Despite the sensitivity of the human rights issue in the late 1970s, there nonetheless existed some important differences among establishment intellectuals. In the essay translated here, Lan Ying presents a relatively liberal, for want of a better word, view on human rights, and was even so bold as to openly criticize Xiao Weiyun and the others writing in the Party mouthpiece, Hongqi [Red Flag], for which see the previous selection. Lan Ying argues that the historical origin of human rights should not be held against it and denies that the bourgeoisie has a monopoly on the idea. Nor does the fact that some people had used the slogan of human rights to attack the government undermine the value of human rights as such. Lan Ying argues that the proletariat can also make use of the language of human rights, claiming that it is possible to formulate a Marxist conception of human rights. But such a humanistic interpretation of Marxism was still very rare among intellectuals at the time. Lan Ying and other more liberal establishment intellectuals did not dispute that human rights problems had continued to exist in China after 1949. They emphasized, however, that it was the feudal tradition that was to blame, rather than socialism. The horrors of the Cultural Revolution were thus attributed to the feudal thinking of the Gang of Four. Lan Ying’s article is a rather rare and early example of an affirmation of human rights and attempt to dress it in a socialist garb, but by 1982 the official discourse had generally begun to affirm and support human rights. By then, the previously ignored international human rights developments since 1948, and especially the fact that human rights included economic and social rights and the right to self-determination, came to be acknowledged and found to be acceptable to socialist China. As Lan here already suggests, human rights will come to be regarded as a useful tool in the struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism.
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