Opinion The red erring
China learned the wrong lesson from the Soviet collapse
Most of the world rejoiced when the Soviet Union disintegrated two decades ago. But in Beijing,the mood was considerably darker. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP),which itself barely survived the crisis of Tienanmen in the spring of 1989,was apparently grief-stricken. It was not because Chinese leaders themselves were particularly fond of their Soviet comrades. They were not. China and the former Soviet Union were mortal enemies for nearly three decades (from the 1960s to the 1980s). Rather,the reason for Beijing to grieve over the demise of the former Soviet Union was pure self-interest. In addition to losing its geopolitical advantage as the Wests balancer against Moscow,Beijing was worried that it could,at some point,suffer the same fate.
Such existential fears prompted top Chinese leaders,it has now been revealed,to convene immediately 10 half-day seminars on the causes of the fall of the Soviet Union. Academics,journalists and diplomats were brought to brief the most senior leaders of the CCP. The government also commissioned numerous research projects,at great cost,to study the fall of the Soviet regime.
Although the conclusions of these studies remain classified,it is not hard to guess,based on official propaganda and subsequent policy adjustments by the CCP,that Beijing seemed to have learned the following critical lessons from the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The most important lesson drawn by the Chinese leadership was that a communist regime would court its own downfall if it attempted to introduce democratic reforms. A Leninist party regime might seem invulnerable when bolstered by the secret police and other instruments of repression,but it is hopeless as a political organisation trying to compete for genuine political support,let alone votes,in a democratising society. Moreover,the criminal past of such a regime,concealed with lies and censorship,risks being exposed ruthlessly,as it was during glasnost in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s,thus destroying the regimes legitimacy instantaneously. The corollary of this insight was self-evident: China must resist any temptations of democratic reform and firmly repress those daring to challenge the Communist Partys political monopoly.
The second conclusion Chinese leaders reached was that the Soviet Union fell because of its poor economic performance. For the CCP to survive,it must gain popular support through raising their standards of living. Thus,promoting economic growth would be a matter of life and death for the party. Thats why Deng Xiaoping declared,two decades ago in his famous tour of southern China that re-energised Chinese reforms,development is the cardinal truth.
Noticing the role played by social elites in the toppling of the Soviet regime (and recalling its own bitter struggle against the liberal intelligentsia in the 1980s),Chinese leaders realised that they could not afford to allow Chinas emerging social elites to join the potential political opposition. From this lesson sprung Beijings post-1992 strategy of co-opting the intelligentsia and wealthy private businessmen. Salaries,perks and political status of college professors were raised. The party actively recruited them,along with millions of college students,into the party. Private entrepreneurs,once denounced as untrustworthy capitalists,were also allowed into the party.
These three lessons from the Soviet collapse,to a large extent,shaped Beijings post-Tienanmen strategy. They explained why,for example,Chinese leaders maintained consistently a policy of aggressively promoting economic growth but steadfastly resisting democratisation in the last two decades. Based on its record of delivering double-digit growth and keeping itself solidly in power,the party should be forgiven for believing it has learned the right lessons from the Soviet collapse.
In retrospect,some of the lessons Beijing learned from Moscows implosion in 1991 were not necessarily wrong. The Soviet Unions economic failure was undoubtedly a major cause of the collapse of the Soviet communist system. Moscows imperial overreach and disastrous arms race with the United States was another contributing factor (this particular lesson made Chinese leaders extremely cautious and prudent in their foreign policy until recently).
However,the most important lesson the CCP learned from the Soviet collapse that it was caused by democratic reform was wrong. What really did the Soviet Union in was not Mikhail Gorbachevs glasnost and perestroika,but the two decades of political stagnation preceding his ascendance to supreme authority in 1985. It was during these two decades of corruption and decay that the Soviet system became terminally ill. When Gorbachev attempted to revive this moribund regime,it was beyond salvaging.
If the Soviet collapse is to be interpreted in this light,we should be very worried about the future of the CCP because todays China,despite its apparent economic success and dynamism,shares some striking similarities with the pre-Gorbachev Soviet political system. Its political elites are deeply cynical,corrupt,and insecure. The party itself,like its Soviet counterpart,has degenerated into a gigantic patronage machine and a self-serving oligarchy,with superficial connection with the rest of society. The official ideology is all but bankrupt and,worse,the partys brightest minds seem to be incapable of offering a new vision that can rally the Chinese people for a new national purpose. Bereft of democratic legitimacy and afraid of opening up the political process,the party is increasingly relying on the security apparatus to suppress dissent and hold on to power.
The question on everyones mind now is: can such a system be reformed? Until recently,most Westerners thought that the Chinese economic miracle would make its political evolution towards democracy easier. But they forgot one critical factor: the Chinese Communist Party,convinced of the danger of democratisation,is determined to prevent such evolution. As a result,the Chinese political system has hardly evolved,making any real reform in the future more difficult and dangerous.
If at some point in the future,the CCP meets the same ending as its Soviet brethren,we should attribute its political undoing to its intellectual failure learning the wrong lesson from the Soviet collapse.
The writer is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in the US
express@expressindia.com
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