One of the characteristics of communism and communist regimes – the “real socialisms”, so embarrassing for the “socialist camp” due to the flagrant contradictions they present with the doctrine – are the so-called “purges”, the cleaning or purification of the elements that have gone astray.
The system has historical similarities with inquisitorial activities, although the number of victims of communist purges is infinitely greater than that of the Inquisition and the processes are more expeditious and provide fewer guarantees for the accused. The most famous came after Kirov’s assassination in 1934, when, between 1936 and 1938, Stalin swept out of the party (and this world) elements that were hostile to him or of which he only suspected, culminating in the “Moscow Trials”, in which “old Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev were accused, humiliated and killed.
And alongside these notables, millions of intellectuals, academics, techno-bureaucrats, military personnel, workers, farmers, were detained, tortured, summarily executed, or sent to the work camps of the “Gulag Archipelago”, where many died.
The unpopular, often disguised but undisguised truth is that terror is inherent in the communist machine; It was, therefore, fatal for the method to be repeated in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic countries where, between 1945 and 1948, the Soviets put local communist parties in power.
The targets of the purges were inevitably the “fascists”, “the “anti-communists”, the “deviationists”, “the landowners” and other categories – ideological or class – to be slaughtered.
China, where Mao’s communists took power in 1949, was the theater of the most sinister purges, due to the methods and number of victims, whether in the Cultural Revolution or the “Great Leap Forward”.
All of this comes in connection with the recent purge among the high military commands in the People’s Republic of China.
On January 24th, generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were officially placed “under investigation”. Both Zhang and Liu belonged to the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). And Zhang, vice president of the CMC, was an old friend and ally of Xi Jinping.
The accusations are of “corruption”: as early as June 2024, Defense Minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, had been dismissed for the same sin, along with another general and another admiral.
In any case, Zhang’s case is the most disturbing: Zhang is a childhood friend and longtime collaborator of President Xi, and his parents, both historic party leaders, were also already close friends. The language and method of cleaning are traditional in China: those now suspended have stopped appearing since December 22 because they “betrayed the trust of the Party and the responsibility placed in them”, causing “great damage” to the political-military structure.
Thus, in the PLA CMC there is one soldier left – Zhang Shengmin. If we think that in 2010 Xi had 22 soldiers there, we easily conclude that it was a real purge, although without the Stalinist or Maoist brutality. Apparently, the purged are, for now, alive, healthy and in (even more) supervised freedom.
What should interest us most here is knowing the influence that these accusations of corruption and this purge will have on the fate of Taiwan, the “other China” that the new Trumpian strategic doctrine expressly mentions as an area to be protected. Washington and Beijing maintain dialogue through Defense Ministers Pete Hegseth and Dong Jun; and Trump’s trip to China to meet Xi is scheduled for next April.
Political scientist and writer
The author writes according to the old spelling
Leave a Reply