Re: la nouvelle gauche: Les jeunes Chinois voient rouge

["Workers World, Chicago Bureau" <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: gdunkel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <gdunkel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


>The text that Henry C.K. Liu included in his post was not very readible,
>so I reformated it and it is posted below.  ,,,  I think the article is
>exceptionally significant and actually deserves to be translated

Well, this translation is better than nothing.

Truly this is the truth seen dimly in a mirror...

Lou Paulsen
member, Workers World Party, Chicago




Chinese youth see red
Revolution comes back into fashion to take on corruption

> Par ANNE LOUSSOUARN
> Le mardi 11 juillet 2000
> Pékin
> correspondance
>


The girls, to the right of the stage, represent feudal, libertine, or
exploitative succubi.  "That [I think this is an obscene term? - LP]
revolution ... The revolution is like reading the Bible," rants the worst, a
sadomasochist version of Cruella [de Vil?? of 101 Dalmatians? could be -
LP], sheathed in black vinyl and perched on dominatrix-style boots.  Another
chimes in: "The workers aren't advanced forces, not in the least - they are
the most backward, they are trash."  To the left, the boys, in blue work
jackets, chests high, defend the revolution.  "The revolution is feeding the
hungry.  Wherever oppression exists, there comes rebellion."  At the end of
the play, the actors intone the International, brandishing the the red
hammer-and-sickle flag, and the audience claps their hands in time.  The
play "Che Guevara" was a sensation in Beijing at the end of May, and the
producers expect to make a tour of the universities soon.

Packed houses, catcalls and cheers, the company has borne up with it all.
The youth adore it, but certain adults, offended by the harangues on a
revolution which has come back into fashion, hate it.  "When it's the Party
that talks about revolution, nobody pays attention!  But I know we've
stepped on the toes of a lot of spectators when we say 'defend socialism
with our lives,' for example," opines Huang Jisu, author of the
controversial play.  "They accuse us of riding the wave of fashionable
ideology with our attacks on U.S. imperialism, but it's actually
neoliberalism that's in fashion."  High Chinese officials have discreetly
sent family members or secretaries [This may have more of a connotation of
'aide' in France? - LP]  to assess the temperature of the theatre.  "Even
Jiang Zemin's military secretary has come," says the author.  If the left in
China had a tendency to be represented by senile ideological fossils, in
recent months one has seen the growing in strength of what Chinese
intellectuals call the "new left", with a new look: students coming back
from studying abroad, very much on top of things in the world thanks to the
Internet, waving a flag more red than the Communist Party's.

A tendency which might however be borrowing from the reflexes of the past.
Thus, in spring, the ultraconservative [By which they almost certainly mean
'socialist' - LP] daily "Clarity" published letters from students at Beijing
University denouncing the professors they judged too liberal.  Anti-WTF
[Organization Mondiale du Commerce = World Trade Federation],
antiglobalization, nationalist, the champions of the new left are also very
critical of the social inequality created by 20 years of reforms.  "The
Communist Party today is a new capitalist class composed of big and little
bureaucrats.  It's a decadent party, corrupted to an unimaginable degree.
But I believe in the communist ideal," confides Huang Jisu.  According to
Jean-Philipe Beja, a China scholar, "the new left, which is younger, has no
ties with the most conservative elements [This means 'left wing' - LP] of
the Party."  Its growth  coincides with an old-style purge of liberal
intellectuals like Li Shenzhi, former vice-director of the prestigious
Academy of Social Sciences, a training-ground for governmental advisors.
Last month, an outspoken journalist was demoted at the Shenzhen Law Journal.
He Qinglian is actually the author of a pamphlet, "The traps of
modernization," critiquing the abuses of power, corruption, and the growing
gulf between the rich and the poor.  But what angered the authorities was
not so much this scholarly work, published several years ago, as an article
on the growing tensions between social classes.

It is certain that the new left are being used as tools by people in power.
"Li Shenzhi was the diplomatic advisor to Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang.  If
the champions of the new left are being allowed to criticize people of this
level, certainly it's because they have the support of people even more
important in the hierarchy," believes a liberal specialist on
Marxism-Leninism who (a sign of the tension among the intellectual
groupings) prefers to stay anonymous.  He's not lacking in criticism toward
these new partisans of revolution.  "It's pure hypocrisy.  The intellectuals
of the new left know very well the positive side of the western systems.
They just want to get themselves favors from the regime," he says.

The red flag style has also caught on in some artistic circles, viz. the
cultural webzine "Red Flag" launched by some youths.  The magazine "I love
rock" also published a biography of Che Guevara in March, and the writings
of the soldier "Lei Feng", hero of Mao-era propaganda.  A figure however
held in ridicule by most Chinese.  This breeze of "red fashion" is certainly
limited to the intellectual and artistic strata, but it's indicative of
growing discontent toward the Communist Party which is perceived as
irremediably corrupt.

Alongside the hardening of the line against liberal intellectuals, the party
has launched a new political campaign of the "three representations" - the
party being the representative of the most advanced economic, cultural, and
technological forces - and has developed new revolutionary songs to promote
what is politically correct in the ranks of the army.  The solciers have
until August 1 to learn these eight new songs praising selflessness and
party loyalty.