ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature on factions and raise some questions about how the concept can be usefully employed. Factions can be extended downward in “complex factions,” but because they are based on the relations between different individuals at different levels in the system, control between the top and bottom is attenuated. The relevance of factions seems to vary from period to period, with factions being least relevant in the 1950s and early 1960s when Mao dominated the system, most relevant during the Cultural Revolution, and significant as expressions of a rapidly changing system in the 1980s. If faction influences promotion, as many people contend, then we need to keep in mind that the cadre system itself is a product of Leninist organization, not factionalism. The tension between factionalism and Leninism, particularly in the post-Deng context, is an obvious feature of contemporary politics in need of exploration.
