CHINA The roots of the student movement ON THE EVE of the Tiananmen massacre, Combate, the paper of the Revolutionary Communist League, Spanish state section of the Fourth International, interviewed G. Buster, who has followed events in China closely for a number of years.
In the following abridged version of the interview, he discusses the development of the student movement and its relations with other strata of the society. W HAT events or experi-
Fences were at the origin of the student mobilizations?
The source of the student explosion in Peking has to be traced back to the failure of the economic reforms undertaken by the leading group. The most visible aspect of this failure is a surge of inflation due to the imbalance between agriculture and industry, which has always been the People's Republic of China's major problem. The social crisis produced by this was reflected in the workers' strikes in the winter of 1988, and more generally in a rise in social conflicts. The context was marked by deepgoing corruption, a moral crisis for the youth and growing ideological and economic pressure from the capitalist countries.
In this situation, at the beginning of the university year, a student movement started to develop, under the influence of professors who represented the more liberal wing of the reform current. At the outset, the problem of education was taken up, and that became a springboard for taking up the questions of inflation and the economic crisis as a whole. International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989
All the debates going on in the party are reflected in measures that, as a result of a lack of funds for maintaining the present educational system, hit the students — that is, the children of the elite, who are certainly not without political training and who, because of their education, consider themselves responsible for the country's future. • It seems that of all the great student movements in 1987, only the Chinese managed to maintain continuity.
I would talk about a social movement rather than a political one. But in any case, there are reasons for this continuity. The students are concentrated on the campuses, in dormitory-type accommodation, and this favors the transmission of tradition and experience from one class to another. Moreover, the great student movement of 1986 marked a whole generation. It should be added that this movement was never stamped out, and the students remained the heirs of the general secretary of the Chinese CP, Hu Yaobang, who was ousted from power because he opposed repression of the student movement.
From that time on, the students considered themselves the vanguard of the reformers, who, after the Thirteen Congress, remained prisoners of the conservatives because of the system of balances in the party established by the statutes adopted at the congress. The situation can be summed up by saying that continuity was maintained because there was a collective experience of the movement. For example, the movement is now raising the question of representativeness again, as in 1987, although the student candidates in the previous elections were jailed. • How did the recent movement develop?
In September, a vanguard started to form. Its major concern was the work of the National People's Assembly, which was supposed to discuss the question of education and the educational budget. Just after the exams in January, there was an upsurge of student mobilizations. The most important date in the crystallization of the movement came at the end of April.
On April 25, just as the year before, the students left Peking University during the night. They joined their comrades at the People's University (which is a sort of polytechnic), and marched down the big avenues singing the International and chanting their slogans. This was a torchlight demonstration and it made a big impression on the entire city. • Why did they sing the International?
Above all, to demonstrate that they were not an anti-party movement, but also to assert a symbolic value in which they believe. The International represents all the sacrifices that have been made in the name of socialism to modernize China. Any project for China's future outside the framework of socialism would lead to a break, or even a civil war.
That does not mean that there are not pro-capitalist tendencies among the students. But it is certain that they cannot express themselves openly because they would not be accepted by the students or by the population. That is why the students adopted the International as their anthem.
To go back to the facts: This big demonstration included 350,000 people. The total number of students [in Peking] can be estimated at 130,000, so the rest were people from Peking, essentially young workers, as well as what are called the "plebeian" sectors, which have arisen in recent years around the black market. They joined in the movement from the beginning.
On the night of April 25, the demonstrators were driven back brutally from the headquarters of the Central Committee, where they had massed. On the following day, the People's Daily published an editorial, emanating from Deng Xiaoping and the Political Committee, which characterized the student movement as "counter-revolutionary." This was a decisive turning point, because the movement found itself facing a very clear alternative — either assert its strength and accept the regime's challenge to defend itself as a people's revolutionary movement or retreat to the campuses and wait for a
wave of repression.
The previous student movement backed away from such a test. But this time the students stayed in the streets. This produced a split in the reform faction. Hu Yaobang resigned so as not to have to repress the students. But Zhao Ziyang was forced to face up to the conservatives because the students were advancing rather than retreating. The crisis thus continued into May, when big demonstrations were to be held to commemorate the May 4, 1919, movement, a reminder that People's China was born out of a big mobilization of Peking students for science and democracy.
However, at this point the movement found itself a prisoner of the argument between the conservatives and the reformers that was unfolding in the Central Committee. That led the vanguard to make its second fundamental choice: A thousand students started a prolonged hunger strike in the center of Tiananmen Square, facing the statue celebrating 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 accusations of corruption proliferated 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 and 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 counter-revolution. "If we were counter-revolutionaries," the students said, "then we would be corrupt. But isn't it rather you who are both corrupt and counterrevolutionary?" *
· 4p CHINA nine regime Is at the end of its rope" THE ENTHUSIASM that reigned in Tiananmen Square abruptly gave way to tragedy. On the night of June 3-4, the Chinese bureaucracy, or at least the dominant faction within it, decided to drown the mass movement in a bloodbath.
This is not the first time the bureaucrats have resorted to such methods. Deng in 1957 and Mao in 1967 already offered foretastes of this. But this is the first time the regime has sent the troops into the capital and massacred unarmed students.