A senior Communist Party official said corruption within the party was largely to blame for the pro-democracy movement and that the party should be purged of Western influences, official reports said Wednesday.
Also Wednesday, the Education Commission replaced the president of Beijing University, whose students helped lead the movement that was crushed in June.Politburo member Song Ping said ideological deviations within the 47 million-member party were "quite severe" and called for a purge of party leaders with "bourgeois liberal," or Western, leanings, the official People's Daily reported.
Song, head of the Communist Party's Organization Department, spoke on the opening day of a four-day meeting of the department, which oversees discipline within the party. The meeting ended Tuesday.
Party corruption was a major theme of the pro-democracy protests, and authorities have combined their suppression of the protest movement with attacks on corrupt practices within the party.
The China Daily quoted Xu Qing, deputy minister of supervision, as saying the government is investigating 20 major corruption cases and that several high-ranking officials were involved.
Xu said results of the investigations will be reported about the time of the 40th anniversary of Communist rule on Oct. 1.
The People's Daily quoted Song as saying corruption within party ranks was the main reason "a small group of thugs could deceive and instigate the people." He said such wrongdoings had "killed the confidence the people had in the party."
Song also condemned party members who supported student demands for democratic reforms.
"A small number of party members from several major research institutes played a disgusting role by running around on sinister errands and stirring up trouble," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Song as saying.
Song said the party must stand behind the decisions made in June during a Central Committee meeting at which reformist Zhao Ziyang was ousted as party chief for expressing sympathy for the protesters.