bottom up, rather than top down, social change

[Universe Prince]

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72997307.html

Our narrative contradicts much received doctrine. The standard account is that China succeeded because a wise party leadership deliberately chose gradualism, retained the monopoly of the Communist Party after rebuffing democracy at Tiananmen Square, and carefully guided the process over the years. The narrative says that Russia failed because the tempestuous Gorbachev ignored the Chinese reform model, moved too quickly, and allowed the party monopoly to fall apart. This standard account is incorrect. Deng Xiaoping and his supporters, contrary to popular legend, did not agree on a reform program at the Third Plenum of the Eighth Party Congress in 1978, which installed him in power. A Chinese reform official by the name of Bao Tong later admitted as much: “In fact, reform wasn’t discussed. Reform wasn’t listed on the agenda, nor was it mentioned in the work reports.”1 Throughout the reform process, the Chinese Communist Party simply reacted to (and wisely did not oppose) bottom-up reform initiatives that emanated largely from the rural population. Deng Xiaoping’s famous description of Chinese reform as “fording the river by feeling for the stones” is not incorrect, but it was the Chinese people who placed the stones under his feet. Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of his party in March of 1985. By that time, he knew that the Chinese reforms were successful. His reforms, contrary to the popular narrative, closely mimicked China’s. He proposed to lease land to peasants, establish free trade zones, promote small cooperative businesses, and set up joint ventures. The difference was that Gorbachev imposed these changes from above, on an urban economy in which virtually all citizens worked for the state. Gorbachev’s reforms either were ignored or they were enacted with perverse consequences. Bottom-up reforms worked in China; top-down reforms failed in Russia. [...] China and russia in the 1980s offer a unique case study in why some reforms work and others do not. The contrast refutes the notion that a strong, perhaps totalitarian state, is required for successful reform. In the Russian case, a one-party state attempted to impose reform from above and failed. In China, a one-party state opened the economy but resisted grassroots reforms, which it grudgingly accepted after their success could no longer be denied. For decades, a small group of Russian liberals lobbied in vain for reform. They finally got their chance when a reform-minded party leader was elected, but there was no real constituency for reform. In China, there was a massive grassroots constituency which clearly understood reform’s potential benefits. They acted quietly on their own, according to the Chinese saying, “Do more but say less; do everything but say nothing.” The Chinese rural population, as outsiders, had nothing to lose. With more than 80 percent of Chinese people pushing for change, reform could not help but penetrate the social and economic psychology of the Chinese mind.

[Plane]

I like this , it strikes me as a plausable explanation for the way things happened.

But how do we know ?

Who observes and verifies stuff of this sort?

Someone who made up the whole story would be just as credable as someone who realy was there , how can I tell the diffrence?

[BT]

Someone who made up the whole story would be just as credable as someone who realy was there , how can I tell the diffrence?

Wait for Mikey's response then believe the opposite.

[sirs]