Saturday, May 5, 2007 JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing

Party told to winnow out non-Marxist members

The Communist Party should decide at its 17th congress to ditch members who do not truly believe in Marxism or risk seeing the party become a mere instrument for the protection of vested interest groups, according to a prominent scholar.

The call from Liu Fuyuan , former vice-president of the National Development and Reform Commission's (NDRC) Macroeconomic Research Academy, is a sign of rising frustration among scholars about social inequality and the party's quiet departure from Marxism despite insisting it remains communist.

"Capitalism is not scary. What is scary is to take capitalism as socialism and confuse people's beliefs," Mr Liu wrote in Strategic Choices for the Communist Party of China, an 81-page paper urging the party to initiate reforms at the congress later this year.

"If anyone in our party has discovered any new ideas that keep up with the progress of time and are better than Marxism, that would be a special contribution to humanity and he should openly declare it. Why should they confuse people by wearing Marxism as a jacket?"

He said the party should not only tell people publicly whether the mainland was pursuing capitalism, it also should retain its own characteristics without becoming an instrument of vested interest groups.

"If we truly believe class struggle is history, we should have the courage to dismantle the Communist Party," Mr Liu said. "But if people turn it into a party that encompasses all people, it is denying the characteristics of a political party."

He said members of a political party should not exceed a certain proportion of the population or it would no longer be a political party but a loosely organised association.

"Among our working population of some 800 million, there are more than 76 million Communist Party members, making up 9.5 per cent of the working population," he wrote.

"There is one Communist Party member for fewer than 11 people and the party is on the verge of losing the characteristics of a party."

Mr Liu urged the party to reregister all its members and persuade those who did not believe in Marxism to give up their membership.

"If all our Communist Party members truly believe in Marxism, how can it be possible to have so many corrupt people?" he said.

In an earlier interview, Mr Liu said he believed only about one-fifth of party members met the requirements and would be able stay if the proposal was adopted. He also urged the party to spend more than half of the wealth created by society on social welfare and condemned vested interest groups inside the party for their resistance to reforms.

Mr Liu warned that if the party failed to take action to drive these people out, the future of the party and the country would be bleak.

"With the extraordinary wisdom of the Chinese people, we don't even need a colour revolution, the rulers of the country will be changed."