IV. Media Discourses and the Protests
IV.2 Communist Discourse in Chinese and Czechoslovak Press
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
text On Freedom of Speech for the Opposition286 provides similar account on the Chinese official discourse: "That suppression [of freedom of speech] is based upon the formula that Truth equals the World View of the Proletariat, which is equated with Marxism, which is equated with the World View of the CCP, which is equated with the proclamation of Party Organs, which is equated with the views of the Leadership. There is no need even to comment upon such poor logic."
Observations made by Fidelius are echoed in a similar analysis of the Polish discourse by Michal Glowinski Nowomowa po polsku (1991), where the author identified four key characteristics of the Communist "nowomowa" (newspeak): first, it contains dichotomies between what is "ours", "acceptable", "correct" and what is not; second, it has a pragmatic aspect (seeking to influence people's minds) and its ritual aspect (spelling out "appropriate"
words and phrases; third, it contains elements of magic as it aims not to describe, but rather to create an "actually existing" world of actually existing socialism by defining the reality in an ideologically correct way; fourth, it is thoroughly arbitrary regarding meanings of concepts, ideas, and elements of language, and this arbitrariness depends on regime's current needs. Glowinski also adds that the Communist discourse is based on unspoken assumption that the Communist government is a "good government".
IV.2 Communist Discourse in Chinese and Czechoslovak Press
In his analysis of Tiananmen Square's "rhetorical trajectories", Randolph Kluver identifies three competing narratives about the 1989 events: The US-based "idealistic democracy"
trajectory is complemented by Chinese students' "Confucian tradition" and CCP hardliners'
"Red Guard turmoil" trajectories. Basically, the main clash was between students who saw themselves as completing the revolution and the hardliners who saw the students as trying to
286 quoted from English translation in Yu and Harrison 1990, 38
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
overturn the revolution.287
According the Kluver, the protesting students saw themselves as a "conscience of the nation" in which they followed a Confucian tradition of scholars who speak truth to the power. At the same time, they saw themselves also as a kind of Leninist "vanguard of history" and in this role, they operated with a willingness to sacrifice their lives in a challenge to an oppressive and corrupt regime. The result of the protests followed their rhetoric: "compromise with a corrupted state was impossible, and, as loyal citizens, the only recourse was to lay their lives down for their country."288
The hardliners were not ready for a compromise either. According to Kluver, they dismissed the students' identification with May 4 Movement and instead portrayed them as inheritors of Red Guards who are trying to create chaos and violence typical for the times of Cultural Revolution. At the same time, the students were portrayed as puppets in the hands of
"small minority" of "black hands" orchestrating the protests in order to bring down the regime and at the same time driven by ideas of "bourgeois liberalization" and "so-called freedoms" transplanted from the West.289 Foreign support and foreign media were blamed for helping the protestors who were in turn portrayed also as agents of foreign provocateurs that try to crate a "turmoil." As Kluver notes, "Chinese government later became locked into its own role as the defender of the state and all the gains that had been made since the overthrow of political orthodoxy since 1976. As the challenge to the state was clear, there was no ambiguity about what must be done."290
We can assume that the "rhetorical trajectories", or discourse shifts, of the Czech discourse had been similar, or at least based on a similar logic. We can also assume a
287 see Kluver 2010, 91
288 Kluver 2010, 80
289 ibid., 81
290 ibid., 85
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Gramscian "struggle for hegemony" between the two main competing discourses. And we can also assume that the voices of the regime's status quo and the protestors' calls for a change that were voiced by key actors of both sides had been either amplified or silenced by the mass media, depending on how much sympathetic, cautious or bold its journalists were..
As we have seen in the previous parts, the mass media discourse in Communist party-states is considered to be a carefully orchestrated, centralized and unified propaganda.
This understanding is based on Leninist theory and practice of "democratic centralism,"
aiming at maximizing the efficiency and power of the party apparatus. Under the Communist regime, the media should all speak with Party’s voice (e.g. no bourgeois, individualist, people’s voice) and this voice should be united (dissenting voices are wrong, unscientific and disruptive). The characteristics of the Communist Discourse are most obvious when it deals with the "Other", e.g. with the actors protesting against the regime during the 1989 events.
As we will see, the Communist Discourse can be characterized by legitimizing and rationalizing status quo of the party-state and delegitimizing its opponents and their calls for change. It is a black-and-white discourse lacking plurality. However, the events in the real world (e.g. split between hardliners and reformers, student protests, successful strikes) might create contradictions within the discourse, because they cannot be easily represented within the traditional framework without being distorted. The discourse has to change and by this, it ceases to be an unified and orchestrated Communist Discourse and becomes something else.
In China, the discourse during the protests increasingly reflected the changing and challenging reality, but after the crackdown, it returned to its hard-line black-and-white form.
In Czechoslovakia after the November 17, 1989, the Communist Discourse quickly collapsed.
In order to cover the trajectories of various discourse shifts, the first part of this chapter will present an analysis of a stable Communist Discourse, based on media texts from pre-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia. This will be compared with discourse shifts in the Chinese media texts during and after the protests, and with discourse shifts in Svobodne Slovo and
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Rude Pravo during the early days of the Velvet Revolution, demonstrating the renaissance, collapse and inversion of the once stable Communist Discourse.
The texts for the first part, illustrating the features of the Communist Discourse, were selected from a relatively small number of articles that were published in Rude Pravo and/or in Svobodne Slovo before November 1989 and that were dealing with the protests. From the nine articles mostly covering police crackdowns, two short and three longer articles are analyzed. The five texts illustrating the shifts of the Communist Discourse in China were selected in order to represent the scope and variability of the discourse in the official media during the protest period. The limiting factor was availability of the articles in the English language. The range covers People's Daily April 26 editorial that is very close to the pre-November discourse in Czechoslovakia, three articles covering regime's reactions on the list of students' demands from the early May 1989 and the student reactions on Zhao Ziyang's reaction, one article from the last issue of the World Economic Herald on freedom of the press, and finally Deng Xiaoping's televised speech after the June 4 crackdown that represents a return of many elements and structural features of the Communist Discourse that have been temporarily abandoned during the peak of the protests. Regarding the press coverage of the Velvet Revolution, Rude Pravo and Svobodne Slovo are analyzed separately in order to show the diverging nature of their discourse shifts. As the issues from the early days of the protests were usually filled with articles covering various aspects of the protests, sometimes from different or even opposing perspectives, the selection of the analyzed articles has been based on the degree of their shift away from the Communist Discourse that is understood as a starting point, e.g. if the issue included several articles about the protests and some of them were still very close to the Communist Discourse while others were contradicting it in one or more aspects, the article that went the farthest from the Communist Discourse has been selected because such an article can serve as a benchmark of how far the journalists and editors dared to shift the discourse at the given time. In total, four articles
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
from Svobodne Slovo and three articles from Rude Pravo are analyzed, starting from the coverage of the events of the November 17, 1989, and ending with the coverage of the successful general strike that took place ten days later and signalized the total collapse of both the Communist regime and its discourse.
All these varying selection criteria and the relatively low number of analyzed articles are an acknowledged weak point of the analysis, and it is without doubt that a higher number of analyzed texts, selected from a larger pool of relevant articles, would allow for stronger conclusions.
On the other hand, taken together with the available literature on the media during the 1989 events, the analysis of the selected media texts can provide us with better view on functioning of media control mechanisms and the degree of journalists' and editors' professionalism - or pro-regime or pro-opposition bias. Also, in Gramsci's terms, the analysis of the discourse shifts can illustrate the struggle for ideological hegemony on the pages of the press that complemented struggle for the political power in the streets, and to complement the analysis of media organizations and their control mechanisms and of journalists as social actors, making choices within the given institutional framework and shaping the events trough their discourses.
As we will see, the Communist Discourse dealing with anti-regime protests can be actually characterized by a very limited number of elements and structural features, which also limits the number of ways it can shift. In other words, the actors of the protests, their actions, their values etc. can be labeled in a positive, negative or neutral way, and the "voice"
of the text can use the regime's perspective, the student's perspective, or it own, neutral perspective. Some elements of the Communist Discourse can be replaced by new ones once the new reality cannot be captured by the old phrases. In the end, the analysis should illustrate the original stability of the Communist Discourse in Czechoslovakia, the shift towards greater plurality and then back to the Communist Discourse in China, the negation of
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the Communist Discourse in Svobodne Slovo and the collapse of the Communist Discourse in Rude Pravo.
A Czechoslovakia's Discourse: Stability before November 17, 1989
The protests that took place on twentieth anniversary of the Soviet troops invasion to Czechoslovakia in August 1968 were the first to be covered in the official media, although only by two short texts by the official news agency CTK [Czechoslovakia Press Agency].
The first text was reprinted in both Rude Pravo and Svobodne Slovo, the second only in Rude Pravo. Both are typical examples of the Communist Discourse.
Disturbing actions in Prague
Prague (CTK) - In these days, Prague lives trough its citizens and visitors from Czechoslovakia and from abroad. On Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon and then again in the evening groups of people tried to make disturbing actions on Wenceslas Square near the statue of St. Wenceslaus. Planned in advance and together with some foreign citizens, television-, radio- and press-journalists from Western media were seeking sensations. Sunday’s actions were peaceful in the beginning. More serious attempts to make provocations took place in the evening after the crowd moved to Old Town’s Square and on to the Prague’s streets. Deliberate and resolute handling of the members of police assured, that no disturbances took place.
(published in both Rude Pravo and Svobodne Slovo on August 22, 1988)
The main topic of the article are "disturbing actions" – e.g. anti-regime protests with negative connotation attached. The actors are "groups of people" or "crowd" (agents of the "disturbing actions") and "members of police" (agents re-establishing order). Protestors ("groups of people") are mentioned only in a negative context – they are trying to make "provocations"
and "seek sensations". Moreover, they are connected with Western media, which were at the time generally regarded as an "enemy". On the other hand, the police is "deliberate and
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
decisive", avoiding "disturbances" to take place. The outcome is unambiguous: the police was successful and avoided continuing appearance of "disturbing actions."
Described structure of events (order – disruption of order – reestablishing of order) focuses on the actions (successful handling of the revolt against status quo) and puts into background the nature of this order / status quo which was reestablished by the police.
The process of nominalization should also be mentioned here: particular actions of protesters were labeled as "actions" without any further specifications except for the adjective "disturbing". Particular actions of police were in a same way labeled as "deliberate and resolute handling" – so what really happened remains hidden.
Focusing on "disturbing actions" and keeping "the order" itself in the background implicitly legitimizes the order (because there is no need to focus on it since it is "natural") and the interpretation of actions as "disturbing" delegitimizes the protests. In the end, the protestors and their protests are delegitimized in three different ways: (1) no reason for them is mentioned, so they appear irrational; (2) they are labeled as "disturbing"; (3) they were suppressed by the police, which was "deliberate and decisive", e.g. they were suppressed by a legitimate action of a legitimate agent.
The conclusion is that the main features of this discourse legitimize the Czechoslovakia's police and its actions, delegitimize and provide negative framing for the protests, emphasize the unsuccessful result of the protests and connect the protestors with
"outer enemy". Moreover the protestors themselves are silenced and the article itself is buried on a page among several other articles. The same is true for a follow-up article published the following day in Rude Pravo:
To Sunday’s Disturbing Actions in Prague
Prague (CTK) - Our public has been informed that on Sunday evening, disturbing actions took place in Prague on Wenceslaus Square, in Old Town’s Square and in the nearby streets. According to the information from the police,
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
more than 4000 persons attempted to disturb the public order. Among them were provocateurs, whose acting at night (...) became disorderly behavior.
Among other things, they injured two police officers by throwing bottles. The police took 77 people, mainly initiators of the event, for investigation. The major part of them was released after these investigations. 28 persons are still investigated because of suspicion of criminal act of disorderly behavior. Also 7 foreigners were investigated and to six of them, their stay in Czechoslovakia had been terminated.
(Rude Pravo, August 23, 1988)
The story about "disturbing actions" presents consequences of such illegitimate actions and also some more details, most probably echoing police reports from the crackdown. "Groups of people" from the previous article are now "more than 4000 people" (e.g. relatively many) and part of them is described as "provocateurs" whose behavior became "disorderly" and who engaged in injuring two policemen "among other things". Again, the police officers are actors of order, law, and decisive power: they arrested 77 participants ("mainly initiators of the event"), made interrogations and then released most of them. However, "28 persons are still interrogated for suspicion of criminal act of disturbing the peace" and to six of seven arrested foreigners their "stay in Czechoslovakia had been terminated".
Clearly, the regime still had upper hand over the protestors and proceeds methodically and according to rules. Its opponents might have protested against the regime before they started with their allegedly "disorderly behavior", but their only deed recorded in the report is injuring two policemen - any arguments they might have do not seem to be important enough to be reported, unlike bottles being thrown. It is possible only to speculate what other things except for this alleged throwing of bottles happened - especially before the protestors' behavior could be classified as "disorderly".
The same pattern of dealing with the anti-regime protests had been used by Rude Pravo's own reporters in a substantially longer article covering the next protest that took place in October 28, 1988.
‧
Provocative anti-socialist acts in the center of Prague - Resolute handling of police officers
Prague (from our reporters) - Celebratory atmosphere of the national holiday and 70th anniversary of Czechoslovakia was disturbed on Friday afternoon on Wenceslas Square and Old Town’s Square in Prague by provocative acts of about 2000 people. They met there despite explicit ban by Local National Committee [local unit of state apparatus] in Prague 1.
Before three o’clock on Friday, October 28, about 300 people met in the upper part of Wenceslas Square. It was obvious that organizers of the anti-socialistic demonstration had not given up their action.
Members of the National Committee and police officers used megaphones to issue warnings that the meeting is banned, and asked people to leave the square. Without response.
So the order unit received an order to act and started to push protesters away from the square. Meanwhile in Krakovska and Ve Smeckach streets, the crowd was joined by another 900-1000 persons, another 1000 persons were standing on the pavements. Water engines and escort vehicles came to the Wenceslaus square. Provocateurs shouted: "Shame! Gestapo! Fascists!" The name of the first president of Czechoslovakia Masaryk was also misused in this shouting. Some of the protesters were also throwing stones and bottles.
After the warnings ended up in vain, the police officers dispersed the crowd.
The police act was made more difficult due to watching rubbernecks. Many protesters moved to Old Town’s Square where they continued with their provocations. Also here the order units had to act.
The activities of illegal groups were already noticed during the anniversary of the August events [e.g protests during the anniversary of the 1968 invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1988, covered by the two previous articles].
In the mid-October, they proclaimed their goals openly: establishing some kind of auxiliary organization of so called "Charter" under the banner
"Movement for Civic Freedom" and publishing a pamphlet called hypocritically "Manifesto of Freedom for Everybody". The pamphlet is full of
"care" about the future of our country. But it ignores fully the changes, that are taking place in our society. Of course, its contra-revolutionary core lies not in some nice-sounding phrases, but in firm demands: the power in the country should be taken over by contra-revolutionary powers backed by international reaction, private enterprises should be re-established not only
‧
disbanded, our foreign orientation should be switched, our security should be disrupted, the division of church from state is demanded as is free anti-socialist education, and so on. How to reach these goals? By all means that the supporters of this proclamation "consider useful". So - when we translate it into an understandable language - also by violent means.The call to join the provocative anti-state demonstration that should take place on Wenceslaus Square one day after the celebratory manifestation has
The call to join the provocative anti-state demonstration that should take place on Wenceslaus Square one day after the celebratory manifestation has