“Where’s the Party?”:
How can the party maintain control over a place that, in ideological terms, is no longer communist? The closure in the 1990s of vast numbers of state-owned enterprises shattered the party’s grassroots base. Over the past decade a priority of the party’s secretive Organisation Department (it handles personnel issues for the 80m-strong party, yet has no listed telephone number) has been to form party cells in private businesses, or “new economic organisations” as the official literature calls them. In 1999 only 3% of private businesses had party cells. Now the national figure is nearly 13%. Coastal Zhejiang province claims all private firms with more than 80 employees have a branch.
As party officials see it, setting up branches in the private sector is about more than just proving that a once-revolutionary party is still in touch with the masses. At a time of rapid social change and outbreaks of unrest, officials hope the new party branches will reinforce stability and keep the party abreast of potential trouble.
