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| Chairman Mao |
By Roderick MacFarqouhar, The New York Times, May 20, 2012
In the heyday of
the Soviet era, Communist leaders were described by the dissident Yugoslav
theorist Milovan Djilas as the “New Class,” whose power lay not in ownership of
wealth but in control of it: all the property of the state was at their beck
and call. There was the apocryphal but appropriate story of Brezhnev’s showing his
humble mother around his historic office, his magnificent collection of foreign
luxury cars and his palatial dacha with its superb meals, and asking for her
impressions — to which she replied: “It’s wonderful, Leonid, but what happens
if the Bolsheviks come back?”
But if even a fraction of the stories about the wealth and lifestyles of
China’s “princelings” — the descendants of Mao’s revolutionary generation — are
to be believed, China’s New Class wants not only control, but also ownership.
Few of China’s netizens are likely to believe that Bo Xilai, the Politburo
member and party boss of the mega-city of Chongqing who was ousted in March on
corruption charges, was an aberration.
Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite?
And why have so many Chinese leaders sent their children abroad for education?
One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China’s future.
This may seem strange, given that the Chinese have propelled their
country into the top ranks of global economic powerhouses over the past 30
years. There are those who predict a hard landing for an overheated economy —
where growth has already slowed — but the acquisition of wealth is better
understood not just as an economic cushion, or as pure greed, but as a
political hedge.
China’s Communist leaders cling to Deng Xiaoping’s belief that their continuance
in power will depend on economic progress. But even in China, a mandate based
on competence can crumble in hard times. So globalizing one’s assets —
transferring money and educating one’s children overseas — makes sense as a
hedge against risk. (At least $120 billion has been illegally transferred
abroad since the mid-1990s, according to one official estimate.)
Mao and his colleagues had a self-confidence born of many factors:
triumph in civil war; a well-organized party apparatus; a Marxist-Leninist
ideological framework, the road map to a socialist future; and the bulwark of
the victorious People’s Liberation Army. Today, more than 60 years after the
civil war, only the P.L.A. looks somewhat the same, and the self-confidence is
fraying.
The denunciations of party leaders and officials by the Red Guards
during the Cultural Revolution undermined the party’s authority and legitimacy.
The party’s insecurity was accentuated by Deng’s rejection (in practice) of
Marxism-Leninism. The cloak of ideological legitimacy was abandoned in the race
for growth.
Today, the party’s 80 million members are still powerful, but most
join the party for career advancement, not idealism. Every day, there are some
500 protests, demonstrations or riots against corrupt or dictatorial local
party authorities, often put down by force. The harsh treatment that prompted
the blind human-rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to seek American protection is
only one of the most notorious cases. The volatile society unleashed against
the state by Mao almost 50 years ago bubbles like a caldron. Stories about the
wealth amassed by relatives of party leaders like Mr. Bo, who have used their
family connections to take control of vast sectors of the economy, will
persuade even loyal citizens that the rot reaches to the very top.
The Bo affair is not just about massive corruption but also
succession. Mr. Bo had developed a high-profile “Chongqing model” characterized
by crime busting, Maoist singalongs, cheap housing and other welfare
provisions. It was a populist, and popular, attempt by a charismatic
“princeling,” son of a revolutionary hero, to assert his natural right to
ascend to the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Chinese
Communist Party Congress later this year. Among the rumors circulating in China
is that, once on the committee, Mr. Bo would have tried to replace the party’s
incoming general secretary and president agreed to by the outgoing leadership:
Xi Jinping.
Mao, who died in 1976, hand-picked his successor. Deng, who died in
1997, blessed Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao to follow him. Mr. Hu, not being a
revolutionary hero like Mao or the godfather of economic reform like Deng, did
not have the prestige to appoint his successor. The low-key Mr. Xi, a
princeling like Mr. Bo, emerged as a result of jostling behind closed doors.
Lacking institutional legitimacy and a laying of hands by an elder, he might
have looked an easy target to an ambitious Mr. Bo.
In the months ahead, party leaders will use every propaganda tool to
dissipate the damage inflicted on leadership unity, party discipline and
national “harmony” by the Bo debacle. They might divert criticism from Bo by
depicting his allegedly murderous wife as China’s Lady Macbeth. But members of
China’s New Class will still worry that the revelations about elite corruption
have exposed them to the danger of the Bolsheviks coming back.
Roderick MacFarquhar, a professor of
government at Harvard, is a co-author of “Mao’s Last Revolution.”
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