Rulers who name no heir leave their legacies up for grabs
Xi Jinping has cleared the way to rule indefinitely without promoting a viable heir, repeating a pattern that left Stalin's and Mao's legacies vulnerable.
wsj.com · How Xi Jinping Steamrolls Dissent With Tactics From Stalin and Mao - WSJA strongman who names no clear heir risks unraveling his legacy. Without agreed rules or a successor with enough standing to enforce them, his death turns the top job into an open contest, and the winners have reason to tear down what came before.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party leader now in his 14th year in the job at age 73, has moved China back toward that position. He scrapped informal rules that eased senior officials into retirement at a set age and eliminated the two-term cap on the state presidency, opening the way for him to stay on without end. His time at the top has already run longer than that of any leader since Mao Zedong, the revolutionary who founded the People's Republic, and he looks set to pursue a fourth five-year stint as party leader in 2027, with the state presidency to follow.
Having gathered central control over major choices, touching everything from the economy to security affairs, Xi has in his third term delegated some responsibilities to a handful of trusted aides. They are near or past normal retirement age, seen as unlikely long term replacements. According to party insiders, he has elevated no younger and seasoned figure to the seven-member supreme leadership team who could credibly take over.
That is the vacuum that makes succession dangerous. A designated, working-age successor can claim authority on day one, reassure allies, and keep rivals in line. A circle of near-contemporaries cannot, because none clearly outranks the others.
Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator who died in 1953, and Mao, who died in 1976, show how that contest ends. Stalin's death triggered a fight for power that brought a repudiation of his rule, breaking apart the glorification around him and winding down the machinery of widespread terror. After Mao died, his chosen successor Hua Guofeng arrested a rival radical faction called the Gang of Four, four senior figures who had risen during the Cultural Revolution, Mao's decade of political upheaval. Hua was then shouldered out himself by Deng Xiaoping, the leader who became paramount leader and overturned much of what Mao had put in place.
Succession is not the only risk: while he rules, silencing debate and fueling fear has made decisions at the top more unpredictable, and errors more difficult to fix.
Questions people ask
Why don't strongmen usually name a successor earlier?
Naming an heir creates a rival center of power. Subordinates start currying favor with the successor, and the successor may grow impatient or be seen by the leader as a threat. Many autocrats therefore keep potential replacements weak, divided, or deliberately ambiguous to protect their own position.
What is the seven-member leadership team?
It is the Communist Party's top decision making body, currently seven men who run China alongside Xi. Membership signals who has national standing, and promotion of a younger member would be read as a sign that Xi was grooming an heir.
What did de-Stalinization actually change?
After Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, the Soviet Union released many prisoners from labor camps, loosened censorship, and removed Stalin's monuments and name from cities. It did not end one-party rule, but it repudiated mass terror as a governing tool.