【英语生活】中国共产党的党内生活

ROWAN CALLICK

The scene evokes memories of a more certain and compliant era. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the world's most powerful organization, sits with his arms folded, leaning watchfully on a conference table at which members of the committee of the communist party in China's Hebei province are writing 'self-criticisms.'

Mr. Xi, the party's chief and the nation's president (the latter being the lesser role), has been touring the country, ensuring that party members everywhere bow their heads in the face of the Maoist 'mass line' campaign he is directing. This will restore discipline to the party, Mr. Xi believes, and regain the respect of ordinary folk who have become skeptical in the face of corruption, a soaring wealth gap and an aristocratic attitude among officials.

If the errant ways of some party officials are the problem--there about 83 million members within a population of 1.3 billion--the solution is also sought within. The party is China's great given, sitting above and beyond even the national constitution. But the times are changing, and the party no longer dominates Chinese life as it once did. Most of China's middle class is on a very different kind of long march, through the famous international tourist destinations and the great global universities.

The broader Chinese population knows only in the most general way how the party works. It holds its secrets close to its chest. The party's core features include the selection of the best and brightest, the top-down flow of information and constant self-criticism, designed to ensure a sense of vulnerability rather than of entitlement among its members (even if the presumption that they were born to rule is proving hard to shift).

Liu Meiling (not her real name, for fear of endangering her party position) is a smart, ambitious woman in her 30s who works for a foreign-Chinese joint venture in Wuhan, an ancient but dynamic city of 10 million in central China. Every month, she and about a third of her 40 colleagues in one section of the firm file into a special party meeting room, either during their lunch hour or just after work. When their general manager enters, he wears, metaphorically, a different hat--as general secretary of the firm's party branch.

Most of the foreigners working there aren't aware that their firm has a party branch. They might be surprised to discover that someone as modern-minded, fluent in English and generally savvy as Ms. Liu is a member. Why is the party still so attractive to aspiring young Chinese? The main draw is success. Joining the party opens the door to almost unlimited career opportunities.

Ms. Liu became a precocious young communist in high school. Her parents were both members already, and she was invited to join. She applied by writing an essay. 'You have to state your shortcomings,' she says. 'One is enough. Usually people will say something modest, like 'I'm not seriously minded.''

Members are mostly passive at meetings, she says. When officials read statements by party leaders, 'We comment how wise they are. Always very wise. But they are very dull. No real business is conducted.' After Ms. Liu graduated, her father helped her to obtain her first job. 'I knew he could do that,' she says. But she didn't like it: 'I read and reread the novel 'Jane Eyre.' Like her, I wanted to be myself.'

By now, Ms. Liu's enthusiasm for the party has waned. 'People separate this party involvement out from their understanding of the world,' she says. 'Their membership is like an altar with a Buddha on it. It looks good in its place, but for most people it doesn't penetrate into real life.'

Members of the emerging generation feel that they owe their comfortable lifestyle not to the party but to their family's own efforts. And, of course, they communicate obsessively online, often bursting through the boundaries the party-state seeks to maintain.

If Mr. Xi persists in trying to restore some measure of the party discipline and passion of the Mao years, he also may revive memories that the party has chosen to keep buried--of the tens of millions who starved due to the Great Leap Forward or of the anarchic cruelties of the Cultural Revolution.

During his decade at the top, Mr. Xi is likely to face a challenge in maintaining the party as a political apparatus with a moral imperative to rule. For many of its younger members, it has become little more than a qualification that caps their CVs, the ultimate fraternity.

Mr. Callick is the Asia-Pacific editor of The Australian and the author of 'The Party Forever: Inside China's Modern Communist Elite.'

ROWAN CALLICK

这一幕让人回忆起了以往某一个人们更加惟命是从的时期。全球最有权势的组织的总书记习近平坐在会议桌前，上臂交叉、身体前倾、神情专注。与会的中共河北省委成员们正在写“自我批评”。

相关报道对于共产党是如何运作的，中国广大的民众只有最一般的了解。党紧紧地守护着这些秘密。党的核心特色包括：挑选最优、最聪明的人士、信息自上而下流动、不断进行自我批评，这样做的目的是要让党员心存一种脆弱感，而不是认为所有一切都是应得的权益（虽然中共党员生来就是要管别人的这种臆想仍旧难以撼动）。

30多岁的刘美玲（因为害怕危及自己在党内的位置，这里用的不是她的实名）为人精明、抱负远大，在武汉的一家中外合资企业工作。武汉是中国中部的一座人口上千万的城市，古老但却充满活力。刘美玲所在的部门有40名同事，每个月在午休时或下班后，她与大约三分之一的同事鱼贯进入一间特别的党组会议室。他们的总经理走进这间会议室时，他的头衔就不一样了，在这里，他是公司党支部的书记。

在那里工作的大多数外国人都不知道自己的公司还有党支部。要是他们发现像刘美玲这种思想现代、英语流利、精明强干的人是党员，他们可能会大吃一惊。共产党为何对抱负远大的中国年轻人仍有这么大的吸引力？最主要的因素是成功。一旦入了党，几乎有无限的职业机会将向你打开大门。

刘美玲在高中时就早早地成为一名年轻的共产党员。她的父母都已经是党员了，她也被邀请加入。她写了一份入党申请书。她说，你必须说出自己的缺点，一条就足够了；通常人们会说些小问题，比如“我的思想不够严肃”。

她说，党员们开会时大多很消极；官员们宣读共产党领导人的讲话稿时，我们会说这些讲话有多英明；一直都很英明；但非常无趣，解决不了任何实际的事情。刘美玲毕业后，她父亲帮助她获得了第一份工作。她说，我知道他能做到，但她并不喜欢这样。她说，我看了很多遍《简•爱》(Jane Eyre)，像她一样，我想做我自己。

现在，刘美玲对共产党的热爱已经有所消退。她说，人们将入党跟对世界的看法分离开来，他们的党员身份就像个供着佛像的神龛，佛像在佛龛上看着挺好，但对大多数人来说，它并没有贯穿现实生活。

年轻一代的人觉得，他们的幸福生活并不是因为共产党，而是因为家人自己的努力。而且他们大量通过网络交流——这是当然的，常常越过这个一党治理下的国家试图维护的界限。

如果习近平坚持恢复毛时代的一些党纪措施和对共产党的热爱，他可能还会恢复人们对于共产党决定掩盖的一些事情的记忆——因大跃进而饿死的几千万人，或是“文革”时期那些极端残忍的行为。

在任职最高领导人的十年期间，习近平可能将面临一项挑战，即维系共产党作为有统治之责的政治机构的地位。对于许多年轻党员来说，党员身份只不过是他们简历上的一个点睛之笔，相当于终极版的大学生联谊会。

本文作者为《澳大利亚人报》(The Australian)亚太主编，撰有《The Party Forever: Inside China's Modern Communist Elite》一书。

（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）