From Mobilization to Participation
In rethinking the role of the masses in Chinese politics, the post-Mao leadership found itself faced with three questions: what priority should mass political involvement have, how should it be organized, and toward which objectives should it be directed? The dominant tendencies since 1976 have been in the direction of declining priority for mass participation in general, a shift from concerted mobilizational efforts toward more routinized arrangements, relying by default on voluntarism. There has been a parallel shift from economic or cultural transformation of a maximally inclusive constituency to the indirect representation of publics in political activities functional to their specific interests. Mass involvement in politics has gone through three distinguishable phases: the Campaign to Criticize the Gang of Four in 1976–79, the Democracy Wall movement in 1978–81, and the implementation of liberalized electoral procedures in 1980–82.
The Campaign to Criticize the Gang of Four
The anti-Gang campaign was initiated shortly after Hua's accession to the chairmanship and lasted until it was declared "essentially completed" at the Third Plenum in December 1978.[45] Hua Guofeng assigned fairly low priority to the campaign, both because criticism of the Gang raised the delicate question of their relationship to Hua's patron, Mao, and because Hua stood in an opportune position to inherit the orphaned radical constituency. "All slanders and charges levelled at anyone by the 'Gang of Four' should be repudiated and cancelled," as he put it in September 1977. "On the other hand, our comrades, and especially those who have been screened, must take a correct [i.e., basically positive]
[45] The only analysis of the campaign I have found is an unpublished paper by Constance Squires Meany, "Political Conflict in China: 'Reversal of Verdicts' and the Campaign to Suppress the 'Gang of Four's Bourgeois Factional Setup,' 1977–1978," Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1980.
attitude toward the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, toward the masses and toward themselves."[46] Upon being restored to his previous positions in July 1977, Deng reportedly requested and was granted leadership of the campaign, giving it higher priority—and a more vindictive thrust.
As a result of the decoupling of mobilization from organizational coordination in the last years of the Cultural Revolution decade (see chapter 7 above), mobilization had grown increasingly spontaneous and disruptive. Deng's organization of the movement was thus rather tight, hearkening back to pre-Cultural Revolution techniques: "work teams" were dispatched from higher levels to lead the struggle in local units, an ad hoc campaign committee was established, and mass criticism of human "targets" was arranged by cadres with punishment for the recalcitrant. The objectives of mobilization were to motivate neither economic production nor economic/cultural transformation, but (1) to restore order, and (2) to settle factional scores.
The campaign literature suggested that mass mobilization as practiced during the ten years of upheaval had become a pretext for widespread corruption, looting, vandalism, and other forms of criminal activity. As a major article on the movement put it in the spring of 1978:
[The] industry, communications and other fronts have launched step by step and on a large scale a movement to deal blows at both the sabotage activities of class enemies and at the frenzied assaults of capitalist forces, and have combined this movement with the great struggle to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four." . . . The Gang of Four's scheme to usurp Party and state power had a close bearing on the sabotage activities of class enemies and capitalist forces. A large number of persons of the bourgeois factional setups were "two-faced tigers." They were at once the background elements of bourgeois factional setups and the bad elements engaged in corruption, theft and speculation.[47]
Deng's movement, by conflating this dragnet against "smash-and-grabbers" with the criticism of the Four, magnified the crimes of the latter even as it permitted the acts of the former to be punished under ideological sanction. Such a condensation of evils gave impetus to the crackdown: Thus newspapers teemed with reports of executions during the first eighteen months of the campaign.[48]
[46] Hua, "Political Report to the Eleventh Congress," p. 56.
[47] "It Is Necessary to Unfold the 'Two Blows' Movement on a Large Scale," RR , April 7, 1978, p. 1; as trans. in FBIS , April 20, 1978, p. E6; as quoted in Meany, "Political Conflict."
[48] Nigel Wade reported that executions in Kunming (Yunnan) and Beijing in the first nine months of 1977 alone ran into the thousands. Sunday Telegraph , London, October 30, 1977, p. 1; see also Georges Biannic, AFP, Hong Kong, October 29, 1977, as trans. in FBIS , October 29, 1977, pp. E15–E16.
It also permitted Deng to utilize the campaign for factional gains. Both the purge of upwardly mobile cultural radicals and the rehabilitation of their erstwhile victims served Deng's political interests, and he pressed the campaign in order to legitimate such personnel shifts in the teeth of Hua's evident discomfiture. While vulnerable to Deng's mobilization of the anti-Cultural Revolution right, Hua's political position precluded any defensive countermobilization: he could hardly appeal to the right while claiming the aegis of Mao's Thought, and yet his arrest of the Four had placed radical support beyond his grasp. Beyond intimidating such residual "Maoists" and facilitating the wholesale rehabilitation of veteran cadres, however, Deng did not press for a sweeping purge of radicals from the middle and lower bureaucracy at this time, for prospective targets were so numerous that such a purge would surely have split the Party.[49]
Democracy Wall
The so-called Democracy Wall movement arose in China's leading urban centers in the fall of 1978 as a direct outgrowth of the attempt by victims of the Tiananmen Incident to gain official rehabilitation. The success of that attempt immediately triggered a mushrooming of analogous appeals by victims of various other radical policies. Although participants were thus defined by opposition to the Cultural Revolution and articulated liberal rather than radical values, their participatory mode was "leftist in form": it consisted of a spontaneously assembled ideological constituency with informal links to a sympathetic elite patron, expressing itself through big-character posters, unofficial tabloids, and mass demonstrations.
There is little question that Deng Xiaoping was the foremost "backstage backer" of the Democracy activists' self-emancipatory activities through the fall of 1978. He expressed himself clearly in this regard in interviews with a number of foreign visitors, allowing his comments to be
[49] This is an inference based on the lack of evidence of any extensive purge. Thus when the Party rectification campaign was launched at the Second Plenum of the Twelfth CC in October 1983, the chief targets were still defined as the "three types of person" (san zhong ren ): those "who rose to prominence by following the counterrevolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing in 'rebellion,' those who are seriously factionalist in their ideas, and those who indulged in beating, smashing and looting"—each of whom had a clear line of descent from the Cultural Revolution. Statistics indicated that of the 40 million members in the Party at this time (including ca. 9 million cadres), about 18 million had been recruited before the Cultural Revolution, while 4 million had been recruited in the post-Mao period, leaving 18 million who had been admitted during the Cultural Revolution decade. "The Decision of the CC of the Communist Party of China on Party Consolidation" (adopted by the Second Plenary Session of the Twelfth Party CC, October 11, 1983), BR 26:42 (October 17, 1983): 11. Clearly, Cultural Revolution recruits at the middle and lower bureaucratic echelons had not yet suffered serious attrition, despite the elimination of their patrons at the higher levels.
leaked to the masses. "We have no right to deny this or to criticize the masses for making use of democracy," he said on one such occasion. "If the masses feel some anger, let them express it."[50] In view of Deng's status as one of the leading victims of the Cultural Revolution his patronage seems somewhat surprising, inviting suspicions of Machiavellianism. In fact this liaison of strange bedfellows seems to have been based on an opportunistic coincidence of tactical objectives—both sides wanted a reversal of the Tiananmen verdict—rather than on any considered convergence upon a long-term strategy for mass participation. Upon achievement of this tactical objective,[51] the confluence of interests quickly dissolved.
Deng Xiaoping seems to have expected the mass movement to recede following his victory at the Third Plenum, granting time to consolidate his gains. The masses, on the other hand, seizing upon these verdict reversals as a quasi-judicial precedent, hastened to crowd through the window of opportunity before it closed. The result was a chain migration of petitioners from the countryside to the capital cities (Beijing, Ji'nan, Hefei), where they staged sit-ins in government offices, blocked street traffic, damaged public property, and congested the railroads. Aggrieved dissidents like Fu Yuehua led bands of demobilized soldiers, rusticated urban youth, poor peasants, and other disprivileged marginal groups in urban protest marches, raising the specter of a Solidarity-like alliance between intellectuals and proletariat. Big-character posters proliferated in urban centers, most consisting of individual petitions for redress of grievances irresolvable at the unit level.
Whereas the masses were primarily concerned with the application of the new verdicts to their individual cases, the movement quickly spawned intellectual dissidents who sought to elaborate and generalize these principles, to push the movement's logic as far as it would go. As in the Cultural Revolution, big-character posters led to the proliferation of
[50] From an interview with Ryosaku Sasaki, chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party, as quoted in NYT , November 26, 1978. "Wall posters are guaranteed by the Constitution," Deng pointed out, also noting that "my talk to you today is based on a decision of the CC." "Foreigners make a fuss about the posters. But we have no intention of suppressing them or denying the right of the masses to express their views by pasting up wall posters." In another interview, with American columnist Robert Novak, later relayed to crowds at Tiananmen by John Fraser, he said the posters were a "good thing," though some statements were not correct. See Fraser, The Chinese: Portrait of a People (New York: Summit Books, 1980).
[51] On November 16, 1978, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee reversed verdicts on the Tiananmen Incident; on November 21–22 RR published a comprehensive rationalization, "The Truth about the Tiananmen Incident." See Jian Yan, "Tiananmen shijian de an fandingle!" [Reversal of the case of the Tiananmen Incident], DX , no. 1 (October 1978): 30–33.
unofficial "people's publications" (minkan ), expanding their authors' range (to include the international wire-service public and beam back to a domestic audience over the Voice of America, thanks to foreign correspondents) and facilitating more intensive analysis of issues. Intellectual liberation remained the movement's central leitmotif, now ramifying into other functional realms. Science was idealized as an antidote to the masses' susceptibility to charismatic leadership, in a conception that emphasized an inductive, trial-and-error methodology congenial to emerging notions of a free market of ideas.[52] In economics, a case was made not only for expanded free markets, but for the dissolution of agricultural communes and state enterprises, based on the argument that "whole people's ownership" did not involve the assumption of popular control so much as "étatization"; collectives accordingly offered greater ambit for the realization of socialism.[53] The legal system was scrutinized, some attention being given for the first time to the delicate question of why laws were made and then not enforced.[54] Even the prison system received some attention for the first time.[55] There were radical critiques of socialist bureaucracy.[56] There was a widespread "blooming" of poetry, short stories, and other literary "flowers," including the most inventive experiments and theoretical formulations since the early 1960s. There was at this juncture a tacit alliance between democracy activists and elite members of the "practice faction,"[57] and many of the ideas at the cutting edge of Deng's reform program may be traced to the democracy movement.
Yet, notwithstanding their affinity for many aspects of Western pluralism, the democracy activists still exhibited a "breakthrough" style of
[52] See Hu Ping, "On Freedom of Speech," as reprinted under the title, "Selections from the Political Views of China's New Generation of Politicians," QN , no. 3 (March 1, 1981): 68–82; no. 4 (April 1981): 57–75, and no. 6 (June 1981): 67–76.
[53] Commentator, "On Collective Ownership and Its Future," Siwu Luntan [April fifth forum], no. 12 (September 9, 1979): 1–8; trans. in JPRS , no. 74909 (January 11, 1980): 22–35.
[54] Qiu Mu, "Why Laws Are Made but Difficult to Enforce," Tansuo [Exploration], September 9, 1979, pp. 9–14.
[55] Liu Qing, "Prison Memoirs," ed. Stanley Rosen and James D. Seymour, Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 15, nos. 1–2 (Fall-Winter 1982/3), 181 pp.
[56] E.g., Lu Min, "Gradually Abolish the Bureaucratic System and Establish the Democratic System Modeled after the Paris Commune," Beijing zhi Chun [Beijing spring], no. 1 (January 9, 1979): 17–21; and no. 2 (January 27, 1979): 43–45. See also Lu Min, "Do Away with the Power of Administrative Leadership of Basic Level Party Organization in Factories, Mines, and Other Enterprises," ibid., no. 2 (1979), pp. 17–21.
[57] Thus the people's publication Beijing Spring was able to publish one issue in the regular press, and in the middle of 1979 the Beijing People's Press even prepared a reprint of important articles from various unofficial publications. Three members of the CYL Central Committee even participated in editing Beijing Spring . Opletal, Die Informationspolitik der Volksrepublik China , p. 185.
mobilization that polemically exaggerated the defects of the target as well as the relief its destruction would bring, generating a powerful, consuming momentum bound to frighten former targets of mass criticism—especially as the focus shifted from past iniquities to their structural residues in the present. Cadres also found the activists' tendency to generalize an abstract principle to every functional realm—another aftereffect of the Cultural Revolution polemical style—quite unnerving. As the most outspoken advocate of "taking the lid off," Deng bore the brunt of inner-Party recriminations.[58] Unlike Mao, however, he responded to criticism by reversing course, depriving his adversaries of this issue while continuing to pursue reform in less problematic areas.[59] In his public statements on the question he backed away from his previous stand that democracy was prerequisite to modernization toward an assertion that modernization was prerequisite to democracy—a position redolent of Sun Yat-sen's "tutelage."[60] Democracy activists were no longer the Cultural Revolution's victims but its reincarnation. Between October and November 1979 the two most prominent activists in the capital, Wei Jingsheng and Fu Yuehua, were tried and convicted, and (after transcripts of Wei's "public" trial had been posted and circulated there), Xidan Wall was closed. Annoyed by dissidents' tendency to appeal to "constitutional rights," the authorities proceeded to rewrite the Constitution: the "four big freedoms" were rescinded at the Third Session of the Fifth NPC, and henceforth movement activists were invariably referred to as "illegal organizations" and "illegal publications."[61] Early in 1981 the CC transmitted a series of documents, beginning with CD no. 2 and
[58] Yielding reluctantly on substance, Deng complained (in a speech made March 16, 1979) about the timing of the criticisms. "I never concealed my opinions. But in the past ten years a bad habit has developed in the Party. . . . It is that, at the start, no one opposes a resolution. But as soon as something goes wrong, no matter how small, they either drop a stone on someone who has fallen into a well or stick a knife in your back, eager to find a scapegoat."NYT , May 26, 1979, quoting Nationalist intelligence sources.
[59] At a March 1979 expanded Politburo meeting he introduced his own counterpart of the "two whatevers" to define the limits of dissent, the "four fundamental principles" (si xiang jiben yuanze ): Uphold the socialist road, uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat, uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (thus sometimes dubbed the "four upholds"). "Summary of Deng Xiaoping's March 1979 Speech at a Discussion of Theoretical Issues," Guang Jiao Jing (Hong Kong), no. 85 (November 16, 1979): 4–10.
[60] "We can never achieve the Four Modernizations without a political situation of stability and unity, because people cannot embark on modernization without peace of mind. Therefore, we are opposed to those people and things which create disturbances. Take, for example, the method of allowing the existence of the 'Xidan Wall.'" Quoted in Bai Renqiong, "Some Movements in the Political Situation of the PRC," DX , no. 16 (January 16, 1980): 4–6.
[61] E.g., see the commentator article in Jiefang Ribao (Shanghai), January 10, 1981.
culminating in CD no. 9, which instructed all departments concerned to interdict "two illegal" activities.[62] Throughout the spring of 1981, the police made one arrest after another, dealing a final crushing blow to this singular amalgam of revolutionary tactics and democratic objectives.[63]
Electoral Reform
Whether in order to co-opt the democracy issue or as a token of the sincerity of his professions of support for greater popular input, Deng proffered expanded opportunities for participation through formal electoral mechanisms even as he proceeded to eliminate intra-Party opposition and crush the democracy movement. "The Electoral Law of the PRC for the NPC and Local People's Congresses at All Levels" was one of seven major laws passed on July 1, 1979, by the Second Session of the Fifth NPC, to take effect on January 1, 1980. It departed from the previous (1953) electoral law in at least three respects: a policy of more candidates than positions (cha e xuanju zhi ) was adopted, delegates to county people's congresses were subject to direct election (previously only local officials up to the commune had been directly elected), and the nominating process was opened for the first time to (non-Party) mass participation, allowing any organization or individual with three seconds to submit candidates for the initial list (though they would not necessarily be placed on the final list).[64]
The first test of the new law came during the nationwide county-level elections that were conducted on a staggered timetable through the summer and fall of 1980, and it soon became apparent that despite the liberalization of procedure, any attempt to use the electoral process to manifest dissent or even to aggregate popular demands was fraught with risk. In most of the nation's nearly three thousand counties elections
[62] Central Document no. 9 reportedly included provision for arrest of activists, exposure of those supplying or otherwise supporting them, and eviction of cadres involved from the Party. Ge Zhili, "People's Publications under 'Central Document no. 9,'" ZM , no. 5 (May 1. 1981): 50, 90; also Liang Mingjun, "The Chinese Communist CC's Documents no. 4, 7, and 9," Dangdai [Contemporary monthly] (Hong Kong), no. 8 (April 15, 1981): 43.
[63] Xu Wenli and Yang Jing, members of Siwu Luntan , were arrested by public security personnel in their Beijing homes. Also arrested at his home was Sun Feng, editor of Hailang Hua [Sea waves], a private publication in Qingdao, Shandong. Wang Xizhe, chief writer of the Li Yizhe trio, was arrested in his factory on April 10. Fu Shenqi of Shanghai and He Qiu, editor of People's Road in Guangzhou, were arrested in Beijing. Zhong Yueqiu, responsible person of People's Voice (Shaoguan), was arrested in that city. See Miao Xiao, "The Current Situation of the Beijing People's Publications," ZM , no. 28 (February 1980): 44–45
[64] See Li Zaizao and Chen Jinluo, "The Fundamental Spirit of Electoral Law and the Significance of Direct Elections of People's Assemblies at the County Level," Faxue Yanjiu , no. 2 (1980): 12–15; and Zhang Qingfu, "China's Electoral System," Faxue Yanjiu , no. 6 (1980): 42–46.
proceeded smoothly, the vast majority of the nation's 540 million voters apparently voting in accord with the wishes of the leadership.[65] A number of well-publicized incidents revealed, however, both that local constituencies were sometimes prepared to use the new game rules to articulate local interests in defiance of Party guidance, and that local authorities were apt to bend the rules if necessary to ensure continued dominance.
The position of the center toward these developments was ambivalent; sometimes it denounced illegal attempts by local authorities to revise unfavorable electoral outcomes, but in other cases it reproved the sponsors of unofficial candidates for allowing campaigns to degenerate into anarchy.[66] In the Haidian electoral district containing Beijing University, for example, 8,000 students nominated no fewer than 29 candidates for the two vacant seats to the district people's assembly; candidate support committees were organized, surveys were conducted, wall newspapers appeared, and a veritable election campaign was staged, replete with unrealistic campaign promises. In an electoral district containing 6,084 voters, public discussion meetings allegedly involving 20,000 people were convened in the halls, canteens, and classrooms.[67] One of the successful candidates, a Beijing University graduate student (in philosophy) named Hu Ping, was met by CC charges of having precipitated a "Cultural Revolution–style movement" when he tried to assume his seat in the Haidian People's Assembly. As of the spring of 1982, he was still living in a dormitory on campus "waiting for placement." In Changsha, students at Hunan Teachers' College succeeded in nominating one Liang Heng as a non-Party candidate only after staging a hunger strike, "rioting," and sending a protest delegation to Beijing. Liang's campaign was
[65] Brantly Womack, "The 1980 County-level Elections in China: Experiment in Democratic Modernization," AS 22, no. 3 (March 1982): 261–78. See also Womack, "Modernization and Democratic Reform in China," Journal of Asian Studies 43, 3 (May 1984): 417–41; and Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1985).
[66] Press reports indicated that it would be wrong for leading cadres to blame the voters for electing the wrong representatives or arbitrarily to invalidate the electoral results, but if proper preparations were made doing so should not be necessary. If incumbents do not get placed on the candidate list they should do public self-criticism and ingratiate themselves with their constituency. Zhang Zeng, "Adopt a Correct View toward Failing to Get Elected," Nanfang Ribao , December 17, 1980, p. 3; Liu Xin, "Analysis of 'An Old Honest Fellow!'" ibid., December 20, 1980; Gen Niu, "In a Production Team Election, All Party Member Candidates Are Defeated," Dong Xi Fang [East and West] (Hong Kong), no. 24 (December 10, 1980): 18–20.
[67] Su Rong, "The Strange Record of Beijing's Cold Spring," ZM , no. 5 (May 1, 1981): 10–12; "Selections from the Political Views of China's New Generation of Politicians," QN , no. 3 (March 1, 1981): 68–82; Gong Bo, "Summary of the Student Election Campaign at Beijing University" (in "Letters from Readers" column), ZM , no. 42 (April 1, 1981): 87–90; Wei Ming, "Zhongguo xin yi dai de zhengzhijia" [China's new generation of politicians], QN , no. 2 (February 1981): 15–20.
ultimately unsuccessful, and Tao Sen, the central figure in the student protest, was subsequently arrested.[68]
In a speech on December 25, 1980, Deng Xiaoping complained bitterly about those who exploited the elections to make speeches attacking the Party leadership and the socialist system.[69] In early 1981 the official press began to fulminate against "ultra-democracy" and "dissidence," eventually leading to a general Party drive against "bourgeois liberalization." In a report published in September 1981 summarizing the electoral experience over the previous year and a half, Cheng Zihua, minister of civil administration and chairman of the National County Election Office, complained that a "tiny minority of people" had spread anarchy, conducted secret "linkups," expressed "outrageous and inflammatory views," and otherwise contravened the four basic principles. Cheng put forth a series of proposals for tightening up the Election Law that would transfer final power to determine lists of formal candidates to a new body not specified in the 1979 law, an "Electoral District Leadership Group." Such changes would presumably have the effect of precluding genuinely independent candidates from participating in the electoral process.[70] Moreover, the right to promulgate campaign propaganda was taken from the candidate and reposited in the election committee. The fact that a second round of national elections for representatives to county assemblies was held in April–May 1984 with minimal publicity tends to confirm apprehensions that the process has been eviscerated.
In sum, the mobilizational approach to mass involvement suffered a surprisingly swift and unsung demise, but transition to a participatory style still hangs in abeyance. In previous chapters we have contended that mobilization functioned most satisfactorily when the masses were motivated by an optimum mix of normative leadership and material incentives, though it could also be provisionally sustained by a plausible deferment of the latter. This mix was obtained only during the first decade of CPC rule. Completion of socialization of the means of production deprived the leadership of its cheapest source of material incentives, and the attempt to replenish these through hypergrowth failed. Mobiliza-
[68] Robin Munro, "The Chinese Democracy Movement, 1978–1982," unpub. paper, 1983.
[69] On the case of Liang Heng, see Zong Lei, "Hunan xuesheng zheng minzhu fan guanliao de xingdong" [Hunan student movement for democracy against bureaucratism], QN , December 12, 1980, pp. 19–20.
The CC also dispatched a directive forbidding newspapers and journals from publishing Hu Ping's writings. Because it published Hu's article on freedom of the press, Qingnian Wengao [Youth draft articles], published internally by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, came under criticism. Su Rong, "The Strange Record," pp. 10–12; "Selections from Political Views," pp. 68–82.
[70] Munro, "Chinese Democracy Movement," pp. 18–19.
tion revived in the Cultural Revolution by dint of fresh normative/political appeals, but when these extravagant promises could not be kept the rhetoric lost credence; in any case, the leadership found it to be dangerous and unpredictable to mobilize the masses with so little control over their movement. Mobilizational efficacy declined steadily during the late Cultural Revolution, as elites sought in various ways to control and direct the movement to their own ends, without offering to replenish the fund of material incentives or providing a credible, fresh, or broadly appealing normative vision. In the post–Cultural Revolution period, additional material incentives became available through the reallocation of funds from investment to consumption, but these incentives were linked to production rather than mobilization, as modernization usurped priority. The democracy activists offered a compelling normative vision, which was, however, deemed intolerably threatening by bureaucratic elites. Only mobilization against negative targets remained viable, and it proved impossible to ensure that the demands and grievances thereby evoked would be delivered to the authoritatively stipulated address (scapegoat) without damaging spillover (of which more later).
The transition to a participatory mode has heretofore been inhibited by two deeply ingrained propensities. On the one hand, bureaucratic elites seem no less paralyzed by "fear" than when Mao lambasted this "mental encumbrance" in days of yore, tending to panic at the first sign of disagreement. Democracy Wall aroused anxiety, so it was replaced by elections, which could be more easily controlled; but cadres also felt uneasy at the tendency for electoral campaigns to get out of hand. From the elite perspective it remains difficult to open any forum to mass participation (and thereby engender the support and feedback still deemed necessary) without running unacceptable risks of losing control, and there is a consequent tendency to "Procrusteanize" participation. On the other hand, the masses continue to exhibit a "breakthrough" mentality, giving rise to two tendencies: a flagrantly hyperbolic rhetoric, which sharpens rather than conciliates differences; and the propensity to treat every concession as an opening for additional demands, so that the slightest "spark" of political entitlement can easily start a "prairie fire" of rising and eventually unfulfillable expectations. It is still too early to tell whether some form of meaningful mass participation will survive the Scylla of mass anarchy and the Charybdis of an empty formalism.