ABSTRACT
The reconstruction of the Chinese Communist Party after the 9th Congress became a battleground for political control among the central and regional arms of the military, the Cultural Revolution radicals and the rehabilitated cadres, with alliances continually coalescing and shifting. In Zhejiang, the new leaders of the Zhejiang Provincial Revolutionary Committee were overwhelmingly from a military background and from military units directly answerable and loyal to their central military patron, Lin Biao. Policy issues were also involved in the elite conflict. After the 9th Congress a militarization of society had occurred through the mass mobilization of labor for rural developmental projects and the diversion of huge amounts of investment funds to the interior of the country for defence purposes. The salient characteristics of the Party committees elected at the congresses were the consolidation of military power in the localities, the return to office of purged civilian officials and the continuing decline in the influence of mass organization representatives.
