INTRODUCTION

Observers of Chinese politics often are impressed by its vast diversity and its conflicting images. These conflicting images are found not only in analyses of the Chinese communist regime of revolutionary vintage but also in studies of the party-state's endeavor to extend its control over an increasingly industrialized and modernized society in the aftermath of the revolution. According to one view, the party-state is seen as being totally dominant in the industrial sector, in view of such powerful tools as central planning and state ownership, coupled with administrative channels of material supply and the bank's supervision. By the same token, at the enterprise level, the factory directors find at their disposal a vast inventory of tools of control, covering comprehensively all aspects of the worker's life, and this often creates an image of “totalitarian management.”

But there is another view, in which empirical studies suggest that the party-state seems powerless when it confronts the task of modernization and economic growth in the postrevolutionary era. For instance, within the structure of the command economy, the industrial ministries at the central level and the industrial bureaus at the local level find it difficult to keep abreast of operations of the various enterprises because of weakness in the feedback system. Thus, considerable material concessions must be made in order to induce compliance from the low-level units. Examples include the profit-retention system (1979-1984), the tax-forprofit system (begun in 1983), and the contractual-responsibility system (begun in 1984).

The zigzag and sometimes tragic search for democracy has been a central theme of modern Chinese politics. Often the searchers have been torn between the intellectual attraction of the modern ideals of democracy, based on foreign ideologies, and the practical necessity of adapting to Chinese conditions. Democracy in China has remained elusive both as an ideal and as a reality; at no time in the twentieth century has there been general satisfaction with the prevailing relationship between people and state.

The most successful political leaders of modern China – Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping – have self-consciously pursued “Chinese paths” that have included limited commitments to popular power. It could be said that the successes of those leaders and the ensuing shape of Chinese politics have been based to some extent on their correct perceptions of the existing possibilities for feasible relationships between public authority and popular power, and their failures have been due to misjudgments of those relationships.

Since the summer of 1989, the post-Mao period has taken an especially tragic turn with regard to democracy. After ten years of unparalleled progress in democratizing reforms, Deng Xiaoping and the party leaders are attempting to reimpose unquestioned and unlimited control over society. Can the party really effect such a dramatic, authoritarian turn? Or will the societal forces already set in motion render such an attempt a very harmful but temporary atavism? The practical contradiction between the current policies of control and repression and the earlier policies of modernization through decontrol and openness has made the question of the relationship between popular power and public authority central to any prognostic analysis of current events.