For Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city, the script was incendiary. Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou’s central square, where they tipped over government vehicles, pummeled policemen and set fire to city hall.
Minor street quarrel provokes mass riot. The Communist Party, obsessed with enforcing social stability, has few worse fears. Yet the Wanzhou uprising, which occurred on Oct. 18, is one of nearly a dozen such incidents in the past three months, many touched off by government corruption, police abuse and the inequality of the riches accruing to the powerful and well connected.
“People can see how corrupt the government is while they barely have enough to eat,” said Mr. Yu, reflecting on the uprising that made him an instant proletarian hero – and later forced him into seclusion. “Our society has a short fuse, just waiting for a spark.”
Though it is experiencing one of the most spectacular economic expansions in history, China is having more trouble maintaining social order than at any time since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. [China’s ‘Haves’ Stir the ‘Have Nots’ to Violence]
Isn’t Communism supposed to produce a classless society where everyone works for the common good ?
As we have noted before, the lofty ideals of Marx are not digested easily by common people and hence violence has to be used.
