Gorbachev's point was more about public opinion than political machinery or party hierarchies.
Infighting factions had been a fact of life in the USSR since foundation, but the public as a whole still operated on the presumption that the State existed and was working with some degree of competency and some degree of shared purpose (if inscrutable or stupid most of the time).
Chernobyl laid bare that the social contract was effectively broken and the State could not guarantee the most basic protection even from itself. The system as a whole was effectively deligitimized at a very basic level, and it soon became "every man for himself". This is why subsequent attempts to solve matters among hierarchies in the traditional way (coups and so on) just failed - the public had moved on.
Eventual Arab Spring was also in some way the society maxing out the amount of lies that can be told to each other and continue without bigger consequences. Some day things like hunger, illiteracy, jobs, living standards, economy all catch up you and your reality. And that's the day reality itself gives you a brutal appraisal of the situation.
Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime".[217] Several days after it occurred, he gave a televised report to the nation.[218] He cited the disaster as evidence for what he regarded as widespread problems in Soviet society, such as shoddy workmanship and workplace inertia.[219] Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate the scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union.[217] From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population.[220]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
Gorbachev might not have the man who messed it all up, but he was the last man to see through the end of this. Basically this kind of rot is long set in motion, and eventually leads to a black swan disaster event, then every one wakes up to the deep truth they knew all along, but chose bury and move on with their daily lives instead.
The job of leadership on the basic level is to give this brutal self appraisal to themselves, before these disaster big black swan events and do what it takes to fix them.
As an Indian reading this is scary enough as it is. India has been on this disastrous path for long now. Every now and then there is some respite from this. But deep down everyone knows the society is broken, there is mind boggling amount of corruption(Like you said "every man for himself"), and other standard set of problems have long plagued the country.
I hope there won't be a black swan disaster event. But given the history of the world and inevitability of these things, I wonder if one comes along, what could that be?
I've also wondered how receptive the Chinese people would be to a series of documentaries or dramas that point out the inequality and unfairness in their system. A film that highlights how the government treats humans and families as cattle during national emergencies and disasters. Even the great firewall can't keep that out.
Very stable. Basically nothing besides something coming from withing the party itself can shake him, and he took down all of those threats to him from within the party. Not even Mao ever managed to cleanse all of his detractors from the party up until his death.
Saying this, you should not be confusing that "people are throwing looks into his back," and quiet whispers of dissatisfaction with genuine resistance.
> How would the party and the public respond if there were leaks about his private life and behavior? I wonder what his skeletons in the closet are...
If you can write Chinese, google those skeletons, they are up to everybody to see. Even taxi drivers here know of Xi's billionaire sister, but... taxi drivers and other general public can't do anything about that.
> I've also wondered how receptive the Chinese people would be to a series of documentaries or dramas that point out the inequality and unfairness in their system.
People can see that every day out of their windows, not TVs. They don't need to watch any documentaries to know that.
There is the reason people use name of Dong Zhuo as an euphemism for Xi. Take a look at this video, the scene from Chang An says it all about the current political atmosphere in CPC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj_VMvsG7G0
Commoners resent him for disturbing a relative peace of Hu's years that they were just getting taste of, by starting a new political upheaval. CPC elders do not only see him as a threat to Jiang, but they clearly think that they themselves are his next target. His unilateral ambitions on the international stage are no match for the discontent world. And yes, the rank and file ordinary officials can't be more freaked out now.
However... you also don't forget when Xi was thought to stand for reforms, it were the masses themselves who invited his ambitions to move on the supreme power. And that those who were benefiting from status quo were hit by that the most.
Why would I need to read Chinese to find out about this? The Chinese state isn't able to censor content in Chinese, but has got the Western internet under its thumb?
So, I mean, I agree with your point. but as an aside, I think it would be really interesting to see the perspective of a Spanish historian on the recent events in my country
1. Not Very receptive, as it will be seen as someone ( Foreign Intervention )trying to attack them. Something which may be hard to comprehend for most people.
2. Vastly underestimated the power of CCP.
I think these sort of thoughts are precisely why the West has failed to understand China for decades.
I think they already did, and to no effect. Panama papers would've made China to explode under Hu, but nothing happened this time.
If you believe the rumours, Meng (Interpol guy) was rounded up on the slightest suspicion of indiscretion, despite him pleading fealty to Xi god knows how many times.
Gu Zhuoheng's "revelations" also seem to have not resulted in anything
Xi's behavior does not strike me as that of someone who is as confident as you. Consider how he throws a tantrum at the mere suggestion that Taiwan may be an independent country.
Putin, Trump, Pence, Mitch, Erdogan, Bernie, Biden ... this virus could change world politics.
Some people began to speculate that Xi wasn't seen for the last 3 days, and sudden activity of "party elders," but I bet this is just an enormous amounts of wishful thinking showing up.
Xi's "system" has an expiration date attached, but it's not tomorrow.
Following on that Gorbachev analogy, the Unior really started to crumble during late Breznev for reasons well documented by historians.
Basically, after Brenzhen loyalists, who mostly were his contemporaries (frail 70-80 and even 90 year olds,) started to drop like flies, a whole truckload of political adventurists, with rogue 3 letter services in particular, took advantage of that to grab power. This in a few years term led to the Union turning ungovernable, and ultimately falling apart.
The ultimate proof to that is that pretty much all across the former union, the power went to ex-KGB or men from other 3 letter services.
Even as early as Gorbachev's first year, there were officials who were publicly disobeying his direct orders. The last generation of Union's leadership was hamstrung even before the power was formally passed to it.