(You know, I think I just stated the whole Party of the Masses and Party of the Vanguard exactly backward.)
What was her motive for wanting to join? What did she tell them the reason for her wanting to join was?
There’s not. The USA’s federalism has led to each state having its own state-level party. There are some common rules and structures, but not all state parties have formal membership as such. In my state, there are lists of people we think will vote Democratic, and we use them for mobilization of voters, but they’re woefully incomplete.
Who exactly is the “we” in this case?
It’s helpful and/or necessary in order to get good jobs, especially good government jobs. Her father, for instance, was something like a Lt. Colonel in the army, which meant that he was necessarily a Chinese Communist Party member.
I assume she gave them the requisite B.S. about how great and important the C.P.C. is and how she wanted to serve her country, blah blah blah.
Not absolutely true, but that, and your point, is irrelevant. If you’re a member of the party in these countries, you get benefits and privileges that others do not get. For example, in the USSR, party members could shop in special stores that always had a good selection of food and other items. Nonmembers had to line up for whatever might be left over.
You can bet that most people under these rule would have loved to be party members. But, as others have said, the party was very exclusive and only took on people that they could trust.
One of the myriad ironies of the Chinese Civil War was that the Nationalists (Kuomintang, or KMT) was IIRC closer in party structure to the Soviet model then the Chinese Communist Party.
My understanding, based on what my students and friends in China told me, is that joining the party is a lot like joining the Freemasons.
Basically, you pay a lot of money in dues and have to put up with boring meetings, but in return you get great career contacts. The dues are quite substantial, and people complain that it is basically a scam. But if you work for the government or are a go-getter in certain segments of society, it’s basically a requirement for career advancement. It’s through party contacts that ambitious young professionals move forward.
For example, belonging to the party’s student organizations, and especially having a leadership role, is roughly the equivalent of belonging to an honors society in a US university. It’s selective, and it’s not something that everyone who qualifies really wants to bother with. But it can open a lot of doors.
There are people who refuse to join in protest. I worked with a man who had nothing good to say about the party. Because he worked for a public university, he had to make some kind of pretense, so he joined one of the alternative parties. These parties are technically separate from the Communist Party, but are largely under the party’s purview and are not truly independent. Even joining an officially sanctioned alternative party is a pretty ballsy move, and his career was definitely affected by his choices.
Other people aren’t in careers that really benefit from it. A lady who sells noodles on the street, for example, isn’t going to get anything useful out of the expensive dues. Others just can’t be bothered with the bullshit, and would rather make their own way in life than play the game.
I used to do “Get Out the Vote” work, so whomever I was working for. “We” is state & local party committees, I guess. I should probably start a thread about USA parties.
Thing is, I believe the US is the only country where you register to vote InsertIdeologyHere; your voting system mixes things which in other countries are separate, which are choosing a party’s officials and/or candidates, and voting for public officers.
In other countries with multiple parties, being registered to vote in elections is something between a person and the government (and it’s often linked to being registered for other reasons; the same census which tells a Spanish family where to vote defines their school district and their medical district), whereas being affiliated to a party (that is, being able to vote in that party’s internal votes) is something between the person and that party.
I’ve been contributing to the Democratic National Committee since the mid-Eighties, and get a membership card every year. It looks nice but is essentially meaningless - it gives me no more authority, powers, pull or influence than anyone else. I do get White House Christmas cards when a Democrat is in office, though, which is nice.
That was intentional. The KMT party structure was set up by the Soviets.
A profoundly dumb idea whose time has come: Virginia GOP Will Require Voters To Sign 'Loyalty Oath' - ABC News