The PLA and Intra-CCP Leadership Power Struggle in the Eras of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping

Abstract

This chapter reveals that party-army symbiosis was high in the era of Mao because the PLA involvement in intra-party leadership power struggle was extensive and substantial. Military force was mobilized into such struggle and a large number of senior military officers were persecuted as members of the “anti-party cliques.” Deng attempted to disengage the PLA from China’s domestic politics, but a social and political crisis of a massive scale motivated Deng to leverage the PLA to quell a popular rebellion in Beijing in 1989. This intervention led to the substantial involvement of the PLA in domestic politics, ranging from restoring social order to the politics of top leadership succession.