What is interesting about the organization of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was its style of synthesis of Chinese and Western elements was (unwittingly) so characteristic of later political organizations to come, including the modern Chinese political parties: the Nationalist Party (1912- ), and the Communist Party (1921- ), not in exact content, but in the approaches to Chinese and Western learning. Therefore exploring how the Taipings synthesized Chinese traditions and Christianity provides a good approach to understanding later modern Chinese political organizations.

1. A leading ideology: in the Taiping case, it was the Bible. Following the Protestant tradition, the Taipings made the content of the Bible accessible to every one of their followers. This practice, however, was adulterated by the use of individuals, such as Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui, who could directly communicate the words of God for very specific situations. The use of these individuals emphasized the importance of human instructions.
2. Intolerance toward different religions: e.g. toward the Buddhists, Taoists, and the Catholics.
3. The choice of words: the Taipings, like the later Chinese political parties, were led by educated individuals. Historically, educated Chinese served as voluntary defenders of the Chinese culture and tradition, a practice brought about by linking Confucian teachings with government offices via the imperial examination system. The Chinese language was often singled out as the essence of Chinese culture, as it remained a continuous language from ancient times, and foreign invaders who militarily conquered China adopted the Chinese language. The choice of words in one's description of things, therefore, for the majority of Chinese scholars, was just as important as passing legislation in Western governments, in that there was that much power in the words used. The importance attached to words also came from a Confucian dictum that proper usage of words anteceded proper administration. Even though Hong rebelled from the Confucian tradition, for him a proper renaming of things anteceded his actual change of China. Hence, for instance, his renaming of Peking/Beijing, the capital of China, into the "Demon's Den." Later Nationalists and Communists would attach equal importance to the words they used. Names, for them, denoted reality.
4. A self-centered view patterned after the rulers of the Middle Kingdom (China), as reflected in the Taipings' receptions of the emissaries from Britain, France and the U.S. Despite the Taiping embrace of the universal religion of Christianity, they conducted their foreign policies in an amazingly similar manner to the Manchu court.
5. Internecine struggles: most notably that between the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan and East King Yang Xiuqing. While Yang tried to usurp Hong's power by speaking in the words of God, Hong exercised a great intolerance that not only led to the killing of Yang but also to the killings of any one who disagreed with the killing of Yang. This autocracy would be repeated once and again in the democracies, both capitalist and socialist, of the Nationalist and the Communist governments.