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Organisation and (Lack of) Democracy in the Chinese Communist Party: A Critical Reading of the Successive Iterations of the Party Constitution

Jean-Pierre Cabestan

Introduction

According to the Constitution (zhangcheng 章程) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), all decisions are democratically made whatever their nature. Cadres and leaders are elected and other decisions, such as policies or regulations, are adopted on the basis of a vote following extensive consultation with party members and party grassroots organisations. Likewise, China’s four successive state constitutions (xianfa 宪法) at first glance look very democratic, claiming to protect all fundamental political rights and to base political appointments and decisions on the principle of election and majority votes (Diamant 2022). These procedures were confirmed in December 2021 in a white paper that presented China’s democracy as a ‘whole-process people’s democracy’ (quanguocheng renmin minzhu 全过程人民民主).¹ But does the CCP operate on the basis of democratic principles?

Actually, as with other ruling Communist parties, the CCP is a highly top-down and secretive organisation. Secrecy, opacity and the need to keep party secrets are structural, being closely intertwined with ‘democratic centralism’ (minzhu jizhongzhi 民主集中制), a principle introduced by Vladimir Lenin in the Bolshevik Party at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In order to move away from this entrenched opacity and verticality, former CCP secretary-general Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) attempted in 2007–09 to enhance ‘intra-party democracy’ (dangnei minzhu 党内民主). This was not the first time that the CCP had tried to instil more democracy, but it was the most ambitious. After Xi Jinping (习近平) came to power in 2012, instead of intra-party democracy, his CCP has given priority to ‘consultative democracy’ (xieshang minzhu 协商民主), a new form of socialist democracy aimed at consulting more often with the society at large, while strengthening at the same time the leading role of the Party.

Since its foundation, the CCP has faced two major organisational contradictions: 1) between top-down leadership and intra-party democracy and 2) between the leading role of the Party and the principle of democracy (Cabestan 2019c). Neither Hu Jintao nor Xi Jinping has been able, or willing, to overcome these contradictions. The Party has adapted to the new economic and social environment that it created. It has also maintained its reliance on, and expanded, informal institutions that have introduced more flexibility in the actual operation of the CCP (Tsai 2006, 2007). But this is not the focus of this chapter, which rather explores the CCP’s formal rules. It attempts, in particular, to demonstrate that the CCP has remained strongly attached to its Leninist principles, because they have, in the author’s view, demonstrated their efficacy as the best tools to develop the economy, keep the society stable and under control, empower the nation, as well as protect the country and the Party from any unwelcomed external influence.

Yet, this reality raises questions about the CCP’s own definition of democracy and what the CCP means by democratic centralism or, since 1949, people’s democratic dictatorship and today’s whole-process people’s democracy? To fully understand these concepts and address the unsolvable contradictions mentioned above, the most appropriate method is to start by going back to the original documents. Among them, the successive party constitutions adopted by the CCP since its establishment in 1921 are some of the best indicators of these tensions. The first objective of this article, therefore, is to compare successive iterations of the CCP’s constitution over the last 100 years and analyse the changes related to organisation and democracy. But this is not enough. Going further, this work analyses the various attempts, especially Hu Jintao’s, to introduce more ‘intra-party democracy’: this is the second objective of this chapter. Finally, to comprehend why Xi Jinping overturned Hu’s reforms, this chapter attempts to explain why the CCP cannot reform and democratise as long as it remains a party-state and China remains a one-party system: this is the chapter’s final objective.

It should be noted that this chapter discusses China’s CCP constitution, not its state constitution. Some authors have tried to demonstrate the relationship between the two (Backer 2009; Jiang 2014). Since the Party leads the state and the people, there is an ‘organic unity’ between Party norms and state norms, even more so under Xi Jinping (Smith 2018). Both sets of norms demonstrate the CCP’s ‘power to proclaim and promulgate falsehood’ – or what Neil Diamant calls ‘useful bullshit’ (Diamant 2022, 193). Nonetheless, and contrary to what Diamant argues, they also legitimise the one-party system. However, the Party and state constitutions contain two very different sets of norms, with very different names in Chinese, leading to confusion, especially when their English translations are used. Thus, in this chapter, I focus on the former, not the latter.

The Successive Iterations of the CCP Constitution

There is a vast literature on the CCP and its history prior to and after 1949 (Brødsgaard 2020; Saich 2021; Saich and Hearst 2017). Nonetheless, save for a few exceptions (Brødsgaard and Chen 2018; Brødsgaard and Zheng 2004; Lam 2020; Li Jingtian 2011; Li Junru 2011; Saich 1996), most authors have not put much emphasis on the CCP Constitution, the rationale for its successive changes or the way it has been implemented. This chapter aims to help fill this gap in the literature.

The CCP Constitution includes the CCP’s basic ideology, major objectives and selected formal organisation rules. It does not tell us much about how the Party operates, how members are recruited, how leaders are appointed, how policies are adopted or how decisions are made. Its length and content have varied over the years. The first constitution, adopted at the Second National Congress of the CCP in 1922, included only 29 short articles; by contrast, the latest one, adopted at the Twentieth Congress in 2022, is much longer and more formalised, comprising a long introduction called a ‘general programme’, 11 chapters and 55 articles. It even defines the party’s emblem and flag (see below). A brief overview of successive CCP constitutions and the changes introduced over the years reveals much about the gradual establishment of institutions and adoption of concepts that the Party wants to prioritise and publicise. All the documents used in the following discussion, except the latest CCP Constitution adopted at the Twentieth Congress, can be found on the official CCP news website.²

The Party Constitutions before 1949

At the First National Congress of the CCP in July 1921, a party ‘programme’ (gangling 纲领) was adopted by two-thirds of the congress members (quanguo daibiao dahui 全国代表大会).³ At that time, the CCP comprised just 57 members. It joined the ‘Third International’ or Lenin’s Comintern (Communist International) created in 1919 and led by the Russian Communist Party. While it adopted the ‘Soviet management system’ (soviet means committee in Russian), neither the concept of democracy nor the notion of election was present in the document.⁴ Its objective was to establish a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ – a concept introduced by Marx to describe the political organisation of the socialist transition from capitalism to communism and later adopted by Lenin to justify the leading role of the Russian Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat. This notion would not be enshrined in the CCP Constitution, except during the Cultural Revolution (see below). However, the importance of keeping Party secrets was emphasised (point 6). Power was exercised by ‘executive committees’ (zhixing weiyuanhui 执行委员会), a structure borrowed from the Guomindang (GMD), both at the central and the local levels. Although recent reports about this congress refer to elections, including the election of Chen Duxiu (陈独秀) as secretary (shuji 书记), these bodies were chosen (xuan 选) rather than properly elected by Party members.⁵ The word ‘election’ appeared in 1922 in the first CCP Constitution – or, to be more accurate, in the ‘statutes’ (zhangcheng 章程) adopted at the Second National Congress.⁶ But, at the same time, this constitution gave much power to the Central Executive Committee in which five members and three alternate members were elected for just one year, a short term that would altogether disappear in 1927 when the Party had to hide or move to the countryside. The following congresses (the third and fourth, held in 1923 and 1925, respectively) kept empowering the Central Executive Committee without extending its term.⁷

It was only in 1927 that the CCP fully adopted the Leninist model. The concept of ‘democratic centralism’ was formally introduced into the CCP Constitution, which was endorsed by a meeting of newly created Politburo (zhengzhiju 政治局, PB), in June 1927, two months after the Fifth CCP Congress.⁸ Summarised by Lenin ([1906] 1965) as ‘freedom in discussions, unity in action’, democratic centralism includes the principle of party leaders’ election and accountability to the people, a conception of democracy that, on the surface, is not different from liberal democracy. But, since 1921, the Bolshevik Party and, as a result, other Communist parties had banned factions and clearly privileged discipline and subordination to the higher level over democracy. At the same time, a Central Committee, a Politburo and a Central Standing Committee (zhongyang changwu weiyuanhui 中央常务委员会), the last also called in English a ‘Secretariat’ in article 27 of the constitution, as well as a network of central and provincial control commissions (jiancha weiyuanhui 监察委员会) (articles 61–4), were instituted. The CCP was clearly moving towards centralisation and formalisation.

The Sixth CCP Congress, held in Moscow in 1928, introduced several changes in the constitution that were not very consequential since the CCP was then divided and had two centres, the second one being formed around Mao Zedong (毛泽东) and Zhu De (朱德) in Hunan and later in the Jiangxi Soviet Republic (1931–34). Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that, at that time, as the CCP decided to refer to its constitution as dangzhang (党章), the principle of election became more deeply enshrined into the CCP Constitution (it appeared 23 times).⁹ However, as in all other CCP constitutions, this text did not spell out any election procedures, giving, in reality, much discretionary power to the leadership to manipulate elections. This document also consolidated the relationship between the CCP and the Comintern of which the CCP was now a branch. Its article 1 states: ‘The Chinese Communist Party is a branch of the Comintern’ (zhongguo gongchandang wei gongchan guoji zhi yi bufen 中国共产党为共产国际之一部分). More importantly, the 1928 constitution fleshed out ‘democratic centralism’, with article 7 stating: ‘Organisational Principles: The Chinese Communist Party, as other branches of the Comintern, is organised on the principle of democratic centralism’ (zuzhi yuanze: zhongguo gongchandang yu gongchan guoji de qita zhibu yiyang, qi zuzhi yuanze wei minzhu jizhong zhi 组织原则: 中国共产党与共产国际的其他支部一样, 其组织原则为民主集中制). This compelled all party members to implement instructions coming from the top of the CCP or the Comintern, even if they disagreed with them.

The notion of democracy as such was mentioned for the first time in the constitution adopted at the Seventh Congress in 1945, four years before the CCP came to power.¹⁰ It was associated with the ‘New Democracy system’ (xin minzhuzhuyi zhidu 新民主主义制度), the anti-GMD alliance ‘led by the proletariat’, actually the CCP, which gave the illusion to many ‘third force’ groupings and individuals – non-Communists critical of the GMD government – that the latter was more democratic than the former. As theorised by Mao (Schram, Hodes and Van Slyke 2005), this democracy referred to the CCP’s ambition to build an ‘independent, free, democratic, united, prosperous and strong … republic’ together with many other forces, including the ‘small bourgeoisie and other democrats’.¹¹ In addition, the new constitution enhanced what would later be called ‘intra-party democracy’ in introducing for the first time rules on Party members’ rights and obligations, especially protections to the exercise of their democratic rights, as the principles of election and eligibility or the right to ‘criticise any party personnel at party meetings’ (zai dang de huiyi shang piping dang de renhe gongzuo renyuan 在党的会议上批评党的任何工作人员) (article 3 of the 1945 CCP Constitution).

At the same time, as is well known, the CCP, then controlled by Mao and his followers, enshrined in its constitution ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ (maozedong sixiang 毛泽东思想), not as its guiding ideology, which remained Marxism–Leninism, but as its ‘working compass’ (gongzuo de zhizhen 工作的指针). It also gave Mao much more power in creating for him the position of chairman (zhuxi 主席) of the Central Committee, and in making sure that the leader who held this position was also chairman of the PB and of the newly created Central Secretariat (shujichu 书记处), different in name in Chinese from the one set up in 1927.¹² While the Central Committee was supposed to meet at least once every three years, the PB met only every six months, transferring most of its competencies to the five-member Secretariat headed by Mao: the other members were Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇), Ren Bishi (任弼时) and Chen Yun (陈云).

It was also in the 1945 constitution that ‘democratic centralism’ was fully defined: ‘democratic centralism is centralism based on democracy and democracy under centralised leadership’ (minzhu de jizhongzhi, jishi zai minzhu jichu shang de jizhong he zai jizhong lingdao xia de minzhu 民主的集中制, 即是在民主基础上的集中和在集中领导下的民主). Repeated in all subsequent CCP constitutions, this approach to democracy within the Party is fundamental because it clearly indicates that centralised leadership prevails upon democracy – or, to be more accurate, defines both what democracy is and its limits – and that under no circumstances should members’ democratic rights challenge the Party leadership.

Like the previous ones, the 1945 CCP Constitution did not reveal much in practical terms about how decisions were made. For example, in this constitution, there was no mention of the Central Military Commission (CMC), a crucial power locus, which Mao took control of from Zhou Enlai (周恩来) at the famous Zunyi Conference in 1935, a power locus that allowed him to more easily sideline his rivals, especially the pro-Moscow faction: Wang Ming (王明), Li Lisan (李立三) and others (Guillermaz 1968).

All in all, before coming to power and becoming a party-state, the CCP was already very secretive and undemocratic. Fighting against the GMD government and, later, the Japanese occupation army, it needed, for the sake of survival, to protect itself from spies and possible infiltrations. That was the rationale of the 1942 ‘Rectification Movement’, a campaign that, ironically, was presented as promoting intra-party democracy, at least in its initial stage, and, more importantly, Mao’s ‘mass line’. However, the campaign also highlighted the repressive side of the CCP, especially the role of the Social Affairs Office and its then head, Kang Sheng (康生), who came to the fore during the Cultural Revolution (Gao 2019). How could intra-party democracy have flourished in such circumstances?

Changes in the Constitution after the Party Becomes the State in 1949

In 1949, the CCP took over the state. Party secrets then turned into state secrets and the need for opacity became much stronger, to protect the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC) against its enemies, first the GMD and the ‘imperialist’ camp led by the United States, and later the Soviet Union and all the ‘revisionist’ forces, both outside and inside the country and the Party.

The first CCP Constitution issued after the Party came to power was adopted by its Eighth Congress in September 1956. Its Chinese name moved back to zhangcheng (章程) or ‘statutes’, a more formal term that is still used today.¹³ While the document did not reactivate the concept of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, it did confirm what the state constitution had stated two years earlier: namely, that the PRC was a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’ ‘led by the working class and based on the alliance between the workers and the peasants’ (Diamant 2022). Kept until recently, except during the Cultural Revolution, this notion highlights the basic contradiction on which the regime has always been based. How can a dictatorship be democratic?

Yet, thanks to de-Stalinisation in the Soviet Union and the socialist camp as a whole, the CCP Constitution promoted, if not actual transparency, a collective approach to leadership and a willingness to normalise the Party’s modus operandi (MacFarquhar 1974). The well-known formula borrowed from Leninist handbooks and included in the CCP Constitution was ‘collective leadership and individual responsibility’ (jiti lingdao he geren fuze 集体领导和个人负责). Mao Zedong’s thoughts disappeared from the CCP Constitution. The Central Committee, elected for a five-year term, met once a year as a rule and a National Congress could be convened any time if one-third of the Party congress delegates or one-third of the provincial-level organisations required it.¹⁴ Borrowed from Khrushchev’s Soviet Union but never used in practice, this rule would only be partly restored in 1982. A Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) chaired by Mao and CCP vice-chairmans (including Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai) was instituted within the Central Secretariat. It was headed by a general secretary (zongshuji 总书记), initially Deng Xiaoping (邓小平), who was put in charge of the Party’s ‘daily work’ (richang gongzuo 日常工作) under the leadership of the PB and the PBSC. Decision-making at the top of the CCP was clearly becoming more collective, even if Mao kept the last word for himself (Teiwes 2015). Aligning here again with the Soviet model, the constitution was moving power, especially regarding domestic policies, to the Secretariat and its members, to the detriment of the PB and the State Council (the central government) headed by Zhou Enlai. Moreover, the constitution introduced the possibility of the Central Committee creating the position of ‘honorary chairman’ (mingyu zhuxi 名誉主席), clearly preparing for Mao’s retirement. All this would rapidly become a source of friction that would intensify after the launch of the Great Leap Forward in 1958. Actually, this new power organisation was one of the causes of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s decision to purge Liu and Deng (MacFarquhar 1999). Nonetheless, not every rule became formal: the CMC, chaired by Mao until his death, did not get into the constitution.

As a direct outcome of the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao in 1966, the CCP Constitution adopted at the Ninth Congress in 1969 was much shorter (12 instead of 60 articles in 1956).¹⁵ It was centred around Mao Zedong, both the leader and the thought, as well as his designated successor, Lin Biao (林彪), whose name was mentioned. The Marxist concept of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ replaced the PRC’s people’s democratic dictatorship. This clearly signalled a return to Marxist–Leninist ideological purity, a growing disregard for the state constitution and a power concentration in the Party to the detriment of the state. But this CCP Constitution tells us very little about how power was exerted, let alone about members’ rights. Under the leadership of the CCP chairman, vice-chairman and the PBSC, it planned, in article 9, paragraph 4, to ‘establish a number of necessary and capable organs to handle party, government and military daily work in a unified manner’ (zai zhuxi, fuzhuxi he zhongyang zhengzhi ju changwu weiyuanhui lingdao xia, sheli ruogan biyao de jinggan de jigou, tongyi chuli dang, zheng, jun de richang gongzuo 在主席、副主席和中央政治局常务委员会领导下, 设立若干必要的精干的机构, 统一处理党、政、军的日常工作). The main duty of Party members was to study and implement Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Holding a meeting of Party national congress delegates every five years and local congress delegates every three years were the only rules kept in the constitution. The CCP Constitution (12 articles) adopted at the Tenth Congress in 1973 was very similar to the previous document; its main change was to remove Lin Biao and the idea of designating a successor to Mao.¹⁶

Changes to the Party Constitution since 1977

Things started to change after Mao’s death in 1976, but only gradually. The CCP Constitution (19 articles only) adopted by the Eleventh Congress in August 1977 was still influenced by the Cultural Revolution, declaring its successful completion but keeping a reference to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the continuation of the revolution.¹⁷ Despite Deng Xiaoping’s recent return to power, the Party was still dominated by Hua Guofeng (华国锋), Mao’s handpicked successor, and the so-called Whateverist faction (fanshipai 凡是派), which was portrayed by its detractors as defending whatever Mao had said or done (Teiwes 1984; Teiwes and Sun 2011). At the same time, the constitution started to restore some of the norms challenged by Mao and his closest followers, especially the principle of ‘collective leadership and individual working responsibility’ (jiti lingdao he geren fengong fuze 集体领导和个人分工负责)¹⁸ and the role of the Party committees at each level.¹⁹ It also established local discipline inspection commissions (DICs) at the county level and above. Heir to the Central Control Commission established in 1945, which had ceased to operate at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the Central DIC (first chaired by Chen Yun) would be set up at the famous Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee in December 1978.

The Third Plenum was a turning point in the history of the CCP. It was there that the Party decided to abandon class struggle, rehabilitate or ‘reverse the verdict’ (pingfan 平反) of many victims of the Maoist campaigns, reform the economy and open the country up to the outside world. As a result, the CCP fundamentally changed its modus operandi, laying the ground for the adoption of a deeply revised constitution in 1982. In late 1978, the consensus was not only to restore the institutions set up in the sixth decade of the twentieth century – that is, a Party organisation close to one that presided after 1956 and a state constitution similar to the 1954 one – but also to go further to prevent the return of a strong man with unlimited powers and personality cult.

At the Third Plenum, reformist leader Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) was put in charge of the Party apparatus with the title of Central Committee secretary-general (mishuzhang 秘书长). Fourteen months later, as Liu Shaoqi was rehabilitated post-mortem, the Central Secretariat was fully restored and Hu became general secretary of the Central Committee. The ambition was then to put into place a central power organisation similar to the one set up by the Eighth Congress, moving responsibilities in a number of sectors (ideology, economy, industry and foreign trade) to the Secretariat. But this reform rapidly led to gridlocks and tensions; consequently, the role of the Secretariat was downgraded in 1987 (Cabestan 2014, 147–50).

Yet, the constitution adopted at the Twelfth CCP Congress in 1982 heralded an important organisational change.²⁰ Much longer (50 articles) and more comprehensive, it aimed first at restoring the prestige of the Party by turning Party members into ‘ordinary members of the working people’ (laodong renmin de putong yiyuan 劳动人民的普通一员) and Party cadres into ‘servants of the people’ (renmin de gongpu 人民的公仆). Held for one year by Hu Yaobang after Hua Guofeng was forced to step down in June 1981, the position of Party chairman was abolished; the official top leader of the Party was to be the general secretary, but his power stemmed from the six-member PBSC (including four elderly leaders). For the first time, the CMC was mentioned, its chair, then Deng Xiaoping, being required to be a member of the PBSC (article 21). However, this latter rule was dropped in 1987 to accommodate Deng who was then retiring from the PBSC but not the CMC. To date, it has not been restored although it has been a rule in practice since Jiang Zemin (江泽民) succeeded Deng as CMC chair in November 1989 (see below). This power distribution clearly weakened Hu’s status and laid the ground for Hu’s dismissal in January 1987 and later the Tiananmen crisis.

Yet, many new rules introduced in 1982 moved the Party towards reform. Collective leadership was re-emphasised and the cult of personality openly denounced; leaders were asked to avoid ‘arbitrariness’ (geren zhuanduan 个人专断) and submit themselves to the organisation. Meeting every year, the Central Committee could exceptionally convene a National Congress if one-third of provincial-level organisations required it (then article 18, today article 19).²¹ To date, this procedure has never been used. An important article was added (then article 37, today article 38), which stated that:

Party leading cadres at every level, whether elected through democratic procedures or appointed by a leading body, do not hold posts for life and can be transferred from or relieved of their posts.

Party members’ and Party committees’ democratic rights, particularly minority and election rights, were also strengthened. Elder Party leaders were invited to retire and join the newly created central or local advisory committees (guwen weiyuanhui 顾问委员会). More importantly, the Party leadership was then conceived as ‘mainly political, ideological and organisational’, delegating more economic and social responsibilities to the government. This formula would be dropped from the constitution in 2017 (see below); in previous constitutions, the approach to Party leadership was much more holistic – for example, in 1977, the emphasis was still on ‘leading the proletarian and revolutionary masses’. Moreover, in 1982, the Party was asked to operate within the boundaries of the state constitution and laws. The priority was to restore state institutions, introduce a new division of labour between the Party and the state (dangzheng fengong 党政分工) and establish a ‘highly democratic socialist country’ (gaodu minzhu de shehuizhuyi guojia 高度民主的社会主义国家).

Partly inspired by reformist thinkers such as Liao Gailong (廖盖隆) and his 1980 reform ideas, this evolution opened the door in 1986 to the debate about reforming political structures (zhengzhi tizhi gaige 政治体制改革). Supported by Deng, this debate led to a reform plan that was adopted by the Thirteenth Party Congress in September 1987, despite the purge, a few months before, of Hu Yaobang, accused of liberal tendencies (Wu 2013).

Presided over by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳), the Thirteenth Congress is remembered for its ambitious and courageous political reform plan aimed at not only separating the Party and the government (dangzheng fenkai 党政分开) but also establishing a professional civil service and expanding the powers and the representativeness of the state’s elected bodies – for example, the people’s congresses. At the same time, some articles of the CCP Constitution were amended, mainly those aimed at expanding intra-party democracy.²² The introduction of a competitive election for local and national delegations to Party congresses, with the number of candidates being higher than the number of positions to be filled, known as 差额选举 (cha’e xuanju) in Chinese, was authorised. In case of disagreements within a Party organ, a vote was required on major issues. The other change worth mentioning was related to the role of the Central Secretariat, which was reduced from being responsible for ‘central daily work’ (zhongyang richang gongzuo 中央日常工作) under the leadership of the PBSC to a ‘working organ’ of the PBSC (banshi jigou 办事机构), concentrating only on Party affairs, and political–ideological work in other institutions, such as the government and the military. However, a key problem for Zhao and the reformists was that the real power holders were retired or ‘semi-retired’ (ban tuixiu 半退休) leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, then CMC chairman, and Chen Yun, who would take back power and transfer it to more obedient leaders such as Jiang Zemin after the Tiananmen crisis.

The Tiananmen massacre sounded the death knell to all attempts at transparency and intra-Party democracy. After 1989, the Party abandoned any attempt to open its ‘black box’ and returned to its old, entrenched penchant for secrecy, especially as far as decision-making processes and intra-Party mechanisms were concerned. In the 1992 constitution, adopted at the Fourteenth CCP Congress, the plan to establish a ‘highly democratic socialist country’ was abandoned. Lessons had been drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union.²³

Yet, there are few differences between the 1987 and the 1992 Party constitutions in terms of power organisation, procedures and members’ rights. For example, the principle of competitive elections was kept and would be kept in all future constitutions, including the current one. Similarly, fixed terms of office for leading cadres were maintained. And more duties were imposed on leading cadres, now required to ‘attend democratic meetings held by the party committee or leading party member’s groups’ (dangyuan lingdao ganbu hai bixu canjia dangwei, dangzu de minzhu shenhuohui 党员领导干部还必须参加党委、党组的民主生活会). This addition to article 8 is still in place today.²⁴

The major changes to the constitution introduced at the Fourteenth Party Congress had to do with recognising that China was still in the ‘early stage of socialism’ and abolishing the central and local advisory commissions after 10 years of operation, many of their members, most of them retired leaders, having already died. This was also part of Deng’s plan to clear the way for Jiang Zemin and allow him to consolidate his power as general secretary, chairing the (probably weekly) PBSC meetings and deciding on their agenda; CCP (and state) CMC chairman, a position that Deng transferred to him in November 1989; and president of the republic after March 1993.

This ‘three powers in one person’ (sanweiyiti 三位一体) formula²⁵ has been in place since then, with the exception of the 2002–04 period when Jiang remained CMC chairman after stepping down from and transferring his two other posts (CCP secretary-general and head of state) to Hu Jintao. But it remains an informal rule: after 1987, the CCP Constitution has not stated that the general secretary should also be the CMC chairman, let alone the president of the republic (see Constitution of the CCP [1992], article 22 and 23; Constitution of the CCP [2022], article 23 and 24).

The next two congresses, the fifteenth in 1997 and the sixteenth in 2002, did not change much in the CCP constitution either, except to add to the ideological tenets of the Party; namely, ‘Deng Xiaoping Theory’ and Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents’, a coded formula allowing the Party to recruit capitalists.²⁶ In 2002, Party members’ duties and the DICs’ powers were strengthened, but these measures did not have a big impact on the CCP operation: corruption kept growing (Ang 2020).

It was at the Sixteenth CCP Congress in 2002 that the concept of ‘intra-party democracy’ was resurrected. In his report, Jiang Zemin qualified it as the ‘lifeblood of the party’ (dang de shengming 党的生命).²⁷ Nonetheless, it was only at the 2007 Congress, once Hu Jintao had consolidated his power, that the CCP decided to move forward, the general program declaring that ‘the Party must fully expand intra-Party democracy and safeguard [the] democratic rights of its members’, adding that ‘the Party must practice democratic and scientific decision-making’.²⁸ Article 30 was revised to open the door to the competitive election of Party committee leaders.²⁹ The CCP leadership also began showing a more general intention to improve the country’s socialist democracy, especially ‘people’s democracy’ and ‘grassroots democracy’ (Yu 2009). These three forms of democracy operate under the uncontested leadership of the CCP (Cabestan 2019c). People’s democracy refers to elections of the people’s congresses, and grassroots democracy refers to village and urban community elections. The proposal was based on various experiments launched in a few localities in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, as will be shown below, this did not really democratise the internal operation of the CCP. Instead, Hu’s reforms contributed to deepening party cadres’ corruption and fragmenting the CCP leadership, especially the divided and ill-coordinated nine-member PBSC, feeding Xi Jinping’s plan as soon as he took power in 2012 to recentralise power and rein in intra-party democracy experiments.

As such, the CCP Constitution has not changed much since 2007. In 2012, at the Eighteenth Congress, Hu Jintao’s ‘scientific outlook of development’ and the ‘theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics’ were added.³⁰ The most important change was not, and did not have to be, included in the constitution: this was the decision, made by the Party leadership, to cut from nine to seven the membership of the PBSC, facilitating Xi’s subsequent plan to concentrate power in his own hands by creating new CCP leading small groups and central commissions (Cabestan 2019a).

The major amendments to the CCP Constitution at the Nineteenth Congress in 2017 had to do with the role of the Party and Xi. Instead of limiting its leadership to political, ideological and organisational work, today the Party, presented as ‘the most essential attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics’, must keep strengthening its power and overall leadership position by supervising and managing more directly and more tightly the economy and the society. Moreover, not only did ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for the new era’ become the Party’s major ideology, but Xi, as leader, was elevated in the constitution to the status of ‘core of the Party leadership’.³¹ A few months later, in March 2018, Xi managed to revise the state constitution to remain president of the republic beyond the 10-year limit. However, it should be noted that the term of office of the top CCP leaders, especially PB and PBSC members, has, to date, never been limited by any CCP Constitution.

The current CCP Constitution, revised at the Twentieth Congress in 2022, goes further in promoting Xi Jinping’s thought as the great adaption of Marxism to China’s needs today. It has also enshrined the ‘Second Centenary Goal’ – that is, building a great modern socialist country in all respects by 2049 – and ‘common prosperity’ (gongtong fuyu 共同富裕).³² Yet, in many respects, especially in terms of leading bodies and members’ rights, the current CCP Constitution remains very much based on the 1982–87 ones, save the few additions introduced later and mentioned above.

What do these successive iterations of the CCP Constitution tell us about the Party’s genuine modus operandi? Actually, very little and probably less today, under Xi Jinping, than in the Hu era, let alone in the ninth decade of the twentieth century, as the level of secrecy surrounding the CCP’s internal operation has arguably intensified. Debates within the Party have been almost totally silenced, and the unity of the Party and the unity of truth have been prioritised.

Yet, these constitutions are good indicators of the Party’s founding principles and changing priorities. First, they reflect the 100-year history of a Party modelled on Lenin’s and, even more, Stalin’s Soviet Communist Party, paying lip-service to elections and democracy but not practising them. Second, they tell us the story of a Party that has turned into a party-state and stuck all along to the same organisational principles of democratic centralism and secrecy. Third, they highlight the story of a party-state that, in order to avoid atrophy (Shambaugh 2008), has tried hard to adapt itself to the new economic and social environment it has created, adding new layers to the ideological mille-feuille and normalising its mechanisms: for example, holding regular congresses every five years and Central Committee meetings every year since 1977; and stabilising the CCP’s leadership bodies, which rarely change between two congresses. Finally, the various versions of the constitution also underscore the CCP’s hesitation, particularly after the beginning of the reform era, in terms of the organisation of its leading bodies and internal democracy, as well as its relationship with the state that it leads and the state constitution that it drafts and enacts (Diamant 2022). For a short period during the Cultural Revolution, the CCP seemed to be willing to wither away the state; yet, in another short period, it strengthened the state while redefining the leading role of the Party. Since the early 1990s, and even more since Xi came to power, the Party has clearly reaffirmed its control and domination of the state and state norms.

Hu Jintao’s Failed Attempt to Expand Intra-Party Democracy

Hu Jintao’s intention to develop intra-party democracy signalled a willingness to both take stock of the experiments conducted by some local Party committees in the last decade of the twentieth century and move the reform forward. In the early first decade of the twenty-first century, more localities tested this reform. As a result, when Hu Jintao announced in 2007 his plan to expand intra-party democracy, it was positively received by many observers (Li 2009).³³ Hu’s report to the Party congress, as well as the new CCP Constitution, provided reason to be optimistic about China’s gradual democratisation. As a matter of fact, in his report, Hu stated:

Intra-Party democracy provides an important guarantee for improving the Party’s creativity and reinforcing its solidarity and unity. We will expand intra-Party democracy to develop people’s democracy and increase intra-Party harmony to promote social harmony.³⁴

At the time, the development of intra-party democracy was conceived as the first step towards an expansion of people’s democracy and grassroots democracy: both reforms were closely linked to each other. These three forms of democracy were to operate under the uncontested leadership of the CCP (Cabestan 2019c). Hu’s report and the CCP’s new constitution did not give much detail about the content of the reforms. Nonetheless, the plan was fleshed out two years later in a resolution adopted in September 2009 by the Fourth Plenum of the Seventeenth Central Committee.³⁵

In this resolution, developing intra-party democracy was understood as expanding competitive elections of Party leading cadres, increasing the number of decisions based on a vote (piaojuezhi 票决制) and enhancing transparency. This reform was also aimed at expanding some of the more restrictive rules regarding the tenure, transfer and regional allocation of major leading cadres, which had been introduced in 1993 by Jiang Zemin, by generalising the avoidance system (huibi zhidu 回避制度) according to which officials cannot serve in their province of origin, and enhancing the fight against corruption by introducing a more comprehensive supervision system.

The expansion of competitive elections of local CCP leaders by Party committees was probably the most visible development of intra-party democracy. Based on some genuine experiments conducted in the last decade of the twentieth century and first decade of the twenty-first century in Sichuan (Fewsmith 2010) – by Li Yuanchao (李源潮) in Jiangsu before he became director of the Central Organisation Department in 2007 (Li 2007) and, later, by Wang Yang (汪洋) in Guangdong (Li 2008) – it introduced here and there a certain degree of uncertainty all the way to the election of the Central Committee. It also increased the public’s level of information, since local candidates for promotion, at least in Shenzhen, were asked to submit statements of purpose and to take part in public debates (Li 2009).

However, the list of candidates was compiled by the higher level in a totally opaque manner and the degree of publicity of the ‘election campaigns’ was questionable. Most often, the higher level voted to select lower-level officials. For example, in Nanjing, it was up to the 34 municipal CCP committee members to choose four district heads out of eight candidates (Li 2007). And, in most cases, the chances of not being elected remained very low. This was even truer at the central level, where not much change has taken place under Hu. While cha’e xuanju of Central Committee members by the 2,000-plus Party delegates to the Congress started in 1987, the margin of choice has always remained very small, even after the Seventh Congress: 5 per cent in 1987, 10 per cent in 1992 and 1997, 5.1 per cent in 2002, 8.3 per cent in 2007 and 9.3 per cent in 2012 and 2017. In 1987, because of this new rule, Deng Liqun (邓力群), the arch-conservative former head of the Propaganda Department failed to get elected to the Central Committee. For alternate members, it is a little bit higher, but not much: 11.1 per cent in 2012 and 9.6 per cent in 2007 against 5.7 per cent in 2002. And delegates to the congress, then as today, have always been selected on the basis of a ‘large consultation’ that included some 33,500 cadres in 2007 (Cabestan 2014, 110–13; Cabestan 2019b, 20; Fewsmith 2018). Consultation is not election; the centre, together with the leading organs at each level, has always remained in control of the selection of delegates to Party congresses.

It was reported in 2007 that Central Committee members were asked to choose future PB members on a list of 200 candidates of ministerial rank established by the ‘centre’, probably Hu Jintao and the PBSC. In 2012, they were also able to elect PBSC members. But the detail of these elections was never made public. In 2017, Xi Jinping put an end to this innovation. He himself consulted around 300 retired or in-office leaders before selecting the PB and PBSC members. In other words, the principle of cooption was then fully restored, a principle that was never really questioned for selecting the key leaders of the Party and allowing its major factions to negotiate behind closed doors for their share of power (Brødsgaard 2018; Cabestan 2019b, 20; Fewsmith 2021).

One of the reasons invoked by Xi to put an end to this ‘democratic’ experiment was the Sun Zhengcai (孙政才) affair. Sun was close to Hu and a member of the sixth generation of leaders promoted to the PB in 2012 and later to the position of Chongqing secretary. He was suddenly purged and jailed in July 2017 after having been accused of buying votes and rigging his election to the PB in 2012 (Cabestan 2019b, 20–1). It is very likely that this case was utilised by Xi to sideline Hu’s reforms. Nevertheless, it raises a fundamental issue or contradiction.

The issue is that generalising CCP leading cadres’ election would have questioned a deeply entrenched ‘principle’ according to which ‘the party manages the cadres’ (dang guan ganbu de yuanze 党管干部的原则), meaning recommends (tuijian 推荐) and appoints (renming 任命) them: in other words, the Nomenklatura system (Cabestan 2014, 75–83). In such an organisational setting, an election is a formality that pays lip-service to the principle of democracy but cannot challenge the principle of centralism, let alone the Nomenklatura system. Underscoring this tension, Fewsmith (2010) noted that ‘the Fourth Plenum decision is clear that cadres should be selected with regard to both “integrity and ability, with priority for integrity”’ (decai jianbei, yide weixian 德才兼备, 以德为先) – integrity meaning, of course, political alignment with the Party leadership of the time.

Submitting important decisions made by Party leaders at every level to a vote has been more difficult. The intention was to reduce the discretionary powers of the Party secretary or no. 1 leader (diyibashou 第一把手) of each jurisdiction or constituency and promote collective leadership, giving more say to Party committees or at least their standing committee (changweihui 常委会). The main problem is that there are very few records of this reform’s achievements, except, for instance, in Zhejiang (Li 2009). Moreover, given career imperatives – the secretary would be considered responsible for all the achievements and misdeeds of his jurisdiction before promotion – there was not much incentive to implement the reform. After he came to power, Xi moved in the opposite direction; the concentration of power at the top was imitated by the whole apparatus, giving even more power to the Party secretaries at each level and in every constituency (Doyon 2018).

Enhancing the transparency of Party affairs (dangwu gongkai 党务公开) was the third major objective of Hu’s reforms.³⁶ It included the right of ordinary CCP members to access information and to know better what the Party was doing (zhiqingquan 知情权). For one thing, this objective underlined how badly informed the rank and file of the Party was and what was expected of them: namely, getting mobilised and propagating the Party’s instructions (see below).

True, the reform was supposed to facilitate the evaluation of leading cadres of the higher level by grassroots (or lower-level) Party organisations as well as the organisation of ‘democratic consultation meetings’ (minzhu kentanhui 民主恳谈会) between leading cadres and ordinary Party members. But this has not really materialised: for example, consultations taking place in Wenling municipality (Zhejiang) were only organised between the government or the Party and the society. Nor has much materialised of the proposal to give delegates to Party congresses at various levels a five-year tenure (changren zhi 常任制), allowing them to continue to exert a role after the congress for which they had been chosen to represent their constituency, except perhaps at the local level, for instance in Shenzhen.³⁷

Actually, what the Party managed to achieve was to improve communication at each level of the apparatus about its policies and decisions, not only vis-a-vis its members but also the public in general. As a result, local Party committees have appointed spokespersons and started to issue annual work reports.

In any event, the unrealistic idea that the rank and file of the Party would help the central leadership supervise cadres and ferret out corruption was rapidly killed after Xi came to power. Instead, since 2012, to successfully catch both corrupt ‘flies and tigers’, Xi has relied on a more centralised Party DIC network headed, until 2017, in Beijing by his close ally Wang Qishan (王岐山) (Ang 2020).

The problem with Hu’s reform plan was that it pursued two contradictory objectives: expanding democratic mechanisms and, conversely, introducing appointment rules of leading cadres aimed at promoting the ablest of them, ameliorating their performance and reducing the temptation of corruption. Consequently, it could only fail.

It is true that some CCP leaders, such as Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (温家宝), a former aide of Zhao Ziyang, seemed inclined to revive political reform, emphasising the importance of elections, judicial independence and supervision based on checks and balances (Li 2009). But these good intentions bumped directly against the basic principles of any ruling Communist party: its leading role, democratic centralism and opacity.

Besides, contrary to what Li (2009) expected, it is hard to believe that any CCP leadership would have accepted and legalised the very existence of factional competition. The Bo Xilai (薄熙来) affair and Xi’s decision to recentralise the Party under his leadership have shown that, if such a danger did exist, the Party could not tolerate its perpetuation.

Xi Questions Hu’s Reforms

Xi Jinping did not put an end altogether to the development of intra-party democracy. He still believes that a small dose of competition can help the Party promote more competent leading cadres and, as a result, improve governance (Brødsgaard and Chen 2018, 17). Village elections had tested this system since the ninth decade of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the formula encouraged, and recently generalised, by the CCP since Xi came to power has been a much more hands-on method of candidates’ selection by the township or town Party committee. Now the CCP wants to make sure, with a lot of arm twisting, that villagers will vote for the position of both Party committee secretary and village chief that it has selected (Ma 2021). At a higher level, organisation departments rely on opinion surveys before making recommendations for promotion (Zeng 2016). However, competition is minimal. Party committee members do vote, but the range of choices for principal positions tends to be non-existent, and for deputy position is very limited and uneven. In the 2015 CCP resolution on problems within the Party, a cautious expansion of the scope of the election of leading bodies of grassroots Party organisations was promoted.³⁸ Nevertheless, emphasis was clearly placed on the CCP leadership, its centralisation and the verticality of power.

Since 2012, a new form of socialist democracy has been promoted: ‘consultative democracy’ within as well as outside the CCP.³⁹ According to the authoritative 2021 white paper entitled ‘China: Democracy that Works’:

whole-process people’s democracy is a complete system with supporting mechanisms and procedures, and has been fully tested through wide participation. It integrates two major democratic models – electoral democracy and consultative democracy.⁴⁰

This white paper offers multiple examples of consultations by the Party and various government organs: consultations can be at the national or local level; based on opinion surveys; or be related to government decisions, specific reforms or draft laws. Consultative democracy is aimed at better reaching not so much Party members but the society at large, particularly its coopted elites (e.g. people’s congresses and the members of consultative political conferences). Therefore, it does not threaten the Party leadership (Cabestan 2019c). In other words, ‘socialist democracy’ remains a democracy under the sole and comprehensive leadership of the CCP – or, to be more accurate, of the party-state that has controlled mainland China since 1949. More importantly for this analysis, the procedures and outcomes of intra-party consultations have remained particularly opaque. More generally, the climate of fear that Xi has instilled with his Anti-Corruption Campaign and his request for ‘political discipline’ has not been conducive to a more animated and pluralistic democratic life in the Party.

Among the 97 million CCP members, only around 650,000 leading cadres of the departmental level and above (chuji yishang 处级以上) may claim to have a say in decision-making (Shih 2017). The rest are foot soldiers mobilised to propagate the Party’s gospel and keep an eye on the society. As the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated, Party members can be activated to help the government carry out national decisions (e.g. localised lockdown and health checks). But their power and access to confidential intra-party information are closely related to their position and status in the organisation.

Conclusions: Why the CCP Cannot Democratise

In such an organisational and ideological environment, can the CCP democratise? Can its democratisation lead to China’s democratisation? The answer is no to both questions, for the following reasons.

The first issue is the CCP’s opacity. It is true that its level of secrecy is intimately linked to the existence as well as the number of enemies that it needs to fight against. In the reform era, the CCP has been more open about its rules, its congresses and its official functions. Nonetheless, on many issues related to its internal mechanisms and operation, it has remained what I have called elsewhere a ‘secret society’ (Cabestan 2019b). The political culture that has fed this penchant for secrecy and opacity goes back to its Soviet heritage and the civil war. On a deeper level, it is closely linked to the stability and the legitimacy of the regime itself. Without these rules, the CCP would collapse: jianguangsi (见光死) or ‘see the light would make it die’, as the Chinese would say. It is clear that the level of secrecy has increased under Xi Jinping; this is not only because of the Party’s centralisation drive but also because of its higher degree of paranoia in the context of an intensified ideological and geostrategic rivalry, and to some extent cold war, between China and the United States (and the West).

With such constraints, can intra-party democracy develop? Can it become the first step towards China’s democratisation? Probably not, unless a top-down political reform plan is imposed on the apparatus by a Party leadership that, in its majority, is ready to take the risk to democratise the country and is able to keep the military and the security organs on its side.

Otherwise, how can any slow progress of intra-party democracy be of interest to the rest of the society? Although CCP membership has gradually increased in the last two decades to reach nearly 7 per cent of the population (against less than 5 per cent in 2000), 93 per cent of Chinese society is out and reduced to being passive spectators of the political life that the CCP puts on stage every day.⁴¹

This brings us to the last point: ‘socialist democracy’ is the opposite of democracy (Cabestan 2019c). Indeed, how can a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’ led by the CCP turn into a democracy without jeopardising the foundation of the political regime? The Party continues to argue that this concept means democracy within the ‘people’ and dictatorship on the enemies of the people, echoing Mao’s famous distinction between non-antagonistic and antagonistic contradictions. As we know, only the Party leadership can delineate the contours of the ‘people’, and only the Party leadership has the power to identify and target the enemies of the ‘people’, which are actually just the enemies of the Party. Today, under Xi, the CCP has more enemies than under Hu.

All in all, to stay in power, the CCP needs to remain Leninist, opaque and undemocratic. As the analysis of successive iterations of the CCP Constitution has shown, it also needs to maintain a low degree of institutionalisation to survive.

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