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Is Another Cultural Revolution in the Making?
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15292 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1989 |
2,034 Words |
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June Teufel Dreyer
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Comparisons between the present disturbances in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Cultural Revolution that racked the country during the last half of the 1960s are inevitable: Even China's leaders have made them. There are, however, some difficulties in comparing the two. Most notably, we have the advantage of two decades of perspective on the Cultural Revolution. Unlike the present situation, the effect of the Cultural Revolution on the leadership and on the Chinese people can be assessed. There are also a large number of eyewitness accounts in print for interested parties to parse and discuss. Finally, the Cultural Revolution can be definitively said to have ended; the events of the spring of 1989 may only be the opening round of a lengthy process.
These limitations notwithstanding, some striking similarities are evident between the events of 1966-1976 and those of 1989. In both, social upheaval stemmed from factional differences--including considerations of political philosophy and personal prestige--at the highest levels of leadership. And in the initial stages of both, young people provided the medium through which these disagreements were expressed. Later, as chaos and disorder spread, the respective leaderships turned to the army to restore order.
The dissimilarities, however, draw the most interest. First, the protests of 1989 grew out of long-standing popular frustrations with party and government on a wide range of issues. The protester's demands on the leadership widened differences of opinion within that leadership that had heretofore been muted. In the case of the Cultural Revolution, one faction of the leadership, the radicals, became frustrated with its efforts to have an orthodox Marxist-Leninist policy agenda accepted by its revisionist apponents and called out the Red Guards to tip the balance it its favor. In other words, the impetus for the Cultural Revolution came from the top leadership; that for the 1989 demonstrations, from the masses themselves.
A second difference involves the position of the country's paramount leader. Mao Zedong was revered, even worshipped, by the Red Guards. Statues were erected in his name; his advice was cited as the basis for the solution of all sorts of problems; and the absence of his picture on one's wall was frequently interpreted as a counterrevolutionary statement. Deng Xiaoping, by contrast, had explicitly ruled out the creation of a cult of personality for himself and in fact became the subject of popular vilification. Ditties were composed with verses such as "Under Mao, a yuan was worth a yuan; under Deng, a yuan is worth a fen" (that is, one-hundredth as much). In a symbolic gesture, small bottles were trampled underfoot or publicly smashed. (Deng's given name, Xiaoping, actually means "small piece," but the character happens to have the same sound as that for bottle, though it is written differently.)
Role of ideology
A third difference concerns the role of ideology. During the Cultural Revolution, the concern for adhering to the "correct" ideological path was all-absorbing: To stray from the path of true Marxist-Leninist was to step into a abyss of revisionism. Thus was one moved from the category of "the people" to that of "enemy of the people"; punishment could vary from slow torture to rapid execution, but was always expected to be harsh. The other side of the argument was never heard: Warring factions both
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