Writings of a Chinese dissident
The Courage to Stand Alone
by Wei Jingsheng — Penguin Books, 1998
288 pp.
Review by Chris Slee
Wei Jingsheng spent nearly two decades in prison for campaigning for democratic rights in China. He was imprisoned from 1979 to 1997 (apart from a brief period on parole in 1993). He is now living in exile in the United States.
This book contains letters he wrote while in prison, as well as "The Fifth Modernisation: Democracy", a political manifesto initially published in poster form in 1978, plus Wei's trial speech and some autobiographical notes.
Wei had been a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. The Cultural Revolution is usually regarded as a tactic used by Mao Zedong to purge his rivals in the Communist Party.
Wei views it somewhat differently. He says: "It was the result of an explosion of pent-up rage that had been accumulating for many years due to the ever-widening gap between official policy and actual reality ...
"Clearly the Cultural Revolution was not initiated by the "Great Helmsman" Mao Zedong alone ... Yet somehow this explosion of rage took on the form of tyrant worship ... This reveals both the blindness of the mass struggle and the extent to which the people's minds remained shackled by feudalistic ideas ... They opposed the system of hierarchy and servitude while waving the banner of the very founder of that system [i.e., Mao]."
Wei, like many other Red Guards, eventually became disillusioned with Mao. He and his friends began campaigning for democracy, putting up posters and publishing an unofficial magazine called Exploration.
By this time, Mao had died and Deng Xiaoping had taken over. Democracy activists such as Wei were initially hopeful that Deng would implement democratic reforms.
However, Deng cracked down on dissent, and Wei was arrested and charged with "counter-revolutionary activities".
Wei's writings in this book focus on democracy and human rights issues. They contain very little economic analysis.
In his trial speech, Wei rejected the accusation that he was anti-socialist and said that he supported "democratic socialism". However, it is not clear what he meant by this.
In "The Fifth Modernisation: Democracy" there is a section headed "What kind of democracy do we want?". At one point, Wei says: "True democracy means placing all power in the hands of working people". He claims that "Yugoslavia has taken this route".
This seems to suggest that Wei, at that time (1978), supported the Yugoslav system of "workers' self-management", which was then widely regarded as a form of democratic socialism — an alternative to both capitalism and the Stalinist distortion of socialism. (In reality, the Yugoslav state remained bureaucratic and repressive, while competition amongst "self-managed" enterprises undermined socialist planning).
On the other hand, Wei also cites Europe and the United States as examples of democracy, simply because citizens are able to vote their leaders out of office. He does not discuss the limitations of formal democracy in a society where a wealthy minority, the capitalist class, holds economic power and is able to determine government policy, regardless of which elected politicians hold office.
The other writings in the book do little to clarify the question of what kind of democracy Wei wants to see in China.
He is eloquent in denouncing all manifestations of tyranny and authoritarianism, from the petty tyranny of the prison authorities to the wider tyranny of the Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping. He is also aware of oppression in other countries, such as South Africa, and makes reference to the black civil rights movement in the US. He denounces the racist oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese government.
What is missing is an understanding of the class basis of repression in China today. The Deng leadership promoted the development of capitalist economic relations in China, a process that is continuing today under Jiang Zemin.
The repression today serves the interests of those who own an ever-increasing proportion of society's wealth — the capitalists, both Chinese and foreign. The government represses working-class resistance to low wages, bad working conditions and unemployment.
Wei, however, seems to view political repression in China as a result of the survival of feudalism. He refers to Mao's regime as "feudal". He believes that in the post-Mao period there is an ongoing struggle between democracy and feudalism.
In reality, the main problem in China today is not feudalism but capitalism. The "communist" bureaucrats are accumulating private wealth by misappropriating state property, and transforming themselves into capitalists (private owners of the means of production and employers of wage labour). They use political repression to defend their wealth and power.
An understanding of the process of capital accumulation is absent from Wei's book. Although saying little about economic matters, Wei seems to generally support Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, while criticising the continuation of political repression.
Wei does, however, express concern about some aspects of the economic reforms. He criticises the fact that parents have to pay high fees for their children's education and advocates that society should "take collective responsibility for educating the next generation".
This criticism indicates that Wei is not an uncritical apologist for the "free market". Perhaps the rise of the working-class struggle against capitalist exploitation will enable him to see that capitalism (rather than the remnants of feudalism) is the main enemy of real democracy in today's China.