"Lenin's dream is gone / but Pushkin's autumn remains." These two lines from a poem often make me think of a speech Lenin gave in 1922, a few years after the founding of the Soviet Union. He seemed to feel that the revolution had been stifled by bureaucracy and institutional arbitrariness.
The bureacracy of the old system was startling. Despite the revolution, the communist revolutionaries -- who had put an end to the tsarist era -- found it difficult to do more than just talk about transforming government institutions and changing ideology and atmosphere. So how does President Chen Shui-bian (
Having put an end to KMT rule, the political motivation inherited by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from the tangwai movement proved to be nothing short of revolutionary. Compared to democracy and the transformation towards independence, the longstanding party-state, martial law and a colonial system holding up China as a model were but an empty Chinese shell.
But will the DPP be able to sustain its revolution? It has to deal with both the bureaucratization that follows from being a government and the party-state atmosphere, in a society long controlled by a colonial party-state system.
Discussions of Lenin generally use the words "criticism" and "self-criticism" when describing how the revolutionary Lenin dealt with the discrepancy between ideals and reality. So how do we get around the problem of reality? Lenin even said that "we are disgusted that the state apparatus disappoints us so, with negligence and chaos everywhere." He also wanted to "reform this useless government institution."
But after the founding of the Soviet state, Lenin was unable to fully realize his political ideals, and he died at 54 years of age, not having been able to realize his dream of a "democratic communism." That wasn't entirely his fault, but rather it depended on a pathological political system.
The Taiwanese revolution that put an end to the KMT rule entailed a democratization and a transformation towards independence, but there was no revolutionary who could lead that revolution in the way that Lenin did.
So what about criticism and self-criticism in our political situation? Taking over a Republic of China (ROC) transformed into a party-state, hard work is required to eliminate that party-state.
How will the government bureaucracy deal with Taiwan's democratization and transformation towards independence?
If Taiwan is occupied, who will lead the central and local governments? In other words: Are Chen and the DPP really the formal and spiritual leaders of this country, of Taiwan? Is the nation implied unambiguously a Taiwanese nation? Or is it a nation with identity problems, hi-jacked by a Chinese national consciousness? Maybe we should even ask if this country is still being ruled by the KMT's party-state.
If that revolutionary character really has been lost, do the social conditions for a transformation of the old KMT rule still exist? Politicians are tested by both revolutionary ideals and reality, but this only means that they must not treat politics as a business, but rather as a formal power ritual aimed at building order, justice and security -- and this is a cultural endeavor.
So do Taiwan's politicians treat politics as a business or as a cultural endeavor? Although his political dream is gone, Lenin treated it as a cultural endeavor.
Lee Min-yung is a poet and president of the Taiwan Peace Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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