Word: deng
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Gorbachev has not always been a champion of the kind of people power on display in Tiananmen Square. Early in his tenure as General Secretary, his understanding of democracy was closer to Deng's concept of limited managerial and entrepreneurial liberalization. However, the Soviet leader grew to realize that as long as the Communist Party maintains its grip on all aspects of society, significant reform is nearly impossible. The party is too conservative, too resistant to change. At the time of the 1917 Revolution, the party was the agent of cataclysmic change -- but on behalf of a conspiratorial elite...
Revolutionary true believers used to call Deng a "capitalist roader." They were right in their accusation, but he was right in his perception that the Communist road was a dead...
...while Deng subordinated ideology to the goal of "modernization," he did not downgrade the role or diffuse the power of the Communist Party. Quite the contrary; he has remained an absolutist in defense of the institution that Marx and Engels aptly called the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Farmers could work their own plots and profit from the sale of their produce at market, but under Deng, the People's Daily remained very much an organ of instruction rather than information, to say nothing of debate. The doors of the Great Hall of the People were shut, figuratively and often literally...
...principal purpose of the party -- and the only thing it does well -- has always been the preservation and enforcement of its own power. But that naked truth has traditionally been disguised with Marxist economics and ideology. To the extent that he de- Communized the economy and discredited ideology, Deng diminished the party's claim to legitimacy. He left the party all the more vulnerable to the flood of discontent that has so stunned the world in recent days. An improvement in living standards is not enough to meet the needs of the people. As a student banner in Tiananmen Square...
...Deng also made himself vulnerable to the supreme, and probably final, irony of his roller-coaster career. He carefully, patiently, skillfully set the scene for Gorbachev to visit China two weeks ago. The Soviet leader was coming on Deng's terms to end the 30-year schism between the Communist giants. Yet not only was this diplomatic triumph overshadowed by the more spectacular events in Tiananmen Square, but the demonstrators there carried banners in Russian demanding glasnost and saying IN THE SOVIET UNION THEY HAVE GORBACHEV. IN CHINA, WE HAVE WHOM...