CPC points out Soviet fall as Xi Jinping firms up his grip

As President Xi Jinping firms up his hold over China’s ruling Communist Party with his anti-graft campaign, his backers say Mr Xi’s drive netting over a million corrupt officials is necessary to prevent the party meeting a similar fate as the Soviet Union which collapsed in 1991.

The Soviet collapse teaches Communist Party of China (CPC) lessons in party leadership, said a report in the state-run Global Times on Tuesday, highlighting the importance of Mr Xi’s anti-corruption campaign in which 1.01 million party officials have been punished in the last three years.

The anti-graft campaign and the party discipline have become buzzword as the CPC started a four-day key meeting here on Monday to discuss major issues regarding strict party governance.

Two documents - one on the norms of political life within the party under the new situation and a revision to an intra-party supervision regulation — will be reviewed at the plenary meeting, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Speculation is rife that the meeting plans to change 1981 rule brought in by the party to stick to collective leadership to avoid concentration of powers in one individual.

The meeting has come ahead of the next year’s Party Congress at the end of the completion of five years of Mr Xi’s tenure as leader of the party, military and the presidency.

Ahead of the meeting, 63-year-old Xi was compared with party founder Mao Zedong amid rumours that the plenum is also set to amend the 10 year tenure rule for the leaders to allow Xi to continue beyond 2022.

The CPC is implementing the anti-corruption campaign and intensifying party disciplines as it learns lessons from the collapse of the former Soviet Union (USSR), the report said. Many Chinese leaders have frequently referenced the ex-USSR and called on the CPC to learn from its historical experience.

For example, during the second plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in February 2013, Mr Xi had said the breakdown in party disciplines led to the downfall of the former USSR’s 20 million-strong Communist Party, the daily report said.

If party members did and said whatever they wanted, the party would turn into a mob, Mr Xi had said.