A Close Reading of the Gorbachev-Deng Dialogue

By Huang Guorui, August 7, 2024

In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made a state visit to China. Accompanying him as a member of the delegation — and as an expert involved in drafting official documents — was Pravda correspondent Ovchinnikov (full name: Vsevolod Ovchinnikov). He subsequently made public to the world a fragment of conversation between Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping that he had personally overheard — a dialogue so extraordinary, so unlike anything one might have imagined, that it simply takes the breath away.

According to Ovchinnikov's account, on May 16th, just before he was asked to leave the room during the Gorbachev-Deng talks, he caught Gorbachev saying to Deng Xiaoping: "We should use a bulldozer to flatten this outdated communist political system — only then can all our reforms move forward; otherwise, everything will sink into the sand."

To this, Deng Xiaoping replied: "Right now, you and I are traveling along a country dirt road — that is, the planned economy. It is full of ruts and potholes, but it has been worn smooth by the wheels that have passed over it. To the right, there is a highway — that is, the market economy. We need to turn from the road we are on onto that one. To make the turn, we must keep a firm grip on the steering wheel — and yet you are suggesting we remove the steering mechanism altogether! So tell me: how do you propose to steer the car from one road to the other?"

(Source: Baokan Wenzhai, Issue 2735, Weekend Edition of October 23, 2009: "Ovchinnikov: Interviewing Three Generations of Chinese Leaders," excerpted from Outlook Oriental Weekly, Issue 43, by Zhao Jialin.)

Reading this exchange, one cannot help but be struck dumb with astonishment. The two men in conversation were at that moment the supreme leaders of their respective parties and states: one a fifty-eight-year-old Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee; the other an eighty-five-year-old Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and the de facto paramount leader of China. How could two such men, ostensibly discussing reform, be in fact discussing the dismantling of communism itself? One might almost think it was not Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping speaking, but George Bush and Tony Blair.

To Deng's face, Gorbachev stated without any reservation: "We should use a bulldozer to flatten this outdated communist political system." Let us consider carefully what that "outdated communist political system" actually refers to — it is none other than the political institutions of communism in its first stage, the core of which is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Where did Gorbachev find the audacity to openly invite Deng Xiaoping to join him in operating that bulldozer and leveling the communist political system, and the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular? Such an invitation was, in effect, an inducement for Deng to become a traitor alongside him.

Faced with such an invitation, such a proposal, such a provocation, what is astonishing is that Deng Xiaoping showed not the slightest anger, offered not one word of criticism or rebuttal, but instead fell into a discussion with his interlocutor about how best to proceed. In Deng's view, the issue was not the bulldozer; it was keeping a firm hand on the steering wheel. Grip the wheel, and whether you are driving a bulldozer or a car, you can go wherever you choose. Deng was more seasoned and calculating than Gorbachev. His position was: there is no need to rush in with the bulldozer — we can first make use of the existing system to accomplish the transition, steering the communist economic structure (the planned economy) onto the tracks of a capitalist economic structure (the market economy), and then, when the time is ripe, press forward with comprehensive and concentrated political reform. In Deng's mind, the planned economy was simply no longer viable — he dismissed it contemptuously as a "rutted country dirt road" — while the market economy was glorified as a solid, open "highway." He counseled Gorbachev to join him in first using the communist political system as a "steering wheel" to turn the vehicle of the socialist economy from the "country dirt road" on the left (the planned economy) onto the "highway" on the right (the market economy).

From all this, it is clear that Gorbachev and Deng had no fundamental disagreement about transforming the communist political system (the dictatorship of the proletariat) and its economic system (the planned economy). Their difference lay only in emphasis. The former prioritized democratization; the latter, marketization. The former championed democratic socialism; the latter peddled market socialism. The former advocated a hard landing — politics first, economics second; the latter favored a soft landing — economics first, politics second. All those slogans — "reform means more socialism," "reform means more democracy" (see Gorbachev's New Thinking) [note: referring to Gorbachev's 1987 book Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World]; "reform must uphold the Four Cardinal Principles," "reform must uphold public ownership as the primary form and common prosperity as the goal" — all of it was nothing but a smokescreen, words spoken for the ears of outsiders.

History has since rendered its verdict: the hard landing of politics-first produced the dissolution of the Soviet Union; the soft landing of economics-first produced the transformation of China. These are the hard, objective facts — and, in the end, facts speak louder than any argument.

Editor: Feizhou Source: Published with the author's permission