Stability and the Industrial Elite in China and the Soviet Union

168 Pages·1988·14.682 MB·English

by  Constance Squires Meaney

Stability and the Industrial Elite
in China and the Soviet Union
A publication ofthe
Institute ofEast Asian Studies
University ofCalifornia
Berkeley, California 94720
The China Research Monograph series, whose first titleappeared in 1967, is
oneof several publications series sponsored bythe Institute of East Asian Stu
dies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the Japan
Research Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, the Indo
china Research Monograph series, and theResearch Papers andPolicy Studies
series. The Institute sponsors also aFaculty Reprint series.
Correspondencemaybe sent to:
Ms. Joanne Sandstrom, Editor
Institute ofEast Asian Studies
University ofCalifornia
Berkeley, California94720
CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 34
c/# INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES
^S> UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA • BERKELEY
QCS CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES
Stability and the
Industrial Elite in China
and the Soviet Union
CONSTANCE SQUIRES MEANEY
Although the Institute of East Asian Studies isresponsible for the selection
and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions
expressed and for theaccuracy ofstatements rests withtheir authors.
Copyright®1988 bythe Regentsof theUniversity of California
ISBN 0-912966-98-x
Library ofCongress Catalog Card Number 87-83158
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
All rights reserved.
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
1.Defining Issues in Leninist Systems 9
2. Stalinism: The New Industrial Elite and Revolution
from Above 17
3. Maoism: Mobility and Organization in Industrial
Enterprises before the Cultural Revolution 34
4. Maoism and Revolution from Above 64
5. After Mao: The Beginningof
Institutionalized Leninism? 92
6. The Unintegrated Elite and the End ofRevolution
from Above in China 115
Conclusion 142
Bibliography 155
Preface
A majorsource ofinformation forthis monographconsists ofinter
views with emigres from China residing in Hong Kong. A word
about the interviewing process isin order. The sessions were conduct
ed at the Universities' Service Centre in Hong Kong between No
vember 1979 and May 1980. The interviews were conducted in
Chinese. An assistant was present during the earliest sessions; most,
however, were conducted one-on-one. The first sessions also followed
a rather detailed questionnaire about factory organization, which I re
placed early on with aless structured approach. A great deal of unex
pected material,in particular revelations about the Cultural Revolution,
hadbegunto emerge in the course of the interviews. An open-ended
approach seemed the best way to bring out this kind of information
and make use ofit.
I interviewed twenty-four people in two-hour sessions for a total of
162 hours. An additional individual was interviewed in the United
States in 1983. The most sessions with a singleindividualwere nine,
the fewest, one; the norm was three per person. The majorityof the
persons interviewed would be classified as intellectuals and had emi
gratedlegally. The former occupations of the intervieweeswere: nine
technicians and engineers employed in factories, among whom two
hadalso workedin research institutes; five factory workers; one deputy
factory manager; one staffworkerin a factory; three intellectuals who
had been sent down to factories after the Cultural Revolution; one
member of a work team that spent time in two factories; and five
technical or administrative employees in industrial units immediately
above the factory level, such as municipal bureaus. The geographical
distribution of the units in which the interviewees had worked was:
Guangdong Province, ten;Shanghai, four; Tianjin, three; Beijing, two;
Yunnan Province, two; Nanjing, one; and Anhui, Heilongjiang,
Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shandong, and Xinjiang provinces, one each. The
vn
Preface
numbers total more than twenty-five because some individuals had
worked in more than one place.
The interviews were invaluable in providing a source of informa
tion about events and organization at the factory level in China unob
tainable by other means. In combination with officialPRC sources,a
fairly small number of intervieweesmade it possible to draw a general
picture ofeventsandorganization in the Mao years andespecially dur
ing the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. The picture was origi
nally drawn in 1980 and hasbeen confirmed by later accounts of the
period that haveappeared in the PRC press and in various individual
memoirs published in the West. A portion of the present work, pri
marily in Chapter 6, appeared under the title "Is the Soviet Present
China's Future?" in World Politics 39:2 (January 1987) (©1987
Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission). I have done
some updating in light ofevents that took place after that writing;my
conclusions, however, have remained basically the same.
Many individuals and organizations were helpful in the course of
preparing this monograph and the dissertation that was its beginning.
With respect to organizations, the Institute of East Asian Studies and
the Department of Political Science at the University of California at
Berkeley both provided financial assistance for my thesis research in
Hong Kong. The Universities' Service Centre in Hong Kong, under
John Dolfin's direction, provided invaluable assistance with my inter
viewing project during nine months in 1979-80. The Center for
Chinese Studies at Berkeley provided office spaceand other assistance
in the summer of 1986and in January-September 1987forrevisionof
the thesis manuscript.
With respect to individuals, I would first thank the membersofmy
dissertation committee, Chalmers Johnson, Ken Jowitt, and Benjamin
Ward. Chalmers Johnson, the committee chair, was instrumental in
encouraging me to revise the thesis for publication. Ken Jowitt pro
vided criticism and inspiration at many points. Richard Baum at
UCLA providedadditional funding for the dissertation, aswell asad
vice and criticism, in the course of a project in which I served as a
research assistant. Joyce Kallgren as Chair of the Center for Chinese
Studies also gave much adviceand encouragement. Specialthanks are
due John Starr forhis ideasand encouragementat the inception ofthe
project. Joanne Sandstrom's editorial work with the final manuscript
was invaluable. None of these persons or organizations is of course
responsible forthe argumentsand conclusions I have presented.
Vlll
Preface
I alsowould like to thank allthe friends and colleagueswho at one
time or another offered criticism, advice, and/or general support. I
would especially mention here Jon Unger and Anita Chan, who helped
inthe preparations for interviewing and living in Hong Kong; fellow
scholars at the Universities' Service Centreduringmy stayin 1979-80;
members of an informal dissertation discussion group that met in
Berkeley during 1983; Pat Boling; Barbara Geddes; I-Fan Cheng; and
my former colleagues at Franklin and Marshall College, Kerry White
side and Joe Jucewicz. And finally, I want to thank myhusband, Ray
Meaney, for his support and forbearance during my long hours spent
absorbed in this project.
Constance Squires Meaney is presently a Research and Language
Fellow in the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Stud
ies in Taipei. She received her Ph.D. from the University ofCali
fornia at Berkeley and has taught at Franklin and Marshall College
and atthe University ofCalifornia at Davis.
IX
Abbreviations
FBIS Foreign BroadcastInformation Service
GMRB Guangmingribao
RMRB Renmin ribao
Introduction
The third plenum of the eleventh Central Committee of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1978 marked a
watershed in the history of post-1949China. At the plenum the CCP
declared that the party's main task had shifted from class struggle to
carrying out the Four Modernizations. A number of major policyre
versals were announced in connection with this shift, which set the
stage forthe ensuingperiodunder the leadership ofDeng Xiaoping.
The policy reversals can bedivided intotwobroad categories. The
first called for changes in the status pf various groups in society,
as well as in the role played by ascribed statuses. Intellectuals were
declared to be a part of the laboring classes, together with workers
and peasants. Landlords and capitalists were said no longer to
exist as classes. Political statuses, such as rightists and counter
revolutionaries—which had been assigned to large groupsof people in
past political campaigns—were removed, and people who had worn
these "hats" were rehabilitated. More generally, class background was
no longer to be taken into account in the distribution of reward, pun
ishment, and opportunity.
The second category of policy reversals involved a range of ra
tionalizing measures concerning organizational structure, elite recruit
ment, and control of deviance. These included administrative reforms
that serve to separate partyand state structures and to specifyorgani
zational roles and functions; such reforms would replace a system of
diffuse party control. Personnel and incentive policies since the third
plenum have called for examinations as a basis for hiring, job assign
ment, promotion, and wage grade raises, in place of political criteria.
Performance is to be closely linked with materialreward. Rationaliza
tion also includes the repudiation of mass political campaigns, which
under Mao served both asa means ofcontrolling deviance and ofelite
recruitment. Deviance is to be dealt with by means of the legal sys
tem or by specialized party organs (for example, the Party Discipline