The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of ... · Lauri Paltemaa ([email protected]): The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of Socialist Democracy Lauri Paltemaa PhD

Lauri Paltemaa ([email protected]): The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of Socialist Democracy

Lauri PaltemaaPhD Candidate University of TurkuDepartment of Contemporary HistoryThe 7th Biennial Nordic Conference on Chinese Studies, Helsinki 7-9 June 2005

The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of Socialist Democracy(DRAFT, Please do not quote without the author’s permission)

Abstract

The article offers a content analysis to the Beijing Democracy Wall Movement’s journals argumentation on democratic reforms in 1978-1981. In the article the author argues for a new interpretation of the way the democratic thinking of the Movement should be seen as offering variations of envisioned socialist democracy. Here three distinct lines of argumentation can be found: classical and eclectic Marxists and radical anti-Marxists. The lines differed in the content of proposed institutional reforms and their sources, but shared the perception of democracy as an institutional solution for the conflict between the people and the bureaucratic class that the Stalinist political system had produced. All lines also accepted socialist economic system based on public ownership. The article also discusses the connection of the Democracy Movement and the Cultural Revolution radical theories of a ‘new bourgeois class’. The author argues that seeing the Democracy Wall Movement as a creative continuation of the Cultural Revolution theorising about socialist democracy gives a better starting point in understanding is argumentation than any other proposed approach.

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Introduction

The Beijing Democracy Wall Movement (Minzhu qiang yundong) that erupted in the middle of November 1978 and lasted till the spring of 19811 is regarded as the beginning of the contemporary Chinese democracy movement. At that time it also attracted considerable attention from the West as it seemed to indicate that China had followed many Eastern European countries and developed a dissident movement of its own. The movement’s call for democracy and human rights was welcomed especially in the United States, where President Carter’s administration had just elevated human rights to its international agenda. And, of course, in the Cold War atmosphere all indications of problems within communist regimes were subjected to close scrutiny in the West and Taiwan.

1 The actual dates of the Beijing Democracy Movement are debatable. Some authors such as Henry Yuhuai He contend that it started earlier than in mid-November 1978; see He, Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People’s Republic of China (London: M. E. Sharpe, 2001). Others such as Roger Garside argue that it lasted only to the first major arrest wave of the Democracy Movement activists in March–April 1979; see Garside, Coming Alive: China after Mao (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981). While it is hard to pinpoint the exact dates of the movement, one can regard mid-November 1978 as the starting point of the Beijing Democracy Movement and spring of 1981 as its end when the editors of major journals were arrested.

The 7th Biennial Nordic Conference on Chinese Studies, Helsinki 7-9 June 2005 1


Following this, academic interest in the Democracy Movement was also directed at the concepts of democracy, human rights, and rule of law.2 Other studies regarded it as a continuation of resistance to the communist regime on the mainland3 or a continuation of enlightenment movements in Chinese contemporary history.4 The events and development of the Beijing Democracy Movement were also outlined5 and the movement’s relation to longer historical trends in Chinese democratic analysed.6 Furthermore, the influence of the Cultural Revolution on the Democracy Movement activists was sketched out.7 More recently, the movement’s close relation to the Party reformist faction at the time duly recognized,8 and the Democracy Movement has been compared to the 1989 Tiananmen student demonstrators’ views.9 It has also been treated as a sign of emerging civil society10 and part of the longer history of human rights thinking in China.11 Several collections of translations of the Democracy Movement articles and poetry have also come out.12

While all these approaches have contributed to increasing our understanding of the Chinese Democracy Movement and human rights and democracy thinking in contemporary Chinese history, these studies have suffered from largely neglecting an important aspect in the Democracy Movement’s argumentation. That is, what was it relation to socialist visions of democracy and Marxism? Earlier studies have almost invariably noted the influence of Marxism in Democracy Movement argumentation, but they have generally had only a passing interest in it, as if democracy and human rights could, or should, somehow be argued totally separate from the realities of China in the late 70s.13 One of these realities was the socialist, or at least centralised, economic system and

2 James D. Seymour, The Fifth Modernization: China’s Human Rights Movement 1978–1979 (New York: Human Rights Publishing Group, 1980); James P. Harrison, “The Problem of the Fifth Modernization: A Review Article,” Journal of Asian Studies 13, no. 4 (1983): 869–78; John P. Burns, “Democracy, the Rule of Law, and Human Rights in Beijing’s Unofficial Journals, 1978–1979,” Internationales Asienforum 14, no. 1 (1983): 35–53.

3 Pan Jia-ching, “Mass Political and Ideological Dissent: Big-Character Posters and Underground Publications in Mainland China,” Issues & Studies 16, no. 8 (1980): 42–62; Liu Sheng-chi, “The Democratic Movement in Mainland China in Retrospect,” Issues & Studies 17, no. 4 (1981): 47–66.

4 Vera Schwarcz, “The Problem of Enlightenment in Modern China,” Theory and Society 13 (1984): 455–70; Li Zehou and Vera Schwarcz, “Six Generations on Modern Chinese Intellectuals,” Chinese Studies in History 18, no. 2 (1983/4): 43–60.

5 Chen Ruoxi, Democracy Wall and the Unofficial Journals, Studies in Chinese Terminology no. 20 (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Press, 1982); Garside, Coming Alive.

6 Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 45.7 Stanley Rosen, “Guangzhou’s Democracy Movement in Cultural Revolution Perspective,” The China

Quarterly, no. 101 (March 1985):1–31; Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard, “The Democracy Movement in China 1978–1979: Opposition Movements, Wall Poster Campaigns, and Underground Journals,” Asian Survey 21, no. 7 (1981): 747–74.

8 Li Honglin, Zhongguo sixiang yundong shi (1949–1989) (A history of Chinese intellectual movements (1894–1989)) (Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu, 1999); Ruan Ming, Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).

9 Guang Lei, “Elusive Democracy: Conceptual Change and the Chinese Democracy Movement, 1978–79 to 1989,” Modern China 22, no. 4 (1996): 417–47.

10 Elizabeth J. Perry, “The Reassertion of Political Citizenship in the Post-Mao Era: The Democracy Wall Movement,” in Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China, ed. Merle Goldman and Elizabeth J. Perry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 159–86.

11 Marina Svensson, Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

12 James Tong, “Underground Journals in China Part I,” Chinese Law and Government 13, nos. 3–4 (1980/1): 2–197; James Tong, “Underground Journals in China Part II,” Chinese Law and Government 14, no. 3 (1981): 1–112; David S. Goodman, Beijing Street Voices: The Poetry and Politics of China’s Democracy Movement (Lawrence, MA: Marion Boyars, 1981); Geremie Barmé and John Minford, eds, Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience (Hong Kong: Far Eastern Economic Review, 1986).13 Guang Lei:1996, 429; Burns: 1983, 35-53; Brodsgaard 1981, 768; Liu Sheng-chi 1981, 54; Harrison 1983, 872-873; Svensson 2002, 240-244; Perry 2002, 170; Munro 1984, 73-74 even Mab Huang and Seymour (1980, 26) note this. A notable exception has been A. J. Nathan’s (1985, passim) study about the historical roots of the Democracy Movement argumentation, where pluralist forms of Marxism are dealt in length. However, Marxism was ultimately not the central



paramount position of Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong thought as the official state ideology. The author has elsewhere argued that the Democracy Movement constructed itself a collective identity of a youthful revolutionary vanguard as the central source for justifying and amplifying the social mobilisation of ex-Red Guards dissent it represented.14 This construction relied heavily on Marxist social analysis and vision of transforming Chinese society from early stages of socialism and proletarian class dictatorship to communism where democratic institutions would play a decisive role in liberating man from exploitation. The author argues that analysing argumentation of the Democracy Movement from this perspective gives a valuable insight into the Chinese democratic thinking of the late 70s and even thereafter.

Earlier research has shown that the Democracy Movement was divided over the issue of the actual nature of democratic reforms and the movement’s relation to the Party. However, the nature of this split has been seen in very different ways. In the most general level, Elizabeth Perry had noted that the Democracy Movement groups were divided to Marxist and non-Marxists,15 and Andrew J. Nathan has seen most of journals as ‘Marxist pluralists’ and only a few of them challenging the regime16. The same division can be found in Chen Ruoxi who has divided the Democracy Movement roughly into radicals and moderates. The radicals believed in democracy as a natural right and advocated multi-party system. They also tacitly opposed Marxism-Leninism, while the moderates retained socialism as their guiding principle and sought to promote democracy within the existing social framework.17 Kjeld-Erik Brodsgaard divided the journals into reformers and abolitionists deriving the split from Red Guard factionalism during the Cultural Revolution. According to him, the reformers were ‘socialist democrats’, which were not against the system of proletarian dictatorship and the leadership of the party based on Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong thought. However, the abolitionists sought complete transformation of Chinese society. Brodsgaard sees that the abolitionists were former moderate Red Guards who had taken up the class analysis of their former rivals and turned it against the regime. But he also sees that the real forerunner of the abolitionists was the Hundred Flowers Movement and liberalism during it.18 According John P. Burns the journals could be arranged from the ones that were most supportive to the regime to the most radical ones that rejected it. Also Burns found that most of the journals were moderate in their stances and affirmed the existing regime, but demanded political reforms within the existing political system.19

The only researcher to offer a bit more elaborate scheme on the inner cleavages of the Democracy Movement journals has been Liu Sheng-chi, who divided the Beijing Democracy Movement’s journals into three categories: radical left, moderates, and radical right where the two first ones stayed within Marxism but disagreed on the needed reforms, but the last one challenged the whole regime.20 However, even Liu’s scheme is not well-developed and it does not go into details of the differences in the journal’s argumentation or their background. There is also the problem of calling some journals moderates. None of the journals supported the regime as it was. Even the ‘moderates’ were radical in a sense they demanded realisation of rights and ideal of the existing system –assertion which would have signified huge changes in the way the regime worked de facto if they had been carried out. While the author agrees that Liu Sheng-chi’s scheme is most useful of the

themes in Nathan’s work and the notion of the possibility of socialist democracy was not really used as the starting point in the study which was the longer liberal democratic tradition originating with Liang Qichao. 14 Paltemaa 2005, forthcoming15 Perry 2002, 170-17116 Nathan 1985, passim17 Chen Ruoxi 1982, 2018 Brodsgaard, 1981, passim19 Burns198320 Liu 1981, 61-62



offered models, he argues that the argumentation about democratic reforms of the Democracy Movement should be approached as variations of socialist democracy. Here the main issue is how the activists saw the connection between democratic institutions and Marxism as well as the realising socialism and ultimately communism in China.

The Three Lines

Writing to his journal Wotu [Fertile Earth] Hu Ping largely summarised the way the Democracy Movement activists saw their mission. Referring to a student of Yugoslavian socialist political economy as his source, Hu stated that: “A big question in the 20th century is to solve properly the relation between socialism and democracy.”21 However, the major cleavage in the Democracy Movement was how exactly this was to be done. In general, the Democracy Movement’s journals offered three types of answers, which the author calls here the classical, eclectic and anti-Marxists arguments. The classical line argued for the return to the classical principles of socialist democracy that could be found in the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Those using eclectic arguments also affirmed superiority of Marxism and in principle, but argued for studying the various features of capitalist democracies in order to incorporate them into socialist democracy. Standing clearly out from the two previous groups were those who either heavily criticised or discarded Marxism in their arguments for democratic reforms, but still affirmed value of socialism. They converged heavily to the models offered by Western liberal democracy. However, rejection of Stalinist political system united all these groups even if the different activist groups disagreed where to go from this stand point.

The Classical Marxists Arguments

One of the three major lines in the Democracy Movement’s democratic argumentation was classical Marxism.22 Its adherents used Marxist classics by Marx, Engels and Lenin to justify their demands for reform with some references to more recent developments in socialist theory in Yugoslavia and Eastern-Europe. The examples of socialist democracy they had found in the early writings of the world socialist movement provided them with the concrete model of direct worker’s management of industry and participation in politics through direct elections, recall and referendums. The major classical Marxist journal was Beijing zhi chun, where the Paris Commune (巴黎公社 , Bālí Gōngshè) was presented as the true socialist institutional solution for the ‘feudal-fascist dictatorship’ of the Party left. Typical for the whole Democracy Movement’s argumentation was that the Leftist dogma or existing political institutions were not usually talked about in detail, but formed the silent target of criticism all Chinese knew from their experiences. They were generally called feudal, or feudal-fascist dictatorship ( 封建法西斯主义专政 , fēngjiàn-fǎxīsīzhǔyì zhuānzhèng).23 Beijing zhi chun writers also defined the existing political system as a ‘cadre

21 Hu Ping: Lùn yánlùn zìyóu [On Freedom of Speech], Wotu tekan 2.4.1979, CUP 12, 7622 Judged by the number of articles and authors this line was a bit larger than the eclectic Marxists and considerably bigger that the non-Marxist alternatives. 23 Only when the Beijing zhi chun printed articles about or by Li Yizhe, the system under criticism was called Lin Biao –system (Lin Biao tǐxì). The use of such name was due to the early (1974) nature of Li Yizhe’s essays –the Gang of Four or leftism in general were out of limits for direct criticism at the time. See Li Ying: Li Yizhe wúzuì! [Li Yizhe Is Innocent!] Beijing zhi chun 2 / 1979, CUP 2, 238-240 and Li Yizhe (20.12.1974): Zhè shì Mǎkèsīzhǔyìde yuánzé ma? [Is This a Marxist Principle?], Beijing zhi chun 3 / 1979, CUP 4, 195-203



appointing system’ (干部委任制 , gànbù wěirèn zhì), or hierarchal cadre system (等级授职制 , děngjí shòuzhí zhì).24

The influence of new class thinking from the Cultural Revolution was also strong with activists who used classical Marxist arguments. This was shown for example by Lü Min in Beijing zhi chun [Beijing Spring], who argued that the old state machinery and bureaucracy were the real sources of feudal-fascist dictatorship. It was therefore not enough to simply replace individual soldiers and bureaucrats after the revolution in order to prevent alienation of the ruling officials from the people. Already Marx had advised that also the system of ‘ranks and hierarchies’ should be changed thoroughly after the proletarian takeover. However, in China it had been retained from the old feudal state machinery. The communists had taken over the old state machinery in the revolution, but it had not been abolished ever since. Instead, an undemocratic cadre appointing system had been upheld. Lü Min argued that the old and new systems were different in their class nature, but not in practical functioning, which was the problem. In this system of “ranks and hierarchies” bureaucratic elements could be reborn and careerist (yěxīnjiā) could stage a restoration. Therefore, when the Paris Commune system would be established, not only should the people in power be changed, also the system of appointing them would have to go. Only this could ensure that the people’s servants would not turn into people’s masters. Indeed, only attacking the bureaucrats and not the system, as the Leftists had done, meant neglecting the source of the problems and had therefore not been true Marxism.25

In another article, Lü Min argued that at the moment more and more people were realising the need to abolish the whole bureaucratic system. The people had learned to appreciate the Paris Commune type of institutions that the original Marxist state theory demanded and the Leftist and bureaucrats tried to prevent from realising. Argued Lü:

“…At the present there are many cadres, who proceed from protecting the special interests, twist Marx’s state theory trying to distort peoples’ thinking hiding the essential problems with this political theory in order to prevent the people from smashing down the hierarchal bureaucratic system. But the people cannot be deceived for long, in the final run the people can tell the difference between false teachings and completely grasp the pure quintessence and clear objectives and concentrate power to smash the hierarchal bureaucratic system.”26

For Lü, elections and popular supervision of cadres were needed to control the inherit tendency of moral deteriorating of an unsupervised bureaucracy. Indeed, no matter how much the old cadres fought against it, the system would otherwise develop to be the opposite of the people.27 Also Gao Jimin shared Lü Min’s views in Beijing zhi chun arguing that what ailed the hierarchal system of appointing the cadres from the top was the lack of popular supervision, which alienated cadres from the people: “this [appointing cadres] leads to degeneration of the quality of the cadres. In a while, the people’s servants become the people’s “masters”, that is, a new bureaucracy.”28 Therefore, Gao Jimin argued, only through following the Marxist state theory and establishing the Paris Commune type of political system could the people grasp (掌握, zhǎngwò) cadres and the productive forces 24 Lü Min: Zhúbù fèichú guānliáo tǐzhì hé jiànlì, Bālí Gōngshè shìde mínzhǔ zhìdù [Abolish Gradually the Bureaucratic System and Establish Democratic Structures after the Paris Commune], Beijing zhi chun 1 / 1979, CUP 3, 290-296 (part I) and Beijing zhi chun 2 / 1979, CUP 2, 288-291 (part II)25 Lü Min: Zhúbù fèichú guānliáo tǐzhì hé jiànlì… Part I, 290-29326 Lü Min: Zài lùn fèichú děngjí shòuzhíde guānliáo¹tǐzhì [On the Abolition of the Hierarchical Bureaucratic System], Beijing zhi chun 3 / 1979, CUP 4, 190-193, the quotation from the page 19327 ibid., 19228 Gao Jimin: Jiānchí Mǎkèsīzhǔyìde guójiā lǐlùn zǒu Bālí Gōngshè mínzhǔ zhìdùde dàolù [Support the Marxist State Theory –Take the Road of Paris Commune Democratic System], Beijing zhi chun 7 / 1979 (8.10.1979), CUP 8, 100



and realise system of popular control and socialism. Indeed, Gao argued against the Leftists and the rightists alike that “The criterion to distinguish between true [and false] Marxism is exactly the attitude to the abolition of the old state system and establishment of Paris Commune system.”29

Other Beijing zhi chun writers who argued Paris Commune on similar grounds were at least Gong Ren30, Han Zhixiong and Yi Ma31, and Wen Qi.32 However, advocating emulation of Paris Commune as a model for political reforms was not confined to Beijing zhi chun. Also the veteran activist Wang Xizhe of the Li Yizhe group followed this line in contributed in Siwu luntan [April Fifth Forum]. For Wang there existed a dialectical relation of unity of opposites in the people following Party leadership and supervising it at the same time and this justified more general forms of popular supervision of the Party:

“If the people lack the leadership of the Party that represents their interests and understands the laws that guide the development of society, they run the risk of becoming blind and losing their road forward. If a communist Party (especially a Party that uses political power in a socialist country) loses the supervision of the people, it turns into a bureaucratic Party riding over people’s heads and deceiving them running the risk of becoming a fascist Party.”33

Therefore, argued Wang, based on the example of the Paris Commune, ‘which all are familiar with’, the Party should have promulgated rules that prevented it from becoming an oppressor of the people instead of being their public servant. The right to criticise the Party prevented it from changing into a Party of a minority with special privileges. The Party was able to control itself only at too high a price, as the struggles during the Cultural Revolution and the rule of the Gang of Four had demonstrated. For Wang the problems lied in Stalinism, in which the Party supervised itself and all-important decisions were made under its leadership. Wang saw such system was based on Lenin’s opinion on Soviet rule, but it was against Marx’s and Engels’ views of about the progressive nature of popular supervision in the Paris Commune and even Lenin’s own views in the ‘State and Revolution’. If the Party centre violated the people’s interests and wishes under the Leninist system, the people had no recourse against the Part, therefore the system had to be reformed.34

Wang argued that measures should be taken to ensure that the Party rule was always in the hands of the real Marxists. Real Marxists were those who served the interests of the people, and only the people could be the judge of this. The question was therefore how, through what measures and routes, the people could use their powers as masters of the society. The question was also how the people could use their powers when the Party centre misused its prerogatives and turned revisionist oppressing the people. It seemed that only the use of violence was the option at the moment.

29 ibid., 10130 Gong Ren: Yī bù shíjì xíngdòng shèngguò yī dà gānglǐng [One Real Action Won One Great Guide], Beijing zhi chun 5, CUP 6, 91-9631 Han Zhixiong: Siwu zhànshì tán mínzhǔ [The Tiananmen Incident Heroes Talk about Democracy], Beijing zhi chun 4 / 1979, CUP 5, 94-95 and Yi Ma: Nán yǐ gēduànde lìshǐ [History Cannot Be Severed], Beijing zhi chun 4 / 1979, CUP 5, 126-13332 Wen Qi: Zìzhì mínzhǔ yǔ guójiā xiāowáng xuéshuō [On the Theory of Self-Governing Democracy and Withering Away of the State], Beijing zhi chun 6, CUP 7, 8633 Wang Xizhe: Dǎng de lǐngdǎo hé rénmín jiāndū [Party Leaders and Popular Supervision], Siwu Luntan 15th issue (12 / 1979), December 1979, CUP 10, 21. The article was originally a speech on the theory of youth at the third provincial conference of the Communist Youth League’s Guangdong secretariat.Wang Xizhe: Dǎng de lǐngdǎo hé rénmín jiāndū, 2134 Ibid., 21-25



However, Wang asked: “But why to use violence? Why not to establish a political system where the people can use legal and effective methods to supervise and control the Party centre?”35

Wang held that such a system would be compatible with the economic system based on public ownership, i.e. socialism. Furthermore, as living standards and spiritual civilisation would develop, also China should have moved away from violence in politics. Even the advanced capitalist countries had been able to do it. So, also socialist China should establish the people’s democracy and legal system in order to solve the problem of revisionism and establishing proletarian class dictatorship as proscribed by Marx and Engels. Indeed, the history of communist movement showed that people’s democratic rights should be higher than the authority of any Party centre. It was wrong to say that all socialist countries should be modelled after the Soviet example argued Wang.36

Also many writers in Kexue minzhu fazhi [Science, Democracy and Legality] advocated emulation of the Paris Commune. For example, a ‘Beijing Railway Worker’ argued in the journal one reason why bureaucratism and special privileged class still prevailed was that the Chinese political system was modelled after the Soviet example. If this system was not thoroughly reformed, modernisation would be left unfinished, or China would become to resemble the Soviet Union. As the writer argued, Marx had summarised the experience of the Paris Commune in three points: one, the officials should be elected by the people and be responsible to the people; two they should be recallable, and three, officials’ salaries should correspond to those of workers and they should not have special privileges.37 This formula was generally accepted by all who advocated emulating the Paris Commune.

The writer cited Lenin on the ‘State and Revolution’ and the nature of the future state. According to it, the officials’ previous privileges should be abolished and they should have equal salaries with the workers. The writer claimed that the people had either forgotten or not even originally known this side of Marxism. Equal salaries, election and recall system were the ‘original’ form of democracy and without returning to them, China could not surpass the capitalist countries and this would form the bridge to socialism as well.38 As the writer held it, also Engels had pointed out the importance of recall and election systems that would protect against the eventuality that the public servants might turn into public masters. This meant the people should have the power to decide on leaders, not some heroic figure selecting his successor -making a direct reference to Mao:

“Strictly speaking from legal point of view, all leaders, Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, Chairman Hua, Deng Xiaoping… all could be recalled from office. Please comrades, do not get agitated. It just is like this in theory without any possibility of confusion. If it would not be like this, the people would lose its sole weapon in the struggle, as the Cultural Revolution demonstrated.”39

The writer also argued that only legal system that was applied equally to all could protect the people’s democratic rights.40

Another variation of the classical Marxist theme of socialist democracy was presented by a Xu Shuiliang in Taolun [Debate]. Also Xu advocated Paris Commune as the model of the future

35 Ibid., 26-2736 Ibid., 26-2737 Beijing yi ge tielu gongren: Yě tán xiàndàihuà [On Modernisations], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 3 / 1979 (25.2.1979), CUP 8, 27538 Ibid., 275-27639 Ibid., 278-27940 Ibid., 279



socialist democracy and argued that while in old societies the state had been oppressive machinery, socialist state was a machinery serving the people, and a step further from it would be free association of men under communism. Socialist state suppressed only class enemies, or those who imperilled the society. It also abolished division of labour in society and made economic and cultural matters as the most important tasks of the state that would gradually become a free association of economic and cultural producers. Lenin had pointed out many times that the most important thing in proletarian class dictatorship was not coercion, but proletarian discipline and high level of labour organisation.41

Xu argued that the present task was to transform the state following the model of Paris Commune as an association of producers of entire people of the nation. Under it, dictatorship would whither away as classes withered away. But as dictatorship withered away, also democracy had to lose its meaning of ‘ruling over’ (统治, tǒngzhì). Original democracy would thus perish and be moved onto the shoulders of the entire people. When democracy and dictatorship faded away, the non-class freedom and disciplined autonomy and concentration would get stronger. When such circumstances prevailed, there would be high level of ‘free discipline’ and ‘disciplined freedom’, wide autonomy under centralised direction, and centralisation based on autonomy –making it the first time in the history of mankind when such a thing would happen. This would make it possible to create democratic systems of social control, which in capitalism was only sham. Bureaucratic system and special privileges would disappear. As classes would wither away, also a ruling party would disappear. In classless society all organisations, collectives, factions, groups and associations would freely and peacefully compete for and elect and recall their own leaders according to majority principle.42

All classical arguments therefore emphasised the need of elections of Party and government cadres. However, the way the writers saw elections as the way to solve the conflict between the bureaucrats and the people meant that the role of elections had a distinctly different meaning in socialist democracy than in liberal democracy. Elections were to protect against deterioration of the officialdom, not for creating representative government as such. A writer in Kexue minzhu fazhi demonstrated this well in his or her essay on ‘Peoples’ Rights’. As he argued “only through protecting people’s rights, through giving them electoral rights, the people could elect who they preferred and produce leadership which really works for the people.”43 The Chinese should have electoral rights to prevent bad people from getting the power and to really manage the state and choose the people with real talents to be their leaders. Therefore,

“To purify our Party we must block this road and make these [bad] individualists feel inadequate and frustrated, only [if] the people who do not care for individual interests [are elected] can the people’s protection be achieved, and only these people can be given the glorious name of communists. All who pretend enthusiasm but avoid their responsibilities are only temporarily [in power], the people will know them and expel them…”44

Although many classical writers argued that elections should be extended to the very top posts in the Party some others also paid more attention to the grass-roots level. Lü Min developed an argument to this end in Beijing zhi chun. According to him, Party committees’ basic level authority in industry severely limited workers’ democratic rights. Elected officials did not have any real 41 Xu Shuiliang: Guānyú jiējí, guójiā děng ruògān wèntí [On Classes, State and Other Questions], Taolun 1 / 1979, 25.12.1979, CUP 18, 13342 Xu Shuiliang, 133-13543 Rénmínde quánlì [People’s Rights], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 5 / 1979 (15.3.1979), 17644 Ibid., 177



powers, which stifled the workers’ enthusiasm and their feelings for revolution. To correct this situation and to bring enthusiasm back, basic level Party cells’ authority had to be abolished in industry. Lü tied his argument to decreasing class-struggle and the theory of a new class arguing that as all Marxists knew it, a political Party was a class-based concept and a tool of class struggle. Its power should vary with the intensity of class struggle. As class struggle was now decreasing in China, also the Party power should decrease and the process should start from the basic level. Only the system of private property could create exploiting classes and if economic system produced an exploiting class it could not be a socialist system. In the Soviet Union the national capitalist class had been created by transforming socialist system into planned economy where the leading groups had usurped power and transformed themselves into capitalists.45 As Lü saw it,

“At the present it is like this: due to gradual loosening of class struggle it [the Party] is gradually losing its progressive role and popular support. People move gradually from supporting it to avoiding it and finally hating it. This is a generally known fact. The basic level Party leadership has already become an obstacle in the progress of history. And the people feel like this more and more.”46

As Lü saw it, in Yugoslavia the Communist Party basic level control had been abolished in industry which had had a positive effect in production. Lü was not proposing a total abolition of the Party as yet, but the Chinese had to start to realise it gradually. To abolish party committees’ authority in industrial enterprises would serve as the start and later the abolition of the whole Party would follow. The Party leadership in industrial enterprises would be replaced by elected “Workers’ Representatives Assemblies” (gōngrén wěiyuánhuì) that would take political power in factories. The Party cadres could participate in the election of workers representatives’ assemblies, but they would not run the show anymore.47

In classical Marxists’ arguments elections were therefore essentially seen as a system of popular supervision of cadres and transferring the power to the people beginning from the grass-roots level. Elections were designed to ensure the purity of the officialdom, not to make the political system an open arena of competition and conflict solving. This was naturally a logical result from the class-based view of democracy and the people as having united class interests against the bureaucrats. The system of popular supervision proposed by different writers was therefore not an argument for liberal competitive democracy, but a system whereby the correct functioning of bureaucracy was ensured through high level of cadres’ public-mindedness brought about by direct elections. In this system, the officials did not represent their constituencies’ interest vis-à-vis different other interests, but against their own interests as a potential bureaucratic class.

The Classical Marxist also refuted the argument that the cultural level of the Chinese masses was too low for self-management. As they argued, the Cultural Revolutionary experience and the Fifth of April Movement after it had made people political aware enough to elect their leaders. Furthermore, practising democracy would teach the people what democracy meant in concrete terms.48 These arguments were also directly related to constructing the Democracy Movement as the youthful revolutionary vanguard that had become politically aware during the Cultural Revolution and the experience of the practise of Leftist rule during it. Indeed, for the activists the Democracy 45 Lü Min: Qǔxiāo chǎngkuàng qǐyè jīcéng dǎng zǔzhī de xíngzhèng lǐngdǎo quán, Beijing zhi chun 2 / 1979, CUP 2, 255-25646 Ibid., 25747 Ibid., 25848 See e.g. Gao Jimin, Jiānchí Mǎkèsīzhǔyìde guójiā lǐlùn zǒu Bālí Gōngshè mínzhǔ zhìdùde dàolù, Beijing zhi chun 7 / 1979 (8.10.1979), CUP 8, 102; Lü Min: Zhúbù fèichú guānliáo tǐzhì hé jiànlì…, 294-295; Su Ming: Kěnéng fāshēng zài 2000 nián bēijù [Tragedy That Might Happen in the Year 2000], Beijing zhi chun 5, CUP 6, 131-146; Li Yizhe fǎngwèn jì [Special Interview with the “Li Yizhe”], Beijing zhi chun 4 / 1979, CUP 5, 122-123



Movement demonstrated that the people were mature to assume management of the grass-roots level units and gradually the whole country. The argument as such was powerful as the legitimacy of the Party rule lied heavily on the claims that is was serving the interest of the people. The Party would therefore have to listen to the people who had grown to recognise their own interests. Obviously, trying to show detailed understanding in Marxism boosted the activists’ claim for their political maturity and awareness and those Democracy Movement activists who used classical arguments did not need to emphasise their Marxist nature. Their arguments were full of citations from Marx, Engels and Lenin and the Paris Commune itself was offered as the icon of ideal socialist democracy that would enable also the socialist economy to realise its full potential. It was therefore relatively easy for them to make the case for the Democracy Movement as an attempt to return to the correct Marxists principles after the Leftist distortions. However, the cases of the other lines in the Movement were not as straightforward.

Eclectic Arguments

When the Red Guards had been disbanded and sent down in 1967-68 many of them had got the bitter sweet opportunity to return to Marxist classics to deepen their knowledge of Marxist social analysis in order to criticise their political opponents. However, not all had stopped their endeavour in there, but had ventured into the forbidden zone of Western liberal thought. Creating diplomatic relations with the West and finally the first steps of opening up to the outside world had also increased the opportunities to find out more about the politics in the West. Notions of pluralist democracy and human rights had therefore found their ways in the activists’ thinking and a major part of the writers in the Beijing Democracy Movement journals showed how these inputs could be turned into criticism of the Party Left and arguments for political reform within socialist framework.

The difference between activists using classical and eclectic arguments was most evident in their use of sources. Those using classical Marxist arguments turned to Marxist classics, whereas those using eclectic arguments turned to Western examples. This is not to say that the classical Marxist were against learning from abroad –none of the Democracy Movement journals printed anything supporting the Leftist self-seclusion- but they justified their arguments for reforms differently. Neither does it mean that the examples in Marxist classics were discarded by the eclectics, but they were supplemented with learning from the West. As Robin Munro has pointed out, such borrowing actually meant reinstating sublation (i.e. synthesis) to the Marxist political analysis in China after a decade of ‘affirmation of negation’.49 Instead of seeing only negation between bourgeois democracy and socialism the eclectic writers were now proposing ways how certain progressive features in bourgeois democracies could be adopted under socialist economic system in order to create a synthesis of socialist democracy. At the same time what Munro states about Chen Erjin and his admiration of the American political system was true to the most of the eclectic writers: it was the form, not content, that attracted them in the Western democracies.50

Indeed, China’s relation with the Western learning has traditionally been not only a source of innovation but also confusion, frustration and controversy. This sensitivity had only been multiplied by the Leftist xenophobia and isolationism during the Cultural Revolution. Even in its call for modernisation the reformist Party faction was proposing learning from the West in technology and

49 Munro 1984b, 22-2350 Ibid., 30



management techniques in industry, but not in politics.51 Not surprisingly, the Democracy Movement activists’ argumentation’s relation to liberal democracy was a sensitive one. Many journals were at pains to deny that they were advocating ‘capitalist class democracy’, even if they saw something good in it. Bi Dan gave a good example of this in Kexue minzhu fazhi when he proclaimed that

“We do not want the sham democracy of capitalism. We hate bitterly the capitalist civilisation and universal love. But we distain even more the system of feudal fascism that has caused so much misery to the Chinese people and must be opposed even more that capitalism.”52

Capitalism was naturally regarded as the number one enemy of socialism and the Chinese had been taught to think that bourgeois democracy was only sham democracy constructed to deceive the proletariat and protect the bourgeoisie class interest. This notion was also used categorically to renounce bourgeois class democracy by many writers in official press.53 It was against this that the Democracy Movement activists using eclectic arguments had to find ways to justify their calls for learning from the West.

In general eclectic arguments took the form of demonstrating how Marxism was an adaptable ideology and how socialism had to inherit many features from the earlier stages of historical development of societies. Socialism was a result of contradictions in capitalist society and retained many of its features after revolution, like productive forces. Socialist democracy was a step above bourgeois democracy; therefore it had to inherit the features that had enabled popular liberation from oppression under bourgeois democracy. In general the Democracy Movement activists saw that the actual Chinese socialist democracy was still inferior to bourgeois forms of democracy. As Marxist theory indicated, this should not have been the case, and therefore it did not accord with the objective laws of history. In general, socialist democracy was therefore regarded as an advanced phase in historical development, not an alternative political system to proletarian dictatorship, like it has usually been understood in Western research literature. The major journals that published eclectic articles were Siwu luntan, Zhongguo renquan, Qimeng, Kexue minzhu fazhi, Wotu, and Minzhu yu shidai. Already Siwu luntan’s rules announced that the journal welcomed “exchange of ideas from all foreigners, who are friends of China.”54 Many of its writers also lived up to this ideal.

The Democracy Movement activists saw their movement as the result of the lessons and enlightenment caused by the Cultural Revolution and the Fifth of April Movement. For many this lesson had been about being able to use Marxism independently to criticise the Party Left. Now most of the activists demanded return to the scientific origins of Marxism and re-evaluation of the Leftist doctrines of continuous class struggle and Stalinist political system. Many writers argued that the original zeal of Marxism as a critical and innovative approach to society had to be rekindled. As for example Zhou Xun argued in Siwu luntan that Marxism was a critical ideology and welcomed criticism.55 In a similar vein, Hua Chuan agued it in Kexue Minzhu Fazhi that Marxism did not have to defend itself against ‘revisionism’, Marxism had been revisionism of Hegelism at the time it was created. “Revisionism’ means new life for old theories. Why should 51 For example Guangming ribao run an article to his end on 23 September 1978 (CA November 1978, 713)52 Bi Dan: Mínzhǔ qiáng zònghéng tán [Survey of the Democracy Wall], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhu qiang shiwenxuan 15 / 1979 (20.6.1979), CUP, 38. Similar reasoning for example in Wu Chanzhe: Cóng Butuo zhī sǐ tán ‘xíng bì shàng dàfū’ [On Bhutto’s Death and ‘Touchable Leaders’], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 16 / 1979 (30.6.1979), CUP 17, 7253 See e.g. RMRB 21.1.1980: Jiānchí shèhuìzhǔyì mǐnzhǔde fāngxiàng x54 Siwu luntan zhāngchéng [Rules of Siwu Luntan], Siwu luntan 11th issue (8 / 1979), August 1979, CUP 7, 455 Zhou Xun: Sìrénbāng’ lèide rénwù bù huì zài chūxiàn ma? [Can the Gang of Four Kind of People Re-Emerge?] Siwu luntan 9th issue (7 / 1979), 29.4.1979, CUP 6, 8-16



Marxists regard ‘revisionist’ Marxism so heinous and something that needs to be opposed and guarded against?”56 Asked Hua. Clearly it was a sign that the Marxists believed that Marxism was complete truth, however, thousands of years of the humankind’s intellectual history had showed that progress happened only through absorbing, rectifying, negating, and abandoning of earlier knowledge. This kind of ‘revisionism’ was the sign of historical progress but Chairman Mao and Cultural Revolution that he had started had violated against this Hua argued.57

This line of argumentation was also well presented by a Siwu luntan writer Yu Ren whose article was also a demonstration of critical Marxist spirit to analyse the emergence of bureaucratism and the Democracy Movement as its adversary. Yu saw that regaining the critical spirit of Marxism based on Hegelian dialectical materialism was necessitated by the class contradictions present in Chinese society. For Yu it was a normal sight that later generations criticised the earlier generations in intellectual development and this was the case with Marxism, too. Naturally, the bureaucrats did not like a theory that ‘does not withdraw on the verge of violating against rulers’ but when the economic power was centralised in the hands of one class, Marxism would become a façade and any critical study become ossified and cease. “Bureaucratism turns science into new religion … and forcefully makes the people to believe that this is the original revolutionary theory…” bureaucrats had spoiled Marxism’s taste, even if it had originally been good, argued Yu.58

Yu held that today’s Marxists could not be indifferent to democratic reforms. They should be as effective as their teachers had been in their times. The self-proclaimed Marxists bureaucrats claimed that democracy harmed unity and stability, which was achieved only through oppression of the people. The Democracy Movement and its journals made some people anxious, but many people already recognised that the “disturbances in the past were not created by some individuals by mistake, they were related to the system.”59 As Yu argued, socialist democracy advocated by the Democracy Movement was the dialectic negotiation of its opposite of ignorance, and it showed how socialist democracy could revert back from distorted road, ‘otherwise it would not be dialectical’. Yu cited Hegel’s notion of the progressive nature of ‘idea’ or world spirit (shijie shinqing) as the proof of this. It was concealed from one’s eyes, but it was nevertheless constantly working in the history.60 For Yu the Democracy Wall Movement was therefore a result of dialectical struggle between the correct and incorrect notions of socialism. The defence of originally critical nature of Marxism was a way to express the basic realisation that most of the Democracy Movement’s activists shared: that they could use Marxism freely to criticise the Party left and its policies.

Learning from Human Rights

56 Hua Chuan: Duì fǎn xiū fáng xiū lìchǎngde tànlùn [Exploring the Position of Opposing and Resisting Revisionism], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 11 / 1979 (10.5.1979), CUP 15, 3; See also Hua Chuan: Wénhuà dàgémìngde lìshǐ zuòyòng [The Historical Role of the Great Cultural Revolution], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 11 / 1979 (10.5.1979), CUP 15, 12-1357 Hua Chuan: Duì fǎn xiū fáng xiū lìchǎngde tànlùn, 3-558 Yu Ren: Lüè lùn jīnrì zhī sì wǔ, yùndòng [Briefly on Today’s ‘Fifth of April Movement’], Siwu luntan 7th issue (5 / 1979), 11.3.1979, CUP 5, 47-48, quotation from p. 4859 Yu Ren, 49-50, quotation from p. 50, here system (tixi) can be taken both as a political system, and the system of Leftist rule through deception. 60 Yu Ren, 50-51, quotation from p. 51



To see Marxism a living ideology that could be rectified justified the discussion of importing ideas and practises even from bourgeois democracy. One of the most ardent advocates of learning from the West was the journal named Zhongguo renquan [Chinese human rights], whose name already indicated such an inclination. The ninth point of the Zhongguo renquan’s Declaration of Chinese Human Rights stated:

“Citizens want to realise Marxism, socialism is a theory of societies with advanced freedom for everybody and socialist countries’ forms of government are inheritors of the forms of capitalist traditions. Socialist democracy and freedoms cannot get separated from the capitalist material civilisation, this the basic idea in classical theory and the important lesson the Chinese have learned from the last 20 years or so. We do not want to borrow only from Western technology, we also want to borrow from Western traditions, democracy and civilisation, citizens demand that the government opens the closed doors, let thinking smash its confines and freedom sweep across the country.”61

Zhongguo renquan saw Western ideas as complementing Chinese socialism which, as they pointed out, was also originally a Western idea in itself. However, nowhere else could the sensitivity of borrowing from the West seen more clearly than in the calls for human rights that appeared for the first time already in the Declaration of Qimeng Society in late November 1978. Unlike the concepts of socialist democracy and legality or rule by law (fazhi), the Party did not use human rights in its vocabulary except to denounce them as a concept of bourgeois democracy. After the crackdown on the Democracy Movement began in late-March 1979, much of ideological denunciation of the Democracy Movement was based on disputing the value of human rights and ‘ultra-individualism’. To suggest that socialist democracy should include and respect human rights had to therefore be carefully argued out. Here the argument was based on separating human rights from capitalism and arguing about them as historically progressive achievements of the humankind.

An example of this was given by Cao Yang in Yuanshangcao [Grass on the Plain], who argued that even the fact that the Chinese had to speak of democracy and demand human rights at the end of the 1970s in the 20th century was hard to understand because already early in the century countless people with lofty ideals had spoken about them when they had toppled the Qing dynasty. Democracy and human rights had already been the content of bourgeois class revolution. So was it really so that the Chinese should not carry on the century-old incomplete task of many revolutionary martyrs? Argued Cao:

“Some say human rights are a Western and capitalist thing. But as far as I can see, there are no people at the Democracy Wall who listen to these kinds of clichés, no one writes this deliberately even in Renmin ribao.”62

The argument to learn from the West was based largely on the historical relationship between capitalist and socialist societies. As the latter had developed from the former, it had to incorporate its progressive features and develop them further. As Liang Yao of Zhongguo renquan argued, one had to note that socialism, while a lower phase in the transition to communism, was created from capitalism and should have more advanced features than it. Under it the people should also enjoy more extensive freedoms and democracy that would make the people the real masters of the society. Citizens would contribute from each according to their individual abilities (gèjìn-suǒnéng) and

61 Zhongguo rénquán xuānyán -shíjiǔ tiáo [Declaration of Chinese Human Rights –19 Points], Zhongguo renquan 1 / 1979, CUP 2, 18962 Cao Yang: Bìngfēi xiánhuà [Really Not a Gossip], Yuanshangcao 1 / 1979, 1.3.1979, CUP 13, 308



make the planned economy to develop faster. On this basis a classless, Partyless, equal, and materially prosperous communism would be established.63

Also writers of Siwu luntan offered an eclectic defence of the human rights in the journal’s October issue 1979. As the writers saw it, the usual way of refuting the human rights was to say that they were a ‘bourgeois class slogan’, obsolete, or a ‘declining’ thing. It was true that they were originally bourgeois, but so were socialism and class struggle in their origins, as Engels had pointed out. Proletarian revolution should not renounce all the progress made in history during capitalism. Human rights were not an evil instigation of a minority that had made them up, rather they were

“a reflection of present social relations in the minds of the Chinese, a result of imperfect legal system, incomplete democracy, feudal cruelty, bureaucracy on rampage, and mark the denunciation of the feudal fascist system created by Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.”64

The writers asked why ‘proletarian liberation’ had became the slogan under capitalism, and now ‘human rights’ had done the same to oppose bureaucracy and extremism in socialism. There had to be a reason for the fact that all socialist countries were suffering from similar problems and human rights were an important issue in them all. The reasons for this should be studied as well as the historical background of the human rights. As the writers argued, “Marxism did not refute the capitalist class notion of equality of all men”. Indeed, this was the common point in capitalist and proletarian democracies. The biggest difference had been in Marx’s refutation of capitalist economic system. Therefore, one can say that proletarian democracy was higher, more refined and mature form of democracy. “And we can say Marxism is not against human rights, but against the sham human rights designed to fool the people.”65

The argument of ‘making up a missed class’ was used by many writers using eclectic arguments. As a worker from Qingdao named Sun Feng argued in a long open letter to Chairman Hua and Deng Xiaoping in March 1979 in Kexue minzhu fazhi, proletarian class democracy should be wider, and more complete than capitalist version of democracy. Therefore, the advanced features of capitalist democracy should be included in proletarian democracy, ‘like middle school courses can include primary school courses.’ That the former were deeper and higher did not mean that the latter were false. Democracy was built on concrete basis. Indeed,

“If one has not studied in the primary school, one cannot enter the middle school, and he must [first] study the courses of primary school. A country that has not gone through a complete democratic revolution is not unable to realise communism, but it must make up the missed class (补课, bǔkè) of democracy, to miss it is not possible!”66

Many other Kexue minzhu fazhi writers used eclectic arguments to defend learning from the West. As a writer named Li Xi argued in a dazibao appeared on 24 February 1979, already during the bourgeois revolution the human rights, freedom and democracy were achieved only because of the sacrifice and struggle of the people. But this was not usually known or understood in China where these concepts had become distorted into the synonyms of capitalism and imperialism. The idea that human rights, democracy, freedom, equality and universal love should be buried with socialism was

63 Liang Yao: Duì mínzhǔ yùndòng héngjiā, zhǐzé shízhì shàng shì bù yào mínzhǔ [To Flagrantly Censure Democracy Movement Means Not Wanting Democracy], Zhongguo renquan 2 / 1979, CUP 3, 226-22764 Guizhou sheguo:’Rénquán’ Pīpàn bóyì [Refutation of Criticism on Human Rights], Siwu luntan 13th issue (10 / 1979), October 1979, CUP 8, 44-4565 Ibid., 44-47, the quotation from the page 4766 Sun Feng: Zhì Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping tóngzhìde gōngkāixìn [An Open Letter to Comrades Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 14 / 1979 (10.6.1979), CUP 16, 106-107



an example of false use of negation of negation by specialist in ‘metaphysical literary inquisition’ resulting in such absurd conclusions. Li Xi argued that because these notions had been born after feudalism, the Chinese had to develop them and study their class nature and establish concrete ‘class human rights’ and democracy:

“But it must already be justified to state that human rights do not belong to the bourgeois class, they belong to the people! Human rights have been the goal of popular struggle for three hundred years! Why should the proletarian not face them squarely today, realise them for real?”67

The people were now calling for human rights because feudalism under Lin Biao and the Gang of Four had lacked even the most rudimentary rights. But these rights should not just be copied from the West. The Chinese had to persist in developing the bourgeois notions of human rights and democracy in content and form in order to get rid of their quasi-democratic features, and

“analyse carefully the limited democracy and human rights the workers have achieved in the West and what in their content fits the developmental laws of socialism, because China has leaped from half feudalism, half colony to socialism, this kind of direct leap can sometimes require to make up the missed class…”68

Socialist democracy and human rights could also be demanded using Marxist social analysis to collective experience of the Cultural Revolution. As a writer named Han Jie argued in Kexue minzhu fazhi, human rights and democracy were demanded at the Democracy Wall to prevent the feudal fascist dictatorship of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four from repeating itself. Indeed, “This is historically necessary conclusion of the times” argued the writer. The demands that were raised now were like the demands for personal freedom and equality that had been raised during feudalism. According to the law of ‘negation of negation’ everything appeared twice in history, but not in the same form, as the later appearance would assume a more advanced form. Therefore,

“At the moment we definitely do not struggle for bourgeois human rights or democracy, but for proletarian human rights and democracy. Whom can we rely on? The people, the great Chinese people itself!”69

To realise this the Chinese did not need universities, as the truth had revealed itself for them like in the story about ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ – even a child could see it. The history had given them a lesson in feudal ‘democracy’ where the people had been nothing and even the rudimentary rights of living like human beings (做人的权利, zuòrénde quánlì) had been exploited by ‘total dictatorship’. The people had experienced unceasing struggle against each other and the line struggle concerning the nation and the state. Now, they had become sick and tied of ‘classes’, ‘dictatorship’, and ‘struggle’.70

Han Jie supported free discussion about theories and matters. He or she expressed confidence that the people could smash the mental chains lain by the Gang of Four and go establishing higher forms of human rights than in imperialist countries. But when the situation was that the people were demanding human rights at Xidan and the foreign reporters were concentrating on this issue, the writer felt compelled to ask what the human rights and democracy meant. Why were they so 67 Li Xi: Shèhuìzhǔyì ’mínzhǔ’ yǔ ’rénquán’ [Socialist Democracy and Human Rights], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 5 / 1979 (15.3.1979), CUP 10, 142-144, the quotation from the page 14468 Ibid., 144-145 the quotation from the page 14569 Han Jie: Yě tán rén quán yǔ mínzhǔ [More on Human Rights and Democracy], Kexue minzhu fazhi minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 5 / 1979 (15.3.1979), CUP 10, 13770 Ibid., 137-138



marvellous that they attracted attention from different kinds of societies and people? Could not one just say that the ‘great human rights’ did not make distinctions between class and social system, that they were an irresistible tide of the times?71

According to Han Jie, the Enlightenment thinkers had all believed in ‘heaven given human rights and equality’, whereas the Marxists believed that human rights were not heaven given, but a product of history. All knew that human rights were created to resist feudal monarchy and clerical powers, a weapon in capitalist revolution against feudalism. The ‘Declaration of Human Rights’ had been a product of the Great French Revolution for this end as citations from Marx and Engels showed. Stalin had committed the historical error of trampling socialist legal system and the people’s citizen rights and Lin Biao and the Gang of Four’s feudal fascist dictatorship had destroyed socialist democracy in China. These were the lessons to learn from the history of international communism, they were distortions of scientific socialism, but they must not make one to lose faith in socialism and Marxism. The Chinese had to clean the righteous name of scientific socialism from all the smear and filth it had on it and return to its original goals in theory and practice and to create democratic life thousand times higher than that in the capitalist countries. For this everybody had to earnestly look for ways to develop socialist human rights, democracy and bring about economic modernisation through political democratisation.72

For most of those who used eclectic arguments, the difference between socialist and bourgeois human rights was rather easy to argue out when it came to the rights of private property and economic and social rights. However, political rights were a much harder case to make as the class nature of rights was a central notion in Marxism-Leninism. Only a few of the eclectics really did go so deep into subject as to discuss the way how the problem of universality of human rights and particularity of class could be overcome. In this respect Zhongguo renquan offered a rare and elaborative analysis. As the writer Yu Fan argued, human rights were both products of historical development and a general concept with logical content. They were rights that differentiated man from animals and slaves who were treated as tools in production and prevented by force to use their natural endowments. Human rights made men higher than they otherwise would have been on the ladders of historical development, but their contents varied through time and they developed when the things they referred to developed. This was the case with the Chinese society, too. Demonstrating sources of his ideas, Yu described the development of the human rights in the West from the Middle Ages to the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of Human Rights. Yu argued that these events had had not been coincidental, but inevitable results of historical laws.73

According to Yu Fan, what united all men was that they wanted guarantees of individual existence, freedom, prosperity and respect. And the development of history from primitive to bourgeois societies had witnessed expansion of human rights as a result of gaining these guarantees. In dialectical analysis, human rights were humankind’s right to struggle for these four goals. Yu then defined humanism (人道, réndào) as an arrangement whereby every member of society had same rights and respected the rights of others; and human nature (人性, rénxìng) which was man’s ability to know and respect the rights of one and others. Human rights united humanism and human nature. 71 Ibid., 138-13972 Ibid., 140-14173 Yu Fan: Guānyú Zhongguo shèhuì wèntíde wèndá [Questions and Answers Concerning Chinese Social Problems], Zhongguo renquan 1 / 1979, CUP 2, 202-203 Other atticles that attempted combining natural rights and Marxism were e.g. Hua Shi: Rén - rénxìng - rénquán [Human - Human Nature - Human Rights], Wotu 2 / 1979 (3.8.), CUP 11, 361-362; Jiawen: Yě tán rénxìng, rénquán [More on Human Nature and Human Rights], Wotu 2 / 1979 (3.8.), CUP 11, 366; He Bian: Duì yī zhǒng zhuānzhì zhǔyì lǐlùn zài pīpíng [More Criticism on a Certain Theory on Autocracy], Wotu 4-5 / 1979 hekan, CUP 13,



They also combined natural and social human attributes. If one did not recognise rights of others, he had lost his human nature, or became alienated in his individualism.74

Yu argued that man was a social animal, who was able to think, talk, and positively understand and change the world in order to satisfy one’s own needs. Man’s class nature was a part of one’s social attributes, but it was not the whole human nature. It was the qualities man had due to economic relations in society and his position in it. It denoted man’s position as an exploiter or labourer. The relation between natural and social attributes was very complex, and to analyse it required both natural and social sciences and it should be done on individual level. Class origin was not enough to explain all things and class position to determine this without taking into account man’s other attributes. Too simplified form of class analysis, based on profession, class origins, economic position, etc. had caused great disturbances in China. To deny that class position and human attributes did not have any relation was wrong, but to deny human rights, humanism and human nature was even more absurd, argued Yu.75

Yu then argued that it was theoretically absurd to claim that the bourgeoisie owned the struggle for democracy, promoting humanism, and speaking for human nature. They could not reserve all rights to promote struggle for existence, freedom, prosperity, and respect in forms of slogans for science, democracy, freedom, equality, universal love, etc. Obviously, the bourgeoisie had raised these slogans first, but they had served their class interest in exploitation and suppression of other classes. However, because they were not the only ones who needed these rights, the rights had retained their power and vigour of summoning the people. History had showed how science, democracy, freedom, equality, universal love, prosperity, respect, labour, etc. had promoted the mankind’s affluence. They were the splendid tradition of humankind and its quintessence “they definitely did not belong to some specific period of time or to some specific class.”76 Argued Yu:

“Recognising the virtue (měidé) of human rights and that they are the common property of mankind not belonging to some specific period or time or to some specific class, as well as recognising the humankind’s desire to progress and that humankind holds specific class nature in specific historical conditions, these two things are not in contradiction, only recognising class nature of existence and denying the common nature of human nature and mankind’s desire to progress is not according to facts and dialectics.”77

For Yu, emphasising only man’s class nature had meant separating individual and common human nature in a wrong way. Of course in different times understanding of these concepts (human rights, etc) and slogans (science, etc) had been different, even very different, but they were the result of pioneering people’s search for truth in social practise and deepening understanding of the issues in the realm of ideas. Although different people at different times had understood them differently, the things they denoted had stayed the same. Indeed, no man, whatever his position, could claim that dictatorship was democracy, restrictions were freedom, ignorance was happiness, war was peace, killing people was universal love, etc. Different understanding did not deny the existence of things themselves.78 As Yu stated:

“To avoid contradiction because understanding of the things is different, or to deny rights from oneself because of different understanding of things is totally ridiculous and absurd.”79

74 Ibid., 203-20575 Ibid., 20576 Ibid., 205-206, the quotation from p. 20677 Ibid., 20678 Ibid., 206-20779 Ibid., 207



Yu’s argument was therefore that human rights were based on attributes common to all men and embodied the historical progress of humankind in its struggle against want and oppression. The need for human rights was based on common human nature, but they were realised only through struggle. The bourgeois human rights should therefore not be abandoned and denied from the people in a socialist society as they were the result of such struggle in history. Indeed, because they were result of historical progress, they should be incorporated in a socialist society as well. However, also Yu left it open what kind of changes or restrictions class nature of man brought to human rights in practise.

Eclectics also defended the freedom of speech with elaborate arguments. One of the longest and most thorough essay on the significance of the freedom of speech was offered by Hu Ping, writing under the penname of He Bian, in Wotu in the end of March 1979 when the Democracy Movement became under open attack. As Hu argued, making clear that freedom of speech was important for the process of establishing democracy and fazhi in China. If this right was lost, man became a slave and a tool. The right in itself was not everything, but losing it was. Hu compared freedom of speech to fulcrum in mechanics: without it nothing worked, but in itself it did nothing. With fulcrum lever could be used. As its inventor Isaac Newton had said: give me place to stand and I will pull the Earth from its orbit! Isn’t this like freedom of speech in politics? Asked Hu.80

Like others, Hu argued that freedom of speech was a result of bourgeois revolution, but they had become common property of the whole mankind as the result of the progress of mankind’s civilisation. Because Marxism was based on Western capitalist societies, the Chinese intellectuals who had been deeply influenced by feudalism had understood and approved only the critical and disapproving parts about the Western civilization in Marxism but failed to understand and endorse the approving parts in it. Even after 30 year of establishment of the PRC the Chinese had not done away with influences of ideas of feudal dictatorship. Hu asked that had this lesson indeed not awaken people to ask how to approach Marxism anew from a more complete angle.81

Practising free speech was essential to scientific and ideological progress but in China some comrades still retained the strange logic that this situation had only existed before Marxism, because Marxism itself was a result of criticism of earlier Western capitalist theories, but that after 1847 when Marxism was born, all the societies and thinkers in capitalist world stopped producing anything of value. This made Marxism a ‘book from heaven’ that answered all question in the future, appearing similar to religious worship. In reality all revolutionary leaders in history had advocated learning from the West and its capitalist theories, (of course not in their entirety, but only the useful parts in them) admitting that they may be something worth of studying in them. Not practising free speech would mean losing these benefits.82 Indeed: “…if we do not practise real free speech, and if we are not allowed to criticise the truths of Marxism, then we are not real Marxist, we will turn Marxism into a lifeless thing.”83 Argued Hu.

80 He Bian: Lùn yánlùn zìyóu [On Freedom of Speech], Wotu tekan 2.4.1979, CUP 12, 67-68. Here He Bian’s memory about Western scientists served him wrong, as it was Archimedes, who is recorded of having said this about lever first. Two other distinctive and elaborative writers who argued specifically for the freedom of speech were Cui Quanhong and Hua Chuan of Kexue Minzhu Fazhi. See Cui Quanhong: Dàdà jiāqiáng láodòng rénmínde yánlùn chūbǎn zìyóu [Greatly Strengthen the Workers’ Freedom of Publication], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 11 / 1979 (10.5.1979), CUP 15 and Hua Chuan: Wénhuà dàgémìngde lìshǐ zuòyòng [The Historical Role of the Great Cultural Revolution], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 11 / 1979 (10.5.1979), CUP 1581 He Bian: Lùn yánlùn zìyóu, 70-7382 Ibid., 87-8883 Ibid., 91



Learning from Multi-Party System

While many of the features that characterise also liberal political system like elections and human rights were defended by rather large proportion of Beijing Democracy Movement journals, some other features in liberal democracy were much less discussed. Most of the mainstream writers using either classical or eclectic arguments did not regard the one-party system as fundamentally problematic. While some of those who defended freedom of speech, like Hu Ping, admitted that political opinions were always divided and different views had to be tolerated under freedom of speech, very few of the writers actually saw this leading to a multi-party system or political pluralism under socialism. However, those who did also based their analysis on perceived need to curb the powers of bureaucratism.

One of such idiosyncratic eclectics was Chen Erjin, who provided a model for socialist democracy with a two-party system in his long essay ‘On Proletarian Democratic Revolution’ in Siwu luntan in June 1979. Also Chen saw the Democracy Movement as the agent that carried continued the unfolding socialist revolution, and, as he pointed out quoting Engels in the ‘Civil War in France’, the duty of the proletarian democratic revolution was to abolish the centralisation of political and economic power in the hands of a small minority. For Chen ‘Marxist state proletarian socialist democracy’ was based on public ownership and self-management of the people.84 As he saw it, the workers could be truly empowered only under proletarian democracy where their human character and wisdom would be protected and developed and the leaders could lead only by consent of the led. When the rights and freedoms of speech, publication, assembly, and organisation were protected also the people’s creativity was protected and encouraged. Classes, exploitation and oppression would vanish. Standard of living would rise, and the greatness of communism would be demonstrated to all. For Chen this kind of socialist democracy had its sources in the October revolution, the Paris Commune and the examples of the societies in Europe and America.85

However, after paying tribute to the Paris Commune, Chen argued that at the present the Chinese should also learn from the strong points of European and American societies and used a lot of space and quotations to show that the great masters, Lenin and Engels, had accepted learning and emulating capitalist practises for socialist purposes. Chen also quoted the U.S. Declaration of Independence on the right of people to resist tyranny, as well as Montesquieu in ‘The Spirit of Laws’ about the separation of powers into judiciary, legislative and executive branches. Also the American political system was an inspiration to Chen with its rights and freedoms of speech, assembly, publication, organisation, a written constitution, regular elections and checks and balances, separation of the army from culture, a two-party system, local self-government and not having a bureaucratic system and appointing cadres from above.86

84 Chen Erjin: Lùn wúchǎnjiējí mǐnzhǔ gémìng [On Proletarian Democratic Revolution], Siwu luntan 10th issue (8 / 1979), June 1979, CUP 1, 142. Munro (1984b, 15-17) sees that Chen’s essay was the first one in the Democracy Movement that made it clear that ‘revisionism’ (i.e. bureaucratism) was a product of state ownership of economy and a Stalinist political system, not a result of a conspiracy within the Party and re-emergence of the old bourgeoisie. However, here Munro gives too much originality to Chen, whose basic structural analysis of the origins of the new bureaucratic class did not differ much from the rest of the Democracy Movement. Chen was not even first one to argue this in the journals like Munro lets to understand. 85 Ibid., 143-14586 Ibid., 145-148. As Munro (1984b, 30-31) points out, some influence of the Paris Commune model could be found in Chen’s argumentation in the way he did for example advocate direct elections on all tiers of government that was a feature from the Paris Commune. Chen Erjin also called his system ‘dual Paris Commune system’.



As Chen argued, in China the Cultural Revolution had caused great changes in the relationship between the Party and the people: the ruling institutions were not in accord with socialist base and they had become ‘obstacles of the Marxist revolution’. Now the Chinese needed the realisation of the second stage of socialist revolution and for Chen it was obvious that this would borrow much from Western state systems, but it would not abandon socialist economy.87 More radically, Chen proposed a two-party system under Marxist constitution, with the goal to make the Communist Party to really obey the law. The two Marxist parties should have their own media and provide their own candidates for elections. Political competition between the two parties would benefit the search for truth and prevent conspiracies of silence. Competition would also help in supervising the executive branch of the government and protect against abuses of power, making possible timely corrections to wrong lines as well as guarding against the degeneration of the Party into a bureaucratic monopolistic privileged class of masters enslaving the people. Chen used the Watergate scandal as an example of protection against the abuse of power in a two-Party system, but for him the benefits of such system were based on longer historical experiences.88

More radical party systems were also proposed by Zhongguo Renquan which called for multi-party elections89 and Jiedong which advocated restoring the KMT as the second party in the Mainland90. However, it is also good to note that even Chen who was willing to adopt two-party system according the American example actually transposed this model onto the problem of controlling bureaucratism. In this he missed, or discarded, the essence of Western parliamentary democracy. The two parties he envisaged were there to supervise each other, not to represent the differing interests of different groups of citizen in the public arena –other than those of the people against the bureaucrats (or the ‘revisionists’, as Chen called them). This was naturally a result of the view that the people as a single class could have only one class interest under socialism and that the officialdom could develop class interests of its own. Borrowing from liberal systems was therefore ultimately based on the class-based view of democracy and seen in the light of the need to solve the contradiction between the people and revisionism. Chen’s Marxism therefore excluded notion of multi-party system as a product of genuine social (and socialist) pluralism.

Critical Marxists

For eclectics the defence of their variations of socialist democracy was based on reading Marxism as an adaptable system and the role of democratic institutions and human rights in historical progress. Moving to the ‘right’ on the axis, however, the Democracy Movement activists’ adherence to Marxist principles got notably thinner. Here a further subdivision could be made between those arguing that Marxism should be taken as any other ideology or theory and given no special status in society and those rejecting Marxism totally. Writers arguing along both of these lines could be found mostly in Tansuo, Zhongguo Renquan, Jiedong and Kexue Minzhu Fazhi. Although it drew much of attention especially from foreign observers and the antagonists of the movement in the Party, the right wing of the Democracy Movement was a minority to begin with. However, apart from scepticism or outright hostility towards Marxism and the Party, even the right wing shared many assumptions about the state of the Chinese society with the rest of the Democracy Movement.87 Chen Erjin: Lùn wúchǎnjiējí mǐnzhǔ gémìng, 152-15388 Ibid., 153-15589 Zhongguo rénquánméng zhī Rén-Dà chángwěihuì jíqí fǎzhì wěiyuánhuìde gōngkāixìn [Open Letter from Chinese Human Rights League to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and Its Legal System Committee], Zhongguo renquan 3a / 1979, CUP 3, 249-250; 90 Xuānyán [Declaration], Jiedong 1 / 1979, CUP 20, 287-288



Critical stance denied Marxism any special status in society. It was demonstrated for example in a Tansuo article ‘Look! Where Are the Chinese People’s Own Thoughts?’ where the author Mu Yi (the penname for Yang Guang) developed an argument for scientific and objective study of Marxism. According to Yang Guang, even if the Communist regime had used brute force to indoctrinate people with its official dogma, the fantasy of having hundreds of millions people with “one opinion and one way of thinking” had not yet came true. Instead, Marxism as the people knew it was “either fabricated empty talk with no tight system, or popular undesirable coarse folk custom and unbearable absurd religion.” The 30 years under tyranny had forced people to accept Marxism as the sole truth, and those who had wanted to study it scientifically had been persecuted. As the result even if people may have detested Marxism they had to support it in public.91

As Yang argued, for the youth living under such conditions it had been hard to prevent blind worship of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought. To live with Marxism everywhere around you, unable to compare it with anything else, and seeing everywhere the signs of how the disloyal were treated with ridicule, mockery, struggle and terror had made the smart to profess their belief in Marxism and the stupid even sacrifice their lives for it. As the result many young people had lost their faith in their own thinking and confidence that they could study non-Marxist thoughts and their achievements. The youth had no way of knowing if the Marxist notions of communism and class-consciousness were right or wrong. This was the basis of a fascistic tyranny, which made mockery of the scientific nature of Marxism. The results were there to everybody to see: ossification, apathy, stupidity, stagnation, ignorance and silly manners.92

Yang compared Marxism to a religion: in Marxism people were told to work hard and sacrifice all comforts for the sake of the coming life and were kept ignorant of other possibilities. But now people were starting to doubt this all as the Fifth of April Movement and the Democracy Wall Movement were spreading sparks of free democracy to the every corner of the country. He argued:

“The only way to get the country on the road of prosperity is to stop at once the stupid politics of using tyranny to carry out one ism, and to rely on the Chinese to explore things freely without restrictions. Let every Chinese ride their own thoughts!”93

This meant that those who wanted Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong thought could have it but should not be able to force anyone who did not want it. Those who wanted to get rid of Marxism should be allowed to abandon it. If Marxism would collapse because of free discussion, it would be a natural result and it obviously would have to go.94

Other writers arguing for free comparison of Marxism with other ideas were Lu Lin of Tansuo95 and Hou Baochen of Kexue Minzhu Fazhi.96 However, while critical Marxist still allowed Marxism to defend itself in free competition with other thoughts, some of the activists had already made up their minds and discarded it altogether. This kind of anti-Marxist stance was best represented by Wei Jingsheng, who became one of the best known Democracy Wall Movement activists in the

91 Mu Yi (Yang Guang): Kàn! héchù shì Zhōngguó rénde zìjǐde sīwéi? [Look! Where Are the Chinese People’s Own Thoughts?] (26.1.1979), Tansuo 2 / 1979, CUP 2, 12-1392 Ibid., 14-1593 Ibid., 1694 Ibid., 17-2195 Lu Lin: ‘Xìnrèn wēijīde’ gēnyuán [The Source of the ‘Crisis of Confidence’], Tansuo 5 / 1979, CUP 4, 6096 Hou Baochen: Qǐng kǎolǜ shìfǒu yīngdāng jìnzǎo huīfù zhéxué yánjiūde běnlái míngyì? [Please Consider: Is It Not High Time to Return to the Original Meaning of Philosophical Research?], Kexue minzhu fazhi Minzhuqiang shiwenxuan 5 / 1979 (15.3.1979), CUP 10, 126-127



West. Nevertheless, the anti-Marxist alternative represented a minority line in the Beijing Democracy Movement journals and contributions to the line rested heavily on the shoulders of Tansuo and Jiedong.

The way Wei differed from the mainstream of the Democracy Movement was already in his diagnosis of the contradictions in Chinese society. Wei did not identify as that between the people and bureaucratism or Leftism; instead he argued that the source of the grievances was the totalitarian (极权主义 , jíquánzhǔyì) political system. For Wei history was driven forward by the struggle between totalitarianism and democracy. However, Wei did not give this struggle class character but saw it was based on individuals struggling for freedom and personal happiness. The influence of the theory of a new class was nevertheless evident also in his diagnosis of the socio-political situation in China and the way he saw democracy as the ideal solution to the contradiction between the rulers and the ruled. However, Wei was one of the few activists who used this notion to discard the value of Marxism altogether.

In his essays Wei developed shortly a historical argument of how democratic movement and Marxism had originally went hand in hand in the communist world movement until socialist countries had abandoned socialism’s original ideals and turned into corrupted tyrannies of the few.97

For Wei, democracy was a system whereby the people were able to use their political rights as equals to protect their rights to pursue better life. However, proletarian dictatorship negated the people’s equal rights to live because when Marxism had evolved into Leninism, a ‘merciless fight against the counterrevolutionaries’ had negated the rights of all men to participate in government and thereby their equal right of life. When this had happened, socialist democracy had lost its truly democratic features and became hideous dictatorship. For Wei, the suppression of peoples’ equal rights was the reason why polities that employed Marxist socialism had degenerated into non-democratic and anti-democratic autocratic systems without exception. Democracy was not a system of centralisation and discipline, but co-operation and mutual benefits. If this became confused once more the Chinese would return to the dictatorship like under Mao Zedong.98

Wei’s hostility to Marxism was shown also in the way he discussed the reasons why Marxism did not recognise equal human rights. As Wei argued, Marx had stated that complete and full equality was not possible until the ideal society was established –before it the struggle for equal human rights was said to be meaningless. Although this had been a subjective assertion from Marx, it had made much damage as it had “left many thinkers dumbfounded, and was used as the main argument by the devious careerists to deceive the peoples in backward countries.” For Wei it was a great lie that only under despotism people could acquire equality. Wei’s argument was totally the opposite. Only democracy could guarantee equal rights.99 Indeed, Wei argued that the attraction of Marxism was in its deceptive and mistaken view about rights:

“To guarantee absolutely and without limits any fantastic desires is the wishful thinking of the lazy and weak, Marxism uses the indolent and weak mentality of the people and relies on the big words to satisfy all desires to lure and deceive the masses.”100

Wei argued that the Marxist notion that material desires could someday be fully satisfied was absurd and would entail the end of history. If all desires would be fulfilled, mankind would stop

97 Wei Jingsheng: Rénquán píngděng yǔ mínzhǔ [Human rights, Equality and Democracy], Tansuo 3, CUP 2 / 1979, 41-42; Wei Jingsheng: Ershí shìjìde bāshìdǐyù [The 20th Century Bastille], Tansuo 3 / 1979, CUP 2, 68-7798 Ibid., 46-4799 Wei Jingsheng: Xù dì wǔ gè xiàndàihuà, 8-9100 Wei Jingsheng, Rénquán píngděng yǔ mínzhǔ, 47



progressing, and this was something no one probably wanted.101 Marxism therefore built its ideal society on wrong and unachievable premises fooling people with fantasies in doing so. Therefore, Wei called Marxism idealism (理想主义, lǐxiǎngzhǔyì), which was the ultimate criticism against an ideology that saw itself as opposing idealism. He also saw that although the socialist world movement had been originally tied to the democratic movement, the main pillar of totalitarianism, pursuing ideal society, could already be found in Marx. Therefore, also Marxism’s ‘scientific’ nature had contributed to its totalitarianism.102 Wei also argued that because Marxism could not analyse its own theoretical premises, its theory and practise showed very different results. Marxism also could not tolerate other theories and its idealism was therefore inclined against democracy and in favour of dictatorship.103 Wei’s hostile standing towards Marxism was also revealed in his defence in the court in October 1979.104 Wei argued:

“Marxism’s fate is similar to many religions in history, after their first and second phase their revolutionary nature weakens, and their theories’ ideal parts become pretexts to enslave and deceive the people and theory’s nature goes through a profound change.”105

Also for Wei, true democracy included that the representatives who ran the things for the people were elected by them, and managed affairs according to the people’s opinions and interests. The people should have the power to remove the officials whenever they choose “to prevent that these representatives swindle the people in their name.”106 Indeed, in his formulation of democracy as the people taking charge of affairs and based on elections Wei was close to the mainstream of the Democracy Movement. Of the other journals, also Jiedong published an essay defending democratic reforms that lacked any attempts to justify them through Marxism and argued for the freedoms and rights the Democracy Movement activists deemed most important for them: election, speech, demonstration, publication, belief, and organisation. Even if their argument did not use Marxism to justify democratic reforms the way rights were defended based on their progressive historical nature revealed Marxist understanding of history in the background.107

Conclusions

All the variations in the theme of socialist democracy proposed by the movement held in common the notion of the people managing its own affairs through institutions of elections, human or citizen’s rights and strong legal system that the Party, while it still existed, had to honour and follow. In most cases, earlier research has regarded the two loose groupings named here as the classical and eclectic Marxists as ‘moderates’. But as shown there exited notable differences within this camp. One can also ask how justified was this name after all? Also the ‘moderates’ were demanding profound changes in the existing political institutions. Especially the rules of exclusion that kept most of the Chinese outside any meaningful political participation had to be abolished. Even if they retained the belief in Marxism and socialism and even in the necessity of the Party’s

101 Ibid., 47-48102 Wei Jingsheng, Xù dì wǔ gè xiàndàihuà -mínzhǔ jí qítā, 19103 Wei Jingsheng, Rénquán píngděng yǔ mínzhǔ, 48-49104 Wèi Jīngshēng zìwǒ biànhùcí [Wei Jingsheng’s Plea for Innocence], Siwu Luntan 14th issue (11 / 1979), November 1979, CUP 9, 84-90105 Ibid., 88106 Wei Jingsheng: Xù dì wǔ gè xiàndàihuà, 7-8107 Lùn rénquán [On Human Rights], Lun renquan 3 / 1979, 8.1.1979, CUP 14, 287-288



leading the society in the transition, their reform proposals would have signified huge changes in the way the regime actually worked and finally meant the end of the Party as it was known. Furthermore, they accepted that there exited a serious conflict between the people and bureaucratism that necessitated the reforms. Their demands marked a radical changes whether or not justified through Marxism and whether or not it had any role for the Party in them. Added to this was of course the matter of actually practising the rights they demanded outside the Party control in the Democracy Movement.

However, also an analysis of Wei Jingsheng’s notions of democracy shows that even he shared much the same diagnostic and prognostic notions with the rest of the Democracy Movement. Also he argued for democracy as the means to end the conflict in Chinese society between the ruled and the rulers and as an arrangement whereby the people supervised the rulers, not political system that allowed representation of various interests and political competition. Although his emphasis on individual was probably acquired through reading Enlightenment thinkers108 also his concept of democracy was based on the notion of socialist democracy as ‘people being their own masters’.109

Also many of the Democracy Movement’s mainstream activists saw that Tansuo’s general direction was nevertheless scientific socialism and to term it advocating capitalism or anarchism was wrong. Indeed arguing this, even the editors of the Beijing zhi chun made a rare praise for Tansuo by stating that “The state form it [Tansuo] pursues is likely to be much more advanced than our present one.’110 This is also noted by Burns who saw that. Wei was advocating some sort of ‘un-Marxist socialist democracy’.111 Visions of socialist democracy were therefore diverse but united in the target.

108 Buruma (2003, 104) notes that Wei, as an offspring of high Party cadres, had had access to restricted libraries, where he had studied himself with Marxist works, but also Enlightenment classics. However, unlike many other writers in the Democracy Movement, Wei never announced the sources of his ideas openly.109 Wei was not consistent in this, however, as he also praised capitalist economic model for its efficiency (Wei Jingsheng, Xù dì wǔ gè xiàndàihuà, Tansuo 1 / 1979, CUP 1, 21-22)110 Bianjibu wenzhang: Shíshì-qiúshì, jiānchí yuánzé [Seek Truth from Facts, Persist in the Principle], Beijing zhi chun 9 / 1979, DCDM I, 572-573111 1983, 45-46


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The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of ... · Lauri Paltemaa ([email protected]): The Democracy Wall Movement and the Variations of Socialist Democracy Lauri Paltemaa PhD