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Mao's Barrel-of-a-Gun Maxim Officially Dead: Bao Tong
BEIJING
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
2007.03.31
BEIJING--Mao Zedong's famous maxim that political change must always come from the barrel of a gun will no longer stand, writes a former top official in China's Communist Party on the passing of a new property law by the country's parliament.
Bao Tong, former secretary to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, has been under house arrest after serving a jail term in the wake of the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.
Writing from his Beijing home for exclusive broadcast on RFA's Mandarin service Friday, Bao said the new Property Law, passed by the National People's Congress (NPC) in mid-March, had changed the political landscape in China for good.
Time for a museum?
"Mao Zedong's time-honored maxims that "Political power must be seized by force; only war can solve the problem", and "All political change anywhere in the world must come from the barrel of a gun" have been superseded. They will no longer stand," he said.
"What to do? Do we carry on writing these things down in books and feeding them to our children from an early age? Or is it time they were consigned to a museum?"
Bao said the law had overturned a fundmental principle of international communism, and called into question the self-perpetuating political myth behind thousands of years of violent change in China's history.
"The barrel of a gun is much like the knife or the lance, or any other weapon. Its usefulness is limited to the destruction or oppression of people, to terror. But it can't even reform itself. How can it possibly have the capacity to reform anyone else?" he wrote.
Founding principle of communism
Two of the founding principles of modern, communist China were now in ruins, Bao said.
Enshrined in the founding documents of the Chinese Communist Party and the Constitution, the abolition of private ownership constituted a guiding, fundamental principle by which all Chinese people, whether within the Party or without, must abide, he wrote.
"Now, the Chinese Communist Party is regretting it. Now, no longer does it aim to abolish the private ownership of property, no longer is Marx one of the four guiding principles which must be upheld, nor, even, is socialism," Bao said.
He suggested that the NPC's passing of the legislation might put the regime into ideological crisis.
"The principle of one-party rule and the dictatorship of the proletariat are not enough by themselves to grasp the broad reality in which we find ourselves," he warned, wondering whether the ruling Communist Party would carry on as if nothing had happened at its next Party Congress.
"I don't know whether the 17th Party Congress is planning to grit its teeth and hold on regardless, or whether it has a counter-measure up its sleeve," Bao said.
But he said thousands of years of Chinese history had showed key political figures subscribing to what he called Mao's 'superstition', condemning the country to re-enact the same violent script over and over, without in any way breaking the patterns of the past.
Original essay in Chinese by Bao Tong. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
BEIJING--Mao Zedong's famous maxim that political change must always come from the barrel of a gun will no longer stand, writes a former top official in China's Communist Party on the passing of a new property law by the country's parliament.
Bao Tong, former secretary to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, has been under house arrest after serving a jail term in the wake of the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.
Writing from his Beijing home for exclusive broadcast on RFA's Mandarin service Friday, Bao said the new Property Law, passed by the National People's Congress (NPC) in mid-March, had changed the political landscape in China for good.
Time for a museum?
"Mao Zedong's time-honored maxims that "Political power must be seized by force; only war can solve the problem", and "All political change anywhere in the world must come from the barrel of a gun" have been superseded. They will no longer stand," he said.
"What to do? Do we carry on writing these things down in books and feeding them to our children from an early age? Or is it time they were consigned to a museum?"
Bao said the law had overturned a fundmental principle of international communism, and called into question the self-perpetuating political myth behind thousands of years of violent change in China's history.
"The barrel of a gun is much like the knife or the lance, or any other weapon. Its usefulness is limited to the destruction or oppression of people, to terror. But it can't even reform itself. How can it possibly have the capacity to reform anyone else?" he wrote.
Founding principle of communism
Two of the founding principles of modern, communist China were now in ruins, Bao said.
Enshrined in the founding documents of the Chinese Communist Party and the Constitution, the abolition of private ownership constituted a guiding, fundamental principle by which all Chinese people, whether within the Party or without, must abide, he wrote.
"Now, the Chinese Communist Party is regretting it. Now, no longer does it aim to abolish the private ownership of property, no longer is Marx one of the four guiding principles which must be upheld, nor, even, is socialism," Bao said.
He suggested that the NPC's passing of the legislation might put the regime into ideological crisis.
"The principle of one-party rule and the dictatorship of the proletariat are not enough by themselves to grasp the broad reality in which we find ourselves," he warned, wondering whether the ruling Communist Party would carry on as if nothing had happened at its next Party Congress.
"I don't know whether the 17th Party Congress is planning to grit its teeth and hold on regardless, or whether it has a counter-measure up its sleeve," Bao said.
But he said thousands of years of Chinese history had showed key political figures subscribing to what he called Mao's 'superstition', condemning the country to re-enact the same violent script over and over, without in any way breaking the patterns of the past.
Original essay in Chinese by Bao Tong. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Sarah Jackson-Han
Director of Communications
Radio Free Asia
Washington, DC
202-530-7774
202-530-7794
