Xi Jinping keeps awake at night due to fear of Soviet-style collapse. peppermint

In late September workers erected a structure in Tiananmen Square. It is 18 meters tall, resembles a basket of fruits and flowers. Demonstrations have erupted across Beijing on October 1 to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of Communist China. It is emblazoned with giant peaches and gourds – symbols of long life. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping is worried about how long his party’s rule will last.

Amid the celebrations, state media have avoided mention of another milestone. At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Communists had been in power in Moscow for 74 years. The Chinese Communist Party has now overtaken “big brother”, as it was once called, the Soviet Union. The bloody repression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, at the time of the Soviet collapse, was a recent memory. The Chinese Party crushed the opposition with ruthless determination and protected itself from the shock waves coming from Moscow.

In speeches now, Mr Xi frets about how years of prosperity have weakened officials’ vigilance, increasing the risk of a Soviet-style collapse. Even after a dozen years in power, during which he has eliminated potential rivals from the party’s senior ranks and waged a sustained ideological campaign to ensure the absolute loyalty of its nearly 100 million members, Mr Xi is not satisfied.

The last few years have been difficult. First came the chaotic abandonment of Mr Xi’s “zero-Covid” policy in 2022. There has been a weak economic recovery since then, which, in the past week, has prompted a desperate attempt to revive growth with a bold stimulus. Amidst the gloom, memories of the Soviet collapse continued to appear in speeches, media and party meetings. Its purpose is to alert authorities to beware of long-term, ongoing threats.

say no to nihilism

In late 2021, around the 30th anniversary of the Soviet collapse, party officials began convening internal meetings across the country to air a five-part documentary about it. The series ranged from anti-party speech to criticism of “historical nihilism”, Stalinism and the horrors of Maoism. It accused Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev of setting the trend with his “Secret Speech” of 1956 denouncing Stalin’s personality cult. ”It ignited the fire of nihilism,” the narrator says. From then on, the documentary implied, the Soviet Party was living on borrowed time. The demonstrations continued for weeks in government offices, state-owned firms and campuses.

At the five-yearly Party Congress in October 2022, Mr Xi hinted at the anxiety that the Soviet collapse still causes among China’s elite. “We must always remain vigilant,” he told the gathering, “and are determined to deal with the special challenges faced by a large party like ours so as to maintain the support of the people and strengthen our position as the long-term ruling party.” It is possible”.

The phrase “the special challenges of a big party” has since become a buzzword of Party propaganda, much of it referring to the experience of the Soviet Party, the only other big party that China really cares about. Many books have been published with these words on the cover since the Party Congress, including at least three this year. Academics have churned out research papers on this topic. In July state television aired a two-part documentary on surviving the collapse, with the first part on the subject of special challenges. Once again, grassroots officials organized discussions for party members.

Mr Xi also continued to use the term special-challenges. This was the subject of his classified speech to the party’s Central Committee in January 2023. A part of it was published in March this year. “As the party grows larger, some people may form small groups or factions or engage in behavior that weakens the party’s unity and fighting strength,” he said. “A fortress can be broken most easily from within. “We are the only ones who can defeat us.” Most analysts agree that there are no clear divisions in the party today, but are clearly concerned about their possible re-emergence.

In August Mr Xi again referred to Soviet history. The occasion was the 120th anniversary of the birth of Deng Xiaoping, who initiated China’s “reform and opening up” policy in the late 1970s. He praised Deng for “firmly resisting unrest” in China in 1989 “against the background of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and dramatic changes in Eastern Europe.” He quoted Deng as saying: “No one can crush us.”

The vast body of literature that China has produced since the 1990s on the Soviet collapse has seen a shift in emphasis under Mr Xi. Deng’s supporters used the fate of the Soviet Union as a way to push back against ideologues in the party who saw his economic reforms as a betrayal of Marxism. He argued that similar intransigence had ruined the Soviet economy, leading to public discontent that hastened the country’s decline. In short, it was the message of Deng’s “Southern Tour” in early 1992 that relaunched his reform program.

Mr Xi appears to be more concerned over the loss of ideological and organizational discipline of the Soviet Party. This is evident from the huge efforts he has made to re-energize the party at the grassroots level, increase his presence in private companies and enforce complete adherence to his orders among party members. Deng and his immediate successors gave up on political reform after the Soviet collapse, but still tolerated limited experiments, such as allowing small NGOs to help victims of injustice. Mr Xi has crushed civil society. Chinese academics have explained why this is so, arguing that Western-backed NGOs played a role in sidelining the Soviet Party.

Mr Xi’s campaigners prefer to ignore a problem that is common to autocratic regimes: how to ensure a smooth transfer of power when a leader steps down or dies. In 2010, two years before Mr Xi took power, a book published in China – “The Truth About the Soviet Union: 101 Important Questions” – included an analysis of its succession conflict. During Communist rule in Moscow, it said, the choice of leaders was determined by “brutal internal power struggles, decided by a handful of elders behind the scenes or even through party coups.” Was done”.

Mr Xi appears to have learned no lessons. He has shown no interest in grooming a successor and has changed the unwritten rules to allow himself to rule for as long as he wants. The eventual transition to a post-Xi China may revive memories of the Soviet Union’s turbulent history.

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