Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A683-W422
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A683-W422
Release
Date: Jan. 19, 2012
发布日：2012年1月19日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part XLIX): What Is a Coup? -- Wei Jingsheng
标题：《中国的出路》之四十九：政变是什么？ -- 魏京生
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The
Way Out for China (Part XLVIV): What Is a Coup?
--
Wei Jingsheng
There
is a story from not long ago that is interesting. It is about how Lin Biao talked about a coup in a Communist
Party's Congress meeting, in cooperation with Mao Zedong. But that made Mao worried and started
his vigilance against Lin. Several
years later, finally, Mao forced Lin to launch an unsuccessful coup, which
began Mao's decline. Only a few years
later, right after Mao died, his trusted followers launched a successful coup
where they arrested all of Mao's diehard followers and sent them to court. In the court, the trial included both
the diehard followers and the people associated with the previous unsuccessful
coup of Lin. The two groups were
treated as the same "clique of anti-revolutionaries" despite they
were holding knives against each other before. This kind of reality drama made average folks feel dizzy to
watch and confused to understand.
In
the end, what is a coup? If we
take it literally from the composition of its Chinese characters "Zheng
Bian", it means "political change". However, in general , reasonable and legal political changes
are not called coups; only abnormal political changes are. There are basically three types of
coups. The most typical one is a
coup that is unreasonable and illegal.
The other kinds are reasonable but illegal, or legitimate but
unreasonable. It is often
controversial whether the later two types should be called coups or not. For example, Yeltsin and Gorbachev
overthrow the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. This overthrow was reasonable for the
people, but it was illegal to the CPSU.
The Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong overthrew the Chinese president
Liu Shaoqi and even persecuted Liu to death. This overthrow was legal to the Chinese Communist Party, but
it was illegal to the country and people in China.
The
more typical and non-controversial use for the word coup is for unreasonable
and illegal takeovers. For
example, Deng Xiaoping's overthrow of Zhao Ziyang, the attempted Japanese military coups intending to overthrow
the diet and to murder the entire cabinet (in 1931), and the February 26
incidents when several ministers were assassinated (1936), all are coups that
were neither reasonable nor legal.
This kind of coup causes great harm to a country and the society, even
beyond that country. These coups
are the kind of great evil that are punishable as called by Confucius. Viewed from history, without exception,
they do not have good results.
This observation is exactly the reason that people often treat coup as a
negative word.
So
how do the "reasonable but illegal" and "unreasonable but
legal" coups turn out? Should
we take them as negative as well?
This requires specific analysis of the specific conditions, and cannot
be generalized. Generally
speaking, "reasonable" is above law, when people evaluate the law as
correct or not according to reason.
From an ideological viewpoint, people who overthrow a tyranny are
"illegal", but the prevailing ideology finds the overthrow
reasonable. The American
Revolution was based on the prevailing ideology; it was reasonable to overthrow
the British colonial rule.
However,
there are exceptions. When the
official ideology and the prevailing ideology accepted by the people are in
contradiction, then what is reasonable will be controversial. So there is the ancient saying that
"the person who has the people's hearts, has the country". This "people's hearts" refers
to the ideology which is accepted by the people, instead of the officials. What Yeltsin and Gorbachev had was the
ideology accepted by the people, while the poliburo maintained the ideology
accepted by the officials. Although
the official ideology may have had the support of law, most people accepted the
ideology of Yeltsin. Thus illegal
action could be reasonable. Thus
there is an amendment to this "reason over law" -- the reason of the
majority is over the reason of the minority. Hua Guofeng's arrest of the Gang of Four also belong to this
reason of the majority over the reason of the minority -- it was a coup which
was reasonable but illegal.
Is
there a coup which is both reasonable and legitimate? There was in ancient authoritarian societies, such as when
Emperor Kangxi overthrew powerful ministers to make himself de facto
ruler. But some say it was a
palace coup. This designation is
because although it was both reasonable and legitimate for Kangxi doing so, it
took people by surprise due to the sudden change. It broke the routine of that time, so it should be regarded
as a coup. The rule of the upper
class in an autocratic society is unstable, so it is often usurped unreasonably
and illegally. Usurpation and anti-usurpation
are both in fact coups. The coup
often happens in despotic societies, which is a reason that an authoritarian
society is impossible to be stable.
A
few days ago I had a discussion with some of my friends: "If someone
called you in the middle of the night and told you that there was a coup in
Washington DC, what would be your reaction?" Another friend said: "I would immediately check the
calendar, to see if today is April Fool's Day." We all laughed and said, of course, because it is
impossible. That is because the
basic principle of democracy is "the person who has the people's hearts,
has the country", which takes the ideology of the most people as a
criterion. Moreover, it takes a
regularly based reasonable and legitimate "coup" to overthrow the
government for people to re-select.
There is no accident and no usurpation, which leads to stable
politics. So it is impossible to
have a coup in the usual sense.
In
authoritarian countries like China, everything is operated in a black-box. So political changes are often abrupt
and accidental, without much structural pattern. It is a winner takes all kind of principle in the
jungle. Regardless whether they
are reasonable or unreasonable coups, they are all normal phenomena.
Without
talking about things much earlier, there have been many coups since the
Communist regime was established in the past century. After the 7,000 people conference in 1962, Liu Shaoqi forced
Mao Zedong to take a back seat and usurped power. Then, in 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution
and put Liu in jail and usurped power back. Dissatisfied with Mao's socialist experiment, Lin Biao
launched a failed coup that ended in 1972. With the support of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping restored the
usurped rights from the Cultural Revolution faction, which was also a
coup. Yet, also with the support
of Mao Zedong, the Maoists got rid of Deng Xiaoping in 1976 and meanwhile
almost dominated all the military, party and political power. Later on in the same year of 1976, the
veteran Communist officials united with Hua Guofeng and arrested Jiang Qing and
the backbone of the Maoists, which was a reasonable yet illegal coup. Subsequently, the veteran officials
pushed Hua aside by using the reform tendency of the people, which in reality
was to usurp the power which Hua still had under his title. This was a real coup. Then, in 1987, Deng Xiaoping and some
veteran officials used an internal conference within the Communist Party to
usurp the powers of General Secretary from Hu Yaobang, which was also a illegal
coup. In the summer of 1989, Deng
Xiaoping and Li Peng, against public opinion, in violation of party rules,
against the law, mobilized troops to suppress the demonstrating people, and
meanwhile usurped the power of Zhao Ziyang: this was a truly military coup.
The
Chinese Communist regime has had only sixty years, yet we can count this big
pile of coups during this short period.
Can we call this kind of politics stable? China does not have democratic politics and is not
recognized as reasonable by most of the people. Can the Chinese government rely on the military and secret
agents to maintain stability? If
so, then history needs to be rewritten.
Then there is no regime that could be overthrown.
To
hear Mr. Wei Jingsheng's related commentary, please visit:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2011/WeiJS110915ChinaWayOut49coup.mp3
(Written
and recorded on September 15, 2011.
Broadcasted by Radio Free Asia.)
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中文版
Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A683-W422
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A683-W422
Release
Date: Jan. 19, 2012
发布日：2012年1月19日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part XLIX): What Is a Coup? -- Wei Jingsheng
标题：《中国的出路》之四十九：政变是什么？ -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2012/report2012-01/WeiJS120119ChinaWayOut49coupA683-W422.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------
《中国的出路》之四十九：政变是什么？
-- 魏京生
有一个不太古老但是有趣的故事，说的是林彪在一次党代会上为了配合老毛而大谈政变，结果让老毛忧心忡忡，从此对林彪有了戒心。几年后终于逼得林彪发动了一次不成功的政变，成为毛泽东走下坡的开始。再过了几年，毛泽东刚刚去世，他的亲信们就发动了一次成功的政变，并把他的死党全部抓起来送上了法庭。并且是和前一个不成功的政变人士同一个案件审判。当年拿着刀子互相拚杀的两伙人最后都成了同一个反革命政变集团。这让老百姓看着眼睛发晕，头脑发胀。
到底政变是什么呢？字面上看就是政治变化了。但是一般习惯上看，合理合法的政治变化不叫政变，只有不正常的政治变化才被称作是政变。政变基本上有三种类型。最典型的是不合理又不合法的政变。另外两种是合理而不合法，或者合法而不合理。对后两种是否算政变，常常是有争议的。比如说，叶利钦和戈尔巴乔夫合伙推翻了苏共政治局。这对苏联老百姓来说就是合理的，但对共产党来说就是不合法的。毛泽东推翻刘少奇并置刘于死地，对中国共产党来说是合法的，对国家和人民来说就是不合理的。
更典型的又没什么争议的，就是不合理也不合法的政变。例如邓小平推翻赵紫阳，日本军阀刺杀内阁成员（1936年）及废除国会并谋杀全体内阁的军事政变（1931年），都属于既不合理也不合法的政变。这种政变，对国家和社会的危害极大，甚至危害到国家之外。这是属于孔夫子所说的可以共诛之的大奸大恶。从历史上看也是无一例外地没有好结果。这正是人们把政变一词当作负面词汇的原因。
那么前两种政变会有什么结果呢？是不是也应该当作负面词汇来理解呢？这就要具体情况具体分析了，不可一概而论。一般来看理在法之上，人们衡量法律是否正确所依据的就是理。换个现代词汇就是意识形态。人民推翻暴政通常都违法，但是遵循着通行的意识形态，也就是合理。美国革命就是依据通行的意识形态，推翻了英国的殖民统治。
但是也有例外。这就是当官方的意识形态和人民通行认可的意识形态矛盾时，什么是合理也就各行其是了。所以古人才有得人心者得天下的说法。这个人心指的就是人民认可而不是官方认可的意识形态。叶利钦和戈尔巴乔夫拥有的是人民认可的意识形态，被推翻的政治局拥有的是官方认可的意识形态。虽然官方意识形态得到了法律的支持，但是大多数人都认可叶利钦的意识形态。违法也就成为合理的行为了。所以理在法之上就得到了一个修正，多数人的理在少数人的理之上。华国锋把四人帮抓起来，也属于这种多数人的理在少数人的理之上的，合理但不合法的政变。
有没有既合理也合法的政变呢？在古代的专制社会里有，例如康熙皇帝推翻权臣亲自执政的事件，但也有人说那是宫廷政变。这是因为它虽然既合理也合法，但是出乎人们的意料之外，改变得有点突然。它打破了当时的常规，所以应该算是政变。专制社会的上层统治不稳定，常常会被不合理也不合法地篡夺。篡夺和反篡夺其实都是政变。政变是专制社会里经常发生的事情，也是专制社会不可能稳定的原因。
前几天我还和朋友们议论：“如果有人半夜里打电话告诉你华盛顿发生政变了，你会有什么反应？”另一个朋友说：“我会马上看一眼日历，今天是不是愚人节？”大家都笑着说，当然了，因为这是不可能的。因为民主政治的基本原则就是得人心者得天下，以多数人的意识形态为准则。而且，它还定期举行合理合法的政变推翻政府重新选择。它没有意外也没有篡夺，是真正稳定的政治。所以不可能发生通常意义上的政变。
而在中国这样的专制国家，一切都在黑箱操作，政治的变化经常既突然也意外，而且没什么章法。成王败寇，丛林原则。不管是合理的还是不合理的政变，都是正常现象。
以前的不说，共产党建立政权以来就发生过许多次政变了。六十年代初的七千人大会之后，刘少奇逼迫毛泽东退居二线，篡夺了权力。随后毛泽东发动文革，把刘少奇关进了监狱，反篡夺回了权力。林彪不满毛泽东的社会主义试验，发动了一场失败的政变。在毛泽东的支持下，邓小平复辟篡夺了文革派的权，又是一场政变。毛派在毛泽东的支持下赶走了邓小平，几乎总揽了党政军大权。之后老干部派联合华国锋，抓了江青和毛派骨干。这是一场合理不合法的政变。随后，老干部派利用人民的改革倾向排挤了华国锋，实际篡夺了名义上仍然属于华的权力。这是真正的政变。邓小平和老干部派利用党内生活会就篡夺了胡耀邦的总书记权力，这也是政变。邓小平和李鹏违反民意，违反党规，违反法律调兵镇压了游行的人民，同时篡夺了赵紫阳的权力，这是一场名符其实的军事政变。
中共持政才不过六十年，大概地一数就是一大堆的政变。这样的政治能叫做稳定吗？中国没有民主政治，没有大多数人认可的合理。稳定是可以靠军队和特务维持的吗？如果可以，历史就得要改写，这个世界上也就没有被推翻的政权了。
聆听魏京生先生的相关录音，请访问：
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2011/WeiJS110915ChinaWayOut49coup.mp3
（撰写并录音于2011年9月15日。自由亚洲电台播出。）
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