Брежнев и Сталин в китайской советологии 1990-х гг.

The post-1991 Chinese re-evaluation and criticisms of Stalin should be analysed in a broad spectrum after Deng’s southern tour in 1992. In a book on Stalin’s political life published in 1997, the authors Jiang Changbin (姜长斌) 3 and Zuo Fengrong (左凤荣) 4 wrote in the Epilogue (Jieshuyu 结束语) that the project was inspired by Deng’s 1992 talk. It was Deng’s remarks on the nature of socialism and the Soviet model that had made the authors “become enlightened”. They decided to use Deng’s theory as the “guiding principle” in conducting research into Stalin (Jiang and Zuo, 1997: 623). According to them, the Soviet model, which had consigned the country to the ash heap of history, was, in fact, the Stalinist model – and this model should hold the responsibility for the downfall. They contrasted the lethargic and inflexible Stalinist model with the pragmatic Deng model, which focused on combining Marxism with China’s peculiar conditions (Jiang and Zuo, 1997: 624-625).

Many Chinese writings after Deng’s southern tour also pointed out that the rightist tendencies practised by Gorbachev in the late 1980s were, in fact, an outcome of Stalin’s leftism. Gorbachev’s restoration of capitalism was a bounce-back to the long history of stagnation and self-seclusion caused by Stalin. At the time, the last Soviet leader had no choice but applied extreme methods to save the falling USSR (Wang, 1993: 38; Ma, 1998: 29; Lu and Jiang, 1999: 142-143). Such a conclusion accorded with the ancient Chinese proverb Wuji bifan (物极必反), which means when things are forced to become worse they begin to go to another extreme for retaliation. While some 1980s Chinese writings targeting Stalin might in fact be indirectly blaming Mao’s political repression in China (Zheng, 1989: 6; Beijing Review, 1989: 7-8), the 1990s criticisms on the ossification of the Soviet model created by Stalin could also be considered as a foil to attack Mao’s past leftist economic (not political) policy. This policy was similar to that of Stalin, as both leaders favoured heavy industrialization and exploitative economy as their repertoires. 5

Post-1991 Chinese Soviet research put the Stalinist economic model and the discredited leftism in 1990s China on an equal footing. By arguing that Stalinism was the root of the Soviet demise and retracing its damage on China under Mao, scholars justified Deng’s 1992 statement that leftism has done more harm than good to China, and like rightism, it could also destroy socialism (Deng, 1995d: 363). Therefore, they used their writings to defend China’s post-Tiananmen policy of accelerating economic reform and open door policy, and to assist the CCP reformers’ efforts to thwart the comeback of the leftist offensive.