The democracy movement way without restrictions, while penalizing through taxes bonuses that exceed the rise in profits.
Moreover, in China 1978-1981 they trying to are
"penalties" for nonfulfillintroduce ment of quotas. But in this case as well, it is not clear that these measures are being really applied. What is more these rules are applicable to state enterprises. The situation is still more uncertain in the collective enterprises.
FIVE YEARS AGO, Solidarnosc announced its formation. At the
The tendency and the logic of the same time, in the People's Republic of China, the national Associreform are to increase the spread of ation of Unofficial Publications of China (NAUPC), a coalition of wages and to seek to link to productivity (which is not
21 unofficial publications all over China, also announced its formagiven the ingrained habits). Furthertion. The NAUPC published an organ named Duty. It was a milestone more, the different types of enterprises in the development of the democracy movement which had been are creating working-class strata with different statuses.
unfolding, with frequent interruptions, since the end of 1978. Duty
As in the West, we are seeing the continued publication first every two months, and then fortnightly, emergence of a multitrack society.
until the national clampdown in April 1981. The following article with the appearance of a "privatized"
stratum, temporary traces the development of the democracy movement. It was first statuses in the collective enterprises, and changes in published in the August 1985 edition of October Review, a the situations in the state enterprises depending on the and successes failures of each enterprise.
Of course, this differentiation is only in its beginnings. There is strong resistance.
The automatic payment of bonuses to all is a tradition deeply rooted in the minds of workers.
What is more, a large part of the industrial apparatus and sections in the higher echelons of the central apparatus are too incapable or too ignorant to adjust to the new rules and may continue to rely on the old usages in
20
LI SI
The democracy movement of 197881, usually referred to as the Beijing Spring Democracy Movement, developed from the 1976 Tian An Men Square Riot in which over 100,000 people spontaneously gathered at the square in the capital to express their indignation for the ruling regime. (1)
Similar riots took place in other cities such as Nanjing and Zhengzhou.
1. On April 5, 1976, more than
100,000 people came out onto the streets the occasion of the Day of the Dead, to pay hommage to the memory of Zhou
Enlai who died in the January of the same year. International Viewpoint 11 November 1985
The historical significance of the riots is that they were spontaneous mass mobilisations directed whole bureaucratic rule, unlike the mass mobilisations during the Cultural Revolution which different CCP Chinese Communist Party] factions and served and interests. Yet, the riots were violent emotional outbursts but lacking clear programmatic goals, organisation or a nucleus. That was why the riots were quickly and brutally repressed. Still, the mass indirectly brought about the downfall of the so-called Gang of Four -Mao Zedong's proteges.
By the end of 1978, the Deng Xiaoping faction gained control of the top leadership. A series of rehabilitations took place, which included the official recognition of the Tian An Men Square Riot as a revolutionary, spontaneous mass action.
the Deng Xiaoping faction attempted to use a certain mass support to consolidate its power in leadership and to seize power in lower level leadership positions, the people also made use of the opportunity to voice their grievances and put forward their demands. Wall posters began to appear on the Xidan Wall in the capital, discussion meetings took place (some thousands of people participating), and unofficial publications to appear. By the beginning of 1979, tens of unofficial publications had surfaced all over country. The unofficial publications, despite repression, survived until April 1981 when a national wave of arrests of the editors and chief contributors put an end to their semi-legal existence. The movement was forced to go underground from then onwards.
From November 1978 to April 1981, titles of unofficial publications known to the outside world numbered over 120. About two dozen were from most of the provincial capitals. Some were able to sustain themselves for over forty issues, some were repressed after the founding issue. Some issues were over 100 pages, some were of four pages, and many ranged from forty to eighty pages. Since the state controlled all means of publication, the unofficial publications had to be mimeographed on low quality paper. Because of technical limitations, most of the issues were published in several hundred copies, though a few managed to secure support from some printing presses and were able to put out more copies. For example, Beijing Spring got the support of the Foreign Language Press and printed 10,000 copies of its combined No 1 and No 2 issues. Then there was pressure from
International Viewpoint 11 November 1985 and no more printed copies came out. Our Generation, a joint project by the students of 13 universities all over China, also encountered the same problem. Its founding issue only had half of its contents in printed form, and pressure from above forced come out in incomplete form and even forced a stoppage of publication after its founding issue.
Due to a conservative Publication Ordinance of application for legal publication impublications attempted in vain to registered. Hence, they had to remain "unofficial". The Beijing Spring Democracy Movement
The unofficial publications were characteristic Spring Democracy Movement. They served as political and organizational centers grouping together young activists. The unofficial publications were contained mostly political literary pieces. Most of the publications of the first type were published by young workers who had been the red guard generation during the Cultural Revolution; they felt they had been betrayed by Mao and after a period of re-thinking, they came out with clear demands for democracy and a legal system. They formed the core
Beijing Spring Democracy Movement. The second type was published by young workers with literary pursuits, but they had close links with the type and also some writers in official literary publications. Movement was in the beginning
Demonstration in Peking (DR) rather atomized. Activists with similar viewpoints regrouped around a certain publication for discussion of political ideas and propaganda of their viewpoints. Yet, there links among the publications. The inexperience and lack of conscious pursuit of unity was part of the reason for this, but the organizational division stemmed mainly from the different ideological trends of the publications. Roughly speaking, in
Exploration, with its editor Wei Jingsheng, was the most radical of all for it advocated democratic election of all leaders and democratic self-management by stance of Deng Beijing Spring, which grouped together heroes of 1976 riots, most of whom had been recruited into the party or the youth league, served more to support the Deng Xiaoping faction against Mao Zedong's supporters. April 5 Forum was more than Exploration for assessed the Deng Xiaoping faction as reformers, but it also stressed the importance of mobilizing the people democratic demands. Rights in China demanded respect for human rights and expressed aspirastyle democracy. These differences in assessment of the Deng faction and in the radicalness of the demands led to organisational divisions and lack of cooperation. Yet, the objective situation compelled a regroupment of the forces fighting
1979, Deng Xiaoping changed his stance on the democracy wall. A few months before, he had said that the democracy wall was useful and that it could let the people voice their grievances. However, in March, he said that the democracy wall was a source of instability.
21
Democracy wall in Peking (DR)
Wei Jingsheng at once reacted by posting up a wall poster titled
'Democrac or new dictatorship' in which he called for the people to beware of Deng becoming a new dictator. Wei was promptly arrested. Before Wei, several others had been arrested, including Fu Yuehua, a woman who led thousands of peasants on a parade in the capital on January 8, 1979, with the central slogan *against persecution, against hunger, for democracy, for human rights'. Two members of the Human Rights Alliance had also been arrested. The change in the political atmosphere in March caused a re-evaluation of the Deng Xiaoping faction's sincerity and readiness for democratic reforms. The need for more coordination among the activists was also being felt.
In December 1979, the trial of Wei Jingsheng took place. Though his radical ideas were not popular, his right to freedom of thought and expression was supported by the activists. Wei Jingsheng, for his dissidence, was given a sentence of 15 years in jail. Liu Qing, editor of April 5 Forum, was arrested for distributing a transcript of the 'open' trial. Liu Qing's arrest helped bring together more activists. In August 1980, 16 publications joined together to form a National Committee to Rescue Liu Qing. This quickly grew into the National Association of Unofficial Publications of China composed of 21 publications, and more joined later.
The formation of the NAUPC was a significant breakthrough. It took less than two years from the emergence of unofficial publications to arrive at their nationwide coalition. 22
Such a rapid development was not a surprise. The downfall of the Gang of Four and the rehabilitation of the
Tian An Men Square riot were the result of strong pressure from the masses. The Deng Xiaoping faction carried out its half hearted reforms under serious economic difficulties and ideological crisis of the CCP. When the Deng Xiaoping faction began repressing the people's democratic rights, discontent quickly grew. Certain illusions in the reforming faction broke down. Repression of the democracy movement forced the divided publications to draw together for more support and strength in order to counter pressure from the regime. At the same time, since most of the activists had gone through the Cultural Revolution years, they were experienced in various methods of struggle. When they discarded illusions in one wing of the bureaucracy, their critical appraisal of bureaucratic rule, and the social contradictions caused a further radicalization. While they continued to carry out political and theoretical debates among themselves, they consciously opted for closer organisational unity. The Polish example was another source of stimulus. The democracy movement greeted Solidarose with enthusiastic fraternity, reprinting the 21 demands and the Charter of Workers' Rights, and assessed that the Polish workers movement had tolled the death knell for bureaucratic rule and set the beginning for a pluralistic party system. The need for international links was much emphasized.
At the end of 1980, when deputies to the county level People's Congress were for the first time open to election, many students (such as
Tao Shen, Hu Ping) and worker activists (such as Fu Shenqi, He
Defu, • Gong Ping, Wang Yifeng) ran as candidates to use the campaign as a forum for political debates. Interventions by the authorities were then exposed to show the hypocrisy of such elections.
In early 1981, the party central issued several circulars preparing for a clampdown of the *illegal publications' and *illegal organisations'. The activists also started to prepare forming political parties
Starting from April 10, arrests took place on a nationwide scale. Those arrested and known to the outside world numbered over thirty, including Wang Xizhe People's Voice (Guangzhou), He Qiu and Wang Yifei of People's Road (Guangzhou), Xu Wenli, Yan Jing and Chen Erjin of April 5 Forum (Beijing), Lu Lin of Exploration (Beijing), Fu Shenqi of Voice of Democracy (Shanghai), Sun Weibang of Sea Waves (Qingdao), Xing Dakun of Forum of Fraternal Comrades (Qingdao), Liu Liping of Correspondence of Ideals (Changsha), Zhang Jingsheng of The Republican (Changsha), Chun Yongmin and Zhu Jian bin The Bell (Wahan), Zhong Yueqiu of Voice of the Masses (Shaoguan), Yang Zaixing and Chun Xiao xiang of Enlightenment (Guizhou), Peng Guangzhong of Biweekly Review (Guizhou), Liu Ean of Brick of Democracy (Tianjin), Ye Zhongwu of Zhi River (Hangzhou), Zheng Yulin of Shouts (Wenzhou), and other activsts like Tao Shen (Changsha), Xu Shuiliang (Nanjing) Yang Guoliang (Beijing), Yu Huimin (Nanjing), Yang Xiaolei (Hangzhou), etc. Attempts to form political organizations
The democracy movement activists were detained without trial for about a year. Later, it was known that Wang Xizhe and He Qiu were sentenced on May 28, 1982 to 14 and Went was sentence on and Xu Wenli was sentenced on 18 for 15 years. It was also reported that Chen Erjin was sentenced to 12 years, Fu Shengi to seven years, and Yang Zaixing to five years.
The court verdict on Xu Wenli revealed that Xu Wenli was leader in coordination with Wang Xizhe, sun Welbang, Liu E-an and Fu Shenai to form Alliance of Chinese Communists in June 1980 and later the Association to Promote Democracy and Unification in China in the spring of 1981. A draft programme of the latter organisation had also been drawn up. International Viewpoint 11 November 1985