Exiled Chinese students assess key role of workers in national upheaval

Scan page 8

SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1989 It was seven o'clock in the evening of May 20. Mya Shone, Guo-cang Huan, and I were fighting traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens expressway heading for Elmhurst in Queens, New York. But as we tried to weave through the jammed lanes, backed up by construction and the aftermath of New York rush hour, our thoughts were 9000 miles away as we drove on, glued to the short-wave radio broadcasting the news from Beijing.

Guo-cang Huan, a founder of the Chinese democracy movement during the 1970s, inaugurator of the first theoretical journal of the movement, known as China Spring, had first become known to us shortly after he managed to leave China, one step ahead of the secret police.

It was 1981 and he had just managed to leave with an exit visa for Tokyo, en route to the graduate program at the University of Denver. At the end of the year, martial law was declared in Poland, and Guo-cang heard of our newly formed American Workers and Artists for Solidarity. He wanted to join with left trade unionists and writers in the United States who were showing their support for the Polish workers' movement, Solidarity.

In Denver, he spoke from our platform, drawing the lessons of the Polish workers' movement for a future struggle of China's workers and students-for independent unions, independent student organizations, and democratic control of society.

Seven years later we were en route to what had been set up as the Contact Office of the Chinese People's Movement in Queens, as the news from Beijing, uncharacteristically unfettered, came through to us in emotionally charged Chinese. Workers in the state radio and the party press had taken over and were freely reporting the mobilizations taking place throughout China, notably in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Meeting with Jun Chen On arrival at the Contact Office we were greeted by a slender, quiet-spoken man in his twenties. Guo-cang introduced us to his friend and comrade, Jun Chen, already famous in China and the United States.

Only weeks before, Jun had been the principle organizer in Beijing and Shanghai of Amnesty 1989, sending a Manifesto that was addressed to "All Delegates of the National People's Congress; to Wan Li, Chairman of the Standing Commitee of the National People's Congress; and to Yang Shangkun, Chairman of the People's Republic of China."

Referring to a book published in Moscow in 1980 titled "A Socialist Human Rights Perspective," Jun had called for the release of all political prisoners, citing "the special significance of this year, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the State and the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement." May 4, 1919, had heralded the mass mobilization of the Chinese students and the spread of their protest to the general population-a movement revered in China and regarded as the opening note of the Chinese Revolution. Jun had predicted that the call for amnesty for political prisoners would sweep the students and intellectuals, reaching into the population, who looked to May 4 as the beginning of a new mass movement in China.

Jun's report was dated March 18, 1989. Within weeks the Chinese government arrested him. Because his wife, Jenny, was British, he was expelled from China instead of being imprisoned.

Unfolding student movement

Jun and Guo-cang described the unfolding of the student movement that built toward May 4 and the planned mobilization in the capital. "How could we dream that our student movement and its call for an end to corruption and for democratization would evoke so immediate a response?" Jun said.

The phones at the Contact Office were ringing continuously-from Shanghai and Beijing. Student leaders in teams were telephoning-to Queens. From Beijing they asked about student and troop movements in Shanghai. From Beijing they checked with Queens on the latest thinking in Tiananmen Square about strategy. They were cut off from each other, Beijing and Shanghai, but the Contact Office in Elmhurst, Queens, was coordinating the struggle!

Jun relayed to us what he was hearing now from Tiananmen Square:

Over 1 million had mobilized in the center. Twenty tanks moving on the center of the capital were being blocked by brigades of nurses who had come streaming out of the hospitals at the urging of-factory workers! Forty trucks carrying army units had been stopped by the population. Handicapped people and the blind had been organized and were lying down in front of the army trucks, placing their heads under the wheels. Soldiers were crying and calling to the population, "We are the people's soldiers, we shall never oppose you, we shall never turn our weapons on you."

Factory workers were moving from army truck to army truck, disassembling the automatic weapons of the soldiers who handed them over to the workers. Workers declined the weapons but removed firing pins to the encouragement of the rank-and-file soldiers. On another telephone in the next room came a further report from another part of Tiananmen Square. The subway workers had shut down the subways and were blocking access to them by soldiers to whom they were appealing to join the people's movement. Workers were commandeering the buses-and the bus drivers, instead of carrying soldiers to the center, were using the buses as barricades, defending the mass mobilization to waves of chanting and cheers.

Demonstrations spread

News came over the first telephone: Deng Xiao-ping had given orders to use any force necessary to restore order. The troops had been ordered to clear the square and move against the population. Students were now roaming through Beijing, declaring the formation of the Committee to Urge the People No Longer to Recognize the Current Government. With the hanging up of the phone, a call came in from Shanghai. Over 200,000 had mobilized, and the demonstrations had extended to 28 cities. Word was spreading like wildfire in the provinces. Newspapers all over China were publishing freely, and, with impassioned language of support, the news of the mass movement spread. Troops had been sent to close down the newspapers. The journalists and printers massed to confront the troops, and the soldiers refused their orders. The People's Daily in Beijing and China News Agency had been taken over by journalists who refused to print party orders and carried glowing, emotional accounts of the "rising of the people." Worker demands were proliferating, calling for mobilization, an end to corruption, the right to strike, and the right to organize independent trade unions. Jun, Jenny, Guo-Cang, Mya, and I now began a discussion. The critical question was organization, leadership, program, and a strategy for the long term.

"Power to the people"

Jun walked over to a desk and pulled out a sheet of paper on which he had written the text of a declaration that was circulating among students throughout Europe and the United Kingdom. It had already been printed in Beijing and was being distributed there as well. People were adding to it and the text was literally in flux as revisions and additions came in from Beijing, London, Copenhagen-and Queens.

The declaration stated:

"People of China. The country is in crisis. Our masses are already bleeding. By suppressing the people and attempting to subdue the nation, Chairman of the Military Committee Deng Xiao-ping, President Yang Shang-kung, and Premier Li Peng-this small clique of bureaucrats-have already become the common enemies of the Chinese people.

"We appeal to all Chinese, to all sectors of society who have a sense of conscience: Repudiate this dictatorial government. (1) Deng Xiao-ping must resign. (2) Li Peng must go forever. (3) Yang Shang-kun must be removed. (4) Long live democracy. (5) Long live freedom. (6) Long live the people to whom power must belong.

The declaration bore the name Contact Office For The Support of the China Democracy Movement. As we are attempting to discuss the elaboration of a program, the telephones are ringing. Guo-cang, Jun, and Jenny are taking the phones. Chinese are coming into the apartment with Faxes from Chinese cities and from student groups in the United States.

Guo-cang cups his hand over the phone and leans over: "It's Shanghai. Five generals, including three-star generals [the highest rank), and two marshalls have written to Li Peng." Their joint statement declares that it is wrong to use the military to suppress the people. They urge Li Peng to pull back while time permits. "It will never work," they advise Li Peng.

Shanghai is asking for a Fax back on the Contact Office's assessment of the ability of the mobilization in Beijing to prevent the army from moving on the center of the capital.

We begin discussion about the content of a programmatic declaration, about the possibility of an International Committee of Support for the Chinese People's Movement for Democracy. Mya and I urge concrete calls for the right to strike, for independent trade unions, and for workers' democratic control of the factories. We ask about the attitude of workers to the market reforms.

People, we are told, do not know fully what the government intends, but they are crying out against corruption, inflation, high prices, unemployment, and job insecurity. Are there, we ask, calls for socialist democracy? "The regime has appropriated the word 'socialist,' and people associate it with bureaucratic sloganeering," is the response. "Workers' democratic control is concrete and people will rally around such a demand." "Can such demands be taken from factory to factory?" we ask. "It is very difficult, Jun replies. The workers are arrested and repressed immediately, far more ruthlessly than are the students."

We are interrupted with news from Beijing about the unfolding struggle with the party bureaucracy over how to cope with the crisis. One faction wants to attempt to co-opt the mass movement by agreeing to discuss demands. Another wing fears the contagion of mass mobilization, the disaffection of the soldiers, the explosive potential of any sense of triumph among the masses.

The caller from Beijing says that she has heard that Disciplinary Commission ViceChairperson Chen Pei-jing is attempting to prevent the resignation of Party GeneralSecretary Zhao Zi-yang, who is being attacked for going among the students in Tiananmen Square. Rumors are sweeping Beijing that such talk is a cover for plans to move the army in and clear the center by brute force.

Flying squads organized

Students and workers are organizing flying squads, including motorcyle units, to monitor all troop movements and to maintain watchunits for the "disappearance" of any prominent student, intellectual, or worker leaders. The caller reports that some among the bureaucracy are desperately afraid of a split in the party bureaucracy and a bitter struggle for power. They fear that the short term may bring an attempt to attack the mass movement. But the consequence could be a generalized uprising throughout China, including the unthinkable—a general strike. "They," Jun tells us, "may try to reconcile the Zhao and Li factions, but someone among the top leadership will be made to 'pay' for the crisis. They are addicted to scapegoating because they dare not acknowledge that it is the bureaucratic regime itself that is the root of the crisis." "We must struggle for more than the resignation of this or that bureaucrat," Jun continues. "We don't want to replace one bureaucrat with another. They are cut from the same cloth. Deng , Xiao-ping is the architect of the 'reform,' but he is also the father of the mass repression of 1957 when the One Hundred Flower period was crushed by arrests and armed force."

We all agree. The question is to formulate a program around which organization can occur. "After the uprising," says Guo-cang, we must make very clear that it is not just a question of a few leaders, however they attempt to resolve the current crisis. It is the entire system. So the question facing the mass movement is, 'How do we change the system, how do we remove the bureaucratic dictatorship?' We discuss forming independent union branches in factories and independent organizations among students, writers, artists, farmers, and soldiers to coordinate with them. We all agree the workers' movement is the key.

The Beijing Commune Jenny and Jun describe the dramatic calls from Beijing of two days before: The students had become convinced the military was about to move and that martial law would be ruthlessly imposed as in Poland. Their numbers began to shrink rapidly. They were down to 10,000 who were left in Tiananmen Square. The word began to spread to the population. Two hundred thousand workers poured out of the factories and the worker districts. Fifteen thousand workers from the Beijing Steel Company formed special teams to take charge of the organizing of the demonstrations, of maintaining order. Worker patrols were formed to maintain unity of purpose and coordination among the population. Within one day, 10,000 students had mushroomed to 1 million people through the intervention of the workers.

Mya and I say to Jun and Guo-cang: "This is the Beijing Commune. No matter the immediate outcome it is a historic turning point. The example of the Chinese masses— transforming a rank-and-file army overnight into sympathizers and taking charge of a movement that has paralyzed the regimewill reverberate throughout China and the world."

Talk turns to the spontaneity of the mass movement and of the crisis itself. We revisit the theme of organization, program, and leadership.

We begin to discuss the importance of the Contact Office itself, the opportunity to send to Beijing programmatic formulations and proposals. The workers, Guo-cang says, want job security, low prices, the opportunity to decide which jobs they wish, the ability to move freely. The Chinese workers feel strong now that they have mobilized and know that they can be in touch with forces outside China. They are studying the conditions of Hong Kong workers, many of whom travel from Hong Kong to Beijing.

Again a call from Shanghai. People are talking about drafting a new constitution for the country, calling for democratic control by the people. Everyone is talking about which way forward as if the regime is already a thing of the past. In their hearts, it is.

Jun says, "Yes, its true, but some people will want only a cleaner version of the present party group. Most want deeper change. Every indication is that the great majority of people in China are furious about the generalized corruption among the elite. They hate the bureaucracy and bureaucratic privilege. So the critical question is how do we achieve this?"

The phones continue to ring. The information flows. Everything is in flux. We agree that we must get an international support apparatus, keep the Contact Office going, and brainstorm about the way forward.

"These 10 days will shake the world," I tell Jun, Jenny and Guo-cang. We embrace. Guocang, Mya, and I drive to Brooklyn, and the strategizing continues.

Independent unions formed

Ten days later, the Associated Press reporter, Terril Jones, files a report, a story from Beijing datelined May 30. The headline in the Santa Barbara News-Press is "China Union Leaders Reportedly Arrested." The story opens: "Members of a new independent labor union said today that police had arrested three of their leaders, the latest sign the government was getting tough with non-student participants in the democratic movement."

The story takes precedence over the unveiling of the 33-foot-high Goddess of Liberty statue in Tiananmen Square which has brought 200,000 back, belying the stories of the crumbling of the student movement and the imminent purge of intellectuals supporting the mass movement. Even the claims that the Zhao faction would be purged begin to recede.

Instead, the lead story cites Zhao Pinglu, head of the Beijing Independent Workers' Union, who describes the attempts to arrest three union leaders, including an official of the national airlines and two worker leaders of the railroad workers. "The independent trade union claims 3000 members, the News-Press story continues. "It was formed May 19 in defiance of a government ban on all but the Official All China Federation of Trade Unions." Workers who joined the demonstrations and support the movement are fined, have their pay docked, and are threatened with losing their jobs. The student Goddess of Liberty statue is supported by the workers, "Here is a new symbol for China," says a worker at a machine tool factory.

As the workers assert their will to organize, the student leaders who proposed ending the occupation of the square are overruled. The regime rails against "conspirators and bad elements," in the words of Peng Zhen, former chairman of China's moribund legislature. The population appears to be defiant. By May 31, the story out of Beijing is dramatic, "China Labor Activists Emulate Solidarity," reads the headline in the Los Angeles Times: "Standing out in the babble of loudspeakers haranguing the crowd in Tiananmen Square at around 3 o'clock this morning were the energetic voices of the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation. This is a plucky band of workers who say they organized spontaneously during pro-democratic protests and dream of building something akin to Solidarity, the Polish independent trade Jun and Jenny continue to be in direct touch with events in China. The Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation, they tell us over the phone, is entirely distinct from the Beijing Independent Workers' Union. Workers are forming organizations and unions spontaneously in factories across China.

The Los Angeles Times story is compelling. It quotes workers like Liu Qiang, 27, a printer who went into Tiananmen Square to help protect the students from military intervention. He tells reporter, Karl Schoenberger.

"What we're doing represents the voice of the people. There must be someone who stands up first for worker rights and democracy." The reporter writes ruefully that the number of students in the square had been in steady decline to a few thousand Tuesday night but "the sudden emergence of the labor activists is a new twist in the six weeks of raucous agitation."

Like the moment before the workers poured out of the factories to revive the flagging student movement, the entry of the workers turned the tide again, only this time at a higher level—that of independent worker organizations with their own leaders and their own demands. "Hundreds of people crowded around the folding table at the northwest corner of the square, where union members took turns holding a microphone and getting things off their chests," the Times article continues. "A visitor from the nearby city of Tianjin warned that members of another labor underground organization had disappeared."

The union members in the northwest corner of the square had strength among the state railroad workers. Liu stated, "Like the Polish union, ours is illegal at the beginning. We hope that after the facts are known, the laws can be changed." Liu earns $37 a month, a typical wage. He makes clear, however, that it was not economic complaints alone which "drove him to the barricades."

The Times reporter seems surprised that Liu has worked out his own ideas and is at once articulate and passionate: "We must overcome the slavery of workers," Liu said. The reference, the reporter informs us, is not to exploitation by capitalism nor to the Communist system, "which Liu and his comrades say they are happy to work within. Like the students laying siege to Tiananmen Square, they espouse a commitment to greater democracy and an end to official corruption."

The reporter is astonished to find that the militant worker to whom he speaks regards himself as a communist who wants to struggle to overcome the slavery of workers because "the government is aloof and out of (continued on page 10)

Scan page 9

... Beijing Commune shakes the world (continued from page I) capitalist economic reforms launched by the Chinese CP, which have drastically lowered the standard of living for Chinese workers and peasants.

Zhen Ying, a 20-year-old journalism student from Hefei told Western reporters, "What we want is to make communism good and perfect. We don't think the government we've got can do that, and that's why we want it to go."

The mass movement that has shaken China this year is the result of growing economic insecurity and lack of confidence in the Chinese ruling bureaucracy.

Ten years ago, the CCP under Deng Xiaoping began a process of economic reform which undermined many of the gains of the Chinese Revolution. The overall goal of the bureaucracy was to revive a stagnated econo my through increased privatization of the nation's wealth and capitalist competition.

The reforms were first applied in the countryside, where peasants were told to "enrich themselves." The government removed many of the incentives it had previously provided to collective farms and it encouraged individual peasants to become entrepreneurs.

This resulted in wealthy peasants acquiring increasing amounts of land from the col lective farms and from poorer peasants. The peasants displaced by this process were compelled to either work for the new landowners or to leave the land and find work in the cities.

Centralized planning without democracy led to bureaucratic inefficiency and stagnation in the economy. The bureaucracy's only other option has been to allow the penetration of world capitalism into China and allow market relations to develop without the check of workers' democracy.

The government has encouraged private and joint-enterprises by lifting price controls and subsidies on a number of commodities. The result has been staggering inflation.

Inflation reached 50 percent in the first six months of 1988. Food products have been some of the worst hit by inflation. In Shanghai, fresh vegetable prices have shot up 89 percent. A situation now exists in which the majority of the Chinese people are unable Peter Turnely proposal is likely to be considered and eventually to be adopted." (The New York Times, Jan. 9, 1989)

Gorbachev and the Soviet bureaucracy are launching economic reforms in the Chinese mold. In fact, China's course has gone much expell 109,000 members on corruption charges.

"Thank you and goodbye"

The Chinese CP now faces the biggest challenge ever to its rule. Chants of "overthrow the bureaucracy" and banners reading "Deng Xiaoping-thank you and goodbye" have been features of every demonstration.

The use of force, even if it succeeds temporarily, will only serve to further erode the government's authority. Martial law will only add fuel to the development of future protests.

One section of the bureaucracy is searching for another course to stabilize the political situation. Zhao Ziyang, general secretary of the CCP, appears to be grooming himself as a Chinese Gorbachev by stating his support for a fight against corruption and his willingness to discuss political reform.

While Zhao has been isolated by more conservative bureaucrats for now-some reports indicate that Zhao and his supporters are under house arrest—his political star may rise again if martial law remains impossible to enforce. The bureaucracy will have to find some figure like Zhao who appears less tainted in the eyes of the students and workers.

Zhao and other more sophisticated bureaucrats would like to channel the demands for democracy through official channels and thereby defuse a movement that challenges the CCP's power. In this way, like Gorbachev, they could also win broader support for their austerity program among the intellectuals.

While this strategy might succeed in coopting a layer of the movement's leadership, the Chinese bureaucracy faces a much more difficult task than Gorbachev faces in the Soviet Union.

Most important, Gorbachev's political and economic reforms were timed to head off a working-class upsurge. Gorbachev is attempting to put forward the Soviet CP as the vehicle for reform. In China, the upsurge has already taken place. It is more difficult to pull a movement with its own demands off the street than to prevent such a movement in the first place.

The promise of 1949 Overall, the government is isolated and faces a crisis of leadership as it decides what to do next. This provides the students and workers with an excellent opportunity to