-------------KUOMINTANG PARTY CONGRESS------------- || Chairman: The Chief || || || || \/ \/ \/ CENTRAL CONTROL CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SUPREME NATIONAL COMMITTEE Chairman: The Chief -----> DEFENSE COUNCIL || || || \/ \/ \/ the _control_ power Party administration The National Government over the Party through subordinate organs of China || || || \/ \/ \/ supervisory system Party Branches, the political system agencies and affiliates The Central Executive Committee (_Chung-yang Chih-hsing Wei-yüan-hui_) is a relatively large body with one hundred and twenty members. The Party Constitution requires that it meet every six months or less. These sessions, the Plenary Sessions of the C.E.C., are by far the best-established political processes in the Chinese state. Actual shifts in power are here fought out, since the C.E.C. possesses authority ample for almost any emergency. The expulsion of Wang Ch'ing-wei was effected through C.E.C. action, and did not require the work of any higher body. The Central Control Committee (_Chung-yang Chien-ch'a Wei-yüan-hui_) is an agency which the Chinese adapted from two sources, the Bolshevik pattern of an independent intra-party control system, and the native _chien-ch'a_ power. Similar in function to the Commission of Party Control employed by the Communist Party in the Soviet Union rather than to the Organization Bureau, the Central Control Committee (also termed, in another common translation, Central Supervisory Committee) is in charge of an inspective system. Because of the relative laxness of Kuomintang organization, the work of this Committee is far less than one might expect. It has not been adequate to ensure rigidly strict Party efficiency, diligence, or honesty; neither has it become a terrorist agency inflicting an inviolable Party line. Few faults in politics fail to be virtues as well; inefficiency has its minor compensations. In times of secure power, rigid Party discipline might let the Kuomintang grow into a genuine and full-fledged tyranny; nevertheless, in times of stress, such as the present, the Party stands in need of stiffening and control. The third agency, the Supreme National Defense Council, is the Party's agent in charge of government. (See above, p. 46 _ff._)