Whither Socialism? Workers’ Democracy and the Class Politics of China’s Post-Mao Transition to Capitalism

Manually converted from pdf file. This dissertation provides a distinct class-based explanation of China’s transition from socialism to capitalism. Its overarching argument is that the way in which urban industrial workers – ideologically and rhetorically celebrated as the “leading class” of Chinese socialism – interacted with the Party-state in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s was a crucial causal ingredient in the making of China’s transition to capitalism. More specifically, this dissertation argues that the patterns and modes of interaction between workers and the Party-state during this period shaped and derailed the Party leaders’ efforts to pursue incipient marketization within the parameters of socialism (i.e. to build “market socialism” in China). Whereas the post-Mao Party leadership turned to market socialism as a way out of the profound crisis of the late 1970s, the patterns and modes of interaction between urban industrial workers and the Party-state set off one crisis after another throughout the 1980s. China’s market socialism collapsed within a decade under the strain of these intensifying crisis cycles. It was only in the context of such derailment of China’s market socialism did a full-blown transition to capitalism become an appealing option for the ruling elite, which they relentlessly pursued in the 1990s. Based on a wide range of historical source materials, I explicate this argument by tracing a series of political contestations and policy maneuvers centered on the issue of workplace democracy, along with their economic and political aftermaths, over China’s “long 1980s” (the period between the end of the Mao era in 1976 and the pro-democracy movements in 1989). These contestations and maneuvers played a pivotal role in shaping not only the trajectory of China’s enterprise reform, but also the fate of China’s socialist political economy more broadly. Abstract TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables Figures Tables Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Chronology of Major Events Glossary of Historical Actors INTRODUCTION A Class-Based Explanation of China’s Transition from State Socialism to Capitalism Definitional Groundwork: Capitalism, Socialism and State Socialism Theoretical Intervention I: Workers’ Activism as “Self-Limiting Immanent Critique” under State Socialism Theoretical Intervention II: Passive Revolution as a Response to Workers’ Activism Theoretical Intervention III: Economism, Productivist Bias, and the Unraveling of Passive Revolution Towards a Class-Based Theory of the Transition from State Socialism to Capitalism Outline of the Empirical Chapters CHAPTER ONE The Yugoslav Inspiration: Elite Politics, Transnational Socialism and Advancing “Workers’ Self-Management” in China, 1978-1980 Scrambling to Repudiate Late Maoism The “Craze for Yugoslavia” (nansilafu re) in Early Post-Mao China Tolerating the “Craze for Yugoslavia” Zhao Ziyang’s Yugoslav-Style Policy Experiments The SWCs Put in Charge (or Not?) Chapter Conclusion CHAPTER TWO The Mini Passive Revolution of 1981: Evolving Policy Responses to a Nationwide Wave of Labor Unrest Introducing a Key Actor: the ACFTU ACT I: The Yugoslav Inspiration, the Polish Solidarity, and Labor Unrest in China ACT II: Evolving Responses to the Labor Unrest ACT III: The Making of a Mini Passive Revolution Chapter Conclusion CHAPTER THREE The Politics of Livelihood and Production: Shopfloor Dynamics and Dilemmas of Workplace Democracy in the Early 1980s Practicing Workplace Democracy in the Early 1980s: Distributive Justice Practicing Workplace Democracy in the Early 1980s: Other Issues The Enabling Changes in China’s Political Economy Were “Livelihood and Welfare” Issues a “Distraction”? CHAPTER FOUR The Anti-Democratic Turn of 1984: The Fiscal Crisis of the Socialist State and a Hegemonic Approach to Workers’ Disempowerment The FDRS as an Anti-Democratic Turn The Fiscal Crisis of the Socialist State, Blamed on Workers Who Shall Represent the State? Saving Shopfloor Elections by Redefining Them as a Hegemonic Tool Case Study: The Backfiring of a Hegemonic Attempt Chapter Conclusion CHAPTER FIVE More Money Instead of Democracy: Managerial Despotism and the Derailment of China’s Market Socialism, 1984-1989 Intensifying Shopfloor Tensions in the FDRS Era The Purchase of Industrial Peace The Inflationary Effect of the Purchase of Industrial Peace In Search of Policy Solutions Chapter Conclusion CONCLUSION “Real Utopias” under Actually Existing Socialism Epilogue: 1989 and Its Aftermath Implications for Comparative Socialism Studies Implications for Anti-capitalist Strategy, Present and Future METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX Source Materials and Their Collection Challenges in the Use of Source Materials Bibliography Footnotes