Life after Mao - 1 | UPSC Mains: World History PDF Download

The Death of Mao Tse-tung; Jiang Qing and "The Gang of Four"; 

Mao died on September 9, 1976. Within a month, Hua Guo-feng moved to arrest Jiang Qing and her supporters. However, Deng had more support among the bureaucrats and army commanders than Hua, particularly because of Hua's continued favorable assessment of the Great Culturual Revolution. Thus, in July 1977, Deng was reinstated in all his positions plus a new one: Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He quickly emerged as the most powerful leader in China.

Deng reaffirmed Zhou Enlai's program of the "Four Modernizations," i.e., of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. He proclaimed that China must begin to catch up with the West in technology and must reform her inefficient, antiquated, Stalinist economic system. He also showed himself willing to use incentives and to create a less repressive environment. However, almost from the outset, he also showed that he would not tolerate any political liberalization which he did not control himself. This was made quite clear by the fate of those who dared to demand democracy.

1. The Democracy Wall and Its Fate
   • Deng clearly wanted a show of popular support for his policies and thus to undercut his radical opponents. Therefore, he relaxed media controls and encouraged the free expression of opinion. This led to the criticism of Hua Guo-feng that Deng wanted - but also to criticism of the party itself. Such opinion were expressed in articles and "large character posters" which were pasted on the Democracy Wall in Beijing in December 1978 - January 1979. Like Mao in 1956, so Deng in 1979 put a stop to the posters and articles when they began attacking the communist party and system . Wei Jinsheng, who demanded democracy as the "fifth modernization," attacking the existing political system and even Deng himself, was severely punished, as were others who had dared criticize the system.
   • Here we should note that Wei Jingsheng expressed the views of many young, educated, Chinese who had become disillusioned with communism as it existed in China. He had been raised as a loyal Maoist by his father, who was a revolutionary. He was a Red Guard during the Great Cultural Revolution, but was jailed when his group clashed with rival gangs loyal to Jiang Qing. He then read a great deal on international affairs, worked as an electrician, and served four years in the army. He also fell in love with a young Tibetan woman, whose father had been persecuted for his politics. (China had forcibly imposed its rule on Tibet in 1959, and the Dalai Lama had fled, taking up residence in India ).
   • Wei demanded free elections of representatives by the people, and said that socialism was flawed because it left no room for the independent individual. Wei's demands coincided with a demonstration by 28 young people in Tiananmen Square on Dec. 17, 1978, to protest the living and working conditions in south China of some 50,000 young people who had been "sent down" and had been striking there. (Thousands of young people had been sent into the countryside for "re-education.") On January 8, 1979, several thousand of these people demonstrated with signs that read "We don't want hunger," and "We want human rights and democracy." Later in January, some 30,000 workers and their families, who had also been sent down, came to Beijing to petition the leaders for help. There were similar demonstrations in other cities.
   • At this point, Deng ordered a crackdown. Many underground writers were arrested and accused of weakening the state with the aid of foreigners. In March 1979, Wei Jingsheng was tried and convicted. The specific charge was that he had leaked information on the war between China and Vietnam to a foreign journalist. He appealed the verdict on the grounds that he had no access to such information, but his appeal was rejected. (9) As we will see later, Wei and other writers who were repressed in 1979, were the heralds of later protest movements, up to and including that of spring 1989. Wei was sentenced to 15 years; he was released just 6 months before his sentence ended, in September 1993, as part of Red China's bid to host the Olympic Games in the year 2,000. (But it was decided that they will be held in Sydney, Australia,
   • We should note that during the "Democracy Period," the Party was sending out mixed signals. This resulted from the existence of three different groups in the leadership. One group, led by Hu Yaobang (1913-89), who became General Secretary of the Party on January 3,1979, believed that economic reform had to go hand in hand with democratization, by which he seems to have meant liberalization under party control. Hu also took the line that all that was proved to be wrong should be corrected. A second group stood for combining the party's autocratic rule with a free economy; they were led by Zhao Ziyang (Chao Tzu-yang, b. 1919), formerly the First Secretary of Guandong Province, who became a member of the Politburo in February 1980. A third group wanted to retain party autocracy, plus some cautious, economic, adjustments falling short of creating a market economy; this group was led by the former economic planner, Chen Yun (b. 1905). Deng Xiaoping seemed to be playing these groups off against each other.
   • Deng also developed closer relations with the United States and Japan. He sent Chinese students to study abroad and welcomed foreign, especially American, students to China. Several U.S. universities, including K.U., established exchange programs with Chinese universities. Even Western music was allowed back on a restricted basis. However, Deng's chief goal was to educate thousands of Chinese in modern Western science and technology, and so catch up with the West.
   • Here we should note that despite the crackdown on Wei Jingsheng and other critics, Deng allowed the release of thousands of academics, writers and artists who had been imprisoned or sent down to the farms. It is likely, however, that his primary aim in this action and in rehabilitating all those unjustly condemned since 1957, was to bring back into service bureaucrats who shared his ideas. This was also the goal of the trial of Jiang Qing and the "Gang of Four"
2. Some Condemnation of the Past
   • Jiang Qing and her supporters were publicly tried in 1980-81. Jiang firmly denied any wrongdoing and insisted she had always carried out Mao's will. All members of the group were condemned to death, but their sentences were commuted to long prison terms. (When Jiang became sick with cancer, she was released from prison, but lived under house arrest; she died in summer 1991). As mentioned above, Jiang had lorded over the cultural scene for years, and had been responsible for the death and exile of many artists whom she disliked, or whom her supporters happened to dislike. But what was most important, she stood for the fanatical radicalism which had flowered so disastrously in the Great Cultural Revolution, and which Deng wanted to condemn in Chinese eyes.
   • Meanwhile, Hua Guo-feng gradually faded from the political scene. In July 1981, he was replaced as Party Chairman by Deng's man, Hu Yaobang. The Party Central Committee, which also met in early July, approved a resolution condemning most of Mao's policies since 1950, particularly the Great Cultural Revolution. According to the Central Committee resolution, the Great Cultural Revolution had been responsible for "the heaviest losses suffered since the founding of the People's Republic." It was charged with purposely decimating the Party, ruining the careers of many loyal party workers, and of undermining the economy of China. Deng spoke for himself and for many thousands of party members in the words of the resolution that "It was us and not the enemy who were thrown into disorder by the Cultural Revolution." Finally, the resolution also criticized Mao for dismissing Deng from high party office and appointing Hua as his successor. Hua was made a junior deputy chairman of the Party.
   • Thus the CCP Central Committee resolution of July 1981 can be seen as the Chinese equivalent of Khrushchev's anti-Stalin speeches of February 1956 and 1961. Just as Khrushchev had praised Stalin for his policies of industrialization and collectivization, so the Dengist leadership praised Mao not only as the great leader of the CCP in the period 1927-49 but also for his economic and social policies in the early 1950s. The Great Leap Forward was strongly criticized, and the Great Cultural Revolution was condemned - although it was presented as an aberration of Mao's thought.
   • Indeed, while it was admitted that Mao knew what was going on, the purge of the CCP and the repression of academic and cultural life of China were blamed on Jiang Qing and her "gang," who were publicly tried. It is most likely that Deng avoided a wholesale condemnation of Mao because he did not want to alienate the old guard who were loyal to Mao's memory, and whose support he would need, or whom he would at least have to neutralize in order to rule China.
   • Finally, we must bear in mind that for the Chinese, Mao was Lenin and Stalin rolled into one; he was both the great revolutionary leader and the builder of the Chinese People's Republic. Neither the people nor the Party were ready to accept a total condemnation of Mao's policies, nor could any Chinese leader attempt to formulate such a drastic judgment at the time. For these reasons, Deng did not go as far in repudiating Mao as Gorbachev was to go in the USSR in repudiating Stalin after 1987.
   • Instead, Deng set about reforming the Chinese economy. At the same time, he purged the party of Maoists in order to carry out these reforms. (About 5,500 members were purged in 1983). He also ordered about 700,000 party members to undergo "ideological training," which focused on the need for moderate change. (At this time, the CCP numbered about 40 million). Deng also purged the army, though he was very careful not to remove the veterans of the Long March. Instead, he tried to persuade them to retire.
3. Economic Reforms and Problems
   • The first, and one of the most important of Deng's economic reforms took place in agriculture. In order to increase food production, Deng implemented the "contract responsibility system," i.e., support for private farmers. First, private plots were restored and enlarged; next, the great farm communes were dissolved, and the government leased the "subsoil" to farmers. They, in turn, could rent it out to others if they wished to leave the farms and work in village industries.
   • After fulfilling the government quotas, the farmers could sell the rest of the produce for their own profit. This led to a swift and significant increase in food production. In fact, between 1979 and 1984, agricultural output grew by at least double that of the preceding 20 years. Also, cotton output jumped threefold in six years, making China the largest textile producer in the world.
   • Although food production increased, new problems arose. Many farmers preferred to raise cash crops i.e., vegetables and fruit -- especially watermelons, beloved by the Chinese -- rather than the labor-intensive and low priced staples, rice and grain. Also, in some years there was an overproduction of grain, so that prices fell steeply and led to reduced production. The government decided to manipulate prices upward to encourage farmers to grow grain.
   • Another constant problem is the continuing loss of scarce agricultural land to village industry and housing. Freed by new policies that allowed them to engage in sideline occupations, many farmers abandoned farming for work in small local industries, producing tools and other goods for the villagers. While beneficial in itself, this trend has removed land from food production. This is very dangerous, since China's total cultivated land is usually given as 110 mln hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres), and the total loss in 1981-85 amounted to 2.23 mln. hectares.
   • Furthermore, the rise in food prices, i.e., inflation, hurt the city workers, so the government decided to manipulate prices. Urban discontent was aggravated by the import of manufactured goods from Japan, Taiwan, Hongkong, and elsewhere. These goods were bought by the rich farmers and city entrepreneurs, but were initially beyond the reach of industrial workers. On top of this, the imports led to highly visible corruption, for many party members grew rich from buying imported goods at low prices and reselling them at enormous markups. This violated the egalitarian ethos of socialism and was greatly resented by all Chinese people: workers, academics and students.
   • Agricultural reform was, of course, only the first of the "four modernizations," the others being the modernization of industry, science-technology, and national defense. Deng also allowed a certain amount of private enterprise in the cities, e.g., private restaurants and shops. Western businessmen were encouraged to invest in China, particularly in joint ventures; at first the terms were too rigid but were modified later. Most of these joint ventures were initially located in special economic zones in the coastal cities, particularly along China's south-central coast. Here, managers of state enterprises and private entrepreneurs were allowed great freedom in dealing with Western business firms, and in developing private businesses. However, these special economic zones have been criticized for increasing the gap between the standard of living in these areas and inland China.
   • The CCP Congress of October 25 - November 1, 1987 endorsed further economic reforms, and also elected a new and younger leadership, but the government cracked down on corruption in 1988. Not only were private entrepreneurs buying party support and toleration, but as noted above, high party members themselves profited greatly from the resale of foreign goods. As we shall see, blatant corruption among high party members continued, and would be one of the evils protested by the students in spring 1989.
   • Unlike agriculture, reform of existing industrial enterprises made very little headway. It is all very well to preach accountability and profit, and therefore propose that industrial plants operating at a loss should be closed down. But what is the government to do with the workers? The same problem faces the new, non-communist, governments of the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe with their outdated Stalinist "rustbelt" industries.
   • In 1987-88, China stood at an economic crossroads. There was a huge budget deficit, the result of excessive investment and huge subsidies. The trade deficit was the largest in all of Chinese history. Inflation reached 12% in 1986, and went up another 7% in 1987. But these are official figures and Chinese economists estimated that inflation in 1985-86 would reach 30%. Finally, there was widespread corruption, which included party members, and a high crime rate. These trends continued into 1989 and must be seen as the background for popular support of the student democracy movement in Beijing in April-June 1989.
   • Even in agriculture there were serious problems, particularly stagnation, which was largely due to insufficient investment in the infrastructure, especially water resources.
   • There was lack of capital, energy shortages, bottlenecks of all kinds, especially in transportation, and inflation. But on the positive side, there was a great increase in textile production, a developing electronics industry, especially computers, and a modern defense industry including aviation and missiles, e.g., the Silkworm missiles sold to Iran and used by it in the war with Iraq.
   • In the early 1990s, economists asked: where is China to get the capital for large scale modernization, and how is she going to square profit and wealth with socialism? As it turned out, in 1994-96, foreign investment in China amounted to about $100 billion. This constituted half of all foreign investment in the developing world and was second only to investment in the United States. However, the second half of the question still requires an answer.
4. The Background to the Student Democracy Movement of Spring 1989
   • At first, Deng seemed to espouse the idea - first expressed in the Prague Spring of 1968, and taken up by Gorbachev in the USSR almost twenty years later - that economic reform cannot succeed without free discussion of problems and their possible solutions. This view was most strongly expressed by Hu Yaobang. In fact, this veteran soldier and bureaucrat of the Chinese Communist Party (b. 1913) came to express humane and democratic ideas. Toward the end of his life, and particularly after his death, he became, for Chinese students and other liberal intellectuals, the symbol of democracy and decency in public life.
   • Hu Yaobang seems to have been more of an idealist than a politician. Although he had had Deng's support for a while -- he had, after all, done the most to achieve Deng's political rehabilitation -- this could not last. Deng believed that the party must keep total control of every sphere of life, and, most of all, political life. Indeed, on March 30, 1979, at the time of the arrest and trial of Wei Jingsheng, Deng proclaimed that China must modernize, but within the framework of the Four Cardinal Principles of: socialism; the dictatorship of the proletariat; party leadership; and Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought. There was certainly no room for democracy in this framework.
   • At the same time, however, Deng did speak of the need to abolish "feudalism" within the Party. He meant the feudal control exercised by provincial First Secretaries and other high bureaucrats. But these statements were likely aimed at the conservative faction in the party led by Chen Yun. It is interesting to note that in late 1980, Chen pointed out the dangerous implications for socialism posed by the Solidarity movement in Poland (1980-81, see ch. 8). He warned that changes in China might bring about similar developments there. On this basis, Chen opposed "bourgeois liberalization," i.e., free speech and democracy, as well as radical economic reforms. In 1983, he and his supporters also began a campaign against "spiritual contamination," i.e., Western ideas - especially democracy.
   • In the meanwhile, Hu Yaobang continued to give open support to political and ideological reform. This, of course, aroused the opposition of conservative hardliners. But the real reason for Hu's dismissal seems to have been a bold move against corruption in high places. Thus, Hu Yaobang obtained the necessary papers for the arrest of the son of Hu Qiaomu, the head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, whose son had embezzled a huge sum of money. Hu Qiaomu appealed to Deng for help.
   • At this point, Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was in overall charge of economic reform, allegedly told Deng that he could no longer cooperate with Hu Yaobang. In this way, Zhao, who stood for significant economic reform, made use of the support of the Old Guard, led by the conservative Chen Yun, to strengthen his own position. Then, the members of the ad hoc Standing Committee of the Politburo indicated they did not want Deng to resign, i.e., they did not want Hu Yaobang to succeed him. This decision was made before student demonstrations in favor of democracy took place at the turn of 1986-87, although Hu Yaobang was later accused of fomenting them.
   • Large student demonstrations began in early December 1986 at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui Province. The students demanded better living conditions and freedom of the press. On December 23rd, students at Beijing University demonstrated calling for freedom and democracy. On December 31st, the media proclaimed there was a "plot" to overthrow the government and the Beijing Municipal Council imposed limits on all demonstrations. However, on January 1, 1988, over 2,000 students demonstrated in the capital.
   • On January 16, 1988, Hu Yaobang, who had opposed the party decision to suppress student demonstrations, was removed as General Secretary of the Party, and replaced by Zhao Ziyang. Also in the course of the month, three leading "liberals" were expelled from the Communist Party; they were the physicist, Fang Lizhi (b. 1936), who had been Vice-President of the University of Science and Technology and had supported student demands; the dissident writer, Wang Ruowang, and the daring journalist Liu Binyan, who had -- with Deng's blessing -- publicized widespread corruption among high party members in northern China.
   • Although student demonstrations died down in 1988, this did not mean the end of the movement. Indeed, at many universities discussion groups, known as "salons" sprang up, in which students discussed the country's problems. The authorities kept an eye on them, but did not harass them unduly.
   • Fang Lizhi, who was barred from visiting the United States in 1988, expressed biting criticism of communism and gave information about these student groups to the Western press. In an article published in the New York Review of Books, in early February 1989, he stated that communism had failed in China, and also criticized the "Four Basic Principles" proclaimed by Deng in March 1979. Fang noted the establishment of many informal dissident groups and listed the topics most commonly discussed as: (1) the need to guarantee human rights and the release of all political prisoners; (2) the establishment of a free economic system; (3) support for education; (4) the supervision of public officeholders and the use of "glasnost" to root out corruption; (5) an end to China's state of civil war and promotion of peace in the Taiwan straits; (6) establishment of rule by law; and (7) revision of the constitution, so as to provide for democracy and freedom.
   • In the same month, February 1989, Fang Lizhi wrote an open letter to Deng Xiaoping, urging him to respect human rights and release Wei Jingsheng, who had, by then, languished in prison for almost ten years. The poet Bei Dao also sent a letter to Deng, urging a more flexible policy. Then, 33 intellectuals sent an open letter to the Central Committee and the State Council, urging the release of Wei Jingsheng on humanitarian grounds. Despite party leaders' attempts to get the writers to retract, 42 more scientists and social scientists signed it, while a third open letter was signed by young writers and scholars who demanded democracy.
   • As we know, 1989 was a year of great anniversaries -- the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, the 70th anniversary of the May 4th Movement, and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. At the same time, it was the year which saw the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. However, it was the death of one man which sparked the explosion of public dissent in China.