Chapter 332: Political Structure

When an administrative leader monopolizes administrative power and lacks supervision, they will inevitably become “privileged” and then dictatorial. This trend was particularly evident in the previous stage. Ma Jia did not think there was anything wrong with a small circle of people controlling power, but in form, at least, the voting rights of the masses should be respected. Now, the masses were simply cast aside. In a stable social environment where the rulers have a powerful coercive apparatus, this is not a big problem. But for the Transmigration Group, whose ruling power is still very weak and which needs everyone’s cooperation to develop, it is very dangerous. Not to mention a movement like the Maid Revolution, even if someone engages in non-violent non-cooperation and large-scale slowdowns, it would be enough to give the authorities a headache.

To satisfy the masses’ desire to participate in politics, there must be a representative body—the Senate, the parliament, the upper house, whatever it is called, it is necessary to maintain the stability of a group, not just a simple decoration. It also provides a channel for the public to vent and communicate. The Maid Revolution a few days ago was largely caused by a lack of communication channels. If the information from the masses could have been transmitted to the Executive Committee in a timely manner, this movement might not have happened.

The parliament’s control over the decision-making of major policies is an effective check on the ever-expanding administrative organs. As long as the parliament is not sidelined and reduced to a rubber stamp, the administrative departments cannot do as they please.

An Xi was talking eloquently: “…a representative body can be said to be the foundation of a modern government. A mature modern government must have four parts: a head of state, a representative body, an administrative body, and a judicial body. And the representative body is the core of all this! It is also the basic source of the entire government’s legitimacy. I propose that we adopt a parliamentary prime minister system.”

“Given the actual situation of our Transmigration Group, I’m afraid a presidential system is not feasible,” Dong Shiye expressed his agreement. “The head of state must be a figurehead. Otherwise, the five hundred people below will find it hard to be convinced.” Everyone would worry that the head of state under a presidential system would use their power to become a dictator.

“I have an idea,” An Xi said. His suggestion was that the figurehead head of state could have open qualifications. As long as one was a transmigrator, regardless of age or gender, they could run as a candidate. There would be no need for an absolute majority; a simple majority would be considered legitimate. The term of office would be short, with restrictions on re-election. This would satisfy the “emperor takes turns, next year it’s my turn” sentiment of most transmigrators. Everyone could have a taste of being the head of state.

As for the treatment of the head of state, it could be set higher, with the highest level of protocol, coupled with some special benefits, which would be enough to attract many people to be interested.

“For example, they can have the first pick of the spoils of war, and they can shout ‘Comrades, you’ve worked hard!’ during military parades.”

“The problem is that even if one person can only serve for one year, it would take five hundred years for everyone to have a turn. There will still be people who won’t get to enjoy it.”

“Hold elections,” An Xi was very quick-witted. “It’s not a lottery or taking turns, but a real election. All means such as speeches, distributing leaflets, meet-and-greets, and posting campaign posters will be open. Those who want to have this experience can spend their own money to campaign. Those who don’t want to can just watch and vote, which is also a form of entertainment.”

It was more of a consumption, Ma Jia thought. Although he despised An Xi a little, his idea was very constructive. Campaigning for the head of state would consume a large amount of the transmigrators’ energy and money, and could also satisfy the vanity of some people, thus achieving the effect of internal “stability maintenance.” It was a truly cost-effective deal.

In addition to the lack of necessary institutions, there were also potential problems within the existing system. First was the status of the Executive Committee members in the Executive Committee. The position of Chairman of the Executive Committee looked very prominent, but its authority and responsibilities were not clearly defined, making Wen Desi look like just a meeting convener. His specific duties seemed to be only the chief naval consultant and the shipyard consultant. In a sense, Chief Wen was sidelined in the existing system.

Of course, being sidelined did not mean losing influence. The smooth passage of Wang Luobin’s nomination as the governor of the Sanya Special Administrative Region was a case in point—everyone knew that Wang Luobin was Chief Wen’s close comrade-in-arms, and Wang Luobin had been a member of the Executive Committee with no specific duties for a long time after D-Day. Strictly speaking, he was only a consultant to the Industrial and Energy Committee. This appointment obviously had a compensatory element.

“So he resigned so decisively,” Ma Jia thought to himself. He didn’t know what had happened in the Executive Committee building that day, but from the reactions of the committee members when they came out, this movement did not seem to be unexpected by the leaders.

Connecting the events before and after and thinking about it again, Ma Jia completely understood: the Maid Revolution was not just about women. In the past, he had only vaguely felt it.

No wonder the members of the original Executive Committee showed no interest in the work of the preparatory committee and completely handed over the power to him and his men. It turned out that no one wanted to show too much involvement in this institutional adjustment and reshuffle, so as not to be criticized in the future. Having a neutral, or even someone who had participated in the “opposition,” like Ma Jia, lead the way, wouldn’t that fully demonstrate the “selflessness” and “democracy” of the Executive Committee members?

In that case, how the new institutions should be set up had to be carefully considered. It was not a simple matter of copying a mature system. Ma Jia thought that besides the awkward position of the Chairman of the Executive Committee with no specific scope of authority, the biggest hidden danger was that the Planning Committee, as a department, had too much power. In theory, it was on the same level as other committees, but in actual operation, the Planning Committee controlled the distribution of materials and project approval rights. This greatly enhanced the voice of Ma Qianzhu, who was only one of the committee members, in the entire Executive Committee. No ministry or commission was not, to some extent, constrained by the Planning Committee. Not to mention anything else, building office buildings and adding office equipment could not be approved without the approval of the Planning Committee, and they couldn’t get their hands on them either.

The result of this was that although Ma Qianzhu was only the People’s Commissar for Planning, in the entire operation of the Executive Committee, he was equivalent to a prime minister without the title. The work of the Planning Committee gradually exceeded its own scope. This state greatly improved work efficiency in the short term, but it was obviously not conducive to unity. In the long run, as the Transmigration Group’s operations expanded, the Planning Committee’s all-encompassing approach would inevitably lead to institutional bloat and reduced work efficiency.

The work of the Planning Committee had to be decomposed to some extent, and a position of prime minister of the government should be established to be responsible for the overall daily administrative affairs. After discussion, the preparatory committee decided to recommend to the general assembly a political structure that adopted the mature and stable “parliament-prime minister” system. The Senate, composed of all the transmigrators, would be the supreme power organ, holding a general assembly once a year. The general assembly would be valid only if more than 90% of the transmigrators were present.

Many people were in favor of this plan, but some also expressed opposition.

“This may not work,” Ji Xin whispered his advice to him.

“What are your thoughts?” Ma Jia looked at this man in his thirties with thick eyebrows and big eyes. There was always a hint of sadness between his eyebrows, and he didn’t usually talk much. However, he was a graduate of the East China University of Political Science and Law, one of the four major law schools. In the legal circle, background was very important. A law graduate from the East China University of Political Science and Law was of course much more valuable than a law graduate from many local universities that had rushed to set up law majors after the expansion of enrollment. Since Ma Jia was the head of the Law Club, he naturally couldn’t escape this custom and had always looked at him differently.

“A parliamentary system is of course good, but the personnel issues here may be difficult to balance,” Ji Xin reminded him.

Ma Jia nodded slightly. Institutional settings were first and foremost about personnel issues. This was true. He had never discussed these issues in detail with the members of the Law Club. Now that Ji Xin was raising such a sensitive topic with him, it was clear that he highly recognized his leadership, which made Ma Jia feel very good.

“If Commissar Ma comes forward to compete for the position of prime minister, he has a good chance of being elected,” Ji Xin said. “The problem is that as the People’s Commissar for Planning, he is already very powerful. Now, being the prime minister is equivalent to legitimizing his power. I’m afraid some people don’t want this.”

Ma Qianzhu had been in charge of the Planning Committee for more than a year and had close working relationships with many professional fields, and he had put in a lot of effort. If he ran for prime minister, seven or eight out of ten votes from the various professional fields would go to him.

“We do need to consider that. What do you think?” Since the other party had spoken his mind, Ma Jia also showed his sincerity.

“The administrative body should still adopt the Executive Committee system,” Ji Xin proposed his plan.

Specifically, an Executive Committee of 9 members would be established. All the administrative affairs of the Transmigration Group would be divided into blocks and handled by them separately. Each executive committee member would be responsible for one block, with one person as the chairman of the Executive Committee responsible for the overall situation, with a status equivalent to the head of state.

The People’s Commissars of the various professional ministries and commissions could attend the enlarged meetings of the Executive Committee, but they would not have the right to vote.

“As for how to divide these 9 blocks, we can discuss it slowly. It won’t be a big problem how we divide them. If we feel that 9 blocks are not enough, we can divide them into 11 or 13 blocks, and the Executive Committee can be expanded to 11 or 13 members accordingly. The biggest advantage of this structure is that it can avoid a single department becoming dominant, and it will not create a strong leader.”

In this way, although the Executive Committee would still have a position like the Chairman of the Executive Committee, and a new position of prime minister could be created, in the overall structure, the status of these 9 people would be equal, just with a difference in ranking. The Chairman of the Executive Committee would lead the other members and rank first, but in terms of decision-making, they would also be constrained by the principle of the minority obeying the majority.

“Isn’t this the Politburo model? The nine-member standing committee system.”

“It is indeed inspired by this system,” Ji Xin said. “But this seems easier to balance, emphasizing the collective leadership system. Otherwise, it would be ugly if we really had a ‘long live’ and ‘forever healthy’ situation.”

“That makes sense. Collective leadership is always good,” Ma Jia nodded in agreement with this plan. “You should quickly organize everyone to perfect and detail it, and then write a proposal and send it out immediately!”

In addition to this new 9-member Executive Committee system proposal, the preparatory committee also prepared several other plans—including the traditional parliamentary prime minister system—to be submitted for discussion by all the transmigrators, and then a vote would be held at the general assembly to make a decision.

In addition to the overall institutional setting, Ma Jia believed that the current coercive apparatus of the Transmigration Group had major problems. The current manifestations were limited, but the long-term consequences would be very serious.

The Internal Affairs Committee controlled all the coercive institutions except the army. The Internal Affairs Committee nominally had several departments under its jurisdiction, covering all aspects of the dictatorship organs. In actual operation, due to limited manpower, most institutions were operated by one team with several signs. The Political Security General Bureau actually took on everything, including public security, political security, counter-espionage, censorship, and confidentiality, and even interfered in the intelligence field, which was originally not within its scope. The Intelligence Committee did not have a professional intelligence gathering team and mainly relied on the various dispatched stations, which were both commercial and espionage, to gather intelligence. Apart from conducting intelligence analysis and compiling historical references from old papers, it had no sense of existence at all.

The work of the Internal Affairs Committee was highly independent and had so-called “confidentiality.” Except for the Executive Committee, Ran Yao was not responsible to anyone, and he did not need to engage in government transparency. This kind of coercive institution, which lacked checks and balances and had highly centralized and mysterious power, could easily lead to “secret police politics” and even breed a tendency towards “cruel struggle” that disregarded principles and only talked about friends and enemies—Dugu Qiuhun’s attempt to enter Bairen City to suppress the riot largely reflected this way of thinking.

Ma Jia was relatively at ease with people like Ran Yao and Mu Min. First, their basic character was not a problem, and they did not have totalitarian tendencies. Second, people with professional qualities who had been immersed in it for a long time had seen a lot and knew the dangers of the tools in their hands. But the Internal Affairs Committee was also filled with many amateurs who had entered this field simply because they liked words like “purge,” “espionage,” and “counter-espionage.” They had read a large number of such books and their minds were full of specious concepts. Many of them were also admirers of totalitarianism and worshiped very dangerous figures like Beria and Himmler. As the institutions gradually expanded, it would be hard to say what this group of people would do once they controlled the power of the various departments of the Internal an Affairs Committee.

In actual operation, coercive dictatorship organs often used overlapping and mutually restraining means to achieve checks and balances. Ma Jia believed that at the very least, the power of the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs should be divided once, and multiple different coercive institutions should be established to avoid one person controlling all the power of intelligence, public security, and internal security. The position of People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, which had once been a feared name in the Soviet Union, should not be granted to anyone in the Transmigration Group.

“I think we can abolish the Internal Affairs Committee. Its functions can be managed by one person in the Executive Committee. The various departments originally subordinate to the Internal Affairs Committee can be made independent and no longer have a subordinate relationship with each other,” Dong Shiye said.