Research Notes on the Changing Loci of Decision in the Chinese Communist Party

In the course of the Cultural Revolution, both Chinese official and Red Guard sources have revealed that the so-called Chung-yang kung-tso hui-i (Central Work Conference)—an institution hitherto not well known to outside observers—had met frequently during 1960–66 and that these meetings were connected with decisions on important policy issues. While its existence and jurisdiction have never been formally stipulated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Constitution of 1956 or 1945, the Central Work Conference appears to have become an important locus of decision in the Party during the 1960s. There are indications that it functioned alongside of the Party's regular decision-making bodies, the Central Committee (CC) and the Politburo, and that it replaced, and possibly pre-empted, the functions of other institutional devices which Mao Tse-tung has utilized during the second half of the 1950s. This article examines briefly the participants in, and functions of, the Central Work Conference and other types of Party meetings, attempting to shed some light on the loci of decision in the CCP. Appended to the article is a list of known Party meetings from 1949–66, compiled from official and Red Guard publications, which may be of some use to students of Chinese Communist affairs.