Why did Maoism crash and fail, then become capitalism in China?

[Adi Shankara]

I really don't know. I'm trying to figure out what happened.

Was it the failure of the Cultural Revolution? Was it Mao's death? I know Maoism didn't just end and all of a sudden *poof* capitalism, but I'm trying to figure out what made such a Maoist society like 1960's-1970's China turn into what we have today.

Any suggestions?

[Cyberwave]

It all depends on who you're asking and how they look at it. I would definitely attribute the cultural revolution to the failure of both Mao and Maoism itself. The cultural revolution allowed for those who had not developed class consciousness to participate, and thus many of the "masses" were using the revolution for some "adventurous opportunism," and the Party lost control of things. Compared to Hoxha's cultural-revolution it was much worse. This, and the attempts of New Democracy had their negative results.

Mao also made numerous mistakes in assigning his successor. First it was to be Shaoqi, but then he was labeled as a traitor for not supporting the cultural revolution. Then Biao was supposed to be next after Mao but he wanted to support the Soviets instead of the US and then just happened to die in a plane crash... Most importantly was the role Mao gave to Xiaoping, who was clearly a capitalist roader and revisionist (e.g. his support for Third Worldism) and a reactionary; he even himself admitted his reactionary nature and distance from the masses. Mao still let him join the high ranks of the party on numerous occasions, even after he had been expelled. Hua Kuo-Feng was also at one point chosen as Mao's successor and he was still a capitalist. Kuo-Feng ended up paying lip service to the Three Worlds Theory, pro-US policies, peaceful coexistence, and he even arrested the Gang of Four.

[F9]

Moved


It all depends on who you're asking and how they look at it.

This.

But just to throw my pov(the correct imo obviously), it had never gone away from capitalism to go back, but why it wasnt achieved? There are numerous reasons for a revolution and the road to communism try to fail, in the maoism case, the idea its just wrong and its doomed to fail each and every time.


Fuserg9:star:

[Coggeh]

I really don't know. I'm trying to figure out what happened.

Was it the failure of the Cultural Revolution? Was it Mao's death? I know Maoism didn't just end and all of a sudden *poof* capitalism, but I'm trying to figure out what made such a Maoist society like 1960's-1970's China turn into what we have today.

Any suggestions?
Capitalism didn't didn't just appear in China it was the failures of the maoist model and the oppurtunism and careerism inside the CCP of Deng Xiaoping and many others.

Also the isolation of the Revolution.

The peasant conciousness of the revolution and suscription to the Stalinist "Stages theory" is in my pov the key reason for its "degeneration" :in the late 20's for example ,by 1930, only 1.6% of the party membership were workers compared to 58% in 1927. The CCP's peasant orientation developed out of the terrible defeat of the 1925-27 revolution, caused by the ‘stages theory' of the Communist International under Stalin's leadership. This held that because China was only at the stage of bourgeois revolution, the communists must be prepared to support and serve Jiang Jieshi's bourgeois Nationalist Party (Guomindang).

With a genuine Marxist policy, the overthrow of the Guomindang could almost certainly have been achieved more quickly and less painfully. From September 1945, following Japan's military collapse, until late 1946, workers in all major cities staged a magnificent strike wave, with 200,000 on strike in Shanghai. Students too poured onto the streets in a nationwide mass movement that reflected the radicalisation of society's middle layers.

The students demanded democracy and opposed the Guomindang's military mobilisation for the civil war against the CCP. The workers demanded trade union rights and an end to wage freezes. Rather than give a lead to this movement the CCP applied the brakes, urging the masses not to go to ‘extremes' in their struggle. At this stage, Mao was still wedded to the perspective of a ‘united front' with the ‘national bourgeoisie' who should not become agitated by working class militancy.

The students were merely used as a bargaining chip by the CCP to exert pressure on Jiang to enter into peace talks. The CCP did its utmost to keep the students' and workers' struggles separate. The inevitable laws of class struggle are such that this limitation of the movement produced defeat and demoralisation. Many student and worker activists were swept up in a wave of Guomindang repression that followed. Some were executed. A historic opportunity was missed, prolonging the life of Jiang's dictatorship and leaving the urban masses largely passive for the remainder of the civil war.

In keeping with the Stalinist stages theory, in 1940 Mao wrote: "The Chinese revolution in its present stage is not yet a socialist revolution for the overthrow of capitalism but a bourgeois-democratic revolution, its central task being mainly that of combating foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism" (Mao Zedong, On New Democracy, January 1940). In order to achieve a bloc with the ‘progressive' or ‘patriotic' capitalists, Mao limited the land reform (as late as autumn 1950 this had been carried out in only one-third of China). Also, while the businesses of ‘bureaucratic capitalists' - Guomindang officials - were nationalised immediately, private capitalists retained their control and in 1953 accounted for 37% of GDP.

Now im gonna gtfo before alastair comes and shouts at me again :(

[Blake's Baby]

The revolution in China failed to produce socialism because socialism will be imposed by the world working class, not a revolutionary clique, on a global scale, not in one country, even a big one.

[Cyberwave]

The revolution in China failed to produce socialism because socialism will be imposed by the world working class, not a revolutionary clique, on a global scale, not in one country, even a big one.

The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that socialism in one country are capable of achieving great things. China failed for it's incorrect stances taken on Marxism-Leninism, and because of Mao's inherent opportunism, not because of "permanent revolution vs socialism in one country." Plus in further regards to Trotsky, he didn't particularly contribute to commenting on China in any realistic, concrete manner to my knowledge.

[Zanthorus]

China failed for it's incorrect stances taken on Marxism-Leninism, and because of Mao's inherent opportunism

This is probably the biggest load of idealist tripe I've ever read. Revolutions don't fail because of "incorrect stances" or the opportunism of the leadership.

[Cyberwave]

This is probably the biggest load of idealist tripe I've ever read. Revolutions don't fail because of "incorrect stances" or the opportunism of the leadership.

Idealist tripe? It's idealist to assume that all revolution should be taken on an international scale which totally disregards that countries don't necessarily develop in the same way.

Yes, incorrect stances did play a role in the problems. The cultural revolution was an incorrect stance, for example, and we see how that played out. New Democracy as well for example. As for Mao's opportunism, this affected the future leadership as I showed by Mao being unable to choose a proper successor. Mao was also rather inconsistent and would ally himself with the Nationalists once, then end it, then again, then end it... Inconsistency was factored in as well.

[Zanthorus]

Idealist tripe? It's idealist to assume that all revolution should be taken on an international scale which totally disregards that countries don't necessarily develop in the same way.

Why does that matter? Capitalism is an international system with international crises. National peculiarities come into it but they don't affect the dynamic of capitalism as a whole. The Russian Revolution for example was not just isolated to a single country. It was part of a wave of revolutionary events that affected several countries most notable in events such as the German November revolutions and Spartacist uprising and the biennio rosso in Italy.


The cultural revolution was an incorrect stance,

Massive historical events cannot be reduced down to and explained by "incorrect stances".

[Lyev]

China failed for it's incorrect stances taken on Marxism-Leninism, and because of Mao's inherent opportunism, not because of "permanent revolution vs socialism in one country." Plus in further regards to Trotsky, he didn't particularly contribute to commenting on China in any realistic, concrete manner to my knowledge.Firstly, whilst I am neither a Maoist, nor am I willing to apologise for every single one of his mistakes, it's fundamentally un-Marxist and just plain wrong to pin the failure of the communist movement in China on the failings of one person, i.e. Mao, but in fact, anyone else for that matter. "Great men" do not make history; it is the proletariat, the vast majority of the population of any given country, that are the only true vessel for change, and making things happen. I don't think one of the world's largest countries can have it's failures all attributed one single person.

Secondly, as regards the second part there in bold, Trotsky wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on the development of the proletariat in China and how they act in relation to the peasantry, and also imperialism, as far as I know. Here (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/china/index.htm) is nine different pieces of writing, written between 1927 to 1938, analyzing events at the time in China.

[Delenda Carthago]

The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that socialism in one country are capable of achieving great things. China failed for it's incorrect stances taken on Marxism-Leninism, and because of Mao's inherent opportunism, not because of "permanent revolution vs socialism in one country." Plus in further regards to Trotsky, he didn't particularly contribute to commenting on China in any realistic, concrete manner to my knowledge.

yes.Albania is the place to be.:laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Cyberwave]

Why does that matter? Capitalism is an international system with international crises. National peculiarities come into it but they don't affect the dynamic of capitalism as a whole. The Russian Revolution for example was not just isolated to a single country. It was part of a wave of revolutionary events that affected several countries most notable in events such as the German November revolutions and Spartacist uprising and the biennio rosso in Italy.

It matters when Trots blast the idea of socialism in one country while misunderstanding their own idealism.



Massive historical events cannot be reduced down to and explained by "incorrect stances".

No, but in the case of the cultural revolution specifically, had Mao either taken a different method, or abandoned the theory altogether the results wouldn't have led to such negative consequences. Incorrect stances have also determined historically whether or not a country was socialist (East Germany for example, where it ultimately became more "consumerist socialist"). Incorrect methods factor into this as well.

[Cyberwave]

Firstly, whilst I am neither a Maoist, nor am I willing to apologise for every single one of his mistakes, it's fundamentally un-Marxist and just plain wrong to pin the failure of the communist movement in China on the failings of one person, i.e. Mao, but in fact, anyone else for that matter. "Great men" do not make history; it is the proletariat, the vast majority of the population of any given country, that are the only true vessel for change, and making things happen. I don't think one of the world's largest countries can have it's failures all attributed one single person.

Secondly, as regards the second part there in bold, Trotsky wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on the development of the proletariat in China and how they act in relation to the peasantry, and also imperialism, as far as I know. Here is nine different pieces of writing, written between 1927 to 1938, analyzing events at the time in China.

I'm not pinning the entire failure on Mao, but his decisions to enable Xiaoping to remain in power obviously helped weaken what socialistic bases China had developed under Mao. You are correct to say that nothing should be attributed to one man specifically, but often times one man's influence has a great effect on the other "capitalist roaders."

Well, I probably made it sound like Trotsky didn't write a lot on China, which I apologize for. But I still retain that he didn't particularly make any great suggestions on China and even more annoying, some supporters of Trotsky asserted that Mao's victory in 1949 was "proof of permanent revolution."

[Zanthorus]

It matters when Trots blast the idea of socialism in one country while misunderstanding their own idealism.

What is "idealist" about believing that socialism cannot be built in one country within the international division labour which forces countries constantly back to the world market and forces the logic of capitalism back onto them?

[Adil3tr]

Why is this only philosophical? In the eighties and ninties the government wanted to change their economic system so they set up Special Economic Zones. Multi nationals poured in for the tax breaks and cheap labor. Now the corrupt apartus is riding the wave of success. Their keeping the dictatorship and the intensly capitalist system.
WOOOHOOO! China is fascist now!

[RED VICTORY]

Comrades,comrades.....can't we really just take this back to Marx. When he explained that society must evolve and before socialism and communism we must first have and advance capitalist state;there must be a real working class. We can blame the leadership or oppurtunism in China or the Soviet Union for that matter but we can be a little more basic right?


Check out this lecture: http://www.radio-rouge.org/Users/resistancemp3/mao_&_the_chinese_revolution.mp3

many conflicting viewpoints in this lecture+Q&A

[F9]

The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that socialism in one country are capable of achieving great things.

For who?The people, or the ones in charge and their state?If we are talking about the second, it achieved a lot of things i agree, but for the first i can only..:lol:

[Adi Shankara]

For who?The people, or the ones in charge and their state?If we are talking about the second, it achieved a lot of things i agree, but for the first i can only..:lol:

Just an interesting observation, but I notice no one ever mentions communist Romania as an paragon socialist state; I don't know too much about it to be honest, but I'm imaging it fell the same way the PRC and USSR did?

[Blake's Baby]

The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that socialism in one country are capable of achieving great things...

Apart from the facts that it wasn't socialism, and it wasn't great, I completely agree.

So in my version your sentence would read

"The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that one country are capable of achieving things..."

and then apart from the weird grammar it would be perfect.

[Barry Lyndon]

IMHO, two things doomed the construction of socialism in China:
1) The huge CIA-backed massacre of the Indonesian Communists in 1965 by General Suharto, which deprived the People's Republic of badly needed allies. I would go so far as to say that this had roughly the same effect on the Chinese Revolution that the defeat of the Spartacist uprising had on the Russian Revolution-the failure of the revolution to spread led to the triumph of a conservative bureaucracy at home.
2) The defeat of left-wing Red Guards and workers militias during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-69. Comrade Alastair has pointed out elsewhere that Mao and his allies made a serious error when they refused to root out bourgeois restorationist elements in the People's Liberation Army, out of fear that to cause that chaos in the ranks of the military while war with the Soviet Union loomed would be suicidal. This enabled the PLA to crush the workers militias in places like Shanghai and elsewhere and left no strong political force to combat Deng Xiaopeng and his allies from taking China back down the capitalist road in the 1970's and into open alliance with US imperialism.

[Blake's Baby]

Don't forget the Shanghai Massacre in 1927, when the Kuo Min Tang, having been backed by the Comintern against the advice of the young CCP, massacred the Shanghai workers and executed their leaders. This really is rather more like the massacre of the Berlin Rising, in that it dealt a death-blow to the Chinese Communist Party and snuffed out the revolutionary flames that licked all the corners of the world from 1917-27.

[Cyberwave]

For who?The people, or the ones in charge and their state?If we are talking about the second, it achieved a lot of things i agree, but for the first i can only..:lol:

The people achieved much progress themselves. The nations were modernized, health-care improved, blah blah blah. There were of course plenty of workers councils and workers rights in each, and in 1930 alone the Party of the Soviet Union was comprised of 65% working class for example. I advise you to read more about Stalin or join the Marxist-Leninist group for more info.



Apart from the facts that it wasn't socialism, and it wasn't great, I completely agree.

So in my version your sentence would read

"The Soviet Union and Albania should be proof enough that one country are capable of achieving things..."

and then apart from the weird grammar it would be perfect.

Well, you'd be write to say that socialism wasn't fully achieved, but Lenin, Stalin, and Hoxha were on more correct paths. And it was through their socialistic mode of production that industry was able to rapidly expand and these countries modernized. There were of course mistakes made, but unlike Mao, their mistakes weren't necessarily as costly.


What is "idealist" about believing that socialism cannot be built in one country within the international division labour which forces countries constantly back to the world market and forces the logic of capitalism back onto them?

Read 'Trotskyism or Leninism' by Harpal Brar.

[thatwhichisnt]

Easy answer to the OP. If there is a state, then it will fall to corporate corruption.

[Zanthorus]

Read 'Trotskyism or Leninism' by Harpal Brar.

Since I'm not a Trotskyist (Trots aren't the only ones who oppose "socialism in one country" garbage) I don't think I will.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Easy answer to the OP. If there is a state, then it will fall to corporate corruption.

So the State acts under a natural order? Yep, bullshit.

[thatwhichisnt]

So the State acts under a natural order? Yep, bullshit.
Until I see otherwise that is my conclusion.

[Coggeh]

Well, you'd be write to say that socialism wasn't fully achieved, but Lenin, Stalin, and Hoxha were on more correct paths.
To quote enemy at the gates:
"Don't bring our glorious leader into your treachery! CONFESS!, SPY BASTARD! CONFESS!

[Cyberwave]

Until I see otherwise that is my conclusion.

There remains a big difference between a workers state and a capitalist state, and furthermore, your point just comes off as anarchist nonsense without any real explanation. A state is necessary for communism to be reached, but of course it will be abolished once it is.

[Uppercut]

I don't think it's fair to say the Cultural Revolution philosophy led to the restoration of China. In addition to what Barry_Lyndon said, after the Great Leap Forward, there were two lines of thought within the party. Liu's idea was that the grassroots cadres and workers were corrupt and that measures had to be taken from above to fix bourgeoise ideology from resurfacing. Mao's idea was that the grassroots were innocent and were only following orders from above. The Cultural Revolution's purpose was to encourage the masses to adopt new values and social relations and to let them participate in the struggle against corruption.

So why did Deng return to power then? Well if you ask me, it's very similar to what happened in the USSR after Krushchev's Secret Speech. A small coup within the party took place and Deng was rehabilitated, promising even greater economic advancement and "openness".

[Barry Lyndon]

I don't think it's fair to say the Cultural Revolution philosophy led to the restoration of China. In addition to what Barry_Lyndon said, after the Great Leap Forward, there were two lines of thought within the party. Liu's idea was that the grassroots cadres and workers were corrupt and that measures had to be taken from above to fix bourgeoise ideology from resurfacing. Mao's idea was that the grassroots were innocent and were only following orders from above. The Cultural Revolution's purpose was to encourage the masses to adopt new values and social relations and to let them participate in the struggle against corruption.

So why did Deng return to power then? Well if you ask me, it's very similar to what happened in the USSR after Krushchev's Secret Speech. A small coup within the party took place and Deng was rehabilitated, promising even greater economic advancement and "openness".

This is where I part company with Maoists. I think there was a genuine counterrevolution in China in the 1970's, because it involved the bloody repression of Maoist forces and was followed up by a full-blown restoration of capitalism in the next 10-20 years.
No such thing happened in the Soviet Union in the 1950's. No major changes in the economic structure occurred, and there was virtually no political or social upheaval. When it comes to when capitalism was restored in China, I think Maoists have the right answer, and when it comes to the USSR, I think orthodox Trotskyists have the rights answer(ie the final collapse in 1991).

[Paulappaul]

There remains a big difference between a workers state and a capitalist state, and furthermore, your point just comes off as anarchist nonsense without any real explanation. A state is necessary for communism to be reached, but of course it will be abolished once it is.

Workers' States are characterized by the State owning the means of production and directing it in a Socialist Fashion. Even the ideal Workers' state expounded by State Socialists implys that with regards workers, their conditions will not be so different from their conditions under Capitalism. Lets take G.D.H Cole for example, who says that under his form of State Socialism, coined "Guild" Socialism, that there will be,


no reason to suppose that socialisation of any industry would mean a great change in its managerial personnel” (p. 676 in An Outline of Modern Knowledge ed. By Dr W. Rose, 1931).

Anton Pannekoek, a Marxist, sums up very clearly the problem with this type of Socialism,


Under public ownership the workers are not masters of their work; they may be better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not receive the full produce of their labor; a considerable part must always be spent on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other purposes. Under public ownership this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia bureaucracy as the ruling class is master of production and produce, and the Russian workers are an exploited class.State Socialism naturally reproduces the same class system and cannot wither away to communism. It can only be replaced by similar forms of exploitation as done in Russia and now China under it's Capitalistic Reforms.

Marx didn't believe in a Workers' State. Refusing a Workers' State is not "anarchist nonsense" when really it's deeply embedded in the entire theory of Marxism which was inspired by Anti-State Socialists i.e. Proudhon. After all Marx is the person who said, "The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery"

The examples of China has only further proved that this theory of a Workers' State isn't Marxism at all, but Fabian and Leninist mush doomed to repeat itself because so much of the Socialist movement is sold to it. It's further proved that a Socialist State can lead to equal if not more forms of Exploitation, as shown in China. With this kind of mentality the movement in China was always doomed to fail.

[Cyberwave]

“When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not “abolished”. It withers away.”

The workers state is more influenced by the people themselves, however. Democracy is applied, workers councils, and so forth. To wish for immediate ends to the state is idealism, and would prove detrimental to socialism. I suggest, if you have not, to read Lenin's 'The State and Revolution.'

And plus, I don't consider China to have been a socialist state.

[Paulappaul]

Engels is also the person who said,


...The Free people's state is transformed into the free state. Taken in its grammatical sense a free state is one where the state is free in relation to its citizens and is therefore a state with a despotic government. The whole talk about state should be dropped, especially since the commune, which was no longer the state in the proper sense of the term.

and later,


We should therefore propose to replace the word State everywhere by the word Gemeinwesen (German for Commune)

If you read State and Revolution I am pretty sure Lenin mentions this, or he does at least mention it in his notebook with regards to Marx and Engel's theory of the state.

The Commune does not constitute State, it's form of government which supersedes the existing Government which is the State. Anarchists believe in Government, they don't believe the State. There is critical difference in these two terms, which I would suggest looking up.

Furthermore, now knowing that the State is the Commune, your quote from Engels is radically different. Taking the means of production and placing it in the hands of the State really means transforming Private Property to Common Property not Private to Public. This idea comes straight out of Marx's Conspectus of Bakunin when he says,


Bakunin: Will the entire proletariat perhaps stand at the head of the government?

Marx: In a trade union, for example, does the whole union form its executive committee? Will all division of labour in the factory, and the various functions that correspond to this, cease? And in Bakunin's constitution, will all 'from bottom to top' be 'at the top'? Then there will certainly be no one 'at the bottom'. Will all members of the commune simultaneously manage the interests of its territory? Then there will be no distinction between commune and territory.

Bakunin: The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government?

Marx: Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune.

Bakunin: The whole people will govern, and there will be no governed.

Marx: If a man rules himself, he does not do so on this principle, for he is after all himself and no other.

Really your point is void. Eliminating the State is not detrimental to Socialism, IT IS SOCIALISM. The Lower phase of Communism (which you call Socialism, but Marx refrained from calling so) is not a Workers' State.

[Uppercut]

No such thing happened in the Soviet Union in the 1950's. No major changes in the economic structure occurred

The Kosygin reform in the 60s.


and there was virtually no political or social upheaval

There was actually a protest in Georgia against de-stalinization in 1954 or 55, in which martial law was declared. News of the event didn't reach any other area until it was thoroughly suppressed.