Big bad Yuan.

Another indication of the relative powerlessness of the central bureacracy in China. The party apparatus is a huge but dispersed parasite network of local mandarins, there is little the central bosses can do to control it.

Mr. Duquette;

Typical sign of impending breakup in China, wouldn't you say?

Robert, right on the money.

Just as Hitler's Germany did, the Communist regime celebrates the Fuhrerprinzip, which creates a hierarchy of leaders who exercise total power at their own levels of society and the political system.

In theory, under the Fuhrerprinzip, each leader was also expected to follow the orders of the leader above him. This was supposed to create an orderly society that functions efficiently and with one mind. The Nazis said this was what was made their system better than the democracies. The Chinese Communists say the Party's local leaders can transmit the Party Center's orders to the masses. This, too, is supposed to unite the nation under the wise guidance of the Party Center and avoid the chaos of unfettered democracy.

In actuality, the leader becomes a local despot, who rules over his own subjects like a little emperor and ignores his superiors when it suits him. Just as there were little Hitlers all over Germany, there are little emperors all over China, all working to further their own power rather than the interests of the people. In this respect, it looks as if Marxist-Leninist socialism isn't that different from National Socialism after all.

The functional differences between the various flavors of socialism are trivial. Seen one totalitarian despotism, you've pretty much seen 'em all.

AOG,
Eventual, yes. Impending, probably not. This has been the pattern of Chinese governance for millenia. They will probably fade away, rather than be overthrown.

Robert, unfortunately, Chinese dynasties, whether traditional or Communist, don't just fade away. They have almost always died bathed in blood. That's why near the end of every dynasty, the emperor and his court were always desperate to prove they hadn't yet lost the mandate of heaven.

The Manchus, China's last imperial rulers, were practically the only exception to this, and the Communist regime, with its huge blood debts still fresh in the minds of its subjects, is more likely to share the more traditional fate of fallen dynasties.

X
But this is the first time that the power structure is being challenged from within by global capitalism. I can imagine that the country areas haven't changed much, but don't you think that the economic and social opening up happening in the cities has the prospect for radically altering the power dynamics over time?

Robert:

Radically altered power dynamics tend to end in bloodshed, no?