Ideology, Organisational Power and the Naturalisation of the Rule of the Communist Party of China

Abstract

In his seminal work Ideology and Organization in Communist China, first published in 1966, Franz Schurmann presented a comprehensive sociological analysis of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) revolutionary construction of a “New China”. In his introduction, Schurmann highlights two main points. The first is that ideology and organisation condition each other. In Schurmann’s words, organisations are “structures of differentiated roles which require the ordered exercise of power”, while ideology is a “manner of thinking characteristic of an organization”. The second and even more important point is that ideology and organisation in communist China are different from “culture”, “ethos” or “social system”, which are shorthand for how things are. Ideology and organisation, however, are action-oriented. They form a “rational instrument to do a job”, with the job being the creation of a new system and culture to replace the old ones destroyed during the revolution. During the revolution, ideology and organisation were destructive tools, breaking down the old system and elite; after the revolution, the CPC turned to the same instruments, making them into productive tools in the creation of a new society, culture and elite. Action and power are keywords in Schurmann’s work, and are drawn from an American sociological tradition inspired by Max Weber that prominently includes Talcott Parsons. Schurmann maintains that there is little sense in a pure exegesis of Chinese communist ideological writings. What matters is how ideology is used as a programme of action. Ideology is produced not as statements of truth, but to guide