Yan'an Rectification Movement
[2] The legacies of the Yan'an Rectification Movement proved fundamental to the subsequent history of the Chinese Communist Party, according to Kenneth Lieberthal.
Because the CCP had overcome great odds to grow and develop during this period, the methods employed in Yan'an were looked upon in reverence during Mao's later years.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mao repeatedly used some of the tactics that had been successful in Yan'an whenever he felt the need to monopolize political power.
[1] Modern scholars have increasingly viewed the movement as being initiated by Mao in order to ensure his status as paramount leader of the CCP.
When the Communists completed the Long March, the CCP was a relatively small band of less than 10,000 worn out troops from the south, displaced to an isolated and poor area in the hinterlands of northern China.
[4] With only a few original members of the CCP surviving until the end of the Yan'an period, the Party as of the mid-1940s consisted of 90% peasants recruited from the base areas of north China.
[11] The mostly young volunteers who arrived in Yan'an after the Long March were "vital to Mao because they were relatively well educated, and he needed competent administrators to staff his future regime."
"The Party chose to re-emphasize its basic principles during this period, in an evident determination to maintain its Leninist foundations in the midst of all the changes brought about by the war-time shift to the united front.
Having lost many veterans before and during the Long March, the CCP found new sources of recruits among urban youth, students, and intellectuals.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, artists, writers, and journalists poured into Yan'an, seeking a revolutionary career.
Under the conditions of independently operating Communist areas and incessant warfare, Mao could not rely on discipline alone to guarantee obedience in the CCP ranks.
[2] All veterans and new recruits had to be enrolled and educated in one of these institutions, in accordance with their previous training or their expertise, before they could be trusted with assignment to party and government positions.
[2] At the end of the Yan'an Rectification Campaign the CCP had developed an operational set of principles and practices that differed greatly from the centralized, functionally specialized, hierarchical, command-oriented approach imposed by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.
Relying on criticism, self-criticism, "struggle", confession, and the content of the Marxist doctrine, these methods were heavily influenced by contemporary Soviet practices of "thought reform".
[4] These techniques of pressure, ostracism, and reintegration were particularly powerful in China, where the culture puts great value on "saving face", protecting one's innermost thinking, and above all, identifying with a group.
Before the Rectification Campaign Mao's contribution to the revolution in rural areas, and even his status as a senior leader, was doubted by other members of the CCP, including Xiang Zhongfa, Zhang Guotao, Li Lisan, and intellectuals such as Zhou Enlai, Qu Qiubai and the 28 Bolsheviks.
[citation needed] Unlike his rival Wang Ming, Mao was not recognized by the Communist International as one of the CCP's preferred leaders.
[17]: 37 By manipulating the political climate in Yan'an, Mao was able to break up the alliance of his opponents, most notably Zhang Guotao and the members of the 28 Bolsheviks, and to eliminate his rivals one by one.
[citation needed] One group was labeled "dogmatists", comprising Wang Ming, the 28 Bolsheviks, and those who had studied abroad and were deeply influenced by foreign theories, including Liu Bocheng, Zuo Quan, and Zhu Rui.
The other group was labeled "empiricists", whose members included Zhou Enlai, Ren Bishi, Peng Dehuai, Chen Yi, Li Weihan, Deng Fa, and any other senior leaders who supported Wang Ming.
This committee was run by Mao's close allies Kang Sheng, Li Fuchun, Peng Zhen, and Gao Gang, and later included Liu Shaoqi.
This Committee temporarily replaced the politburo and secretariat, running daily operation for the CCP and making it one of the most powerful administrative bodies at that time.
[7] The Rescue Campaign soon became a circular cycle of false guilt and fake reenactments sending many innocent people to death via needless witch hunts.
Some CCP members thought Mao would also accept genuine criticism and spoke their true feelings of anger over hierarchy and inequality in Yan'an.
[1]: 354–357, 367 Under the leadership of Peng Zhen, the Central Political School of the CCP began to carry out the Rectification Campaign among its students.
[citation needed] Thousands of people, especially those new members who came from areas governed by KMT, were purged, kept in custody, censored, mentally and physically tortured, and occasionally executed.
