II. Regimes in Crisis: China and Czechoslovakia in 1989
II.4 Situation of China and Czechoslovakia in 1989: A Comparison
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initially rather unknown figure despite being the main organizer of the Civic Forum that took over the leadership of the protests.
Taken together, these accounts suggest some important differences between the Chinese and Czech political cultures in the 1980s. The two contradictory political cultures in China, as described by Pye, placed the actor into well-established positions: the Deng and his conservative leadership were the force of status quo, stability and social harmony, while the protesting students were the force of change, chaos and trouble. Logically, then, the regime could link the students protests to the Maoist chaos of Cultural Revolution or the chaos of the pre-1949 era, both unpopular, and build its legitimacy as a guarantor of social peace. The students, on the other hand, were indeed disrupting the regime's status quo, but paradoxically at the same time, they were in fact implicitly potential junior elites of the system themselves.
This effectively distanced them from the rest of the urban and rural population and prevented forming a coalition with them.
On the other hand, the situation in Czechoslovakia was rather black-and-white. The Czech nation with its students and intellectuals constituted the smart, cultured and competent
"us" while the regime with its police was the stupid, incompetent and imposed "them". While in China, the 1980s were "good times" compared with the previous era, in Czechoslovakia there were "bad times". The widespread alienation from the regime was not compensated by any expectation that the leaders are able to deliver economic prosperity, and the only logical
"happy end" for the Czechs would had been the change of the regime "back" to democracy.
II.4 Situation of China and Czechoslovakia in 1989: A Comparison
As was already mentioned, among the key factors contributing to the emergence of the protests in China and Czechoslovakia were problems with party legitimacy, divisions within the party and economic crisis. Although these problems existed in both countries, they were
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important to mention the tactical mistakes committed by various actors during the protests as these have been important factors contributing to the protests' success or failure.Table 1: Communist regimes in China and Czechoslovakia in 1989.
People's Republic of China (1989)
Czechoslovakia (1989)
Communist regime since 1949 1948
achieving power by victory in a civil war against governing KMT regime
leadership in 1989 since 1976-78 since 1968-69
reformism reformist anti-reformist leadership legitimacy basis economic performance economic performance
support of Moscow
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The basic differences between the two countries in 1989 are presented in Table 1. In both countries, the Communist regime took power in the end of 1940s, but in different ways. In China, the Communists won a lengthy civil war against KMT while in Czechoslovakia, they won democratic election and then got rid of their opponents in a coup with Soviet support.
The membership in the Communist Party was more widespread in smaller, but more urbanized Czechoslovakia than in vast and still mostly rural China. The mostly Chinese leadership, split under Deng Xiaoping between reformers and hardliners, ruled the country since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the end of 1970s. The anti-reformist and hard-line Czechoslovakia's leadership was in power, again thanks to Soviet support, since late 1960s, but its legitimacy was seriously undermined by its dependency on increasingly reluctant Moscow and by alienation of intellectuals and practically all other social strata. The Chinese economic crisis was caused by ill-planned reforms while the Czechoslovakia's by lack of reforms.
Let us look now in detail at the most important factors affecting emergence of regime change. As for the party legitimacy, in China, the CCP legitimacy has been significantly affected by the Cultural Revolution after which the discredited charismatic leadership of Chairman Mao had to be replaced by a pragmatic leadership deriving its legitimacy on delivering material benefits trough encouraging economic growth. Under Deng, and with reformers Hu and Zhao in charge throughout most of the 1980s, the Party pushed trough economic reforms despite their social costs. Instead of "goulash Communism", the Chinese party-state capitalism opened space for individual initiative but also for official corruption. In general, the material benefits were distributed unequally.
As it was the reformers who were responsible for the resulting increase of social inequality and financial insecurity, they could not expect much sympathies or support from outside of the Party that they could use in their struggle against hardliners. Their brand of
"neo-authoritarianism" expressed this elitist distance from the masses quite clearly. It was
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certainly not democratic and therefore the idea of gaining legitimacy trough elections seemed to be out of question at the time. Still, the legitimacy of the entrenched hardliners was even weaker as the overall negative experience with Maoism made any return to the past unattractive. Without charisma and with economic difficulties undermining the implicit social contract between the Party and the people, the vanishing Party legitimacy had to be supplemented by a military crackdown.
In Czechoslovakia, the Party legitimacy had been shattered by the Soviet invasion in 1968 and by following purges, and as of the late 1980s, it remained low. The hardliners imposed by Moscow then managed to alienate almost everyone without giving people at least an opportunity for pursuing their material interests. The "goulash Communism" became economically unsustainable and without reforms that would bring heavy social costs, the economy would run out of resources. However, the hardliners got appointed by the Soviets precisely because they opposed any reforms. Without a space for individual initiative within the party-state framework, the competing framework of pluralistic capitalist democracy looked increasingly desirable.
In both China and Czechoslovakia, the legitimacy of the Party in the late 1980s could no longer depend on idealism or charismatic leadership. Instead, the economic performance and consumerism became the decisive criteria for evaluating Party success or failure. In both countries, the problems with the economy caused doubts about Party competence to run the country. In China, the problems were caused by reforms, in Czechoslovakia by blocking the reforms, and this difference might at least partly explain different demands of the protesters and different outcomes of the protests. Still, the economic problems per se clearly cannot explain the difference in the outcomes of the protests.
As for the party divisions, throughout 1980s the CCP has been clearly divided between the more prominent reformers on one hand and the entrenched hardliners on the other hand.
This division provided opportunity for the protests as the Party became temporarily paralyzed.
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Had the protestor sought cooperation with Premier Zhao Ziyang and had the Premier reached to them more early and more decisively, the possible alliance between regime's reformers and moderate protestors might have followed the classic transitologist scenario to bring the change of the regime. However, this alliance did not materialize. Instead, the hardliners prevailed within the Party and the radicals within the student protest movement, reducing chances for dialog to zero. After the fall of Zhao Ziyang, the window of opportunity closed.
In Czechoslovakia, the hardliners seemed to have an upper hand in the Party leadership.
However, there was a division running along different lines: on lower levels of the Party hierarchy, the pragmatic career-driven technocrats waited for their opportunity to get rid of the incompetent leadership that has been blocking any proposals for change. Also their threshold for abandoning the regime altogether was surprisingly low as they had more to win than to loose from the transition to capitalist democracy. Unlike in China, the non-hardliners within the Czechoslovak Communist Party aimed not so much for reforms as for replacing the system altogether. On the other hand, the Soviet-backed hardliners could not allow any significant reforms even after Moscow stopped backing them. Since they also lacked the resolve to organize a crackdown on the protests, in the quick-paced events they became quickly isolated and also irrelevant.
As for the economic crisis, gradual but uneven economic reforms in China created a basis for rapid economic growth crisis that which had been an improvement compared with well-remembered catastrophic policies of the Mao era. However, they also made people feel uncertain and insecure regarding their future. Price increases in 1989 together with stagnant wages further undermined their trust to the government as many felt losers in the ongoing changes. Still, the dissatisfaction has been the price the reformers around Zhao Ziyang were willing to pay and although their reputation suffered, this general feeling of uncertainty had been balanced by feeling of possible opportunities. Mao's iron rice bowl was gone, further economic reforms were expected and the problem was unequal distribution of the material
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benefits, not their absence.
In Czechoslovakia, the economic reforms had been successfully blocked for 20 years.
However, as for 1989, the hardliners were under contradictory incentives from Gorbachev:
on one hand, he pressed them to follow the Soviet example and start reforming the economy so that Moscow would not need to subsidize its satellite as it did before, on the other hand, Gorbachev abandoned them. As a result, they started to pay lip service to the perestroika discourse while not doing too much in practice. But time was running short: the economy had been increasingly mired by inefficiencies and mismanagement and since efforts to improve the situation were stalled, the practice of "real socialism" seemed to prove that any hopes for reforms are not based in reality, that Communism as a system was non-reformable and that the only realistic solution would be to replace it with market economy that worked so well in the West.
Although the living standard had been much higher in Czechoslovakia than in China, general feeling of economic decay in Czechoslovakia compared with uncertain but possibly promising future in China might have been indeed one of the reasons that decided the outcomes of the protests. Still, we can only speculate about the relative importance of this factor even if it is clear that a sense of economic crisis indeed contributed to the emergence of the protests.
As for tactical mistakes, the protesting students in China undermined their chances for success in several ways. They neglected other social strata that could provide valuable support. They used the division between hardliners and reformers in the Party, but did not coordinate their actions with reformers nor were able to conduct a meaningful dialog with the authorities after they had achieved this concession. Instead of behaving like rational actors, they increasingly adopted the role of martyrs. Although the nonexistence of a dialog was mainly a fault of the Zhao Ziyang and the reformers who were equally elitist and not ready to reach out for the protesting masses, the students could have prevented Zhao's downfall by not
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continuing and escalating the protests at the Tianamen Square.
Compared with their elitist Chinese counterparts, the protesting students in Czechoslovakia aimed at reaching the rest of the population. This was easier than it would had been in China, as Czechoslovakia was more urbanized and substantially smaller then China. The street protests were thus inclusive and grew rapidly. At the same time, the leading dissidents who became the core leaders of the protests managed early to start a dialog with the least hardline leader Adamec. After the threat of the police crackdown has been removed and the general strike against the regime together with the fact Party members were cancelling their membership in massive numbers proved that the Communism lost its legitimacy, there was nothing left for the hardliners to do but to give up.
After looking at the main contributing factors behind the 1989 protests, we can see that the key social strata involved in shaping the events were the protesting students, intellectuals and regime’s hardliners, with regime’s reformists playing a less important role in the case of China and the general population playing a decisive role in the case of Czechoslovakia.
In China, the protesting students were a tiny elite – often sons and daughters of the Party elites and potential future leaders of the state. In their opposition to the Dengist status quo, they became a force of change and, implicitly, chaos. They would need access to mass media in order to reach the public and get its support against the regime’s propaganda machine that was denouncing them and press freedom was indeed one of their fundamental demands. However, they were hesitant with other social strata joining their protests. While the students themselves were alienated by the uncertain economic situation of the year 1989 and they felt they are part of the revolutionary tradition going back to the May Fourth movement, they were portrayed by their opponents as an updated version of Red Guards, and the economic situation was actually not hopeless enough for the rest of the society to join them in larger numbers.
In Czechoslovakia, the protesting students needed positive media coverage of their
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protests in order to reach the general public and to avoid negative coverage by the regime’s propaganda machine – same as in China. They were alienated from the regime for similar reasons as their Chinese counterparts – economic problems and lack of freedom of expression – but also because the regime had been imposed from the outside and proved to be increasingly out of touch. Their sentiments lacked the elitism of the Chinese students, however, and they felt more part of the whole Czech nation that they enthusiastically mobilized to support their protests.
Table 2: The role of intellectuals: China and Czechoslovakia in 1989.
People's Republic of China
intellectuals mobilize the nation NO YES
intellectuals have blueprint for democratic transition
NO YES
(Compilation by author from various sources)
The intellectuals in China – another tiny elite – were originally silent or supporting Deng’s reforms of the late 1970s, but were alienated by economic situation and unfulfilled promises in the late 1980s. After Hu Yaobang’s fall in 1987, they were once again prosecuted, but this time not for being "bourgeois" intellectuals, but rather for reminding the Party officials of
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some of the humanistic goals of Marxism. Next to students, they played rather minor role in the 1989 events (for comparison of the role of intellectuals, see Table 2).
The intellectuals in Czechoslovakia felt alienated in an ostensibly anti-intellectual climate. On the other hand, the regime courted some of them – especially the actors, the popular musicians and certain writers – as they were considered influential elite, able to express popular sentiments. The dissident intellectuals naturally resented the regime and measured its failures against the model of Western capitalist democracies. Despite being minority, they became the leaders of the protests.
The Chinese reformists with their leader Zhao Ziyang wanted economic reforms, but not necessarily a democracy, as is clear from the "new authoritarianism" debate and from their reluctance to embrace the protests. They accepted some student’ demands, were quite benevolent towards the intellectuals, protected some progressive media against hardliners and supported their own thin-tanks that were pushing beyond the old Maoist dogmas. They were more sensitive to the public opinion than the hardliners, but they lacked the trust of the public because of official corruption and overall economic difficulties for which they were responsible. Crucially, they were too shy to use their power.
The cautious Czechoslovakia's reformists lost their hold on power in 1987 and only the moderate premier Ladislav Adamec had been flexible enough to negotiate with the leaders of the protests – but not enough not to lose his popularity soon after the protests reached mass proportions. The generation of the Communist reformers 1968 had been distrusted by both the hard-line regime and by the people who regarded them as opportunists, and only the expelled Party secretary Alexander Dubcek managed a comeback – on the side of the protesting students. On the other hand, the technocrats were ready to abandon the regime that was hindering them and the enterprises they were supervising.
The Chinese hardliners and Deng Xiaoping were out of touch with the public opinion, but controlled the army and were not shying from using it. They were against the autonomy
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of intellectuals and in favor of the press acting – as in the Mao’s era – as an official mouthpiece. They understood the student protests as a dangerous repetition of some aspects of the Cultural Revolution and a danger to stability.
The hardliners in Czechoslovakia gained upper hand over the reformist in 1987, but also over the aging president Gustav Husak who, while losing his grip, lost his post of Party secretary and with it his ability to balance reformers and hardliners. His replacement by a new Party secretary Milous Jakes proved to be a bad choice as Jakes was unable to act decisively and stop the protests. Another problem of the dominant hardliners was that their underlying support by the Soviets vanished with Gorbachev’s perestroika, glasnost and his policy of improving relations with the West. Their position became undermined.
The urban strata in China – in Beijing more than in other cities due to their proximity to the Tiananmen events – were willing to join the student protests, but the students mostly overlooked them. Socially, they were more advanced part of the Chinese society and they were anxious especially about the economic reforms and official corruption. Their participation in the later stages of the protests gave the students greater power, but scared the hardliners. The vast rural strata, on the other hand, were scattered over the vast areas of China and quite inert. Moreover, the protesting students did not care about them at all.
The urban and rural strata in Czechoslovakia disliked the regime imposed on them in 1968, especially its bureaucratic inefficiency and economic underperformance when compared with the West, and could be easily mobilized into a national unity against the unpopular leaders.
The urban and rural strata in Czechoslovakia disliked the regime imposed on them in 1968, especially its bureaucratic inefficiency and economic underperformance when compared with the West, and could be easily mobilized into a national unity against the unpopular leaders.
Further factors that could be discussed include those based on the differences between the two countries. A change of regime from Communism to democracy should be easier in a
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smaller, urbanized and economically developed country than in one that it vast, rural, and developing. The educational level of the population and the availability and actual consumption of the mass media can also play a role. On the other hand, there are other cases
smaller, urbanized and economically developed country than in one that it vast, rural, and developing. The educational level of the population and the availability and actual consumption of the mass media can also play a role. On the other hand, there are other cases