Critical masses

ONE official admitted he had sat on too many sofas and not enough wooden stools, and raised too many goblets but only a few simple teacups. The official, quoted in People’s Daily, a state-run newspaper, was taking part in a “democratic life meeting” run by the Communist Party in September in the northern province of Hebei, at which senior officials were required to criticise themselves and their colleagues. The meetings are the latest part of a “mass-line” campaign led by Xi Jinping, China’s president and party chief, to keep the party close to the people.

In 1949 Mao Zedong said the party had “the Marxist-Leninist weapon of criticism and self-criticism”. We can “get rid of a bad style and keep the good”, he said, and in ensuing decades he made frequent use of the method. Criticism and self-criticism frenzies often degenerated into brutal struggle sessions and witch-hunts that destroyed the lives of innocent people and the political careers of many competent officials.