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Keywords Chapter Five: Key characteristics of totalitarian regimes (Part Four)

Key characteristics of totalitarian regimes
Box 5.4 - Li Ji on Tyranny
Mature post-totalitarian rule
Towards a Chinese civil society
Box 5.5 - China's religious policy
Laying the groundwork for a legal system
Administrative reforms
A political marketplace
Chapter Five: Feeling the Stones as You Cross the River (Part One)
Chapter Five: No alternatives to market-democracy (Part Two)
Chapter Five: Why the trend to market-democracy (Part Three)
Chapter Five: A post-totalitarian regime (Part Five)
Chapter Five: References (Part Six)
Chapter Five: (Full Printable version)

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Key characteristics of totalitarian regimes

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Let’s start at point zero on our transformation matrix in Chapter Four. In the jargon of political science, totalitarian regimes have four key characteristics:

a total absence of pluralism,
a unified, utopian ideology,
intensive mobilisation of the people,
and a leadership ruling in undefined limits and great unpredictability for all concerned.

Recruitment to the top leadership depends on success in party institutions. Applied to Mao’s China, the CCP state asserted a monopoly over political power, economic resources and the truth. Initially, the party took over the state by force or ruse, crushed all opposition, ruled in the name of the masses and mobilised public enthusiasm for its projects. It soon got round to abolishing private property, any sign of an independent judiciary, and the open market for goods and services. Businesses were expropriated, press freedoms quashed, and foreigners kicked out of the country as aliens.

This is the point where totalitarians of the world unite in their similarities. Concentration camps are opened, where inmates serve as forced labour, if lucky. Limitless power accrues to the leaders, who soon enough, having dispatched real or imaginary enemies earlier than their time to the next life, turn on each other. Eventually, one Leader emerges, who purges any remaining foes. With a terrified, ill-informed and easily manipulated public at their beck and call, the tyrant reigns supreme. The secret police - in the case of Mao’s rule, the role of the secret police was played by the PLA - fall directly under the leader’s command. (See Box 5.4 below)

Box 5.4

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Li Ji on Tyranny

According to the Li Ji, a Confucian classic, Confucius and his students were walking through the forest and came across a woman sitting near an open grave. She was weeping profusely. When one of the tudents asked her why she was crying, she replied First my father–in-law was killed by a tiger. Later the tigers ate my husband. Now they have eaten my son as well. Confucius asked her why she did not leave the forest. The women replied, At least there is no oppressive government here. Confucius turned to his students and said, Remember this: Oppressive government is more terrible than tigers.

Nothing lasts for ever here below, definitely not dictators. They age, and as they do so, they rail against the fate that has not granted them long enough life to implement their utopias. Once dead, their successors place some constraints on leadership. Consider Hitler’s brief 12 years in power, Stalin’s paranoia about alleged failures among his lieutenants, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Andrew Nathan has aptly crowned him emperor of all tyrants: no other leader, Nathan writes, in history held as much power over so many people for so long as Mao Zedong, and none inflicted such a catastrophe on his nation.Reference [15] With such a ghastly record, the regime was no longer able to legitimise its rule by appeals to a vision of a communist utopia. Party leaders, many of them victims during the Cultural Revolution, were eager to ensure against unpredictable leadership concentrated in the hands on one man, while the masses had little no faith left in the regime.

Reflecting on Mao’s achievements in 1979, Chen Yun, inventor of the bird and cage analogy of economics, stated that

had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal.

Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man.

But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?

Paraphrasing, we can consider that

had Deng died in 1976, his name would have been soon forgotten.
Had he passed away in 1988, he may have been celebrated as the man who sidelined the reds for the experts in the party-state, and put China on the express train to market-democracy.
But he died in 1997, with the experts in charge steering towards market democracy, China-style. That is, with the shadow of the Tiananmen massacre hanging over the future.

Mature post-totalitarian rule

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Political scientists call the first step away from the Great Dictator’s regime as early post-totalitarian rule. Mature post-totalitarian rule emerges as party members settle down to enjoy their privileges, with less fear of a knock at the door at dead of night. Party rule transforms into a vast political market for preference. The privileged few keep the people at arms length, but declare the constant war against them to be over. This is received with some relief, but not too much affection by the masses whose expectations begin to rise for better living standards, and less arbitrary treatment at the hands of officials. Hence, mature post-totalitarianism is little more than a temporary staging post on the way to more political pluralism.

This is where China is presently located on the transformation matrix in Chapter Four, still within the pre-transition period on the political axis, and on the market axis in the period labelled normalcy. In other words, the economic society so far achieved is conditioned by the party-state monopoly on power. Consolidation of a state under law means that consciousness of laws and rights must spread through society, and that the leadership must promote local elections, reform of the bureaucracy, or the development of a civil society.

Regime change is a more fundamental step: it means the leadership challenging the party’s monopoly through contested general elections, and the granting of universal suffrage. Once embarked on regime change, one destination would be a consolidated Chinese democracy, located up the vertical path labelled normalcy. But there could be many intermediate staging posts, as well as a disastrous relapse to the revolutionary conditions which engulfed China for nearly 200 years.

As I shall argue, China’s conservative communist party envisages making the country a state under law. That postpones China becoming a fully consolidated market-democracy. At issue is not if, but when the leadership takes the plunge.The regime’s preference is clear enough as to the when: later, rather than sooner. The chosen method is pragmatism.

Let us look at the five, key features of such a consolidated market democracy Reference [16]:

The existence of civil society, where organised groups are able to express their values and objectives autonomous of states. Such a civil society is packed with churches, clubs, associations, trade unions, cultural happenings, and homes for retired professional golf players.

The existence of political society, where the core institutions of a democracy such as political parties, election rules, parliamentary procedures, press freedom, and alternance in power of contesting teams for control over public powers have become deeply rooted in public practice.

The existence of the rule of law where the freedoms of citizens are ensured. The conditions for this are many: both civil and political society must flourish, there has to be public consensus over a constitution, a commitment to abide by the rules of the game, an independent judicary, and a strong legal culture.

The existence of an effective, and efficient bureuacracy, which is useable by government of any particular party colouring. That requires a sound tax base, firm financial control over expenditures at all levels of the state, a functioning bond and money market, and civil servants answerable to the courts.

The existence of economic society, by contrast to a market system or a command economy. In order to function, such a society requires a set of safeguards, and widespread acceptance of common norms, institutions and regulations. In fact, these have to be very strong indeed, because market imperfections are major sources of contention.

Contrasting the key features of a consolidated democracy with China as it is indicates what tasks lie ahead for such a reform to be implemented in full. Without any doubt, they are many, complex, and very difficult to achieve. The regime has to assure civil rights, dismantle its own political privileges, establish an independent court and judicial system, transform the bureaucracy, and build a market society.

That means ensuring property rights, and separating the party-state from business. It means putting distance between political arbitrariness, and markets subject to the rule of law. Let us look first at political reform, and then at developments in civil society, the law, bureaucratic reform, and markets. The simple conclusion is that the regime lives, but rules by different policies and methods.Reference [17]. China has experienced regime change short of redefining its key political norms.

Towards a Chinese civil society

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When Deng moved into power in 1978, he inherited a lawless polity, where the only institutions of mass participation under Mao had been deployed for mob rule. Reference [18]. If under Stalin, political defeat spelt death, Mao was that little bit more selective; his direct opponents such as Lin Biao or Liu Shaoqui met early deaths, while Deng was banned twice to the countryside.

One of Deng’s first actions was to announce, in February 1980, new rules on internal party politics designed to ensure some degree of personal security to the ruling élite. Future political losers were not liquidated. Hu Yaobang was forced out of the party leadership, but remained in the party and active in party politics. Zhao Ziyang - who openly stated his opposition to martial law and his willingness to negotiate with the the students in May-June 1989 - were placed under house arrest, and purged. Deng sought to avoid becoming another Mao, restricting himself to relatively modest official posts, and reaching decisions among senior party figures by consensus. Hence the tentative and inconsistent economic reform process.

Deng’s own succession passed smoothly, as have the preparations for the succession to Jiang Zemin. Deng also introduced mandatory retirement of party and government officials, thereby accelerating the change in the party élite from peasants to college educated technocrats. The threat of a takeover of the regime by the princelings - the fate of Ceausescu’s Romania or Kim il Sung’s Korea—was avoided by the simple device of having more names put up for election to the party congress than there were positions.

Deng’s constitutional reforms of 1982 sought to consolidate the greatly weakened state apparatus by reaffirming the Four Cardinal Principles, guided by Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought:

party-state hegemony;
the leading role of the party;
a unitary state;
and the concentration of powers and democratic centralism in the party.

When the 1978-79 democracy wall became too free-wheeling, Deng rescinded some of the concessions the regime had made initially for citizens to indulge in the four bigs, including big debates, and big posters. Over time, though, much wider but undefined freedoms were granted to citizens than before, while the party-state shifted from mass to selective repression.(See Box 5.5 below)

Box 5.5

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China's religious policy

The Constitution provides for religious freedom, but religious activities are supervised closely. There are five officially recognized religions - Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Islam, and Taoism. Practitioners must register: a meeting place; regular attendants; a governing board; a minimum number of followers; a set of operating rules; and a legal source of income.According to official figures published in late 1997, there are over 180 million religious adherents and 3,000 religious organizations. Approximately, 8 percent of the population are Buddhist; 1.4 percent are Muslim; 0.4 to 0.8 percent belong to the unofficial Vatican-affiliated Catholic Church, an estimated 0.08 percent to 1.2 percent are registered Protestants; 2.4 to 6.5 percent worship in house churches that are independent of government control. China so far has refused to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and there is no Vatican representative in China. Weekly services of the foreign Jewish community in Beijing have been held uninterrupted since 1995, and the foreign Jewish community in Shanghai began holding services in a local hotel in 1998. Approximately 3,000 Tibetans enter Nepal each year to escape conditions in Tibet, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. According to some estimates, a large percentage of the population practice some form of traditional folk religion (worship of local gods, heroes, and ancestors). Source: The US State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999 http://www.uscirf.gov/

Media censureship eased up, and market reforms eroded party controls. In the countryside, the ending of Mao’s communes in the early 1980s dealt the party a deadly blow from which it has not recovered: party members there are ageing and often illiterate; they lack budgetary resources, and so resort to extracting fees from the peasants. Clashes have multiplied, such as the incident in Mao’s native province of Hunan, when peasants in January 1999 went on the rampage after one of their number committed suicide because he could not pay an arbitrary tax on the slaughter of pigs, which a local official had levied to coincide with the Chinese New Year. Thousands of angry peasant marched on party headquarters, overturned official cars and burned official homes. And that was only one of the anti-party riots in Hunan that year.

There have also been revolts by industrial workers, who have little adequate representation in state enterprises, much less in the TVEs and next to none in the burgeoning private sector. Partly to provide some institutional means to express opposition to party policy, Deng encouraged the National People’s Congress to challenge the party leadership, draw up its own bills, make amendments, and vote down appointments. In 1994, the NPC introduced a comprehensive labour code. A similar measure, aimed to bring dissent back towards the party’s institutions, was the extension of universal suffrage to village elections. But civil society has been growing much faster than the regime’s efforts to provide it with some institutional expression.

Laying the groundwork for a legal system

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Since 1982, too, the party-state has been developing a legal system. This is in effect a truly radical departure for a country where a fundamental maxim over the millenia has been government by men, and not by laws. Reference [19]. Marxist-Leninist-Maoist doctrine readily fitted with this tradition, as it placed law at the service of the dictatorship, just as law was supposedly at the beck and call of the bourgeoisie. With Deng’s opening of China to international business, a more developed legal system was required than provided by the party-state. Rule of law, rather than of public officials, ensures greater protection of property rights, the enforceability of contracts and freedom of citizens from arbitrary acts by others.

In effect, the rule of law requires the creation of a level playing field, the development of an independent judiciary, and the subordination of public officials themselves to the law. In effect, policy continues to take priority over the law, but there has been nonetheless a great leap forward in the definition of legal norms, involving the NPC’s passage of 327 laws, the State Council’s issue of 750 regulations, and about 6000 local laws and regulations emitted by provincial authorities. Reference [20]. China’s new laws borrow extensively from western traditions, concepts and procedures — a process that is bound to accelerate as China enters the WTO, and business and other relationships multiply.

Indeed, in March 1999, Jiang Zemin had the Constitution altered to incorporate private ownership and rule of law. Article 11 of the Constitution now places private business on an equal footing with the public sector: The non-public sector, including individual private businesses, is an important component of the socialist market economy. Reference [21]. Article 5 was amended to include the principle of governing the country according to the law.

These amendments, introduced at a crucial period in China’s negotiations with the US on WTO entry, demonstrated China’s commitment to a full market system based on the rule of law. They also meant, formally at least, that the law is above both party and state, and therefore constraining on officials rather than being an instrument at the service of officials to discipline citizens. The number of lawyers has risen sharply from 31,000 in 1988 to 150,000 by 2000, and their services are in high demand as Chinese citizens grow more accustomed to seek redress through the courts. But their numbers are woefully inadequate, while the courts often fail to enforce their own judgements. Though the growth of the legal system will benefit private business and foreign investors, it is unlikely to be able to make much difference to the life of workers and peasants.

Administrative reforms

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Deng also moved to restructure the institutions of the central state, but failed to create a lasting federal structure capable of durably absorbing routine centre-local tensions over taxation, personnel, local protectionism or banking. Indeed, as the incompatibilities between the old system and the market oriented reforms grew, China experienced an evolution out of Maoism to nomenklatura capitalism. What has been marketised, it is maintained, is not so much corporate assets as political power: up to a third of party and state officials are active business people, alongside their official jobs. Reference [22].

A sort of fusion has taken place whereby bureaucracies are linked through networks at all levels - state, province, region, city, towns and villages — to entrepreneurs and other non-party élites. Who co-opted whom is no easy question: has business co-opted the bureaucracy or has the bureaucracy, both party and state, co-opted business? Definitely, the fusion has hugely expanded the opportunities in the political marketplace for favours and money — in short, corruption has exploded. Hence, the urgent need to shrink the bureaucracy, and separate business from officialdom.

In April 1998, Premier Zhu Rongji, announced an administrative reform to cut the state bureaucracy by 4 million or by 50% within 3 years, reduce the number of ministries at the centre from 40 to 29, and separate ministries from their business enterprises. Autonomous business enterprises are one essential condition in the creation of an economic society. Another is forcing the PLA to abandon its business economic society and large swathes of business under military command are not compatible.

A political marketplace

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Economic reform and maintenance of the party-state’s monopoly are not readily compatible. It is not just that the party’s hold over labour markets, the countryside, and the media has weakened, as civil society has become more active. Rather China’s is an incomplete transition, where the command economy is increasingly dominated by a competitive market economy, yet the legal system is in embryonic state, and] political markets flourish. Because informal arrangements associated with the policy of marketisation have developed alongside formal structures, formal structures have eventually had to be brought into line with them.

This has sapped the resources of the party-state as they have flowed out into private hands, brought criminal gangs into insider positions, and entrenched vested interests in informal networks. The only way forward, as Joseph Stiglitz reminded his audience at Beijing University in July 1998, was the establishment of entirely new national institutions and programs Reference [23]. This meant, of course, going beyond the party-state’s modest efforts to allow for dissent, through village elections and a more combative NPC. But the leadership is reluctant to do so.

In the regime’s favour is the population’s fear of chaos, the fragmentation of the opposition, the co-optation of business élites, and the general ease with which communism and nationalism in China blend. Politically, the regime is the same, not having changed beyond recognition.

Chapter Five: Feeling the Stones as You Cross the River (Part One)
Chapter Five: No alternatives to market-democracy (Part Two)
Chapter Five: Why the trend to market-democracy (Part Three)
Chapter Five: A post-totalitarian regime (Part Five)
Chapter Five: References (Part Six)

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