control commission. Unlike the CCDI, the CCC had an organisation below the provincial level. It was empowered to "examine, approve, and change decisions by lower control committees", was required to verify the composition of control committees at the provincial level and below and had the power to investigate unreliable elements at will. Bonds were forged with the Ministry of Supervision (MOS) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to strengthen the anti-corruption agencies' control of "the rapidly expanding party organisation and an increasingly elaborate state bureaucracy". The main goals of these reforms were to strengthen the autonomy of the control commissions from the local ruling committees and safeguard the powers of the centre, which were threatened during the Gao Gang–Rao Shushi affair. However, CCP leadership backtracked; at the 8th National Congress, the autonomy of the CCC and the control commissions was reduced. The congress was held in a conservative atmosphere, with the leadership calling for collective leadership of all institutions; the concept of the CCC and the local control commissions having "special rights" to carry out their duties was antithetical to collegial decision-making. The CCC was abolished at the 9th Congress (during the Cultural Revolution), and was reestablished at the 11th National Congress. The 11th National Congress amended the party constitution to state that the "Central Committee of the Party, local Party committees at the county level and above and Party committees in the army units at the regimental level and above should set up commissions for inspecting discipline". The system was in place by December 1978, and a corresponding control system in the military was established in 1981 as the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Military Commission. The CCDI's importance was institutionalised by a party regulation that its head must be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. "Dual-leadership" system (1980–2002) According to Lawrence Sullivan, during the 1980s some cadres saw the CCDI's lack of independence as problematic; they argued that it should be independent from the Central Committee, not involving itself in the committee's power struggles. This was opposed by the CCDI leadership, with Huang saying that loyalty to the Central Committee was "more important" than fighting corruption. The chief problem during the early 1980s was CCDI links to local party committees. The local committees elected the commission for discipline inspection (CDI) at their level, but the higher-level CDI could endorse – or reject – the proposed committee.