AS SOME of the above remarks suggest, the younger leaders have encountered serious problems of upward mobility. The trends of the mid-fifties suggested that the supreme elite was aware of such problems and had arranged and structured the various hierarchies in such a manner as to allow for rational advancement by younger Party members. Then the crisis created by the Great Leap failures curbed these processes. But since the "crisis" has now persisted for approximately half of the life of the CPR, one can hardly maintain that the orderly promotion of younger Party cadre was only temporarily delayed. Rather, it seems to have been permanently shelved.

Nonetheless, there have been some corridors of advancement open. Although it is probably the least powerful of the major institutions in China, the government bureaucracy (headed by Chou En-Lai) has provided a fair possibility for advancement. For example, 28 per cent of the cabinet ministers in 1960 were Central Committee members, but by early 1966 only 18 per cent were on the Central Committee. Similarly, 46 per cent of the provincial governors were Central Committee members in 1960, but now the figure is only 27 per cent. It is necessary to re-emphasize, however, that the "newcomers" are by no means men who recently joined the Communist movement. Almost without exception the non-Central Committee members who are now ministers or governors have careers in the CCP that long pre-date the 1949 conquest of the mainland.

Within the CCP hierarchy, the upward mobility has been made less notable. One of numerous examples suffices to illustrate the point: in 1960 the provincial 1st Party secretaries were drawn from the Central Committee in 88 per cent of the cases, and by 1966 this had only dropped to slightly less than 70 per cent. The lack of upward mobility--indeed, the reverse of such mobility--is best illustrated in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Using the key post of political commissar in the provinces, there are now more Central Committee members holding this post than in 1960. Any number of examples can be cited to show the lack of upward mobility in other Chinese institutions. A particularly interesting case is found within the Communist Youth League, an organization regarded as the prime recruiting ground for CCP members. When founded in 1949 its leadership consisted of "youths" (mostly in their thirties) who had joined the Communists as students in the middle or late 1930's. Yet of the 60 original League Central Committee members in 1949, only seven reached the Party Central Committee elected in 1956 and 1958 (one more was already a member in 1949).

No New Blood Among Policy Makers

If inertia is the proper word to describe trends of upward mobility in the hierarchies already discussed, then a much stronger term is required when one examines the new blood at policy-making levels. With minor adjsustments, policy-making in China rests with the Politburo elected a decade ago, and the execution of these policies is the responsibility of a small Central Secretariat elected at the same time. Officially, the Politburo now consists of 22 men and the Secretariat of 15 (seven of whom are currently on the Politburo). But as the readers of the Chinese press know, a few of these men are only nominal members because they have been either purged or inactive (owing to age or illness). Similarly, it is apparent that a few non-Politburo members (about five to ten) are regularly brought into the Politburo decision-making and decision-implementing processes. But even allowing for these "quasi-members," the most striking fact about the top levels of leadership is all of them have been top leaders for well over a quarter of a century. There are no exceptions.

Because no scholarly work has been done in the problem of upward mobility as it affects men now in their thirties or forties, it is impossible to say with confidence how this will effect future patterns of leadership in China. Yet one can speculate that there must be a growing sense of frustration among large numbers of third- and fourth-echelon leaders who have few really important policy-making responsibilities. Moreover, given the advanced age of the Politburo members, the near future may well witness many new top leaders with only the most limited experience in the problems of decision-making. The frustrations and uncertainties regarding mobility of careers must also be a concern of even younger men. For the ambitious young Chinese in his early twenties, there are only cloudy indicators as to the most profitable path to advance his career. Should he, for example, join the army or the CCP hierarchy? And should he stress Party loyalty or technical competence (i.e., in the Chinese Communist lexicon, should he be "Red" or "expert")?

THE tendencies toward stagnation at the policy-making levels should not be deduced merely from a nose count of Politburo membership. There is, in fact, other evidence suggesting that the policy decisions in recent years have been made by fewer and fewer men and in a more arbitrary fashion than previously. Or, to put it in other words, there are increasing signs that Mao (and a select few around him) have been monopolizing the processes of decision-making, and showing less concern for the opinions and experience of second- and third-echelon leaders. These tendencies are illustrated by the failure to convene plenums of the Party Central Committee, the importance of which is recognized by all students of contemporary China. For example, in the middle and late fifties, when the Communist regime seemed most flexible and rational, the plenums served as guideposts of policies and actions within China. Theoretically, plenums must be held twice a year--and the 10 plenums held from 1956 to 1962 illustrate that the requirement was largely fulfilled in those years. This stands in contrast to the fact that not a single plenum has been held since September 1962. [Author's note: Immediately after this paper was written, the CCP held its 11th Plenum (August 1966).]

The failure to hold the Ninth Party Congress is also a technical violation of the Party Constitution, as well as another indication that the policy makers do not feel compelled to state their policies before a large gathering of CCP members. These recent proclivities to ignore Party norms must certainly work a hardship on the system at all levels. One need only look back to the Eighth Congress in 1956 to sense the difference in "tone" of Chinese Communist leadership. It seems most probable that even the more humble Party members in 1956 had a fairly clear idea as to who were their leaders and what were the policies. Now, however, a Party cadre must have great uncertainties regarding his superiors, and the policies he is supposed to implement are increasingly shrouded in clouds of rhetoric that could puzzle the most sophisticated.

The arbitrariness of the Maost leadership has been brought into sharper focus during the purge that is being carried out at present (mid-1966). Purges or "semi-purges" in the past were carried out with a kind of surgical precision. Quite often the victims could be linked with policy disagreements (such as Ch'en Yun, the former top economic specialist who was removed from power). Previously, the language used to describe the "guilty" was stern, but usually stopped short of hysterical. Furthermore, from the point of view of the victims, there was in most cases the possibility of "rehabilitation"--not Soviet style in which rehabilitation was posthumous, but rather the familiar Maoist style in which the accused would fade from the public scene for a few years and then emerge again with a new position of importance (though usually less important than previously). Finally, as is well known, the CCP has infrequently used the weapon of the purge among the top elite, as witnessed by the fact that from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 to early 1966, only two Politburo members were purged.

This paper has stressed the weaknesses of the present Party leadership in Peking. For reasons of space and because a number of writers (this one included) have discussed the many positive factors of the Maoist leadership, the picture painted here necessarily tends to give a somewhat unbalanced and negative appraisal of the present leaders. Yet it appears that the strengths of the leadership are now largely in the past and that future writings on China will have to face up to some of the basic shortcomings that have crept into the style and content of leadership as exercised by the present elite. One is hesitant to describe the events of the past few years (and especially mid-1966) as a dramatic turning point in Chinese Communist history. Yet these events suggest that the past virtues of cohesiveness and unity may have degenerated into the vices of stagnation and arbitrariness