ABSTRACT
In Chinese reformers’ minds, the communist party was therefore to promote entrepreneurship. But entrepreneurship requires freedom of decisionmaking, responsibility to one’s own program, and ownership of the means of production, all taboos in the communist world. The contradiction in terms between loyal party member and independent entrepreneur is the source of a basic dilemma that the reformers face and are trying to solve by whatever misapplied reform measures. The willingness to give up power alongside with the realization of the necessity of dispersing control leads to a crisis of authority. In 1987, when the Thirteenth Party Congress met to decide the final measures of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, the key speech on these reforms was given by Deng’s successor, Zhao Ziyang, by then confirmed as general secretary of the Central Committee of the party. The whole problem of reforming the political structure is thus in an experimental stage.
