Scholar; references to the Hangchow, Nanning, and Chengtu Conferences were in CB, No. 509, p. 6Google Scholar, “Sixty Points of Work Methods,” in CB, No. 892, p. 1Google Scholar; Liu, Shao-ch'i, “The Work Report of the Central Committee to the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress” (5 05 1958), in Peking ReviewGoogle Scholar, No. 14 (3 June 1958); “Long Live the People's Communes!” editorial, Jen-min jih-pao, 29 08 1959Google Scholar and in an article in Liao-ning jih-pao as translated in SCMP, No. 1929, p. 34; and the references to the Chengchow meeting are in the Communiqué of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee.Google Scholar

²⁰ Editorial, Jen-min jih-pao, 29 08 1959 and Communiqué of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, op. cit.Google Scholar

²¹ On the eve of the Eighth Party Congress of September 1956, only a handful of provincial Party secretaries were in the CC which then consisted of some 60 members (regular and alternate). After the Eighth Party Congress, 32 out of the 168 CC members were provincial Party secretaries, and 8 more provincial officials were promoted to the CC in the second session of the Eighth Party Congress in May 1958.Google Scholar

²² Liu, Shao-ch'i, “The Work Report of the Central Committee to the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress,” in Peking Review, No. 14.Google Scholar

²³ Editorial, Jen-min jih-pao, 29 08 1959Google Scholar and Wu Chih-p'u's, article in Hsin chien-she, No. 6 (1960), p. 4.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Teng Tzu-hui's, article in Chung-kuo shui-li, No. 1 (1958), p. 7.Google Scholar

²⁵ See above, n. 22.Google Scholar

²⁶ See above, n. 23.Google Scholar

²⁷ CCP CC Directives “On Overhauling APCs” and “On the Improvement of Production Administration in APCs” (issued 14 September 1957), Jen-min jih-pao, 16 09 1957 (also in SCMP, No. 1618).Google Scholar

²⁸ This assertion is inferred from the fact the Chinese Communists deemed it necessary to submit the “Sixty Points of Work Methods” and the amalgamation of the APCs into larger units, which were “discussed” at the Hangchow and Nanning Conferences of January 1958 and the Chengtu Conference of March 1958 respectively, to the Politburo or the CC for formal approval subsequently; see Mao's introductory remarks to the “Sixty Points of Work Methods” in CB, No. 892, p. 1 and editorial, Jen-min jih-pao, 29 August 1959. On the other hand, the Central Work Conference seems to have the capacity to make formal decisions on policy matters and the actions it took did not need to be submitted to higher Party organs for approval.Google Scholar

²⁹ One must also point out that during 1954–59, when Mao was Chairman of the Republic, he convened the Supreme State Conference—a state institution—on 15 occasions, and apparently used that forum as a platform to announce the policies he favoured and mobilize support for them. The meetings of the Supreme State Conference on 25 January 1956, at which Mao presented the 12-year National Programme for Agricultural Development, and on 27 February 1957, at which he spoke on “The Correct Handling of the Contradictions among the People,” are two good examples.Google Scholar

³⁰ After 1959, there were several meetings referred to by the name of the place in which they were held. For instance, in February–March 1959 Mao convened the Second Chengchow Conference, but this meeting was given an institutional label, the “Enlarged Politburo Conference,” by the Chinese official sources; the Canton Conference in March 1961, the Second Lushan Conference in the summer of 1961, the Hangchow Conference of June 1963 and the Shanghai Conference in December 1965, to cite only a few, were identified either as Central Work Conferences or enlarged Politburo sessions. Therefore, I have not included these in the category of the ad hoc Party Conference.Google Scholar

³¹ This tendency was also illustrated by the assignment of various national-level posts to regional leaders: K'o Ch'ing-shih and T'ao Chu, First Secretaries of the Party's East China and Central-South China Bureaux, respectively, were appointed Vice-Premiers of the State Council in 1965; and Li Hsueh-feng and Li Ching-ch'uan, First Secretaries of the Party's North China and South-west China Bureaux, respectively, were elected Vice-Chairmen of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1965.Google Scholar

³² I am indebted to Professor Richard Solomon, of the University of Michigan, for this idea.Google Scholar

³³ By Liu's own account, he chaired meetings of the Central Work Conference in May, which approved Teng Tzu-hui's proposal to dissolve 200,000 APCs, and in late February 1962 (also called the Hsi-lou or West Chamber Conference), which discussed and approved economic liberalization measures in the face of the Great Leap crisis; see Liu Shao-ch'i, , “Confession,” Mainichi.Google Scholar According to the same source, at “a certain period” before 18 July 1966, when Mao was not in Peking, Liu was responsible for “carrying out the daily, regular work of the Party Central Committee,” and the state of the Cultural Revolution was reported at the Central Conference over which he presided. Mao is also quoted to have said that the Politburo Standing Committee had been divided into first and second lines, with himself in the second line and others (presumably including Liu and Teng) on the first line, that “he did not take charge of daily work” and that “many things were entrusted to others”; see Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan-sui, in CB, No. 891, p. 75. It appears that during most of 1961 and 1962 and during November 1965–July 1966, Liu was in charge of the Party's daily administration (i.e., making day-to-day decisions) and frequently presided over the important Party meetings in Mao's absence.Google Scholar

³⁴ See, for example, “A Great Historical Document” and “Struggle Between the Two Roads in China's Countryside,” Peking Review, Nos. 21 and 49 (19 May and 1 12 1967).Google Scholar

³⁵ “Uncover the Black Mask of Teng Hsiao-p'ing's ‘Petofi Club,’” Tung-fang hung.Google Scholar

³⁶ There were several occasions on which Mao, during his tour in the provinces, announced to the public the policies he favoured before they had been formally approved by the Party's legitimate decision-making bodies. For instance, before the Enlarged Politburo Meeting of 17–30 August 1958 authorized the establishment of communes in China's rural areas, Mao declared on 9 August when he was visiting a village in Shantung that “It is better to set up the communes”—a remark which was publicized by the Jen-min jih-pao on 13 08 1958Google Scholar and became a “go ahead” signal for provincial cadres to establish the new system. Apparently, Mao had created a fait accompli before the Politburo met. Other Party leaders were not favourably disposed to Mao's disregard of the regular procedures. In July 1959, Liu Shao-ch'i allegedly criticized the New China News Agency and the Jen-min jih-pao for having publicized opinions expressed by “responsible comrades of the Central Committee during their tours in the provinces” and termed these opinions “premature and erroneous, and having harmful effects throughout the nation” (see “The Confession of Wu Leng-his,” translated and annotated by Parris H. Chang , in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. II, No. 4 (Winter 1969–70), pp. 76–77).Google Scholar P'eng Chen is also reported to have criticized Mao's working style and expressed misgivings at Mao's approving and issuing Party documents without having them discussed by the Party meetings (see “Before and After the ‘Grandview House’ Counter-revolutionary Incident,” in SCMM, No. 640, p. 22).Google Scholar

³⁷ These would include the “advisory” function, which enables the top leadership to gain different perspectives on national problems by soliciting opinions from the participants, and the “transmission belt” function, i.e., to transmit decisions to lower levels and link the peak of the political pyramid with its mass base. The most important function of the CC has been to bestow legitimacy upon policy decisions made by the top leadership; on several occasions (such as the Plenums of October 1955, September 1957, August 1959 and August 1966), however, the CC actually resolved policy conflicts of the top leadership and made decisions that affected the political fate of certain top leaders.Google Scholar

³⁸ This assumption is inferred from Liu Shao-ch'i's statement that the Central Work Conference in May 1955 approved a proposal of Teng Tzu-hui, then Director of the Party's CC Rural Work Department, to cut back 200,000 APCs and that Teng subsequently convened a Rural Work Conference to make arrangements for implementing that decision; see Shao-ch'i, Liu, “Confession,” Mainichi.Google Scholar

³⁹ A 5-man “CC Financial and Economic Group” said to have been set up in 1962 and headed by Ch'en Yun to take charge of the regime's over-all financial and economic policies, made certain important proposals which were approved by a Politburo meeting convened and chaired by Liu Shao-ch'i in 1962 (see “The Crimes of Liu Shao-ch'i,” Shou-tu hung-wei-ping (Peking: Propaganda Department of the Revolutionary Rebel Headquarters of Capital Universities and Colleges Red Guard), Nos. 31 and 32 (22 02 1967)).Google Scholar The 5-man “Cultural Revolution Group” headed by P'eng Chen put forth the “February Outline Report” which also obtained Liu's approval at a Politburo Standing Committee meeting on 5 February 1966 (see Counter-Revolutionary Revisionist P'eng Chen's Towering Crimes of Opposing the Party, Socialism and the Thought of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Liaison Centre for Thorough Criticism of Liu-Teng-Tao, Tungfang hung Commune, China University of Science and Technology, Red Guard Congress), 10 06 1967Google Scholar, in SCMM, No. 640 (13 01 1969), pp. 6–7).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Klein, Donald W., “A Question of Leadership: Problems of Mobility, Control, and Policy-making in China,” Current Scene, Vol. V. No. 7 (30 04 1967), p. 6.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid.