Books
The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world―and one of the least understood. Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002). The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades. He worked at the right-hand of prominent leaders Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. He helped build the Communist base area that saved Mao Zedong in 1935, and he initiated the Special Economic Zones that launched China into the reform era after Mao’s death. He led the Party’s United Front efforts toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Taiwanese. And though in 1989 he initially sought to avoid violence, he ultimately supported the Party’s crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters.
The Party’s Interests Come First is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English. This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People’s Republic of China, and a deeply personal story about making sense of one’s own identity within a larger political context. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, I tell the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party’s demands. Through the eyes of Xi Jinping’s father, this book reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP―and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.
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Here are some reactions to the book:
“Joseph Torigian, a young scholar of both Communist Chinese and Soviet politics, has written a masterly biography of Xi Zhongxun, the father of China’s present-day president, Xi Jinping. The Party’s Interests Come First is a scrupulously researched and keenly perceptive account of an important but, in the West, little-known historical figure.” ―Robert B. Zoellick, The Wall Street Journal
“This could easily end up as one of the twenty or thirty best biographies of all time…. It is a book about party history, and the life of its subject, Xi Zhongxun, is itself a story about the politically explosive nature of competing versions of the past.” ―Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
“Joseph Torigian… contributes greatly to our understanding of China. The book, deeply researched, tells the story of a man torn between his humanity and his loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, offering insights into the party’s workings and the human suffering that shaped his son’s governing style and conception of power.” ―Li Yuan, New York Times
“Riveting…. What is striking about The Party’s Interests Come First is the book’s emphasis on understanding the emotional life of the elder Xi (in addition to its extensive archival research), and how a lifetime of enduring immense psychological pain and personal tragedy shaped the father’s political convictions and may have sharpened those of his son [Xi Jinping.]” ―Emily Feng, NPR
“This brilliant biography of Xi Zhongxun, revolutionary politician and father of China’s current leader, reveals the human dramas and intrigue behind the curtain in Chinese politics. Joseph Torigian is a prodigious researcher whose interviews with the Dalai Lama and others are worth the price of the book. A vividly written page-turner and a major scholarly accomplishment.” ―Susan Shirk, University of California, San Diego
“Joseph Torigian’s trademark indefatigable pursuit of detailed information illuminates Xi Zhongxun’s experience in working under Mao and Deng in a party culture that leadership should vest in a ‘core leader’ who would have to be obeyed, and where no significant force stood up to either of them. This mammoth study provides much to reflect on continuities from Mao to Xi Jinping through Deng.” ―Frederick C. Teiwes, University of Sydney
“In China today, people often ask the question: how could Xi Zhongxun have had a son like this? The son in question is China’s current president and Communist Party boss, Xi Jinping. Joseph Torigian’s biography of Xi Zhongxun addresses this question only in its final chapter, but his rich and densely documented study of the father’s life and career from the 1930s through the Tiananmen incident of 1989 is important in its own right―as an account of Xi Zhongxun’s unshakable dedication to the Party and the revolution. Xi paid an enormous personal and political price for this dedication, but he remained loyal to the end. Torigian’s fine study pays careful attention to Xi’s personal and political life, and to the complex and ever-changing dynamics of politics in China’s capital, adding important new texture to our understanding of China’s political elite under Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and now Xi Jinping.” ―Joseph W. Esherick, University of California, San Diego
“A fascinating dive into the contradictions and internal struggles that defined the life of one of the Chinese Communist Party’s leading figures. Rich in detail and light on grand pronouncements, Torigian’s book illuminates the complexity and tension inherent in Chinese leaders’ efforts to define and remain loyal to the party against stiff and constantly changing political winds.” ―Jessica Chen Weiss, Johns Hopkins University
“A towering achievement and required reading for those interested in China. Through exhaustive research and forensic detail, Joseph Torigian tells the gripping story of the man whose son now leads China and the party he helped build. Fascinating, revealing, and easily one of the best books on China in years.” ―Rush Doshi, Georgetown University
“Fascinating…. One of the easiest to read, most gripping doorstoppers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.” ―Jeremy Goldkorn, ChinaFile
“[The Party’s Interests Come First is a] state-of-the-art [analysis] of [a] senior Chinese [leader], commendable for [its] wide-ranging use of sources and attention to detail.” ―Ian Johnson, New York Review of Books
“Sweeping and scrupulous” ―John Batchelor, The John Batchelor Show
“The book is valuable not only for its portrait of its subject [Xi Zhongxun]―who was a major figure in the party’s history in his own right―but also for its insights into his progeny [Xi Jinping], now the supreme leader. The worldview [Xi Jinping] learned from his father will affect not only 1.4bn Chinese people, but the whole of humanity.” ―The Economist
“The Party’s Interests Come First provides a fascinating study of one man’s life and legacy inside a political organization that often seemed to subsume individuals but was also constantly reshaped by their influence and the repercussions of their actions.” ―Maura Elizabeth Cunningham, The Wandering Life
Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao
My first book, Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, was published at Yale University Press in April 2022.
It asks the question: how do leaders win power struggles in Leninist regimes? Many political scientists emphasize the importance of institutions in such regimes. Such institutionalization allegedly provides a mechanism for distributing patronage and debating policies, stipulates rules that delineate a group that selects the leadership, and prevents the military and secret police from playing a special coercive role. This book manuscript instead argues that the defining feature of one-party states is weak institutionalization. Power struggles are therefore determined by prestige and sociological ties, the manipulation of multiple decision-making bodies, and politicized militaries and secret police. Leaders with legacies as successful warfighters are especially capable of dominating such systems. Institutionalization can only explain why elites do not pointlessly and unnecessarily violate ambiguous rules, losers rarely defect from the party or resist decisions after suffering defeat, and the coercive organs never blatantly wield force against united civilian leaders. These arguments are based on a theoretically rigorous examination of the power struggles fought by Nikita Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping.
Here are some reactions to the book:
“[Torigian] is less interested in coalitions than the mechanics of transfers. Challenging conventional analyses of how authoritarian leaders are chosen, he argues that factors such as ideology and patronage matter less than brass-knuckle tactics.”—Ian Johnson, New York Review of Books
“Do read Torigian’s Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion. . . . It’s great.”—Stuart Lau, Politico
“Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion . . . is . . . useful for those interested in understanding how actors in Leninist systems fight for power.”—Martin Laflamme, Los Angeles Review of Books
“[Torigian’s] ambitious first book re-examines critical junctures in Soviet and Chinese history, putting up a revisionist case against the consensus view of Deng Xiaoping and Nikita Khrushchev as reformers.”—John Delury, Global Asia
“[S]pecialists will find much to ponder in this careful, detailed examination of a critical question in the functioning of authoritarian regimes.”—Mary Elise Sarotte, Engelsberg Ideas
“[A] thought-provoking, rigorous contribution to the literature on elite politics under authoritarianism. . . . This book deserves to be widely read by scholars and students of Soviet and Chinese politics, communism, and authoritarianism in general.”—Cheng Chen, Russian Review
“A careful and systematic comparison of the dynamics of leadership transition in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and post-Mao China.”—Peter Rutland, Political Science Quarterly
“[Torigian’s] work is absolutely outstanding.”—Stephen Kotkin, ChinaTalk
“The book makes a compelling case for the value of Sino-Soviet-Russian comparisons. . . . Must-reading for social scientists. . . . A major achievement.”—Thomas P. Bernstein, China Journal
“Joseph Torigian makes a major contribution to the literature on authoritarian politics.”—Victor Shih, China Quarterly
“There is much to ponder . . . [in] the novelty, analytical rigour and excellence of what is a demanding comparative study.”—S. A. Smith, Slavonic and Eastern European Review
“The best account of the transition from Mao to Hua to Deng is Joseph Torigian’s book Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion.”—Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute
“Torigian’s work is a masterclass in archival research as detective work. His ability to piece together a unique set of sources, and to draw them into analytical conversation and historical narrative, are formidable.”—Sheena Chestnut, H-Diplo
“[A] detailed account of the internal battles at pivotal historical moments in two Leninist systems. . . . [Torigian’s] reconstructions of the politics behind ideological debates are impressive.”—Andrew Batson, Tangled Woof (blog)
“Torigian has provided a deeply researched and counterintuitive intervention into both post-Stalin Soviet politics and post-Mao Chinese politics.”—Chris Miller, H-Diplo
“An extremely important book. . . . Its significance lies in the author’s argument that . . . it is not economic/material interests, policy differences, or rules and institutions that determine leadership turnover after the death of a dictator . . . [but] personal interactions among top Party personnel that shape what he terms ‘post-cult-of-personality power struggles.’”—H-Diplo
“It is a treat to read Torigian’s masterful work. . . . He convincingly argues an against-the-grain proof that in post-Stalin Soviet Union and post-Mao China, policy differences were exaggerated and secondary to personal histories and grievances in elite power struggles. Torigian’s twin case studies demonstrate that Leninist political systems are marred by weak institutionalization and a constant struggle over dominance.”—Emily Jin, Center for a New American Security, “Best of 2022”
“Torigian has written a compelling and important book about leadership succession in authoritarian states.”—Brian D. Taylor, H-Diplo
“Joseph Torigian’s stellar research and personal interviews have produced a brilliant, meticulous study. It fundamentally undermines what political scientists have presumed to be the way Chinese Communist and Soviet politics operate.”—Dorothy J. Solinger, University of California, Irvine
“Joseph Torigian combines history and political science in a remarkably acute and innovative study of leadership politics in the Soviet Union and China. It will help us understand authoritarian regimes today.”—David Holloway, Stanford University