AN excerpt of my interview with the founder of China Workers Website, which was shutdown by the Chinese government
He, as well as other members of the collective, is evidence of a new generation of leftists in China who are actively involved in struggles of workers and farmers, stepping into the role that the Party rejected long ago.
Q: Now, why would the Chinese government, a socialist government in name, be concerned about a website run by leftists discussing the kinds of things that were discussed on the China Workers Website?
A: Well, because the government is not making socialism.
Q: Of course. I'm asking because outside China there are still some leftists who see China as a socialist country.
Q: Well, hearing such nonsense would reduce a pig to tearful fits of laughter!
Our web discussion is designed for workers and farmers to discuss their issues and struggles. This is the kind of thing a socialist democracy would want, for workers to have the kind of democracy that capitalism couldn't provide.
A National People's Congress will be convened soon, and the government knows that workers and farmers' voices will be heard by representatives and might even make way into the speeches made at the Congress. The government doesn't want that -- it actually fears even the possibility of it. So, when the national representatives speak, workers are supposed to keep their mouths shut.
Q: The Worker-Farmer discussion list is not routed through a port outside China, but other socialist discussion lists in China have ports abroad and can still be accessed by the Chinese. Why the difference?
A: We believe that a discussion list for Chinese workers should be run within China, for Chinese workers to participate in. There's no need to go to foreign discussion lists or to seek out foreigners in order to have discussions. If you want to open a web discussion list from an address abroad, you need to negotiate with the government, and it will end up being shut down or administered through a dummy port that requires types of software and technological skills that many workers and farmers don't possess. The result is a discussion list dominated by intellectuals, which will only turn off workers and make them not want to participate.
Q: Is this web discussion list managed by workers?
A: No, it's mainly managed by intellectuals. We do have a forum that is called "Management Issues Forum" that many workers have participated in.
Q: What differences are there between the ways workers and intellectuals engage in discussions on this list? Topics discussed? Ideologies?
A: Well, intellectuals who are able to come to our discussion list and participate in discussions with workers about workers' issues in China are already pretty ahead of the curve. Actually quite a few workers in China's enterprises are intellectuals also.1
The main topics discussed are workers' labor relationships with enterprises and economic rights of workers. In this regard, state enterprises are acting more and more like private ones, treating workers as little more than wage laborers, and workers face issues such as forced overtime and low wages. The similarity between exploitation in state enterprises and that in privately owned ones is a special topic of interest to workers.
Ideologically, yes, there surely are different positions and factions. But, overall, those who participate in the discussions share sympathy with workers' struggles in China. They're able to talk about this issue in terms of class and struggle.
Q: Do liberals show up to participate in the discussions often?
A: Rarely, very rarely.
Q: Why?
A: Well, when liberals encounter Chinese workers and their problems, they suddenly have difficulty expressing themselves. They have little to contribute. They can express sympathy for workers, but the thing is that the Chinese workers on these lists generally are against capitalism. Also, workers in these discussions express nostalgia for the Maoist period, which liberals naturally don't share. Of course, liberals believe that today's economic problems are a product of economic policies pursued by Mao.
Also, workers have conflicting feelings about the Communist Party. Today's Chinese workers in discussions express the belief that the Party is dictatorial and is their enemy. Liberals' main slogan is "Down with the Communist Party." But workers differentiate between the Communist Party of the Maoist period and today's Party, which further puts them at odds with liberals.
At the same time, a fair proportion of workers in the discussions also have considerable illusions about capitalist democracy. So, ideologically, Chinese workers are all over the map. They have contradictory feelings about the CCP and about capitalist democracy.
But this is to be expected, since so much of what happened during the Maoist period has been completely repudiated by the media.