Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  With all due respect, let me say to such people: We want to be the masters of our own destiny. We need no gods or emperors and we don’t believe in saviors of any kind. We want to be masters of our universe, not the modernizing tools of dictators with personal ambitions. We want the modernization of people’s lives. Democracy, freedom, and happiness for all are our sole objectives in carrying out modernization. Without this fifth modernization, all others are nothing more than a new promise.

  Comrades, I appeal to you: Let us rally under the banner of democracy. Do not be fooled again by dictators who talk of “stability and unity.” Fascist totalitarianism can bring us nothing but disaster. Harbor no more illusions; democracy is our only hope. Abandon our democratic rights and we shackle ourselves again. Let us have confidence in our own strength! We are the creators of human history. Banish all self-proclaimed leaders and teachers, for they have already cheated the people of their most valuable rights for decades.

  I firmly believe that production will flourish even more when controlled by the people themselves because the workers will be producing for their own benefit. Life will improve because the workers’ interests will be the primary goal. Society will be more rational because all power will be exercised by the people as a whole through democratic means.

  I don’t believe that all of this will be handed to the people effortlessly by some great savior. I also refuse to believe that China will abandon this goal because of the many difficulties it will surely encounter along the way. As long as people clearly identify their goal and realistically assess the obstacles before them, then surely they will trample any praying mantis that might try to bar their way. . . .

  If the Chinese people want modernization, they must first put democracy into practice and modernize China’s social system. Democracy is not merely an inevitable stage of social development, as Lenin claimed. In addition to being the result of productive forces and productive relations that have developed to a certain stage, democracy is also the very condition that allows for such development to reach beyond this stage. Without this condition, society will become stagnant and economic growth will face insurmountable obstacles. Therefore, as history tells us, a democratic social system is the premise and precondition for all development, or what we can also call modernization. Without this premise and precondition, not only will further progress be impossible but it will be very difficult to maintain the development we have already achieved. . . .

  Does democracy come about naturally when society reaches a certain stage? Absolutely not. An enormous price is paid for every tiny victory, so much so that even coming to a recognition of this fact requires sacrifices. The enemies of democracy have always deceived their people by saying that just as democracy is inevitable, so it is also doomed, and therefore it is not worth wasting energy fighting for.

  But let us look at the real history, not that fabricated by the hired hacks of the “socialist government"! Every small twig of true and worthy democracy is stained with the blood of martyrs and tyrants, and every step taken toward democracy has been fiercely attacked by the reactionary forces. The fact that democracy has been able to surmount such obstacles proves that it is precious to the people and that it embodies all their aspirations. Thus the democratic trend cannot be stopped. The Chinese people have never feared anything; they need only recognize the direction to be taken and the forces of tyranny will no longer be invincible.

  [From “Diwuge xiandaihua—minzhu ji qita,” in Wei Jingsheng qishilu, pp. 37–39, 44–46, 47–48; trans. adapted from Wei, The Courage to Stand Alone, pp. 199–212—KMT]

  DEMOCRACY OR NEW DICTATORSHIP, EXPLORATION, MARCH 1979

  Everyone in China knows that the Chinese social system is not democratic and that this lack of democracy has severely stunted every aspect of the country’s social development over the past thirty years. In the face of this hard fact there are two choices before the Chinese people—either to reform the social system if they want to develop their society and seek a swift increase in prosperity and economic resources or, if they are content with a continuation of the Mao Zedong brand of proletarian dictatorship, then they cannot even talk of democracy, nor will they be able to realize the modernization of their lives and resources. . . .

  Does Deng Xiaoping want democracy? No, he does not. He is unwilling to comprehend the misery of the common people. He is unwilling to allow the people to regain those powers usurped by ambitious careerists. He describes the struggle for democratic rights—a movement launched spontaneously by the people—as the actions of troublemakers who must be repressed. To resort to such measures to deal with people who criticize mistaken policies and demand social development shows that the government is very afraid of this popular movement.

  We cannot help asking Mr. Deng what his idea of democracy is. If the people have no right to express their opinions and criticisms, then how can one talk of democracy? If his idea of democracy is one that does not allow others to criticize those in power, then how is such a democracy different from Mao Zedong’s tyranny concealed behind the slogan “Democracy of the dictatorship of the proletariat"? . . .

  The people should ensure that Deng Xiaoping does not degenerate into a dictator. After he was reinstated in 1975, it seemed he was unwilling to follow Mao Zedong’s dictatorial system and would instead care for the interests of the people. So the people eagerly looked up to him in the hope that he would realize their aspirations. They were even ready to shed their blood for him—as the Tiananmen Square [April Fifth] incident showed. But was such support vested in his person alone? Certainly not. If he now wants to discard his mask and take steps to suppress the democratic movement, then he certainly does not merit the people’s trust and support. . . . People entrusted with government positions must be controlled by and responsible to the people. According to the constitution, organizations and individuals in the administration must be elected by the people, empowered and controlled by an elected government under the supervision of the people and responsible to the people. Only then is there a legality for executive powers. . . .

  Only a genuine general election can create a government and leaders ready to serve the interests of the electorate. If the government and its leaders are truly subject to the people’s mandate and supervision, those two afflictions that leadership is prone to—personal ambition and megalomania—can be avoided.

  [From Benton and Hunter, Wild Lily, Prairie Fire, pp. 181–184]

  WALL POSTER FROM THE APRIL FIFTH FORUM

  This essay (March 1979) reflects the sentiment of Beijing Spring activists who found Wei Jingsheng’s attitude toward the new regime too extreme but who tried nevertheless to establish a rational basis for public discourse.

  An article titled “Democracy or New Dictatorship” in the March 25 Exploration has aroused argument and general concern. We differ with some of the main points made in the article. We present our view here to engender further discussion with that author. We also invite criticism and suggestions from the people. . . .

  The Exploration article criticized “would-be autocrats” who “take advantage of people’s gullibility” for their own petty ends. For example, in his March 16 talk to leading cadres of various central ministries and commissions, Vice-Chairman Deng Xiaoping attempted to use the people’s previous confidence in him to oppose the democratic movement. He made various charges against the democratic movement, attempted to blame it for the failure of the Hua-Deng regime to save China’s economy and production, and tried once again “to make the people scapegoats for the failure of their policies.” We doubt that this is correct. . . .

  We wonder whether Exploration has evidence to sustain the view that Comrade Deng is “petty” and “a would-be autocrat.” . . .

  Lin Biao and the Gang of Four used to take a sentence or two [out of context] and use them to label people and oppress them. We must do everything we can to rid ourselves of this bad practice. Placing labels on people on the basis of a few sentences spoken
is the wrong way to treat either a leader like Deng Xiaoping or a common person. . . .

  Deng Xiaoping remains China’s most powerful personage. If he really wants to suppress the democratic movement, he will have the support of many officials and could easily do so. But he has not done so, and the people are able to write what they wish and the publications are available at Democracy Wall. . . .

  But no good end awaits anyone seeking to suppress the democratic movement. History will attest to that.

  [Adapted from Seymour, The Fifth Modernization, pp. 201–203]

  HU PING: “ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH,” WRITTEN FOR HIS SUCCESSFUL 1980 CAMPAIGN TO BECOME BEIJING UNIVERSITY’S DELEGATE TO THE HAIDIAN DISTRICT PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY

  In the early 1980s the new regime began experimenting with free elections from the local level. Hu Ping, a Beijing University graduate student in European philosophy, ran for delegate to the county-level legislature and won. The government, however, did not allow him to assume his post.

  The purpose of this article is to assert freedom of speech. At a time when there is absolutely no freedom of speech, it is certainly not possible to engage in such a novel endeavor. However, at a time of complete freedom of speech, it would not seem necessary to expound on it. This peculiarity often leads to a misunderstanding—that is, to the assumption that the question of freedom of speech is dependent on the will of those in power. This misunderstanding again leads to a neglect of any work or discussion of the theoretical side of this question and thus results in smothering completely any value and vitality in the principle of freedom of speech. This unfortunate misunderstanding is so deep-rooted that when this highly important and sensitive topic is brought up, many people take it to be a tiresome commonplace, the empty talk of scholarly nitwits. But when a country is without freedom of speech, the real reason is that its people lack a consciousness of freedom of speech. It is for this reason that it becomes a matter of the highest importance to clarify the inherent meaning of freedom of speech, its value and power, in the course of our work of perfecting and developing our country’s socialist democracy and legal system.

  Freedom of speech for our citizens is the first article in the list of the various political rights in our constitution. If a man loses the right to make known his own aspirations and ideas, he will of necessity sink to the status of slave or a mere tool. Of course, to have the right of free speech does not mean to have everything, but losing the right of free speech will definitely lead to losing everything. In the science of mechanics, everybody knows the highly important function of the fulcrum. Even though the fulcrum itself cannot perform any work, it is indispensable to make the lever work effectively. It is said that Archimedes, the discoverer of the principle of leverage, made the statement “Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.” In political life, isn’t freedom of speech just like this fulcrum?

  What is freedom of speech? It is freedom to make known various opinions, and this includes everything: good speech, bad speech, correct speech, and incorrect speech. If freedom of speech were to be limited to only the sphere outlined by those in power, then one might ask: Is there any country in the world, past and present, that did not have “freedom” of speech? In this sense, wouldn’t the article of our sacred constitution on freedom of speech become a most useless piece of rubbish? . . .

  We must point out in passing that some people consider it anarchism if “everyone is free to speak and act as he pleases.” This amounts to equating freedom of speech with freedom of action. It is true that if everybody is free to do as he pleases, it may lead to a state of anarchy. However, if we extend our prohibition to preclude everybody from speaking as he pleases, that will lead to despotism. In our future opposition to any particular “ism,” we must have a fairly distinct definition of it and not commit the same error as in the past when we opposed revisionism.

  There is an ancient Chinese saying: “Do not condemn the speaker.” What does it mean? Since it is only those in power who can condemn anybody else, and since those in power will of course not send their cohorts to prosecute someone who speaks the way they, the rulers, approve, it is clear that the saying “Do not condemn the speaker” especially affirms that no guilt should be attached to those who “sing a different tune.” This again proves that our definition of freedom of speech above is absolutely correct.

  [Adapted from SPEAHRhead 12/13 (Winter/Spring 1982): 36]

  WANG RUOSHUI: “DISCUSSING THE QUESTION OF ALIENATION”

  The suppression of the Democracy Wall of the Beijing Spring movement did not silence debate on China’s future. People both inside and outside of the party and the government continued discussion as the state periodically tightened and loosened its control over free expression.

  Wang Ruoshui, an established intellectual older than the Democracy Wall activists, rejected both the Maoist interpretation and the new regime’s Leninist interpretation of Marx, and instead sought to imbue Chinese socialism with a humanism seen as the heart of Marx’s vision.

  The question is quite complex. We cannot simply say that once a system of public ownership is established, all problems will be solved. It seems that originally Marx and Engels assumed that the root of all alienation was the system of private property and once society mastered the means of production, alienation would disappear. . . . From today’s perspective, getting rid of private ownership and wiping out exploitation have indeed been an important issue, but this is not to say that, having done this, society is completely free of all problems and the people can enter an unfettered realm. No! There is still alienation because people can still fail to fully understand the laws of social development; there is still obscurantism, giving rise to problems and thereby leading to a certain loss of freedom. In my view, Chairman Mao had something to contribute here. He said, “Human history develops continuously from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. It will never end.” This formulation is quite scientific and accords with dialectical materialism.

  Therefore, in a socialist society, in addition to the possibility of alienation in thought and politics, alienation can also appear in the economy. Of course, this alienation is different from capitalist alienation, in that mainly it is created not by exploitation but by not understanding objective economic laws. In addition, problems with bureaucratism and the system itself still exist. . . . In some matters we frequently concern ourselves with the immediate or obvious result. It is good that we can foresee short-term results, but we frequently cannot predict the long-term effects. Yet the long-term consequences can slip out of our control and on the contrary harm people. . . . This is also alienation. The goal of socialist production is to satisfy the needs of the people; this should be very clear! Yet socialist society can also give rise to this kind of phenomenon, one-sidedly pursuing speed and one-sidedly developing heavy industry. The advantage of speed is that it quickly raises the people’s standard of living. Only in this sense is it an advantage! Sacrificing the people’s living standard for the sake of speed or heavy industry—speed for speed’s sake or heavy industry for heavy industry’s sake—results in great suffering, and the greater the enthusiasm, the greater the suffering. The fruits of labor do not benefit the people, but on the contrary cause them loss; this is also alienation. Due to this . . . , not understanding objective economic laws along with great blindness results in economic alienation. Exploitation is one type of alienation—admittedly a very important type—but it is not the only type. Therefore we can look at this question from a broader perspective and see that many social problems are actually problems of alienation. We must now overcome alienation by recognizing objective laws and mastering our own fate.

  Raising this question of alienation now touches upon many new problems in our midst, and we must all reapply ourselves. In the past we did not pay enough attention to the early works of Marx. I think there were two reasons. We felt they were unimportant and also too difficult to understand. It is true that they are difficult to understand, but t
hey are not unimportant. We can now see the profundity of his thought on alienation. Actually, Marx in his later years also discussed alienation, and although he discussed it a little less, he nevertheless never abandoned this concept.

  [From Xinwen zhanxian, no. 8 (1980): 8–12—RL]

  WANG RUOSHUI: “IN DEFENSE OF HUMANISM”

  A specter is haunting China’s intellectual world—the specter of humanism.

  In the last three years more than four hundred articles on the question of “humanity” have appeared, and among them quite a few explore the Marxist concept of humanism. . . . That the question of humanity inspired such strong interest, in my view, is not merely a reaction to the decade of domestic turmoil but also reflects the necessity of creating a highly civilized and highly democratic socialist society for a new era. In the process, when deviations arise, these must of course be corrected through discussion and criticism. However, some well-intentioned comrades fundamentally reject any call for humanism, considering it to be heretical. . . .