Chinese Censors Shut Down Marxist Journal Critical of Jiang
BEIJING, Aug. 15 — Censors have shut down a
small but influential Marxist journal for attacking President Jiang Zemin's plan to bring capitalists into the Communist Party, a sign that Mr. Jiang will brook little dissent from any quarter as he tries to cement his place in the pantheon of great leaders.
The closing in recent weeks of "Pursuit of Truth," was Mr. Jiang's most open move yet against hard- line Marxists, many of them elderly revolutionary veterans, who question his plan to broaden a party that by its Constitution is the "vanguard of the working class."
Late next year, Mr. Jiang is expected to give up his post as general secretary of the Communist Party and, in 2003, his term as president of China expires.
As the transition approaches, party insiders say, Mr. Jiang is trying both to define his place in history and to adapt the increasingly clumsy methods of Communism to a world of social and technological complexity.
In a series of speeches over the last year, Mr. Jiang has laid out what the official media describe as a major new advance in Marxist theory, building on the core principles of Marx as amended by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
His theory, called the "three represents," asserts that the party must represent "advanced productive forces, advanced Chinese culture and the fundamental interests of the majority."
Mr. Jiang made the practical meaning clear in a speech on July 1, when he announced that newly prominent groups such as private-company owners, high-tech innovators and managers in foreign businesses were helping to build Chinese socialism, and so should be welcomed into the party.
Mr. Jiang and his supporters plan to incorporate the new theory into the party constitution over the coming year, one party official said, "so public criticism is especially unwelcome now."
For many ordinary Chinese, who pay little heed to ideology, the debate seems academic. They know that many party members are already involved in business and that for years, successful entrepreneurs in some regions have been invited into the party, even if this was not official policy.
Now, Mr. Jiang argues that if the party does not find a systematic way to embrace diverse and powerful new groups, potent opposition forces may emerge. But some true-believing Marxists have cringed, calling this a betrayal of socialism.
Debate has bubbled quietly, even as officials and the media have been instructed to study and laud Mr. Jiang's thought.
Up to now, Mr. Jiang has usually tolerated such criticism, both because of the status of the old guard and because it provided a useful foil against unwelcome liberal ideas.
But "Pursuit of Truth" carried exceptionally blunt attacks on Mr. Jiang's ideas, an editor at a party magazine said today.
It is one of a handful of periodicals run by the so-called leftists, who argue that rampant private enterprise will lead to more corruption and the exploitation of workers and farmers. Established in 1990, it is edited by Yu Quanyu, a retired propaganda official.
Despite the unease in some circles about Mr. Jiang's direction, the editor at a party magazine said today, "The decisions have already been made, and opposition is futile."