The Chinese Communist
Party woos workers
International Viewpoint #220 • January 20, 1992 and social management, and so on.
After the August failed coup and the banning of the Soviet Communist Party, the "new historical conditions" are least applied rights of the workers' congresses are the rights to democratic election and monitoring. In one city, 76% of the factories have not applied the right to democratic election." Furthermore, "in some enterprises workers' congresses, the deputies are mostly party and political cadres of various grades and categories; even in the advanced enterprises, production line workers only constitute about 5% of all deputies."
parties in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has severely shaken the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To avoid suffering the same fate, the CCP leadership is trying to strengthen its work amongst the working class, at least on paper.* ZHANG KAI
N AN ARTICLE IN THE MAY 1, 1991 issue of the Chinese theoretical journal, Quishi, a provincial party secretary pointed out, in an article entitled "Strengthen and improve the work of the Party towards the working class under new historical conditions" that "the intense international class struggle cannot help but affect and have an impact on the working masses and the flooding in of bourgeois liberal thoughts cannot help but cause some ideological confusion among the working masses."
The article further says that, "in recent years, people promoting bourgeois liberalization advocate the separation of the working class and the party, thus destroying the relationship between the two, and call for 'trade union autonomy and independence saying that leadership by the party is obstructing the working class from becoming masters of society."
It goes on to urge the working class to "resolutely oppose the idea of 'everything for money', to 'obey the constitution and laws', to "consciously accept [modern enterprise management]' and to exercise self-restraint'.
Such criticisms and demands reflect growing discontent among the workers and their antagonistic mood to the CCP, constituting, with the changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the background, what the article referred to as "the new historical conditions".
Relying on the working class
Faced with such historical conditions", the article stressed the need to strengthen the CCP's work towards the working class and improve the CCP's relationship with it, specifically by 'wholeheartedly relying on the working class" and "further expanding" the channels of workers' participation in politics even more harsh for the CCP. Another article published in Qiushi one month after the coup, entitled "Several problems to be solved so as to give the workers full play to become masters
- a study on the situation in some factories" highlighted the CCP's concern over work amongst the working class.
In the article, the two authors from the CCP Central Policy Unit explained the results of their survey of how the policy of relying wholeheartedly on the working class was applied in the factories; overall, some big state enterprises have applied it better, while many factories still lack effective mechanisms and, although some factories have set up a system, it has not been functioning normally. Arrogance of leading cadres
Specifically, during recent management reforms, quite a few leading cadre have been behaving in a way that "results in the weakening of the idea that the leadership should rely on the workers to run the factories. Some leading cadres think that the call by the central committee to rely wholeheartedly on the working class is only a slogan arising out of the need for political stability; some are worried that too much talk of respecting the master status of the workers would affect the scientific management of the enterprise, According to a survey by a city-level trade union federation, 58.8% of workers think that their factorie leaders 'think of the workers only during difficult times and forget about them during good times.' A few factory leaders see themselves as "owners" of the factory and the workers as employees, resulting in a tense relationship."
Both of the above-mentioned articles talked about setting up a democratic management system inside the enterprises to "give full play" to the functioning of the workers' congress system set up ten years ago by a "provisional law on workers' congresses in state enterprises" in July 1981. The second article from Quishi revealed some facts about the progress of this law.
"According to a survey of the city at the end of last year", the article says, "only 76.4% of all basic enterprises and units in the city have set up a workers congress. Even some that have been set up exist only formally... it is widely felt that the
The survey also revealed that income distribution in "some" factories is not fair. Specifically, some small enterprise contractors and lease-holders have incomes and accounts whose origins are unclear; enterprise assets seem to have become private property, spent at will without mass supervision. Some contractors have amassed huge wealth without an improvement in productive efficiency. Secondly, the income of many factory contractors differs too much from that of the workers. In many poorly performing factories, the contractors have incomes over ten times or even more than those of the workers."
The article's authors think that it is important to safeguard the interests and rights of the workers so that they can be enthusiastic in production. They also suggested guaranteeing the rights of the workers' congresses.
Such suggestions reflect to some extent the pressure from the workers, but they run against the whole bureaucratic system and the fear that giving more power to the workers will endanger the CCP. Thus, it is probable that the suggestions will remain mainly on paper. Independent workers actions
Regardless of reforms from above, the Chinese working class have been fighting for a long time by their own efforts to improve their living and working conditions. The recently released White Paper on Human Rights in China revealed an 'incomplete" figure: During 1990, the national and local factory work disputes mediation committees have dealt with 18,573 cases of work disputes. This figure does not include cases where workers bypassed these committees to take action themselves.
The need of the bureaucracy to maintain its monopoly on power while speeding up economic reforms and increase production at the expense of the workers, will mean that social, economic, and political contradictions between the bureaucracy and the working class can only sharpen, thereby triggering a new wave of struggle for democracy and a rising workers' movement that will eventually lead to confrontation and revolutionary struggle. * * This article first appeared in the December issue of the Chinese revolutionary Marxist joumal, October Review, published in Hong Kong.
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