Politics and Political Theory in the PRC and Deng

Firstly let’s have some (neo) liberal theory ala Fukuyama. Free markets lead to a free people/middle class who then seek political liberalisation and control of the state by means of democratic reform. Then the reforms they want happen as a weakened state succumbs to the magic force of individual freedom, Deng allowed free markets, therefore democracy would eventually be forced upon him QED history is now ended. Where could this theory (admittedly very simplistically stated) go wrong? There might be obstacles to the political reform that the theory may be too incomplete to envisage and indeed there have been.

The first might be the lack of information flow that authoritarian regimes are able to bring into non-existence. The second might be cultural constraints: people might for example value peaceful illiberalism over revolutionary liberalism that might involve much more violence.

This would all be debated albeit illiberally within Deng’s illiberal reformist state.

The first debates as I noted initially helped Deng because the main initial target of democracy wall activists was the Gang of Four. I also noted that Deng quickly closed down the wall when he began to perceive the liberal thought it contained being widely disseminated didn’t accord with his own interests. Wei’s fifth modernisation made him the first dissident of the Deng era and it was also the idea that finally made the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and not democracy inevitable, not yet at any rate.

It wasn’t as simple as Deng opposing all reformist talk all the time however. The 1980s can be viewed as the decade of a repeating liberal/illiberal loop with liberal thinking alternately encouraged, ignored and then discouraged by Deng. It must have suited Deng to be able to present himself as a kind of middle of the road compromise candidate as he consolidated his strength offering at different times something to everyone from the hard core authoritarian leftists to the most radical of the democracy reformers.

Wei could accuse Deng of becoming another Mao and Deng couldn’t easily disprove this by permitting Wei to say that without penalty (as it was he got 13 years’ gaol for ‘counter-revolutionary’ activities) but he could permit some criticism.

Was the picture of the lone man in front of four tanks in Tiananmen the best symbol of Deng’s final political legacy? Or will political liberalism finally ‘catch up’ as the above neoliberal theory supposes and be his final legacy? Did Deng weaken his state with his reformism supported by democracy activists in a kind of ‘zero sum game’ that will ultimately give this picture the power to turn humans into superhumans capable of overthrowing it? Will the internet and/or events in the Arab World and Myanmar also influence this picture?

Let’s back a little back. The wall activists were saying down with Mao and the CR and the Gang of Four but what was Wei saying in particular that Deng finally couldn’t have?

Firstly in Democracy: the Fifth Modernisation Wei was getting ahead of the game too far. Deng had proposed four modernisations and Wei had to add a fifth.

Secondly he claimed in a ‘big character poster’ and another article that Deng would have to become like Mao who he had opposed. He was arguing that the system (that therefore needed to change) caused this (making him a prominent dissident throughout the Deng years – at one point in the 1980s he emerged from gaol only to be re-gaoled soon afterwards).

What did Deng have to say about political freedoms? Firstly Deng had no special interest in or desire for democracy to come about especially quickly (if at all). His first duty as he saw it was still to Marxism in some form. Deng’s response when critical posters began to re-emerge in 1980 was to amend the constitution to ban them. Ironically, such posters were actually first specifically made constitutionally protected during the supposedly more repressive CR years.

Deng propounded his Four Cardinal Principles in March 1979 as the limits of debate. Debaters had to be following the socialist road for the PRC, accept the maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat for some time, acknowledge the rightful leadership of the Communist Party leading in that and adhere to Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought (as expressed before 1957) in any theory of government in the current socialist phase that always precedes Communism in Marxist theory.

He also produced four legal reforms in June 1979 at the 2^nd Session of the 5^th National Party Congress (NPC) defining ‘crimes’ for the first time in the history of the PRC in a criminal code and limiting the definition of ‘counter revolutionary’ crime, enshrining for the first time the notion that ‘all citizens are equal before the law’ (including non-party members) in a new procedural law, regulating and regularising joint ventures (especially with foreigners) and providing for an electoral law at the lower two levels of the People’s Congress structure.

In the following year at the 3^rd Session of the 5^th NPC (as is the practice) matters of party discipline were up for discussion (the criminal law did not apply to party members so a member had to be expelled before it could be applied to her or him). Deng called for reform there to reduce over-concentrations of power with individuals by means of holding multiple positions especially in both the party and the government, further separate party and government functions, provide for a retirement age for senior functionaries and succession and further guard against abuses of power by the further strengthening of internal party discipline by means of appropriate sanctions. These reforms were especially overdue given the continuation of criminal impunity of party members. The intra party codes would now be strengthened to mirror the criminal codes (as now formally promulgated) somewhat closely.

Party members continued to be permitted to be government officials, just with less dual posts. With regard to the retirements of people of his generation (he was in his mid 70s (having been born in 1904)) he set an example by retiring as vice-chairman of the party (though he intended to continue wielding all the power behind the scenes – he took the title ‘paramount leader’).
The two official leaders came from the next generation. They were Hu Yaobang (born in 1915 – CCP General Secretary from 1981 to 1987) and Zhao Ziyang (born in 1919 – Premier from 1983 to 1987 and CCP General Secretary from Hu’s fall in 1987 to 1989). Zhao had been somewhat instrumental in the successful agricultural reforms in Anhui leading to him being brought to Beijing.

Next week: causes and effects of Tiananmen.

From Mao to Deng

Just a little more today on what changed and what didn’t:

The first thing to note was a sense of grief and a hole to fill was left for so many Chinese by the death of Mao after he had effectively (and otherwise, it must be said) ruled China for a generation. Deng’s form of hole-filling by radical reform proved to be another kind of revolution for the many who had never known any system other than Maoism.

China still was (as it still is today) both relatively poor and relatively isolated in world terms but progress had been made (and would continue to be under Deng’s reforms). Mao’s and Deng’s goals weren’t really so different after all. China would be strong.

But many of the Chinese needed a rest as much as many others remained restless. Continuous revolution was not fun for everyone. Virtually every year since 1949 it must have seemed a violent major purge or at least a personal denunciation was liable to be just around the corner.

The CR was one of many of these types of occasions as my earlier posts record. Deng himself was a prime example having, himself, been purged and rehabilitated more than once. The violence of millions of Red Guards had barely subsided when Mao died, the Gang of Four instated their own purges, Hua had them arrested in turn in his best Mao imitation and the retributive purges continued even as Deng assumed control.

But Deng seemed inclined to lower the boom on terrorist government (at least on Mao’s scale) and there must have been many sighs of relief on all sides. Even the Red Guards themselves who ultimately felt betrayed by Mao (who had finally banished them to the countryside, remember) now breathed more freely.

Deng was a CCP man, though. So what did this mean? There would always be enemies of Communism that needed to be rooted out, that’s what.

Ironically some of the most prominent of these enemies of Communism turned out to be disillusioned Red Guards. One of the first acts of rebellion they became involved in if not against Communism then at least against the current system (even before Deng had had the chance to spell out how he intended to reform it) was the Democracy Wall movement that began in Beijing in 1978 and remained centred there. Many of those now involved in the movement were of course first politicised when they had become Red Guards during the CR.

Refreshingly, Deng announced his approval of the movement (Mao had done something similar, though, with his ‘Hundred Flowers’ comments – could Deng be trusted any more than Mao?) And in this case this was just before he assumed power. As had occurred with Mao, expressions of approval of an ideological movement spurred it on – they chose to again trust their at least hoped-for leadership.

Deng then brought in his reforms and the people waited to see how it would turn out. Would he ultimately welcome the democracy first sought by the May Fourth Movement in 1919? Maybe not.

Better international relations were now on the agenda. The US and China were ready for rapprochement. By 1 January 1979 they had established full diplomatic relations and later that month Deng visited President Carter becoming the first Chinese leader ever to visit the US. Deng was impressed by the technology and material conditions he witnessed on this visit. He, in turn, impressed everybody he met in the US with his vision for China and its relations with the West.

Like Mao, Deng was prepared to turn on dissenters and soon the democracy wall demonstrators that had supported his own rise to power were going too far for him. Deng had wanted four modernisations and Wei Jingsheng, for example, suggested democracy as a fifth.

Deng as readily referred to people like Wei as counter revolutionary as Mao had called Deng that. He began to suppress the movement in Mao style (if a little less violently) and the wall was soon shut down. Notably most of the wall activity had actually been conducted with due regard to the Four Cardinal Principles Deng delineated that I will refer to in a later post.
The reality was that Deng copied Mao’s legal methods in that laws that no one could possibly follow were always kept in reserve to justify any repression as and when it was desired by the leader.

Deng’s next concern in terms of dissent would be potentially brought about by the local devastating drought in Anhui province (also in 1978). Chinese agriculture was still close to a subsistence proposition in a typical year and employing most Chinese so drought was a particular concern in China. The large communes didn’t help matters. In response, local authorities, inspired by the peasants themselves, tried the system that would work and later go national. The productivity in Anhui boomed in response to this new incentivisation. Famine was averted but rolling out the scheme nationally still turned out to be a test of Deng’s power base.

Deng’s ‘capitalist roader’ tag still had the power to tie his hands regardless of how successful (and in fact saving) capitalism could be shown to be. He was finally able to squeeze the reform through, however. It also proved itself almost immediately nationwide in terms of productivity. Along with the local produce and other markets, small factories producing consumer items for market also began to spontaneously sprout up in rural areas.

The two major figures standing with Deng then were Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang and they both also favoured the market.

Foreign capitalists found they were now welcomed, too (initially principally in the SEZs). The foreigners in the zones were popular with locals because they had deeper pockets and this attracted Chinese from all over China hoping for a share of their apparent largesse. Chinese wages and standards of living were higher there but the increases eventually flowed throughout much of the Chinese economy especially in the south of the country (because most of the initial zones were concentrated there. The coastal city special areas were more evenly spread between north and south).

The youth of these zones soon began to live a noticeably more decadent and capitalist lifestyle and to lose some respect for socialism. Prostitution and other supposed signs of vice soon began to flourish there.

Deng’s response (under some pressure from the left to prove his credentials) was to begin a campaign against ‘moral pollution’. After decades of Maoism this comparatively mild effort was treated as a bit of a joke, though. In one oft repeated story a particularly zealous official involving himself in the campaign criticised somebody who possessed a book containing a picture of a western woman with a low cut dress. The woman in question turned out to be Marx’s wife. Meanwhile, investors apparently weren’t getting the joke and Deng was forced to end the scary campaign before it had really begun to assuage their fears. Nevertheless thousands of smugglers had been arrested as part of the campaign.

Deng successfully negotiated the 1997 handover of Hong Kong following the expiration of Britain’s lease with the Thatcher government despite Thatcher’s apparent misgivings, another coup for south China. He used a combination of a few threats and agreement to the concept of ‘one state two systems’ to get that happening, the latter leading to more local name-calling to the effect that he was excessively ‘rightist’. The name-callers probably never had to deal with the “Iron Lady” themselves and in fact Deng once remarked that in these discussions he was “the Iron Man meeting the Iron Lady”.

Deng’s other two notable reforms were to allow the practice of religions more freely again and to reduce the length of the working week. All in all, the economic and social reforms I’ve outlined in these last couple of posts saw Deng riding a wave of popularity by the time of the PRC’s 35^th anniversary celebrations in 1984. In the next few posts I’ll focus a little more on political, party and legal reforms in the Deng era especially as it continued from here (and prospects for more).

What did the CR era do that had a lasting impact and wasn’t all negative?

This is a fun week because I get to praise Mao (at least to some extent) not bury him. It's also a quite conflicted week for me for the same reason. First to today's post on the CR's redeeming qualities:

Mao, of course, had correctly noted a kind of creeping elitism that the CR may have well put into its place for some years (he first suggested that the problem was within the party itself in his “twenty-three articles” discussion of January 1965). This would have been a deliberate aim of the CR and a worthy achievement of it. Grassroots activism to counter it was enhanced.

Both the Mao cult and the idea of revolutionary successors in the social life also outlived Mao (and weren’t unalloyed negatives for the future).

Another feature of the CR era is so-called “proletarian culture” and specifically the proliferation of ‘revolutionary operas', folk songs and films. Mao had made clear his interest in reforming the outputs of Chinese cultural forms since at least his time in Yan’an. There he berated certain writers and other ‘cultural workers' when they didn’t conform to this vision of the revolutionary forms.

There was a long history of debating the correct way to ‘do’ revolutionary culture and 'correct content' and as I’ve noted the Anti-Rightist campaign following the short Hundred Flowers epoch was essentially directed against cultural workers. Writers were a constant target and one non-conformist poet in the early 1950s was famously targeted. The playwright who sought to defend Marshall Peng in a veiled critique of Mao in a new play has been considered by some to be something of a catalyst for Mao’s conception of the CR (formally the Great Proletarian CR) because of the very importance for Mao of this debate. The debate continued into the CR.

Mao did recognise that the forms should be popular, though, and this was the positive aspect of this cultural development. It wasn’t elitist. It certainly was driven politically and propagandistically, however. To achieve popularity, Mao sought to use popular traditional forms of culture suitably modified. There were new lyrics and themes designed to inspire devotion to the cause. The Ministry of Culture was set up to control all media, cinema, writings, music and artworks.

The model operas (they were occasionally quite balletic as well and some were also filmed) were retellings of the heroic deeds of past Chinese heroes in the revolutionary era especially. They were thus models of socialist culture for CR revolutionaries and were themselves seen as a growing up of Chinese culture into its correct socialist form. They tended to be of two fairly distinct types: either they told of a distant revolutionary past depicting the travails and struggles of workers and peasants or they told of the recent or present heroic deeds of the revolution. They modelled both how to behave as a good revolutionary citizen and how to spot a bad one.

Seven or eight were produced beginning in 1964 or 1965 and early on a number were presented in a special festival in Shanghai. Later on Jiang Qing was at the centre of encouraging their production. These operas are again in vogue in today’s nostalgic mood in China after having fallen from grace at the end of the CR era. They were well made by talented artists.

Red Brigade of Women is a noted opera set in Hainan in the 1930s and so is of the first form. It depicts a brigade of women being moulded by the CCP. Nixon was apparently shown this opera on his 1972 visit to China. Its ballet form was quite western but this was acceptable to the Chinese as it was associated firstly with Russia, at least a recent revolutionary ally. The form was also adapted with movements from the popular and traditional Chinese opera form. The women and their leaders go on to fight the reactionary GMD and landlords.

The Port is of the form depicting more recent (PRC era) events. Workers at the port are preparing to send a gift of food to their poor brothers in Africa while a manager at the port conspires to divert the shipment to the West so that he can sell it and line his own pockets. Spies and other enemies of the people are also depicted. A struggle naturally ensues. This is more a traditional style Chinese opera than the more balletic Red Brigade of Women.

Cadres actually travelled out into the field, collected folk songs and changed their words following the above pattern. Even the new national anthem was an adapted folk tune.

The revolutionary films especially were used in the training of the revolutionary successors being from a relatively modern form and so presumably most appealing to the young of all of the art forms.

A major work in the film genre was a song and dance spectacular filmed in the Great Hall of the People called the East is Red (Dong Fang Hong). It was first intended to be shown in 1959 to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the formation of the PRC. It is a revolutionary history lesson in interpretive song and dance. Zhou was involved in its writing and it commences with a lavish song and dance routine in praise of Mao. The imagery evokes a multitude of sunflowers (the dancers) bending in the direction of their sun (Mao). What then follows is the history lesson taking the audience from the times of oppressed dock workers under Japanese and European occupations with the evil flags of the Japanese, Americans and English draped on the ships in the harbour through all the revolutionary events but especially through the Long March. We see scenes of Jing gang Shan, a mountain in the Jiangxi Soviet, and Long March scenes including scenes of the famous Battle of the Bridge. Interestingly, it has a Western orchestral score throughout. It is the purest melodrama.

Another major film of the era was called Lei Feng and told the story of the eponymous ‘hero’ that I’ve referred to in an earlier post. The movie shows that (among other wonderful things about him) even on his one day off (on Sunday) Lei helped mothers with their babies and workmen to build houses (and all anonymously). And even late at night he was always apparently to be found reading the words of Chairman Mao.

Those works give a flavour of both variety of the proletarian culture of the era and also some of the sense of sameness.

The actual ‘Nuts and Bolts’ of the CR – the Schema

Mao had written many years before the official CR words to the effect that “a revolution is not a dinner party” and here he was about to prove this yet again. “Continuous Revolution” also required continuous chaos, rebellion and violence. I’m now considering the specific objectives as they were outlined and met in the fulfilment of Mao’s new CR strategy.

The first and really a proto-CR objective was the object of the PLA. It was to create the class (called “revolutionary successors”) that would meet the further objectives and it was met in the period 1963 to 1966. This involved the training of youth in the Mao cult. Maoists saw only the youth as completely trustworthy as they were considered untainted by pre-1949 society and ideas. The principal campaigns that were to inspire the ‘revolutionary successors’ were Mao’s socialist education campaign and the ‘learn from the PLA’ campaign.

Further, Maoists believed revolution must be “done” in order to be understood and so the youth would be encouraged to “do” it (as understanding revolution was deemed a good thing). They would “do” the CR and the principal first objects to have things “done” to them were revisionist backsliders within the CCP and their lackeys. Mao had no faith left in either most of the leadership of the party or the intelligentsia. Metaphorical calls were made to “bombard the headquarters” and who knew if they would ultimately have to be taken literally. With the successors now revved up, the “party” could now begin with the Red Guards as the hosts. The two clear objectives of the CR were to eliminate all revisionism and ‘smash’ the four olds and they were both to be accomplished in short order (in the period from August to December 1966). So the ‘capitalist roaders’ were to be identified, attacked and overthrown so that the real CR (the final elimination of all feudal and bourgeois cultural hangovers through ‘smashing the four olds’) could then happen unimpeded. The four olds included anything religious, traditional or Western. This was only phase one.

Next, people then had to put in to replace the deposed bureaucrats and this was essentially the next phase accomplished in 1967 and 1968. First in 1967 Red Guards and worker ‘rebels’ forcibly assumed control of all organisational and social units (mostly the factories and communes) and workers replaced the party structure with 1848 Paris Commune-style ‘workers’ and people’s committees’ that Commune having been so admired by Marx himself as a potential model. The overthrow of Shanghai city government was especially closely modelled on the history of that 'model' Commune. So admired was the Shanghai ‘coup’ that three of the people involved were later to form the Gang of Four with Mao’s wife. Workers assumed more of a role than the Red Guards here as it was their units being taken over. This was the period when Red Guards frequently began to fight each other. The final part of this phase occurred in July and August of 1968 and was carried out by the PLA. It was a reversal of the first two parts of the phase, as I’ve noted – the Red Guards and worker ‘rebels’ were finally suppressed themselves and sent down to the countryside for more education by work. This was actually the deadliest period as the PLA killed Red Guards on quite a large scale essentially because while they were much better armed and organised than the chaotic Guards forces the Guards still often refused to peacefully and meekly submit to PLA suppression.

The final phase was a kind of reversal of the first two which created power vacuums. It was about filling the vacuum and was accomplished by the PLA in August and September of 1968 and by the PLA and the CCP in 1969. The Paris Commune-like ‘mass organisations’ were replaced by PLA-dominated ‘revolutionary committees’ in 1968 that supported the rebuilding of the party and in 1969 the re-building of the party structure was then finally undertaken with the support of the PLA and the Shanghai radicals. The CR had reduced the ranks of those able to rebuild the party but the final outcomes of this phase were the decisions of the 9^th party Congress in 1969 designed to present a show of unity to the outside world or to signal an end to further disputation.