After The Cultural Revolution?
Historian-author Dongping Han was a peasant who lived through the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath.
In reply to questions about the era, Prof. Dongping Han sent me this, with permission to share it with you:
Elites and commoners
Most Chinese elites would agree that Mao was very important for China. On the other hand, most common Chinese people would argue that Mao was indispensable both in the victory of the Chinese Revolution and the founding of the PRC.
Most Chinese elite argue that Mao made terrible mistakes during the Cultural Revolution. But most Chinese common people cherished the accomplishments of the cultural revolution when there was no official corruption, no crime, no drugs and no prostitutes throughout Chinese society, when officials had to work with farmers and workers on a regular basis. They would tell you that, in 1955, the Chinese Government gave ten people the rank of Marshal, ten people the rank of Da Jiang (four star General), 57 people Shang Jiang (three star general), 177 people Zhong Jiang (two star general) and 1360 people the rank of Shao Jiang (one star general), a total of 1616 people. None of these people were found to be corrupt. That was in itself an impossible accomplishment.
There is an old saying in China, the administration of a state is mostly the administration of the officials. Official corruption has plagued the Chinese state and society throughout its entire history. The Mao Era is an exception.
The Gang of Four
Before Mao died, he never appointed Hua Guofeng his successor. There was no historical record that Mao ever met with Hua Guofeng, even once, on a one to one basis. Mao did meet Hua Guofeng on a few occasions after April 6, 1975 when Hua Guofeng accompanied foreign dignitaries to see Chairman Mao. Mao dismissed Deng Xiaoping after the Tiananmen Square Incident on April 5, 1975, and Hua Guofeng was appointed acting premier then.
Yao Wenyuan, one of the Gang of Four, left a memoir which was circulated on the internet. In that memoir, Yao Wenyuan claimed that in July 1976, the political bureau discussed personnel arrangements with Chairman Mao without a definitive decision. Hua Guofeng or Zhang Chunqiao would be premier, Jiang Qing would be the Party Chairman, Wang Hongwen would be head of the People’s Congress and so on. And before the party was able to finalize its personnel arrangements Mao died. This left a tremendous, tantalizing moment for some people to seize the national power.
According to Shi Dongbin, who claimed that he interviewed Hua Guofeng and wrote the famous book: Duanzan de Chunqiu (A Brief Dynasty). In the book, Shi Dongbin claimed that it was Wang Dongxing who suggested to Hua Guofeng to arrest the
Gang of Four. He argued that if he did not take action right away, Jiang Qing would not allow him to serve as premier. Hua Guofeng rejected the idea the first time. But he agreed to do it when Wang Dongxing pressed him to do it the second time. Hua Guofeng did not have any differences with the Gang of Four. But Wang Dongxing could not tolerate the Gang of Four. The Gang of Four knew it, and Mao knew it, and Wang Dongxing knew it as well.
In reality, there was a coup in the Chinese Government after Mao died. It was the first time in the history of the Chinese Communist Party to arrest the top leaders like that.
Hua Guofeng and Wang Dong Xing both resisted Deng Xiaoping’s return for two years. But in the end, they were no match for Deng Xiaoping’s scheming and maneuvering. Wang Dongxing resigned first with six political bureau members in less than two years. Hua Guofeng had to resign one year later. Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, along with those who were dismissed by Mao during the Cultural Revolution years returned to power in China.
After the coup
Let us see what happened in China after that. First move by Deng Xiaoping: All the Communist officials who joined the revolution before the founding of the PRC were given special treatment: one or two raises in salary, unlimited medical care expenses which accounted for about 80 percent of the total medical care expenses in China. Some high officials would occupy ICU rooms reserved for high officials for years. Thirteen months salary for those who joined the revolution after 1945 and before Oct 1, 1949, 14 months salaries for those who joined the revolution before 1945, and 15 months salary for those who joined the revolution before 1937. The government would pay for a nanny to take care of them. One tour: a year of a location of their choice with their family at the government expenses. Every local government set up a special government department to take care of these old officials. On top of that, the children of these officials were appointed to important positions of the government before they retired. It literally turned China into a feudal system.
That is why the Tiananmen Square demonstrations took place in 1989. Inflation ran wild. The price of consumer goods went up tenfold, a hundredfold over night. In 1984, China printed more money than the previous thirty five years. People thought the old inflation of the Jiang Jieshi’s time was coming back. My mother bought two hundred feet of white clothes, and one of her neighbors got four hundred pound of salt. Another neighbor bought twenty black and white TV sets. My parents saved two thousand yuan over thirty years, and was wiped out overnight in 1984.
Crime wave
Crimes increased ten times, then twenty times from 1976 to 1983, and the number of policemen went up ten times. Bandits which completely disappeared during the Mao era returned with a vengeance. I traveled on the bus in Henan Province during the 1980s and 1990s. Once the bus left the urban areas, the bandits would take out a knife, and force the passengers to give them money. They would threaten the people out of the window if they refuse to comply. In September 1983, Deng Xiaoping ordered a severe punishment of crimes and criminals. Cities and Counties were given quotas to execute and imprison criminals. More than two hundred thousand people were executed, and close to one million were sentenced to prison in a matter of a few weeks in complete disregard of the law. Deng did that three times before he died in 1997.
During the Mao era, Chinese farmers did not pay land tax individually. It was the collective that paid a land tax of ten jin per Chinese acre. After Deng Xiaoping disbanded the collective, individual farmers had to pay the land taxes. Village and local officials added what they wanted to add to the land taxes, which was one form of corruption, which plagued China throughout its history. When I was doing research in the Chinese countryside, I found the land taxes in Henan, Anhui, had reached 200 jin per Chinese acre by 1990, twenty times of the Mao Era. That was one reason why there were more than one hundred thousand protests by farmers against the Chinese local government in the 1990s.
The One Child Policy
During the Mao era, the Chinese Government did a wonderful job in controlling population growth, by educating the Chinese people to marry late and have only two children. But after the disbanding of the collectives, the Chinese farmers no longer trust the Government. They thought the government was not reliable any more. They needed to have more children to take care of their old age. At the time, Chinese farmers did not have a retirement arrangement with the government. They relied on the collective for their old age. They relied on the collective for their children’s education and medical care. When the collectives were disbanded, farmers had nothing but their own children for old age security.
Deng Xiaoping cut the national spending on the rural areas from 15 percent to 3 percent after he came back to power.
Deng Xiaoping’s answer to the population growth was one child policy, forcing farmers to have only one child. If you refuse to comply, it will first cut off water and electricity, then dismantle your house. Village and local officials would come to farmers’ houses at midnight, and drag pregnant women to the hospital to operate on them. It was like hell at that time. I saw it with my own eyes. Farmers said that Deng Xiaoping’s Communist Party was no different from Jiang Jieshi’s Nationalist Party.
Four hundred million babies were aborted as a result of one child policy. Today, the problem that young people in China refused to marry and have children dated back to Deng Xiaoping.
Privatization
Also under Deng Xiaoping, more than forty million workers of state owned enterprises lost their job and benefits overnight. Housing was privatized, medical care and education commercialized. The current housing crisis was first started by Deng Xiaoping era.
Official corruption became rampant. I have interviewed hundreds of Chinese officials. Even these officials themselves admitted that they would be shot ten times if it was during the Mao era.
Without Xi Jinping’s efforts to curb Chinese official corruption, it is doubtful if the Chinese Government would have been able to survive.
But the price is very high. Millions each year of different level officials were arrested and persecuted and ended up in prison.
Xi Jinping had arrested three vice Chairmen of the national military commission and a few dozen of high officiers. It is a dangerous game. I would argue that anything can happen when the military establishment is no longer stable. All this started by Deng Xiaoping and his policies. He poisoned Chinese political culture, a culture that serves the people and is trusted by the people, cultivated by Mao during the Cultural Revolution years.
Class warfare
China is a big country with a very complicated political culture. When we talk about Chinese politics and Chinese history we can not talk about it in general. For example, most Chinese elites hated the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of four. They hated Mao as well, because they suffered during the Mao era, but they dared not to say it. But I never met a Chinese farmer or worker who hated the cultural revolution or Gang of four. They love Mao so much. Many of them now are openly talking that they would give up their own life to bring Mao back to Chinese society.
In a class society, we can not talk about politics without discussing class issues.
Class struggle is real, and is a life and death issue.
In that Mao has won, socialism has won in China. In the longer run, Mao will win, and socialism will win.
Joseph Schumpter, the famous Harvard Professor of economics, wrote in his classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, “if you asked me if capitalism will die, I will tell you without any hesitation, it will. If you ask me if socialism will win in the end, I will tell you without any hesitation it will, despite its problems”. I have already seen enough in China and in the U.S. to feel that capitalism is in its last breath. – Dongping Han.
Thank you, Godfree. This is extraordinary reading.