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China Rectification and Reform
These results of the opening up policy and rural reform
programs had important political repercussions at the national
level. The question of borrowing from the West has been debated
vigorously since the early nineteenth century. The concern has
always been the impact of Western social, political, and cultural
traditions, sometimes referred to derisively as the "flies and
insects" that blow in along with culturally neutral scientific and
technical information. This concern was especially prevalent among
conservatives in the highest leadership circles and extended to the
possibly corrosive effect of Western traditions on the party's
Marxist-Leninist ideological foundation. To meet this challenge, in
October 1983 the party launched a national program to improve
"party style," organization, and ideology.
According to Chen Yun, a leading conservative and major figure
in party rectification, the question of party style was crucial for
the organization's very survival, especially because of the party's
tarnished image and the perceived crisis of confidence and loss of
prestige during the Cultural Revolution period. Improving party
style required that organizational norms be restored, which
entailed ridding the party of factionalism. It also demanded that
measures be taken to counter corruption and the exercise of
privilege. These frequently had taken the form of abuses by cadres
who used personal relations and "back-door" benefits to further
their own interests. Finally, improved party style required that
political discipline be enforced in implementing party programs.
These goals were accomplished over the next three years,
accompanied by thorough ideological education. The Second Plenum of
the Twelfth Central Committee (October 11-12, 1983) affirmed that
the policy of opening up to the outside world was entirely correct
but condemned the "corrosive influence of decadent bourgeois
ideology" that accompanied it and the "remnant feudal ideas" still
pervasive within the party system, which required thorough
rectification. In effect, linking the attempt to "clear away
cultural contamination" with improving party style meant rejecting
both the radical left, or those who still carried the taint of
associations with the Cultural Revolution, and those on the right,
who were considered by some party leaders to have become too
involved in the trappings of Western ideas and practices.
At the same time that the party was attempting to discipline
its own ranks, a drive was initiated within Chinese society to
crack down on crime. Beginning in August 1983, the drive focused on
the increase in serious crimes against social order: murder,
robbery, burglary, rape, and arson. Explanations for the crime wave
included the breakdown of law and order that had begun in the
Cultural Revolution period and corrupting influences that had
slipped in with the opening up policy
(see Return to Socialist Legality
, ch. 13).
A campaign against "spiritual pollution" was initiated by a
speech given at the Second Plenum by Deng Xiaoping
(see Policy Toward Intellectuals
, ch. 4). The campaign targeted "decadent,
moribund ideas of the bourgeoisie" that questioned the suitability
of the socialist system or the legitimacy of the party's leading
role. It also sought to establish a basis for ideological
continuity between the emerging younger generation and the older,
civil-war-era veterans. Conservative Political Bureau members
attempted to use the campaign to rectify what they considered
decadent behavior and corrosive liberal thought. Following this
example, some lower-level party cadres began to exhibit behavior
similar to that of the mass campaigns of the Cultural Revolution.
Young men and women with long hair or Western-style clothing were
subjected to ridicule and abuse. Peasants who had prospered were
accused of selfishness; in response, some ceased to participate in
rural reform. Intellectuals were again under suspicion, and party
and government cadres adopted a "wait-and-see" attitude to avoid
making political errors.
To avert potential instability and stagnation of the reform
program, the authorities began to place limits on the spiritual
pollution campaign: it was not to be pursued in the countryside, it
was not to impede scientific research aimed at promoting
modernization, and, most important, it was not to be implemented in
the mass-campaign style of the Cultural Revolution.
By the spring of 1984 the full-scale media treatment of
spiritual pollution had subsided, indicating that party leaders
were able to confront the problems and build a consensus on how to
contain the excesses and return to the reform program. In May, in
a bow to the conservatives, Zhao Ziyang reported that although
mistakes had been made in implementing the spiritual pollution
campaign, the issue of spiritual pollution remained on the party
agenda. The reform leadership thus eased the tensions within the
system by acknowledging that reactions to the reform program would
occur and by checking any obstructions, disruptions, or violence
that emerged. This essentially conciliatory approach was necessary
at least until opponents could be removed or reformed through a
series of new appointments or through the continuing party
rectification program.
Data as of July 1987
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