The Evil · Part I — The Nature of the Evil

PART FOCUS
THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION. This Part advances a cyclical model: “evil appetite supplies the motive — false doctrine supplies the justification — the gangster organization supplies organization and violence — and power, in turn, rewards the more evil.” It does not essentialize any category of person; rather, it studies which personality dispositions, which permissions of thought, and which organizational choices reinforce one another in the absence of the rule of law and free competition.

CORE ARGUMENT OF THIS PART. This Part studies not three separate faults but the formation, the nature, and the self-amplifying mechanism of the CCP's evil. First, the evil of evil men: it compounds the savagery of human nature (the law of the jungle, where the strong devour the weak), extreme private appetite, and the greed to possess and enjoy alone, with the “thick-face, black-heart” tradition of China's imperial power — “all-under-heaven as private property” and the dynastic “family-owns-the-realm” succession — breeding political evildoers whose aim is to dominate all-under-heaven, to rule over others, and to hold power in perpetuity. Second, the evil of false doctrine: Marxism-Leninism exalts the false paradise of “utopia — communism” as a noble end and pairs it with violence and killing as the means, arming the minds of evildoers with historical inevitability, class struggle, and the dictatorship of the proletariat, so that private appetite is called a mission, the seizure of power is called liberation, and killing is called justice. Third, the evil of the gangster organization: the Leninist party — through secret conspiracy, an inside-versus-outside code, faithlessness and treachery, gang rules and house law, the blood-stained “loyalty pledge,” absolute obedience, and ferocious purges — organizes, disciplines, and arms individual evil. The evil party is precisely the multiplied amplification of the evil of evil men: the ferocious and vicious rise, while the upright are weeded out by adverse selection. The three evils are not added together but select, authorize, and amplify one another, compounding into a CCP evil capable of lying, plundering, persecuting, and killing over the long run — and of reproducing itself.

THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION. This Part advances a cyclical model: “evil appetite supplies the motive — false doctrine supplies the justification — the gangster organization supplies organization and violence — and power, in turn, rewards the more evil.” It does not essentialize any category of person; rather, it studies which personality dispositions, which permissions of thought, and which organizational choices reinforce one another in the absence of the rule of law and free competition.

THE DEMAND FOR VIVIDNESS. Part I must not rest at an abstract theory of human nature; every concept must be connected to the words and deeds of leaders and cadres, to the privileges of their daily life, to organizational rewards and punishments, to the experiences of those who were humiliated, and to primary source materials that can be seen or heard directly.

I. The Evil of Evil Men. Human nature is not evil alone; but when savagery, greed, envy, vengefulness, and the lust to dominate go unrestrained by religious ethics, social self-governance, the rule of law, and the ballot, and are joined to the imperial tradition of “all-under-heaven as private property,” boundless monarchical power, the submission of subjects, and dynastic succession, there arise political evildoers who treat the seizure of power, sole possession, and the enslavement of others as the very measure of a successful life.

II. The Evil of False Doctrine. Marxism-Leninism furnishes the evildoer with a grand and closed system of explanation: it promises a false paradise, proclaims historical inevitability, divides the classes into friend and enemy, glorifies violent revolution, and licenses the dictatorship of the proletariat. The evildoer's private appetite is thereby dressed up as a cause of liberation, and deception and killing are explained as instruments of justice.

III. The Evil of the Gangster Organization. The Leninist party builds its gang through secret conspiracy, an inside-versus-outside code, the supremacy of the organization, absolute obedience, gang rules and house law, and “the Party commands the gun.” Toward outsiders it may keep no faith, winning strength through united front work, promises, and disguise; toward public morality it may hold no obligation, sacrificing the nation and the people to the organization's interest; in its methods it is cunning, and in purges and repression it is ferocious.

IV. The Compound of the Three Evils. The evildoer actively seeks out a doctrine that can justify his appetites; the doctrine in turn selects the evildoers most willing to struggle and to sacrifice others; and the gangster organization then rewards the obedient and eliminates the upright with power, interest, fear, and violence. The three amplify one another as a multiple, not a simple sum: individual evil appetite becomes the organizational line, the organizational line becomes the institutions of the state, and those institutions produce still more cynicism, informing, cruelty, and submission.

V. The Nature of the CCP's Evil. Its core is not any single mistaken policy but the placing of the survival, power, and interest of the Party and its leaders above life, truth, law, the nation, and the people; when the two collide, the people may be deceived, sacrificed, and punished, history may be rewritten, and responsibility may be shifted elsewhere. The crimes recorded in Chapters 4–24 are the concrete unfolding of this compound of three evils once it has entered the machinery of the state.