חוקר: השורשים של הקומוניזם הם מארגוני טרור סודיים

Political economist Chenggang Xu grew up in Mao's China, beaten and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. Today, he's a Stanford scholar and the author of the new book, Institutional Genes. Xu told American thought leaders Jan Jekielek that Beijing has long deceived the world about its true intentions. NTD's Daniel Monaghan reports. Political economist Chenggang Xu says the nature of the Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally different from conventional political institutions. The Chinese Communist Party is actually a part of the Soviet Union Communist Party. So it's a historical fact that it was created by Soviet Union. And from the very beginning of establishing the Chinese Communist Party, it followed all the basic principles, the basic rules of the Soviet Communist Party. According to Xu, the Communist Party isn't a political party in the true sense. He points to Max Weber's definition, which describes political parties as voluntary groups competing for votes and power. A Communist Party does not allow other organizations to exist. So it controls all organizations, it's not within, it's above. So all the organizations have to be controlled by the Communist Party. And also, it's not voluntary. So entering and exiting from the party, these are not voluntary. A Communist Party is a secretive political organization from the very beginning, till today. In his book, Institutional Genes, Xu traces the Communist Party's roots to secretive terrorist groups. The so-called Communist Party is a creation of Lenin. But actually, Lenin didn't really create such an important institution from scratch. Instead, Lenin inherited these principles from those terrorist organizations. A leading example is the organization called People's Will. The People's Will Party, they call themselves terrorists. And their core strategy is using terrorist approach to achieve their political goals. Xu says Lenin and all the main founders of the Bolsheviks were originally from those secretive terrorist organizations. He says that is why Lenin could successfully reconstruct all the principles inherited from the existing terrorist secretive organizations into principles for communists. The political economist says the brutality of the Communist Party comes from two major sources. One source is the idea that there exists only one truth, the truth to prevail. For the truth to prevail, you have to eliminate everything wrong. That ideology, according to Xu, is key because it provides justification and legitimacy. The other part, he says, is in practice, with a whole structure based upon the secretive terrorist organizations. There is a tradition to eliminate your political rivals. So your political rivals become enemies. So they will not allow for the existence of anyone who is going to disagree. Within this kind of structure, the fight for political power is a brutal life and death struggle. Xu points to Stalin's great purges in the Soviet Union, China's cultural revolution, and today's anti-corruption campaigns as examples of that ruthless continuity. And Xu warns the danger is growing. He says China is no longer hiding its strength. With rapid military expansion and a shift toward a semi-military economy, Beijing is signaling its intent to project power abroad. Ignoring this, he says, could have fatal consequences. Daniel Monaghan, NTD News.