WU YONG
BEIJING, Jul. 20
If the Chinese Communist Party intends to implement democracy within the Party, as it has stated, it must first fully guarantee freedom of speech within the Party. This suggestion was made by Li Rui, former secretary to Mao Zedong, at a committee meeting of the 16th National Congress last year. This suggestion was sincere and represented the views of others as well as Li.
Freedom of speech is a critical aspect of democracy. Without it, Party members cannot express their will and the Party cannot draw on their collective wisdom. It is the antidote to the Party's mindset that leaders are more intelligent than their subordinates, and to the "I speak, you follow" mode of operation of the Chinese Communist authorities.
Li Rui suggested that Party members should be allowed to express different opinions about major decisions at Party meetings and in its publications. They should also be allowed to criticize other Party members, including the top leaders. For the Communist Party, which has insisted on "one voice" among its members, this would represent substantial progress if it were implemented.
Second, the Communist Party must allow people who share similar political viewpoints to form groups within the Party, or even divide into different organizations, which is a necessary step for the democratic process to occur.
Different political opinions are the result of observation and reflection on social conflicts from different angles. Considering various arguments is helpful in fully understanding the social conditions and meeting different demands in a balanced way. It reflects the vitality of the social organism. In order to guarantee fair competition, we should not restrict different political viewpoints. Instead we should support open discussion, comparison and evaluation of various views, as multiple views are an essential element of democracy.
The Chinese Communist Party has long implemented a strictly closed and unified policy, discouraging competitiveness and resulting in a lack of vitality. A well-known professor of law at Beijing University, He Weifang, said frankly, "We love the Party very much, that's why we must speak our minds." He expressed the hope that the Party would allow two factions to form within it to reflect different views. This would invigorate the Party.
In reality, there is already confrontation between right and left views within the Party. It would be better to allow open debate between these factions rather than have them struggle in secret.
The Communist Party does not now exist as only one organization, one principle, one leader, and one voice, as dictated under Lenin and Stalin. In a democratic environment, communist parties have taken different forms. There are at least three active communist parties in India; the Japanese Communist Party has experienced many changes since its founding, which is normal. Whether the Chinese Communist Party dares to allow different factions to emerge, or even to form different groups, is a severe test of the substantive will to promote democracy within the Party.
Finally, abolishing "democratic centralism" is essential for the growth of intra-party democracy, as this concept is the rationale of autocracy.
The implied meaning of "centralism based on democracy and democracy guided by centralism," as written into the constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, was declared publicly by Mao Zedong: democracy is only a tool to bring about centralism. It was not intended that the two concepts would be equally applied. In fact, the essential intent was to allow the autocrats to deceive the people in the name of democracy.
The renowned Marxist theoretician and professor at People's University, Gao Fang, has researched this point. He has said, "The organizational principle of the Communist Party should be democracy, not democratic centralism." He has also commented, "There is no democracy that is not centralized, but there is centralism that is not democratic," and pointed out that nowadays many Communist Parties no longer refer to democratic centralism.
Of course, as an autocratic party, the Chinese Communist Party finds it hard to accept these advanced ideas of democracy. As a decaying and declining party, it may not be able to withstand such significant surgery.
What we are seeing now is that the Party, observing worldwide trends toward democracy, is suggesting that the Party may be revived by implementing internal democracy. Yet it is only proposing perfunctory and symbolic reforms to prolong its life. If there is no inner strength or determination within the Party to transform the old into the new, these external reforms will have little effect.
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(Wu Yong is a former senior journalist and editor in China. He is now a freelance writer who frequently publishes commentaries in overseas media. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online. The original may be found at www.chinaeweekly.com and www.ncn.org. cCopyright Wu Yong. )
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