Why do communist leaders become corrupt

Moreover, as the title of her book implies, the ability to eliminate corruption becomes more difficult when there is no sense of personal accountability, but the entire system is blamed, as is the case in postcommunist Europe.

Certain legacies of communism have aggravated the situation in postcommunist Europe. As a result, there is no cultural sympathy for whistle-blowers as there is in the West. Therefore, instances of corruption, though widespread, are rarely reported to officials who could prosecute the crimes. Also, the legacy of false collegiality, which in the communist system substituted for class divisions, means that people continue to support their colleagues by blocking investigations simply because they are in the same social caste.

Moreover, postcommunist Europe's economic transition and institutional vacuum provided ideal opportunities for state capture. The most attractive jobs sought by corrupt officials were associated with the privatization process, institutions that regulated business and the customs bureau. The dire economic situation and weak cultural and institutional structure to combat corruption meant that the costs for being corrupt were relatively low and the benefits impressively high.

All of these factors compounded the problem: people believed that, since everyone was participating in corrupt behavior, they would be foolish not to, which in turn meant that corruption became even more pervasive. Corruption is a problem in all countries, so while it would be foolish to suggest that corruption could be eliminated, Karklins offered suggestions for how it might be contained.

First, institutional structure can be put into place to raise the costs associated with corruption, such as random audits, personnel rotation and whistle-blower protection policies. Second, efforts could be made to demonopolize decision making, such that individual discretion is limited and accountability is strengthened. This second strategy involves increasing media coverage of corruption and developing consciousness in civil society for how to combat corruption, particularly in the electoral process.

Finally, Karklins argued that in any anti-corruption policy, it is important to consider how corrupt officials will react or adapt to the new policy and anticipate it so that it becomes more difficult to hide corrupt behavior. In the 10 years that the outgoing leaders have been in power, the number of internet users in China has grown tenfold to more than million.

The internet is giving people a tool to both scrutinise the party and vent their anger about corruption. Li Xinde runs an anti-corruption website. His site has to be hosted on servers outside China, but he has exposed and brought down many corrupt party members. He showed me video of a demonstration against land-grabbing officials which he posted on his site recently. Police are seen dragging protesters away and kicking them. Now it's whole groups of officials," says Mr Li.

Nobody's accountable. If we don't find ways to mend it, the problem will only become more serious. Most damaging of all for the Communist Party have been recent reports about the extraordinary wealth amassed by the relatives of party leaders, even though there was no suggestion of corruption in those cases.

Both news organisations have since had all access to their websites blocked in China. But just three years later, Mao purged Deng again, this time because Mao feared Deng may reverse some of his radical policies.

But by , Lin and the army had amassed more political authority than Mao thought desirable, according to Edward JM Rhoads, professor of history at the University of Texas. In a desperate move to avoid being purged, Lin plotted a coup that failed.

The Chinese government later said Lin had died on September 13, , in an aeroplane crash in Mongolia as he was fleeing to the Soviet Union.

Part of the group known as the Gang of Four, Jiang was arrested and tried for treason and other crimes against the state for her role in the Cultural Revolution. The group was blamed for the death of 34, people and the persecution of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Whomever he told me to bite, I bit. Head of the CCP in , Zhao was a reformist leader who was purged for refusing to declare martial law and send in the military to suppress the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square that year.

On May 19, , Zhao even turned up in person at the square at dawn to plead with the students to leave the area. The next day, martial law was declared in Beijing and two weeks later, soldiers moved into the square and opened fire , killing hundreds, if not thousands of people. When he died in , an official obituary referred to him only as comrade and did not mention that he had helped lead the country for nearly 10 years.

A top CCP official later told the party congress in that Zhou and five other people had plotted to seize power from Xi. Bo, a former CCP chief in Chongqing, was expelled from the party in in the wake of a dramatic scandal in which his wife was accused of murdering a British businessman.