邓小平道路与中国的腐败
鲍彤 2015年06月03日
Christina Hagerfors
北京——我被告知从五月六日到六月四日不得接受采访，谨以此文纪念"六四"二十六周年。
中共《党章》说，有个东西叫"邓小平理论"。出于政治需要，把党魁册封为"理论大师"是共产党的一种游戏，但事实上不存在"邓小平理论"，正如人间没有"秦始皇理论"一样。
秦始皇建立中央集权并不依靠理论，邓小平也用不着。他凭借毛泽东为共产党打造的权力，开创了一条"邓小平道路"，使中国进入了腐败的深渊。不同的是，焚书坑儒很少有人歌颂，"邓小平道路"却香火不绝，被膜拜者们一路点赞至于今。
秦始皇建立中央集权并不依靠理论，邓小平也用不着。他凭借毛泽东为共产党打造的权力，开创了一条"邓小平道路"，使中国进入了腐败的深渊。不同的是，焚书坑儒很少有人歌颂，"邓小平道路"却香火不绝，被膜拜者们一路点赞至于今。
- 查看大图Katharina Hesse for The New York Times2009年，鲍彤在北京。
晚年邓小平自己把毕生经验总结为"两手硬"。两手，特指1989年的"六四"镇压（泛指一切对异议的压制）和1992年的"南巡讲话"。"南巡讲话"宣布谁不听话谁下台，意味着"邓小平道路"从此畅通无阻。
"南巡"到中共十八大有二十年时间，十八大后的三年出现了显而易见的变化：前二十年各级党官闷声大发财，后三年雷厉风行反腐败"打老虎，拍苍蝇"。
前二十年基本上不反腐，不等于腐败不严重。如果前二十年不严重，后三年所反的腐败分子难道是十八大培养出来的？可见基本不反腐，乃是"邓小平道路"题中应有之义——有领导地隐藏和保卫腐败。
研究腐败专注老虎和苍蝇而忘掉邓小平，好比回忆文革只盯住四人帮而忘了毛泽东一样。
"让一部分人先富起来"
邓小平所提倡的"让一部分人先富起来"，是有史以来共产党领袖中最富创造性的。原因是与共产党的建党宗旨刚好相反。
为"一部分人先富起来"开绿灯，南巡讲话因此被称为邓小平"改革"的纲领，尽管它的内涵是含混的。当时我在坐牢，出狱后虽然读到了公开发表的文本，但仍然不知所云。给我印象最深的，是他发了三句硬话：不改革死路一条！谁不改革谁下台！一部分人先富起来！
邓的话，内容和主体都不明确。问题是到底谁先富起来？
先富起来的，可以是共产党自称代表的"工农联盟"；可以是刚被党国平反的"地、富、反、坏、右"；可以是掌握知识和技术的知识分子；也可以是掌握和靠近共产党权力的党国官员及其亲属朋友邻居等等。
但先富起来不是抽象的假设。谁有条件先富起来？邓小平不是小孩子，应该懂得近水楼台先得月。在党权压倒一切的社会里，特别在政治改革已被扼杀，特权结构严禁触动的新态势下，普通老百姓下海，除了寥寥的特殊幸运儿外，不淹死就算大幸了。由此可见，有资格先富的，非有权有势的精英，即党的权贵莫属。
这是逻辑，也是事实。看看被"依法"禁止进城的农民和被下岗的工人就明白了。
经济改革直接决定着利益的调整和财富的分配。在党权高压一切的条件下进行内涵不清不楚的"改革"，真相和结局就是权大大发财，权小小发财，无权无势者继续当穷光蛋。
"寻租好猫"
南巡讲话激动着海内外的弄潮儿。中国的商海不同于其他，特色是党管一切。管以关卡为载体。关卡林立，处处有险滩暗礁，不寻租者不得活。中国崛起中，最难于公开表彰的功臣，要算是"寻租"这只被秘密珍藏在黑箱之中的好猫了。
寻租之前，党官的天职是"管、卡、压"，即使对同党手足，兄弟单位，国营企业，也照例全程开红灯，处处留难。作为弄权者，他们最拿手最愿意发出的能量，照例是"负能量"
向谁寻租？抽象地说，向权力寻租；具体地说，向党，向官，向从中央常委周永康，直到乡官村官张三李四们寻租
有了"寻租"的刺激，被埋葬多年的市场经济的手段纷纷破土而出，竞相为"社会主义"所用。市场经济的各种范畴一旦被收编到党国麾下，纷纷失去了自由地进行选择和竞争的本质，温驯地为党和权贵谋幸福。从筹款到上市，从签约到验货，无不如此，无一幸免。
招标呢，大概应该"公正"了吧？前全国人大副委员长成克杰一不小心，露出了它的中国特色：谁向他的女伴寻租，谁就能够取得"公开中标"的胜利。
党官是党的肉身。寻租就是和党官合作，齐心合力，把GDP搞上去。这岂止是为寻租者找方便，同样是为党官们立政绩，大而言之，乃是为党国谋发展。
至于摧残民生，糟蹋资源，破坏环境，祸殃子孙，那就应当在硬道理的弹压下忽略不计。
这就叫识大体，顾大局，小道理服从大道理，"硬道理"压倒软道理。总而言之，与其说是有人在向党官寻租，不如说是党官根据党的路线，执行"抓大事"的神圣使命。
"抓大事"就得启用大体制，举村、举乡直到举省、举国体制——取决于你寻的是多大的官。就算县官乡官，在党权覆盖的领地之内，定能胜任愉快。
这是因为被寻租之后，党官自己成了大股东，当然自觉全程开绿灯。不管你利民还是害民，合法还是非法，只要你我共同有利可图，一概慷慨输送"正能量"，保证一切横冲直撞，畅行无阻。寻租虽然无法带动环保，带动内需，带动廉耻，但是靠它带动GDP，真的是得心应手，蛮拼的！
六十多年，中国没有民选政府。党国的基础目前就寄托在统计报表的GDP之上。对党官来说，没有比GDP更耀眼的政绩了。今天替寻租者奔走最力的党官，明天将堂堂正正成为政治明星。腐败与发展齐飞，财运共官运一色，对调动党官的正能量来说，还有什么比它更刺激的兴奋剂？
毛泽东把老百姓的私产充公成为归党支配的国产；邓小平把国产慷慨地以象征性的"作价"转入官僚（及其各种代理人）的腰包。偌大国资"鲁能"居然被"改"为私有。舆论大哗，党国默然。你懂的，默然就是无法启齿但必须坚决奉行的明确信号：此乃南巡"改革"的宗旨，全党上下内外，必须习以为常，不得大惊小怪。
"六四"改变了改革的性质
邓小平的另一只"硬手"，就是1989年的"六四"镇压。当年邓小平调集六位数的国防军，驾着坦克，端起冲锋枪，武力镇压了要求反腐败和加速改革的百万和平请愿者。
既然出了六四，改革想不变质也办不到。在万马齐喑的态势下，谁丧失了语言权，谁就丧失了改革的主导权，沦落为被摆布的对象。八十年代经济改革的宗旨因此而被彻底异化。本来是党官应当向劳动者和经营者松绑、放权、让利；一变而异化成为按权分配。不要相信邓小平所谓"十三大报告一个字不能改"，六四镇压本身已经改掉了改革的主体和主题，把改革推上了邪路。
评价历史应该根据事实，铁的事实是：邓小平通过六四颁布了划分敌我界线的新准则，本党可以保卫腐败，谁反对本党要保卫的腐败谁就是我党我军的死敌。
化国有为官有，是南巡后标志性改革中的大手笔之一。没有六四的坦克开路，这种东西是无法想象的。
邓小平"两手硬"的威力，可见一斑。
党国反腐有功，民间反腐犯法
十八大后三年雷厉风行打虎拍蝇，看来是历史性的进步，无疑起了擦亮世人眼睛的伟大启蒙作用。革命之血的红旗堕落为藏垢纳污的渊薮。迄今揭出的腐败分子，包括一百个部省级高干和几千个县处级骨干，虽是冰山区区一角，也足以使震古铄今，令中外一切腐败记录失色。中国从头到脚的腐败，纸包不住火，再也无法在世人心中磨灭了。
但中国的谲诡事层出不穷。虽说党国反腐有功，民间反腐却是犯法。群体性反腐败照旧被严厉镇压。被侵害和欺凌的公民继续被剥夺上告的权利。建议通过阳光法案者被抓。揭露党官腐败线索者受审。腐败的尅星普世价值，被公然视为境外敌对势力而遭受讨伐。党的无所不管的权力，正在向法律化、技术化和境外化扩张。
党国现在到底是想反腐败，还是要反反腐败？有人说，只有顶层自己知道。
本文想说明两点：第一，在坚持邓小平道路的历史阶段内，中国改变不了腐败的局面。打老虎，拍苍蝇，不是"治本"，也未必真能"治标"。老虎遍野，苍蝇蔽日，多打一百，少打一千，改变不了存在着全面腐败之路的现实。但是我还是乐观的，我的根据是其逆亦真：离开这条腐败之路，中国就有救了。
第二，"六四"周年纪念日又到了。许多人盼望中共中央领导人能主动承认屠城的非正义性和非法性。我现在只能说，希望如此！我不乐观的根据是，现在还没有看到足以支持这种可能性的迹象。至于将来会不会出现变数，我不知道。
本文由《纽约时报》翻译成英文，并经过编辑。点击此处阅读本文英文版。
鲍彤在20世纪80年代曾担任中共中央总书记赵紫阳政治秘书、政治体制改革研讨小组办公室主任、中共十三大文件起草小组组长等职务。他在1989年六四事件中反对当局用武力镇压民主运动，成为当时被逮捕的中共最高级别官员。
New York Times
Christina Hagerfors
A Communist Party propaganda poster of Deng Xiaoping in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, still draws tourists. Tyrone Siu/Reuters
How Deng Xiaoping Helped Create a Corrupt China
By BAO TONGJUNE 3, 2015
BEIJING — For the past month, I have been banned from giving interviews, and so I am offering this essay to mark the 26th anniversary of the crackdown of June 4, 1989, when the authorities suppressed dissent in cities across China.
The big news these days is the Communist Party's campaign against corruption. In the three years since the 18th Party Congress, which installed the current generation of China's leaders, the government has called on officials to "slay tigers and swat flies" — a metaphor for targeting all kinds of corruption, big and small.
While the government has periodically cracked down on graft, there has not been an anti-corruption campaign on this scale. But that doesn't mean there wasn't corruption.
In fact, during the two decades after Deng Xiaoping's famous Southern Tour of China in 1992 — when, in semi-retirement, he traveled to Guangdong Province to forcefully promote economic liberalization — officials at all levels of the Communist Party quietly got rich. Tolerating corruption was, in fact, part of what Deng unleashed.
Deng, China's paramount leader from 1978 until his death in 1997, is today revered as a hero. And, like Mao Zedong before him and Xi Jinping after him, Deng is portrayed by the party as a political theorist. But there was no such thing as a Deng Xiaoping Theory, any more than there was such a thing as Qin Shihuang Theory.
Like Qin Shihuang, the first emperor, who centralized political authority in China, Deng used force, not theory. He leveraged the power that Mao had won for the Communist Party to march China along his new "Deng Xiaoping Road" — toward an abyss of corruption.
There is one difference. Few people today commend Qin Shihuang's policy of burning books and Confucian scholars. But smoke from the incense burned in praise of the Deng road continues to reach the heavens.
Focusing on the widespread corruption in China today while forgetting the role of Deng is like blaming the Gang of Four for the tumultuous destruction of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) while overlooking the role of Mao.
Let Some People Get Rich First
Deng famously said that to open the economy, the party would have to "let some people get rich first." This was one of the most creative policies ever advocated by a Communist Party leader, as it was in direct contradiction to the party's founding aim.
At the time of Deng's Southern Tour, I was in prison, having been removed from office in 1989 along with my patron, the former prime minister and party general secretary Zhao Ziyang.
At first, when I read the publicly available texts, I didn't really get what he was driving at. What made a deep impression was his hard tone, exemplified by three lines, quoted everywhere: "If we don't change, we are at a dead end! Whoever doesn't reform will have to step down! Some people will get rich first!"
Despite Deng's tough talk, neither the outline nor the substance of his policy was clear. Who were these people who were going to get rich first?
Deng might have meant those the Communist Party supposedly represented: the "worker-peasant alliance." Or, perhaps, those classes that had then only recently been rehabilitated by the party: "landlords, wealthy peasants, counterrevolutionaries, the bad elements, the rightists." He might even have been talking about intellectuals, with their knowledge and technological skills. But the correct answer was none of the above: Those who got rich first turned out to be party members and their families and close associates.
The question of who should get rich first was no abstraction. Deng would have understood very well that — as the saying goes — a waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first: In other words, certain groups would be best positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities.
In a post-1989 society in which the party's power kept the lid on social dissent, political reform had been strangled, and potentially influential organizations were prohibited from stirring unrest, the prospects for ordinary people who plunged into the sea of business were not bright. Far from striking riches, they were lucky if they didn't drown. Consider the vast ranks of peasants who were legally prohibited from moving into cities (because of household registration requirements, which restrict families from relocating from their home provinces without approval) or the legions of workers laid off by state-controlled enterprises as a result of Deng's economic reforms.
The upshot of Deng's revolution was that those with significant power got significantly rich, those with modest power got modestly rich, and those with no power remained in poverty.
How to Do Business in China
During Deng's Southern Tour, he coined his most famous catchphrase: "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat." Deng's endorsement of market economics stirred a tide of business activity that swept across China and far beyond its shores. China's sea of business was distinctive because the party controlled everything. Effectively, it operated a great number of shoals that those afloat on the sea had to navigate. Beneath the surface were dangerous waves.
In these rough seas, if you don't pay for the right to do business, then you are likely to encounter interference from party officials. State-owned enterprises also make doing business difficult. Chinese officials have a real talent for giving people a hard time.
In the story of China's rise, the unsung heroes are Deng's "good cats."
Whom should they pay? In the abstract, party authority, and specifically, party officials — from the former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang all the way down to county and village cadres.
Subterranean streams of the market economy that had been buried for decades broke forth little by little and flooded the socialist dikes. The market economy was incorporated into the party-state, along the way losing the characteristics of truly free choice and competition. Instead the market worked compliantly for the good of the party high-ups: From venture capital to initial public offerings, from signing contracts to quality inspections, this was the way things were done. No exceptions.
Party officials are the body of the party. The new economic order means paying for the services of this body. Entrepreneurs join officials to push up G.D.P. This is not only a good solution for businesspeople, but it also gives officials opportunities to notch up career achievements. In a broader sense, it drives the development of the party-state.
This system of market distortion wrecks livelihoods, wastes natural resources, destroys the environment and threatens calamity for future generations. But political priorities require that such collateral damage be forgotten.
These priorities are expressed by slogans like "remember the big picture," "pay attention to the whole situation," "smaller principles should be sacrificed to larger ones" and "main priorities trump lower ones." Rather than admit that they are doing what economists call rent-seeking — extracting a share of the wealth for themselves, rather than creating wealth — officials would prefer to imagine that they are faithful to the party line of "doing big things."
In China, if you want to "do big things," you need to buy plenty of backup. How high an official you must pay rent to depends on whether you plan to make an impact at the village, county, provincial or even national level. Party officials at even the lowest levels can determine who within their domain will succeed and prosper.
Once his interests are secured, an official becomes a major stockholder who can be relied on for green lights. So long as he gains, it's irrelevant whether a venture helps or hurts the public. Its owner can be assured the official will channel "positive energy" to clear obstacles. Such an arrangement may do nothing to protect the environment, satisfy domestic needs or bolster public integrity, but it will no doubt drive up G.D.P.
It's been more than 65 years since China has had any form of democracy. The legitimacy of the party-state today rests on statistics about economic growth. For officials, there is no more brilliant evidence of achievement. Corruption and development rise together.
Mao Zedong turned private property into state property. Deng Xiaoping transferred national assets, at generous and largely symbolic prices, to party elites. As a result today's "princelings" — the descendants of the party's founding revolutionary generation — control much of China's wealth.
These events were noticed by the public, but the party rank and file largely stayed silent. They understood what was happening, and knew they had no choice but to enact this policy. This was the purpose of the Southern Tour, to ensure stability throughout the party as the new line was implemented.
The Legacy of 1989
On June 4, 1989, Deng ordered the People's Liberation Army to forcibly suppress large numbers of peaceful volunteers — in Tiananmen Square and in cities across China — who were calling for an end to corruption and to an accelerated pace of reform.
The trauma of June 4 was a sea change. In a situation in which no one dares speaks out, everyone loses their right to speak, everyone loses the right to shape reform, and everyone can be pushed around. One result was that the aim of reform in the 1980s was radically subverted. The party-led economic liberalization was supposed to unchain both workers and business owners, unleash their energies and permit profit-making and profit-sharing. But after the sea change of 1989, profits and resources were distributed according to power.
Deng, through his actions on June 4, drew new demarcation lines to define enemies. The party would protect corruption, and anyone who opposed party-supported corruption was a deadly foe of both the party and the army.
Following the 18th Party Congress, the movement to "slay tigers and swat flies" struck China like a series of thunderbolts. The anti-corruption crackdown seems like an epochal event, but perhaps its greatest usefulness has been in opening people's eyes. China's red flag, dyed in the blood of martyrs, has become a shelter for evil people and practices. The legions of corrupt officials exposed may be only the tip of the iceberg, but these revelations have already eclipsed other reported instances of corruption in China or abroad. There is no longer any way of concealing this top-to-bottom corruption, no chance of erasing knowledge of it from people's minds.
But while the party's fight against corruption is presented as a public service, if independent citizens — members of civil society — take up the cause, it is a crime.
Popular movements to combat corruption are, as they were in 1989, sternly repressed. China's put-upon and bullied citizens are denied legal redress, through the court system or petitions to the central government. Indeed, people who have exposed corruption have found themselves put on trial or in prison. Universal values like transparency and accountability are smeared as tools of overseas enemies causing trouble. Meanwhile the limitless power of the party to meddle has only increased, as it co-opts concepts like the rule of law, technology and globalization.
Does the party-state have the heart to truly fight corruption, even to the point of risking the destruction of the party? As many have said, only the top tier of leaders really knows.
I want to say two things. First, as long as China travels on the road charted by Deng Xiaoping, it will not fundamentally end corruption. "Slaying tigers and swatting flies" is not a root-and-branch cure; it can't even alleviate the worst symptoms. Tigers roam wild, and flies cover the sun: You can attack 100 or 1,000 of them, and it won't change the essential fact of a corrupt road. But I remain an optimist, because if Chinese leaders are willing to abandon the Deng Xiaoping road, then there is hope.
Second, the June 4 anniversary is here again. Many people long for the party leadership to voluntarily admit the injustice and illegality of the killings. This is also my hope. But I am not optimistic, because so far there have not been many signs to suggest that this will happen. As for whether it might be possible one day, down the road, this I can't say.
Bao Tong was a longtime adviser to Zhao Ziyang, the former prime minister of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, who was removed from power in 1989 and died in 2005. This essay was translated by The New York Times from the Chinese.
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