Epoch Times Commentaries on the Communist Party
On What the Communist Party Is
The Epoch Times Dec 09, 2004
MAOS SHADOW: A mother and son
walk through the entrance of Beijing's Military Museum and are
greeted by a large statue of China's former dictator Mao Zedong.
(Stephen Shaver/AFP/Getty Images)This is the first of Nine
Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Foreword
For over five thousand years, the Chinese people created a splendid
civilization on the land nurtured by the Yellow River and Yangtze
River. During this long period of time, dynasties came and went,
and the Chinese culture waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories
have played out on the historical stage of China.
The year 1840, the year commonly considered by historians as the
beginning of Chinas contemporary era, marked the start of Chinas
journey from tradition to modernization. Chinese civilization
experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The
first three episodes include the invasion of Beijing by the
Anglo-French Allied Force in the early 1860s, the Sino-Japanese War
in 1894 (also called Jiawu War), and the Russo-Japanese War in
Chinas northeast in 1906. To these three episodes of challenge,
China responded with the Westernization Movement, which was marked
by the importation of modern goods and weapons, institutional
reforms through the Hundred Days Reform in 1898 [1] and the
attempt at the end of the late Qing Dynasty to establish
constitutional rule, and later, the Xinhai Revolution (or Hsinhai
Revolution) [2] in 1911.
At the end of the First World War, China, though it emerged
victorious, was not listed among the stronger powers at that time.
Many Chinese believed that the first three episodes of response had
failed. The May Fourth Movement [3] would lead to the fourth
attempt at responding to previous challenges and culminate in the
complete westernization of Chinese culture through the communist
movement and its extreme revolution.
This article concerns the outcome of the last episode, which is the
communist movement and the Communist Party. Lets take a close look
at the result of what China chose, or perhaps one can say, what was
imposed on China, after over 160 years, nearly 100 million
unnatural deaths, and the destruction of nearly all Chinese
traditional culture and civilization.
******************
I. Relying on Violence and Terror to Gain and Maintain
Power
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They
openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions. [4] This quote is
taken from the concluding paragraph of the Communist Manifesto, the
Communist Partys principal document. Violence is the one and main
means by which the Communist Party gained power. This character
trait has been passed on to all subsequent forms of the Party that
have arisen since its birth.
In fact, the worlds first Communist Party was established many
years after Karl Marxs death. The next year after the October
Revolution in 1917, the All Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)
(later to be known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
was born. This party grew out of the use of violence against class
enemies and was maintained through violence against party members
and ordinary citizens. During Stalins purges in the 1930s, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union slaughtered over 20 million
so-called spies and traitors, and those thought to have different
opinions.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first started as a branch of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Third Communist
International. Therefore, it naturally inherited the willingness to
kill. During Chinas first Communist-Kuomintang civil war between
1927 and 1936, the population in Jiangxi province dropped from over
20 million to about 10 million. The damage wrought by the CCPs use
of violence can be seen from these figures alone.
Using violence may be unavoidable when attempting to gain political
power, but there has never been a regime as eager to kill as the
CCP, especially during otherwise peaceful periods. Since 1949, the
number of deaths caused by CCPs violence has surpassed the total
deaths during the wars waged between 1921 and 1949.
An excellent example of the Communist Partys use of violence is
its support of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Under the Khmer Rouge a
quarter of Cambodias population, including a majority of Chinese
immigrants and descents, were murdered. China still blocks the
international community from putting the Khmer Rouge on trial, so
as to cover up the CCPs notorious role in the genocide.
The CCP has close connections with the worlds most brutal
revolutionary armed forces and despotic regimes. In addition to the
Khmer Rouge, these include the communist parties in Indonesia, the
Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Nepalall of which
were established under the support of the CCP. Many leaders in
these communist parties are Chinese; some of them are still hiding
in China to this day.
Other Maoist-based Communist Parties include South Americas
Shining Path and the Japanese Red Army, whose atrocities have been
condemned by the world community.
One of the theories the communists employ is social Darwinism. The
Communist Party applies Darwins inter-species competition to human
relationships and human history, maintaining that class struggle is
the only driving force for societal development. Struggle,
therefore, became the primary belief of the Communist party, a
tool in gaining and maintaining political control. Maos famous
words plainly betray this logic of the survival of the fittest:
With 800 million people, how can it work without struggle?
Another one of Maos claims that is similarly famous is that the
Cultural Revolution should be conducted every seven or eight
years. [5] Repetitive use of force is an important means for the
CCP to maintain its ruling in China. The goal of using force is to
create terror. Every struggle and movement served as an exercise in
terror, so that the Chinese people trembled in their hearts,
submitted to the terror and gradually became enslaved under the
CCPs control.
Today, terrorism has become the main enemy of the civilized and
free world. The CCPs exercise of violent terrorism, thanks to the
apparatus of the state, has been larger in scale, much longer
lasting, and its results more devastating. Today, in the
twenty-first century, we should not forget this inherited character
of the Communist Party, since it will definitely play a crucial
role to the destiny of the CCP some time in the future.
******************
II. Using Lies to Justify Violence
The level of civilization can be measured by the degree to which
violence is used in a regime. By resorting to the use of violence,
the Communist regimes clearly represent a huge step backward in
human civilization. Unfortunately, the Communist Party has been
seen as progressive by those who believe that violence is an
essential and inevitable means to societal advancement.
This acceptance of violence has to be viewed as an unrivaled and
skillful employment of deception and lies by the Communist Party,
which is another inherited trait of the CCP.
Since a young age, we have thought of the US as a lovable country.
We believe this is partly due to the fact that the US has never
occupied China, nor has it launched any attacks on China. More
fundamentally, the Chinese people hold good impressions of the US
based on the democratic and open-minded character of its
people.
This excerpt came from an editorial published on July 4, 1947 in
the CCPs official newspaper Xinhua Daily. A mere three years
later, the CCP sent soldiers to fight American troops in North
Korea, and painted the Americans as the most evil imperialists in
the world. Every Chinese from Mainland China would be astonished to
read this editorial written over 50 years ago. The CCP has banned
all publications quoting similar early passages and published
rewritten versions.
Since coming to power, the CCP has employed similar artifices in
every single movement, including its elimination of
counter-revolutionaries (1950-1953), the partnership of public
and private enterprises (1954-1957), the anti-rightist movement
(1957), the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Tiananmen Square
massacre (1989), and most recently, the persecution of Falun Gong
since 1999. The most infamous instance was the persecution of
intellectuals in 1957. The CCP called on the intellectuals to offer
their opinions, but then persecuted them as rightists, using
their own speeches as evidence of their crimes. When some
criticized the persecution as a conspiracy, or plot in the dark,
Mao claimed publicly, That is not a plot in the dark, but a
stratagem in the open.
Deception and lies have played a very important role in the CCPs
gaining and maintaining control. China enjoys the longest and most
complete history in the world, and Chinese intellectuals have had
the greatest faith in history since ancient times. The Chinese
people have used history to assess current reality and even to
achieve personal spiritual improvement. To make history serve the
current regime, the CCP has made a practice of altering and
concealing historical truth. The CCP in its propaganda and
publications has rewritten history for periods from as early as the
Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) and the Warring States period
(475-221 BC) to as recently as the Cultural Revolution. Such
historical alterations have continued for the more than 50 years
since 1949, and all efforts to restore historical truth have been
ruthlessly blocked and eliminated by the CCP.
When violence becomes too weak to sustain control, the CCP resorts
to deception and lies, which serve to justify and mask the rule by
violence.
One must admit that deception and lies were not invented by the
Communist Party, but are age-old scoundrel acts that the Communist
Party has utilized without shame. The CCP promised land to the
peasants, factories to the workers, freedom and democracy to the
intellectuals, and peace to all. None of these promises has ever
been realized. One generation of Chinese died deceived and another
generation continues to be cheated. This is the biggest sorrow of
the Chinese people, the most unfortunate aspect of the Chinese
nation.
******************
III. Ever-changing Principles
In the 2004 US Presidential Debate on TV, one presidential
candidate said that, one could change tactics when one needed to,
but one should never change his beliefs or core values,
otherwise he is just not credible. [6] This statement really
makes clear a general principle.
The Communist Party is a typical example. For instance, since its
establishment 80 years ago, the CCP has held sixteen national
representative conventions and modified the Party Constitution 16
times. Over the five decades since it came to power, the CCP has
made five major modifications to the Chinese Constitution.
The ideal of the Communist Party is social equality leading to a
communist society. Today, however, communist-controlled China has
become a nation with the most serious economic inequalities in the
world. Many CCP members have become filthy rich, while the country
has 800 million living in poverty.
The guiding theories of the CCP started with Marxism-Leninism, to
which was added Maoism, and then Dengs thoughts and recently
Jiangs Three Represents. Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are not at
all compatible with Dengs theories and Jiangs ideologythey are
actually opposite to them. This hodgepodge of communist theories
employed by the CCP is indeed a rarity in human history.
The Communist Partys evolving principles have largely contradicted
one another. From the idea of a global integration transcending the
nation-state to todays extreme nationalism, from eliminating all
private ownership and all exploitative classes to todays notion of
promoting capitalists to join the party, yesterdays principles
have become reversed in todays politics, with further change
expected tomorrow. No matter how often the CCP changes its
principles, the goal remains clear: gaining and maintaining power,
and sustaining absolute control of the society.
In the history of the CCP, there have been more than a dozen
movements that are life and death struggles. In reality, all of
these struggles have coincided with the transfer of power following
changes of basic Party principles.
Every change in principles has come from an inevitable crisis faced
by the CCP, threatening its legitimacy and survival. Whether it be
collaborating with the Kuomintang Party, a pro-US foreign policy,
economic reform and market expansion, or promoting nationalismeach
of these decisions occurred at a moment of crisis, and all had to
do with gaining or solidifying power. Every cycle of a group
suffering persecution followed by reversal of that persecution has
been connected with changes in the basic principles of the
CCP.
A western proverb states that truths are sustainable and lies
mutable. There is wisdom in this saying.
******************
IV. How the Party Nature Replaces and Eliminates Human
Nature
The CCP is a Leninist authoritarian regime. Since the inception of
the CCP, three basic lines have been established, i.e., the
intellectual line, the political line, and the organization line.
The intellectual line refers to the Communist Partys philosophical
foundation. The political line refers to setting up goals. The
organization line refers to how the goals are achieved within the
format of strict organization.
The first and foremost requirement of all CCP members and those
ruled by the CCP is to obey commands unconditionally. This is what
the organization line is all about.
In China, most people know about the double personalities of CCP
members. In private settings, CCP members are ordinary human beings
with feelings of happiness, anger, sorrow and joy. They possess
ordinary human beings merits and shortcomings. They may be
parents, husbands, wives, or friends. But placed above human nature
and feelings is the Party nature, which, according to the
requirements of the Communist Party, transcends humanity. Thus,
humanity becomes relative and changeable, while Party nature
becomes absolute, beyond any doubt or challenge.
During the Cultural Revolution, it was all too common that fathers
and sons tortured each other, husbands and wives struggled with
each other, mothers and daughters reported on each other, and
students and teachers treated each other as enemies. Party nature
motivated the conflicts and hatred in these cases. During the early
period of the CCP rule, many high-ranking CCP officials were
helpless as their family members were labeled as class enemies.
This, again, was driven by Party nature.
The power of the Party nature over the individual results from the
CCPs prolonged course of indoctrination. This training starts in
preschools and kindergartens, where party-sanctioned answers to
questions are rewarded, answers that do not comply with common
sense or a childs human nature. Students receive political
education when they attend primary school, middle school and all
the way to college, and they learn to follow party-sanctioned
standard answers, otherwise, they are not allowed to pass the exam
and graduate.
A Party member must remain consistent with the Party line when
speaking publicly, no matter how he feels privately. The
organizational structure of the CCP is a gigantic pyramid, with the
central power on top controlling the entire hierarchy. This unique
structure is one of the most important features of the CCP regime,
one that helps produce absolute conformity.
Today, the CCP has completely degenerated into a political entity
struggling to maintain self-interest. It no longer pursues any of
the lofty goals of communism. However, the organizational structure
of communism remains, and its demand for unconditional conformity
has not changed. This party, situating itself above humanity and
human nature, removes any organizations or persons deemed
detrimental or potentially detrimental to its own power, be it
ordinary citizens or high-ranking CCP officials.
******************
V. An Evil Specter Opposes Nature and Human
Nature
Everything under heaven experiences a life cycle of birth,
maturity, decay, and death.
Unlike the communist regime, non-communist societies, even those
suffering under rigid totalitarian rule and a dictatorship, often
allow some degree of self-organization and self-determination.
Ancient Chinese society was in fact ruled according to a binary
structure. In rural regions clans were the center of an independent
social organization, while urban areas were organized around the
guild. The top-down government did not extend below the county
level.
The Nazi regime, perhaps the cruelest regime under a dictatorship
other than the Communist Party, still allowed rights to private
property. The communist regimes eradicated any forms of social
organization or elements independent of the Party, replacing them
with highly centralized power structures from the top-down.
If the bottom-up social structures allow for the self-determination
of individuals or groups to occur naturally, then the communist
regime is anti-nature in its essence.
The Communist Party does not hold universal standards for human
nature. The concepts of good and evil, as well as all laws and
rules, are arbitrarily manipulated. Communists do not allow murder,
except for those categorized as enemies by the Communist Party.
Filial piety is welcomed, except for those parents deemed class
enemies. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and
faithfulness are all good, but not applicable when the Party is not
willing or doesnt want to consider these traditional virtues. The
Communist Party completely overthrows the universal standards for
human nature, and builds itself on principles that oppose human
nature.
Non-communist societies generally consider humanitys dual nature
of good and evil and they rely on fixed social contracts to
maintain a balance in society. In communist societies, however, the
very concept of human nature is denied, and neither good nor evil
is acknowledged. Eliminating the concepts of good and evil,
according to Marx, serves to completely overthrow the
superstructure of the old society.
The Communist Party does not believe in God, nor does it even
respect physical nature. Battle with heaven, fight with the earth,
struggle with humanstherein lies endless joy. This was the motto
of the CCP during the Cultural Revolution. Great suffering was
inflicted on the Chinese people and the land.
The Chinese traditionally believe in the unity of heaven and human
beings. Laozi said in Dao de Jing (Tao-Te Ching), Man follows the
earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Dao, and the
Dao follows what is natural. [7] Human beings and nature exist
within a harmonious relationship in the continuous cosmos.
The communist party is a kind of being. However, it opposes nature,
heaven, earth and mankind. It is an evil specter against the
universe.
******************
VI. Some Features of Evil Possession
The Communist Partys organs themselves never participate in
productive or creative activities. Once they grasp power, they
attach themselves to the people, controlling and manipulating them.
They extend their power down to the most basic unit of society for
fear of losing control. They monopolize the resources of production
and extract wealth from the society.
In China, the CCP extends everywhere and controls everything, but
nobody has ever seen the CCPs accounting records, only accounting
records for the state, local governments, and enterprises. From the
central government to the village committees in rural areas, the
municipal officials are always ranked lower than the communist
cadres, so the municipal governments have to follow instructions
from the communist party committees of the same level. The
expenditures of the Party are supplied by the municipal units and
accounted for in the municipal system.
The organization of the CCP, like a giant evil possessing spirit,
attaches to every single unit and cell of the Chinese society as
tightly as a shadow following an object. It penetrates deeply into
every capillary and cell of the society with its finest
blood-sucking vessels and thereby controls and manipulates
society.
This peculiar structure of evil possession has existed in human
history in the past, either partially or temporarily. Never has it
operated for so long and controlled a society so completely as
under the rule of the Communist Party.
For this reason, Chinese farmers live in such poverty and drudgery.
They not only have to support the traditional municipal officials,
but also as many or even more communist cadres.
For this reason, Chinese workers lost their employment in vast
numbers. The omnipresent blood-sucking vessels of the possessing
CCP have been extracting funds from their factories for many
years.
For this reason, Chinese intellectuals find it so difficult to gain
intellectual freedom. In addition to their administrators, there
are CCP shadows lingering everywhere, doing nothing but monitoring
people.
A possessing spirit has to control absolutely the mind of the
possessed in order to drain energy for its survival.
According to modern political science, power comes from three main
sources: force, wealth, and knowledge. The Communist Party has
never hesitated to use monopoly control and force to rob people of
their property. More importantly, it has deprived people of their
freedoms of speech and of the press. It has raped peoples spirit
and will in order to maintain its absolute control of power. From
this aspect, the CCPs evil possession controls society so tightly
that it can hardly be compared to any other regime in the
world.
******************
VII. Examine Oneself and Get Rid of the CCPs
Possession
In the Communist Manifesto, the first programmatic document of the
communist party, Marx proclaimed that In 1848, a specter is
haunting Europethe specter of Communism. [8] Over a century
later, communism is more than a haunting specter. It has possessed
a concrete, material body. It spread around the world like an
epidemic, killed tens of millions and took away property and a free
mind and spirit from hundreds of millions.
The basic tenet of the Communist Party is to take away all private
property so as to eliminate the exploitative class. Private
property is the basis of all social rights, and often carries
national culture. People who are robbed of private property also
lose a free mind and spirit. They may further lose the freedom to
acquire social and political rights.
Facing a crisis of survival, the CCP was forced to reform Chinas
economy in the 1980s. Some of the rights to private property were
restored to the people. This created a hole in the massive CCP
machine of precise control. This hole has become enlarged as the
CCPs members strive to accumulate their private fortunes.
The CCP, an evil possessing specter supported by force, deception
and the frequent change of its appearance and images, has now shown
signs of decay, nervous at every slight disturbance. It attempts to
survive by accumulating more wealth and tightening control, but
these actions only serve to intensify the crisis.
Todays China appears prosperous, but social conflicts have been
built up to a level never seen before. Using political intrigues
from the past, the CCP may attempt some sort of retreat, redressing
the Tiananmen Square Massacre or Falun Gong, or making another
group its chosen enemy, thereby continuing to exercise the power of
terror.
Facing challenges over the past one hundred years, the Chinese
nation has responded by importing weapons, reforming its systems,
and enacting extreme and violent revolutions. Countless lives have
been lost, and most of the Chinese traditional culture has been
abandoned. It appears that the responses have failed. When
agitation and anxiety occupied the Chinese mind, the CCP took the
opportunity to enter the scene, and eventually controlled this last
surviving ancient civilization in the world.
In future challenges, the Chinese people will inevitably have to
choose again. No matter how the choice is made, every Chinese must
understand that any lingering hope in the CCP will only worsen the
damage done to the Chinese nation and inject new energy into this
evil possessing CCP.
We must abandon all illusions, thoroughly exam ourselves without
being influenced by hatred, greed or desires. Only then can we rid
ourselves of the nightmarish control by the possessing spirit of
the CCP over the last 50 years. In the name of a free nation, we
can reestablish the Chinese civilization based on respect for human
nature and compassion for all.
******************
Notes:
[1] The Hundred Days' Reform was a 103-day reform from June 11 to
September 21, 1898. Guangxu, Emperor of the Qing Dynasty
(1875-190
, ordered a series of reforms aimed at making
sweeping social and institutional changes. Opposition to the reform
was intense among the conservative ruling elite. Supported by
ultraconservatives and with the tacit support of the political
opportunist Yuan Shikai, Empress Dowager Cixi engineered a coup
d'etat on September 21, 1898, forcing the young reform-minded
Guangxu into seclusion. Cixi took over the government as regent.
The Hundred Days Reform ended with the rescinding of the new
edicts and the execution of six of the reforms chief
advocates.
[2] Xinhai Revolution (or Hsinhai Revolution), named for the
Chinese year of Xinhai (1911), was the overthrow (October 10,
1911-February 12, 1912) of Chinas ruling Qing Dynasty and the
establishment of the Republic of China.
[3] The May Fourth Movement was the first mass movement in modern
Chinese history, beginning on May 4, 1919.
[4] From
http://eserver.org/marx/1848-communist.manifesto/cm4.txt.
[5] Mao Zedongs letter to his wife Jiang Qing (1966).
[6] Information from
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004a.html.
[7] Dao De Jing, Chapter 25.
[8] From
http://eserver.org/marx/1848-communist.manifesto/cm1.txt.
(Updated on January 12, 2005)
