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The United Front: The Magic Weapon of the Chinese Communist Party’s Metamorphoses

Emmanuel Jourda

Introduction

The united front (tongyi zhanxian 统一战线) as a concept is closely linked to the history of Chinese communism. However, it still barely figures as a research subject. During the revolutionary period, few authors made it their main concern (Van Slyke 1967; Armstrong 1977). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the subject has been examined by only a small number of researchers, most notably Gerry Groot, although more recent works (Lulu 2019; Joske 2022; Brady 2017) demonstrate that it is increasingly present in the politics of the Xi Jinping era. The former lack of interest can be explained by the fact that the united front with Chinese characteristics is, in general, absent from the historical corpus of international political concepts. Yet, its pertinence and its function became clear during Mao Zedong’s revolutionary march towards power and rejection of Soviet influence, and in the attitudes of his successors to his legacy in post-revolutionary China.

This article aims to take stock of the development of the united front concept in the Chinese context, from its designation by Mao as a ‘magic weapon’ to its reshaping under Xi Jinping (De Giorgi 2019). In contrast to works that examine the united front through the prism of its practices or institutional framework, which remain insufficient and often overemphasise its permanence,¹ the proposed discursive approach relies on official Chinese sources to demonstrate how the use of the united front, as a conceptual and malleable tool of power, is an ideological–institutional indicator of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime’s transformations. To develop this approach, this chapter follows changes to the united front’s terminology. The parts on the revolutionary period are mainly based on secondary sources in French and English as cited in the text, with added insights provided by the use of Stuart Schram’ work (cf. infra). For the post-revolutionary period, the main sources are two periodicals – Chinese Communist Party (Zhongguo gongchandang 中国共产党) and China Politics (Zhongguo zhengzhi 中国政治) – which provide a useful illustration of the official discourse throughout the period.

When it comes to defining the united front based on its practices, for many years such characterisation was the prerogative of the services of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang, GMD), as a result of GMD–CCP cooperation (guogong hezuo 国共合作) during the rather chilly phases of their civil war. In the GMD’s anti-Communist terminology, the united front corresponded to a designation describing any action targeting a potential adversary in order to infiltrate (shentou 渗透), divide (fenhua 分化), persuade (lalong 拉拢) or conquer (zhengqu 争取) by negotiation (tanpan 谈判) or fomenting (cefan 策反) in order to isolate (guli 孤立) using methods (fangfa 方法) and expedients (shouduan 手段) covering the agitprop spectrum: dissimulation (weizhuang 伪装), propaganda (xuanchuan 宣传) and provocation (gudong 鼓动), either directly or via auxiliaries (Wu Caiguang 1996). From then on, this vocabulary was also used by those in opposition to the irredentist aspirations of the CCP, notably with regard to Taiwan and Hong Kong (Jourda 2019b).² More broadly, united front work is presently described as synonymous with interference by the CCP in the public space, with the intent to produce a context favourable to its political, cultural or economic interests, outside or within its frontiers (e.g. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, the diaspora, Confucius Institutes, silk roads, etc.). United front practices can, therefore, be summarised as a combination of influence, interference and counter-interference (Charon and Jeangène Vilmer 2021; Brady 2017; Liao and Tsai 2019).

Institutionally, the united front consists primarily of the political ‘work’ carried out by the United Front Work Department (tongyi zhanxian gongzuo bumen 统一战线工作部门) (UFWD), directly reporting to the Central Committee of the CCP.³ However, the CCP discourse is evasive on what ‘united front work’ means, as much on the selected targets (duixiang 对象) – potentially all non-Communists – as on the concrete actions carried out and the results achieved. Further, this definition is reductive in that it does not provide an understanding of why and how the united front became, above all, a component of the party-state, figuring in the preamble to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).⁴ It serves as a framework for political consultation (zhengzhi xieshang 政治协商), notably with the eight democratic parties (ba ge minzhudang 八个民主党) present at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) (Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi 中国人民政治协商会议). Hence, the united front presents three clear facets; it is at once an institution, an apparatus and an action directed at targets.

However, these definitions of the united front based on its practices or institutional framework remain unsatisfactory. They cannot explain how and why the united front has been assimilated into the history of the revolution, as part of the theory and the myth, particularly through its qualification as a ‘magic weapon’. To unveil the united front in all its complexity and malleability, it should be historicised, beginning with Franz Schurmann’s ([1966] 1968) reflections on the ideology and organisation of the CCP.⁵ This approach allows us to consider it as belonging not in a register of pure theory (lilun 理论), but as political thought (sixiang 思想) – an organisational notion dedicated to the implementation of a grassroots politico-ideological practice for the entire CCP, the state and their respective offshoots. The united front can then be considered cumulatively as both a structure and an ideology, a mode of action and the codification of action, and a historic process of implementation of the Communist revolution and an element of its myth.

Therefore, I have chosen not to address the united front through its practices, which are well documented by the existing literature (Van Slyke 1967; Armstrong 1977; Groot 2004, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2021; Brady 2017; Liao and Tsai 2019; Lo, Hung and Loo 2019), but through a discursive approach to determine its political function in the CCP organisation and discourse since its Maoisation. This fresh approach is possible thanks to Stuart Schram’s (2004, 2005) work on Mao’s writings, which have never been exploited from the united front angle. It provides an opportunity to reconsider the significance of opaque official terms, such as the united front’s status as a ‘magic weapon’ or ‘science’, formulated by Mao and his successors. To this end, this chapter starts with how the concept and the characteristics of the united front, as formulated by its Soviet initiators, were sinicised and systemised by Mao in the late 1930s. We will then see how the concept was both institutionalised and relegated to become an abstraction after 1949 and until the end of the Maoist era. The final sections provide a new reading of the evolution of the concept in post-revolutionary PRC, from a reformist lever to an instrument to re-ideologise the regime, in particular under Xi Jinping.

At a fundamental level, the inclusion of the united front in the Chinese system is not based on the extensively documented difficulties of the first united front (Chevrier 1983), ending in 1927,⁶ but on its appropriation by Mao, implicitly from 1927 to 1936 and explicitly in the late 1930s. This allowed Mao to invent political properties for the concept, to the point of turning it into an infallible ideological weapon, leading inexorably to the consolidation of the Party’s hegemony, whatever the context. The result was a hybrid notion – an operational attribute of Communist power – that included elements of discourse, organisation, power and myth. This can be traced through the history of the ‘magic weapon’ label attached to the idea of the united front.

After the end of the first united front, Mao created, progressively and tentatively, his own practice of the concept. This started covertly and pragmatically among the bandits of the Jingganshan and the Gelaohui secret societies of Northern Shaanxi (Jourda 2023), an approach that contrasted with the inconsistent way the CCP had been dealing with such groups (Park 2002). These initial steps in the sinicisation of the united front are generally overlooked as they did not lead to the development of specific political concepts and do not have their place in the well-defined narrative of Moscow’s overall approach to relying on the united front to counter the Japanese invasion.

It was only long after the Japanese invaded northern China in 1931 that the second united front was formed between the GMD and the CCP. At first, neither Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) nor Mao Zedong were in favour of it; Chiang saw it (rightly so) as a stepping-stone for Mao in the direction of power, and Mao wanted to build a strong united front without Chiang, because of the civil war climate. The rapprochement nevertheless took place under pressure from Moscow, which hoped to make China a buffer zone from the Japanese threat, with Chiang as the key player in armed resistance. In 1932, Mao, as a prudent tactician in a CCP in which he was still far from dominant, stressed that an end to the united front would lead to the failure of the revolution. It remained to be decided what form the front should take. Action from the base was preferred to alliances at the top in order to recruit, undermine and infiltrate the supposed popular level of the Nationalist structure (Roux 2009). But the CCP radicalised its action. It planned vain urban uprisings and peasant unrests in areas held by the GMD, in conjunction with military offensives, to achieve a hypothetical mobilisation of the masses. Mao stood aside and became marginalised in ‘his’ soviet when the leaders of the CCP had to retreat there (1931–32). In 1932, the game changed when the Comintern ordered the end of the ‘class against class’ strategy and the return of the united front (from then on ‘anti-Fascist’). In late 1935, the pro-Comintern wing of the CCP tried to impose the idea of a united front led by the Nationalists, against Mao’s opinion (Esherick 2022). This course of action was supposed to gain ground in the towns and thus to revive a failing urban strategy. These discussions were set aside while the CCP had no permanent base and while Chiang pursued his eradication policies. It was only the game of bluff played at the Xi’an Incident in December 1936 that enabled the ‘alliance’ between the two parties, providing a stage for their enmity (Tsang 2015).

Following the arrest of Chiang by Zhang Xueliang, the Nationalist general in command of the troops that had been ordered to liquidate the remainder of the Long March in North Shaanxi, Mao hoped for the trial and elimination of Chiang. Stalin decided otherwise. Mao, submitting reluctantly to the wishes of Moscow, and Chiang, only too pleased to escape lightly, both agreed half-heartedly to cooperate against Japan. The alliance they formed was only symbolic in that each occupied different and distinct territories (Mitter 2013). Unlike during the period of integration of the 1920s, the CCP continued to carry out autonomous structural and military consolidation. However, this theoretical reconciliation did bring about the end of the civil war and allowed for the eventuality of a coalition government (lianhe zhengfu 联合政府). This was a coalition whose statist potential for the CCP was enhanced by a central political role and implantation in urban centres, on the condition of positions in territories held by the GMD. The Japanese invasion in July 1937 still did not produce concerted resistance (Paulès 2019). Chiang Kai-shek’s best forces were decimated while Mao Zedong preserved his. Wang Ming was sent by Moscow to improve the effectiveness of a unified military front under the authority of Chiang. So began a new phase in the struggle for hegemony within the CCP, which was undecided for several months from late in 1937 onwards until the military situation led Stalin to favour Mao.

Mao entered the political fray armed with a theory of practice (shijian lun 实践论) legitimising action on the ground in preference to dogma and disconnected abstract decisions. Mao skilfully positioned this autonomy in the context of a Chinese operational particularism. He was careful to avoid theorising any break with Moscow. The other side of the coin was that this autonomy depended on success on the ground (Chevrier 2022). His synthesis of the ideas garnered during the 1930s would have remained theoretical if Wang Ming’s strategic pretensions had not been destroyed by action on the ground. Wang’s failure at Wuhan in summer 1938 disqualified him and incited Stalin to play the Mao card.

Mao emerged from the struggle officially established as the CCP’s number one, recognised as the leader of an independent party within a political alliance where he could control his own position. The laurels of patriotism lost by the CCP in the 1930s were regained by virtue of the alliance; participation in the alliance spared the Communist forces from facing Japan on the frontline, which would have been unavoidable if the GMD had capitulated. Mao was keen to occupy the space on the political stage provided by the legalisation of the CCP and other parties in the name of the united resistance movement. From September 1937, the united front existed officially through the establishment of the Consultative Council for National Defence (guofang canyihui 国防参议会), which was yet to become active (Fairbank and Feuerwerker 2008). Against this background, Mao continued to appropriate the revolutionary values of Sun Yat-sen, increasingly relying on Nationalist references and his demand for democracy in China. With the launch in March 1938 of the People’s Political Council (guomin canzhenghui 国民参政会), the avatar of the tortuous process of institutionalisation of the Nationalist regime during the 1930s, the united front was put in place, further associating the CCP with values of resistance, liberty, pluralism and moderation. However, the question of unification of the CCP was still to be finalised in order to accentuate the struggle against the GMD in an unfavourable context in which the Communist forces were marginalised on the ground, their urban presence was at its lowest point and Chiang had regained his popularity (Chevrier 2022).

Mao achieved this in just a few years by structuring, normalising and expanding the system of action characterised by the ‘three magic weapons’ (san ge fabao 三个法宝) formula, in which the united front, previously destined to be relegated to the margins of the revolution, became central. While this terminology is well known, its intellectual origin has long remained unclear. Relying on the work of Stuart Schram, never analysed from the united front angle, it is now possible to propose a brand-new genealogy of the concept that refreshes the perspective of Mao’s rise to power at the heart of a communism in the process of ‘sinicisation’ (Zhongguohua 中国化).

A Chinese ‘Magic Weapon’

On 1 April 1938, addressing pupils at the Northern Shaanxi Public School directed by Cheng Fangwu, Mao mentioned that every Communist should behave in an exemplary manner and put his words and commitments, both political and military, into action, because the CCP did not have in its ranks ‘an elder Party member living on a mountain, training disciples to master the use of magic weapons and then sending them down the mountain in batches’.⁷ This reference is taken from the Investiture of the Gods (fengshen yanyi 封神演义), a sixteenth-century work attributed to Xu Zhonglin (许仲琳) that shaped Daoist myths and legends (Xu 2002). Yuanshi Tianzun (元始天尊), the Celestial Venerable of the Primordial Beginning, the immortal of the Kunlun mountains, gave three magic weapons to his disciple and great strategist Jiang Ziya (姜子牙), who was destined to carry out the will of the gods by putting an end to the reign of the Shang dynasty, which had lost the celestial mandate to the Zhou (eleventh century BCE): an apricot-yellow banner (xinghuangqi 杏黄旗) to erase all difficulty, a supernatural steed in the form of a chimeric version of Père David’s deer (elaphurus davidianus – sibuxiang 四不像) and a whip to lash spirits (dashenbian 打神鞭).

In May 1939, Mao, on his road to power, engaged the Party in a prolonged conflict (chijiu zhan 持久战) with Japan and the Guomingdang. On 9 July, in the same school, he reiterated the historical-heroic-Daoist reference, but delivered in person three contemporary magic weapons to the young people who were about to leave for the front, so that they could destroy ‘demons, ghosts, and monsters’. The triptych included the united front, ‘armed struggle’ (wuzhuang douzheng 武装斗争) and ‘Party-building’ (dang de jianshe 党的建设). Between April 1938 and July 1939, Mao transformed himself into the demiurge of combat communism; to accomplish the destiny of China, he prepared the levers of a triple asymmetrical war against political, military and ideological systems greater than himself: sinicisation of communism and control of the Party; guerrilla warfare against the Japanese troops and armed conflict with the GMD; and political infighting on the ground held by the Nationalist regime to win the favour, or at least the neutrality, of the nation’s various elements. The reference to the three weapons was undoubtedly intended to galvanise the young recruits by using an explicitly Chinese popular mythical-heroic cultural reference that they could probably master far better than Communist rhetoric. This origin story was overlooked for many years, however, because the truncated, brief and largely forgotten text taken from the speech⁸ mentions only the united front and makes it the only modern magic weapon, a counterpart to the anti-demon whip offered to this army of young recruits.⁹

It was not until 4 October 1939, in his introduction to the new journal the Communist (Gongchandangren 共产党人), that Mao again used the three pillars of the magic devices to enable a heroic CCP to ‘storm and shatter the enemy’s positions’ for the revolution.¹⁰ The reference to the Daoist legend was omitted, probably because the journal was intended to bolshevise a party in constant need of unifying and edifying. As it became better known than the July speech, this text contributed to obscuring the cultural origins of the idea. It demonstrates, however, the scope of the program of sinicisation of Maoist action: bolshevisation and acculturation of the available Communist concepts in one move, to have them at hand.

Mao’s changes of position between these different registers, and his apparent hesitation as to the content of the ‘weapons’,¹¹ have left observers confused and in danger of seeking coherence (Armstrong 1977) at the price of a multidimensional practice that was still in a tentative and uncertain phase.

This rediscovery of the origins of the magic weapons terminology allows us to better understand its impact. Although excluded from the history of political ideas because of its picturesque aspect, the notion nevertheless demonstrates how Mao constructed his communism. It was not the united front itself that was sinicised, as that belonged in the framework provided by Moscow, but the way in which it was used and closely linked to the establishment of the CCP as the priority expressed in the October article.¹² Party construction, as inscribed in the rewriting of the history of the Party, was made cohesive around the leader in a triple temporal approach: in the past, the magic weapons ensured the continuity of the struggles undertaken by the CCP since its foundation; in the present, they imposed a continuum of action on three fronts, as the domination of the CCP must emerge from the interconnection between the three ‘weapons’ affecting the whole revolutionary process and leading the Party to victory; for the future, the formula becomes a form of incantation, announcing a supposedly ineluctable victory in a context of great uncertainty. In this way, in the space of a few months, Mao transformed an anecdotal but easily accessible cultural reference into hyperbole that could be applied to his CCP.

Many years would pass before this discursive bricolage would have a widespread impact. At the time, the CCP was under great pressure. Chiang Kai-shek, on his side, also used political weaponry against the Communists to restore the reputation of his regime (and himself personally), while disputing the battleground of public opinion. He acted slowly but surely and delayed calling for a constituent assembly until 1940, thus reviving the democratic opposition, although the latter was still far from leaning towards the Communist side (Fairbank and Feuerwerker 2008). However, here Mao could use the ‘New Democracy’ to exploit this opportunity, adding it to the three magic weapons. Combining them into a triple central ensemble provided the possibility of sliding from one module to another, whatever the mode, open or closed, moderate or radical, at anytime, anywhere, whatever the circumstance, on a global or local scale. In other words, on a symbolic level, the magic represented the Maoist revolution in motion, at once autonomous and orthodox with regard to Moscow.

From this perspective, it is possible to represent the united front as a balance point in the framework of Maoist action. It allows the one who wields its discursive power to accuse anybody to be either too dogmatic or too opportunistic, depending on the state of the CCP’s internal struggle. It also allows moving towards political pragmatism without appearing as heterodox. However, on the ground, the exercise was a double-edged sword: the cadres had to reduce their intransigence (and that of the ‘base’) concerning exactions, hoarding and collectivisation of land, at least for the moment, as the interests of the allies had to be preserved. But these compromises might have exposed them to accusations that could lead to ‘rectification’ if they damaged the ideological purity of the Party.

In the Maoist struggle for hegemony, the united front concept may be viewed not as a simple import, but as a political appropriation adapted to the Chinese context and the transformation of the CCP in its quest for power. It allowed, even beyond the simple tactical level, to fight the enemies of the revolution (at a particular moment) – the so-called first rank of enemies (e.g. imperialism, big business, the invading Japanese, Nationalists, etc.) – by seeking alliances with the second-rank enemy sociopolitical groups (e.g. progressive parties, the middle classes, Nationalists, activists, etc.), acceptable in the first instance but likely to be eventually included in the first category. The united front became a way to rank adversaries, using potential checks and levers to strategically advance the revolution at several different speeds. This approach always implies isolating the enemy (of the first rank) by clearly displaying the points common to the Communists and to the targets (of the second rank) (Van Slyke 1967; Armstrong 1977). However, in Maoist practice, it should only be seen as a starting point. The political action consisted in reinforcing the union – by delegitimising and marginalising elements within the so-called friendly camp (the rest of society), the hesitant, the critics and the potential adversaries of the CCP – by letting it appear to be the product of a consensus seemingly achieved by autonomous forces (Groot 2004). The work of the united front should then be interpreted as bringing about the social structuring intended for its transformation, according to the needs and political ambitions of the Party. This structuring is represented by multiple units (associations, organisations, etc.), apparently self-governed but, in practice, proxy Communist cells. From then on, the process should no longer be seen as consistent with forming a consensus achieved through alliances. On the contrary, it aimed to produce a consensus by removing all dissent, notably by occupying the public domain (Chevrier 2022). This way, the CCP was reassured in its ecumenical self-representation as being the avant-garde not of a class but of the ‘people’ made up of allied classes.

Establishing an Institutional Parenthesis

After it first appeared, the ‘magical’ symbolic became part of the revolution for as long as the Party was aiming for power. Its use did not, however, cease with the founding of the PRC. On the contrary, the united front was used to institutionalise the political order of a ‘people’s democracy’. It became a module that established an institutional parenthesis that ended with the ‘New Democracy’ and the launching of the ‘grand disorder’ desired by Mao.

Following the launch of the Rectification Movement (zhengfeng yundong 整风运动) (1942–44) (Cheek 2016), the Maoist party built up coherence during July 1943 around Mao Zedong Thought (Mao Zedong sixiang 毛泽东思想). The united front then served to structure a national union against the GMD. It, therefore, quit the register of the purely material and provisional, and tactical or strategic, alliance. It became an overall and effective device for social organisation, contributing (according to Mao) to the freeing of energies favouring the overriding ambition of the Party. Seen from this angle, it was not autonomous forces that were enrolled in the adventure, but structured and formatted energies produced and engendered by the system that they were supposedly producing and engendering (Chevrier 2022).

From an institutional angle, appearances had been saved. In January 1946, the Political Consultative Conference (zhengzhi xieshang huiyi 政治協商會議) ended the exclusive control of the GMD over the nation and opened the way towards the ‘coalition government’ instalment desired by the Roosevelt administration. Pluralism disappeared with the return to civil war (1946). In 1948, while Chiang’s regime promulgated a democratic constitution in the hope of staunching the flow of democrats moving over to the CCP camp, Mao thought up the idea of long-term democratic coexistence with his allies. In September 1949, a common program (gongtong gangling 共同纲领) was set up structuring the CPPCC, a constituent assembly of the PRC (Bonnin 2007).

In the following years (in different regions), the united front was still useful. The CCP, which asserted itself into the military sphere, was still far from being able to ‘hold’ the towns and needed proxies to manage urban society and take control in the quietest possible way. It was presented as a useful tool to maintain some political plurality around the CCP by liaising with intellectuals (Vidal 2008) or with gangsters (Wong 1997) to bide time for the Party to structure itself and develop the means to squash any resistance, especially in rural areas (Xu and Billingsley 2013; Wang Di 2018). As for rhetoric, the combination of the three ‘weapons’ was always necessary. In Party writings, they were still described as important because they had helped to conquer the enemy during the revolution from a position of weakness (Van Slyke 1967; Armstrong 1977). This new status doubtless explains why observers chose to translate fabao alternatively as three fundamental questions, three principal elements, three main weapons (Van Slyke 1967) or three magic wands (Tsou 2000). The ‘eight character’ concept from the 1950s, ‘long-term coexistence and mutual supervision’ (changqi gongcun, huxiang jiandu 长期共存、互相监督),¹³ describing the relationship between the CCP and the eight democratic parties illustrates this renewed united front discourse. However, this outreach was already little more than window dressing. The allies were entrenched in a dissolving united front space. Mao sped up the march towards the socialist revolution, which could only sweep away the institutionalisation of the New Democracy and its attributes. This change was evident in the evolution of the triptych formed of the united front, the Red Army and Marxism–Leninism (Van Slyke 1967).

At the end of the 1950s, Mao broke away from the political apparatus of the conquest by devitalising the united front, no longer required since the generalisation of collectivism, the struggles and the ‘contradictions within the People’, and until the start of the struggle against the ‘new bourgeoisie’. The united front was doubly neutralised as a lever for tactical or strategic action (Van Slyke 1967). On the one hand it was included in the preamble to the constitution in 1954, a non-binding niche in a legal framework relegated to the shadows of Maoist ideology. On the other hand, it was included in Mao Zedong Thought and became an abstraction (Van Slyke 1967). Thus, the united front was no longer a vector of the struggle for hegemony. With the Cultural Revolution, it was Mao Zedong Thought that was brandished as an invincible and ‘all-powerful magic weapon’ (wanneng fabao 万能法宝) (Chuang 1967), able to overcome all the difficulties and all the enemies in a war taking place in China and abroad. The irony is that this action enshrined the concept and made it available to Mao’s successors, who, with perfect fidelity to dogma, would be able to use it as a tool for reform and the Party’s statisation.

Shield against the Maoist Momentum and Lever for Reform

Often seen as a remnant of Maoist rhetoric, Gerry Groot’s seminal work on the evolution of the united front in the post-Maoist era showed how it became a tool for the CCP to ‘manage transitions’ (Groot 2004) by providing some leeway for the regime to recreate, even artificially, some sort of dialogue with society. Going one step further in analysing the evolution of the concept, I stress in the remainder of this chapter how it was refashioned to allow for the invention of a post-revolutionary China without changing its Communist framework.

In 1975, the first signs of a way out of Maoist chaos can be seen in the call by Zhou Enlai for a much-needed ‘democratic consultation’ (minzhu xieshang 民主协商) (Zhan 1986). In 1977, after Mao’s death, Hua Guofeng attempted the improbable conciliation of a Maoist relaunch and the rehabilitation of the old targets of the united front who had been purged. The Hua Guofeng interlude and the ‘Four Modernisations’ only lasted until late 1978. In order to be disruptive without being labelled a Chinese Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping chose a strategy of skirting around the main obstacles in his way (Chevrier 1985). To do this, Deng, like Mao, reset the ideological superstructure and its organisational embodiment. He reinstated the political characteristics of the New Democracy in the name of pre–Cultural Revolution institutional Maoism.

The united front could thus be presented as a political attribute linked to the first era of the Party under Mao. It provided the opportunity for a pragmatic leap over the Maoism of the Cultural Revolution, meaning that it no longer needed to follow the revolution while continuing to refer to its Maoist heritage (Jourda 2012). From the Communist journals mentioned above, one can see that, on an institutional level, invoking the united front enabled the relaunch of the CPPCC. Multiparty cooperation was reinforced and extended from eight to 16 characters by adding ‘sincere collaboration’ (gandan xiangzhao 肝胆相照) and ‘common destiny’ (rongru yu gong 荣辱与共) to long-term coexistence and reciprocal supervision¹⁴. At a social and economic level, Deng reached out to those who had been repressed over the previous 30 years and whose skills were required for the relaunch. At the Party core, this reference contributed to countering both the guardians of the Maoist momentum as much as the reform purists. Providing autonomy for the ideological referential was vitally important. To this end, Deng relaunched the Maoist ‘magic weapon’ aspect, which would therefore be inappropriate to contest. To complement this, he raised the united front to the rank of ‘science’; it was said to be contributing to scientific socialism at a high level as a purely Chinese ‘independent science’, and this science was also considered as a part of the Marxist–Leninist united front’s ‘theoretical heritage’ (lilun baoku 理论宝库) (Zhang 1986). In doing so, one should note, Deng was careful, like Mao in the 1930s, not to theorise the change. One can even observe his optimisation of the method, presenting himself as orthodox via a double conceptual tutelage, both Maoist and Marxist, that legitimised his search for autonomy. Once again, the disadvantage was that the scheme depended on success on the ground. This synthesis and sinicisation of Marxist and Maoist invocations in order to redirect them towards reform would have remained theoretical if the practical implementation had not proved Deng right. As for Mao, these shields provided little cover, either in power games between factions or among the old targets of the united front who had learned from their experience. Within the CCP, there was much criticism of the incongruousness of a regeneration that lacked consistency (Jourda 2012). However, Deng managed to retain it as a lever in his hand in internal Party struggles.

In 1987, having emerged unscathed from dissent within the Party, Deng Xiaoping openly launched a general movement of reform with Zhao Ziyang. As neither the Party nor Deng himself fully acknowledged a distancing from the revolutionary referential, rhetoric enabled them to use to their advantage the temporal dilatation that the united front had favoured continuously since its introduction in China (Jourda 2012): in the past, the Cultural Revolution was constantly being encrypted and relegated to a historical parenthesis in the ongoing construction of PRC institutions; in the present, it was used to disguise all manner of hesitancy; in the future, it accompanied the ‘initial phase of Socialism’ (shehui zhuyi chuji jieduan 社会主义初级阶段), which must lead in the long term to revolution, once the material conditions created by economic development had been achieved (Fan 1988).

A Tool for the Re-Ideologisation of the Regime

In 1989, the Tiananmen crisis interrupted the reform movement. A new chapter in the use of the united front began, a chapter once again expressed in slogans, their development demonstrating the ideological–institutional frame underlying the regime’s transformations. In late June 1989, Jiang Zemin began liaising with the democratic parties to reassure them. This meant explaining that repression by the statist and authoritarian CCP in no way signified a return to limitless revolutionary violence that could affect the united front objectives or the reforms that had taken place (Jourda 2012). Thenceforth, the Party, assuming its transformation from revolution to state via the Communist route (Chevrier 2001), accelerated the march towards state-building using the revolutionary referential. In official publications, the magic weapon is recycled to this end, solely in its ‘triumphant’ (zhansheng 战胜) and ‘victorious’ (shengli 胜利) aspect in the face of all obstacles. In an offensive and de-ideological approach, the united front was used as a rhetorical lever offering ‘enormous superiority’ (juda youshi 巨大优势) to the CCP in order to ‘make an ally of adversity’ (huaxian weiyi 化险为夷). Again, it was success on the ground that boosted this terminology, which was more proactive than conceptual.¹⁵

After a decade of rapid economic growth, the CCP, becoming the party of the state (rather than the party of the revolution), carried out its Copernican revolution via the Three Represents (san ge daibiao 三个代表) (Cabestan 2018). Their purpose was to openly recognise the existence of social sectors previously considered non-revolutionary (such as businesspeople) and place the CCP above them, eliminating the eventuality of a future struggle. This development weakened the notion of the united front, as society no longer needed to be classified in different groups in preparation for the revolution.

Under Hu Jintao, the authorities felt obliged to provide a framework for this social recognition by the CCP and its metamorphosis to party-state in the face of a de-ideologised future. To consolidate the gains and correct the excesses of Jiang Zemin’s reform, Hu focused on stabilising the regime rather than pushing the reform drive forward. Hu was seeking middle-of-the-road governance, situated at a point between justice and political stability so as to avoid not only a proletarian revolution (a return to Mao) but also a democratic revolution (Jourda 2012). The united front action was launched to this end. It created consensus at the service of a governance presented as pluralist via ‘multiparty cooperation’ (duodang hezuo 多党合作) (Liu 2000) for the benefit of a ‘harmonious society’ (hexie shehui 和谐社会) (Su 2006).

But the new framework was still a constraint for the CCP. In light of Xi Jinping’s restructuring of the system that followed, it would appear to be the collegial nature of the leadership, as well as the ‘judiciarisation’ (fazhihua 法制化) of the country’s governance and the growing distancing of the population from its revolutionary culture, that constrained the Party. In a Weberian paradox of unintended consequences, the party of the state, in the de-ideologising country it is shaping, is in danger of finding its hegemony contested because of its growing position as a party-state confined to non-ideological governance. The institutional provision of the united front can be useful in this case as a sounding board for the discordant voices at the heart of democratic consultation (Tong 2007).

In reaction to this, the end of Hu Jintao’s mandate was characterised by a defensive quest for checks. As in Mao’s case, putting ‘Chinese characteristics’ (Zhongguo tese 中国特色) to the forefront allowed Hu to counter a form of political universalism, from then on Western democracy (Wang Xingdao 2003). To close the ranks politically, ‘the common interest’ (gonggong liyi 公共利益) was put forward as the sum of the particular interests of united front targets: in the wider sense, all non-Communists who submit to or tolerate the authority of the Party (Jiangsu UFWD and Joint Research Group of Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences 2007). The alliance between the CCP and democratic parties was re-injected into participation in ‘public affairs’ (hezuo gongshi 合作共事) in the name of ‘harmony-cooperation’ (hehe 和合) (He and Zhao 2021) intended to produce a ‘collective victory’ (gongying 共赢) (Jourda 2012). Theoretical research on the united front was resumed to create cohesion, showing early signs of ideology returning to the stage (Wu Baotong 2008). As previously, the resulting slogans did not attract much attention, only appearing pertinent after the fact.

In spite of these protective shields, the trivialisation of CCP ideology opened the door for top cadres wishing to take over the political apparatus by appropriating revolutionary values. After the challenge by Bo Xilai (Broadhurst and Wang 2014), Xi Jinping followed the same path but with a view to restoring order and restarting the regime. From as early as 2012, the new leadership pushed forward with remedying the ‘situation in the ideological sphere’ (dangqian yishi xingtai lingyu qingkuang 当前意识形态领域情况) to build the ‘grand renewal of the Chinese nation’ (Zhonghua minzu weida fuxing 中华民族伟大复兴).¹⁶ This ambition only being possible by repositioning a dynamic Party at the centre of a reactivated political life, Xi reinstated the symbols of the Maoist revolutionary myth (Lam 2012). The goal was not to return to the revolution, but to reset the CCP’s political drive.

As the legatee of Maoist communism, Xi paired ideological adjustment with ad hoc restructuring. The united front rhetoric was immediately included in a ‘concentric’ (tongxin 同心) movement with a ‘core leadership’ (lingdao hexin 领导核心) producing ‘dynamic stability’ (dongtai wending 动态稳定) as opposed to the ‘stationary stability’ (jingtai wending 静态稳定) of the previous period (Yang, Xu and Zhang 2010). To this end, the united front was to nourish an ‘organic combination’ (youji jiehe 有机结合) (Wang Puqu 2013) of society, state and Party; in other words, a space in which there would be no dissent, but that would not smother social initiative and would be a substitute for the role played by democracy in modern societies.

Several recent works (Groot 2021; Joske 2019, 2020; Lulu 2019; Smith 2018; Wang and Groot 2018) show that, from 2012 onwards, institutionally, the implementation of this ambition took the form of strengthening the united front apparatus. A group supervising the work of the united front was created within the Central Committee (Zhongyang tongzhan gongzuo lingdao xiaozu 中央统战工作领导小组) to restart the entire apparatus in a coordinated manner. The UFWD recruited 40,000 new cadres, and the number of offices was increased and reorganised to include all the issues in Chinese politico-social life. The united front extended its hold on the CPPCC and the democratic parties. Its bureaux were to be active in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the diaspora, concerning all areas (e.g. religion, private enterprise, internet, etc.) (Groot 2016). From then on, the state services and departments in charge of such questions (religion, diaspora, ethnic issues) would be bypassed in favour of the UFWD. In this way, Xi Jinping made the united front a tool intended to exercise coordinated action against any dissent between the Party and society by circumventing the state.

These institutional changes go together with a broadening of united front practices both at home and abroad, as documented by recent studies. In the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, the united front becomes the magical weapon to lobby and suppress any discordant voice that could weaken the harmonious hegemony the CCP aims to establish (Brady 2017). This willingness to make friends by any means necessary (Liao and Tsai 2019) takes the form of an influence war (Charon and Jeangène Vilmer 2021) comparable to the infiltration strategies involving every element of the party-state (Joske 2022). These practices have been described in-depth for Australia and New Zealand (Brady 2017), but they are also visible in Hong Kong (Lo, Hung and Loo 2019; see Yuen and Cheng, Chapter 15, this volume), among diaspora circles in France (Jourda 2019a) and in Taiwan where the united front aims at politicising small political parties’ extreme elements linked to the triad world (Jourda 2019c).

The broadening of its scope and the creation of this organic whole has also transformed the united front’s relationship with its targets. Thenceforth the aim is not simply to superficially win them over, but to ‘attract’ (xina 吸纳) (Wang and Li 2017) them in order to ‘include/contain’ (baorong 包容) (Zhou and Sun 2011) them by ‘incorporating’ (zhenghe 整合) (Yang 2014), ‘fusing’ (zonghe 综合) (Zhang and Zhu 2009), ‘encasing’ (qianru 嵌入) (Xiao and Yuan 2010) and ‘regulating’ (tiaozheng 调整) (Shi and Cui 2012) their aspirations in the only possible version considered ‘consensual’ (gongshi 共识) (Li 2012) of the China Dream embodied exclusively by the CCP.¹⁷

The study of these evolving practices should not, however, make us lose sight of the role played by the united front in shaping the Chinese regime from the inside, and organising it based on the CCP’s ambitions. The broadening of the united front that is taking place under Xi Jinping is accompanied by a new rhetoric, which can only really find its true meaning if and when grassroots action succeeds. The new triptych – magic weapon, harmony/cooperation and ‘balance’ (pingheng 平衡) – forms the ‘thought essence’ (sixiang de jingsui 思想的精髓) of the united front (He and Zhao 2021). This innovation engenders a new, murky terminology, in which the work of the united front has morphed from an ‘art of governance’ (zhishu 治术) and a simple ‘instrumental strategy’ (gongju celue 工具策略) into the ‘path of governance’ (zhidao 治道): in other words, a ‘national systemic model’ (guojia zhidu moshi 国家制度模式) (He and Zhao 2021). The united front thus becomes a tool at the service of the re-ideologisation of the Chinese regime, integrated around a CCP intended as inclusive, authoritarian and ideological. It remains to be seen whether this holistic framework can provide sufficient impetus for Xi Jinping to succeed in his hegemonic ambitions, despite the pandemic and the economic crisis that goes with it.

Conclusion

For the last 100 years, the united front, as a device promulgated and enacted according to circumstances, has represented a thread that can be followed to decrypt the metamorphoses and developments of the CCP. The concept should be seen as the product of the confrontation between revolutionary momentum and the principle of reality (Chevrier 1983). In a world where dogma guides action, the united front can function as a dispensatory framework to pursue action when the revolutionary drive is missing. It was first an imported and provisional political instrument, injected pragmatically into the ideological superstructure of the CCP to prepare for the Chinese Revolution. Under Mao’s impetus, it became a framework to take over the country and to build the PRC, but that framework was later dismantled and put aside in the name of the socialist revolution. Deng Xiaoping used it as a prop to move on from Maoism and as a screen to protect his reforms. Once the united front was free of its revolutionary guise, Jiang Zemin made it a part of the structure of the party-state itself. Hu Jintao and especially Xi Jinping revived its old revolutionary basis; the latter made it an essential element of his system of integrated ideological governance. Whatever the constraints of the Communist march towards revolution and statism, the united front is a practical costume with which to dress the necessary arbitration to avoid issues of compromise, reversal, delay or failure. The united front, therefore, serves as a ‘theoretical sliding screen’ for the adjustment of discourse and action to fit the theory of the proletarian revolution and its Communist direction.

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