China | Chaguan

How China sees Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny

To officials in Beijing, Russian woes prove Mao’s adage: the party must command the gun

Image: Chloe Cushman

What lessons might China’s leaders learn from the recent Wagnerian drama in Russia? To hear scholars in Beijing tell it, China is not the country in need of lessons. Instead, it is for Russia to study China’s good example. Specifically, Vladimir Putin should learn from the wisdom of China’s Communist Party founders, who imposed strict, top-down political control over armed fighters from the earliest days of the revolution. They cite Chairman Mao Zedong’s dictum: “The party commands the gun, the gun must never be allowed to command the party.”

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Wagnerian drama flops in China”

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