Fake figures from fake
New figures have revealed the surprising extent to which the Chinese stalinist leadership has allowed private capitalism to grow within the nationalised economy. The following article by ZHANG KAI is edited from the original published in October Review, journal of the Hong Kong section of the Fourth International.
Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for over three decades China practised fake socialism, When this met with dismal failure, the blame was put on socialism and state ownership, while a eulogy was sung to the vitality of capitalism and the private
The Chinese News Agency reported 'from a reliahle source that a leader of the CCP. when he interviewed the head of state of an African country, said: "from China's experience, 1 would advise you not to practise socialism, or at least not to practise gencral sociulism.*
Almost at the same time, another CCP leader, when interviewing this leader of a black state, also advised him not to develop a state-owned economy as China did in the past; instead more private economy should be developed. (Wen Hui Bao, Chinese CP publication in Hong Kong, June 6, 1988).
The CCP did not deny or clarify this report. The two leaders were Deng Xiaoping and Zhan
Since their advice to other countries is not lo practise socialism, it means China's past practice was in their view basically wrong, and therefore China should develop a private
In fact what China practised for 30 years had nothing in common with socialism as advanced by Marx and Engels, In China, after the overthrow of capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, whereby the majority of the people exercise democratic management of the state, and the producers directly manage production. was not introduced. On the contrary, there was bureaucratic dictatorship and severe social in-
For several years, however, the CCP has allowed the private economy to develop in China, in violation of the prevailing constitution. Last March, a resolution was adopted at the First Session of the Seventh National People's Congress to revise some articles of the constitution - in order officially to protect the legal development of the capitalist economy.
But to what extent had the private economy grown before it was made legal? Probing this question can help predict developments after
Private enterprises in the whole country. employing 3.6 million workers (on average 16 wotkers per enterprise); their proportion of the
A TURES China:
socialism
total industrial output value of the country was Ices than one percent.
In fact the above figures were faire, aiming to cover up the real situation. Only enterprises employing more than eight workers were considered to be part of the private economy: those with less were deemed to be the individual economy. Yet in terms of exploitation or private ownership of the means of production, there is no qualitative difference hetween an enterprise employing over eight workers and one employing only sic
Worse, the official figures were based on reports from employers, who were about official reaction, tending to report figures far below the real situation.
For example, let us look at Wenzhou City, where the private economy is most developed. Less than ten private enterprises are registered with the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, whereas the deputy director of the local CCP Policy Research Bureau pointed out that individual and private economy in the city has a weight of 41 per cent in the industrial sector, 33 per cent in the commercial sector and about two thirds in communications and transport. (People's Daily June 19, 1988). How can such economic activities be those of jusi ten enterprises Yet the figure is the basis for compiling official statistics,
In June, a national conference on the study of the private economy was convened in Fuzhou: about 200 officials, theoreticians and representative private entrepreneurs almost unanimously agreed that the official statistics seriously underestimate the actual dimension of the private economy-
In Hebei Province, where the private cconomy was not very developed, official figures show 17,294 private enterprises. Bur findings by scholars showed that in just Handang Region (one of the ten regions of the Province there were already 27,000 enterprises (based on thie same official criteria).
The official term of 'persons engaged in the enterprises" includes both employers and the exploited workers, thus covering up the relationship of wage employment While the official figure was 3.6 million people engaged in the private economy, Professor Ge Lin of Nanjing University took into account all workers, whether they were licensed or unLicensed, employed in enterprises above or below eight persons, and gave the figure of 30 million by the end of 1987.
The official claim that private enterprise constituted less than one percent of industrial output value is also unbelievable. Of course there is unevenness in development among different regions; but examples included Wuchuan in Guangdong Province, where the output value of privale enterprises constituted 48 percent of that in the whole county; in Kaiping county it was 35 per cent: 38 per cent in southern regions of Jiangsu Province; in the Wenzhou region, the weight was ahoul 60 per cent in industrial output. 58 per cent in passenger transport volume and 65 per cent in freight transport volume; in Shishi City in Fujian Province the overwhelming majority of rural enterprises are already in private hands. Shishi City belongs to Jinjiang County where the output value of private enterprises was 61.4 per cent of all output valuc: in Chuangzhou County it was 67.4 per cent.
Rural enterpriscs have also developed rapidly in the past few years. According In Lei Dong, director of China's Industrial Economy Association, up the the end of 1987 there were 15.15 million rural enterprises, cmploying 79
As for the development of individual enterprises, according to an article by Yuan Zhang, member of Jiangsu Province Planning Committee, by the end of 1986 there were al-
12.I1 million individual enterprises employing 18.4 million people - about 14 per cent of the total of workers employed in state und collective enterprises. His article said that these figures did not include enterprises that operated on a part-time basis, or not formally or usually in operation, Therefore the figures are much lower than the actual situation?
Up to now, the official argument that China is still practising socialism has been that the outpul value of state-owned enterposes constitutes the majority of the country's total out-
However according to Lei Dong, the proportion of the total output value of state-owned enterprises in the national cconomy fell from 83 per cent in 1978 to 67 per cent in 1987. The present trend is that the private economy is developing to the detriment of the state-owned enterprises. China is going further away from socialism, and the factors for developing socialism are being more and more under-
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