The Lessons of Defeat: The Reorganization of the Kuomintang on Taiwan, 1950–52

Few political parties have the opportunity to make a fresh start in a new location. An organization is rarely able to leave the environment in which its lessons are learned and apply them in a new one. However, the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) encountered this situation after its defeat on the Chinese mainland and retreat to Taiwan. From 1950 to 1952, the KMT underwent a thorough organizational restructuring. The result was a renewal of its Leninist origins from the previous reorganization in 1924. During 1950–52, the KMT created a network of Party cells throughout the government, military and society to which each Party member had to belong. The principles of democratic centralism, ideology as guide to policy, hierarchical authority, and Party authority over the government bureaucracy and the military were reasserted.