No Enemies, No Hatred

by Liu Xiaobo

  In the regime’s version of its glorious accomplishments during thirty years of reform, the 1979 “great debate on the criterion for truth” is listed as the sole cause of the “liberation of thought” movement. I do not deny that this debate was important in the initial stages of the reforms, and I commend Hu Yaobang—chief of the Party’s Propaganda Department at the time, later to become Party General Secretary—for promoting the debate. But to attribute the entire “liberation of thought” movement to this one causal factor is far from historical truth. Such attribution is merely officialdom’s attempt to monopolize the discourse of reform and to suppress popular thinking.

  In reality the transformation of the political thinking of the Chinese people began much earlier than 1978. The first inklings of “thought liberation” came in 1971 with the astonishing “Lin Biao Affair,” when Mao Zedong’s “closest comrade-in-arms,” Marshal Lin Biao, suddenly attempted a coup against Mao, failed, tried to flee by air to the Soviet Union, was shot down, and died in the crash—or so the official story goes, unclear in its details even today. Later in the 1970s, underground literature about “educated youth” who had been sent to the countryside during the Mao era stimulated a great deal of self-enlightenment among young people. This was one of the subterranean causes of the April Fifth Movement in 1976. Then, after Mao died and the Cultural Revolution officially ended, it was at “Democracy Wall” that political modernization was first mentioned. The political reform of the 1980s was also driven by this popular self-enlightenment, and it was only after it gained some momentum that the “enlightened faction” within the Communist Party responded to it. These spontaneous popular forces for reform were rooted in the human longing for freedom and justice, not some slogan of the rulers, and once they got going they were hard to turn around. Ideas from below continually pushed the reforms, and popular demands continually challenged the logic of officialdom. The scope of the public sphere and the number of people who entered it grew ever larger.

  I went to college during 1977–1982, which made me part of the first generation of students to go to college after the Cultural Revolution. Like others during the early years of reform, we were in a state of extreme spiritual hunger. Our thirst to absorb new ideas was so great that we devoured anything and everything, indiscriminately. As I remember, the cultural events that preoccupied us and changed our thinking had nothing to do with the “great debate on the criterion for truth.” What mattered to us were all kinds of other things, which seemed to arrive in wave after wave. Perhaps most important were the popular songs of the Taiwan singer Teresa Teng and the poems in the unofficial literary magazine Today. Both of these things interested us far more than the “truth criterion,” and also much more than the fashionable “scar literature” and “reform literature” that filled the mainstream magazines. The warm sounds of that so-called decadent music and those poetic “voices of rebellion” were exactly what we needed in order to melt the wintry ice of Mao-era “class nature” into a springtime of universal human nature and to convert the aesthetics of “revolution” into something more palatable.

  In the 1970s, Teresa Teng’s romantic songs took a generation of Chinese youth by storm, reawakening the soft centers of our beings. They dismantled the cast-iron framework of our “revolutionary wills” and caused these to collapse; they melted our cold, unfeeling hearts, which until then had been tempered by cruel “class struggle,” and they revived sexual desires that we had long repressed into the darkest recesses of our beings. Long-suppressed human softness and tenderness were finally liberated. The government forbade the broadcast of this “decadent bourgeois music,” and Li Guyi, the first mainland singer to imitate Teresa Teng’s style, was subjected to a parade of official criticism sessions. Nevertheless, where privacy could be found, people huddled around “bricks”—our nickname for the little square Japanese-made radio-recorders on which popular songs could be heard. We listened and listened, until we could sing the songs ourselves, everywhere—in the halls, in the cafeterias, in bed. Anyone who owned a “brick” always had plenty of friends.

  It was also in those years that our generation received “aesthetic baptisms” into worlds of foreign films, literature, music, and art. Cinema and television from Japan were the most popular. Films like Junya Satō’s The Proof of Man and Pursuit, starring Ken Takakura, as well as Yōji Yamada’s The Yellow Handkerchief were among our favorites, as were television series like “Sugata Sanshirō,” “Astro Boy,” “The Story of Oshin,” and others. Theme songs like “Morioka’s Song” from Pursuit and “Straw Hat” from The Proof of Man were very popular for a while. Moreover, the works of famous Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Yasujirō Ozu had major influences on the Chinese avant-garde film directors of the 1980s.

  In our political awakening, the “new-enlightenment” thinking that appeared on Democracy Wall was by far most important. Its spiritual breakthroughs left us with deep impressions—much deeper than anything that came out of the government think tanks or from establishment intellectuals. The aesthetics of the poems in Today were very different from what “scar literature” had to offer; the brilliance of Hu Ping’s essay “On Freedom of Speech” went well beyond official “liberation of thought”; and the awakening to modern politics that appeared in Wei Jingsheng’s “Democracy: The Fifth Modernization,” in Ren Wanding’s “A Chinese Declaration of Human Rights,” and in Xu Wenli’s “1980 Proposals for Political Reform” completely transcended the Communist Party’s pedestrian notion of “correcting past mistakes.”

  As a thought experiment, try to imagine how things would have been different if “reform” thinking had sprung only from officially sponsored literature and art and there had been no unofficial counterparts. What if, in literature, we had had only flat, didactic “scar” stories like Liu Xinwu’s “The Homeroom Teacher” and other works that appeared in People’s Literature, but had no underground poems like Bei Dao’s “The Answer” or Mang Ke’s “The Sky,” and no underground fiction like Wan Zhi’s “A Night of Rain and Snow”? What if, in art, we had only the works in government-sponsored art exhibitions but not the rebellious spirit of the works in the “Stars Exhibition”? What if, in political philosophy, we had only “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth” as presented in the Guangming Daily, but lacked “Democracy: The Fifth Modernization,” which was published in the unofficial magazine Exploration, and “On Freedom of Speech,” which was published in Fertile Ground, another unofficial magazine? If there had been only officialdom’s “liberation of thought” without the seminal initiatives of the “Democracy Wall Movement,” China’s intellectual spirit in the reform era would have been too etiolated to bear thinking about.

  Friedrich Hayek, the famous philosopher of liberalism, wrote that “ideas change the world.” Especially in times of great social transformation, new ideas that bring in new ways of looking at the world can play pioneering roles in the transformation of society. When yesterday’s heresy becomes today’s article of faith, the arrival of a new society cannot be far off. This has been true in the transition from traditional dictatorships to modern democracies, and true as well in the transition from modern totalitarianism to free societies. The European Enlightenment was the fount of social modernization in the West, similarly to the way in which the May Fourth Movement began the process of social modernization in China. In the transition from communist totalitarianism toward freedom and democracy, the former Soviet Union went through “intellectual thaw” under Khrushchev and “new thought” under Gorbachev; in China, the transition began after the death of Mao Zedong with the “liberation of thought” and the “new enlightenment.”

  The crucial significance of the ferment around Democracy Wall in bringing change to Chinese society appears on four levels:

  1. Democracy Wall was the first site at which the sharp divide between popular and official expectations of reform were laid bare. Popular demands were for a thoroughgoing reform that wou
ld lead to a free and democratic China; the official plan was for a crippled reform that would graft economic growth onto dictatorial politics. This divide took shape during the Deng Xiaoping era, and it has lasted to the present day.

  Deng Xiaoping’s sordid schemes for reaching the pinnacle of power showed a talent for mind-boggling opportunism. Before he gained power, Deng wrote a letter to Hua Guofeng, chairman of the Party-state, avowing his loyalty, but then, as soon as power was in his hands, he turned around and purged Hua Guofeng. That’s how he treated people “above” him; toward those “below,” like the young people who wrote for Democracy Wall, he did this: he capitalized on their efforts in order to build his own popular support, and then, once that purpose had been served, mercilessly crushed them. It was precisely the fact that notions of reform on Democracy Wall transcended the crippled model that Deng Xiaoping had in mind that led Deng in 1979 to insist on maintaining the “Four Cardinal Principles”—the socialist road, the people’s democratic dictatorship, leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Zedong-Thought. On this score not even the opposition of Hu Yaobang could soften Deng’s iron fist. It was the leading edge of the Deng tyranny.

  2. Democracy Wall revealed the limits of establishment intellectuals who “work within the system” and made clear the difference between what they do and what independent thinkers outside the system do. While Democracy Wall activists were publicly opposing the parts of the Deng reforms that protected dictators, and were calling for political democracy, basic human rights, and freedom of speech, the establishment intellectuals were casting themselves as the government’s loyal opposition, criticizing government actions but remaining loyal to its avowed goals. They cheered Deng-style reform and went all out to praise the aspects of Mao Zedong Thought that claimed to “seek truth from facts.” They sought to revive a notion of “Marxist humanism.” They pushed for less “Party-nature” and more “people-nature” in the media but did not challenge the basic premise that media should be controlled. They were enthusiastic about their return to the political stage, and beat the drums for Party-approved reforms, but were generally cold to the suppression of Democracy Wall. They did nothing to speak up for Wei Jingsheng when he was hit with a heavy jail sentence. Even on less dangerous questions, like the suppression of Today, they hardly did better. Bei Dao and Mang Ke, two of Today’s stalwarts, issued a cri de coeur to the intellectual world but received only one response—a letter from the senior writer Xiao Jun, and that letter was muddled.

  3. Perhaps most significant of all, the language of the Democracy Wall movement broke free of Maoist language and the “revolutionary” mode of thought that went with it. Democracy Wall laid a foundation for language—and hence a system of values—that was independent of official ideology. In literature, the poems and stories in Today represented the first breakthrough against the iron hegemony of Maoist language that dated from the Yan’an Rectification Campaign of 1942 to 1944. In political essays, although we should admit that Wei Jingsheng and some others still did not succeed in purging every trace of Mao-style usage from their writing, someone like Hu Ping, in his essay “On Freedom of Speech,” does manage to pull totally free of Maoist cant. In retrospect, what really seems surprising, given that the whole society at the time was still immersed in Mao-language and Mao-concepts, and given that the establishment intellectuals were still using Maoist language to talk about the reforms, is not just that Democracy Wall made political breakthroughs but that it could make them in a totally new idiom. That is impressive.

  4. Democracy Wall marked a transition in the way people have resisted the regime. During the Mao years solitary heroism was the only mode of resistance, but with the Wall, group solidarity began. We can say, therefore, that the contributions of Democracy Wall to China’s progress were not just in supplying ideas but in establishing a new ethical standard. When Deng Xiaoping shifted from exploiting Democracy Wall to suppressing it, bringing down on it all of the brute power of Party dictatorship, the Democracy Wall group did not respond with bursts of tears and contrite self-criticisms as people in earlier times were forced to do. Instead they stood together as courageous people unafraid of despotism. Their moral courage was different from that of individual martyrs like Lin Zhao during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and Yu Luoke during the Cultural Revolution, because they did not stand in glorious isolation but stood together as a community whose members encouraged one another, even in the face of prison. Thirty years ago, the magnificent performance of Wei Jingsheng and others in the Communists’ courts and prisons drew a line in the sand for a whole generation’s courage and perseverance in resisting tyranny. The predominant social pattern in China today, captured in the watchword “morality is with the people, power with the government,” had its earliest origins in the Democracy Wall movement.

  Let us think back to the eve of National Day, October 1, 1979, when Bei Dao, Mang Ke, Huang Rui, and a few dozen others in Beijing took to the streets to protest the government closure of the art exhibit of the Stars group. This band of “unofficial” artists, who had not been to university, paraded through the streets of Beijing in the brisk autumn wind, past rows of military police, holding up banners that read “We want freedom of speech!” and “We want artistic freedom!” It was the first demonstration for freedom of speech in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The sight of disabled painter Ma Dasheng walking along on crutches at the head of the procession has, in popular memory, become one of the most symbolically meaningful images of that era.

  Thirty years have passed between the fight for “freedom of speech” at Democracy Wall and the “rights-defense movement” that is popping up all around the country today. Rights advocacy by unofficial thinkers thirty years ago has now permeated to all levels of society, and it is this spread of rights consciousness that stands as Democracy Wall’s greatest achievement. Without the protection of basic human and political rights, an individual person has no way to counter arbitrary force from the agents of a powerful government; no way to pursue personal happiness within a fair social system; no way to publicly express religious faith, political opinion, or even pastimes that are “unapproved”; no way to rely on legal guarantees of personal property; and hardly any hope, as the government denies rights and robs benefits, of ever getting any justice, whether from government, from courts, or from the media.

  Whatever the rights issue might be—security of property, opportunity for self-development, the struggle for human rights or self-rule, a more equitable distribution of society’s wealth, or long-term peace in society—it will rest ultimately on questions of freedom of speech and political freedom. And it will be better to fight for basic human rights from the bottom up than to beg the authorities on high for the favor of a few bread crumbs.

  It is true that a variety of currents of thought have developed in society since the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. Both the “old left” and the “new left” have again unfurled the banners of Mao Zedong, while “old” and “new” Confucianists are again hawking slogans about “Kingly Government.” All these groups have taken note of the fashionable ultranationalism in society, and have draped themselves one way or another in the national flag. Still, I firmly believe that the concepts of freedom of the Democracy Wall generation, and its artistic values as well, will continue to be the core values leading to China’s political and social transition.

  In the great enterprise of creating a free China of the future, the pioneering efforts of the Democracy Wall generation have already earned a sure place in history. They have lasted thirty years and are still going strong today.

  At home in Beijing, June 15, 2008

  Originally published in Zhengming (Cheng Ming Monthly), July 2008

  Translated by Michael S. Duke

  THE SPIRITUAL LANDSCAPE OF THE URBAN YOUNG IN POST-TOTALITARIAN CHINA

  CHINA’S POST-TOTALITARIAN ERA has two distinguishing characteristics. First, the rulers still want desperately to hold on to t
heir dictatorial system in the midst of a crisis of legitimacy. Second, society no longer approves of such a system of dictatorship. A spontaneously growing civil society is gradually coming into being, and, although it does not yet have the strength to change the existing system, the increasing pluralism of its economy and its values, like water dripping on stone, is gradually eroding our rigid political monism.

  In spiritual life, post-totalitarian China has entered an Age of Cynicism in which people no longer believe in anything and in which their words do not match their actions, as they say one thing and mean another. Even high officials and other Communist Party members no longer believe Party verbiage. Fidelity to cherished beliefs has been replaced by loyalty to anything that brings material benefit. Cursing the Party in private, complaining about it, and ridiculing its claims to be “great, glorious, and correct” have already become our people’s chief after-dinner entertainment. In public contexts, though, people’s vested interests—the enticement of joining in the spoils—still lead the great majority to sing the Party’s praises in a People’s Daily type of language. This public pandering is uttered as eloquently as are imprecations in private from the very same people. Both postures have become second nature to people.

  The split personalities of people who work “within the system,” especially among the rising middle-aged elite, can be seen in the widespread “covert operator phenomenon.” In public, these people stick strictly to the book and never pass up an opportunity to advance their careers. But in private their language is completely different. They say things like, “I’m in the government and you’re on the outside, but our inner thoughts are really the same; it’s just that our methods are different—you’re outside shouting in protest and we’re inside dismantling the system …” They give you some so-called internal information or analyses of political trends, or they tell you the special characteristics of all the top decision-makers and tell you which has the best chance of becoming the mainland’s version of Chiang Ching-kuo, who led Taiwan’s transition to democracy in the 1980s. They may even confide to you some astonishing strategy for achieving peaceful evolution of the system—and so on and on. They’re sure that the greatest impetus toward peaceful evolution comes from the enlightened faction within the system, people who “live in the camp of Cao Cao but work for a victory of Han [as did a legendary hero in the classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms—Ed.].” They also believe that the higher their official positions, the better “cover” they will have, the deeper they can sink into the system, and the better the possibilities will be for “inside” and “outside” forces to unite for success. On one point they are most unanimous: that there are many people with good ideas inside the system and that their work for political reform is much more significant than what “outside” people can achieve.