What kind of socialism should China uphold?
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When studying the construction of legal systems, we inevitably will touch upon the question of socialism. With regard to probing into this question, I think there should be "three preconditions," "one guiding principle," and "three levels" of understanding socialism. Only through clarifying these points may we be definite about which form of socialism to follow.
The three preconditions
In considering the question of socialism on a deeper level, we must first admit that the traditional model of socialism is no longer acceptable. We should proclaim that the Soviet Union model encountered large setbacks and failed, neither of which are things that we should now seek. I left the Soviet Union 50 years ago, and this year I have made a decision to return there once again, just in time for the anniversary of “8-19," the collapse of the Soviet Union. I saw the people in the Red Square commemorating “8-19"; there are less than 200 people raising the red flag. As observers our own feelings are inspired and we feel that as stime goes on, people have changed even though things have remained the same. In addition, there are now more newspapers in Russia that still quote President Putin's words that “Whoever did not grieve over the fall of the Soviet Union has no conscience, whoever wants to return to the original system has no brain”—perhaps these are the thoughts of Russians. They watched with pain as the Soviet Union crumbled, but they are not willing to return to the old system. Our country's reform is exactly the same. We are not willing to once again go down the original path. This generation has already spent so many years painfully stumbling on. Criticizing today's methods in the original path is backward and conservative. Only with the desires to discuss and solve the shortcomings of socialism, can we really call it reform.
The second precondition is that we must acknowledge that the practice and theory of socialism are pluralistic. And we must recognize that it cannot be monopolized. In the past we have criticized Northern European socialism and democratic socialism for being unscientific and completely false and we believed Tito's strong socialism to be the same. What, then, is the right form of socialism? After the dissolve of the Soviet Union, there were people who summarized the reasons for its demise as “the three monopolies": monopolies on the economy, ideology, and power of political parties. This point is worth our thought and should be used as a point of reference.
The third precondition is the type of socialism in a new period of history which we discuss now. We are no longer under the revolutionary circumstances of the past, and it is not necessary to overthrow capitalism before socialism may be established. In reality, both socialism and capitalism have undergone vast changes and have developed together with neither defeating the other. On this level, capitalism has contributed to the enrichment and development of socialism. These are the three preconditions necessary before we can engage in a calm and deep discussion on the best way to establish socialism with Chinese characteristics.
A guiding principle
There remains yet another fundamental factor in establishing such a discussion, and that is standards set by the people to determine whether a system is good or bad. Eastern Europe and Russia wonder why their system, which had more than 40 years and 70 years of experience in each country respectively, was unable to sustain itself. The system fell because the people abandoned it. In the end, a social system depends on the people’s decisions. If a system brings increased benefits and wealth to the people, then the people will support the system; if a system is unable to bring them to the people or, even worse, takes them away, the people will desert the system. Comrade Hu Yaobang said the common people do not care if you are Nationalist or Communist, they will support whoever improves their livelihood. So we must understand that what socialism can provide with the people.
Socialism adopted from constitutional government
Socialism consists of three levels. The first level is economic—it is often said that poverty is not socialism and neither is a rich country with poor people. The second level is social. Everyone should have equal status in society—polarization of two extremes is not socialism. The third level is political. From a political perspective, socialism should stem from constitutionalism.
What does it mean to add “constitutional” before socialism? I believe it contains five aspects:
1. Establishing the authority of constitution. A country need only genuinely establish the authority of constitution to guarantee balance and harmony. It is constitution that has allowed America to remain free from political change and turmoil for over 200 hundred years. Where does constitutional change come from? It comes from the people’s approval. In many countries, constitution is derived from consensus; in order to revise constitution, the people must vote and the decision must benefit the majority of people. Comparatively speaking, our constitution does not have enough authority; our officials have not viewed constitution as that important because the process of the law is not yet perfect and still needs to be improved.
2. Establishing political order. Political order depends on the restraint of power. This is the only way to prevent the abuse of power. If we are unable to strengthen limits on power and if constitution is unable to curtail the government’s power, absolute power will lead to absolute corruption. In the current political system, much of the power lies with government officials instead of the government itself, and does not serve the people. Therefore, there is still a need to reform the distribution of power.
3. Establishing political democracy. The most fundamental principle is allowing the people to manage issues regarding rights. All countries are the same: regardless of their systems, they all want to ensure the people’s right to chose and their right to vote. This is the democratic system’s most basic problem. Elections are not only held at the basic level, but more importantly, at the highest level of the management structure. Indirect elections lead to direct elections. Currently, there are some representatives that do not really represent the people and ignore their responsibility to voters. However, given that our country’s situation is unique, practically, the people’s right to vote can take different paths; they need not be too progressive, but must advance forward.
4. People’s rights—how to guarantee, make feasible, and regulate these rights. After all, human rights or civil rights are the rights of the people. People’s rights have expanded along with social development, and our country’s people now experience more rights than in the past, demonstrated by our relatively new freedom to travel abroad. The question is whether there should be further expansions of people’s rights. I think the common people just want to eat a little better, have a little more money and a little more freedom, and if we can meet their desire for all types of rights, which include political rights, social rights, personal rights, civil rights, etc., then the people will surely support such a system.
5. Establishing investigation of anti-constitution activity. Constitution is not meaningless; it should be used to investigate violations on the people’s rights. Rights are not real if they cannot be guaranteed by law; the realization of constitutional rights is most important. This time the National People’s Congress enacted the Supervisional Law, which is very important to prevent violation of law.
6. Finally, to fully understand China’s situation we must take a slow approach. We cannot rush the process, but we should still have the hope of continuously moving forward. Some law is not equivalent to politics and constitution is not equivalent to constitutional politics. We can have many laws, but we still must establish a society under the rule of law; we can also have constitutional law, but we still must establish a constitutional society. Since we have the desire to establish socialism, it should embody constitutionalism.