ABSTRACT
The communist regime in China was the child of a political-military marriage. The party started out as a political movement, and successfully completed the initial phase of its development by cooperating with the nationalist party. In many respects, the party-army relationship during the Chinese revolution paralleled the personal relationship between Mao Zedong and his longtime comrade-in-arms, Lin Biao. The Mao-Lin collaboration reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution, when the two men shared a common interest in undermining the Liu-Deng dominance of the party leadership. The main strategy Mao adopted in fighting the military group was to form an alliance with the civilian members of the party leadership who had long been apprehensive of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) increasing power. The effectiveness of the party-army dualism also was shown by the fact that it helped prevent the PLA from taking a united stand in support of the Lin faction.
