Bao Tong’s June 4 essay: Pressure is a good thing

UPDATE: Poems for June 4th. This essay was broadcast recently by RFA’s Mandarin service, to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the military crackdown on June 4, 1989. Here is their anniversary page (ZH), including a collection of poems written for the occasion by prominent intellectuals and dissidents:

“An utterly repressive society leads to an utterly corrupt prosperity. Repression has split China down the middle, into a paradise for corrupt officials, and a purgatory for those with no power. The one-party, authoritarian system dominates China: it is used to deploy personnel, to make laws, to administer the country, to administer judicial affairs; it is the supreme principle to which all others must bow, for all its corruption.” – Bao Tong

Pressure is a good thing
China’s army is under the leadership of the political Party. The chairman of the Central Military Commission ordered hundreds of thousands of troops to put down a peaceful petition by citizens, who were only asking for the implementation of democracy and for corruption to be punished. And the person holding the office of chairman was none other than Deng Xiaoping, who led the siege and annihilation of 550,000 rightists back in 1957. This chairman gave the order to the People’s Liberation Army to shoulder their assault weapons and drive tanks in a move that crushed and strafed the masters of the country. The numbers of injured went beyond the capacity of emergency rooms in the capital to handle. The dead were piled up in the morgues. The rest of the world witnessed the bloodbath in China’s capital via satellite television. This sort of event, whether it occurred in the slave society or during the time of the warlords, is the sort of crime which has the power to extinguish the human spirit. Nevertheless, there are always those who are prepared to sell their own souls, who in the past 18 years have praised the massacre perpetrated by that butcher as providing a firm basis for prosperity, because he broke the will of the people with his iron fist. Such people want the Chinese people to remember that great oppression also led to great prosperity, and therefore that continued prosperity will also naturally mean continued oppression.

中国的军队归政党领导。党的军委主席调动几十万军队镇压和平请愿的公民，而公民的要求只是实行民主和惩治腐败。当时身居军委主席之职的，就是 1957年那位围歼五十五万名右派的总指挥邓小平。 他命令人民解放军驾着坦克，端起冲锋枪，碾压和扫射国家的主人。伤员人数超过了首都各大医院急救室的容量，尸体堆满了太平间。全世界通过卫星电视，目击了 中国首都的血雨腥风。这种事情，即使出在奴隶制时代或军阀时代，也是灭绝人性的罪行。但十八年来，遇到这样那样的日子，总有些愿意出卖灵魂的人，笑嘻嘻地s 出来歌颂那位屠城者的铁腕，歌颂他粉碎了民意，歌颂他奠定了繁荣的基业。他们希望中国人记住，大镇压导致大繁荣，继续繁荣理应继续镇压！

But an utterly repressive society leads to an utterly corrupt prosperity. Repression has split China down the middle, into a paradise for corrupt officials, and a purgatory for those with no power. The one-party, authoritarian system dominates China: it is used to deploy personnel, to make laws, to administer the country, to administer judicial affairs; it is the supreme principle to which all others must bow, for all its corruption. So what sort of China do we have today? A serious professor, C.A.Bolz, wrote in a serious journal: “Of the 3,200 Chinese people with assets worth more than a hundred million yuan, more than 2,900 are the sons and daughters of the Party nobility. Eighty-five to 90% percent of China’s five major industries: finance, foreign trade, property development, large-scale infrastructure projects and security are controlled by such people. Now, these figures, more than any government statistic, give the true flavor of what life is really like for ordinary Chinese people. Even when the stock market collapses, and tens of millions of shareholders face ruin, it is these people who are able to pick up the pieces and make a fortune again. So that’s the sort of China we have today — a corrupt China, which calls itself a socialist China, whose people are its capital, which says it is a harmonious China, ruled by law, a China rising, a China devastated by the crackdown of June 4, 1989.

全面镇压所导致的，是全面腐败的繁荣。镇压把中国劈成两半，打造了无权者 的炼狱，构筑了腐败者的乐园。一党专政主宰着中国：由它用人，由它行政，由它立法，由它司法，唯它独尊，任它腐败。现在的中国是个什么样的中国？一位严肃 的教授C. A. Bolz，在一家严肃的刊物上指出：中国拥有一亿元以上人民币财产的三千二百多人中， 两千九百多人是党国权贵的子女；五个最重要的产业领域，金融，外贸，地产开发，大型工程，安全，百分之八十五到九十的核心职位同样控制在这种人手里。 这些数目字，比党国公布的一切统计公报，更加符合平民百姓来自生活的质朴而真实的感觉。一旦股市崩盘，几千万股民倾家荡产之日，又将是权贵们再发横财之 时。这就是中国-腐败的中国，自称“社会主义”的中国，“以人为本”的中国，“依法治国”的中国，“和谐”“崛起”的中国，受过六四镇压洗劫的中国！

 

What happened on June 4, 1989 sends chills up the spine of people on the mainland, people in Hong Kong, people in Taiwan, people around the world: it chills humanity. But the crackdown is an obstacle on China’s road to development and unification which cannot be evaded. Those of you who support the view that the June 4 crackdown was correct should know that you are threatening compatriots in Taiwan and in Hong Kong every time you repeat these careful phrases, month after month, year after year in veneration of Deng: you are destroying the political and moral basis for national reunification. Chinese society, which has been so wounded by this event will only find a new lease of life with the repudiation of the Party line on Tiananmen. The blame rests with Deng, and yet Deng died years ago. Surely the Chinese people have a right to hear one just sentence! Today’s leaders are incapable of becoming reformed characters, but they should at least say one sincere thing; utter a note of responsibility, if they wish to rule in a constitutional way, to give China at least some kind of footing on which to begin its long march to democracy?

六 四，使大陆人，香港人，台湾人，全世界的人，凡我人类，无不为之寒心。中国要进步，要统一，六四是一只绕不过去的拦路虎。坚持“六四镇压正确论”的人应该 知道，你们年年月月无微不至维护邓小平的威信，也就是年年月月在威胁香港同胞，伤害台湾同胞，在政治上和道义上破坏国家统一的基础！因六四镇压而受难的中 国，只能通过六四的否定而得到新生。六四应该由邓小平负责。邓小平早已死了。但老百姓至少有权听到一句公道话！现在的领导人，就算毫无能力善后，总该讲句 诚实的话，负责任的的话！承认镇压人民有罪，才有可能实施宪政，使中国在民主的基础上长治久安。

Some people place their faith in the passage of time. Perhaps, as year follows year, the question of June 4 will resolve itself naturally…Isn’t that what happened with the anti-rightist struggle 50 years ago, that it resolved itself naturally? There is always room for things to ‘resolve themselves naturally’ when you have one-party authoritarian rule. Time regards all things with benevolence; it is a natural moderate. But the direction which is to be taken is itself a synthesis of all kinds of pressures and forces pulling in different directions; and all of them have a purpose. The pressure exerted by the Chinese people is indeed a good thing; its vice-like grip gives us the best available tool with which to reform an authoritarian, one-party state. The Chinese people have the right to ratchet up the pressure on the leadership of the Communist Party, and, in doing so, squeeze out some democracy for China.

有人把希望寄托在时间上， 好心地设想，一年又一年，六四问题说不定就自然而然解决了……。反右派那场斗争不是已经 “自然而然”过了五十个年头吗，解决了吗？有一党专政在挺着，就没有“自然而然解决”的余地。时间对万物一视同仁，它是中立的。发展的方向取决于各种压力 的总和。各种力量，互相消长，都在起作用。人民的压力是个好东西，是钳制、对付和改造一党专政的最有效的因素。人民有权依法向共产党的领导集团施加压力， 压出一个民主的中国来。

 

 

（完）

Bao Tong

Beijing

June 2007

 

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