The Long March and the Party's Seventh Generation

Monument commemorating beginning of Long March, Yudu County, Jiangxi Province, China, April 2026 (photo by Wan Xiang at Xinhua)

The political future has met the poignant past in China over the past seven days. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated a foundational origin story late last week, the 90^th anniversary of the Long March. This week, a Party meeting is taking place as the so-called seventh generation of leaders prepares to move up the political ladder in 2027. These hundreds of cadres, the vast (vast) majority male, were born during the late 1960s and the 1970s. The former provides a clear message to the latter.

The Party Line: Inevitability, Loyalty, and Purity.

Ninety years ago, the Long March ended in October 1936 when the final Red Army groups met up with the survivors of the initial, year-long Long March that began in October 1934. This military retreat began when the CCP and its Red Army were threatened with annihilation in the southeast by the Nationalist government in the long-running Chinese Civil War. Less than ten percent of the 86,000+ who set out in 1934 arrived at the end some 10,000 km away in north China. These brutal odds were the result of combat, starvation, disease, exposure, and desertion.

That these Communist fighters and leaders persevered and the Red Army subsequently conquered China within fifteen years (after an intervening World War fought also n Chinese soil) has attained mythic status in official Chinese political history. It is revered as revealing the core spirit of the Party. The Party’s return from this precipice to ascend the pinnacle of power is lauded as demonstrating the Party’s inevitability and necessity in leading China once again to global strength and a glorious tomorrow.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech last week to commemorate this “Victory of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army’s Long March.” In addition to floridly commending the Long March as “an earthshaking revolutionary feat of great significance in the history of our Party, country, and military,” he also renewed calls for a New Long March looking beyond today.

As vital cogs in this struggle, China’s upcoming leaders are being commanded to support and pursue “five musts.” These are the guideposts by which they will be measured. Party members must:

1. Uphold the Party’s ideals, convictions, and purpose;

2. Unwaveringly promote high-quality development and continually meet the people’s growing needs for a better life;

3. Be courageous in waging great struggles with many new historical features;

4. Accelerate the transformation of the people’s military into a world-class military; and

5. Uphold Party leadership and strengthen Party building.

(Translations above courtesy of Bill Bishop and Sinocism.)

Loyalty (to the Party) and purity (anti-corruption) are the two never-ending tests within the five musts. These upcoming 7G leaders are already governors and mayors, ministers and Party secretaries, and highly-educated engineers, economists, and financiers. Their latitude for action, however, is increasingly proscribed by renewed emphasis on central control and the anti-corruption drive first implemented by President Xi in 2013 that is only intensifying a decade plus on.

Tens of thousands of officials have and continue to fall at the highest echelons on corruption charges, from cities, counties, and provinces to this year the military. When one serves at the whim of such broad and opaque regulation (the hammer can seemingly always drop), maintaining one’s position, let alone rising further, is always going to be tenuous.

China has succeeded over the past almost five decades in large part because the central government granted latitude and encouraged experimentation downstream. This led to incredible growth, but also massive corruption. The question is the extent to which reigning in the latter will constrain the former.

Another factor facing China and these upcoming cadres is that the country has no named successor for its septuagenarian supreme leader. Such uncertainty has generally not served China well in the past. When there were named successors during the Mao and Deng years, they came to unceremonious downfalls, including in one case death. When China followed rules during the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries that leadership turned over every ten years, changes at the top were smooth. Now that Xi Jinping is in line for a fourth five-year term next year, that predictability is gone.

Though President Xi argues that the governing Communist Party system should be stronger than the individual, I believe he also feels that a supreme leader is required to make it happen. This is, after all, how it has always happened throughout China’s long history. Thus, while the new Long March spirit echoes the planning aspect of Party building, the open question is succession.

In a country as large and diverse and challenged on so many fronts as China, there will be risk if any vacuum appears when Xi Jinping is no longer President. The Party is strong. The 7G cadres are trained and gaining experience. But will those who become adept at surviving through unparalleled loyalty and obedience be capable of garnering support and completing a smooth transition when that inevitable day finally arrives?