Movsesyan 2

Armen-Gurgen Movsesyan
Joshua Lewis Goldstein
Hist 106, Textual Source Paper 2
April 22, 2014

Defending Chinas Socialist Democracy: Propaganda Disguised as Formal Rhetoric

Counter-revolutionary ideas propagated in China in the 1980s and 1990s. Growing

interest in western political ideas led to protests against the abuses of the Chinese government
and the principles which the communist system claimed to abide by. The size of Tiananmen
protests in 1989 revealed the extent of the peoples frustration with their government, and the
bloody suppression made it evident that the leaders of China were only concerned in selfpreservation. Source 100, an article appearing in the Peoples Daily in March 1990, titled,
Bourgeois and the Socialist Democracies Compared, attempts to criticize the ideas raised by the
protesters and defend Chinas political system by reverting to attacks against American politics and
evading the grievances raised against the Chinese system. The unsubstantial rhetoric in the article comes
across as apologetic propaganda, hinting the corruption of the Chinese government and legitimizing the
issues expressed by the Tiananmen protestors.
The article begins by rejecting the protesters claims as efforts to advocate bourgeois democracy
and distort Chinas socialist democracy in an evil attempt to overthrow the CPS leadership and sabotage
the socialist Peoples Republic of China (Sourcebook, p. 501). The unwarranted incrimination of the
protesters in a supposed diabolical plot to overthrow the Chinese government distorts the intentions of
the protesters, portraying them as conspiratorial. The dismissiveness towards the protesters reveals the
stubbornness of the government and the dictatorial methods by which it subdues political dissent. Rather

Movsesyan 2
than address some of the specific demands of the protesters, such as the abolishing of prohibitions against
street protests and disclosure of officials assets and incomes, the article umbrellas their grievances as
beautification of American democracy.
Ironically, the article reveals the per capita assets of U.S. senators and the expenditures made
during Reagans and Carters presidential campaigns as one of the primary arguments against American
democracy, suggesting that U.S. elections are the elections of money (Sourcebook, p. 502). Rather than
reveal assets held by leaders of China, as demanded by the Tiananmen protesters, the article demonizes
American leaders as representatives of monopoly capital groups. Without comparison and justification,
the criticisms made of American politics amount to red herring arguments aimed at distracting the reader
from the corruptions in Chinas leadership. In defense of the Chinese bureaucratic structure, the article
outlines the hierarchal structure of state leadership, proclaiming that the nature of the socialist
democracy is that people act as the masters of their country (Sourcebook, p. 503). However, when
examined, the described system amounts to a democratic dictatorship in which a national congress (the
NPC) elects top-tier representatives and controls the judicial, legislative and law-enforcing institutions
those representatives oversee (Sourcebook, p. 503). The passively threatening tone set by the opening
statements in the section titled The Socialist Democracy is the Peoples Democracy Enjoyed by the
Majority of the People implies that the dictatorial leadership neither encourages nor supports counterrevolutionary sentiments. In a broader context, this attitude and can be attributed to Chinas historically
inward oriented tradition and passivity towards change.
In this calculatedly written propaganda piece, the author subtlety concedes the small
imperfections in the current system and invites the participation of the citizenry to develop it. It does not
directly acknowledge the issues raised by dissenters and instead resorts to condemning American politics.
The article nests these criticisms around an apologetic rhetoric of the gradual development and
improvement of socialist democracy in China in order to mask the real flaws in the system, warranting the
demands made by Tiananmen protestors.