ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with three major areas of the Chinese communist system closely related to the Cultural Revolution: the factional disagreement among the top leaders within the party hierarchy, the party structure, and the cadre system. Many observers see this dispute as closely bound up with the crucial questions of bureaucratism of the party organization and the controversy over efficiency and professionalism versus the revolutionary mass-line approach. The chapter describes leadership in China in terms of style, control, decision-making, and upward mobility. These entries offer explanations on why and how a highly cohesive and united group of revolutionary leaders became bitter rivals, hurling epitaphs at the purged officials, such as "freaks," and "counterrevolutionary." Analysis of the party, its structure at the various levels, and the role of its cadre are also includes. The chapter examines theme of the function of bureaucratism and the nature of communism in China's modernizing process.
