Military Purges and the Remaking of the Chinese Communist Red Army

• In Event: Revolutionary Dynamics: Shaping Political Development in Modern China

Abstract

A key puzzle in civil wars is that rebel groups purge their military officers even in the shadow of strong external threats from the government. Why do rebels purge some military officers but not others? How do military purges affect rebel groups' survival? We argue that in a decentralized rebel movement, leaders utilize intra-officer conflicts to purge some officers with the support of others. This divide-and-rule strategy centralizes military control while compromising military performance. Using newly digitized data on over 5,200 officers of the Red Army during the incipient stage of the Chinese Communist Revolution (1927--1936), we examine the patterns and consequences of the first large-scale purge in the CCP's history. We find that officers organizing local armed uprisings are the target of the purge. Yet within them, those with strong parochial networks in their localities are less likely to be purged and more likely to be promoted. Triple-difference estimates show that soldiers with kinship networks to purged officers are less likely to fight until death, suggesting the cost of the purge. This tradeoff shows that purges can be an effective, yet highly risky strategy of building a strong and loyal coercive apparatus.

Authors

• Xingchen Lan, New York University

• Bokai Qi, New York University