China’s Alternative to Soviet Dissolution and the Brandt Anecdote

With Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, the Chinese proceeded in a radically different, almost opposite, way. While in the sphere of economy (and, up to a point, culture) what is usually understood as Communism was abandoned and the gates were opened wide to Western-style liberalization (private property, profit-making, hedonist individualism, etc.), the Party nevertheless maintained its ideological-political hegemony—not in the sense of doctrinal orthodoxy (in the official discourse, the Confucian reference to the “Harmonious Society” practically replaced any reference to Communism) but in the sense of maintaining the unconditional political hegemony of the Communist Party as the only guarantee for stability and prosperity in China.

This required close monitoring and regulation of the ideological discourse on Chinese history, especially the history of the last two centuries. The recounting of China’s recent history is varied. It includes China’s humiliation in the Opium Wars, which ended only with the Communist victory in 1949, and led to the conclusion that to be patriotic is to support the rule of the Party. When history is given such a legitimizing role, it cannot tolerate any substantial self-critique. The Chinese had learned the lesson of Gorbachev’s failure: Full recognition of the “founding crimes” will only bring the entire system down. Thus, those crimes must remain disavowed.

True, some Maoist “excesses” and “errors” have been denounced (such as the Great Leap Forward and the devastating famine that followed, and the Cultural Revolution), and Deng Xiaoping’s assessment of Mao’s role (70 percent positive, 30 percent negative) is enshrined as the official formula. But this assessment functions as a formal conclusion which renders any further elaboration superfluous. Even if Mao was 30 percent bad, the full symbolic impact of this admission would be neutralized. He would continue to be celebrated as the founding father of the nation—his body in a mausoleum and his image on every banknote. We are dealing here with a clear case of fetishistic disavowal. Although we know very well that Mao made errors and caused immense suffering, his figure is kept magically untainted by these facts. In this way, the Chinese Communists can have their cake and eat it too: The radical changes brought about by economic liberalization are combined with the continuation of the same Party rule as before.

My saddest memory about Gorbachev is a rumor that circulated in Germany in the 1990s. Who knows if it is true, but se non è vero, è ben trovato (“even if it is not true, it makes the right point”). On a visit to Berlin after he lost power, Gorbachev tried to make a surprise visit to the ex-chancellor Willy Brandt.

However, when he (with his guards) approached Brandt’s house and rang the bell, Brandt refused to see him. Later, Brandt explained to a friend why: He never forgave Gorbachev for allowing the dissolution of the Communist bloc, and not because Brandt was a secret believer in Soviet Communism, but because he was well aware that the disappearance of the Communist bloc would also mean the disappearance of the Western European Social Democratic Welfare State. That is to say, Brandt knew that the capitalist system was ready to make considerable concessions to the workers and the poor only if there was a serious threat of an alternative, of a different mode of production that promises workers their rights. To retain its legitimacy, capitalism has to demonstrate how it works better even for the workers and the poor, and the moment this alternative vanishes, one can proceed to dismantle the welfare state. The ongoing global crisis clearly calls for radical social change. However, if we want to resuscitate the vision of a truly different Communism, it will have to be done on a totally different basis than the one imagined by Gorbachev (and Lenin).