"liberal" reforms? These questions are taken up in the
Square, facing the statue celebrating the following interview with Roland Lew, a China specialist at the heroes of the revolution and symbolically turning their backs on Mao's tomb.
This meant that the conflict would have to be resolved in the streets and not in the
Central Committee. Or, in other words, that the conservatives and the reformers could continue their discussions, but that only a victory in the streets could enable the reformers, who seemed to be the political representatives of the movement, to assert themselves. In this context, the conservatives decided to put an end to the movement by declaring martial law.
• Was that the point when accusaof proliferated tions corruption against the apparatus and especially Deng Xiaoping?
Accusations of corruption were raised from the start, and started to gather steam when it began clear that Deng was the main ideologue of the repression. For several years, he was the head of the reform faction. In 1985-86, he became the arbiter, while remaining chief of the reform faction. After the 1986 student movement he continued to play his arbiter's role, at the same time basing himself on the conservatives pushing the economic reform. This time he repeated the phrase he used two years ago: "I don't like to shed blood, but I will not hesitate to do it if necessary."
At this time, Deng started being called to account. He was reminded that his son, who was a victim of the cultural revolution, subsequently enriched himself in a scandalous way. Several such cases were exposed.
The accusation of corruption thus became an answer to the charge of con-
"If we ter-revolution.
were counter- revolutionaries," the students said, "then we would be corrupt. But isn't it rather you who are both corrupt and counterrevolutionary?" *
Free University of Brussels.
W HY DID the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP)
The reform was a response to the disastrous results of the cultural revolution, to its aspect of massive repression, to the total loss of legitimacy that the government and the system suffered at the end of the Maoist period. After Mao's death in 1976, it was necessary to regain a minimum of support from the population so that the government could run society.
The team that was then formed under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping - not without tensions and internal purges — managed to establish a sort of initial consensus in 1978 for launching a reform
It is significant, moreover, that in this first stage of the reforms the moving forces in the party might be called the reformers of the 1950s - that is, those who had already at that time adopted a different profile from Maoism and advocated an version of "actually existing socialism" [the Soviet and East European model]. They were favorable to a more flexible sort of centralization and to introducing some market elements. • What were the stages of the reform?
The reform process very quickly took an unexpected direction. In the first period, between 1979 and 1984, the bulk of the reforms were in the countryside. They involved a process of de-collectivizing the land almost as rapid as the process of collectivization, which was carried out in a little more than a year, from 1955 to 1956, under the pressure of Mao Zedong.
In reality, the regime's objective was not this sort of de-collectivization. It only wanted to introduce a system of more responsibility for the peasants. Since the peasants had little motivation, they were told: "Since you don't want to work in overly large collectives, choose your base units of production for yourselves." It very quickly proved that the peasants preferred family farms, and this brought about a massive de-collectivization. The regime was content to accept this fact. • What is the proportion of landless laborers and small peasants?
At the outset, they were practically all small-holders. Even in the period of deteriorating conditions in the nineteenth century, you cannot talk about a domination of big landowners in China. Moreover, in the revolutionary process, the Communist Party was based especially in regions dominated by small-holders. Today, the situation is mixed. Some hold onto land but go to work in factories. Others, a small number, rent land. Wage labor has begun to develop in the countryside, but especially outside agriculture. However, it should also be noted that wage labor in agriculture exists, but we are only at the beginning of the process. The peasants are starting by exploiting their own families! A result is a substantial abandonment of schooling. Children are working from the age of 10.
The de-collectivization had surprising results, especially because of the prices peasants get for their products, especially cereals. From the moment these prices er, /Vs 150 & 151, October 31 & November 14, 1988 June 26, 1989 • #166 International Viewpoint
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CHINA were raised, production went up considerably.2 All this created a climate of euphoria. The regime seemed to be able to reestablish its ties with the population so as to launch a reform of industry. Up until then, only a few timid attempts at that had been made in certain places.
These initial successes also bolstered the reform current and enabled it to get the support of Deng Xiaoping, whose weight was decisive in tipping the scales against the considerable pressures from certain sections of the apparatus - notably the 1950s' reformers, who now opposed the reform, thinking that it was going too far and threatening to cost the party some of its authority.
However, the following year problems re-emerged everywhere. In the countryside, for the first time, there was a slight drop in production. In order to cushion the impact of rising prices of agricultural products on workers that would create intolerable social tensions in the cities, the government decided to grant major subsidies to compensate for these rises. But this began to be a big burden on the state budget. The government then started to change the system.
One sector of production — necessities - was subjected to a quota system. A share had to be delivered at prices fixed by the state (generally low). Another share was left outside the quotas, so that a larger part of production would reach the free market. Subsequently, the prices of fertilizers and other things needed for production were sharply raised. In time producing cereals, and sometimes even meat, became much less profitable for the peasants. A good number of them began to leave the land to look for work in the nearby towns or even in the cities (although this is illegal). Those who remained in the countryside preferred to look toward creating small local industrial or semiindustrial enterprises to earn more money. This led to a drop in agricultural production, giving rise again to scarcities. • That must not have been very favorable for the success of the industrial reform?
In industry, all the problems that had appeared in the initial experiments from 1979 to 1984 became generalized. This is for the same reasons that it has proved impracticable in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to carry through a reform to establish real prices. The result, therefore, has been a two-tier price system — a free price and a quota price.
To give an example: The state central service decides to provide a certain quota of steel for a certain enterprise. To bridge the difference between that and its real needs, the enterprise will have to find the necessary quantity on the market itself. 10 tour the the saise evil e i rapect ly But since the state-set price is especially International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989 resell its own stock on the free market, making a fat profit, which will be shared between the manager, the workers and bribes to local party cadres.
Another pillar of the urban reform was the shift of authority in the enterprises to the managers. Party secretaries found themselves deprived of their power, and were thus implicitly charged with incompetence. In view of this, some secretaries tried to become factory managers themselves, which didn't solve the problem, since it didn't make them any more competent. Others tried instead to tie down the factory managers in order to hold onto a bit of power. In both cases, the reform was stymied, because in order for the managers to be able to do their allotted task they needed what had been promised them, real autonomy. But they did not have the means to influence wages, to fire workers or have a sufficient margin for maneuver in getting supplies.
Another perverse effect was that the decentralization transferred power from the ministries to the local functionaries. But the latter behaved exactly like the ministries and maintained tight control. Moreover, since the central authorities controlled less and less, and sometimes nothing, all the wheeling and dealing took place at the level of the local authorities. In other words, corruption spread. Moreover, this was not only on the basis of a parasitical rake-off but of services rendered and mutual interests. An example is taxation. In the absence of any real taxation organized at the national level, the local administrations lowered taxes on enterprises in return for bribes. So, the enterprise managers also gained.
Another important aspect of the reform was disrupted and thrown out of gear. The logic of a new form of management required transforming the labor process. It son я aimed to break the famous "iron rice bowl" - that is, security of employment. But the workers resisted this fiercely.
The introduction of contracts for set periods and the payment of production bonuses failed totally. The workers managed to get into the production process as permanent workers, in much greater numbers than before. Bonuses were paid without any relation to productivity. Attempts by the managers to stop this, and they did try, were immediately thwarted by strikes and other forms of pressure, including physical threats from the workers. In particular, the celebrated "model workers" that the factory managers wanted to promote in order to increase productivity were physically assaulted by the workers and forced back into step.
It seems that the workers had the support of some sections of the local party apparatus, and even to some extent of the new managers, who had no desire to face explosion. After negotiations between the local authorities and factory managers on bank loans, financing funds and especially investment funds, sums for infrastructure or updating technology were transferred to paying bonuses and wages.
For the workers, this was above all a way of improving their standard of living, which had stagnated. In fact, basic wages (in the strict sense of the term) were the same in 1979 as in 1952. In other words, they remained at the average level of the years preceding the revolution! However, the picture is changed somewhat by the considerable indirect gains of the working class — social security, health care, and the provision of housing for some of them through the factory. It has also to be remembered that production norms in China are very low, because the workers can do a lot of things in working hours -sports, study, siestas (a great innovation by Deng was the reduction of the siesta).
The factories run the workers' whole lives. They solve their housing problems, provide social security and so on. If the workers rebel, the enterprises have considerable means for retaliating. This is a real machine for regimenting people. But there are two sides to it. In order for it to be effective, the factories have to guarantee certain advantages for their workers. The workers themselves are quite aware of this, and know how to apply pressure to maintain their gains.
This is the great paradox. This massive, fundamental social group frightens the from making real reforms in the factories, from cutting wages and bonuses and yet continues to be held down politically. Thus, the crucial question is how the working class can gain its independence and create real independent unions. Up until now, every 2. See also "A critique of the rural reform in China after 1978", by Xiao Dian, IV 153, December 12, 1988.
attempt has been broken by the regime. • Is there a real differentiation of wages?
In the present stage of things, we cannot talk about generalized social tensions in the factories over wage differences. In general, an "arrangement" has been made to freeze the situation. The managers maneuver to make the bonuses as high as possible and the workers close their eyes to embezzlement.
After October 1, 1986, the center decided to go further and generalize the contract system. Recent statistics are lacking, but apparently this was not an unqualified success. The system could only really be applied where people had no choice. China has not been able to grant all workers permanent status. Therefore, a not inconsiderable number of workers and peasants have not been able to get into the system of stable employment. One of the functions of the introduction of work contracts has been to create a sub-proletariat.
The contract labor system - which provides for a fixed wage, social security and even a sort of unemployment insurance - was supposed, despite everything, to be an "honorable" social status. But it has turned out quite differently - marginal jobs with the lowest wages, poor social protection and so on. So many of these contract workers have preferred to drop out of the labor circuit entirely and become small entrepreneurs (taxi drivers, for example, without any social insurance but getting three times or more their previous incomes. We have seen in the clashes of recent weeks that the most militant and embittered elements have been precisely these former workers who have become "small entrepreneurs." • What effect has the reform had on the gap between the cities and the countryside?
Until the early 1980s, only 20% of the Chinese population was urban, and even that figure is disputed. Today, the urban population is estimated at 25% to 30%. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that a good number of those who are counted as rural live in small towns.
Despite all the legends of the Maoist period, the gulf between the cities and the countryside has persisted. The average standard of living is about three times higher in the cities. Moreover, while a certain egalitarianism prevailed in the cities (with the exception of the top party cadres who lived quite well, in the coun tryside situations were very disparate, with villages close to the cities being relatively prosperous while others wallowed in misery.
The initial effects of the reform were to reduce this gap between the cities and the countryside a little. But for some years now it has been widening again. This has produced a good deal of frustration in the countryside, even an outright hostility on the part of the peasants not only to the regime but also against city people in general.
Nonetheless, the situation in the country has changed considerably. The peasants' standard of living virtually doubled between 1979 and 1985, while, according to the figures provided by the regime, it had more or less stagnated between 1957 and 1977-78. Parallel to this, the nonagricultural rural sectors also experienced a prodigious boom.
Overall, the income of these nonagricultural activities exceeds the level of agricultural incomes. But once again the distribution is not even. Some 80% of these activities are concentrated in five coastal provinces. There, you can talk about real prosperity and access to consumer goods, such as color TVs or real estate. All this has been accompanied by a flourishing of small individual and family enterprises, subcontracting firms, real petty capitalism.
All these phenomena are producing a major rural exodus. The figure is given of 50 million peasants moving to the cities, driven by poverty, or, to the contrary, an
CHINA exodus of rich peasants who think that that they will be able to enrich themselves even more there. • What effects has the reform had on different strata of the bureaucra-
After the trauma of the cultural revolution, the reform has played a considerable of the apparatus cadres. In the rural areas, the effect has collectivization hit the absolute power that the local cadres had in the People's Communes, they were able nonetheless to hold onto parts of it. The little party bosses have thus conserved their means of putting pressure on the peasants and have used this to play a parasitic role, in the primary meaning of the term.
As the possibilities for enrichment opened up by the reform expanded, a section of the bureaucrats decided to set up their own enterprises, to become petty capitalists themselves, thanks in particular to income from corruption. In the urban setting, things were a bit more complicated. The apparatus that came out of the culuncultured, authoritarian and corrupt, but brought modernization in every sense.
appeared, students joined the party. Even in the army, a new generation of officers appeared who did not come out of the revolution. This generation is rather attached to the idea of modernizing the society. It is more educated, more detached from the old men who are their historic chiefs.
It is clear that the interest of party secretaries in the enterprises was not the same as that of the young technocrats. In the unions, even if the apparatus did not favor real independent expression by the workers, it nonetheless put pressure on the management cadres to get advantages for the membership, in order to retain the greatest possible authority and defend its own privileges.
In the top echelons of the apparatus, much better educated young people have begun to be recruited: professors, technical cadres, advisors who have studied abroad. Nonetheless - and this has played an important role in the present events - the old leaders and cadres there since the revolution (or even from before, since the 1920s or 1930s) have held a grip on the party, both in the military and other sectors. Fierce factional battles made it possible to get rid of some of them, but they have never been totally pushed aside.
This can be seen in decisive moments. In 1987, Hu Yaobang was not ousted in an official body but in a meeting of the Political Bureau enlarged to include former members who had been pushed out. It was they our mag Husban one a mesent 11 ty for ousting Hu Yaobang. In the present June 26, 1989 • #166 International Viewpoint
CHINA again the "old played a decisive role, this time with the support of Deng Xiaoping.
A major gap thus exists between the of the apparatus, which is made up of octogenarians — Peng Zhen was born in 1902; Den, in 1904; Chen Yun in 1905; the two marshalls left from the ten that there were in 1955 are over 85; the president of the republic, Yang Shangkun was born in 1907 and was one of the 28 old "Bolsheviks" (supporters of Stalin) who opposed Mao in the late 1920s.
Another feature is the monumental corruption at the top. As the average Chinese sees it, all the leaders are corrupt, either directly (this is not always true for the old cadres) or through nepotism. Every time an old chief agrees to resign, he gets a son put in the top apparatus. Worse still, many members of the immediate families of leaders are involved in business deals of the most sordid type, such as Yang Shankun's son or Zhao Ziyang's.
So, we can talk about a real rotting of the regime through corruption. moreover, explains the brutality of the repression. Another dimension coincides with a prediction Trotsky made in 193637: that the apparatus or a section of it would be transformed into a sort of protocapitalism. Some cadres are happy to go along with this process, and would fit in quite well with a state capitalism that they could parasitize. But others are choosing more and more to become capitalists
This said, the process is too recent and uncertain to draw definitive conclusions. In fact, the people involved are above all speculators aiming to get rich quick and get out as soon as the situation takes a bad • How do you explain this corrup-
Despite all the successes of the reform, China remains a very poor country, and therefore the fight over the division of the meager resources is fierce. In the Maoist period, there were very few consumer goods, but a certain egalitarianism pre-
With the reform, new consumer goods and opportunities for enrichment arrived, but not for everyone and not everywhere. Access to all these riches was through the government. But, since the bureaucracy itself was poor and had no competence to exploit, it could only play a parasitic role.
It seems that most of the new enterprises were set up in partnership with, or with the support of, bureaucrats. Moreover, the model put forward is Hong Kong, Taiwan, the overseas Chinese, Japan, the West. This desire to get rich quick is 12 impelling a colossal spread of corruption and illegal networks. International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989
• Can it be said that the ferocity of the repression in Tibet was already a sign of what the regime was prepared to do to defend its interests?
That is quite right. But at the same time, the population had the impression that it "was OK for Tibet"! Of course, some sections of the urban population might have been opposed to this repression, but the great majority remain quite chauvinist, hate the Tibetans, and approved of the bloody outcome in Tibet.
The idea that this might happen again in Beijing, and be even worse, seemed uni• Are all these differentiations in the bureaucracy reflected in the differences at the top?
The social cleavages in the bureaucracy are not reflected exactly at the top. The conflicting interests are too complex to be reflected simply in a clash between "conand "reformers." You now find every sort of position in the CCP apparatus. There are people who want to go back to capitalism and as soon as possible. Others behave like the reformers of the 1950s, and want to adjust the regime in an authoritarian way. Still others want to put an end to the process, while some champions of the reforms are disoriented because they have not been able to control
It is very difficult to guess what is going on at the top now. But it is clear that there is a general disarray. None of these currents has any clear and precise project. • How can you explain the gap between the boldness of the economic reforms and the absence of
In part because of the unexpectedly rapid success of the economic reforms. A part of the apparatus then judged that it could dispense with political reforms, concluding that the standard of living had increased everywhere and so there would be no massive discontent that would have to be channelled. As Deng said, with his customary cynicism, as long as stomachs are filled, minds will be calm. • What is the perspective for resolution of the crisis in the long term?
The regime is at the end of its rope. The process of the liquidation of this regime has begun. The timing cannot be predicted, but the process certainly seems irreversible. The break produced by the bloodbath in Beijing is irreparable.
For the moment, the apparatus has regained control of the situation. Systematic repression has begun. An oppressive climate prevails in Beijing, which is not unlike the grim days of the cultural revolution, in particular with campaigns calling for informing on people.
The Chinese population has lost a battle, but a new potential for struggle will re-emerge sooner or later. *
### CHINA
REACTIONS
Fancy
footwork
in Pravda
WHAT SEEMS to have been the main Soviet statement on the massacre on Tiananmen Square came in an article on the inside-back page of Pravda June 8, signed by Vsevolod Ovchinnikov. The article, which is published below, engages in some fancy footwork to meet two contradictory needs of the Kremlin: to maintain Gorbachev's democratic image and to continue the diplomatic rapprochement with the Deng regime. At the same time, in its own way it indicates that the Soviet bureaucracy has fears similar to those of the Peking rulers.
N TUESDAY [June 6], the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR issued a statement on the events in China. This was not a diplomatic note nor an act of foreign policy. It was a direct people-to-people statement embodying the feelings which now fill the hearts of the Soviet people.
In neighboring China, dramatic events have occurred. The situation has become particularly acute in the last few days. In the center of Beijing, clashes occurred between the participants in the mass demonstrations of youth and the troops. Weapons have been used; there have been more than a few human losses.
It is impossible to read such reports, which are like war news, without disquiet and sorrow. Before our eyes rises the endless sea of young faces on Tiananmen Square. We remember their fervor, their self-sacrificing attitude. It is bitter to realize that this civic upsurge has led to a great misfortune, a tragedy, which has inflicted a deep trauma on Chinese society.
The processes of renewal today in the socialist countries are some-
times painful precisely because they are not superficial but deep and all-embracing in character. Unfortunately, economic and political reforms do not always go hand in hand. Sometimes a change in the political atmosphere precedes real changes in the economy. This is the case in our country. This is arousing a well-founded discontent among the Soviet people. In China, there is also an imbalance, but of another sort. There, the economic reforms, economic pluralism, have advanced a long way, while reform of the political system has lagged behind.
### "Democracy cannot be asserted by trampling on the law"
It can be said that the youth is a special sort of social barometer. In my opinion, the student upsurges that have shaken China this spring reflected social tension created in the first place by inflation and in the second place by corruption. Problems of growth that sharpened at the beginning of the second decade of the reform; an unprecedented jump in the cost of living that hits students, intellectuals and other sectors living on fixed incomes particularly hard; side-effects of the transition to a mixed economy — to put it more bluntly the sharp differentiation in people's incomes, and multiplying cases of misuse of official positions for private gain — all this made still more intolerable the corruption of the so-called guandao, (functionary-speculators). The need to combat this phenomenon with renewed cess of democratization an unhealthy, distorted character that threatens social order.
The law must not fetter democracy. But democracy, on the other hand, cannot be asserted by trampling on the law. When events get out of control, even the initiators cannot influence them. Undirected crowds can become a weapon of alien, malevolent forces. We in the Soviet Union unfortunately are familiar with this from our own experience.
It seems to me that in connection with the tragic events on Tiananmen Square, none of us can really assume the role of either prosecutor or defense lawyer. This is not only because this is an internal affair of the Chinese people, but because the sight of armored troop carriers in city streets hits a raw nerve in our own concerns and worries. In the Congress of People's Deputies, there have been disputes about the correctness of using against unauthorized demonstrations in Tbilisi. It is said that in the Fergana district [Uzbekistan] troops are being used to impose elementary order. But there have been statements of a different sort, that in Sumgait the troops appeared too late to
Norwegian
Maoists
· 1p
CHINA prevent bloodshed.
I think that using force in the name of preserving public order is as drastic a means as amputating a sick person's leg. It is always painful, always undesirable, but sometimes inevitable in order to save the person's life. The question of how necessary such a measure is rests on the conscience of the surgeon. It is the Chinese people themselves that have to judge what happened in Tiananmen Square.
"Regardless of how intense passions may have been at times, it is important to calmly seek adequate political solutions determined by the aims of consolidating the society," says the statement of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR on the events in China. "We hope that wisdom, good sense, and a balanced approach will prevail, and that a way out of the situation will be found that is worthy of the great Chinese people."
Adding my voice to that of the people's elected representatives coming from the Kremlin, I sincerely hope that the Chinese people will turn this tragic page in their history as soon as possible. *
CHINA
REACTIONS break with Beijing force is a reminder of the timeliness of the reforms outlined by the Thirteen Congress of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].
Beginning a hunger strike that lasted for many days on Tiananmen Square, the youth demanded an end to corruption and degeneration; consideration for education, which had been neglected; and a speed-up of the process of democratization of the society. The demonstrators tried to get the authorities to recognize the patriotic and democratic character of the student actions and enter into dialogue with those participating in them.
According to the statements of a series of Chinese leaders, these demands were well founded, and coincided with the aims of the party and the government. However, such problems can be solved only in conditions of stability based on democracy and in the framework of the law. In Beijing however, as the mayor of the city, Chen Xitun, has recently said, "the development of the events contradicted the initial patriotic aspirations of the students."
Here it should be remarked that in some socialist countries, among which I would include not only China but also the Soviet Union, a lack of political culture, of a tradition of pluralism under the supremacy of the law, has sometimes given the pro-
THE NORWEGIAN Maoist party, the AKP(m-l) is one of the few big Maoist groups left in Europe. The party arose when the overwhelming majority of the youth organization of the Socialist People's Party [a centrist party that broke from the Labor Party over the issue of membership in NATO] went over to Maoism in 1968. S INCE 1977, the party has man-
Waged to publish a daily, Klassekampen, with 8,000 subscribers. The party gets about 1% of the vote nationally and up to 4% in some dis-
It has no representatives in parliament but has a number of members of local government bodies. It has worked actively in the trade union movement, in the anti-racist struggle, in international solidarity, and not least in the women's move-
Up until 1980, the party was a traditional Maoist party. In subsequent years, it has undergone a gradual re-assessment of its old positions. The AKP has rid itself of many of its ultra-left mistakes. The hammer and sickle, red flags and "the Great Five" [Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao] have disappeared from Klassekampen. The party recognizes now that great abuses took place under Stalin. The APK no longer believes that the defendants in the Moscow trials were spies and sabo-
Klassekampen has carried long articles about Bukharin, as well as articles by Roy Medvedev, and it has repeated all the exposures of Stalin's crimes that have been made under glasnost. But, at the same time, it has refused to draw the practical and programmatic consequences of this.
The party's congress in December took the position taratin was a Marxist, but 13 not a "great" Marxist. June 26, 1989 • #166 International Viewpoint
China is a profound tragedy, a great misfortune for the Chinese people.
But the people resisted the armed forces heroically.
The Chinese leaders will pay dearly for their "victory." *
·6p
CHINA However, the AKP has been unwilling to support the campaign for the rehabilitation of the victims of the purge trials. Its leadership has followed the line of trying to avoid "revolutions" in the party's political foundations and practice.
It has been settling accounts with Murxism/Leninism/Mao Zedong thought at a snail's pace. The leadership has managed to avoid splits or a total breakup of the organization of the kind many Maoist organizations in the rest of the world have suffered. Programmatic re-assessment of Mao's China
A small dogmatic Maoist wing has broken away. It had support in particular in the leadership of the party's student organization. Many people in were unhappy about the leadership's refusal to take a position on the developments in China, even if they had no sympathy for their dogmatic Maoism.
In recent years, a debate on Stalinism has gone on in the columns of Klassekampen, in which revolutionary Marxists have been able to participate. It has been possible to discuss the experiences in the
Soviet Union, the Spanish civil war, the theory of the party and so on. But the AKP refused to take a position on China. Characteristically enough, the last congress adopted no position on the developments in China because no agreement could be reached on this decisive point. That is not surprising, because the party was founded on enthusiasm for China and the cultural revolution.
defended Stalin only because the Chinese CP did. It is clear that the AKP could not forever avoid taking a position on China. Throughout this spring, there have been clear signals that a programmatic re-assessment of Mao's China was in the works. The party tried to work out its own theory about revolutions in backward countries. The demonstrations in Beijing and the bloody massacre of peaceful demonstrators have made it impossible for the AKP not to take a position on China.
What position the AKP will end up with and how far the party will be divided is still quite unpredictable. There is a danger that Deng will be condemned as a "capitalist roader," and they will return to Mao
But there is also a chance that the AKP, or large sections of it, will break with Maoism and go in the direction of demo-