Overview of the meeting

The following five books, published in 2024 and 2025, were discussed at the “Great Dissection of the Chinese Communist Party”:

What is clear at a glance is the virtually total coverage of the century-long history of Chinese Communism – from the history of the early years of the CCP through the Communist-Nationalist civil war era, the early years after the founding of the People’s Republic, the implementation of the Great Leap Forward policy, the Cultural Revolution, until the contemporary Xi Jinping regime. Just by gathering these books written over the course of these two years (2024–2025), works based on cutting-edge, advanced research methods, one can gain a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the history of the CCP. This demonstrates the depth of contemporary China studies within the Japanese academic community. To be sure, four years earlier, in 2021, books surveying the 100-year history of the CCP were published in Japan, just as they were in the West, and they were well received. Two such works were Chūgoku Kyōsantō, sono hyakunen 中国共産党、その百年 (The Chinese Communist Party, 100 years) (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, June 2021) by myself, and Chūgoku Kyōsantō no rekishi 中国共産党の歴史 (History of the Chinese Communist Party) (Tokyo: Keiō University Press, July 2021) by Takahashi Nobuo, who brought together his views over his long career concerning the origins of the Cultural Revolution. At the Research Center for Modern and Contemporary China of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at Kyoto University, these two books were taken up on two occasions, and joint review sessions were held twice in Kyoto – the first was the Center’s independently organized “East–West Joint Book Review: 100 Years of the Chinese Communist Party” in November 2021, and the second was the “Book Review on the 100-Year History of the Chinese Communist Party” in March 2023, which was co-hosted by the University of Tokyo’s Global China Research Hub. This review meeting may be considered as an extension of those earlier efforts. The pamphlet for our review session on this occasion describes the aim of our meeting as follows:

Over the years 2024–2025, exceptionally fine studies of the CCP and its history have been published one after the next. The works by Eda Kenji describing images of the Party in its infancy and its growth as the ebb and flow of “democracy,” by Mishina Hidenori pointing out the gaps between the factors leading to victory that the Communist Party itself cited and historical reality, by Zhou Jun 周俊 approaching the essence of secrecy via the lens of “information,” by Takahashi Nobuo explaining the path to the Cultural Revolution by a Party on the verge of dissolution and dysfunction, and by Suzuki Takashi 鈴木隆 tracing the pathway to power of supreme leader Xi Jinping who has been dubbed the contemporary Mao Zedong – all these fine studies demonstrate a cutting-edge level of research on the CCP. Nowadays, without this immense political party, it is impossible to discuss the future of East Asia, let alone Japan. Encompassing a membership nearing 100 million, the CCP rules a Chinese population of 1.4 billion. How did this huge political party, which has existed for 100 years and still holds numerous mysteries, become what it is today, and what does the future hold in store? What sort of man is its leader, General-Secretary Xi Jinping? Making use of the latest research presented in the five books to be discussed at this session, we shall exchange evaluations by specialists and delve deeply into analyses of this massive political party.

When publicity began appearing in late May, via the website and assorted mailing lists, there were numerous responses and applications to participate. In August, the number of those registered surpassed fifty, and applications for online auditors reached roughly 200 by the time of the event itself on September 27. Several of the books to be discussed were honored with academic awards, and that likely contributed to the high level of attention paid to the session. The format of the joint review session was based on inviting two or three reviewers for each book. The authors of the books were asked to contribute their own assessments of other works, thus joining in the “dissection” process. Although they came from different scholarly eras, each was an expert on the history of the CCP. There was no doubt that their insights would be valuable, for it would have been far too wasteful to invite them merely to hear commentary on their own works. Thankfully, all five authors were kind enough to travel to Kyoto despite the lingering summer heat and willingly agreed to review the books assigned to them.

Below is a table indicating the correspondence between the five books and reviewers assigned to each of them (each reviewer had twenty minutes, while the author had fifteen minutes to reply):

On this occasion, the reviewers – who, keeping alive the metaphor of a dissection, would correspond to the surgeons – were, like the authors, specialists who primarily research the history of the CCP. I planned and directed this meeting, selecting reviewers and the books for which they were responsible. Among those in attendance, Tanigawa, Maruta, and Zhou are also co-investigators on a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Category B, “Basic Research Toward the Reconstruction of Historical Materials of the Chinese Communist Party”), for which I serve as the principal investigator, and this subsidy was used to fund the organization and operation of our session. The authors of the five books and the reviewers taken together constituted a lineup that broadly encompassed the main scholars working on CCP history in Japan. As such, it was under this arrangement that the review session was held.

Summary and characteristics of each volume

1. Eda is the oldest of the five authors. He is a left-leaning scholar who has, over the course of many years – at Kyōto Sangyō University, Nihon University, and Kyoto University – accumulated studies of the early CCP leaders and the labor movement. His book, Chūgoku kakumei ron ni okeru minshushugi to shakaishugi, comprises his research from his teaching years. It provides a careful analysis of how the ideas of early CCP leaders like Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 and Qu Qiubai 瞿秋白 were initially shaped by the upheavals following the New Culture Movement but were later gradually – and then dramatically – distorted within the CCP under Comintern leadership. Over time, doctrines alien to original socialist ideas – such as absolute obedience and self-criticism – took hold within the movement and ultimately stifled democracy. While early members understood that, to go beyond bourgeois democracy and realize a more “universal democracy,” a temporary proletarian dictatorship was both unavoidable and necessary, during the era of Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai, the aim was still to pursue a “democratic” style of governance within the Party. In the early party leadership, there were instances and space to challenge the decisions of the CCP’s Central Committee and to call for further discussion. Such voices, however, were not only silenced, but later, when history was rewritten during the Mao Zedong era, the lines between good and evil, between black and white, were reversed. This is the essence of Eda’s study.

For these reasons, reading the latter half of this book may be somewhat depressing. As revolutionary activities expanded into remote rural villages, democratic procedures were simplified, and even ignored, under the pretext of ensuring the Party’s survival. Those who opposed the Central Committee’s policies or the Party line found it difficult not only to express their differing opinions but even to continue holding them. Eda attributes the reasons for this to factors such as the influence from rural areas where the activities were taking place, the spread of Soviet-style writings brought in by those who studied in the Soviet Union and assumed the airs of Bolsheviks, and the overall conflict with the Nationalist Party. In short, then, the fervent belief in “democracy” of the early Communist Party leaders could never be realized on the basis of the Soviet-style (namely, Stalinist) Communist ideology. He concludes that a firm establishment of “democracy” under the CCP of Mao Zedong, cultivated in the powerful magnetic field of indigenous political culture and values, was that much more difficult.

Regarding the content and argument of Eda’s book, several reviewers commented that “the socialist system was supposed to achieve a higher form of democracy,” but due to forces that distorted it, it not only failed to achieve democracy but instead gave rise to a decidedly undemocratic and oppressive system. They argue that pursuing a discussion in the direction of “such and such should have been the case” is, in a word, “like counting the age of a dead child.” Furthermore, in response to the notion that the Party under the leadership following Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai was an organization of ironclad discipline, it has been pointed out that there were instances of dissent, such as criticism against the Party Central Committee by Li Tiefu 李鐵夫, a Hebei Provincial Committee official (in 1934), opposition to the “purge” (肅清) of the Third Army Group of the Red Army (紅三軍團) by Huang Kecheng 黄克誠, and the pursuit of internal party democracy by the generation that joined the Party during the December 9^th 1935 Movement. Thus, it may not simply be a story of the early leaders clinging to democracy and then its disappearance from the 1930s.

2. Mishina’s book Chūgoku kakumei no hōhō asks the question: “After the conclusion of World War II, how was the CCP able to defeat the Guomindang in the second civil war and achieve the founding of the PRC?” He answers this question directly in a massive volume exceeding 500 pages. Through land reform, the CCP gained the support of the peasantry, many of whom joined the army to protect the fruits of their labor, and defeated the Kuomintang. While this is the most basic outline of the Chinese revolution led by the CCP, was this really the case? Scholars around the world who have studied the history of the CCP, it is safe to say, have all more or less been trying to answer this question. The reasons, causes, and mechanisms by which this book arrives are astounding. That is, the image of rural China embraced by the CCP – the one acknowledged and formulated by Mao Zedong – lacked a foundation and was detached from reality. Yet rural policies based on this image were forced through, resulting in a widening gap between policy ideals and reality. This gap, he argues, significantly enhanced the power of the Communist Party’s mobilization and control.

This is, indeed, a dreadful paradox, the author claims. The judgment that in rural China, landlords and wealthy farmers owned 80% of the land, while the poor peasants who made up the majority of the population owned only a small amount of land and were exploited by landlords, originated with Mao Zedong. It was a conception of rural villages based on a limited investigation that Mao carried out in certain areas of South China. Neither was it applicable to all of China nor, in particular, did it bear the least resemblance to the rural area of North China that the CCP had established as its base during the civil war. While North China did, of course, have class distinctions, it was not a society with sharp class conflict between landlords and tenant farmers. In spite of this fact, as the book argues, the CCP introduced a framework of conflict and skillfully exploited the antipathy for wealthy and socially influential figures – fostered during the Anti-Japanese War (in the form of liquidating collaborators) – turning North China into a battleground. Violence was condoned, and in order to deflect the ever-present threat of struggle that could be directed at them at any moment – or to divert it toward others – people became frenzied in a competition for loyalty to the Communist Party’s rapidly shifting policies. At first glance, this hypothesis may strike one as difficult to believe, but it was born of the author’s meticulous reading of articles in the Communist Party–affiliated wartime newspaper Jin-Cha-Ji Daily (晉察冀日報) during the civil war, and he demonstrates his argument on the basis of an enormous amount of cross-checking between those articles and real-world events.

Reviewers of Mishina’s work prefaced their views by saying that they cannot fully agree with the interpretation that the Communist Party’s governing capacity actually increased because unrealistic policies were forcibly executed without correcting its “misunderstanding of rural conditions.” However, they went on to say that the trends revealed through extensive case analyses certainly do offer us a glimpse into rural characteristics that are worth paying attention to. Similarly, they suggest that Mishina may have overly emphasized the extent of Mao’s authority within the Party. In addition, concerning the gap within Communist movements between the imagined model of rural society and the reality of rural areas, it was suggested that this issue was not unique to China. Inasmuch as it may also apply to other countries and regions where Communist Parties gained power after the war, one opinion proposed that comparative analysis with fields such as Japanese history and Southeast Asian history would be desirable. Also, since the argument that victory in the revolution was achieved by virtue of the CCP’s misperceptions in all likelihood would not be accepted in contemporary China, the reviewer proposed that research concerning the victory of the revolution should strive to achieve some degree of mutual understanding and scholarly exchange between Japan and China.

3. Zhou’s volume Chūgoku Kyōsantō no shinkeikei may well be considered the most noteworthy book at this review meeting. It is an innovative study that gets to the core of Party management, asking how various kinds of information are transmitted and to what extent central leaders obtain accurate information in the midst of the immense Party organization, with the Central Committee (the leadership) at its apex. The book begins by examining the “excessive secrecy” that undergirds the information system of the CCP. It then comprehensively analyzes how (and to what extent) the Party obtained information from policy implementation and from grassroots society throughout the country, successfully bringing to light its characteristics and problem areas. Especially impressive are the concrete depictions of the clandestine network of communications as a tangible entity, as well as the substantive and detailed descriptions of the four information channels – the bureaucratic reporting system, “internal reference” reports, the petition system, and local inspections carried out by central leaders. Furthermore, it makes the significant point that these information-gathering systems, established in the 1950s, are still in operation today. Finally, the book examines issues related to the recipient of information – namely, Mao Zedong’s processing of information – and it arrives at the following conclusion: Despite facing various problems, while the CCP’s information system has delivered accurate information, including negative content, to the central leadership, Zhou argues that the cognitive biases of Mao Zedong and some members of the central leadership hindered the effective use of information, leading to distorted policy decisions.

Although it deals with the issue of information – a topic extremely important yet long neglected – the author analyzes and discusses it at an exceptionally high level. He began working on the history of the CCP in graduate school (at Waseda University), which shows the extraordinary nature of his dedication to this topic. This book is one of the results of his efforts to collect hard-to-obtain documents concerning party history. In April of this year (2026), he will be moving from Kōbe University to the Institute for Research in the Humanities at Kyoto University.

On the whole, the commentators at the review session had high praise for Zhou’s book – indeed, one reviewer even likened it to the discovery of a secret passage leading to the central chamber of a massive pyramid. By the same token, several suggestions were also offered as words of encouragement for the still youthful author. For example, information systems should not simply be viewed as a one-way flow of information from the outside world into the Party and then to the Central Committee of the Party, but information might also flow from the Central Committee to the outside world. Also, Zhou’s work is almost entirely limited to the Mao era, and lacks discussion connecting it to the current state of affairs. It may also be noted that Zhou’s book was the recipient of the twenty-fourth “Asia-Pacific Research Prize.”

4. Following a comprehensive history of the CCP in 2021 on the centenary of the Party, this new volume by Takahashi is a collection of his research on the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong, published to coincide with his retirement from Keiō University. After completing his previous work in 2021, Takahashi reportedly dedicated almost all his time to writing this book. As its title Kōsō naki kakumei suggests, it is an ambitious book that attempts to demonstrate, based on a wealth of documentary evidence, that Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution without any clear “plan” in mind. What does he mean by having no “plan?” Although it is somewhat abstract and puzzling, the author summarizes his argument as follows. “A certain structure” comprised of several factors drove Mao and other leaders to the brink of the Cultural Revolution, and ultimately, through chance and the support of “cultural and political speculators,” Mao (along with the other Party leaders) tumbled into the abyss of the Cultural Revolution. In other words, Takahashi argues that this “structure” led Mao and other leaders “to the Cultural Revolution, whether they intended it or not.”

So, what exactly was this “structure” that led the revolutionary giant Mao Zedong to an unintended abyss, and what was its aim? Takahashi implies that it was “class struggle.” He concludes that Mao Zedong learned from Stalin’s vision of socialism that social contradictions were reflected within the Party, and that the further socialist construction progressed, the greater the resistance of the bourgeoisie and the more intense the class struggle would become; class struggle was, then, at the very core of Mao’s vision, and his intense focus on it ultimately led to the Cultural Revolution.

Did they truly have no plan at all, and did circumstances simply drive them to the Cultural Revolution? Before delving into such controversial arguments, readers will likely be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information provided by the author. The lack of readily available documents illustrating the policy-making process since the founding of the PRC is nothing new, but this book overcomes this difficulty to a considerable extent by making use to the fullest extent of a collection of state documents that appear to have leaked from within the CCP, namely the Zhonggong zhongyao lishi wenxian ziliao huibian 中共重要历史文献资料汇编 (Compilation of important historical documents and materials of the Chinese Communist Party). At present, this is the first study of its kind to provide new facts using this compilation, and it is difficult to imagine any comparable research emerging anytime soon. Furthermore, regarding the “structure” that pushed Mao Zedong and the central CCP leadership to the brink of the Cultural Revolution – namely, the Stalinist image of socialism, which might be described as a conceptual obsession – we should note that the view that Mao was actually a staunch believer in Stalinism up to a certain point in time is fairly widely shared among Japanese scholars of the history of the CCP, including Tanigawa Shin’ichi, one of the reviewers in this dissection review session.

5. Finally, Suzuki’s voluminous work Shū Kinpei kenkyū (running to more than 600 pages) vividly follows the career of Xi Jinping, the current head of the Party-State, on the basis of an overwhelming collection of documents. Since assuming the office of General Secretary of the Party, the pressure exerted on historical studies and humanities in general, including the history of the CCP and Chinese history itself, has been striking and has troubled researchers both inside and outside the country. Why is it that everything can change so remarkably with the emergence of a single leader?

The most distinctive feature of Suzuki’s book is that it explains how this man (Xi), who is neither mediocre nor especially exceptional, rose to the status of Party leader. Suzuki does this by comparing Xi’s rise with an analysis of the Party’s ranks and organizational structures at each stage of his career. In other words, he explains Xi’s rise from the perspectives of both his personality and the Party’s mechanisms. In terms of timing, what is particularly impressive is that Suzuki unearthed and thoroughly read through documents from Xi’s younger days, when he worked in local postings, especially before he became active in central politics. At the same time, this volume provides a remarkably concrete and reliable account of various meetings and group activities held at all levels of the Party organization, such as the “Democratic Life Meetings” 民主生活会 that he organized to oust his political rival, Zhou Yongkang 周永康, while making full use of trustworthy source materials.

Besides the work’s historiographical approach based on truly meticulous and thorough analysis of documents and statistical data, it offers insightful suggestions on issues concerning Japan’s foreign and security policy, such as Xi Jinping’s perception of and interest in the Taiwan issue, and the extent to which it poses a risk of conflict. The following sentence, in particular, may send chills down the reader’s spine: “while it is unclear ‘when and how’, as long as Xi Jinping remains at his post as the supreme leader, the probability is high that he will take ‘military action to change the present situation’ regarding territory and sovereignty at some point” (p. 453). As Suzuki is able to discuss Xi’s understanding of history by tracing it back to his youth, even this prediction impresses the reader with a sense of reality. It should be noted that this book has already received several academic prizes (including the thirty-seventh Asia-Pacific Grand Prize) for combining a perspective on the past with a vision for the future.