National Congress amended the party constitution, devoting a chapter to party discipline. However, no institution was established to safeguard party norms or supervise cadre behaviour. Until the establishment of the Central Control Commission (CCC) at the 5th National Congress in 1927, local party committees were responsible for supervising members. The 5th National Congress again amended the party constitution, adding a chapter on control commissions and their aims but devoting little attention to their operations. Partly because of this, the control commissions actively participated in several party rectification campaigns during the late 1920s and early 1930s. At that time the commissions tended to participate in political struggles, most notably the purges of Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming. The control system was reorganised as the Central Review Committee (1928–1933), the Central Party Affairs Committee (1933–1945) and the Central Control Commission (1945–1949). Despite these changes, the duties and responsibilities of the control bodies remained vague until the amendments to the party constitution at the 7th National Congress in 1945. Although it may be argued that the 1945 amendments did little to clarify the role of a control body, the party leadership expanded on the theoretical reasons for its existence. It was argued in the party constitution that the control system "was born to serve the needs of a Leninist party for its ideological and organisational consolidation. Such a role was reinforced in the Party's frequent campaigns against its real or perceived enemies in and out of the party organisation." In 1949, the Central Committee established the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). It differed from its predecessors in several respects. It was responsible to the Politburo and its local organisations were responsible for their corresponding party committees, despite the committees' authority to restrict their behaviour. In reality, the CCDI was established to check all party organisations except the central leadership. Political history During its early years, the CCDI was not a powerful institution. Although it focused on abuses by party veterans and senior officials, the CCDI rarely appeared on record at that time as investigating (or solving) those problems. The few mentions of CCDI inspectors in the press highlighted their failures. Despite the support of Mao Zedong and the central party leadership, it was often unable to fulfill its mandate in the provinces. According to a People's Daily editorial, party inspectors "gave up the struggle and proved themselves unable to persist in ...