Брежнев и Сталин в китайской советологии 1990-х гг.

Fourth, the 3-year period between the Tiananmen Incident and the disintegration of the Soviet Union was an earth-shaking period that nearly convulsed the CCP regime. The Chinese reformist leadership led by Deng Xiaoping understood very well that only by successfully carrying out the reforms would the Chinese communist state be able to regain the legitimacy that it had lost. They were eager to explore a new way of dispelling tough resistance by the hardliners and make a breakthrough. They needed to regenerate the Party that was still in a coma after experiencing a heavy blow by the Tiananmen crisis and the ensuing collapse of communism in Europe.

As seen in this article, it is apparent that Chinese Soviet-watchers were trying to use the re-assessments of Brezhnev and Stalin to create new momentum. They intended for this momentum to revive China’s reform and open door policies, and to further the cause of socialist modernization that had been championed since 1978. The discussion of the two Soviet leaders was a means to rally support for the forces of pro-reform. Afterwards, China was bolder in embracing economic liberalization while still refusing to transform its quasi-Leninist political system. Especially after Deng’s southern tour in 1992, the CCP formally adopted the concept of “socialist market economy” (Deng, 1995d: 361). China then registered unprecedented economic growth and experienced profound social transformation throughout the rest of the 1990s, a phenomenon that continued in the 21st century. As Chen Jian comments, “The Tiananmen tragedy remains a knot that must be untied and a barrier that must be removed in China’s continuous advance towards modernity” (Chen, 2009: 126). The use of Brezhnev and Stalin after Tiananmen was seen to be the best way for China to untie the “knot” and remove the “barrier”.

Last, in the 1980s many Chinese Soviet-watchers had thought highly of Gorbachev’s inspiration in undertaking political reform for facilitating economic modernization. However, in the 1990s most of them dismissed such an idea as one of Gorbachev’s weaknesses and a precipitating cause of the Soviet breakup (Li, 2016). The changing tone of Chinese writings tied in with the shake-up of the CCP in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident, when Deng made a comeback and reasserted his supreme position in China. While both Zhao Ziyang and Gorbachev championed the notion that economic reform is a product of political restructuring, Deng consistently remained wary of such a concept and emphasized political stability but not political pluralism. He found it good enough to have economic prosperity under the one-party rule, and felt there was little need to tackle the communist institution (Deng, 1995a: 129-130). This was particularly evident after Tiananmen, when the CCP became simply a delivery vehicle for material progress or a self-preservation machine, claiming the modern mandate of heaven with no greater purpose than to hold on to power.

While stressing reform and open door directions, Deng in his 1992 talk did not forget to defend “the dictatorship of the proletariat” and “the Four Cardinal Principles” (Deng, 1995d: 367). Chinese examination of Brezhnev and Stalin after 1990 was a response to the return of such Deng’s orthodox line, which focused on the sheer survival of the communist regime by economic means. It also disregarded any political demands, while making it clear that the policy of prioritizing political liberalization did not comport with socialism, and was not a future direction of the PRC in the post-communist world. In the 1990s, Chinese Soviet-watchers concentrated on the economic aspects of Brezhnev and Stalin while ignoring their political policies, and such a tendency was in tune with Deng’s 1992 guidelines. That the research focused on economic problems suggested that scholars seemed to have believed that the breaking apart of the Soviet Union was mainly due to economic illness but not the deficiency of political institutions. Having observed the economic troubles in the times of Stalin and Brezhnev, the writings appear to suggest that state legitimacy comes from economic results and consumer satisfaction, and socialism would be going down the wrong road if it could not deliver economic benefits to the people. The findings gave credibility to Deng’s faith that only a strong one-party rule could ensure the effective implementation of rapid economic development. They justified the post-1991 China’s state agenda of taking precedence in economic modernization while downplaying the importance of political restructuring. Their conclusions conveyed a message that it is economic affluence, not political reform, that matters the most for the survival of Chinese socialism after the fall of the USSR.