May 24 — As of yesterday, it looked as though the so-called moderates in China, those favored by the world bourgeoisie, were sweeping aside the government of Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping.
However, late-breaking news reports indicate a turn in the situation. NBC News said tonight that the plane of Wan Li, head of the National Peoples Congress who had just met with President George Bush in Washington, and who was reported to be hurrying home to demand the ouster of Premier Li Peng, was refused landing rights in Beijing.
The China state radio has begun to characterize the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square as "counter-revolutionary." CNN, which had to stop satellite transmissions from Beijing tonight as did other imperialist media, reported that the resignation of Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, a supporter of the economic reforms and the student movement, may be imminent.
And, according to the Associated Press, commanders of the Navy, the Air Force, and six out of the seven military regions of China have announced their support for martial law and have warned in the armed forces newspaper that the demonstrations are aimed at "negating the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system."
None of this is conclusive as of this writing. But it indicates the possibility of a shift against the bourgeois elements.
The world imperialist press is now focused on an imminent emergency meeting of the political leadership of the Peoples Republic of China to deal with the demonstrations in Beijing.
Never before in history has there been such a global chorus of extravagant praise and flattery for a student protest movement as is being exhibited in all the capitals of the imperialist world over the so-called pro-democracy demonstrations against the Chinese government.
And the people's government? Where has it been? With martial law on the one hand, and unprecedented demonstrations on the other, there seemed to be virtual political paralysis if not disintegration. Could this really be the Peoples Republic of China? The China which defeated all the colonialist powers after being dominated for years and divided into warring cliques of feudal, pro-imperialist groupings? Is it the China that, after becoming unified for the first time in the modern era, helped bring U.S. imperialism to a standstill in a war fought together with their Korean comrades, and then became a world power with the greatest moral authority among the oppressed everywhere?
We now have seen so-called pro-democracy demonstrations that raised the U.S. Statue of Liberty as their symbol. The U.S. Navy was once again in Shanghai harbor and U.S. sailors were seemingly welcome there as a port of call. To top it all off, President George Bush gave a lecture to Wan Li, president of the National Peoples Congress, on the dangers of the use of the military, while praising to the skies nonviolence and the example of Martin Luther King! All this while making preparations to put the finishing touches on U.S. intervention in Panama.
How could all this happen?
It's a very complex situation, we are told. True enough, but if seen in historical perspective it is also the very "soul of simplicity."
Let's imagine another emergency meeting of an expanded Politburo, some time in the early 1960s when the harvests were failing in China. Most of the leaders are battle-scarred veterans of the Long March and the issue is what direction the economy should take in view of some accumulating problems.
There are two political tendencies in this presumed meeting. It takes place against the background not only of bad harvests but also of accumulating problems in industry and agriculture. The Party and the government have lived through many crises and attained tremendous successes. But now they appear to have reached a fork in the road. How can they move forward to the socialist reorganization of society? How, after some modest beginnings in the 1950s, can they modernize the economy, especially the industrial infrastructure, of China?
One group favors moving ahead with the rapid socialization of Chinese industry and agriculture to the ultimate communist society. This is the group which initiated the Long March. In addition to being a legendary, heroic feat, it should be remembered that from the point of view of strategy the Long March was a retreat, in order to advance at a later date. From these advances emerged the victory of the Chinese Revolution over the landlords, capitalists and imperialist monopolies.
To some extent, this retreat was seen in the West and even in communist circles as the abandonment of the central cities, where the proletariat was predominant, and a shift to sole reliance upon the peasants. But subsequent history proved that the Long March, from the point of view of military and political strategy, was merely a detour to gain strength and experience. It led to a victory that rested on the support of the broad mass of the peasants and workers.
Assume further that, at this meeting in the early 1960s, the present ideological and political leader of the Party, Deng Xiaoping, proposed another Long March necessary for the achievement of socialism; it would entail the Party taking a round-about way for a long time, but at the end the Party and the people would see this was the only way to achieve socialism.
If one had to reduce to simple terms the very complex political struggle of the factions in China, one would say there were two divergent and irreconcilable tendencies: the Deng Xiaoping group, which was allied with Liu Shaoqi before his death, and the tendency led by Mao, the recognized leader of the Chinese Revolution. These were the two political tendencies which would ultimately be locked in a merciless factional struggle, each pushing a political line directly contrary to the other. At various times the struggle was masked and misrepresented, but ultimately it became clear as crystal.
The Deng wing of the Party, as a result of historical conjunctures which space does not permit us to elaborate, triumphed over the revolutionary Mao wing. [This struggle is analyzed in detail in Sam Marcy's books "China — the Struggle Within" and "The Suppression of the Left." See ad on page 8.]
The essence of the Deng line was that China must go through a protracted period of capitalist development before it could achieve a socialist society. However, this was only inferred. Had he clearly stated how this overall objective would be obtained and what the Party would have to go through to do it, and if this had happened before the Maoist, revolutionary communist wing had been destroyed, Deng would never have won out.
On the other hand, had Deng's position been for a temporary retreat of short duration, to test the possibilities still inherent in capitalist development, this might have been acceptable even to Mao. From the very early days, a considerable number of bourgeois reforms had been enacted in order to strengthen the Peoples Republic. But that is not what happened.
The Mao revolutionaries accused the Deng grouping of proposing a capitalist road, not a mere tactical retreat. This accusation has been proven up to the hilt. This is what the crisis in China is about today. To discuss the factional situation at the top without restating the fundamental divergences between the revolutionary leadership of Mao and the Deng adherents, given the present situation, makes a mockery of any discussion and leaves broad public opinion in the West wide open for a bourgeois interpretation of contemporary Chinese history.
Of what use is it to discuss the merits of Zhao Ziyang, Hu Yaobang, Li Peng, or even of the military leaders if one does not relate their differences to the present economic situation? Politics is, after all, a reflection of economics. The economic program of the Deng regime has now been in force for more than a decade — a stupendous decade. And what have been the results?
For one thing, there is galloping inflation — 30% at present and 50% last year. Inflation can come from two different causes. One is when the government arbitrarily resorts to printing money as its salvation from flagrant inefficiency and downright fraud. Such a phenomenon could occur in a socialist as well as a capitalist country, but this is rare and moreover lends itself to quick resolution on the basis of a speedy house-cleaning of the personnel in charge of the finance ministry or other government officials.
Then there is the other type of inflation, which is an organic outgrowth of capitalist commodity production and of expanding capitalist market relations. This type of inflation is most rampant in the less-developed countries. It has a strong tendency to become uncontrollable, given the immature capitalist character of social and economic relations and their nexus to the imperialist monopolies, the big banks and the multinational corporations, which milk every country they can get their hands on.
It is this second category of inflation which the Chinese government finds intractable. And no wonder. Having become wedded to the capitalist market, having dismantled the agricultural communes, having encouraged, widened and deepened the private entrepreneurial thrust, the present leaders of the Party, including both the so-called moderate and hard-line factions, find themselves captives of the very program that they initiated, promulgated, promoted and made into state policy of a virtually irreversible character.
Former Party Secretary Hu Yaobang, his successor Zhao Ziyang and Premier Li Peng have all been firm supporters of Deng, the architect of what the Maoist leaders called the capitalist road. It was supposed to be a detour, just a way to reach the socialist goal by a different route. This objective was supposed to be firmly entrenched in the consciousness of the masses, not to speak of the leaders. It was to be a tactical retreat, nothing more, dictated by "common sense." This was what was meant by Deng's classic statement that it didn't matter whether a cat was black or white, as long as it caught mice. It wasn't to be an abandonment of the socialist goal.
Undoubtedly some of the leaders in a vast country like China believed that it would be a temporary detour, a Leninist type of maneuver similar to the New Economic Policy. The Chinese Communist Party had certainly carried out many political maneuvers with great skill and success in earlier years.
For a short period after the introduction of bourgeois economic reforms, there can be some successes. But over a period of years, the market relations and the entrepreneurial spirit result in a whole layer of new petty proprietors, businessmen, commerce and trade functionaries and officials. The new petit bourgeoisie, the traders, etc., become the loudest critics of the government, notwithstanding that the reforms were made for their benefit. The broad layers of the privileged bureaucracy, especially in Beijing, whose incomes have moved little in relation to inflation, covertly encourage the pro-"democracy" agitation by the students.
In China their corrupting influence has reached wide sections of the Party hierarchy to the point where it has become scandalous. Isn't this what almost always happens in capitalist governments? Just look at the present Takeshita scandal in Japan, the exposés of corruption concerning Meese, Deaver, Watt and other members of the Reagan administration, and the lower-level scandals that go on every day.
Socialism shows its fundamental superiority over capitalism in that it can plan. It is not subject to the interference of blind market forces. But here the economic situation has taken the political leadership captives, as in a capitalist country, instead of their being able to control it.
Realizing that to continue on this road could lead to the undoing of the Party as a whole, or what remains of it, the government several years ago opened up a campaign against "spiritual pollution" and "bourgeois liberalization." But this was attacking the symptoms rather than the causes. How could experienced, battle-scarred veterans of the revolutionary wars and the struggles against capitalism not have realized this elementary proposition of Marxism? Only because they have become captives of the system rather than its managers or directors.
The growth of corruption shows the need for broad, unimpeded discussion. As one demonstrating worker put it, democratic discussion is not inconsistent with communism. It is anti-Leninist and anti-Marxist to muzzle the press and stifle discussion. And it is counter-productive, giving the bourgeoisie an instrument to disseminate its counter-revolutionary views. When all the masses have are rumors and cryptic official pronouncements, they are prey to the bourgeois interpretation of events.
The leaders of all the different factions have been solid supporters of Deng. But it would be a bad mistake to confuse the present revisionist communist leadership with thoroughgoing bourgeois counter-revolutionaries, as some ultra-left groups have done. That is not so. Their base is in the socialist sector of China, especially the huge basic industries, notwithstanding that they have embarked on a false capitalist road. They want socialism, but with bourgeois democracy and bourgeois international connections favorable to socialism — which is a delusion.
They can pull back from disaster, but to return to the socialist road will require other leaders. The relationship between the revisionist communists and the class structure of Chinese society must be seen as a dynamic one and not based on any dogma or schema which predestines them to the pursuit of the capitalist road to the very end.
It appears at the moment that the demonstrations are disintegrating, especially in Beijing. For a full-scale counter-revolution to succeed, the most important aspect would be if the workers and the rural population as a whole supported the demonstrations. Fortunately, that has not happened.
It could be that the Deng forces, who created and are responsible for this situation, may turn it around. But it is hard to believe that they can offer a truly revolutionary alternative. One can only hope that a makeshift solution will be found to give revolutionaries in and out of the Party, who want to save and advance socialism, time to redress the situation and halt the incipient bourgeois counter-revolution.
Last updated: 23 March 2018