PSU Magazine Spring 1989

in the Soviet Union and China Extraordinary economic and social changes are taking place in China and the Soviet Union. For the first time anywhere, scholars from these countries and the U.S. meet at PSU to discuss these historic transformations. By Neil Brady T he Soviet Union has withdrawn from Afghanistan and announced that it will reduce its military manpower by 500,000 men over the next two years. In China, "to get rich is glorious" is an official Communist Party slogan and peasants now sell 18 percent of their harvest on the free market. "We are racing toward convergence of the socialist and capitalist systems," said Lewis and Clark Professor Rick Stielman, speaking at last month's conference at PSU on "The Transformation of Social– ism in the Soviet Union and China ." "Five years from now socialism may not even exist." "There is no need to worry," replied Alexander Nagorniy, a fellow panelist from the Soviet Academy of Sciences. " I assure you [Professor Stielman] that in five years socialism will still be around and you will still have your job." (Portland writer Neil Brady is taking classes at Portland State and teaching English as a second language.) Frank exchanges such as these typified last month's conference at PSU on the changing face of socialism. Organized by Dr. Mel Gurtov, director of international studies and professor of political science at PSU, the conference brought distin– guished Soviet, Chinese, and American scholars together for the first time anywhere to discuss the reforms. Gurtov, who is an expert on interna– tional politics with Asia, said the idea for the conference originated a little over a year ago. "There seemed to be three good reasons for a conference such as this : 1) it was an extremely interesting topic; 2) no one else seemed to be doing it; and , 3) discussions about China and the Soviet Union tend to be focused on the arms race. We wanted to delve more deeply in– to the two societies." As the conference date approached and Moscow announced that Gorbachev would travel to Beijing in mid-May for the first Sino-Soviet summit since 1959, the PSU conference took on an added significance. Gurtov said, "Some of the Chinese par– ticipants said to me that this conference was important not only as an exciting ex– change of ideas but that it was also part of a diplomatic warming taking place be– tween China and the Soviet Union ." For the 1,100 spectators who attended over a four-day period , the conference provided a unique opportunity to dig behind the daily news media's somewhat superficial view of these reforms (i.e. "Gorbymania") and to see what is actual– ly happening in two countries where Tl percent of the world's population (1.4 billion people) resides. T o understand last month's discus– sion at PSU, it is necessary to place both countries' " reform movements" in their proper historical contexts. When Deng Xiaoping initiated his economic modernization program in 1978, China was emerging from the tumultuous era of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Per capita food consumption had stagnated at the same low level for the past 19 years and the Chinese popula– tion was disillusioned with life under the Communist Party leadership. PSU 11