of power and the intentional disclosure of state secrets by the Intermediate Court in Tianjin. Zhou and his family members were said to have taken 129 million yuan (over $20 million) in bribes. He was sentenced to life in prison. According to scholar Xuezhi Guo, "From 1992 to 2009, China brought disciplinary sanctions against approximately two million personnel". The CCDI cited similar numbers: "[B]etween July 2003 and December 2008, the CCDI had tried and closed 852,000 cases, resulting in 881,000 officials receiving disciplinary sanctions." In 2009 the CCDI imposed disciplinary sanctions on 106,626 party members and officials; 146,517 in 2010; 142,893 in 2011; 160,718 in 2012, and 182,000 in 2013. From 2012 to October 2017, disciplinary action started against 1.4 million communist party members. As of 2014, five of the 31 CDI secretaries are women: Huang Xiaowei, Hong Qiang, Zhang Xiaolan, Ma Yongxia and Song Airong. Of these Zhang, at age 50, is currently the youngest serving CDI provincial secretary. Institutional history Founding, abolition and reestablishment (1949–1980) The Chinese control system was inspired by Soviet control institutions, most notably the Party Control Committee (PCC). Although according to Lenin the Soviet PCC was established to cure the party's bureaucratic ills, it evolved into a tool wielded by party secretaries. The CCDI system was not empowered to the same extent as its Soviet counterpart, since Mao favoured mass mobilisation and ideological campaigns over party disciplinary measures to kerb bad behaviour. Even those who shared the Soviet fascination with organisational self-correction, like Liu Shaoqi and Dong Biwu, did not share their obsession with "scientific administration". The CCDI was cumbersome; twenty-seven separate procedures had to be completed before an official could be placed under investigation. Other problems were institutional; for example, the commission had no organisation below the provincial level. In response to the CCDI's failures, the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party established the CCC. Delegates noted that the CCDI's problems were its lack of independence from party committees and the lack of meaningful collaboration between a control commission at one level and those at higher levels. The institutional balance favouring party committees led some (such as Gao Gang and Rao Shushi) to pack local commissions for discipline inspection (CDI) with loyalists who had no interest in carrying out their responsibilities. The control commissions had the power to appeal committee decisions, and were required to report their work to the higher-level