BEHIND THE TURMOIL IN CHINA
Leys, Simon
The following comment on recent political events in China comes from the pen of an Australian authority on Chinese culture and politics who writes under the pen name of Simon Leys. It first...
...From what we know at this stage, a huge crowd gathered spontaneously chanting slogans and expressing its devotion to the memory of Chou En-tai--who, it is to be recalled, in his last years had become more and more conscious of the necessity to substitute a code of laws for the increasingly erratic and subjective ideological rule of the "Supreme Leader...
...Within the limits of a socialist economy, the new ruling class has managed to privately appropriate and embezzle the wealth of the community...
...For the first time since the foundation of the People's Republic all the rights and liberties guaranteed to citizens by the constitution were fully put into effect: freedom of opinion, of the press, of meetings, of association, of movement...
...The original purpose of the Cultural Revolution had been not so much to overthrow Liu Shao-chi, as to train the masses in the actual exercise of democracy...
...At the end of 1974, three young revolutionaries posted on the walls of a busy street of Kwangchow a long and powerful political manifesto...
...Then came the announcement that Hua Kuofeng had been officially confirmed as Premier...
...Such demands for "democracy" were usually seen in the past as an indication of reactionary leanings...
...the U.S.S.R., they point out, is under a bourgeoisrevisionist regime, yet Brezhnev did not invite white Russians and former landowners to come back and share his cake...
...They never attempted to challenge seriously any of the institutions or personalities established during Lin's heyday, 1968-71...
...Predictably enough, huge state-managed demonstrations of dutiful schoolchildren, mobilized civil servants, and factory workers marching in good order, mouthing readmade slogans, are now being organized everywhere in the country to celebrate the promotion of the new Lin Piao...
...This new constitution gave official sanction to the dramatic turn toward a reinforced totalitarianism...
...The crowd freely vented its hatred for the Public Security organs (political police...
...EDS...
...Witness all the successive political campaigns that have rocked the Chinese scene in the past few years, and in particular the "anti236 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS restoration" movement (which at that time was already aiming at Teng Hsiao-peng and now, as we know, has culminated in his downfall...
...q 238 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS...
...It is precisely this "social-fascist dictatorship of a feudal type" that presents the greatest danger for the Chinese proletariat...
...Li Cheng-tien, the main editor of the manifesto, had been one of the leaders of a leftist revolutionary group during the Cultural Revolution and was jailed for more than a year at the time of the Lin Piao military repression...
...Yet, in the long run, we would perhaps be foolish to despair...
...Had Western observers paid more attention at the time to this historical document—a spontaneous expression of the masses—instead of focusing on the permanent power struggle waged between a handful of top bureaucrats, the recent riots in Peking would not have taken them so much by surprise...
...It has already bitten us once, but did not succeed in swallowing us...
...If one has faith in the people's ability to finally overcome, no people could better justify such faith than the Chinese, since no other people on this planet has succeeded in constantly maintaining against tremendous odds a more durable and richer set of human values in the obstinate fight that we call civilization...
...In our next issue we will publish a major study of Chinese society today by the same author...
...The human rights and civic freedoms, which in the past, though guaranteed by the 1954 constitution, were constantly violated (arbitrary arrests, trials on trumped-up charges, torture, executions for political crimes) should be reaffirmed and effectively enforced...
...He, with the others, expresses his faith in the ability of the masses to ultimately get rid of the "Lin Piao System," which continues to rule China under another name...
...we are not afraid of the tiger...
...What is needed now—and here the authors of the manifesto address themselves most emphatically to the Fourth People's Congress whose convocation was then imminent—is to set a new constitutional basis for the regime, which would ensure "socialist democracy and legality...
...It first appeared in The Australian...
...MOST IMPORTANT of all is the freedom of opinion: without free criticism from the people, there can be no true political life, no participation of the masses, no socialist democracy...
...Mao predicted that, after the victory of the revolution, the class struggle would remain a permanent reality inside the socialist regime...
...Confronting the abuses of this "new ruling class" and the menace of a "social-fascist dictatorship," the proletariat has but one weapon: the Cultural Revolution...
...The danger of a bourgeois restoration comes from the new bourgeoisie...
...No one could be better qualified for the role of leader in a "social-fascist dictatorship of feudal type...
...In other words, for four years, China had been under the rule of a fascist military adventurer...
...Like causes produce like effects, and in the framework of bureaucratic totalitarianism, variations are necessarily limited...
...What matters, in fact, is not the person of Lin Piao, but the "Lin Piao System," the mechanism by which such a traitor could be propelled to the top, be proclaimed the "closest comrade-in-arms and successor of Chairman Mao," and wield practically absolute power in China for nearly four years (1968-71...
...This manifesto was entitled "On Socialist Democracy and Legality" and signed Li Yi-chepen name of its three authors, Li Chengt'ien, Ch'en Yi-yang, and Huang Hsi-che...
...Most of the human rights and civic freedoms guaranteed by the 1954 constitution were abolished and, most important of all, a new article was added allowing the Public Security (the political police) to make arrests without the authorization of a people's court or a people's prosecutor—in other words, the arbitrary power of the police has been enshrined in the constitution...
...we know the beast...
...Hua Kuo-feng, who happens also to be the head of the Public Security...
...In the short perspective, the situation looks utterly depressing...
...The authors observe that the campaign had so far remained largely sterile and empty, since it concentrated on beating a dead horse: what is the use of merely denouncing an individual...
...WHAT IS frightening, continue the authors of the manifesto, is that the downfall of Lin Piao has not led to the end of the "Lin Piao System"—the system that brought him to power continues to operate as before...
...This is achieved by inflating and expanding its special status by increasing its various political, economic, and social privileges, by making these privileges quasi-hereditary, and by consolidating and protecting them through a system of sectarian oligarchical cliques able to suppress whatever criticism might arise from among the masses...
...Here Li Yi-che's analysis is remarkably similar to that of Yugoslavia's Djilas, and this should not surprise us...
...The second day, the huge Tien-An Men Square was cordoned off by the Security men and the Army in order to prevent further spontaneous demonstrations, and to wash and scrape away all the inscriptions left by the demonstrators, thus in effect robbing them of this basic right—guaranteed by the constitution—of posting "big character inscriptions," which was in fact the sole democratic weapon left to them...
...The authors movingly conclude: We are young men, we may still lack theoretical knowledge, yet we are not entirely without experience...
...For a period at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the masses were able to control their own destiny...
...What such rule entailed, the manifesto continues, 800 million witnesses can testify: bloody suppression of the masses (the Lin Piao military repression in Kwangtung province alone, they state, had 40,000 victims), imposition of a new "religion" with a ritualistic blind devotion to the Supreme Leader, arbitrary dogmas requiring unconditional obedience, and substitution of a feudal rule of ideology for the socialist rule of law...
...The "victory" of the Cultural Revolution, as the authors see it, must be a myth, since Lin Piao, having usurped power half-way through it, then proceeded to crush all revolutionary activity in order to stage his own apotheosis—the Ninth Party Congress (1969), which anointed him in the exalted dignity of heir-designate and even went to such ludicrous lengths as to enshrine his new status in the revised party constitution...
...They were all dealing with events and were directed against personalities belonging to the post-Lin Piao era...
...The emancipation of the people can be achieved only by the people itself...
...The danger of a bourgeois restoration no longer comes, of course, from the wretched descendants of the former bourgeoisie who are utterly discredited, powerless, bypassed by history, and constitute but a tiny minority of pathetic scarecrows...
...It constitutes one of the most sophisticated and penetrating analyses of the Chinese political scene ever attempted from inside China...
...One month after the appearance of this manifesto, the answer of the Maoist establishment was expressed in the convening of the Fourth COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 237 People's Congress and the adoption of a new constitution...
...As the authors recall, such an eventuality had already been foreseen by Mao Tse-tung ten years previously: "Should such a restoration ever happen in our country, it will not amount to a simple dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but it will be a reactionary-fascist type of dictatorship...
...It is in this light that we must look at the recent events in Peking...
...The constitution should enable the masses to exert constant control over the state apparatus, and the masses should have the right to revoke at any time any party or government leader who loses their trust...
...but it did not last long...
...It takes as its starting point the Criticism of Lin Piao, which had been the theme of a huge campaign for the past few years...
...Before it could be suppressed by the authorities, it was immediately reproduced and disseminated by way of Chinese-style Samizdat, and it rocked the whole country...
...Lin Piao's usurpation brought all this to a brutal halt in 1968...
Vol. 23 • July 1976 • No. 3
