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China Membership
In 1987 the CCP had 46 million members (4.3 percent of the
national population). To qualify as party members, applicants must
be at least eighteen years of age and must go through a one-year
probationary period. Emphasis is placed on the applicant's
technical and educational qualifications rather than on ideological
criteria. Members are expected, however, to be both
"red" and
"expert" (see Glossary),
and the need to make the party apparatus
more responsive to the demands and wishes of the masses of the
people is stressed.
A major corollary of the self-improvement and self-cleansing
activities is an ongoing campaign to weed out corrupt and dishonest
party officials from all levels of the party organizations. Ideally
this is accomplished by persuasion, but if necessary by punishment.
The party's seriousness concerning this campaign was underlined
with its September 1986 expulsion of the governor and party deputy
secretary of Jiangxi Province for "violations of law and
discipline" and "unhealthy tendencies" that purportedly included
corruption, moral degeneration, abuse of official power,
intercession in favor of relatives and friends, leaking of secret
information, and many other charges.
Significantly, the party also experimented with the direct
election of its party committee members. In late 1984 Hu Yaobang
prescribed election procedures for direct election under a limited
franchise of the Shaanxi Province party secretary. This election
process included involvement of a large number of cadres down to
the county level, open nominations, and a series of runoff
elections, reportedly with no interference from either the central
party Secretariat or the provincial party committee. In addition,
party election procedures required that the number of candidates be
greater than the number of persons to be elected.
In 1987 efforts to upgrade organizational effectiveness, unity,
and discipline were proceeding in accordance with a document
adopted in September 1986 by the Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth
Central Committee. The "Resolution of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China on the Guiding Principles for Building a
Socialist Society with an Advanced Culture and Ideology" shifted
attention away from the controversial issue of "unhealthy
tendencies" in the party to focus on the need for academic freedom,
mass supervision of the party, and other aspects of political
reform. The stated goal was to build a truly communist society, but
one defined authoritatively as "socialism with Chinese
characteristics." Party energies and discipline were to be directed
at achieving this goal and removing all obstructions and
obstructionists. Thus, while earlier the party had identified
corruption as a prime target, this concern was replaced with
attention to "indigenous feudal tendencies" that might hinder
success in economic modernization
(see The Third Wave of Reform, Beginning in 1986
, ch. 11). The plenum endorsed the party's
commitment to political reform and the extension of "socialist
democracy and improving the socialist legal system, all for the
purpose of facilitating socialist modernization."
Data as of July 1987
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