Брежнев и Сталин в китайской советологии 1990-х гг.

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In 1997, Chen Zhihua (陈之骅), a researcher in the Institute of World History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and a prominent scholar on Leonid Brezhnev, commented that Chinese research on Soviet history had overwhelmingly focused on the periods of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev, while overlooking the 18-year rule of Brezhnev, which was “the time when the Soviet Union started to decline”, and “the key to understanding the historical lessons of the Soviet downfall” (Chen, 1997: 12). Chen’s remark is not altogether correct. In reality, Chinese research of Brezhnev and his administration had flourished in the 1990s. In 1992, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping embarked upon a trip to China’s southern provinces, where he repeatedly urged the need for learning from capitalism and rekindling China’s all-round economic development – particularly after the setback of Tiananmen, in which the Party conservative force attempted to attack and quash Deng’s policies taken after 1978. Deng stressed that it was “the achievements of the reform and the open policy” that had helped China to weather the Tiananmen crisis. He argued that the PRC should “make socialism develop in a healthier direction”, in order to overcome the panic caused by the worldwide defeat of socialism. He especially emphasized that he could not tolerate “slow growth” and “stagnation”. He pointed out that “it is necessary to fundamentally change the economic structure”, and “to establish a vigorous socialist economic structure that will promote their development” (Deng, 1995d: 358). Deng seemed to fully understand that, after having squandered what legitimacy communism had in the brutality of 1989 and the Soviet demise, the only resource of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime was economic performance, which meant putting more food in the shops and improving the living standard of the Chinese people.

Moreover, another important purpose of Deng’s 1992 southern tour was to win the factional warfare and succeed in having his reform strategy prevail after the Tiananmen backlash. The fact that his trip at first received no official media coverage and the People’s Daily did not publish anything about it until one month later was a testament to the strength of CCP leftist opposition. In his talk, Deng asserted that the reason for the failure of European socialism had little to do with democracy, and more to do with the lack of security and prosperity. During the trip, Deng attempted to make moves against the Party conservatives, saying those insufficiently enthusiastic for reform should go (Deng, 1995d: 363).

In response to Deng’s messages, on 4th June 1992, three years after the Tiananmen Incident, the People’s Daily published an article saying that China should “give up the highly centralized socialist economic system borrowed from other countries before”, and “overcome the problem of the leftist thinking” (People’s Daily, 1992: 2). On the same day in 1993, another article in the People’s Daily indicated that “leftism is the biggest enemy of socialism” (People’s Daily, 1993: 2). In scholarly writings, Wu Xingtang (吴兴唐), vice-president of the Chinese Association of International Communist Movement Studies, praised Deng’s speech in early 1992 as “the guiding principle for studies in international relations and the communist movement”. Wu sneered at the leftist thinking, which put blame on “the excessiveness of reforms and insufficient class struggle” as the main factors for causing the Soviet demise. He concluded that the real intention of leftism was for “obstructing Deng’s reformist line” (Wu, 1992: 3-4). Gao Fang (高放), a professor of international relations at Renmin University and an expert in the history of world communism, in another article also strongly attacked the leftist tendencies. The author attributed the failure of Soviet socialism to economic, not political, factors. He said that “leftism was the true gravedigger of the USSR, while rightism was only putting a nail in its final coffin” (Gao,1992: 10).

In and after 1992, many pieces of academic work seemed to lavish attention on the Soviet Union under Brezhnev (E, 1992: 27-33; Liu, 1992: 8-12; Huang, 1993: 39-46; Chen, 1993: 53-57; Ma, 1995: 59-63). Chinese scholars were targeting his obsession with the status quo and ignorance of true reality, which made the Soviet economy lag behind the West more and more. The commentaries meshed with Deng’s emphasis on economic growth and antileftism after the Soviet demise. As CASS scholar E Huancheng (鄂焕成) wrote, “Comrade Deng Xiaoping once remarked that the priorities of development are scientific technologies and the productive forces, and such remark inspires us to seek the true reason of Brezhnev’s failure.” The author concluded that the Soviet problems had surfaced under Stalin and escalated in Brezhnev’s time, which he termed as “the long medieval ossified rule”. He said that the Brezhnev administration had rendered subsequent reforms launched by Gorbachev insufficient to rescue the Soviet system (E, 1992: 31).

Another CASS scholar, Liu Guanghui (刘光慧), described the USSR after the 1970s as “a pool of lifeless and stagnant water”. He found that the biggest reason for Brezhnev’s unwillingness to take up reforms was his predecessor Khrushchev’s rashness in improvising the reform programs that had contributed to the chaotic economic situation – thus causing the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to become tired of such adventure and to itch for stability. He concluded that the lesson from Brezhnev was that socialism should “persist with reforms forever” (Liu, 1992: 10-11). After criticizing the Brezhnev administration for being “conservative and rigid”, Huang Zongliang (黄宗良), vice-director of the Russian Studies Institute at Beijing University, concluded that a socialist country should always find a balance between reform and stability. While a stable environment could ensure the success of reform, nonetheless reform should always be prioritized in order to maintain stability and prosperity (Huang, 1993: 44-45).