Lü Dewen, Strengthen the Grassroots

Lü Dewen, “If the ‘Grassroots’ are not Solid, Everything Starts to Waver”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Lü Dewen (b. 1981) is a sociologist at Wuhan University who works mainly on issues in rural governance (see here for more information on Lü in Chinese).  He sometimes writes for the general public, and I have perused some of his work when looking for commentary on rural issues.
 
The text translated here first appeared on Lü’s WeChat channel, “The New Gentry/新乡土,” and was subsequently republished on the Protect Marxism/保马 feed, which, as the name suggests, is devoted to the propagation of Marxist ideas from around the world.  All media in China are compelled to follow the rules fixed by the Party-State, but this does not mean that all sites are avowedly Marxist (it is perhaps telling that when I sought to find Baoma’s website—I usually read it on WeChat—Google led me instead to BMW China).  Baoma also republished Zheng Ge’s piece, which originally appeared on the more mainstream Beijing Cultural Review.
 
Lü Dewen’s piece caught my eye because it is much more openly political than most of what I read (I do not spend a lot of time on Baoma).  The title, chosen by the Baoma editors, is a slight variation on a 2013 speech by Xi Jinping on Party-building (“If the Foundation is not Solid, Everything starts to Waver 基础不牢 地动山摇), and the text itself recycles themes like “red and expert” which are generally associated with Maoism and particularly the Great Leap Forward, and focuses on “grassroots organizations,” seemingly suggesting that if Party-mass ties were stronger, locked-down buildings in Shanghai would be able to manage the pandemic on their own, as if fighting a guerilla war. 
 
I personally do not find Lü’s arguments convincing—in fact he seems to contradict himself several times in a relatively short piece—but it is nonetheless interesting to see how the stresses of the pandemic can inspire political nostalgia for the good old days of Maoism.  I saw precious little of such nostalgia in translating the reflections of Shanghai young people on their experience of the lockdown.
 
Translation
 
Grassroots! Grassroots! Grassroots!  Epidemic Prevention in Shanghai
 
Shanghai is the city with the most modernized urban governance system and the most governance capacity in China. The effectiveness of their work to control the pandemic over the past two years proves that Shanghai has earned this title. But the problems revealed in the most recent wave have left people perplexed. Two years ago, the central authorities pointed out that the epidemic was a major test, a proposition that still holds true. Much remains to be done to repair the shortcomings, plug the holes, and strengthen the weak spots recently revealed. 
 
Normal governing capabilities are not the same as emergency response capabilities. Generally speaking, when conventional capacities are strong, the emergency response will be as well. After all, both are built on the accumulation of governance resources, the functioning of the institutional mechanisms of governance, and on the quality of the leaders.

But there are two sides to everything. More often than not, the more effective the normal governing capacity, the stronger its inertia as well, which means that the institutional cost of switching to emergency response mode will also be higher.  In the case of the current wave, the fact that Shanghai was slow in resolving to shift to a "whole government—whole society" prevention and control strategy is partly due to the fact that the prior strategy has become the norm, leading to a certain institutional inertia. Objectively speaking, the problems in in controlling the present wave are related to the characteristics of Omicron, which require a much more urgent response, but we should not overlook the proper place of the strategy of “precise control” within the policy of  "dynamic zero."
 
The highest form of governance is self-governance by the masses. The highest form of warfare is guerrilla warfare, in which almost every guerrilla group and guerrilla soldier can fight independently and flexibly according to the actual situation and the agreed on strategy. If we compare epidemic prevention and control to warfare, the highest form of prevention and control strategy is self-governance by the masses. Each residential neighborhood should be able to practice self-management, self-service, and consciously meet the needs of fighting the epidemic. Sadly, not even a city like Shanghai can do this.
 
Grassroots organizations are not like people hired to manage a store. For many years, there has been a systematic misalignment of grassroots organizations. The reason we see that neighborhood committees are unable to organize and mobilize the masses to fight the pandemic, and instead chafe at the administrative pressure they are under, is that the daily work of the committees is to provide services and complete administrative tasks assigned by their superiors. If they do not organize and mobilize the masses or a regular basis, and do not carry out self-governance activities with the masses, then in the critical situations, the masses will be a sheet of loose sand.[2]

In an climate where grassroots organizations are seen as agents of a service-oriented government, and where government services are generally farmed out to "hired managers," even basic government functions do not work, to say nothing of higher-level self-governance by the masses.  It is no wonder that exquisite egoists[3] and "social babies" proliferated during the epidemic.
 
The State Council's general policy of "dynamic zero," a mechanism for both the prevention and control of the pandemic, stands firm.
 
The key is to elevate the bureaucratic level of prevention and control. If there is an epidemic at the county level, the city should take the lead in setting policy; if there is an epidemic at the city level, it should be the province; if there is an epidemic at the provincial level, it passes to even high levels. Elevating the  bureaucratic level of prevention and control is not only to better deploy resources, but more importantly, to break local routines, so that the conventional system can transform itself into an emergency system more rapidly.

When higher-level leaders take charge, this also serves to build consensus and unify command strategy. In terms of tactics, guerrilla warfare is rooted in independence and flexibility, but in terms of strategy, it requires conscious obedience to the overall situation. If at the command level there is no clear strategic policy, or if the commander is nowhere to be seen, then there is no way for the grassroots to grasp the policy guidelines for epidemic control, which means that the results on the ground will be a mess.
 
We most adhere to principle of being both "red and expert." Fighting the epidemic requires both science and politics, and the two are not opposed to one another. In concrete practice, "red and expert" is the basic principle. Fighting the epidemic requires the implementation of public health policy, which relates to lives and safety of the masses, which is something they care a great deal about. Especially in today's highly polarized society, where different people have different interests and positions, arriving at a high level of consensus is what politics is all about. 

At the same time, matters such as how to implement the “four earlies” [early detection, early reporting, early isolation, and early treatment],[4] how to ensure supplies, and how reassure the public are all matters for experts. We should correctly understand the idea of “letting experts take care of matters for experts.”  On the one hand, it means that in the process of fighting the epidemic, the government should follow expert principles and avoid some practices that go against science and expertise. On the other hand, it also means that experts should follow professional principles, and do their utmost not to make missteps in areas that fall outside of their professional expertise. In terms of concrete individuals and tasks, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of expertise under the guidance of epidemic control guidelines.
 
During the Hubei epidemic in 2020, the poverty alleviation task force was transformed into the epidemic prevention task force on the spot.
 
Grassroots governance should return to the basics. In the past few years, everyone has been talking about the grassroots, trying to find ways to improve grassroots governance or to renew grassroots governance. This is an ok gesture, but it is just posturing, most of the “innovation” winds up being a pain in the butt and a waste of resources, so it does not mean much. In particular, we should be wary of practices claiming to aim for "higher, bigger, and more," in which the core of interaction of the Party and the masses becomes like a five-star hotel, where a bunch of temporary workers are hired to provide “services” to the masses,  and the experience of governance if packaged as a form of “outsourcing,” and some kind of cool technology makes everything “modern.” 

​"Parkinson's Law"[5] exists at the grassroots level as well, and all cadres, even at the lowest level, want to have foot-soldiers and projects and resources to carry them out, but if leaders only talk a good game, it’s no surprise they wind up detached from the masses. If we take epidemic prevention and control as a yardstick, the best performances are definitely not observed at the top, but in the poor and backward rural areas. In the 2020 Hubei epidemic, some mountainous counties such as Enshi and Shiyan, transformed their poverty alleviation task force into a epidemic prevention task force, a kind of "shock troop," on the spot, which was simple, efficient, and practical. In this sense, the developed regions have to learn from the backward regions in terms of grassroots governance.
 
Notes

[1]吕德文, “基层”不牢 地动山摇,” published online on the 保马/Protect Marxism site on April 7, 2022. 

[2]Translator’s note:  Lü is of course quoting Sun Yat-sen.

[3]Translator’s note:  This expression originated with Professor Qian Liqun's (b. 1939) criticism of the glibness of certain Chinese university students:  “Some of our universities, including Peking University, are currently training ‘exquisite egotists,’ who are sophisticated, worldly, thoughtful, good at playing a role, good at fitting in, and even better at using the system to pursue their own goals.  By exquisite egotists, I mean egotists who have been skillfully dressed up or even disguised.”

[4]Translator’s note:  The “four earlies” apparently goes back to the campaign against SARS.  See here (in Chinese).

[5]Translator’s note:  The idea that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."