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One of my closest friends in China is a fellow student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. I think I like him because he can be a bit of a rebel: he is an admirer of American-style civil liberties, a routine violator of government censorship restrictions, and a staunch and vocal advocate of Chinese democratization. He is also card-carrying communist. Yes, you read correctly. He is not simply a rank-and-file member of the CCP, but a party secretary.
I was at first taken aback by the seeming contradiction in his declared values and his political affiliation. When I asked him to explain what I thought was clear hypocrisy, he said the explanation would be lengthy, so we decided to discuss it over drinks. What he told me was as surprising as it was reaffirming.
To begin with, the CCP is no longer communist in anything but name. The Leninist-Marxism that evolved into Maoism has been replaced by a vague sense of national devotion tinged with empty communist rituals. Only a minuscule fraction of new members (my friend estimates less than 2%) believe in any communist tenets at all. The vast majority join the party out of bare of self-interest. The CCP is rife with cronyism, and membership gives rising talents in politics and business a vast network of potential supporters and/or clients that can springboard them to administrative or entrepreneurial success. These "communists" are capitalists in the most commoditizing sense of the word, and have little to no political interest. Ironically, for that very reason they will never go out of their way to upset the status quo; they benefit directly from the Party's exclusive control over government machinations and its consequential ability to manipulate China's command economy to their professional advantage. These party members my friend labels the cynics, and puts their numbers at around 80% of new membership.
The cynics' effect on Party policy is blindingly evident. The wealth disparity of Shanghai is glaring, with third-world ghettos huddling in the shadows of gleaming state-of-the-art skyscrapers; and Marx's "opium of the masses" is available anywhere for the right price, as evidenced by the entrance fee at the government-regulated but still fully operational Jade Buddha Temple. Cynicism, while it may curb communism's more reactionary tendencies, cannot democratize China - at least not alone. Fortunately, it will not have to.
The remaining faction of new "Communists"- at just under 20% and by far the most politically active - are people like my friend: young, universitarian democratists who are quietly seeking political change. They study abroad, and smuggle uncensored western literature into the country to copy and disseminate it en-masse to their cohort in hopes of educating them on subjects that are either unilateral or taboo because of Party censorship. They go out of their way to talk to foreigners, and enthusiastically discuss their hopes for a future where all Chinese citizens have voting rights and explicitly express dissent without fear of government intervention. And their numbers are growing. Although he doesn't know how soon, my source estimates that eventually the amount of democratists in the CCP will reach a critical mass at which they will be able to discard their thread-bare mantle of communist rhetoric and override the apathy of the cynics to make the PRC a democratic state. It will be a silent coup-d'état: a complete counterrevolution without a single shot fired.
I toasted the plan's success at the bar, but I still have my doubts. If it happens, I will support the counterrevolution whole heartedly, but it might be that like Mao before him, my friend is just an enthusiastic Chinese nationalist who let his idealism blind him to reality (although in this case it is the feasibility of the plan that seems irrational, not the proposed consequences of its implementation). Then again, I am no party secretary, and if he his right, China stands on the verge of one of the most sweeping and positive political transformations in history. As an American, I approve.
Adam Dahmer, from Fisherville, Ky., is a senior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville and is currently studying in the People's Republic of China. He is majoring in Spanish with a political science minor.
Adam Dahmer, from Fisherville, Ky., is a senior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville and is currently studying in the People's Republic of China. He is majoring in Spanish with a political science minor.