[Militant International Review, No 41, Autumn 1989, p. 27-30, 48]
The bloody massacre in Tiananmen Square has provoked worldwide horror and anger. Lynn Walsh analyses the magnificent uprising against the bureaucracy, which marks the opening of China’s political revolution.
The upsurge against the bureaucracy arose from a period of rapid economic growth. The political crisis came as the wave of economic success broke, exposing the problems beneath the surface. This opened up a new split within the leadership. The struggle at the top opened the door to the mass protest from below, triggered off by the student movement.
The reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping after 1978 produced ten years of rapid growth, based mainly on the policies applied to the rural sector. Decollectivisation of farming, with higher state procurement prices for crops, led to a big increase in output, incomes and consumption in the countryside. Richer farmers, and a layer of the bureaucracy, turned to rural industries and services, the main area of growth.
Growth produced economic imbalances and social tensions. The state industries, under the rigid and inefficient control of the bureaucracy, could not meet demand from the rural sector. Shortages and inflation undermined farmers‘ incomes, leading to a drop in food output and a switch to cash crops. Inflation especially hit urban workers‘ living standards, reflected in a growing number of strikes in 1987 and 1988.
Deng’s policies also brought about a sharpening polarisation within society. Inland regions did not share the prosperity of favoured coastal areas. In the countryside, a minority of wealthy peasants, entrepreneurs and bureaucrats benefited from the reforms. Millions of young workers, without land or capital, were forced from their villages to search for work in the cities. Education, health care, and other social services have all deteriorated, aggravating the social problems.
Corruption mushroomed – infesting the bureaucracy from the top down, through every layer of the party and state machine. Added to the already enormous legal privileges of the bureaucracy, this is one of the most explosive grievances of the students and workers.
The leaders themselves recoiled in alarm at the corrosive effects of corruption. The hardline Stalinists blamed it on ‚bourgeois liberalism‘ encouraged by the reformers. They blamed it on the ‚feudal‘ practices of the old-guard bureaucrats, clinging to their traditional patronage and privileges.
In struggling to replace the radical Maoists around the ‚gang of four‘, Deng had the support of the old-guard within the leadership. As his reforms progressed, however, they increasingly opposed them. In the summer of 1986, Hu Yao-bang, with the apparent approval of Deng, appealed to the students to take action to defend the reform policies. This produced a wave of student demonstrations.
As workers began to join the movement, however, Deng withdrew his approval. He wanted continued economic reforms but not political reform. Deng clamped down on the student movement and abandoned his protege to the hardliners, standing aside when Hu resigned as general secretary in January 1987.
Nevertheless, in 1987 the reform wing of the bureaucracy, still committed to extending the market element in the economy, appeared to consolidate its position again. They took most of the key positions at the 13th CP Congress in October.
But Zhao Ziyang, Hu’s successor, found his position increasingly undermined by worsening shortages of raw materials, energy, and food accompanied by accelerating inflation. In the autumn the leadership abandoned the next proposed stage of its economic reforms, indefinitely postponing the abolition of all price controls and cuts in food subsidies. They also cut back on government investment, as well as tightening the money supply and credit. This squeezed living standards, particularly for workers in the cities.
Against this background, the death of Hu Yao-bang on 15 April triggered a resurgence of student protest. Hu’s sudden death appeared to tip the balance ominously towards the hardliners. Deng was distancing himself from Zhao. In any case, the students were preparing anniversary demonstrations for 4 May 1919, when students marching under the banner of ‚Democracy and Science‘ set off the movement which led to the revolution of 1925-27. The visit of Gorbachev, due in May, also had an influence. The students and sections of workers were undoubtedly following events in the USSR and Poland with great interest.
For a critical period the regime was paralysed
From 15 April to June the movement was one of mass protest rather than revolutionary challenge to the regime. Nevertheless, the ruling bureaucracy was shaken to its foundations. For a critical period the regime was suspended in mid air. All the elements of the political revolution (apart from one decisive element) were there.
A profound mood of revolt had been fomented by the worsening economic crisis and rampant corruption. 15 April saw the biggest student marches since 1986. On 27 April, despite Deng’s threat to suppress their ‚conspiracy‘, 100,000 marched in Beijing – breaking through the police cordons around Tiananmen Square. During Gorbachev’s visit, on 16-17 May, Beijing was brought to a standstill by over a million demonstrators.
The student leaders began the action with a hunger strike. But their determined action, combined with the regime’s wavering response, drew in wider and wider layers of the people.
On May, 300 journalists demonstrated against press censorship. Some policemen joined the students. Air force officers and soldiers were seen in the Square. Under the pressure of the movement, the lower ranks of the bureaucracy began to crumble, with party ‚cadres‘ (functionaries) and government officials coming onto the the streets.
Initially, workers expressed sympathy with the students, supplying them with money and food. Soon they joined the marches The students‘ demands – for democratisation. opposition to bureaucracy, and an end to corruption – evoked a strong response from almost every strata of society, crystallising a mood of widespread hatred of the bureaucracy. Their bold action, together with the effect of events in the Soviet Union and Poland, set off a tidal wave of protest which temporarily marooned the bureaucracy.
Throughout the events, the students sang the Internationale – belying Deng’s claim that they were ‚counter-revolutionary‘. The majority stood for the reform of die Communist Party and the state. Because of the enormous gains of the revolution of 1949 – which swept away landlordism and capitalism, and freed China from the grip of foreign imperialism – the Communist Party retained great authority with the students and young workers. They believed that Zhao and the reformers could root out corruption and democratise the party. Until June, they still believed that mass protest would persuade the leadership to change.
Through a People’s Daily editorial on 26 April, Deng Xiaoping threatened to crush the students. But Deng and Li Peng were unable to stop the next day’s mass demonstration or prevent the mass occupation of central Beijing during Gorbachev’s visit On 20 May, Li Peng declared martial law. But the ultimatum expired on 22 May with students and workers still occupying the Square.
The reformist wing of die leadership around Zhao Ziyang favoured concessions to the students and attempted to convene a special meeting of the National People’s Congress, to revoke martial law and oust the hardliners.
The army bureaucracy was also divided. The commanders of the 38th Army based in Beijing appeared to have opposed repression. Many of their soldiers sympathised with the students, some joining the demonstrators. Faced with martial law and the deployment of army units around Beijing, mass pickets established cordons around the city – ready to block the path of the army, but meanwhile correctly fraternising with the rank and file troops. This had a big effect on the soldiers, and the commanders withdrew most of them to the barracks for the time being.
Deng and Li Peng, who had deserted the reformist camp and coalesced with the hardline Stalinists, were determined to crush the mass movement. But at that stage they had not consolidated their grip on the party and state apparatus. Drawing on the considerable power of the old guard of retired or semi-retired elders, and by-passing the official leading bodies of the party and the state, Deng fought to concentrate the decisive levers of power into his own hands. Yang Shangkun, state president and vice-president of the armed forces committee, strove for control of the army, utilising his powerful network of patronage within the army bureaucracy.
The hardliners regained complete control only through an intense struggle within the leadership. Divided, and with many sections of the bureaucracy wavering under the impact of the mass movement, it required several weeks for the hardline Stalinist faction to recover its balance and prepare a bloody reaction. The outcome of this struggle was not a foregone conclusion.
For a critical period the bureaucratic regime was paralysed. All the objective conditions existed for the overthrow of the ruling bureaucracy, which could have been carried through peacefully or relatively peacefully. But one decisive ingredient was missing: a leadership with a clear programme, strategy and tactics.
If the student leaders had appealed to the mass of workers with worked-out demands for workers‘ democracy (the election of all officials with the right of recall, the limitation of salaries and an end to privileges), they could have transformed the situation. The workers moving into struggle against the regime would have been given conscious aims, based on the need to overthrow the ruling bureaucracy. They could have drawn much wider layers of workers and peasants into action behind them. The bureaucracy’s social reserves of support among less conscious strata, especially in the countryside, could have been rapidly undermined.
As the movement gathered momentum, the student leaders had rightly appealed to workers for support. To have had a decisive effect, however, these appeals needed to be linked to the call for the setting up of committees of workers, students, and soldiers. Such committees are vital organs of mass struggle in a movement to overthrow the bureaucracy and take control of society into the hands of the working class and poor peasantry.
Similarly, students and workers fraternised with the soldiers, winning some of them over. Had committees of workers and students existed – with a clear programme – decisive sections of the army could have been won over to the political revolution.
By the weekend of 13/14 May, Deng and the hardliners had gained decisive control of the state and military apparatus. Zhao Ziyang and the reformers were neutralised. Wavering elements in the bureaucracy, like Qin Jiwei, the defence minister, fell into line. In fact, by then the majority of the student leaders had called off their hunger strike. After the tense confrontations between troops and demonstrators of the previous week, the mass movement had subsided.
The main strength of the bureaucracy was the political weakness of the mass movement, which lacked both conscious strategy and mass organisations capable of giving a lead. Had Deng made concessions, conceivably the bureaucracy could have defused the mass movement – clamping down on the students‘ and workers‘ leaders once they had ridden out the immediate crisis.
By abandoning Zhao and the reformers, however, Deng had made common cause with veteran Stalinists of the long march generation (who had opposed his reform policies). To the old guard, both the reformers and the mass movement represented a threat to their power and privileges. They were determined, therefore, to ruthlessly crush the movement – to settle accounts with their reformist opponents within the leadership and, above all, to smash the threat of political revolution from below.
Despite the overwhelming might of the army, there was a heroic resistance to the repression
In the early hours of 3/4 June tanks and heavily armed assault troops swept into Tiananmen Square. Students and workers from the autonomous trade union organisation were crushed in their tents. Scores of those fleeing were mown down with heavy machine gun fire. Amnesty International believes that at least 1,300 were killed in the military terror. Student leaders say (probably more accurately) that over 3,000 were slaughtered.
Despite the overwhelming might of the army, there was a heroic resistance to the repression. Thousands of students and workers fought. Tanks were destroyed and the army was forced to retreat from many quarters of the city.
The whip of bureaucratic reaction transformed the movement from a mass protest into a revolutionary upsurge against the regime. The slaughter in Beijing triggered massive movements in other cities. In Canton, Shanghai, Wuhan, Nanking, Changsa and other industrial centres, hundreds of thousands of workers and other sections of the population joined mass demonstrations, occupying railway stations and key bridges to bring transport to a halt. In effect, there were general work stoppages which paralysed many sectors of the economy for several days.
The Tiananmen Square massacre detonated a far deeper response from the workers than even the demonstrations prior to 4 June. Events gave rise to a second opportunity for the political revolution to be carried through. All the objective conditions were there: only the necessary leadership was lacking.
With the correct policies and tactics, the army could have been broken from the regime
Deng relied on the army to carry through reaction. But with the correct policies and tactics, the army could have been broken from the regime. The first unarmed troops sent in to clear Tiananmen Square, early on 3 June, were met by tens of thousands of people. Many fraternised with the demonstrators. These units had to be withdrawn. The armed units sent in the next day were drawn from the provinces, and had been isolated in the barracks for several weeks. Even then, some went over. There were also reports of a few units turning their arms against the troops carrying out the massacre.
The mass movement, particularly after 4 June, undoubtedly provoked enormous tensions within the ranks of the army. But events posed the need for committees of workers, peasants, and soldiers to control the army, to ensure that it could not be used against the people. In a predominantly peasant country, a workers‘ state requires a standing army – but it should be under the democratic control of the proletariat. At the same time, the bloody repression also posed the need for workers‘ militias to defend the workers and other exploited strata against the bureaucracy. Had such committees existed in the weeks before 4 June, organised around a programme for the overthrow of the bureaucracy, decisive sections of the army could have been brought over to the side of the workers.
Recognition of the need to overthrow the bureaucracy, even for the advanced layers, came only with the whip of reaction. „It was not a revolutionary movement at all,“ commented the poet Duoduo, but „…it became a revolutionary movement.“
In many cities, after 4 June, students marched from factory to factory urging workers to join a general strike. Any illusions that they may have had in the leadership of the party and the army were cruelly shattered, and they were now drawing far-reaching conclusions. A leader from a Canton teachers‘ college said: „There must be a total strike – no more hunger strikes – they are useless. Only if the workers stop steel production and the power stations and the railways can we bring these people down. There are not enough soldiers in all of China to keep the vital industries running. The workers have the power, let the workers have their say. It is the only way.“
The bloody reaction was followed by mass arrests, tortures, show trials, and executions – some of them shown on television to strike fear into the people. According to the student leader Wuer Kaixi, now in the USA, more than 120,000 have been arrested or executed. A significant proportion of these have been young workers who were to the fore in the uprising provoked by the regime’s action in Beijing The arrests and executions are still continuing.
Bloody repression is accompanied by a purge of party and government posts, with an intense propaganda campaign to hammer home the bureaucracy’s version of events. Iron control has been re-imposed on newspapers and television, all unofficial meetings and demonstrations are banned – suppressing, for the time being, the anger of the people and their hatred for the bureaucracy.
There is a heavy clampdown on the students, who will now have to do a year’s military service and take menial jobs in remote areas before being allowed to take postgraduate courses. Political activity on the campuses has been suppressed – for the time being.
Deng has consolidated his grip on the leadership, now based almost entirely on the old-guard of hard-liners, together with younger henchmen like Li Peng. At the Central Committee meeting on 24 June. Zhao Ziyang was removed from his posts, together with three supporters. Unlike Hu in 1987, Zhao refused to step down voluntarily, and there was evidently a struggle. The changes were carried through, only three weeks after the events, with Zhao under house arrest and in an atmosphere of military repression.
Since then, the leadership has attempted to lay the basis for a show trial of Zhao on charges of organising counter-revolution. Their delay may indicate continuing opposition from within the bureaucracy. Yang Shangkun, who organised the military reaction, strengthened his position, but it is Jiang Zemin, the colourless Shanghai bureaucrat, who has taken over as general secretary.
The new hardline leadership has also launched a drive against tax-evasion, economic crimes, and corruption partly to discredit the reform wing of the bureaucracy, but also to assuage the profound anger among the people. They are also deliberately trying to confuse leaders of the mass movement with corrupt officials and criminals. The purge appears to be quite far reaching, but is no doubt highly selective, as in past campaigns, and will probably peter out quite soon.
The hardliners may have tightened their political grip, but they still face a worsening economic crisis. The reformers were undermined by the chaos. But the hardliners have no ready solutions. They have begun to recentralise, imposing price controls to curb inflation. There are already signs, however, that this will slow down economic growth, which will also bring serious problems.
Growth in the first half of 1989 fell to 11% compared with 17% last year, and is still slowing. Inflation is about 30%. Both the state deficit and the trade deficit is growing, while the drop in tourist income and the withholding of loans by western banks will undermine China’s ability to service its $40bn foreign debt. Switching the emphasis back to the state industries, subsidies for which already absorb about a third of state revenues, will not overcome the problems of technical backwardness and inefficiency under bureaucratic management. Cuts in state spending, the credit squeeze, and consequent cuts in living standards, moreover, may well undermine the prosperity of the rural sector, the locomotive of growth under Deng.
Neither wing of the bureaucracy has a way out of the impasse of Bonapartist rule, which is squandering the gains of the planned economy. For a period, Deng and his cohorts will follow a line of recentralisation, tightened bureaucratic control and repression. New contradictions will appear, once again forcing the leadership to lurch in the opposite direction at a later stage.
The working class, the students and other sections involved in the movement have suffered a brutal defeat and face a period of repression. But the experience of these mighty events, the first act of the political revolution, cannot be wiped out. The advanced workers and youth will be drawing far-reaching conclusions, striving to find the genuine ideas and programme of Marxism.
The processes within society will prepare the ground for new, even more momentous struggles in the future. Inevitably, the unfolding of China’s political revolution will be inter-linked with the unfolding revolutionary processes in Eastern Europe and throughout the capitalist lands. Once again the proletariat of China will shake the world.
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