6 - The Nineteenth Party Congress and Reinvigorating Leninism

Summary

This final chapter looks closely at the Nineteenth Party Congress in 2017. This was a remarkable congress; there had not been such extensive personnel change since Deng Xiaoping took over from Hua Guofeng. Of greatest significance was the personalization of power as Xi elevated two allies to the Politburo who had never served on the Central Committee, as well as four other allies who were promoted from the alternate list of the Central Committee. China had generally avoided such “helicopter promotions” since the Maoist period, but here they were again, underlining the lack of institutionalization and the inability of party institutions to constrain Xi. At the same time, we have seen a renewed emphasis on ideology, combined with nationalism, as Xi has sought to reinvigorate Leninism. Can such a reinvigorated Leninism successfully fight the pathologies looked at in Chapter 4?