Revolutionary Committee (PRC) - Role After The Cultural Revolution

Role After The Cultural Revolution

With the winding down of the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution in 1969 and 1970, the revolutionary committees became increasingly bureaucratic and an organisational and ideological formality. Although originally tasked with the representation of the Cultural Revolution's mass organisations (the Red Guards and the worker's groups), the dispersal of these mass groups made the revolutionary committees increasingly defunct, especially as the Party had regained administrative control of China. However, they were maintained for their increasingly effective bureaucratic role (they were more efficient than the conventional Party apparatus of government) and as the leadership did not want to undermine the ideological success of the Cultural Revolution.

The future role of the revolutionary committees was to be formalised at the Fourth National People's Congress held in January 1975. This congress ratified a new version of the constitution of the People's Republic of China, in which the revolutionary committees were established as permanent fixtures of the country's administration, but they were not given any role in the formulation of policy. In addition, the three members of the 'triple alliance' principle on which the revolutionary committees were founded were redefined as 'the old, the middle aged and the young'.

However, in 1978, after an eleven-year history, revolutionary committees were abolished by the post-Mao government.