TURMOIL IN CHINA: Protests For Democracy : ‘It Is the New Generation’s Turn,’ Democracy Wall Veteran Says : China Activist of ’79 Wishes Current Crop Well

The large wallposters, the marches and chants, the fists in the air are all familiar to Guo, a frustrated engineer turned second-hand clothes salesman and a veteran of a failed attempt to alter China’s political system.

Guo, 42, views the current democracy effort in Beijing as unfinished business--and perhaps a kind of vindication for activists like himself who once tried to push political reform early in post-Mao China.

Guo participated in the 1979 Democracy Wall campaign, which, like the current Beijing spring, seemed poised to upset China’s seemingly unshakable Communist Party Establishment. But he is not taking part in the youthful and so-far short-lived Cantonese version of Beijing’s pro-democracy agitation. His last experience, 10 years ago, was painful, and he views this one as being too risky for him to go out on the streets again.

“It is the new generation’s turn,” Guo told a reporter visiting his shabby apartment in a monotonous block of low buildings on Canton’s south side. “I hope they have better luck. But sometimes, we seem to be like a flea riding an elephant.”

Pasted-Up Demands

Democracy Wall got its name from a block-long stretch of wall on Changan Avenue, Beijing’s main east-west boulevard, where activists pasted up their demands and denunciations of human rights abuses to be read and debated by eager passers-by.

The movement was initially urged on by Deng Xiaoping, China’s aging top leader, who at the time was locked in a power struggle with Maoist conservatives who opposed his plans for a more market-oriented economy.

The enthusiasm and spread of the Democracy Wall movement to other parts of China helped Deng oust his rivals in China’s ruling circle. But once he was securely in charge, Deng labeled the democracy activists reactionary and anarchistic. Important leaders of the movement were put on trial and jailed.

In Beijing, the best-known victim of the crackdown was a young electrician named Wei Jingsheng; in Canton, it was Wang Xizhi, a worker in a cod liver oil factory. Both are still imprisoned.

Guo, who claimed no greater role for himself in the Democracy Wall activity than as a street organizer, was arrested and jailed for six months. He is not surprised that Deng is leading a campaign against the new wave of pro-democracy demonstrations.

Strengths, Weaknesses

“Deng Xiaoping took the movement he created and turned it upside down. Why should he not oppose a movement that he has nothing to do with?” Guo asked.

Guo views the new democracy agitation as having certain strengths that the Democracy Wall movement lacked--and certain weaknesses that have so far kept it relatively confined.

In Canton, for instance, the pro-democracy movement has produced only two major demonstrations, and students have now returned to classes, awaiting the outcome in Beijing.

“The students in Beijing are very brave. I am amazed at what they do openly,” Guo said. “The students are smart. Maybe this is why they have been able to go so far. They are intellectuals, the best of the country. They are not like us. We were crippled by lack of education, and no one felt we had to be preserved for the country’s future.”

During the Democracy Wall era, Guo worked in a foundry. His formal education, like that of millions of others, had been mangled by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, when young Red Guards, urged on by competing political factions, took to the streets for almost a decade.

By contrast, many of today’s Beijing protesters are the product of the newly competitive and upgraded Chinese educational system, which for the past 15 years has known relative stability.

Guo makes a living buying clothes from a cousin in Hong Kong and selling them in the crowded street markets in Canton, which, under China’s open economic policies, is a city of impressive hustle.

In his tiny apartment, a few remnants of the heyday of Democracy Wall decorate the dingy walls: a photograph of a march, another of Wang Xizhi together with French reporters, a scrap of a poster with the characters for “freedom.”

Stirring Moments

He recalled stirring moments even in defeat, especially the famous tract on Marxism and democracy that was posted in Canton by Wang and his comrades as well as the self-defense of Wei Jingsheng in court. Wei gave a stirring lecture to the court on the rights of the Chinese under the law.

“The Goddess of Democracy is attracting attention,” Guo said, in reference to the Styrofoam-and-plaster statue erected by art students in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square. “But I don’t know exactly what the students want. Is it enough to say down with the leadership?”

Guo noted that the demonstrations in Canton, which ended last week, were mere reactions to the Beijing turmoil. “They could not stand on their own for lack of ideas,” Guo said of the local students.

“We, on the other hand, were believers in communism. I was a Red Guard. We believed in the ideals of equality and in the socialist system,” he continued, his voice rising with what seemed like an echo of an earlier fervor.

He sat back in his chair and reconsidered. “We tried to work within the system. We were always asking the Communist Party to reform itself. These new students seem not to care at all about the party. Perhaps they are right. Caring about the Communist Party did not save us at Democracy Wall.”