[Militant No. 834, 13 February 1987, p. 10]
When China’s student protestors put up posters demanding democracy, they signed them with pseudonyms. They remembered that the last big wave of student and youth protest, the Democratic Movement of 1978-79, was suppressed, and over 200 of its leaders jailed.
By Lynn Walsh
But one of the demonstrators‘ favourite signatures ‚Volcano‘, expresses their confidence. They were encouraged by cracks in the top of the bureaucracy, and undoubtedly felt support from wide strata of society.
Student marches began on 5 December in Hefei, provincial capital of Anhui. Within days, there were student demonstrations in at least ten other cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. The marches continued into January.
The students‘ demands were vague: „‚democracy and freedom“, especially freedom of speech and the press. In Hefei, they called for free elections to local assemblies, with the right to put up their own candidates against Party nominees, and this was taken up elsewhere. Students burning the CP newspaper in protest against its hostile coverage of their movement. For the leadership, this was going too far.
One student told a reporter: „Every person has different ideas about what democracy is … demonstrating is a device. We use this to stimulate changes because we can’t freely express our ideas. Newspapers don’t emphasise what is in the people’s minds. They emphasise what is in the mind of the Party.“
Right to publish
Another said: ‚We should have the right to publish private newspapers, without going through any party organisation.‘
Many of the students come from families which are part of the privileged ruling elite and want to see China transformed into a more advanced, richer country. Among other things, this would fulfill their ambitions for professional careers.
But as with students in the West, they are not yet immersed in their careers and are not primarily concerned, for the time being, with the practical problems of daily life. Their ideas, therefore, tend to be far more radical than those of the bureaucracy’s own liberal wing.
Some of their criticisms, while falling far short of a worked-out programme of political revolution, nevertheless call into question the whole structure of bureaucratic rule.
As one student said: „You can say democracy is the biggest issue. But I think the real problem is reform of the cadre system.“ By „cadre system“ they mean the structure of bureaucratic appointments, the hierarchy of officials who control the party, the economy, and all other institutions, controlled ultimately from the apex of the apparatus in Beijing.
„In recent years“, continued another student, „the leadership has had a bias in pushing economic reform. Now we need political reform. This includes reforming the cadre system. … We want the selection to come from the bottom up, instead of from the top down.“
ls it surprising that demands like this should set alarm bells ringing in Beijing? Some students are evidently confused. One said: „A lot of debate is going on. We don’t know if capitalism is best or socialism is best. „
This is no doubt what western correspondents like to hear. But it is also clear that many students are firmly committed to the idea of democratisation on the basis of socialism – and many of their marches ended with enthusiastic singing of the Internationale.
This wave of student demonstrations appears to have been largely spontaneous. It is a new generation of students on the march, younger, fresher and (for the time being) more cautious than the generation which followed the Cultural Revolution and disillusionment with the Maoist leaders‘ betrayal of their radical demands.
The radical implications of the students‘ demands were underlined by the bureaucracy’s response. At first, the leadership appeared very tolerant. Within days, however, their attitude began to change sharply. The students were now criticised for endangering ’national unity‘, and big contingents of police were mobilised to curb the marches.
‚Bourgeois liberalism‘
By mid-January it was clear that the state, while refraining from crude repression, was determined to bring the demonstrations to an end. Deng came out against the students. Amid growing official denunciations of ‚bourgeois liberalism‘ a number of prominent intellectuals who had openly supported the students were removed from their posts. At the same time, the disappearance from official functions of the Party’s general secretary indicated a possible split in the leadership, and this was soon confirmed by Hu Yaobang’s enforced resignation.
What triggered off the students‘ movement?
At the beginning, there was a suspicion that the students were being orchestrated from within the top leadership. Deng himself had originally encouraged the Democratic Movement of 1978, leaning on it to strengthen his position against the Maoists still entrenched in the leadership. When it had served his purpose, and threatened to go much further, Deng suppressed it.
In recent months, Deng has again faced intensified opposition from within the leadership. This time it is not from radical Maoists, but from the most conservative section of the bureaucracy.
The established ‚cadres‘ (bureaucrats) fear that if managers, scientists and other specialists are given more initiative, their own powers and traditional perks will be eroded. They also fear the adverse effects of economic reforms.
Under Deng there has been rapid growth. Since 1979 agricultural output has grown by 10 per cent a year; the gross national product has more than doubled. But there has also been an undermining of traditional job security, and extremely high inflation by China’s standards.
The mushrooming of personal fortunes for those directly benefitting from the reforms has undoubtedly provoked wide resentment.
Fear of relaxation
Above all, the conservatives fear the growing demands for political liberalisation. In their eyes, any relaxation of the Party’s monopolistic control of social relations and political life poses a threat to the rule of the bureaucracy.
These fears are well founded. But the bureaucracy faces a contradiction, because, as Deng realises, under modern conditions it cannot just continue on the old basis.
Deng’s problem is to push through economic reforms against the conservative opposition, while blocking demands for ‚liberalisation ‚ which could threaten the stability of the regime. This dilemma in China is just a variant of the contradiction that faces all the Stalinist states.
Despite speculation that Deng had encouraged the students, by the turn of the year it was clear that he was doing everything he could to bring the movement under control. In doing so, Deng clashed with some of his reformist allies who had encouraged the student marches.
A split has appeared in the reformist wing of the bureaucracy, revealed with the sacking of many prominent figures in the party and academic establishment during the past month.
Thus a split appeared within the reformist wing of the bureaucracy, which was revealed publicly with the sacking of numerous prominent figures in the party and academic establishments during the past month.
These purged leaders represent a reformist opposition within the bureaucracy itself. They argue that the economic reforms, if they are to be effective, must be accompanied by political liberalisation.
Their position is comparable to that of the reform movement within the bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia under Dubcek in the period leading up to August 1968. In China, the reformers are similarly demanding scope for scientists, economists, managers and other specialists to take decisions without constant reference to party ‚cadres ‚. They are also pushing for the freedom to debate policy publicly, and to question and criticise the party leadership.
‚Four modernisations‘
Without such freedom, the reformists argue, the ‚Four Modernisations‘ (of industry, agriculture, science and technology, and defence) espoused by Deng will not be successfully carried out.
For questioning the absolute control of the party they are now being denounced as ‚bourgeois liberals‘ by the hardliners. Most of the reformers, however, have a completely empirical approach. They want to see the modernisation of China. They are eager to introduce western science and technology, and are prepared to rely to a much greater extent on foreign capital and market methods.
Deng has been the driving force behind economic reform. His dilemma is this: unlike his conservative opponents, who want to preserve an outdated apparatus intact, Deng wants to overhaul the machine to cope with the needs of economic development and modernisation. This is necessary to preserve the base of the regime by adapting it to today’s conditions.
Nevertheless, giving more scope to managers and experts inevitably strengthens demands for more scope for their own initiatives and for free debate. This unavoidably calls into question the bureaucracy’s decisive control over the economy and the state.
The reformers within the bureaucracy do not themselves pose a threat to the system. But if they are allowed to call the leadership into question and open up splits, they could trigger off forces in society which would pose the overthrow of the bureaucracy.
This is especially true when the acceleration of economic growth over the last decade has enormously enhanced the position of the industrial proletariat in China. Far better educated than in the past, and much more open to outside developments, we can be sure that the most conscious workers are already questioning the role of the bureaucracy and beginning to draw conclusions for the future.
In China, too, the students are like a sensitive instrument, a seismograph, registering faint tremors- early warnings of eruptions to come.
Schreibe einen Kommentar