Hu Jintao and the Dead Body of Party Language

Hu Jintao tirelessly repeats the same jargon that each generation of Party leaders did in the past. This is due partly to Hu’s education and the environment he grew up in.
Hu Jintao and the Dead Body of Party Language
1/10/2012
Updated:
1/13/2012

Around the time of the new year, various world leaders gave speeches. In December, at Osawatomie, Kansas, President Obama said, “In America, we are greater together—when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share.”

Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou said, “Let freedom, democracy, justice, civilization, and the flame of compassion continue in the heart of the next generation.”

Hu Jintao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) said, “Raise high the banner of Chinese-style socialist ideology, and use the thoughts of Deng Xiaoping and the Three Represents [the ideological contribution of Jiang Zemin] to deeply ensure scientific development.”

Hu Jintao tirelessly repeats the same jargon that each generation of Party leaders did in the past. This is due partly to Hu’s education and the environment he grew up in.

In the Oct. 6, 1964, issue of People’s Daily, there was an article that quoted the speech of Tsinghua University student Hu Jintao. In a short speech of a few hundred words, the 22-year-old Hu Jintao mentioned “wise Chairman Mao,” and “great Mao Zedong thought” 11 times. Especially impressive was the sentence, “We have to completely eliminate the dark exploitative systems from the face of the earth.”

His background gives some help in explaining why Hu is really unable to speak like leaders of normal countries, people like Obama or Ma Ying-jeou. But a deeper explanation is needed.

The book “Dissolving the Party Culture” discusses how language is used by the CCP.

People use language to remember things, exchange information, pass on experience, and educate younger generations. Language is part of culture and is also a carrier of culture.

After the CCP seized power, it viewed traditional Chinese culture as the biggest obstacle to its rule.

As part of the CCP’s efforts to destroy traditional Chinese culture, it has used propaganda, the educational system, newspapers, radio, TV, and movies, as well as Party meetings, documents, and political movements to create countless new words and new forms to express its own Party culture—the replacement for China’s traditional culture. Dictionaries, text books, and other tools have been used to standardize these expressions of Party culture.

The Chinese people today live their everyday lives through the language created by the CCP, but they are completely unaware of it. Many actually believe the language used now is the result of natural development.

But through decades of totalitarian rule and propaganda, the CCP not only changed the Chinese people’s way of thinking, but also forcefully changed the Chinese language.

Party talk is actually a political dialect.

Party talk serves as an identifier. CCP members can judge whether someone is part of the CCP and the degree of recognition the person has toward the CCP through the individual’s speech.

From this point of view, not only Hu Jintao, but all CCP leaders speak such Party talk in public settings. If they don’t, they are not viewed as “one of us” (CCP members), which might bring an end to their political careers.

For example, Wen Jiabao frequently expresses some views without using Party language. While this hasn’t ended his political career, he has already alarmed and offended other CCP members.

On Jan. 1, 2012, the CCP party magazine Qiushi published the article “Correctly View the Moral Conditions of Our Society.” This article anonymously criticized Wen Jiabao for saying that China is experiencing “moral decline.” It was the fourth time Wen’s views on moral decline had been criticized in the CCP media.

As long as the CCP exists, Party talk—just like the picture of Mao hanging in Tiananmen Square or the mummified remains of Mao himself will continue to exist.

On Oct. 31, 1961, the body of Stalin was removed from the tomb of Lenin. Soldiers threw the body in a pit at one corner of the Kremlin. The whole process took just a few minutes.

I think, in the near future, the body of Mao will be thrown away by the Chinese people, with no more regard than was given Stalin’s body.

The CCP’s Party talk will then be thrown away along with it.

Read the original Chinese article.

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