ABSTRACT
The system of political control over the Chinese army, instituted with the establishment of the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1931, had been effective only to a certain extent in bringing the gun under the command of the Party. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, senior provincial or regional Party bureau Secretaries concurrently served as the First Political Commissars in the Military Regions or Provincial Military Districts. This, in effect, ensured firm Party control over the local PLA units and was tantamount to civilian supervision over the military. The very idea of the substitution of the Party by the military as the principal agent of communism was antithetical to both Marxist precepts and Maoist military thinking. The Cultural Revolution had the effect of considerably loosening, if not altogether obiliterating, the control exercised by the Party hierarchy over the regional military leaders.
