Claude Arpi
Niti Central
April 9, 2014
Last month, The Beijing Daily, a Chinese language paper, published an article on ‘how to use beautiful words to promote socialist China’.
The article suggests that China should promote ‘good stories with beautiful words’ to support the Marxist theory and respond to those who criticise ‘China’s socialism with the Chinese characteristics’.
One of the ‘theoretical issues’ that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must solve is the problem of ‘faith’; the Communists are often criticised for their position on faith. The best explanation to offer, says the article, is that atheism is also a faith. In other words, ‘atheist Marxism’ should be preached in the Middle Kingdom’.
But it is not that easy to convince even hard-core Communists that ‘Marxist faith’ is a religion.
Take Bapa Phuntso Wangye (also known as Phunwang), the veteran Tibetan Communist leader, who often dared to criticise Beijing’s hard-line policies towards Tibet. He passed away on March 29 at the age of 91. His son, Phunkham told Reuters: “He left this morning. Before his death, he was a Communist Party member. After his death, we have invited lamas to pray (for his soul) according to traditional Tibetan culture.”
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Though Phunwang was the founder of the Tibetan Communist Party, he chose Buddhist funeral. His biography, ‘A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phunwang Wangye’ recounts the remarkable life of the young Communist who participated in the so-called ‘liberation’ of Tibet. Phunwang was born into a middle-class farmer family in the small town of Batang in the Kham province of Eastern Tibet. At that time, Batang was ruled by Liu Wenhui, a Chinese warlord from Sichuan.
A significant incident marked his school days. A friend of his father, Kesang Tsering, an official of the Guomindang regime tried to overthrow Liu Wenhui to establish a self-ruled Kham province. The attempt badly failed but it brought Phunwang into contact with a new social philosophy, ‘Three People’s Principles’ of Sun Yatsen. Soon after, Phunwang started studying Marx, Hegel and Lenin. His readings convinced him to start the first association of Tibetan students in Nanjing which led to his expulsion from the military institute he had just joined; his dream was to organise a revolutionary movement in Eastern Tibet.
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During the following years, he attempted to set up a movement to unify the different parts of Eastern Tibet. Due to his ‘revolutionary’ activities, he had to take refuge in Lhasa, where he spoke to several aristocrats and influential people of his vision of a new Tibet: “The key of Tibet’s future was major reform of her political system,” he told his biographer.
He tried to enroll young educated Tibetans who ‘wanted a change’ and started an association called Tibetan People’s Unified Alliance. At that time, he was careful not to say anything about his Communist links.
In 1944, Phunwang visited India to contact the CPI; he wanted the support of the Indian Communists, but he was told that ‘the time had not come’ to carry out a revolutionary movement in Tibet. He returned to Eastern Tibet and tried once more to organise a rebellion, went to Lhasa, but he was expelled from the Tibetan capital in July 1949. Soon after, the tide changed in China; one province after another fell under Communist control and on October 1, Mao declared the People’s Republic of China. Phunwang decided to found the Chinese Communist Party of Kham and the Tibetan Border Area affiliated to the CCP.
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In September 1951, when the PLA entered the Tibetan capital, Phunwang rode with 2 Chinese generals in front of the troops. Between 1951 and 1954, he worked hard to make the Tibetan Government accept the fait accompli: Tibet was a Communist province of China. When the Dalai Lama visited China for a few months (in 1954/1955), Mao ordered Phunwang to accompany the Tibetan leader everywhere.
An interesting story about Phunwang is worth quoting Phunwang: “One day, Mao unexpectedly came to visit the Dalai Lama at his residence… During their conversation, Mao suddenly said, “I heard that you have a national flag, do you? They do not want you to carry it, isn’t that right?” Phunwang further recalled: “Since Mao asked this with no warning that the topic was to be discussed, the Dalai Lama just replied, “We have an Army flag.” I thought that was a shrewd answer because it didn’t say whether Tibet had a national flag. Mao perceived that the Dalai Lama was concerned by his question and immediately told him, “That is no problem. You may keep your national flag.” Mao definitely said ‘national’ flag.
The Chairman added that in the future the Communist Party could also let Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have their own flag. He then asked the Dalai Lama if it would it be fine for him to host the national flag of the People’s Republic of China in addition to the Tibetan flag. Phunwang says that the young Lama nodded his head and said ‘yes’: “I was amazed to hear it” later wrote Phunwang.
Modi makes China feel the heat His mind immediately started racing: “As I had always paid great attention to the Soviet Union’s nationality model, I was excited because I took Mao’s comment that Tibet could use its own flag to mean that China was contemplating adopting the Soviet Union’s ‘Republic’ model.”
Phunwang realised that the innocuous remark of the Great Helmsman had far reaching consequences. Unfortunately, this has today been forgotten by the leaders of modern China.
During the next four years, Phunwang continued to work for the CCP as the main advisor for Tibetan affairs. His dream to see a modern and socialist Tibet in his life time seemed to be coming true when one day in April 1958, he was unexpectedly arrested and told that he needed to ‘cleanse his thinking’.
During the following 18 years, he was interrogated, tortured and jailed in the most atrocious conditions. The horror of these years cannot be described. He was accused of being a ‘local nationalist’. He spent 18 years in jail (including 9 years in solitary confinement). He was finally rehabilitated at the end of the seventies when Deng Xiaoping took over China. What is interesting to note is that he was a Communist during his entire life, but remained a Tibetan (and a Buddhist) in his heart and at the time of his death; his last wish was to follow the traditional practices.
Faith can’t be eradicated so easily.
