Wang Huning, “Reflections on the Cultural Revolution and the Reform of China's Political System"
Twenty years ago, the Chinese people suffered the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Ten years ago we turned the page on this catastrophe. However, we should still reflect on that civil upheaval from time to time, to prevent such a disaster from recurring.
A people should treat its most painful lessons as a mirror, keeping the mirror clean and looking in it frequently, so that generation after generation does not repeat the same mistakes and the people as a whole can continue to move forward. The Cultural Revolution did not happen by accident. In terms of ideas, we failed to shift the focus of work to economic construction in a timely manner, continued to insist on the ideological line of "taking class struggle as the key link," despite the fact that the exploiting class had been basically eliminated, and adopted the ideological line of “creative destruction破字当头,”[6] all of which were direct causes in terms of our thinking at the time. However, in the absence of certain conditions, the Cultural Revolution could not have occurred. In addition to historical, social, economic and cultural factors, an imperfect and unsound political system is a factor that cannot be underestimated.
Reflecting on the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of the political system is a particularly important part of summarizing the lessons of the Cultural Revolution. In recent years, people have analyzed the Cultural Revolution from any number of perspectives, including thought, ideology, culture, and the economy, but not enough has been done from the perspective of the political system.
Political systems often improve as a result of thinking about instances of political turmoil. No political system is perfect at the moment of its creation. It must recognize its own shortcomings and deficiencies in the course of its operations, practice, and the upheavals it encounters, and then move toward improvement and eventual perfection. Without this gradual process, a political system’s ingrained bad habits may be difficult to change. The Cultural Revolution was certainly a catastrophe, but it also provides us with a basis for examining our political system. Today, as we embark on political reform, it is useful and necessary to reflect deeply on the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of the political system, learning from the past and preparing for the future.
It would seem that a sound, healthy political system should have been able to prevent the Cultural Revolution, which was initiated, organized, and carried out outside of the scope of the constitution and the law, and did not conform to the scientific, democratic political process. However, the political system at the time did not have this capacity. The political system established by the 1954 Constitution was destroyed by the Cultural Revolution in one fell swoop. This is something that deserves our careful study. Setting other reasons aside for the moment, let's reflect on the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of the political system. A technical analysis of the political system reveals that the structure and function of some of the following elements help to explain why the Culture Revolution was not stopped.
First, the ruling party that constitutes the core leadership of our political life does not have a healthy internal democratic system. Our Party led the Chinese people through bloody battles and difficult struggles, establishing the socialist system and creating the lofty political prestige the Party enjoys; the Party exercises full leadership rights in our social and political life, which is appropriate for our path of development.
However, following subsequent changes in the situation and a misunderstanding of social class relations under conditions of socialism, the understanding of democracy by Party leaders at that time gradually declined, and "a work style based in subjectivism and individual dictatorship became increasingly serious and increasingly overruled the Party Center, so that the principles of collective leadership and democratic centralism in the political life of the Party and the state were constantly weakened to the point of destruction."[2] (Resolution on Certain Historical Problems of the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China).
Consequently, on the eve of the launch of the Cultural Revolution, the actual situation was as follows: the Party had overall political leadership over social life, and Party leaders had absolute leadership authority over the Party. Therefore, when Party leaders mistakenly decided to launch the Cultural Revolution, many cadres and Party members in our Party who disagreed were powerless to do anything about it. The inadequacy of the Party's internal democratic system made it impossible for the Party to prevent the wrongful act of launching the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in damage to the political life of the entire country.
Second, the National People's Congress, the organ of state power, was unable to exercise its power effectively and efficiently. The National People's Congress, as the highest organ of state power, should have had the solemn right to speak out and decide on the launching of a nationwide political movement like the Cultural Revolution. But in fact, soon after the start of the Cultural Revolution, the National People's Congress and local People's Congresses no longer functioned, and national leaders such as the Chairman were sidelined, and some were even persecuted and killed. The organs of state power had no ability to constrain this political upheaval involving China’s future destiny.
This, of course, had to do with the absence of a strict division of labor between the Party and the government. The absence of this division of labor meant the absence of checks and balances in the political system as well. Without mechanisms of countervailing power, society pays a heavy price when one element changes direction.
Third, there is a lack of strong constitutional guarantees in political life. The way in which the Cultural Revolution occurred and developed was in fact totally inconsistent with the spirit of our Constitution and its regulations, and the practices and methods employed during the Cultural Revolution were also completely unconstitutional. The Constitution dictates the status and authority of the National People's Congress and the basic procedures of the political life of the country. However, the Cultural Revolution simply “destroyed everything” and "seized all powers" without following any procedures, thus consigning state organs to paralysis.
The Constitution outlines the rights and duties of the Chairman, of deputies to the National People's Congress, and of citizens, but these rights and duties received no guarantee at all during the Cultural Revolution. The absence of a mechanism whose specific function was to make good on constitutional guarantees was also a condition for the Cultural Revolution.
Fourth, there was the lack of an independent judicial system. During the Cultural Revolution, there were many violations of the law, but no institutions that could actually exercise restraint. There were two aspects to this. First, there was no system to handle administrative complaints, and thus no place to deposit griefs against government agencies that infringed on citizens’ rights and individual freedoms; government agencies controlled by the Gang of Four and their henchmen could do whatever they wanted, and there was nothing citizens could do about it.
Second, the Cultural Revolution destroyed the general system for dealing with complaints, which meant that citizens had nowhere to file griefs about violations of their rights and interests, resulting in considerable beating, smashing, and looting, which constituted serious violations of human rights and human dignity. In addition, the public prosecution and law enforcement agencies were merged, and used to implement the Cultural Revolution, with no consideration of judicial independence. This meant that the Cultural Revolution became increasingly violent over time.
Fifth, the political system lacked a proper mechanism to decentralize vertical power. After 1949, for historical reasons, i.e., our long-standing political, economic, and cultural backwardness, and also because of following the Soviet model, our system came to be highly centralized system. This system had a positive side, in promoting the economic development of an underdeveloped society, but it also created a latent possibility in our political life, meaning that a mistake at the top could wind up implicating society as a whole. Local areas do not have much jurisdictional competence and do not have legal autonomy over decisions made at higher levels.
If local authorities were granted certain powers, to be are exercised without interference, in accordance with the Constitution, then in the event of civil unrest such as the Cultural Revolution, local areas might avoid being dragged into a wrong-headed political upheaval, nor could general institutions force local governments to act contrary to the Constitution. The lack of such mechanisms meant that local governments were powerless in the face of the Cultural Revolution.
Sixth, there was no healthy system for the hiring and employment of state workers. Any activity undertaken by a political system, whether the activity be constitutional or not, requires a certain number of people to carry out the activity. When the Cultural Revolution occurred, the absence of a strict and rigorous system regarding the hiring and employment of state workers allowed the Gang of Four to persecute good and loyal workers and replace them with people who were loyal to the Gang of Four. State employees, especially those with certain political responsibilities, should be appointed or dismissed through proper procedures, and cadres should not be appointed or hired haphazardly, as was the case during the Cultural Revolution.
All state employees at a significant level should be appointed or dismissed by the authorities. If the cadre system had ensured that cadres trusted by the people would assume political responsibilities, they might have been able to resist the Cultural Revolution to a certain extent. However, this system was not firmly in place at the time of the Cultural Revolution, so that the cadre system, which might have been effective in times of stability, became a major disadvantage in times of civil unrest.
Seventh, political life lacked a rigorous system to protect citizens' rights. Although the Cultural Revolution was a political upheaval that threatened the entire political system, it was also a disaster inflicted on the people. One social reason that made the Cultural Revolution possible was the widespread lack of a tradition of respect for citizens’ rights to democracy, freedom, and human rights. Civil unrest like the Cultural Revolution, which violated citizens' rights to democracy and human rights, would not have happened in a society where every citizen believes in democracy and where any violation of citizens' rights to democracy and human rights is punished by law and condemned by society. Both the lack of a strong sense of democracy and the rule of law in society, and the inability of the political system to effectively punish violations of citizens' democratic and human rights, served as social conditions for the launching of the Cultural Revolution.
Clearly, even if we limit ourselves to the perspective of political technology, the above-mentioned items are not comprehensive, but nonetheless cover the basics. The political development of a society can be regarded as a project—a political project. Political projects provide effective techniques and conditions for social and political activities and relationships, and ensure that social and political life unfolds according to the principles and methods that the people have chosen. Certain political ideals, concepts, and principles can only realized effectively and efficiently through well thought out political projects. Without such projects, it is difficult for political principles to work themselves out in practice. Political projects require political technology.
Thinking about the Cultural Revolution, people have come to the conclusion that in the past, we neglected the development and application of political technology. The victory of the New Democratic Revolution and the Socialist Revolution provided the basic conditions for the realization of the people's democratic dictatorship. But for a long time we neglected the work of how to use political technology to build a democratic legal system, and as a consequence, when the Cultural Revolution occurred, there was no sound political system to intervene and put an end to it, and instead, the system itself was quickly destroyed by civil strife. This profound historical lesson is worth learning.
Beginning about ten years ago, we began to pay considerable attention to this issue and took a series of constructive measures to improve the political system. In recent years, we have also focused on the reform of the political system. Through the above analysis, we see that an important direction for the reform of our political system is to ensure, from a technical perspective, that all aspects of the political system can function reasonably and effectively, including the relationship between the Party and the government, the relationships between various powers, the system of constitutional guarantees, the judicial system, the relationship between centralized and local powers, the cadre system and the democratization of society, etc. Through systematic political engineering, we can make our political system highly democratic, with a well-established legal system and an efficient political system.
Having reflected on the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, people have come to feel deeply that we should greatly develop our study of political technology in order to realize socialist democracy and the rule of law. On the one hand, this will involve thorough research and analysis to discover and create political technology that will be applicable to China's national conditions. On the other hand, we should compare and borrow from the political technologies employed by other countries throughout the world, including countries with similar socio-political systems and countries with different socio-political systems, adopting what is reasonable and scientific.
Different socio-political systems function according to different political principles, which are generally not interchangeable. But as political systems, all human communities face similar social questions and needs, as well as the same contradictions and problems. Some of the political technologies adopted to meet these needs and solve these problems are interchangeable. Economic management techniques from different economic systems can be imported, and the same is true for politics: certain methods developed in different systems can be imported or adapted. Of course, all societies have their own particular historical-social-cultural conditions. But a perfect socialist political system can be built only by studying and adopting scientific and rational political technologies found throughout the world.
Prior to the Cultural Revolution, for various reasons, we did not do this. Today, in the great process of modernizing our country, we clearly understand that we need to establish a solid political system, a fully democratic socialist system. Only this will ensure that the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution not be repeated, and our material and spiritual civilization will achieve unprecedented development.
Notes
[1], 王沪宁, "'文革'反思与政治体制改革," originally published in the World Economic Herard 世界经济导报 on May 8, 1986, available online here at the Reform Data website.
[2] An excellent overview of neo-authoritarian views and their context is Jude Blanchette, “Wang Huning’s Neo-Authoritarian Dream,” October 20, 2017.
[3] Jane Perlez, “Behind the Scenes, Communist Strategist Presses China’s Rise,” The New York Times, November 13, 2017.
[4] See for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323728204578513422637924256; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-president-inner-circle-western-officials.html; https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2116964/wang-huning-low-profile-liberal-dream-weaver-whos-about; https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/09/handling-of-us-trade-dispute-causes-rift-in-chinese-leadership-source.html; https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/does-china-want-a-second-decoupling-the-chinese-texts-say-it-does.html.
[5] See John Garnaut, “Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China,” Sinocism, January 16, 2019.
[6]Translator’s note: The longer phrase from which this comes is “destruction comes first, but creation is found within destruction破字当头，立在其中,” or “there is no creation without destruction, begin with destruction you will find creation within不破不立，破字当头，立在其中.”
[7]Translator’s note: In the original text of the Resolution, the subject of the quoted sentence is Mao Zedong: “Comrade Mao Zedong’s prestige reached a peak and he began to get arrogant at the very time when the Party was confronted with the new task of shifting the focus of its work to socialist construction, a task for which the utmost caution was required. He gradually divorced himself from practice and from the masses, acted more and more arbitrarily and subjectively, and increasingly put himself above the Central Committee of the Party. The result was a steady weakening and even undermining of the principle of collective leadership and democratic centralism in the political life of the Party and the country.” Wang uses the quote without making a direct reference to Mao, although virtually all readers would have understood who was being discussed. Translation taken from the Wilson Center Digital Archive, pp. 17-18.
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