Joseph Torigian on Xi Zhongxun and Elite Chinese Communist Party Politics

Summary

Odd Lots Podcast: In-Depth Exploration of Xi Zhongxun and Elite Chinese Communist Party Politics

Release Date: August 7, 2025
Hosts: Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway
Guest: Joseph Turigian, Author of "The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping"

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Introduction

In this episode of Bloomberg's Odd Lots, hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway engage in a comprehensive discussion with Joseph Turigian, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and an associate professor at American University. Turigian delves into his latest work, a biography of Xi Zhongxun, the influential father of current Chinese President Xi Jinping, offering listeners an intricate look into elite Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics and the historical underpinnings that shape today's China.

Guest Introduction: Joseph Turigian and His Book

Joe Weisenthal opens the conversation by expressing his perplexity over the CCP's use of terms like "left deviationism" and "right deviationism," highlighting the opaque nature of elite-level Chinese politics. Tracy Alloway adds context by mentioning her interest in Chinese historical dramas as a means to understand China’s past, setting the stage for an insightful discussion with Turigian.

Joe Weisenthal [04:05]:
"We're going to be speaking about his life today to the author of one of his biographies... The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping."

Understanding CCP Politics: Leftism, Rightism, and Deviationism

Turigian addresses the confusion surrounding CCP jargon, elucidating that terms like "leftism" and "rightism" are often intentionally vague to allow top leaders, such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, to label opposition as they see fit. This ambiguity serves as a tool for political maneuvering within the party.

Joseph Turigian [17:15]:
"In theory, that would get it just the right amount, but in practice, it's very hard."

He explains that "leftism" in CCP terminology generally refers to policies or actions deemed excessively ambitious or out of sync with the party’s current objectives, while "rightism" indicates a lack of revolutionary zeal. These labels are not fixed ideologies but are used to suppress dissent and consolidate power.

Xi Zhongxun's Rise and Role in the CCP

Turigian provides a detailed account of Xi Zhongxun's ascent within the CCP, emphasizing his ability to navigate complex power structures and build alliances with senior party figures. Despite not being part of the founding generation, Xi Zhongxun earned respect and influence through strategic relationships and loyalty.

Joseph Turigian [10:08]:
"Xi Zhongsheng stands out for his ability to keep winning over famous senior men within the party."

This section highlights how Xi Zhongxun's personal attributes and political acumen allowed him to thrive within a highly disciplined and hierarchical organization, setting the foundation for his son's future leadership.

Factionalism and Internal Power Struggles in the CCP

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the concept of factionalism within the CCP. Turigian challenges the Western perception of rigid factions, suggesting that internal politics are more nuanced and less formally organized than commonly thought.

Tracy Alloway [13:06]:
"Do you like the segue to it?"

Joseph Turigian [13:23]:
"I'm a skeptic about how useful the idea of factions can be for understanding the Chinese Communist Party."

Turigian argues that while alliances and personal relationships impact political dynamics, the notion of fixed factions is oversimplified. Instead, he portrays CCP politics as fluid, with loyalties and oppositions shifting based on evolving circumstances and leadership directives.

The Impact of the Cultural Revolution on the CCP Structure

The conversation delves into the profound effects of the Cultural Revolution on CCP politics and leadership dynamics. Turigian explains how the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution instilled a deep-seated fear of instability among party members, influencing contemporary leadership’s approaches to governance and control.

Joseph Turigian [30:59]:
"Xi Jinping's dedication is more unshakable than anyone else's."

He discusses how Xi Jinping, having witnessed the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, is determined to prevent a recurrence by maintaining strict party discipline and promoting a controlled environment that suppresses dissent and fosters ideological conformity.

Xi Jinping's Leadership: Influences from His Father

Turigian explores the complex relationship between Xi Jinping’s leadership style and his father's legacy. While Xi Zhongxun was perceived as humane and pro-reform, Ji Jinping has adopted a more authoritarian approach, striving to immortalize the CCP through historical education and centralized power.

Joseph Turigian [34:41]:
"Xi Jinping says that the reason the Chinese Communist Party survived when other Communist parties did not is because it had this capacity for change."

This section underscores the tension between traditional CCP values and the need for modernization, reflecting how Xi Jinping balances reverence for his father's contributions with his own strategic initiatives to sustain the party’s longevity.

Comparing CCP Politics to Literary Analogies

A notable part of the discussion involves drawing parallels between CCP politics and the classic novel Moby Dick. Turigian and the hosts use this analogy to illustrate the relentless and often destructive pursuit of ideological goals within the CCP.

Joe Weisenthel [37:42]:
"Have I mentioned that I've recently read the book Moby Dick?"

Joseph Turigian [38:11]:
"Starbuck was the deputy, the first mate to Ahab... Xi Zhongshun was sort of the first mate to the first mate."

This literary comparison highlights the obsessive nature of CCP campaigns and the personal toll on those within the party who strive to align with shifting leadership directives, much like the doomed pursuit of the white whale in Melville’s narrative.

Researching CCP History: Methodologies and Misconceptions

Turigian shares his research methodologies, emphasizing the importance of a multifaceted approach to understanding CCP history. He combines archival research, interviews, and analysis of both official and unofficial documents to construct a nuanced historical narrative.

Joseph Turigian [42:46]:
"When you do research on the Chinese Communist Party, you can't just go to a couple of archives... you need to make a mosaic."

He also addresses common misconceptions, noting that even seasoned insiders often misinterpret the complex and often contradictory nature of CCP politics, leading to unexpected outcomes and continued instability within the party.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wrapping up the episode, the hosts and Turigian reflect on the enduring complexities of CCP politics and the challenges of preventing historical cycles of purges and ideological purism from resurfacing. Turigian emphasizes that understanding the personal and political histories of key figures like Xi Zhongxun is crucial for comprehending the broader dynamics at play within the CCP today.

Joe Weisenthel [45:35]:
"That's a great ending. Joseph Turigian, fantastic book. Really appreciate you coming on Odd Lots and chatting with us."

Tracy Alloway [48:42]:
"If you enjoy Odd Lots, if you want some recommendations for Chinese historical dramas, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform."

The episode concludes with a thoughtful synthesis of historical analysis and contemporary political commentary, offering listeners a deep dive into the intricate world of Chinese elite politics through the lens of Xi Zhongxun's life and legacy.

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Notable Quotes:

• Joseph Turigian [10:08]:
  "Xi Zhongsheng stands out for his ability to keep winning over famous senior men within the party."

• Joseph Turigian [17:15]:
  "In theory, that would get it just the right amount, but in practice, it's very hard."

• Tracy Alloway [13:06]:
  "Do you like the segue to it?"

• Joseph Turigian [42:46]:
  "When you do research on the Chinese Communist Party, you can't just go to a couple of archives... you need to make a mosaic."

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the Odd Lots episode, providing a detailed exploration of CCP politics, the life of Xi Zhongxun, and the enduring influence on contemporary Chinese leadership. The inclusion of notable quotes with precise timestamps offers authenticity and depth, ensuring that even those unfamiliar with the episode gain valuable insights.

Transcript

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[Joe Weisenthal]

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

[Tracy Alloway]

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Tracy, Sometimes I read 20th century Chinese history and sometimes just a little no, there's here's something I don't understand. Like, you know, I read about the Mao era or the Deng Xiaoping era and all the various cadres. They're all like, oh, we're like, guilty of, like, committed, like a left deviationism or right deviationism or all this stuff. And they're all really worried about whether they're going to get expelled or something like that. And I never, like, know what any of these words mean. Like, I actually feel like I have no intuitive understanding of how like, elite level Chinese Communist Party politics works. And I think I probably should, given this sort of like, growing stakes and the growing awareness with which we as Americans all have to be aware about how China works.

[Tracy Alloway]

Wait, if you're reading lots of China history books, you must know what self criticism is, right?

[Joe Weisenthal]

I know what self criticism is.

[Tracy Alloway]

Okay.

[Joe Weisenthal]

But I don't know why they're like, oh, you engaged in revisionism, or you engaged in ultra leftism, or you engage in ultra rightism.

[Joseph Turigian]

And.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And I don't know what any of these terms mean.

[Tracy Alloway]

Well, my experience of China is that sometimes the rules are a little sketchy on purpose.

[Joseph Turigian]

Right.

[Tracy Alloway]

So that there isn't a clear definition so that you can kind of go after whoever you want. You know what I do to learn about Chinese history?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Tell me.

[Tracy Alloway]

Chinese historical dramas. I kind of love them.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Do you mean like plays or books or.

[Tracy Alloway]

No, no, no. I mean TV shows.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Oh, TV shows.

[Tracy Alloway]

Probably the equivalent of soap operas in the States.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Do you have a favorite?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, I have one I'm watching right now. I'll tell you afterwards. It's so good. But the reason I bring it up is because relatively recently there was a historical drama that was all about Xi Jinping's father.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Oh, I saw some screenshots from that. I think someone uploaded it all to you. Have you watched it?

[Tracy Alloway]

I haven't. I've been looking for it and I haven't been able to find it. So if you find it on YouTube, let me know. But the reason I bring it up is because we're going to be speaking about his life today to the author of one of his biographies. Biographies, the first English speaking biography. And the series itself got panned when it came out. It was really funny. And there are some quotes that said, oh, I think Chinese youth today would rather watch Stranger Things than learn about the history of the ccp. So we're going to try to make CCP history as interesting as Stranger Things on this podcast.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And we're also, I guess, going to make the case maybe to American listeners and maybe some Chinese youth if they're listening, that it's worth learning about. Right? Like whether it's interesting or not, it's like, okay, it's the year 2025. Do we need to, like, revisit the history in Yunnan or the northwest provinces or whatever, all this stuff? Is this really important? Anyway, we obviously have the perfect guest we're going to be speaking with. Joseph Turigian. He is a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and an associate professor at American University. And he is the author of a new book, the Party's Interests Come first the Life of Xi Zhongshun, Father of Xi Jinping. Joseph, thank you so much for coming on. Odd lot.

[Joseph Turigian]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Why are we interested? Or I guess you. Why were you. Why is anyone interested and worth spending time to learn about the life of Xi Zhongsheng?

[Joseph Turigian]

You know, I was listening to your conversation. I was thinking about how one of the things that Xi Jinping is trying to achieve is make the regime immortal by having people study Party history. He believes that one of the ways to keep the Party vigilant and dedicated and at one with the people is to learn from the legacy of the revolutionaries. So what that history is teaching that history is moral education is at the very heart of Xi Jinping's project. So that begs the question, what was that history? And I tried to tell it through the prism of his own father with my book.

[Tracy Alloway]

So one question I always wanted to ask a sort of CCP expert is why would anyone want to join the Party in the sort of 1940s, 1950s, 1970s? I understand that hindsight is 20 20, but looking back, first of all, no one knew how this was all going to turn out. And secondly, it seems like your life as a sort of minor party official could be very, very tricky and very dangerous in some ways. To Joe's point, about things like self critic getting in trouble for leftist deviations or rightist deviations or whatever, it doesn't seem like a fun time.

[Joseph Turigian]

So I think that breaking down your question a little bit would be meaningful. What decade you join the party can tell you a lot about that person. And also why you stay in the Party can be very different from why you joined in the first place, because often you don't know what kind of organization it is and you don't know what's going to be coming. But I think that at the heart of what you're getting at is why would you join an organization that is so dangerous to be a member of, either because you're fighting a revolution against a vastly superior force, or because there are so many power struggles within that party. One of the answers is that for These people. Communism wasn't just a way of understanding economics. It wasn't just about Marxist dialectics. It was really a source of meaning and purpose in their lives. It was joining an organization that for them was a manifestation of a world historical inevitability. And it was exciting. It gave them agency, it gave them a sense that their lives mattered. And of course, they were often joining the party at moments when they felt that the entire nation was at risk of falling apart because of warlords and bandits and Western and Japanese encroachments.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I forget what decade it is, but there's another reason that even people today get excited about radical politics, and that is sex and dating. And they think it'll make them attractive to members of the opposite sex. You mentioned that in your book, that that was one of the appeals for the very early Communists.

[Joseph Turigian]

So it's interesting how politics in the personal mix, often for members of the Chinese Communist Party. So there was a political background, there was a social background. He was born two years after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. He saw of these battles between Nationalists and bandits, Nationalists and Communists. And it would have been even just visibly striking for him to grow up in this area, because he grew up near Xi', an, which many of your listeners must know as where the terracotta soldiers are from. And that's because the first unified Chinese state was forged near where he was born. And so he would have seen just how far his country had fallen from these amazing heights during the Tang Dynasty. And so for him, he didn't really understand the intricacies of the ideology. He wasn't really attracted to Marxism from an intellectual perspective. But as he and other people had written about or talked about later, it was just kind of cool to be more radical, more leftist, because there was a sense that the country really needed something drastic to be able to find its feet.

[Tracy Alloway]

Can you talk a little bit about how he rose up through the party ranks in the sort of early days? Because this is always a question. So first of all, the goal of the Communist Party, as you mentioned, is sort of always changing in one way or another, or certainly the way they execute on it seems to be quite flexible. And so I'm very curious how a sort of junior level politician or party member gathers influence within the party. And basically what qualifies as a good job to get them ahead?

[Joseph Turigian]

Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the dilemmas that my book tries to explore is what does it mean to be a deputy in a system that puts so much focus on a strong leader and discipline. So people might wonder, why would I read a book about someone who wasn't the top leader of the Chinese Communist Party? Isn't this just an organization where people do what they're told? But actually, it's so much more complicated than that. And it's complicated for lots of interesting reasons. One is that that the top leader often will give a general sense of what they want to achieve, but they won't say what matters more and how to achieve it. And then so the deputy has to figure it out. They have to be loyal to what the top leader wants, but also not screw everything up entirely. There's other competitors that might not like you. You also have to be aware of the fact that often the top leader will change their mind. So all of these things are what members of the party have to manage. And Xi Zhongsheng stands out for his ability to keep winning over famous senior men within the party. So he was not one of the oldest of the founding generation, but he really impresses you with his ability to find these big brothers over and over again who saw something in him that they admired.

[Joe Weisenthal]

One thing I really got from reading your book, and you mentioned Xi Jinping himself as part of his own goal, is to have the younger generations learn more about party history, Hence the drama that Tracy mentioned. One thing I really sort of deeply internalized reading your book is how young the country is, how young the party is. And, I mean, there is a sense in which Mao is like Xi Jinping's uncle. I mean, you say the word big brother in terms of, like, Xi Zhongshun's ability to find these sort of brother figures. It's still a very close. It's a very close family. These people were, like, right there at the very beginning that Xi Jinping knew and was growing up with.

[Joseph Turigian]

Yeah. So one of the things in the book that I think is really quite significant is how long these people knew each other.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Right.

[Joseph Turigian]

So the book begins in the 1920s, and Xi Zhongshun's a major figure through the early 1990s. And these names keep coming back over and over and over again. And they knew each other for so long. And the intricacies of these relationships are really something. So in the west, we've often seen this habit of dividing the party between good guys and bad guys, reformers and conservatives, leftists and rightists. And one of the things that emerges from my research is that they were so subtle, the way they interacted with each other. So they were kind of frenemies in a way. Right? So they all had loyalty to the party, but the way that the antagonism shifted, the way that the loyalty shifted, it was something that was very protean over these years.

[Tracy Alloway]

Talk a little bit more about that because I think when people certainly in the west, hear about the Chinese Communist Party, they often think of factionalism and all these cadres that are sort of in secret rooms forming different groups with different goals. Did that actually happen?

[Joseph Turigian]

So I'm a skeptic about how useful the idea of factions can be for understanding the Chinese Communist Party. Now, I don't want to go too far. It definitely matters who you worked with, whether you work in the same organization, that kind of thing. But the reason Leninist parties are known as organizational weapons is because they are so leader friendly and because there is such a taboo about any concerted political action by certain groups. Now sometimes they approach that level of coordination, but they have to be so careful because as soon as the top leader identifies that then they're going to be in big trouble. But also people are people. So you can have more liberal views on some issues, more conservative views on other issues. Just because you worked with someone doesn't mean that you're going to like them. So often the people who are, as I mentioned, these relationships are shaped by what happened decades previously. They have long memories. And if you worked with someone, you didn't get along, that can be meaningful many, many, many years into the.

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[Karen Moscow]

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[Joseph Turigian]

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[Joe Weisenthal]

I mentioned this at the beginning, but I remember when I read the recent biography from a few years ago of Deng Xiaoping and then also a recent Zhou Enlai biography. They're always like trying to read Miles Moran, right? Like they're on there like, oh, and are we guilty of leftism or rightism or whatever? And I can never really figure out, do we take the correct line? We take the people's line, whatever. What does leftism mean? They're always getting accused of leftism. I thought they're all leftists, they're communists. But what is actual, what did they mean it when they said that someone was taking like the leftist line in the CCP and that that was bad in some way?

[Joseph Turigian]

Good question. So when you look at Chinese texts, when they talk about leftism and rightism, leftism is always in quotation marks, right? So what is leftism? In theory, leftism basically means that you're too ambitious, you're moving forward too quickly, you don't recognize the objective conditions, and therefore you're making a hash of things because you're trying to achieve what is not possible at that particular time. Now, at the same time, leftism is part of the part of what makes the Chinese Communist Party because of this phenomenon known as campaigns, right? So what's a campaign? A campaign means you get people to go too far deliberately, because you need to get them to go too far, because the whole point is to gin people up, to get them excited, to inspire zeal. So you expect that things are going to go too far now for these people who are the deputies. Typically, when they go too far and then there's a rectification, they're not punished for it because there was an always expectation that there was going to be some mistakes, that you're going to break a few eggs. Right. Nevertheless, because this was a system that took ideology so seriously, when there were differences of opinion, often they weren't understood as such. They were seen as manifestations of a deeper political problem. And as you were alluding to in your introduction, one of the reasons Mao and Deng were so powerful is because they got to decide what was leftist. They got to decide what was a line error. And so often the reason we think that there are factions is because the top leader decides after the fact to label a bunch of people as a group and say that they represented some kind of political view. But. But almost always what really happened is that these people just simply weren't in line with the chairman and they weren't guessing correctly what he wanted, and they were punished for it. And then they were given this label.

[Tracy Alloway]

Why didn't Mao just issue clearer instructions?

[Joseph Turigian]

Yeah, good question. Part of it was about the succession, right? So Chinese top leaders always are thinking about what's going to happen after they die. And they don't want their model to disappear with them. And so they're testing their deputies. They're trying to figure out whether their deputies can do the right thing on their own. And so they don't always want to be clear because they want to see what you do. But also, the top leaders change their mind all the time. They're mercurial. They can watch a situation and decide that things aren't going the well that they wanted. And then they don't say that immediately to see whether or not other people are going to realize that on their own. But also I think that by leaving some ambiguity, they can see whether or not you are going to use that space to do everything you can to remain loyal to the top leader, or whether you're going to show some of your own inclinations, which you may or may not like as the senior leader.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Let's talk about the trajectory of Xi Zhongshun's life a little bit more. A big part of your book is these fights over history, and they're obsessed about getting the exact history of riot of Chinese and the Northwest Territories and who is where, when, et cetera, and who is influential, et cetera. Why was this so important, these sort of fights over specific details of history. And then how did that culminate ultimately in 16 years in which he was sort of extremely punished and banished and basically cast out of the party and humiliated and all the horrible things that happened during the revolution?

[Joseph Turigian]

Two reasons, primarily. One is for a top leader, your legitimation narrative is to say, I was always on the right side of the debate. And so when you make the case for why everyone should listen to you, whether or not your version of history is affirmed has a lot to do with whether or not you are seen as someone who deserves to be the chairman. And the second reason is that the party is a totalizing organization. Your entire sense of self worth, your prestige, your status, your sense of meaning is how the party characterizes your contributions to the revolution and to the regime after it's established. So history in that sense is absolutely existential for them. And I think that also when it comes to, as I said, this preoccupation with whether the regime will survive, you need to win the hearts and minds of young people by talking about the Party as an organization that went from one victory to another because it was the only way of organizing society that can guarantee China's return to its rightful place on the world stage. Right. So for all of these reasons, history is so important. And so when you're purged from the leadership and you're doing self criticisms, what are these self criticisms about? Well, it's a reflection of your own personal history. So when xi Zhongshun spent 16 years in the political wilderness after he was purged, what he was writing about was his past over and over and over again and negotiating with the top leadership, just exactly how what he had done previously was going to be officially evaluated.

[Tracy Alloway]

You know, you mentioned the word frenemy earlier, and as a former teenage girl, frenemies is something that is of perennial interest to me. And when I think about famous frenemies in the past, do you like the segue to it?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, I do.

[Tracy Alloway]

All right. When I think about famous frenemies in the past, I kind of think about the Soviet Union and China in the 50s and 60s. And one of the interesting things about the elder Xi is that he was for a while, charge of basically managing China's relationship with Soviet experts at the time. What was that experience like for him? How tricky was that to actually do? And was it useful to him in later years having had that experience?

[Joseph Turigian]

So in 1953, the most prominent slogan in the People's Republic of China was the Soviet Union of today is China's tomorrow. And in Fact that also was the year that Xi Jinping was born and his father, Xi Zhongshun, was Minister of Propaganda. In subsequent years, when Xi Zhongshen was working for Zhou Wen Lai at the State Council, as you said, one of his tasks was to manage the Soviet expert program. And for a period of time, the number one priority was to learn wholesale from the Soviet Union. And it was rooted in this idea that there was only one way of doing communism. But Mao Zedong increasingly came to the view that something had gone deeply wrong with the October Revolution, that the Soviet leaders were engaging in revisionism. And I know you were chuckling about this word earlier. They're always getting accused of what is this communist jargon. And revisionism basically means you're not really a true communist anymore, that you are not as actually leftist as you need to be. Right. You're not pushing forward. You're too scared to try to win new victories for the revolutionary agenda. And so Xi Zhongsheng would have witnessed this story. He would have witnessed how Mao Zedong gradually came to the conclusion that the Chinese project was going to be different. And he also would have seen something else, which was how dangerous it was to talk to people outside the Chinese Communist Party, especially foreigners. Because one of the accusations against him in 1962, other than, as you said, that he was trying to revise history, was that he was a spy for the Soviet Union. So it would have been very frightening for Xi Zhongshun to manage relations with the Soviets. Right. So the first great purge of the People's Republic of China was a man named Gao Gong. And he was another Northwesterner. He had known Xi Zhongshun for years.

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, this is the Gao Gong to believe that.

[Joseph Turigian]

Exactly. Mao came to believe that Gao was a spy for the Soviet Union in 1959 at the famous for Chinese historians, Lucian Plenum, when the Defense Minister, Peng Dehuai made critical remarks of the Great Leap Forward, he also, in Mao's mind, only did that because of a special relationship with the Soviet Union. And he saw some. Some machinations there. And Peng Dehuai was the commander on the northwest battlefield, and Xi Zhongshun was his right hand man. So Xi Zhongshun was basically a Forrest Gump for the two first great purges of the People's Republic of China. And they both were seen by Mao as having had illicit relations with the Soviet Union. And then he is purged in 1962 as well. I'll say one other thing about this, which is quite remarkable. So the first split that was really something that the Chinese and Soviets had trouble managing, happened while Xi Zhongshun was visiting the Soviet Union. And what had happened was there was an altercation on the border between China and India, the first one, and several Indian soldiers were killed. And while Xi Zhongshun was traveling, the Soviets put out a statement that essentially took a neutral position, even though the Soviet Union and China were in formal alliance. And the Chinese were absolutely furious. And Xi Zhongshen left Moscow early. And when Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, visited China just a few weeks later, Mao said to him, your statement made the imperialists happy. And Mao's conclusion was, why aren't the Soviets? Why don't they have our back? Why aren't they more supportive? And his answer was that it wasn't that the Soviets were pursuing their interests. We have our interests. It was that they're not really Communists anymore. They've gone revisionist. And actually to tie it again back to Xi Zhongshun, it contributed to Mao's preoccupation with this idea of class struggle. And he wanted to figure out a way to make sure class struggle never went away. And his crackdown on xi Zhongshun in 1962 was related to his marinating in this obsession with the importance of class struggle that was partly inspired by what he saw as the degradation of the revolutionary project in the Soviet Union.

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[Karen Moscow]

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[Joseph Turigian]

Gosh, until you put on the anytime soon, I was gonna say absolutely yes. Probably not.

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[Joe Weisenthal]

So Xi Zhongsheng was purged and subject to 16 years of absolute torment. It's funny you characterize him as sort of like the Forrest Gump of 20th century China because of course later on in his career he was heavily involved in Guangdong and the opening of Shenzhen and these special opportunity zones or special economic zones which people know a lot about there. But he spent much of the rest of his life essentially fearing the possibility. It seems. There's my reading of your book that the ever present risk of sliding back into Cultural Revolution type periods and the Cultural Revolution per your book, there were many patterns of it prior to it. It's sort of these purges and campaigns, they existed afterwards. I'm just curious, in your view, can the Party even today ever be inured against the potential of reverting back into such a self destructive environment such as that? Or is that always going to be endemic to the structure of the Party that it could trip into these sort of intense inward battles that are so damaging?

[Joseph Turigian]

Yeah, that's a very insightful question. One piece of evidence to get at what you're driving at is to look what Xi Jinping himself experienced during the Cultural Revolution and how he's talked about it. Xi Jinping said that when the Cultural Revolution began, everyone believed in it, which was true. So when it became clear that it was a disaster, it was profoundly disillusioning. And Xi Jinping admitted that he too went through a period of doubt, but that precisely because he went through this time of thinking about why such a Terrible thing could happen. But nevertheless, return to the party's cause meant that his dedication is more unshakable than anyone's, anyone else's. And the 1980s, in these interviews that I found that he gave, he talks about how he saw the 1980s as a time when people should be even more loyal to the party, because now they could do something. Now the leftism and the radicalism had gone away, so you could finally work to bring China in the right direction. And in fact, he said that the reason that he didn't want to make up for lost time and have fun and make money was because he wanted to make sure that another Cultural Revolution never happened. But it raises a question, right, which is, how do you stop that from happening? And so some people who went through the same thing that Xi Jinping did, they believed that China needed the rule of law. It needed to prevent another strongman leader from appearing. And Xi Jinping's answer was, you need to have a party that's unconstrained. You need to have a party that's so powerful that it can stop people who, when are given the freedom to do so, take advantage of it and use it to hurt people. And so for Xi Jinping, a lot of people think that he's a Maoist figure, that a lot of what he's doing has elements that are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. And that's certainly true. But as you said, a lot of what we associate with the Cultural Revolution has been part of the Party since the very beginning. And the question then is, so Xi Jinping, he wants to use struggle, he wants to use campaigns, but he also doesn't want another Cultural Revolution. Well, what does that mean? Well, he and people around him have said that, well, we're not going to do the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. We're going to avoid that kind of radicalism. We're also going to recognize that we lost a sense of vigilance after Mao's death, and we're going to find this happy medium. But what is a happy medium in this sense? Right. Like, struggle is not a legal concept. It's not a clear idea, really. So you can see how, in theory, that you would get it just the right amount, but that in practice, it's very hard. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing China struggle to balance the economy and security is because it's hard to do two things at once.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah. I always thought it was interesting that in modern China, there are a lot of portrayals domestically of The Cultural Revolution. So things like historical dramas or in the Three Body Problem, there's a very, very long section that. And it kind of indicates exactly what you're describing, which is, to some extent, Xi Jinping wants people to know what happened and to understand the danger of sliding back into something like the Cultural Revolution. Just on that note, to what extent do you think Xi Jinping actually draws from his father's experience in terms of his own policy? Or are we sort of falling into the trap where we think that all of Chinese politics has to be dynastic and it's all about family members succeeding family members members? To what extent is that true?

[Joseph Turigian]

So Xi Zhongsheng has a reputation as the best kind of person that the Party could produce. Almost uniquely humane, liberal, pro reform. And so when Xi Jinping came to power, a lot of individuals who knew the family or knew something about party history believed that he was going to be like what their understanding of his father was. And when he moved in a direction that disappointed them and in fact, was quite a surprise for them, they were so, so disappointed. And one of the things that they did was they negatively contrasted him with his father. One dissident exiled intellectual in the United States said that Xi Jinping is not the son of Xi Zhongxuan, he's the grandson of Mao Zedong. So this politicized use of Xi Zhongsheng against Xi Jinping, and I'm sure that Xi Jinping hates it. But then the question becomes, well, is Xi Jinping inspired by father as a positive example or as a negative example? Some people have said that, well, Xi Jinping saw that his father's liberal policies failed, and that's why he's doing something completely different. You know, we can't say for sure, but I can say a couple things. One is that it's interesting. It's interesting that Xi Jinping's very first article published in People's Daily, was about the relationship between older generations in the party and younger generations. And he said essentially that we need to respect them. We can learn so much from them, but we would not respect them if we did exactly what they did. And we never innovate. Right. We need to move along with the times. And also, I think that at heart, what he wants to do is make sure that the regime survives. And everything he's doing is for that purpose, which means that he is essentially inheriting the big picture of what his father wanted, which was to ensure that the party and the party's interests could persist from one generation to another. So is he doing certain things different from what his father did? Yes. Is it a conscious rejection of his father? I'm not so sure. I think maybe he would say that the heart of what I'm doing is the same as what my father did. But also, we need to change with the times. And it's a story of the Party constantly learning new things and needing to address new objective conditions as they appear. And one last point on this. Xi Jinping says that the reason the Chinese Communist Party survived when other Communist parties did not is because it had this capacity for change, that it was because the Party could cynicize Marxism and adapt it to national conditions, therefore find a Chinese style of modernization, that they could find this way of a non western style of development. So it's interesting how he plays with this dialectic between tradition and innovation. But in that sense, I think his thinking here is a little subtle.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Tracy, have I mentioned. I can't remember if I brought this up. Have I mentioned to you that I've recently read the book Moby Dick?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Listen, have I mentioned it? Have I mentioned that?

[Gunjan Banerjee]

Listeners.

[Tracy Alloway]

Let me just tell you, whenever Joe reads a book, he talks incessantly about it. So, yes, you have brought up Moby Dick several times.

[Joe Weisenthal]

It's hard not to read the book about your book, Joseph, without thinking of the character Starbuck, isn't it? No, I'm just kidding. You said that yourself on Twitter. And I used this as an excuse to torment Tracy with bringing up Moby Dick. But you yourself made that connection. Huh.

[Joseph Turigian]

So it's not a perfect analogy, Right, Because Starbuck is the first mate, and Xi Zhongshun was sort of the first mate to the first mate. Right? So he's a wrong further down than Starbuck. And also the book seems to suggest that while Ahab is motivated by vengeance and Starbuck is somebody who just wants to make money. Well, Xi Zhongfen, he was on board with a revolutionary project, right? Like, he shared many of Mao's views and Deng's views. So we shouldn't essentialize the difference between Xi and Mao. And also the Pequod, Right? The Xi ship crashed, but the Party has survived. Right. The Party is still there. So those are different ships. But at the same time, it is, I think, meaningful to think about the similarities. Right? So Starbuck was the deputy, the first mate to Ahab, and he knew better, but he still allowed himself to be a victim. And by doing that, he doomed himself, he doomed the crew. And even though he was Someone who recognized that Ahab was the kind of person who would strike the sun if the sun insulted him, which really is a very Maoist thing to say, right? Like, Mao really kind of fetishized this idea of struggle and fighting back and having a strong personality. He still didn't really do anything about it. And also, like Xi Zhongshun, Starbuck isn't clearly a hero or a villain, right? He raises questions about the morality of what he was doing as part of this particular system. Starbuck also didn't really have legal recourse to removing Ahab, right? So there's this one moment where he thinks about killing him, but he recognizes that that's a violation of the law of the ship. And also, Starbuck is similar to Xi Zhongshun in the sense that when he thinks that something is not going the way he thinks is, right, he remonstrates, but very carefully, in a way that he's almost not even really remonstrating because of just how cautious he is. So. And I'll say one final thing about this, right? So what's interesting about Moby Dick is the whole crew kind of gets on board with this crazy idea of hunting this whale, right? And it kind of reminds me of this quote by Deng Xiaoping about the great leap Forward, which is that we all had the fever, right? And it raises this question. It's like, why would people be so loyal to this person who's so strange and so eccentric? And I think it's because this idea of. Of the adventure and the thrill and mission was. Was something that spoke to something at the heart of their lives.

[Tracy Alloway]

So maybe they're all just trauma bonded.

[Joseph Turigian]

A few thoughts.

[Joe Weisenthal]

I forgot about trauma.

[Joseph Turigian]

Well, you know, it's. When you write a biography, you need to talk about psychology. And the fact that Xi Zhongfun and Xi Jinping went through these traumas can't be ignored. And you need to talk about it, and it needs to be addressed. But psychology and history, psychology and politics are different disciplines for a reason, which is that you can't essentialize their behavior down to what they experience as children, right? So a lot of people thought that everything Stalin did could be explained by the fact that he was beaten up when he was a young person, right? By his.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Oh, yeah, the Stalin biographer. There's so much more to Stalin than Kotkin. He has this great line. He's like, oh, people say that his father was abusive and drunk, and he's like, who wasn't abusive and drunk? Drunk in the early late 1800s in that area. So, anyway, sorry, keep going. But yes, this is a good point.

[Joseph Turigian]

I'll say one other thing about this. D.H. lawrence wrote chapter in a book about Moby Dick, and he talked about all this practicality in search of a mad, mad chase. And that also really gets to something at the heart of the Party that we've talked about, which is during the Revolution, during the Great Leap Forward, during the Cultural Revolution, you see these goals that are just utopias. And at the same time, that doesn't mean that the Party, at sometimes even the same moment, sometimes more than others, doesn't also have this very practical side, very flexible side. And these two elements have coexisted from the very beginning in ways that I think are meaningful to dwell on, too.

[Tracy Alloway]

So one thing I'm always curious when it comes to books like these very large historic projects, is how you actually go about gathering your research and what sources you're looking at, and whether you're finding new things that potentially people were unaware of before. And then just on that note, what would you say is the biggest misconception that academics, or maybe people in the west in general, tend to have when it comes to understanding how the CCP actually works?

[Joseph Turigian]

Yeah. So when you do research on the Chinese Communist Party, you can't just go to a couple archives, collect the material and write it up. You need to have a different sense of sensibilities. You have to be sensitive to the possibilities, not the limitations, and recognize that you're going to have to collect a lot of different types of evidence and make a mosaic, and you'll be able to understand certain things better than others, but that in the future people will find new things, and that it's an ongoing project. There's never going to be a definitive version, but nevertheless, there's enough that you can do to say in the interim, at least, something meaningful, something to start a conversation. And so, for example, a lot of internal documents, a lot of archives have made their way to American libraries and institutions. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, people from the mainland were able to publish histories outside of censorship, but also document collections and memoirs. But you also need to use the stuff that comes out of mainland China. So there was a period where Party history journals were really pushing the envelope. But even the official stuff, like the chronologies and the official biographies, you can mine those things for biographical details, but also you can put it in the context of other material you've collected, and then suddenly that evidence is meaningful to you in a way that maybe even the compilers of it did not expect. And also, I just made a list of every time that Xi Zhongshen met with a foreigner and then tried to either speak to that person or go to their archives. I spoke to the Dalai Lama. I went to the French Communist Party archives because Xi Jinping went to France. They went to the archives in Serbia because he went to a big important congress in Yugoslavia when it still existed, that kind of thing. And so, you know, what are the. What are the main misunderstandings? Well, one thing to say is that this isn't always just a case of Westerners who don't understand China getting it wrong for cultural reasons or whatever, but people at the very heart of this system also also constantly got it wrong, right? And so, as I mentioned earlier, these people who knew the Xi family were totally dumbfounded by Xi Jinping when it became clear what kind of a leader he was going to be. Right? And these were not stupid people. These were people who had been around the block over and over and over again. And the reason these purges happen, the reason why someone like Xi Zhongshun, who is actually quite cautious and quite clever, why he crashed on the shoals of power struggles, is because he also didn't fully understand the repercussions of what he was doing. So in that sense, we should keep in mind just how hard it is to get the system right, not just for people on the outside, but even for people on the inside too.

[Joe Weisenthal]

That's a great ending. Joseph Turgean, fantastic book. Really appreciate you coming on odd lots and chatting with us.

[Joseph Turigian]

Really interesting conversation. Thanks so much for having me.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Yeah, Tracy, while we were recording that episode, Joseph mentioned the various campaigns that they had, the ccp. So I went to the Wikipedia page and like, I love some of the names of their campaigns because, like, some of them are like, sort of straightforward, like, like Cleansing the Class Ranks campaign. Kind of obvious, but then like, Counterattack the right dev. Counterattack the Right Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend campaign. The Criticized Lyn Criticized Confucius classic, obviously campaign. There's something always very poetic about these. The Four Pests campaign.

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, yeah. Where that one was very sad and kind of blew up in their face. But. But I think you're getting to an important point, which is a campaign. What was the second one you mentioned?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Wait a sec. The Counter Attack. The Right Deviationist Reversal of Verdicts Trend Campaign. Sorry, that was the Gang of Four attacking Deng Xiaoping, who was involved in reversing verdicts of people who had been improperly punished during the Cultural Revolution.

[Tracy Alloway]

Right. But this is actually important because it's like, what does that mean exactly? And I think this has kind of been both the strength and the weakness of the CCP over time, which is that a lot of these concepts are fuzzy and ever changing and often they are fuzzy on purpose so that the leader can exert control and declare what actually is anti right or anti revisionism or whatever.

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, totally. It is clear. I mean, obviously there is like the, however many year period, the formal, the 1966, 1976 Cultural Revolution, which she, the elder she and the younger she both like, truly like unbelievable levels of personal humiliation and suffering. But it really extended both before that and afterwards. And I really, you know, it's clear, like it is not easy in a political system such as that to ever fully guard against the return of that style of full blown politics.

[Tracy Alloway]

I have one question for you. How many Moby Dick references am I going to hear on this podcast?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Well, maybe only the next time we do an energy one.

[Tracy Alloway]

Okay, all right, I can accept that.

[Joe Weisenthal]

Okay.

[Tracy Alloway]

I'd be really impressed if you like orc it into every episode.

[Joe Weisenthal]

No, I definitely would. I just thought it was very funny in this case that the author happened to have a lot of an unusually high level of drawn out thoughts between one character in Moby Dick and the author of his book. So I had to bring that up. I thought that was very.

[Tracy Alloway]

Here. Here we go. I'm going to read Moby Dick as a lens for understanding the ccp.

[Joe Weisenthal]

You should. It's great.

[Tracy Alloway]

All right, shall we leave it there?

[Joe Weisenthal]

Let's leave it there.

[Tracy Alloway]

This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracee Alloway.

[Joe Weisenthal]

And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest, Joseph Turigian. He's at Joseph Tyrigian. And check out his new book, the Party's Interests Come first, the Life of Xi Zhongshun, Father of Xi Jinping. Follow our producer, Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman, Ermine Dash o' Bennett at dashbot and Kel Brooks and Kell Brooks. And for more Odd Lots content, go to bloomberg.com oddlots we have a daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics, including China24.7 in our Discord Discord, GG Oddlots.

[Tracy Alloway]

And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you want some recommendations for Chinese historical dramas, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber. You can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg Channel on Apple Podcast and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

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[Karen Moscow]

Is your best way to get informed first thing in the morning, right in your podcast feed. Hi, I'm Karen Moscow.

[Nathan Hager]

And I'm Nathan Hayes. Each morning we're up early putting together the latest episode of Bloomberg Daybreak US Edition. It's your daily 15 minute podcast on the latest in global news, politics and international relations.

[Karen Moscow]

What's special about Bloomberg Daybreak is the immediacy of the news we bring you each day in your podcast feed by 6am Eastern Time.

[Nathan Hager]

This isn't a deep dive on yesterday's news. Instead, you get the latest story with.

[Karen Moscow]

Context, and that's something you don't get from other news podcasts. So join us for the best from Bloomberg's 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world, with reporting backed by data and journalists at the center of the stories we cover.

[Nathan Hager]

Listen to the Bloomberg Daybreak US Edition podcast each morning for the stories that matter with the context you need.

[Karen Moscow]

Find us on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen.