Perspective on the Gorbachev-Deng Dialogue

Author: Huang Guorui

In 1989, when Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev visited China, Pravda journalist Oufuqin (original name Vsevolod Ovchinnkov) accompanied the delegation as both a member and an expert participating in drafting relevant documents. This person later publicly revealed to the world a conversation he heard between Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping—truly unprecedented, unseen before, and astounding.

According to Oufuqin's recollection, on May 16th, before he was asked to leave the Gorbachev-Deng talks, he only heard Gorbachev say to Deng Xiaoping: "We should use bulldozers to flatten this obsolete communist political system, and only then can all reforms proceed; otherwise everything will fall into sand piles."

To this, Deng Xiaoping replied: "Now we and you are traveling on a country dirt road, which is the planned economy. It's bumpy and potholed, but has been flattened by vehicle traffic. To the right there's a highway, which is the market economy. We need to turn from our current road to that road. To be able to make this turn, we must firmly grasp the steering wheel, yet you suggest removing steering control! So how would you turn the car from this road to the other road?" (See Press Digest Issue 2735, Weekend Edition October 23, 2009, "Oufuqin: Visiting Three Generations of Chinese Leaders." Excerpted from Oriental Outlook Weekly Issue 43, author Zhao Jialin)

Reading this dialogue, one cannot help but be shocked. The two sides of this conversation were the supreme leaders of both the Chinese and Soviet parties and states—one a 58-year-old Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, the other an 85-year-old Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission and China's de facto leader. How could they ostensibly discuss reform while actually discussing anti-communism? It seems the dialogue wasn't between Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping, but between Bush and Blair.

Gorbachev, facing Deng directly, spoke bluntly: "We should use bulldozers to flatten this obsolete communist political system." Let everyone think about this—this so-called obsolete communist political system is nothing other than the political system of communism (first stage), whose core is the dictatorship of the proletariat! Where did Gorbachev get the audacity to openly invite Deng Xiaoping to join him in operating bulldozers to flatten the communist political system, especially the dictatorship of the proletariat? Such an invitation was tantamount to persuading Deng Xiaoping to become a traitor alongside him.

Facing such an invitation, such a suggestion, such provocation, unexpectedly, Deng Xiaoping showed neither anger nor fury, neither criticism nor rebuttal, but instead discussed with his counterpart how to do things better. In Deng Xiaoping's view, the problem wasn't the "bulldozer" but firmly grasping the "steering wheel." With the steering wheel in hand, whether bulldozers or cars, they could go wherever directed. Deng was more seasoned than Gorbachev—he advocated not rushing to flatten everything, but first using it to achieve transition, moving from the communist economic system (planned economy) to the capitalist economic system (market economy) track, waiting for the right moment to comprehensively launch political system reform.

In Deng's mind, the planned economy was fundamentally unworkable—he dismissed it as a "bumpy country dirt road," while beautifying the market economy as a solid, smooth "highway." He suggested that Gorbachev join him in first using the communist political system as a "steering wheel" to turn the socialist economy's vehicle from the left "country dirt road" (planned economy) to the right "highway" (market economy).

This shows that Gorbachev and Deng had no disagreement about changing communism's political system (dictatorship of the proletariat) and economic system (planned economy)—the difference was only in emphasis. The former mainly discussed democratization, the latter mainly discussed marketization; the former vigorously promoted democratic socialism, the latter vigorously sold market socialism; the former advocated politics-first-economics-later hard landing, the latter advocated economics-first-politics-later soft landing.

Claims like "reform means more socialism" and "more democracy" (see Gorbachev's New Thinking); or "reform must uphold the Four Cardinal Principles" and "must persist in public ownership as the main body and common prosperity"—all of this was merely to deceive people, said for outsiders to hear.

Practice has already proven: the result of politics-first-economics-later hard landing was the Soviet Union's collapse; the result of economics-first-politics-later soft landing was China's transformation [note: the author uses "变质" meaning deterioration/degeneration]. These are harsh objective facts, and facts ultimately triumph over eloquence!