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'Is China really moving toward democracy?'


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By Lev Navrozov
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian. .
Lev Navrozov

October 18, 2003

Under this headline came an AP report from Beijing on Oct. 2, 2003, in response to Hu Jintao's speech in which he called for Òefforts to expand citizens' orderly participation in political affairs and guarantee the people's rights to carry out democratic election.Ó

The AP Beijing correspondent (Joe McDonald) ends his report by quoting an ÒexpertÓ saying that ÒChina could see direct elections within a year at the country level.Ó

A move toward democracy? But what is democracy? This is an ambivalent word, applied in particular by Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to their dictatorships.

When I lectured at a mid-American university, a local professor stood up during the questions period after my lecture, and asked why I applied the word ÒdemocracyÓ to the United States Ñ surely the United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

I answered that strictly speaking he was right. The ancient Athenian term Òdemocracy,Ó as the opposite of Òaristocracy,Ó was first applied in the 19th century to universal suffrage. Thus, in England there was aristocracy, not democracy, because the upper house of Parliament consisted of unelected lords (aristocrats), and because many adults, such as women, had no right to vote, even in the elections to the lower house of Parliament.

It is universal suffrage that came to be associated with Òdemocracy,Ó but even today the form of government of the United States is, officially, Òconstitutional republic,Ó and that of England Òconstitutional monarchy.Ó We can call the form of government of both of them in the past two centuries Òconstitutionalism,Ó meaning that the power of the king, the prime minister, or the president is limited by the courts and legislature.

Today a Westerner usually means by ÒdemocracyÓ above all constitutionalism.

What about freedom, also associated with democracy?

A dictator can permit his subjects any freedom to do anything, except restricting his absolutism. Lenin, a dictator who had publicly voiced throughout his life his determination to eliminate private enterprise (capitalism) all over the world, seized power in Russia in 1917 for that purpose Ñ and in 1921 permitted virtually unlimited private enterprise (capitalism). But Lenin did not yield an inch to constitutionalism.

In the 1930s Stalin banned private enterprise (capitalism), for a dictator can ban as he can permit. Lenin permitted capitalism, while Stalin (allegedly, his most faithful disciple) banned it.

A delegation from Stalin's Russia went to Mao's China to celebrate an anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic of China. The Òmarch-past of working peopleÓ in Mao's Beijing was copied from the same in Stalin's Moscow. A column of marchers would appear on the capital's main square, and the announcer shouted: ÒHere are marching our magnificent workers of the Electrical Machinery Plant.Ó Then another column appeared, and the Soviet delegates would not believe their ears. ÒHere are marching,Ó shouted the announcer, Òour magnificent businessmen.Ó

Today private enterprise in Hu's China is developed no worse than it was in Lenin's Russia (or in Hitler's Germany).

So? This has nothing to do with constitutionalism. This is dictatorship, permitting what the dictator considers useful for his power.

Universal suffrage? The Soviet voters were told from 1936 onward (under Stalin and his successors) that theirs were the world's most democratic elections, and the Soviet universal suffrage knew no exceptions or exemptions. Here was an example. Suppose an American voter is bed-ridden. He would not vote. Now in the Soviet elections the ballot box was brought to whoever was sick!

Why did more than 99% of the Soviet voters vote for the candidates the Soviet rulers approved and put on the ballots? Because many or most voters were afraid to Òvote against.Ó Secret ballot? But what if they were found out by their fingerprints?

Yes, the elections in Hu's China may be as democratic as they were in Stalin's Russia. But in the absence of constitutionalism, the fear to vote ÒincorrectlyÓ will be as great.

On December 31, 2002, it was announced in the United States that Channel 4 (television) was to show a documentary from China in which a Chinese Òperformance artistÓ would eat the flesh of a dead (stillborn) baby.

Neither Channel 4 nor most of its American audience seemed to have understood what it was all about. In the United States, Òperformance artistsÓ became in the second half of the 20th century the extreme manifestations of the Òfreedom of expressionÓ at post-modern art shows. The Chinese Òperformance artistsÓ have outdone their American and European colleagues Ñ one of them, Zhu Yu, is eating at art exhibitions the flesh of a dead (stillborn) baby. In other words, the Òfreedom of expressionÓ in China exceeds or surpasses that in the United States or Western Europe today.

But such boundless freedom of expression was permitted in China in the 13th century when an Italian named Marco Polo visited it. In particular, he witnessed absolute religious tolerance Ñ indeed, the rulers professed no religion. So why should they have persecuted anyone on religious grounds? On the other hand, those who encroached or infringed on the holy of holies Ñ absolutism Ñ had to carry poison because no one could stand the Chinese torture, but the police knew how to make the arrested criminal vomit the poison.

In the post-Roman West and in Russia much attention was paid for many centuries to the soul or psyche of a subject or a citizen. If a Westerner of the time of Marco Polo had started eating the flesh of a dead (stillborn) baby as a public Òperformance,Ó he would have been burned at the stake as a heretic or confined to a psychiatric asylum as a dangerous lunatic. If this performance had occurred in Nazi Germany, it would have been immediately nipped in the bud as Jewish, sick, degenerate, and detrimental to Aryan mental health and German patriotism. In Soviet Russia it would have been prevented as Western bourgeois decay, poisoning Soviet minds. But in China Ñ well, it is permitted as it might have been in the 13th century.

However, if Zhu Yu had, instead of eating the flesh of a dead (stillborn) baby, displayed a very modest poster: ÒLet us limit absolutism in China and move to constitutionalism as the English did in the 13th century,Ó he would have better swallow poison as in the times of Marco Polo's visit to China.

Since 1949 China has not moved an inch away from absolutism and toward constitutionalism.

As for capitalism, I am sure it will thrive in Hu's China as it did in Lenin's Russia and will help to burrow into Western science and technology in order to develop nano and other superweapons. The elections will be as democratic as they were in Stalin's Russia. And the permitted freedoms of expression will be as striking in China in the 21st century as they were in the 13th. Before the 20th century, the century of many dictatorships, the kings, tsars, and emperors ruled under absolutism by the right of their royal birth. A dictator has no more royal blood than anyone else. Why should he, and not somebody else, rule? Hence Lenin was not just succeeded by Stalin. The oligarchy, led by Stalin and Trotsky, virtually put Lenin under house arrest under the pretext of his sickness. Then Stalin and Trotsky fought for power, and Stalin had Trotsky exiled, and later assassinated, while other members of the oligarchy were Òput on trialÓ as spies, terrorists, and saboteurs under Trotsky's leadership.

In the 1960s, the oligarchy, led by Brezhnev, overthrew Khrushchev, and the struggle resumed after Brezhnev's death.

A similar oligarchic struggle for absolute power in China does not prove that there is no dictatorship in China or that China is moving toward constitutionalism.

Lev Navrozov's (navlev@cloud9.net] new book is available on-line at www.levnavrozov.com. To request an outline of the book, send an e-mail to webmaster@levnavrozov.com.

October 18, 2003

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