The 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall is taken to mark the fall of communism, but more accurately it was the fall of the Soviet empire. Communist parties still rule in Cuba, North Korea and, of course, China. But the anniversary does prompt a couple of questions, why did communism not fall in those countries, and why in Europe did it fall in 1989 and not in other years of protest such as 1956 or 1968 or 1979. The rulers in Beijing ask themselves those questions repeatedly. The Party’s continued grip on power depends on getting the answers right.
The key point to grasp about the year is that it followed the first free legislative elections in the Soviet Union since 1917 as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s pushed ahead with what was essential a European social democratic program of economic, social and political reform. The newly constituted Congress of the People’s Deputies then elected representatives to the Supreme Soviet, and many of those elected were not Party candidates. Beijing has been careful not to lose control of the electoral process.
The Party leadership has also recognized the way centrally directed economies cause economic stagnation, and by extension political unrest, and that unleashing the power of the private sector is necessary. But the Soviet Union, to Beijing’s mind, went too far in its privatizations, creating an unruly and group of oligarchs and too little government control over strategically important industries. While Beijing has held a hard line on political reform, it has pushed ahead, as we well know, with modernizing the economy, prodding the state-owned enterprises into greater efficiency, which keeping them state-controlled, and giving more rein to small and medium sized enterprises.
Eastern Europe got freedom but East Asia got rich. For how long economic reform can continue independently of political reform remains the great unanswered question.
4 Comments
November 9, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Actually communism fell. Can you call today’s China communist? And when did Communism really fell?
What happened was just the change from a totalitarian system to an authoritarian one.
One can also said that communism didn’t really exist. What was before were just authoritarian (and in some instances dystopian) regimes, only communist in name.
More exactly, according to Trotsky, they were failed/degenerated workers states.
Totalitarianism and later authoritarianism was and still is the mean to maintain such regimes.
Things improve nevertheless, I can only think of NK as only remaining truly totalitarian state.
China is still authoritarian but in a much lower degree than in the past, and far from its darkest totalitarian periods.
November 11, 2009 at 12:39 am
I don’t disagree that China is less authoritarian than in the past, at least on some measures. My main point was to consider the lessons that China’s Communist Party has taken from the fall of its counterparts in Europe. It doesn’t want the same fate to befall it.
November 11, 2009 at 1:33 am
For how long economic reform can continue independently of political reform ?
Hundreds of years, at least. Look back in Chinese history, it was the same system for three thousand years. And China grew to output 50% of the world’s production with only 25% of the population. And this economy sustained for hundreds of years at a time. The Han, Tang and Qing dynasties achieved this. And these weren’t anywhere close to be democratic. All capitalistic, for sure, but all dictatorships.
November 11, 2009 at 1:04 pm
The history of capitalist societies suggests that when a new middle class arises it eventually seeks political influence commensurate with its economic one, as it now has interests to promote or defend. In China, the Party would like that process to happen internally. There are not many, if any countries where that has happened. Instead new political parties have arisen to challenge incumbents.