U.S. socialists travel to China after crackdown

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BEIJING-The April demonstrations in Tiananmen Square opened a new chapter in the history of the Chinese revolution. A movement was born in the streets of the capital that shook the foundations of the Stalinist regime.

Beijing students, a whole generation of the best educated and most political of China's youth, began organizing independently for a dialogue with the regime and for democracy.

Their directness and courage inspired mass support from the workers of Beijing. Their calls for an end to official corruption and for accountability to the people seemed to have wide resonance. A million gathered in Tiananmen. Mass mobilizations followed in Shanghai, Tianjin, and elsewhere.

The massacre of June 4 and the ensuing repression dealt the movement a harsh blow. At the same time, the regime exposed itself— the simple demand for dialogue was met with guns, lies, arrests, and executions.

The repression could not turn back the clock, however. Awakened by the students' call, the workers of China began to move on their own.

The first rumblings of their power, like the sound of a distant train, were heard in the reports of workers' demonstrations, strikes, and the organizing of independent unions. Chinese workers have the power that students by themselves cannot have—to create socialist democracy by mass organization. The Chinese government is well aware of this. So far, only workers have been tried and executed.

The Chinese workers' movement has largely been ignored by the world press. While Time magazine was chortling about the death agony of socialism, none of the capitalist press could find a single shred of evidence-not a single document or wall poster-by the Chinese students and workers calling for a restoration of capitalism in China. In fact, the demonstrators often sang the "Internationale," the anthem of the international workers' movement.

Socialist Action delegation

Socialist Action sent a five-person delegation (Mya Shone, Nat Weinstein, Rod Holt, Ralph Schoenman, and me) to travel to Shanghai and Beijing for 10 days in late June.

We wanted to find out from Chinese workers themselves what their feelings were about the regime, the students, their own living situations. We wanted to know what they had witnessed and what they thought about the future.

We knew this would be difficult. When we arrived in China, arrests were continuing, police were searching for activists. In Beijing, martial law was in full force, with troops stationed throughout the city. Reports of shooting incidents persisted, and the troops were especially aggressive at night. In Shanghai's People's Park, government wall cartoons showed the army skewering "bad element" rats with bayonets. It could be dangerous for workers even to speak with us.

Nonetheless, we were able to have wide-ranging discussions with workers in Shanghai and even in Beijing. After cautious preliminaries, workers were often very eager to speak their minds. They used direct language that revealed their frustrations and anger.

Trading information

Our conversations often began by trading information about living conditions for workers in the United States and China. Chinese workers work a 48-hour week. Wages are low-railroad workers we met made 145 yuan ($40) a month, with 100-200 yuan bonuses supplementing this wage.

On the other hand, workers have job security and rent is nominal (around 2 percent to 4 percent of monthly salary, according to our informants). Retirement age for most men is 60; for women and some men, it is 55. Health care is free and, according to rail Stop workers themselves, of good quality.

These workers were astonished at the higher salaries of average American workers, but also at the high cost of rent and medical coverage. They value highly the security that is provided by the "iron rice bow|"-that is, guaranteed income and job.

Many workers complained loudly of the lack of adequate housing. In Beijing, where high-rises stand over ancient walled neighborhoods, workers are alloted six square meters per person. Ignoring soldiers standing only a few yards away, residents of a cramped workers' neighborhood complained of rats and roaches.

Mainly, they blamed the government for

Tina Beacock/Socialist Action

majority. They said: "The Party's policy of economic reform is wrong. It hurts the people."

Today, a month's wages only last two or three weeks. We asked how they managed to survive. "You have to find a way," was the standard reply. They pointed out that many workers were moonlighting or peddling to make up the difference. One of them even claimed that he could make more money by not working, and instead doing "business"i.e., petty trading and black-market activities.

Since many goods are expensive and in Special 8-Page scarce supply, extra money is often saved up for big purchases. Savings are deposited in state banks that earn, we were told, only 0.7 percent interest. Now inflation is eating away the purchasing power of those savings. This is another way workers are being robbed by inflation.

"The distribution of income is unfair," one well-off worker told us. For example, he had worked a year in a moderately skilled post in connection with foreign trade. He makes five times what his father is making after 24 years as a teacher.

We met construction workers who earned only 2 yuan ($.54) a day and worked only half the month. Many like them were farmers who were unable to make a living now under the single family "household responsibility" system. While some farmers are getting rich off the market reforms, many others are unable to make ends meet. "You have to pull in your stomach," one construction worker told us.

This hardship is making workers very angry. Some of the young workers could not even afford to get married. "There is no love," one said bitterly. "Only money is important." We asked these workers: "What can you do? People must be angry about inflation."

All of them exploded at once: "There's nothing you can do!" We asked them: "Don't workers ever get together to fight inflation, to demand raises from the managers?" "They do," they responded, "and they're promised raises. But the raises never come. The bureaucrats [this was the term they used] speak with their lips, not with their hearts."

The inflation inevitably follows the economic "reforms" the CCP has introduced. The reforms allow for the expanded role of the market, including an expansion of foreign investment. Widely praised in the capitalist press, the reforms did not gain much favor with the workers we spoke with.

We met one Shanghai worker, "Sam," who was extremely insightful about this and many other issues. On the reforms, he was adamant: "The reforms have no real effect [in modernizing China]. Ninety-five percent of private business does nothing for the people. Many capitalists just buy from Guangzhao [near Hong Kong in the special economic zone in the Southern coast] and sell to Shanghai at a profit.

"If people were involved in production through better organization," Sam continued, "it would have a lot more effect than private business. It's the government's fault. So much of the economy is lost because people have nothing to do." For Sam the alternative to the current situation was not more capitalism—as the regime proposed-but better planning, planning that involved the workers.

Endemic and rampant corruption Everyone spoke about the corruption of the regime. We were especially interested in this (continued on page 14)

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