ABSTRACT
The meeting of the civil-military elites in the new political environment in Beijing brought about tensions and conflicts. Gao arid Rao evidently acquired impressive support from the regional military leaders in their attempt to reorganize the party leadership, their targets being the top civilian party and state leaders. This was a typical example of the civil-military factional struggle in the party leadership. With the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese revolution entered a new phase of state building and economic reconstruction. The Gao-Rao incident occurred in the course of this structural change and power redistribution. It ended with the purge of two powerful political-military leaders who had tried to capture top-level party and state power during the transitional process. As an integral part of the party and state leadership, most of the military elites ultimately stood for the overall interests of the party regime.
