1. Communist Party of China, Central Committee, Organization Department, Research Office and Organization Bureau (ed.), Dang de zuzhi gongzuo wenda (Questions and Answers on Party Organizational Work) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983).Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook. In English translation see my selections of handbook material on cadre recruitment and management in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1984).Google Scholar The selections include material on which this article is based as well as material on cadre recruitment credentials and management of retired cadres. The editor's introduction to the selections compares the information available in the 1983 handbook with that available in previous handbook editions and similar publications.

2. The Central Organization Department did not include this kind of information in its two earlier versions of the handbook, which contain but a short chapter each on cadre work. Roughly half of the 1983 handbook concerns cadre management; this at least partially explains why it is published as a first edition, instead of a newly revised version. See Communist Party of China, Central Committee, Organization Department, Research Office (ed.), Dang de zuzhi gongzuo wenda (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1959)Google Scholar; and Communist Party of China, Central Committee, Organization Department, Research Office (ed.), Dang de zuzhi gongzuo wenda, 2d ed. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1965).Google Scholar The 1959 edition is translated into English in U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, No. 7273 (1961), pp. 1–156.Google Scholar

3. Barnett, A. Doak, Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, with a contribution by Vogel, Ezra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 20.Google Scholar

4. I scanned the Renmin ribao (People's Daily) and Guangming ribao (Guangming Daily), 1980–1982Google Scholar (representing the last three years of Song Renqiong's four-year leadership of the Central Organization Department) for articles on cadre management in general and specific accounts of cadre appointments, promotions, transfers and removals. Among literally hundreds of articles, I found only 56 which specified very precisely agents and their roles in cadre management; these specific accounts both corroborated and supplemented information in the 1983 handbook.

5. Harry Harding correctly focuses on centralization of authority to approve appointments as a critical formal indicator of centralization in cadre management; however, the contents of the 1983 handbook allow us to refine that measure. See his Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949–1976 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981), p. 76.Google Scholar

6. See Xiaoping, Deng, “Dang de guojia lingdao zhidu de gaige” (“On the reform of the system of Party and state leadership”), in Deng Xiaoping wenxuan, 1975–1982 (Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, 1975–1982) (Heilongjiang: Renmin chubanshe, 1983), pp. 286, 288.Google Scholar This speech of 18 August 1980 is available in English translation in two parts; see Beijing Review, Vol. 26. Nos. 40, 41 (1938), pp. 14–22, 18–22.Google Scholar See also Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1984), pp. 302–325.Google Scholar

7. See Harding, , Organizing China, pp. 72–78.Google Scholar

8. The Civil Service ranks are listed by office in U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Foreign Demographic Analysis Division, Administrative and Technical Manpower in the People's Republic of China, by Emerson, John Philip, International Population Reports Series P-95, No. 72 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1973), pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

9. “Guowuyuan renshiju zuzhi jianze” (“Organic regulation of the State Council Personnel Bureau”), 1955Google Scholar, c. 1, in Zhonghua renmin gongheguo fagui huibian (Collected Laws and Regulations of the People's Republic of China), Vol. 2 (Beijing, 1956), p. 103.Google Scholar

10. See Xiaoping, Deng, “Report on the Revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” in Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Vol. 1: Documents (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), pp. 221–22.Google Scholar

11. This paragraph is based on Barnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China.Google Scholar

12. On this issue, see also Oksenberg, Michel, “The institutionalization of the Chinese Communist Revolution: the ladder of success on the eve of the Cultural Revolution,” The China Quarterly, No. 36 (1968), pp. 61–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. The Chinese press began referring to Guo Yufeng as the “responsible person” of the Central Organization Department soon after it was re-activated; he was identified as its head in 1975.

14. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 282–83Google Scholar; and “Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,” Peking Review, Vol. 21, No. 52 (1978), p. 14.Google Scholar

15. Reference is made to the “grave damage” of organizational work by Kang in the Cultural Revolution in Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 11.Google Scholar

16. For an interesting analysis of leadership shuffles immediately after the arrest of the “gang of four,” see Wayne, Earl A., “The politics of restaffing China's provinces, 1976–1977,” Contemporary China, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1978), pp. 116–65.Google Scholar

17. Renqiong, Song, “Renzhen jiejue zuzhi gongzuo mianlin de xin keti” (“Conscientiously resolve new problems in organizational work”), Hongqi, No. 16 (1980), p. 2.Google Scholar

18. Xiaoping, Deng, “Reform of the system of Party and state leadership,” pp. 286, 288.Google Scholar

19. “Anzhao geminghua nianqinghua zhishihua zhuanyehua de fangzhen jianshe hao ganbu duiwu” (“Build a cadre contingent according to the guidelines of a revolutionary, younger, more knowledgeable and more professional corps”), Renmin ribao, 2 10 1982, p. 2.Google Scholar

20. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 88.Google Scholar

21. Local Party committees, for example, can meet as infrequently as once annually. Constitution of the Communist Party of China, 1982, c. 4, art. 26.

22. In enterprises, however, primary Party committees do have authority over “middlelevel cadres.” Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 92.Google Scholar

23. Constitution of the Communist Party of China, 1982, c. 5, art. 33. Even in enterprises, the leading role of the primary Party committee is being redefined. See Qi, Jin, “Reforming enterprise leadership system,” Beijing Review, Vol. 27, No 25 (1984), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

24. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 180–81, 182.Google Scholar

25. Ibid. p. 115. The discussion of the appointment and removal of a provincial department (ting) head makes it quite clear that the Party committee for organs directly under the province plays no role; it is neither the Party committee “at the same level” nor that “at a higher level” referred to in the handbook. From the context, there can be no doubt that the reference is to two territorially based Party committees.

26. Ibid. pp. 181–82.

27. Barnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, p. 24.Google Scholar

28. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 92.Google Scholar

29. Ibid. pp. 116–18. The involvement of the Party fraction in selecting cadres is also discussed in “Xuanba nianfu liqiang de jishu gugan ren dangwei shuji changzhang” (“Selection of ‘backbone’ technical workers in the prime of life for Party committee secretary and factory head”), Guangming ribao, 16 06 1980, p. 1.Google Scholar

30. Even the most rudimentary Party branch committee with only three members always assigns one member to organizational work. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 193.Google Scholar

31. From July 1978 to June 1983, presumably a critical period in organizational work, the Central Organization Department convened only three national conferences.

32. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

33. Ibid. p. 8 (emphasis added). For an example of the kind of instructions the Central Organization can issue to lower levels, see Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: China, 15 02 1983, pp. K18–19.Google Scholar

34. See Barnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, p. 152.Google Scholar

35. See, for example, the description of a county Party committee secretary's transfer to Shanyin county, Shanxi province in “Yanbei er qian duo zhong qing ganbu zou shang lingdao gangwei” (“More than two thousand Yanbei young and middle-aged cadres take up leading posts”), Renmin ribao, 17 08 1982, p. 4.Google Scholar

36. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 88.Google Scholar

37. Harasymiw, Bohdan, “Nomenklatura: The Soviet Communist Party's leadership recruitment system,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1969), pp. 496–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. In fact, the state structure has several kinds of personnel departments. Workers, technical and specialized cadres and civil servants are managed separately under the leadership of the Labour Bureau, the Science and Technology Commission and the Personnel Bureau respectively. Of these categories, this article deals with civil servants only.

39. This understanding is made explicit in a description of the personnel department's role in the selection of cadres for leadership, discussed at a national conference of personnel department heads. See “Jiji peiyang xuanba zhong qingnian ganbu dao ge ji lingdao gangwei shanglai” (“Enthusiastically cultivate and select young and middle-aged cadres to take up positions of leadership at all levels”), Guangming ribao, 9 06 1981, p. 1.Google Scholar

40. Burnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, p. 25.Google Scholar

41. “Yuncheng diqu xuanba yi pi youxiu zhong qingnian ganbu dao lingdao gangwei” (“Yuncheng prefecture selects a group of outstanding young and middle-aged cadres for leading posts”), Guangming ribao, 26 08 1982, p. 2.Google Scholar

42. In addition to Party and state leaders, leaders in state enterprises and institutions and important scientists, technical experts, professors, writers, artists, performers and athletes are listed on nomenklatura. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 93, 94.Google Scholar

43. Harasymiw, , “Nomenklatura” p. 494.Google Scholar

44. Interestingly, Franz Schurmann notes that the Chinese translate the Russian nomenklatura as bianzhi (a term usually used to refer to the authorized number of personnel in a unit). See Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 2d ed., enl. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 186, n. 7.Google Scholar Clearly though, the handbook's use of the term zhiwu mingcheng biao corresponds to the use of the term nomenklatura in the Soviet literature and by Sovietologists. See Harasymiw, , “Nomenklatura,” p. 494Google Scholar; Hough, Jerry F., The Soviet Prefects: The Local Parly Organs in Industrial Decision-Making (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 115–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rigby, T. H., “The selection of leading personnel in the Soviet state and Communist Party,” Ph.D. diss, University of London (1954), p. 331.Google Scholar

45. Party fractions in state functional departments have zhiwu mingcheng biao listing main leaders in state enterprises and institutions under dual leadership (shuangchong lingdao). Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 116–18.Google Scholar

46. see fn. 44 supra.

47. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

48. Based on information in ibid. p. 115. Procedures differ slightly for the appointment of standing committee members of the Party commissions for discipline inspection, presidents of people's courts and chief procurators of people's procuratorates; before the Party committee submits an appointment proposal for these cadres, it obtains the agreement of the commission for discipline inspection or Party organization of the court or procuratorate respectively) at the next higher level.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid. p. 118.

51. Ibid. pp. 118–19.

52. In state enterprises and institutions under dual leadership, the relationship is somewhat different. See ibid. pp. 116–18.

53. “Zhang Shigong zhudong shenqing lixiu dedao dang zhongyang pizhun” (“Zhang Shigong takes the initiative to request retirement and obtains approval from the Party Central Committee”), Guangming ribao, 2 07 1980, p. 2.Google Scholar For an account of a similar case, see “Huangbei xian kewei zhuren Yao Chenfeng shenqing dang peijiao” (“Huangbei county science commission director Yao Chenfeng requests a supporting role”), Guangming ribao, 16 07 1980, p. 2.Google Scholar

54. Teng, He, “Hebei de nongcun gaige” (“Hebei's agricultural reform”), Zhengming, No. 74 (1983), pp. 20–22.Google Scholar

55. See the Commentator article, “Yao rang zhuanye ganbu zai qi wei neng mou qi zheng” (“Allow professional cadres to play the role which accords with their post”), Renmin ribao, 1 11 1981, p. 3.Google Scholar

56. “Pochu jiu de guannian he kuangkuang shuli xin de yong ren guandian” (“Eradicate the old notions and conventions, establish a new view of personnel placement”), Guangming ribao, 27 06 1980, p. 1.Google Scholar The Jilin Provincial Party Committee later used a similar process of negotiation to “strengthen” the leading group of Siping prefecture; see “Jilin xuanba sanshi ming zhongnian ganbu danren di xian zhuyao lingdao zhiwu” (“Jilin selects 30 middle-aged cadres to take up leading posts at the prefectural and county levels”), Renmin ribao, 5 02 1982, p. 1.Google Scholar

57. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 92.Google Scholar

58. Song Renqiong gave this figure for the number of cadres above the level of deputy county head and deputy section head. Xinhua News Agency, 23 02 1983, p. 4.Google Scholar

59. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 92.Google Scholar

60. I asked several residents of the People's Republic about rank equivalents for leading cadres. Their conception, based on knowledge of specific leadership transfers, did not differ from that obtained by using a listing of Civil Service salary ranks. For a current listing of these ranks by office, see Zhonggong nianbao (Yearbook on Chinese Communism) (Taibei, 1978), p. 16.Google Scholar This listing diners only slightly from that for 1955 and 1956 in U.S. Department of Commerce, Administrative and Technical Manpower in the People's Republic of China, pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

61. See fn. 25 supra.

62. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 103.Google Scholar

63. These assumptions are stated in the section on institutional framework supra.

64. The reserve list system is not new. Carl E. Walter notes that reserve lists were established in the banking system in 1954. See his “Party-state relations in the People's Republic of China: the role of the People's Bank and the local Party in economic management,” Ph.D. diss, Stanford University (1981), p. 168.Google Scholar

65. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 82–84.Google Scholar

66. Education standards for leading cadres have been formulated. The handbook states that leading cadres under 40 years of age and lacking the level of education of a junior secondary school graduate must attain this level within two to three years; those who have attained this level but lack professional or technical knowledge must attain the level of technical secondary school (zhongzhuan) or tertiary-level technical institute (dazhuan) graduate within three to five years; and all cadres recruited to leading positions in the future must have obtained the level of education of a senior secondary school or technical secondary school graduate. Ibid. pp. 42–43. As well, newly recruited main leading Party and state cadres at the provincial and prefectural levels must undergo training at the Central Party School; those at the county level must undergo training at a provincial-level Party school; and those at the commune level must be trained at a prefectural- or county-level Party school. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: China, 7 03 1983, K10–12.Google Scholar

67. See, for example, “Xingang chuan chang ganbu houbei renxuan daixing lingdao zhiquan” (“Xingang boat factory cadre reserves are selected to function in a leadership capacity”), Renmin ribao, 23 11 1982, p. 1.Google Scholar

68. “Genchu paixing baozheng gaige” (“Eradicate factionalism, guarantee reforms”), Renmin ribao, 21 03 1983, p. 3.Google Scholar

69. According to Barnett's informants, the organization department maintains only the dossiers of Party member cadres, while those of non-Party members are maintained by the personnel department. The 1983 handbook does not make this distinction. Barnett, Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, p. 49.Google Scholar

70. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 280–81.Google Scholar

71. Ibid. pp. 277–78, 279.

72. Ibid. pp. 277–78.

73. This is part of the general concern about “scientific management” of documentary materials. A national conference on dossier management was convened in August 1979 and a basic text on dossier management was revised in September of the same year. See Zhaowu, Chen (ed.), Dang'an guanlixue (Dossier Management), 2d ed. (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1980).Google Scholar

74. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 282.Google Scholar

75. Ibid. pp. 282–83.

76. Ibid. pp. 283–84. For an idea of what some of these standardized forms include, see extracts of Chunqiao, Zhang's lüli biao, jianli biaoGoogle Scholar and Party Congress Representative Registration Form in Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian (Central Committee document), 1977, No. 10Google Scholar, in Zhonggong yanjiu, Vol. 14, No. 7 (1980), pp. 164–74 passim.Google Scholar

77. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 99.Google Scholar

78. Barnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China, p. 50.Google Scholar

79. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 98.Google Scholar

80. Ibid.

81. Constitution of the Communist Party of China, 1982, c. 6, art. 35.Google Scholar

82. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, pp. 93, 97.Google Scholar

83. Ibid. pp. 96–97.

84. Ibid. p. 151.

85. Ibid. p. 152.

86. Ibid. pp. 151–52.

87. Ibid. pp. 93, 153, 158.

88. Ibid. pp. 114 (emphasis added).

89. Ibid. p. 285.

90. Ibid. p. 106.

91. Ibid. pp. 90–91.

92. “Rizhao xian dapo lao kuangkuang dadan xuan xian ren neng” (“Rizhao county breaks with old conventions, boldly selects the virtuous and appoints the able”), Guangming ribao, 28 07 1980, p. 1.Google Scholar

93. Central Organization Department, 1983 Handbook, p. 113–14.Google Scholar

94. Ibid. p. 114.

95. Ibid.

96. See “Zong gongchengshi Liu Dachun ren Xi'an shi kewei zhuren” (“Chief engineer Liu Dachun is appointed Xi'an Science Commission Director”), Guangming ribao, 9 07 1980, p. 1Google Scholar; “Liu Lanbo li jian Li Peng xin buzhang tiao qi zhong dan” (“Liu Lanbo recommends Li Peng, new minister takes up heavy burden”), Renmin ribao, 23 08 1981, p. 1Google Scholar; and “Lao tongzhi tuixuan youxiu zhongnian ganbu ren shiwei shuji” (“Old comrade chooses an outstanding middle-aged cadre for municipality Party committee secretary”), Renmin ribao, 21 10 1981, p. 3.Google Scholar

97. “Magang yi pi youxiu zhong qingnian ganbu zou shang lingdao gangwei” (“Group of outstanding young and middle-aged cadres take up leading posts at Ma Steel”), Renmin ribao, 25 10 1982, p. 4 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

98. Xiaoping, Deng, “Reform of the system of Party and state leadership,” p. 283.Google Scholar

99. Ibid. p. 284. In 1976 Deng's staircase theory (taijielun) contradicted the prevailing effort to replace veteran cadres with younger, less-experienced cadres who were being promoted several steps at a time to important leading posts.

100. As of May 1984, Wang heads the Central Committee General Office. Deng appears not to consider Wang's promotion an example of the “helicopter-style” promotion he criticized in 1976 and again in 1980 in ibid. See his reference to Wang, in “Lao ganbu di yi wei de renwu shi xuanba zhong qingnian ganbu” (“The primary task of veteran cadres is to select young and middle-aged cadres”), in Selected works of Deng Xiaoping, p. 341Google Scholar; and “Zai junwei zuotanhui shang de jianghua” (“Talk at a symposium of the Military Commission”), in ibid. p. 366. These speeches were made on 2 July 1981 and 4 July 1982 respectively.

101. “Zhua lingdao banzi tiaozheng baozheng gaige kaifang shunli jinxing” (“Grasp adjustment of leading groups, ensure reforms and ‘open door’ can be carried out smoothly”), Renmin ribao, 13 09 1984, pp. 1, 4.Google Scholar

102. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: China, 25 07 1984, p. K1.Google Scholar, citing Beijing Xinhua Domestic, 19 07 1984.Google Scholar