What the Chinese people say about communism & the current economy

[The Vegan Marxist]

What the Chinese people say about communism, the economic rising star and a rapidly changing society
Monday, October 11, 2010

These are turbulent days in China. Last week the dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize. In coming days the Communist Party leadership will decide on a five-year plan that will steer the world’s second biggest economy during the next half decade. What do Chinese people make of the changes that have swept their country?

ZUO WENLIN

Born in 1946, comes from Beijing, and is a retiree

What are your hopes for the future?

“I hope I can be as healthy as possible, I don’t want to have any problems with my body because I can’t afford to pay for a hospital. I want my life to be peaceful and simple.”

What does communism mean to you, and is China a communist country?

“Communism has always been an ideal for us – when I was young we sang songs ‘Communism is paradise’. I cannot say China now is a communist country, but it is still on the way to becoming a communist country. I believe the ‘route’ of the party hasn’t changed, and ultimately it will reach that goal.”

What would you change about China if you could?

“I think I would try to reduce the balance between rich and poor, since now the gap is too huge.”

YU QING

Born in 1964, comes from Beijing, and works as a gate-keeper

What are your hopes for the future?

“I just want an ordinary life like other people, peaceful and joyful, have a cozy family, happy. Not too good, not too bad.”

What do you think of the government?

“It’s hard to say . . . Can I say average? It’s good in helping to build up society, but some problems like corruption are very serious at the same time.”

Do you think foreigners understand what is happening in China?

“No, they don’t understand, because what you see from the media is not what you can see from reality. Unless they come to China, otherwise they don’t know what is happening in China now.”

XIANG DONG

Born in 1968, heads a private company

What do you think of the government?

“Not so good, but not so bad. I mean the government is good, but there are some officials that are not so good.”

What does communism mean to you, and is China a communist country?

“Communism was my dream when I was young, and is still my dream. I don’t want to call China a communist country, I prefer to call it capitalist socialist country!”

What are your fears for the future?

“I fear that with this rapid growth in economy and power, some Western countries would try and stop us. I remember that once President Obama made a speech, saying that if all the Chinese people have the same standard of living as us, the world cannot afford that. I know he is talking about China’s population, but I’m angry with his words. Why can’t Chinese people have the same living standard as you? Why?”

What would you change about China if you could?

“Me? Hahahaha, to me the Chinese government is too weak in some ways. I want a China with more respect from the whole world, a stronger and more powerful China.”

YUAN NING

Born in 1972, white-collar worker for a foreign company in Beijing

How do you think people see China outside China?

“I think they don’t know so much, or maybe they don’t care so much. When I lived in Japan, the people I encountered don’t even care so much about their own government.”

What does communism mean to you, and is China a communist country?

“I have no feeling that it is. I think even Communist Party members don’t talk about communism now. China is a socialist country to me.”

What kind of China do you want your children to live in?

“I want my children grow up in a foreign country.”

Do you think foreigners understand what is happening in China?

“No . . . I mean, they don’t understand deeply. China is such a complexity, that even Chinese people cannot say they know everything about China.”

LIU ZHAN

Born in 1982, office worker

What have been the best changes? And the worst?

“The best and the worst changes are work-related, because I learned how to get along with people, how to help others, since I’m the single child of my family. My character changed a lot after starting work. In the meantime, I also started to learn about imperfections in society, and I’m not naive anymore.”

What are your hopes for the future?

“I don’t want too many material things because I know there is no end to that. I want a simple life, with a peaceful heart, and a healthy body.”

What are your fears for the future?

“The gap between the rich and poor, and the economic pressures of life. More and more young people like me do not want to raise a child now, even though it would cause us another problem that when we get old there will be no one to take care of us.”

Do you think foreigners understand what is happening in China?

“Even Chinese people cannot say they know everything about China, it’s complex.”

HAN XIAOTAO and CUI XIAONA

Born in 1981 and 1982, are migrant workers, selling meat in a market. They come from Xingtai in Hebei province

What have been the biggest changes during your lifetime?

“Coming to Beijing from our home in the countryside.”

What have been the best changes? And the worst?

“Coming here, because we got out of the countryside, and have a brand new start in this city. But it also brought us some serious problems, like the education of our kid. He cannot enter in those schools here except if we pay a terribly high entrance fee, which we are unable to afford.”

What are your hopes for the future?

“That my kid gets the same chances as other kids living here in Beijing.”

What are your fears for the future?

“Economic pressures. We borrowed a great amount of money from others to open this little shop selling meat in this market. Till now, we haven’t earned back the money we’ve spent. Life in the city is not easy at all, and everything is expensive.”

What would you change about China if you could?

“Equal rights between cities and the countryside.”

PU QIOG CI REN

Born in 1980, is a Tibetan singer working the Tibetan bars in Beijing

What have been the best changes? And the worst?

“Coming to Beijing I think. I’ve already been here for seven years now. The worst time was at the beginning when I’d just arrived, I didn’t know anyone.”

What are your hopes for the future?

“I want to sing my Tibetan songs, and let more people hear them because they are originally from Tibet and they are gorgeous.”

What do you think of the government?

“The government is okay, I mean it gave a lot of economic support to places in Tibet, built the roads and did a lot of construction. I think people’s lives in Tibet are going much better now than before.”

What does communism mean to you, and is China a communist country?

“For all Tibetans, Buddhism is our religion. So communism is another religion to us. I think yes, China is a communist country.”

What are your fears for the future?

“I’m kind of afraid of going back. My future life will be back in Tibet, but if I cannot go back to that kind of life, that would be a problem for me.”

CHEN YIDAN and ZHANG SHIYUN

Born in 2000, and are both primary school pupils. Chen came from Shanxi, Zhang is from Beijing

What have been the best changes? And the worst?

“When the exam results go better, it’s the best change, but when the scores are going down, it’s the worst.”

What are your hopes for the future?

Chen: “I want to become a diplomat!”

Zhang: “I want to become a famous singer. A superstar!”

How do you think people see China outside China?

“Yes, we have two Korean classmates now, and before we also had two American classmates. One of them is our best friend, and we play together everyday in school!”

Do you know communism? Do you know the Communist Party?

“We don’t know communism. We know the Communist Party!”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1011/1224280783852.html

[RedStarOverChina]

A very interesting read.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I find it interesting on how those of the oldest in China state that China is still Socialist, is still on a road to Communism, but also fear the growing gap between the rich & the poor, showing fear of the Chinese economy. Of course, views such as this doesn't sit too well for people like the ISO, anarchists, or most Maoists (except for the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries that is).

[Nolan]

They think it's socialist because they don't have any clue what socialism is.

[La Peur Rouge]

but also fear the growing gap between the rich & the poor, showing fear of the Chinese economy.

Not trying to pick a fight here, but why is there a gap (and a growing one, at that) between the rich and poor in a so-called socialist country?

[Crux]

I find it interesting on how those of the oldest in China state that China is still Socialist, is still on a road to Communism, but also fear the growing gap between the rich & the poor, showing fear of the Chinese economy. Of course, views such as this doesn't sit too well for people like the ISO, anarchists, or most Maoists (except for the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries that is).
Except for the Maoists who are actually waging revolution? Are you sure about that?

Anyway, it's natural that those older would be more inclined to view China as socialist sometimes old opinions die-hard, so to speak. I have met many old social democrats that say they are for socialism, for example. There is of course also the question what content you fill socialism with. That some of the interviewed seem to feel that the end-goal, communism, has been forgotten is telling. That all bring up the class differences as an issue (as well as the issue of countryside versus cities) is also of course very interesting. That this "doesn't sit well" with marxists that are not of the Hu Jintao brand such as yourself, is of course slightly preposterous, and reveals some of your own shallowness when looking at facts.

[Queercommie Girl]

Actually in China itself it is the Maoists who are active like the MCPC/CCP(M) that is calling China today "completely capitalist" while most intellectual Maoists still partially support the Chinese state.

I think the PRC today is a semi-deformed worker's state semi-state-capitalist state. While one certainly cannot deny the existence of some elements of socialism in China today, no matter how deformed, it is also a mistake to consider China today as a deformed worker's state in the classical sense (i.e. a post-revolutionary state that still has majority public ownership, comprehensive public welfare, low-level economic inequality and the only thing missing is effective worker's democracy), because in 2002 there was a huge turning point: big capitalists were allowed to explicitly join the Chinese Communist Party. This never happened in the USSR, not even on the eve of its complete dissolution. The fact that big capitalists are now explicitly a part of the ruling bloc in China is clearly a sign that the country must be at least partially state-capitalist (ruled by bureaucratic capitalists - combination of "big business" and "big government") in the direct and explicit sense. It's no longer just the existence of revisionist and corrupt socialist bureaucrats within the planned economy system, it's actually real explicit bureaucratic capitalists that are partly running China today.

Also, at least half of the Chinese economy is now privately owned, and although China's public welfare still beats the amount of welfare found in developing countries of a similar level of economic development, it's nothing compared with the "iron rice bowl" of the Maoist days.

[Thirsty Crow]

They think it's socialist because they don't have any clue what socialism is.
No, really, how could a society, that is plagued by a widening gap between the rich and the poor, be on the right road for communism?
It's beyond me, it really is.

[penguinfoot]

While one certainly cannot deny the existence of some elements of socialism in China today, no matter how deformed

Of course you can deny this - and, by the way, for Trotsky a workers's state was not the same as socialism, it was a way of describing a society that was in the middle of the transition from capitalism to socialism, and in the case of deformed and degenerated workers' states (keeping in mind that Trotsky never used the first term and actually predicted that the USSR would not be able to survive WW2 in its pre-war form) meant societies that had become "stuck" between socialism and capitalism for one reason or another. Whether you see socialism as existing in China or not largely depends on how you go about defining socialism, if you believe that socialism is the same as state ownership of the means of production in judicial terms then it is perfectly fine to argue that there is something socialist or progressive about China because the most important sectors of the economy in the form of industries like energy and heavy industry are generally still under the firm control of the state, just as the state still exercises control over the value of China's currency, but if, on the other hand, you reject a definition of this kind, and say that socialism is actually about the empowerment of working people, in such a way that labour ceases to be alienated and human beings exercise power over the products of their labour and the labour process rather than the other way around, then it becomes much harder to say that there is anything resembling socialism in China today, because the workers of China are still engaged in alienated labour - and it cannot be otherwise when China is integrated into a global economic system that imposes the law of value on producers through the forces of economic competition.

[Queercommie Girl]

Of course you can deny this - and, by the way, for Trotsky a workers's state was not the same as socialism, it was a way of describing a society that was in the middle of the transition from capitalism to socialism, and in the case of deformed and degenerated workers' states (keeping in mind that Trotsky never used the first term and actually predicted that the USSR would not be able to survive WW2 in its pre-war form) meant societies that had become "stuck" between socialism and capitalism for one reason or another.


Actually for Trotskyists there is no real "socialist" state until capitalism is overthrown globally, so regional "socialist" states are always just "worker's states", including the original USSR after the 1917 Revolution under Lenin and Trotsky himself.

Lenin and Trotsky never believed in an overnight transition from capitalism to full socialism, let alone communism. A worker's state in the long-run will not be able to totally transform into a fully socialist state unless revolution happens on an international scale. Regional "socialisms", especially those in backward countries, are almost inevitably going to degenerate at some point, like what happened in Russia itself.

So there is actually nothing negative about the term "worker's state" at all, as if it's a state that is not "socialist enough", because every post-revolutionary regional state starts off as a "worker's state" (including the USSR itself after October 1917) and a "socialist state" cannot arrive until capitalism is abolished completely across the entire world. The only negative connotations are associated with deformed/degenerated worker's states.



Whether you see socialism as existing in China or not largely depends on how you go about defining socialism, if you believe that socialism is the same as state ownership of the means of production in judicial terms then it is perfectly fine to argue that there is something socialist or progressive about China because the most important sectors of the economy in the form of industries like energy and heavy industry are generally still under the firm control of the state, just as the state still exercises control over the value of China's currency, but if, on the other hand, you reject a definition of this kind, and say that socialism is actually about the empowerment of working people, in such a way that labour ceases to be alienated and human beings exercise power over the products of their labour and the labour process rather than the other way around, then it becomes much harder to say that there is anything resembling socialism in China today, because the workers of China are still engaged in alienated labour - and it cannot be otherwise when China is integrated into a global economic system that imposes the law of value on producers through the forces of economic competition.


There is certainly reason to believe that China today still has some remanents of the "deformed worker's state". A worker's state is defined as a state that has majority public ownership, a planned economy and monopoly of foreign trade, comprehensive public welfare and low-level income inequality. If there is effective worker's democracy, then it is a healthy worker's state, on the path towards socialism and communism, if there is no effective worker's democracy, then it's a deformed worker's state. In China today a full scale counter-revolution, the qualitative change back into capitalism, has yet to occur, and compared with developing countries of a similar level of economic development, there is still more public ownership and even public welfare in China. It's still a semi-deformed worker's state semi-state-capitalist state, not a fully state-capitalist state.

[Nolan]

The fact that big capitalists are now explicitly a part of the ruling bloc in China is clearly a sign that the country must be at least partially state-capitalist

Does the boat have to be on the bottom of the ocean to be sunk?

[the last donut of the night]

I find it interesting on how those of the oldest in China state that China is still Socialist, is still on a road to Communism, but also fear the growing gap between the rich & the poor, showing fear of the Chinese economy. Of course, views such as this doesn't sit too well for people like the ISO, anarchists, or most Maoists (except for the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries that is).

Funny you say that, because those views don't sit very well with reality.

[Queercommie Girl]

Does the boat have to be on the bottom of the ocean to be sunk?

Technically the "boat" hasn't completely gone below the river yet.

I recognise that the technical definition of China as "semi-state-capitalist semi-deformed worker's state" is somewhat pedantic. In the practical sense I don't believe the "sinking of the ship" can be avoided at all without a mass movement from below of some kind.

Yes, the "sinking of the ship" is inevitable, but technically it has not yet occurred.

[RED DAVE]

I find it interesting on how those of the oldest in China state that China is still Socialist, is still on a road to Communism, but also fear the growing gap between the rich & the poor, showing fear of the Chinese economy.Translation: China is increasingly private capitalist and these people are, rightfully so, scared.


Of course, views such as this doesn't sit too well for people like the ISO, anarchists, or most Maoists (except for the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries that is)."People like the ISO" have a perfectly adequate explanation for what is going on objectively in China: China is increasingly private capitalist.

As for the "the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries," cool. Except it is obvious from the program and action of these parties, especially in Nepal, that the "revolution" the Maoists are make is a state capitalist revolution. And you are in denial about it. You can't even admit that China now is capitalist. So how are you going to criticize the actions and program of a Maoist party that is establishing state capitalism somewhere else?

RED DAVE

[Nolan]

Technically the "boat" hasn't completely gone below the river yet.

I recognise that the technical definition of China as "semi-state-capitalist semi-deformed worker's state" is somewhat pedantic. In the practical sense I don't believe the "sinking of the ship" can be avoided at all without a mass movement from below of some kind.

Yes, the "sinking of the ship" is inevitable, but technically it has not yet occurred.

The entire economy is capitalist - not state capitalism, but the same capitalism we see everywhere else. Capitalists themselves are in the party and anticommunists hold power at the highest levels of government.

Now tell me, how the fuck is China socialist?

[The Vegan Marxist]

Except for the Maoists who are actually waging revolution? Are you sure about that?


Yes, I'm sure. I've talked to members of the UCPN (maoist), I believe PLA, & when I asked them what they think of the political relations the Maoists & China are gaining, they state that they think it's a good idea & hope to see more of this.

[gorillafuck]

What are your hopes for the future?

“I hope I can be as healthy as possible, I don’t want to have any problems with my body because I can’t afford to pay for a hospital.
TVM, you are a fucking raging idiot for posting this as proof of your opinion.

[Queercommie Girl]

The entire economy is capitalist - not state capitalism, but the same capitalism we see everywhere else. Capitalists themselves are in the party and anticommunists hold power at the highest levels of government.

Now tell me, how the fuck is China socialist?

Technically it is impossible for any state to be "socialist" today without completely abolishing capitalism world-wide, as Trotsky pointed out. There are just "worker's states" and "non-worker's states".

These things are never binary and black-and-white. There are always "transitional states" between the two, like deformed worker's states.

China today is in such a transitional state, objectively closer to capitalism than socialism. But a complete qualitative transition is impossible without a major and explicit social counter-revolution which essentially smashes most of what remains of the old deformed worker's state superstructure, like what happened to the USSR in 1991. Capitalism cannot transform "quietly" into socialism without a revolution, and socialism cannot transform "quietly" into capitalism without a counter-revolution.

Here is an article arguing for this point, from an orthodox Trotskyist perspective:

China – capitalist or not?

In a further contribution to our debate on China, Andy Ford poses the question ‘capitalist or not?’, examining the class character of the Chinese state. Recognising the enormous importance of developments in China, the debate was initiated in Socialism Today No.108, April 2007, "on the nature of the Chinese state and economy; on how long [China] can continue down this road; and to what final destination". So far, this exchange has included the following contributions: China’s future, by Peter Taaffe (No.108, April 2007); Can China be a new tiger? by Ron Groves (No.109, May 2007); China’s capitalist counter-revolution, by Vincent Kolo (No.114, December-January 2007-08); and The character of the Chinese state and China’s hybrid economy, by Lynn Walsh (No.122, October 2008). All are available on our website at www.socialismtoday.org (http://www.socialismtoday.org/)

THERE IS A widespread discussion amongst socialists as to whether China is now capitalist or is still a deformed workers’ state. This is an important discussion with different views. The debate is not sterile or arcane as it has implications for socialists’ approach to work in China.

The debate also has implications for the theory of ‘proletarian bonapartism’, advanced by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in the post-war period. This theory was a great achievement that allowed an understanding of developments in the neo-colonial countries such as Cuba and Vietnam. Marxism is a science and its theories should be kept logically consistent and capable of dealing with new developments. The recent changes in China are a new development requiring a Marxist explanation.

Trotsky’s theory of the state

THERE ARE MANY good reasons to still understand China as a deformed workers state, albeit one that is uniquely and extensively deformed. China has not yet gone through the transition to capitalism. We have to remember and build on Trotsky’s points in his article, The Class Nature of the Soviet State (1933): "Against the assertion that the workers’ state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, ‘gradual’, bourgeois counter-revolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counter-revolutions have never taken place ‘organically’, but they have inevitably required the intervention of military surgery.

"In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism has attained to theory, are always based on an inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to periods of counter-revolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism".

This is not to rely on dusty quotes from the archives against the reality facing us; it is to seek to understand reality using Marxist theory consistent with its history and development. Our analysis of China has to base itself on our previous descriptions.

To suddenly perceive a gradual transition from one form of society to another in China would be to throw out previous positions without acknowledging or analysing where or why these theories were in error. It is not really a serious way to proceed in any science.

Those who wish to describe China as capitalist today all use the same method. They start from the current picture, using numerous figures and estimates from bourgeois academic sources to show that China, now, this year, is capitalist. They then work backwards to try and identify a point of transition. Was it Tiananmen Square in 1989, or Deng’s speech at the XIV Party Congress in 1992, the incorporation of Hong Kong in 1997, or China’s accession to WTO in 2001, or even the passing of laws explicitly protecting private property in 2004? They prioritise present day impressions over historical analysis and understanding.

The case of China

CHINA WAS DEFORMED from the start. It started in 1949 from the model of Stalin’s Russia of 1945 not October 1917. As was said by our comrades at the time, nothing was left of the October revolution in Russia by 1949 except the nationalised planned economy and the monopoly of foreign trade.

As has been previously discussed, most of China’s progress from impoverished semi-colony to superpower was actually made under Mao, not in the recent development incorporating elements of capitalism. It was precisely this superpower status which gave China the independence from imperialism to undertake its path towards capitalism. Yet we should still regard China as a deformed workers state, but one in which capitalism has been let loose.

China is like a Soviet Union of the 1920s, but in which there is not even a residual element of workers democracy and with an uncontrolled New Economic Policy (NEP), which has been allowed to develop far beyond the NEP in 1920s Russia. Deng’s slogan for the peasants, ‘To get rich is glorious!’, was an echo of Bukharin’s slogan of the 1920s, ‘Peasants enrich yourselves’. Yet Russia in the 1920s was still a deformed workers state.
The NEP-type process in China has probably gone too far to be reversed, whatever the wishes of the bureaucrats of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But this does not mean that the country is capitalist now, although it is likely that a capitalist overturn is more or less inevitable in the future.
An interesting point in Peter Taaffe’s article (Socialism Today, April 2007) was that in China the working class has now experienced capitalism and the market, and therefore should be less likely to support a transition to full-blooded capitalism. In fact workers in China are increasingly fighting back against the nascent capitalists using the traditional weapons of working class struggle such as strikes and trade union organisation.
In the USSR Gorbachev attempted to combine Perestroika (restructuring) with Glasnost (openness), using elements of the market within the deformed workers state, only to be rewarded with a coup and eventual dismissal. The Chinese bureaucracy drew the conclusion from the coup and the subsequent disastrous restoration of capitalism that they had to proceed with ‘perestroika’, restructuring, but without the political reform of ‘glasnost’.

As a result the Chinese working class are having to wage an underground struggle against the restructuring of the economy, against the effects of the capitalist elements introduced by the bureaucrats. We see strikes, protests and nascent illegal trade unions.

Peter Taaffe introduced a very interesting and fruitful idea into the discussion – that in China we have two different compartments of the economy, with sectors of rampant capitalism co-existing with sectors of the planned economy.

The state itself is of a mixed character with capitalist elements co-existing with the deformed workers state; and so the working class has to adopt different methods of struggle depending on which element confronts them. In fact the two elements have co-existed in fully-fledged form in China since the re-incorporation of Hong Kong into the ‘People’s Republic’ in 1997. At that time the CCP proclaimed ‘One country, two systems’. Of course such an amalgam must be inherently unstable, but it has lasted for twelve years so far. It would be quite possible for a ‘Chinese Solidarity’ to be formed, hence the ferocious repression of those workers who do organise their workmates into illegal unions and protests against unpaid wages. But the state in China is still a deformed workers’ state not a capitalist one.
The main task of the Chinese workers therefore is a political revolution along the lines of Hungary 1956 or Poland 1980, and the task of Marxists is to assist this development.

On the other hand the task for those workers in China who find themselves in the capitalist compartment of the Chinese economy, such as workers in Hong Kong, is to organise for socialism and the expropriation of the capitalists.

There is nothing contradictory or eclectic in describing two elements in co-existence in one society. In Eastern Europe the events were a dual process – a political revolution developing dialectically in tandem with a capitalist counter-revolution.

Other countries also have elements of the different historical stages of society co-existing together. In India we can see hunter-gathering, slavery and feudalism all co-existing with capitalism. We have described India as a living museum of historical materialism. But the Indian ruling class is a capitalist class and it is a capitalist state.

In China capitalism co-exists with a deformed workers’ state; but the state is still ruled by the bureaucracy of the CCP. The question is which element predominates and which class controls the state. As the Chinese state is still a deformed workers’ state it is the demands and analysis of the political revolution which should predominate in the workers’ movement and in theoretical discussion of China.

Transition occurs by qualitative change, not gradual evolution

ON RUSSIA SOME have claimed that the transition to a capitalist state was accomplished gradually by a ‘cold transition’ and without forcible revolution.
On the contrary surely the transition in Russia was accomplished by a series of major events – the failed coup, the attack on the parliament, and the deposing of Gorbachev and break-up of the USSR – to make a qualitative change in the state. Because the state and the bureaucracy had so little support the transition can be seen as ‘cold’, especially when compared with October 1917, but a cold transition is completely different from a peaceful evolution.

It is not a question of the use of force itself in the transition but of its qualitative character. The state has to be reconstituted as part of the transfer of power from the hands of one class to another. In 1917 the revolution in Petrograd was almost totally peaceful. The overturn in Petrograd was followed by the assumption of state power by the Bolsheviks and the construction of a new state apparatus, which had been forged by the soviets in the months after February 1917.

A military struggle was not necessary in Petrograd because of the preparations made and the overwhelming strength of the working class, but the important thing is that the old state of Kerensky was dispersed and a new one formed. The qualitative step in Petrograd occurred almost without military force and could be described as a ‘cold transition’; but it was not a peaceful evolution.

Even so the initial overturn in Petrograd was accompanied by quite extensive fighting in Moscow, and then followed by a savage civil war, at the end of which capitalism had been overthrown across the USSR. A new state was constructed, with the leaders of the old state arrested or in exile.

We have seen no such events in China, and the state apparatus has remained of essentially the same character since 1949.

In summary, the Marxist theory of the state asserts that the state is always a class state, and serves the ‘economically dominant’ ruling class. Therefore a new ruling class has to create its own state, although the new state may incorporate elements of the previous state at the lower levels.
To suddenly assert that China has become a capitalist state without a social counter-revolution is to strip the Marxist theory of the state of its class content. It is to allow present day impressions to overrule proper understanding and explanation of the situation in China in its historical context.

A coherent Marxist reading of present-day China would describe it as a uniquely deformed workers state, with major capitalist elements growing and strengthening within it.

Chinese society is therefore heading towards a huge confrontation between the working class and the nascent capitalist class, in which the CCP will be destroyed or split apart. The important practical point then is that the workers’ movement, and our commentary on that workers’ movement, has to prepare for such a confrontation, because the transition has not yet occurred.

Those who believe it has occurred risk disarming the movement into believing that the decisive event has already happened.

[The Vegan Marxist]

TVM, you are a fucking raging idiot for posting this as proof of your opinion.

I never stated this is "proof" for my opinion on China, so don't fucking assume. I posted this to show the viewpoints of others that actually live within China, differentiating in ages, on what they view of China, Communism, & the current economy.

[Queercommie Girl]

The entire economy is capitalist - not state capitalism, but the same capitalism we see everywhere else.


Actually "state-capitalism" (not in the Cliffite sense, but in the explicit sense of the explicit political dictatorship based on the combined interests of big business and big government) is a more accurate description of Chinese capitalism today.

Chinese capitalism today is not the same as Western capitalism in its exact form. Chinese capitalism is inherently based on bureaucratic capitalism, which overwhelmingly dominates over every other layer of the capitalist class. (The capitalist class, like the working class, consists of multiple layers)

There is certainly fierce conflict between different sections of the capitalist class in China today. The imprisonment of people like Liu Xiaobo is indeed a vivid reflection of the political and economic conflicts between the representatives of Western-style liberal capitalists like Liu and the bureaucratic capitalists within the current PRC state machine.

[gorillafuck]

I never stated this is "proof" for my opinion on China, so don't fucking assume. I posted this to show the viewpoints of others that actually live within China, differentiating in ages, on what they view of China, Communism, & the current economy.
You honestly want me to think that you didn't post this to back up your view that China is socialist? You need to learn some honesty. Your first post in this thread after posting it was an attack at people who think Chinas capitalist.

You posted an article stating that people can't afford healthcare, and that the CCP doesn't say anything about communism, but a few people say it's a socialist or even a "capitalist socialist" country (by the way, the interviewer in this article really, really sucks). You so obviously are doing this to back up your own views.

[RED DAVE]

Admittedly anecdotal material:

I teach in a ESL (English as a Second Language) school in the US that has been slowly increasing its Chinese population in the 10 years I've been there. Now, this is obviously a self-selected population. It consists mainly of young people in their late teens and early twenties whose families can afford to send them to the US to study.

What strikes me about these students is not the fact that they're budding capitalists. That's what one would expect.Nut what is constantly amazing to me is that, without exception, they have no concept that things were ever different in China from what they are now. Communism they conceive of as a preparation for what is happening now. Their heroes are Deng and Mao. State-owned enterprises are not viewed as any different from the rapidly growing private sector. I have never heard one of mention workers control of industry, now or in the past.

Like I said, anecdotal. Take it for what it's worth.

RED DAVE

[The Vegan Marxist]

You honestly want me to think that you didn't post this to back up your view that China is socialist? You need to learn some honesty. Your first post in this thread after posting it was an attack at people who think Chinas capitalist.

You posted an article stating that people can't afford healthcare, and that the CCP doesn't say anything about communism, but a few people say it's a socialist or even a "capitalist socialist" country (by the way, the interviewer in this article really, really sucks). You so obviously are doing this to back up your own views.

I wouldn't say this helps my opinion at all. Because there's other Chinese people who doesn't think the same way either. I remember watching a video on Kasama Project where this old Chinese citizen states how he hopes to see China return back to Mao's era. I believe these people in the interview are correct, & so I state an attack against ISO's & anarchists, but that doesn't mean I posted this to prove that I'm right. Just what other Chinese citizens think.

[Crux]

You sound confused.

[KC]

tl;dr but did anyone point out how ridiculous it is to take the opinions of a handful of people in an article and extrapolate out to like 2 billion people?

[Reznov]

Anyway, it's natural that those older would be more inclined to view China as socialist sometimes old opinions die-hard, so to speak. I have met many old social democrats that say they are for socialism, for example. There is of course also the question what content you fill socialism with. That some of the interviewed seem to feel that the end-goal, communism, has been forgotten is telling. That all bring up the class differences as an issue (as well as the issue of countryside versus cities) is also of course very interesting. That this "doesn't sit well" with marxists that are not of the Hu Jintao brand such as yourself, is of course slightly preposterous, and reveals some of your own shallowness when looking at facts.

I just figure they look back at how their childhood use to be, and life right now.

[Reznov]

tl;dr but did anyone point out how ridiculous it is to take the opinions of a handful of people in an article and extrapolate out to like 2 billion people?

Agreed. But its not like you can get the opinions of of "like 2 billion people".

So, we can take a handful of opinions and make a general statement of what people seem to be leaning towards.

Then again, this was just from Beijing. Would have been more interesting if it was taken from the countryside as well to get their opinions.

[KC]

So, we can take a handful of opinions and make a general statement of what people seem to be leaning towards.

Or we could not do that and save ourselves the embarrassment of looking like idiots.

[Red Commissar]

Political comments aside, it was an interesting read. The older folk at least mention the growing inequality, and I felt bad for the ones who said they have trouble getting their kid into school because of admission fees. Or the guy having to pay for hospital.

I did die a little inside when I read this though:

"I prefer to call it capitalist socialist country"

[gorillafuck]

What would you change about China if you could?

“Equal rights between cities and the countryside.”
They didn't even ask any follow-up questions on this answer, or any of the others. This is really a terrible, pointless piece of journalism.

[RED DAVE]

I did die a little inside when I read this though:

"I prefer to call it capitalist socialist country"A "capitalist socialist country" is exactly what you would expect state capitalism fading into private capitalism to feel like from the inside.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

A "capitalist socialist country" is exactly what you would expect state capitalism fading into private capitalism to feel like from the inside.

RED DAVE

Correction: a deformed worker's state fading into private capitalism.

[penguinfoot]

Actually for Trotskyists there is no real "socialist" state until capitalism is overthrown globally, so regional "socialist" states are always just "worker's states", including the original USSR after the 1917 Revolution under Lenin and Trotsky himself.

I'm familiar with the Trotskyist view on what socialism is, being an ex-orthodox Trotskyist myself. What I question is your view that there are some elements of socialism in China - given that we both agree that China is certainly not socialist and that a workers state is a kind of society that is positioned and possibly stuck between capitalism and socialism I would ask what exactly these elements are.


A worker's state is defined as a state that has majority public ownership, a planned economy and monopoly of foreign trade, comprehensive public welfare and low-level income inequality.

What is missing from this description is any conception of what is distinctive about capitalism and how we should define capitalist relations of production. The distinctive feature of capitalism for Marxists is that it is a system of generalized commodity production, that is, it is a system under which goods are produced for exchange rather than for immediate consumption by their producers, with the goods that are produced under capitalism exchanging in ratios that are determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time that goes into their production, these ratios being imposed on producers by the fact that they find themselves in competition with other producers - this is what Marx termed the law of value and the measure of whether a society is capitalist or not is the extent to which its economic life is characterized by the presence or absence of the law of value. In view of the law of value being the central feature of a capitalist society we can say that the transition to socialism is about fighting the law of value (which may or may not occur through state ownership) and seeking to organize economic life in a way that involves man exercising rational control over the means of production and the products of his labour, in contrast to the anarchy of production that pervades capitalist societies - but as soon as you accept that the negation of the law of value involves rational planning and that the law of value is itself imposed and maintained through competition you are instantly faced with a problem because what is distinctive about the examples of planning that are applied in so-called socialist countries and workers states (which you cite as evidence that these societies are indeed workers states) is that the decision-making of the planning bodies is still subject to alien and hostile forces, in form of the pressures that are imposed by the world market and the imperatives of geopolitical competition between rival state apparatuses, with it being through these forces that economic planners are forced to organize and regulate economic life in accordance with the law of value, regardless of their personal aims and preferences. In practice this means that planners face constant pressure to introduce labour-saving innovations and diminish the share of labour in the social product, in exactly the same way as individual producers in market capitalist societies. In order to show that China is still a non-capitalist society you need to show that the law of value is absent and that controlled planning - planning that is executed according to the designs of the planners themselves, regardless of whether they are democratically accountable or not - is viable.


Correction: a deformed worker's state fading into private capitalism

How can a deformed workers state fade into private capitalism, when, according to Trotsky, the idea of a workers state returning to capitalism through a process of gradual transformation is the same as winding the film of reformism in reverse, that is, saying that capitalism can be peacefully transformed into socialism? A counter-revolution in the economic sense of a change from a more progressive to less progressive mode of production requires a civil war, a political counter-revolution. Of course, China is not a workers state and never has been, so we don't need to look for signs that a counter-revolution is occurring in any sphere - but you, as someone who apparently has merged Maoism with some grotesque form of orthodox Trotskyism, need to show us that a violent counter-revolution is taking place or that there are signs that one will take place.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

why are people aruging about this? Does anyone here ASIDE from TVM think that China is a socialist or communist nation?

[The Douche]

Welp, if some people say it, it must be true...

guess you live in a socialist country, right TVM? I mean, thats what Glenn Beck and thousands of tea partiers say...according to your logic, it must be true.

[Jazzhands]

I realize the importance of having an opinion from the Chinese people on their country, but seriously, how does this help? The interviewer is not even doing his job, no followup questions, fact-check or a single thing that could possibly make an actual news outlet a better source than say, some douchebag's blog.

Also, using the opinion of random people off the street asked about their country as some kind of useful evidence for any analysis whatsoever is generally a terrible argument. Just because people believe something does not make it true or false. Just because a bunch of people in America believe Obama is a commie muslim terrorist atheist lizardman does not make it true. Likewise, just because people in China believe it's a socialist state does not make it so.

[The Vegan Marxist]

why are people aruging about this? Does anyone here ASIDE from TVM think that China is a socialist or communist nation?

There are members of RevLeft besides myself that believe so, yes. We also have entire organizations that go based on this view as well, such as the PSL, FRSO (Fight Back!), the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), various members of the SDS, & the Communist Party of Cuba.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Welp, if some people say it, it must be true...

guess you live in a socialist country, right TVM? I mean, thats what Glenn Beck and thousands of tea partiers say...according to your logic, it must be true.

To compare China to the US shows how ignorant you really are. By no means does China relate to the US at all. Of course, if we were to implement the Charter 08 by Liu Xiaobo, then you'd be able to say such.

[gorillafuck]

There are members of RevLeft besides myself that believe so, yes. We also have entire organizations that go based on this view as well, such as the PSL, FRSO (Fight Back!), the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), various members of the SDS, & the Communist Party of Cuba.
SDS don't have positions.


To compare China to the US shows how ignorant you really are. By no means does China relate to the US at all.
How is being the largest trading partner not relating? They have obvious relations with eachother.

[The Vegan Marxist]

SDS don't have positions.

I didn't state the SDS, itself, though. I specifically stated various members of the SDS believe such. The SDS & the FRSO-FB are closely together, & consult political relations all the time. Given why there's various amounts of SDS members that are known to think of China as Socialist as well.

[Jazzhands]

There are members of RevLeft besides myself that believe so, yes. We also have entire organizations that go based on this view as well, such as the PSL, FRSO (Fight Back!), the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), various members of the SDS, & the Communist Party of Cuba.

People sharing a belief is not evidence for the belief itself.

[Queercommie Girl]

What is missing from this description is any conception of what is distinctive about capitalism and how we should define capitalist relations of production. The distinctive feature of capitalism for Marxists is that it is a system of generalized commodity production, that is, it is a system under which goods are produced for exchange rather than for immediate consumption by their producers, with the goods that are produced under capitalism exchanging in ratios that are determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time that goes into their production, these ratios being imposed on producers by the fact that they find themselves in competition with other producers - this is what Marx termed the law of value and the measure of whether a society is capitalist or not is the extent to which its economic life is characterized by the presence or absence of the law of value. In view of the law of value being the central feature of a capitalist society we can say that the transition to socialism is about fighting the law of value (which may or may not occur through state ownership) and seeking to organize economic life in a way that involves man exercising rational control over the means of production and the products of his labour, in contrast to the anarchy of production that pervades capitalist societies - but as soon as you accept that the negation of the law of value involves rational planning and that the law of value is itself imposed and maintained through competition you are instantly faced with a problem because what is distinctive about the examples of planning that are applied in so-called socialist countries and workers states (which you cite as evidence that these societies are indeed workers states) is that the decision-making of the planning bodies is still subject to alien and hostile forces, in form of the pressures that are imposed by the world market and the imperatives of geopolitical competition between rival state apparatuses, with it being through these forces that economic planners are forced to organize and regulate economic life in accordance with the law of value, regardless of their personal aims and preferences. In practice this means that planners face constant pressure to introduce labour-saving innovations and diminish the share of labour in the social product, in exactly the same way as individual producers in market capitalist societies. In order to show that China is still a non-capitalist society you need to show that the law of value is absent and that controlled planning - planning that is executed according to the designs of the planners themselves, regardless of whether they are democratically accountable or not - is viable.


I don't think I've actually said anywhere that China today is a "socialist" society or a worker's state. What I've actually said is that China today is a transitional state between a worker's state and capitalism, being objectively closer to capitalism, but with remanents of the old deformed worker's state still present. China is not a totally capitalist state because it has not gone through a total social counter-revolution.

People tend to underestimate the size of the state sector in the Chinese economy today. Compared with developing countries of a similar level of economic development, the Chinese economy is still more publicly owned, and public welfare is still generally better. Also, of course I don't pretend that workers in the state-owned enterprises in China now have any kind of real democracy or control, which they once did but only to a limited extent during the Maoist period under the Angang constitution (something many people in the West don't know about at all), but actually conditions for workers in Chinese SOEs are still considerably better than conditions for workers in enterprises that are privately owned by either Chinese or foreign capitalists.

But as I said, objectively China is now closer to capitalism than socialism, only that a qualitative change has yet to occur.



How can a deformed workers state fade into private capitalism, when, according to Trotsky, the idea of a workers state returning to capitalism through a process of gradual transformation is the same as winding the film of reformism in reverse, that is, saying that capitalism can be peacefully transformed into socialism? A counter-revolution in the economic sense of a change from a more progressive to less progressive mode of production requires a civil war, a political counter-revolution.
Indeed, which is why I said China today is fading into private capitalism, not completely private capitalist.

However, do mark what I say here, because based on what I know about China now, I literally predict that within the next decade, there will definitely be a massive-scale social upheaval in China, quite possibly on the same level as the fall of the USSR in 1991. Just because China avoided the fate of the Soviet Union in 1991 doesn't mean it can escape forever from the fate of a counter-revolution. I think the events of the future will prove me right.



Of course, China is not a workers state and never has been, so we don't need to look for signs that a counter-revolution is occurring in any sphere - but you, as someone who apparently has merged Maoism with some grotesque form of orthodox Trotskyism, need to show us that a violent counter-revolution is taking place or that there are signs that one will take place.
Not "of course" at all. Because I don't pretend to speak for third-campist Trotskyists of course, but among most orthodox Trotskyists, it is generally accepted that Maoist China was a deformed worker's state. Many Trotskyists, like Ernst Mandel of the USFI, actually have a considerably more positive opinion of Mao compared with Stalin.

Even today, many orthodox Trotskyists still label China as a deformed worker's state or partly a deformed worker's state. In fact, at the moment it is an ongoing debate within the CWI, one of the largest orthodox Trotskyist organisations in the world at the moment, and actually the majority opinion is that China is still a deformed worker's state.

I'm not going to debate with you about Maoism because frankly I don't think you are informed enough about that, but your point about my interpretation of orthodox Trotskyism being somehow "grotesque" is ridiculous, since my position on China is a respectable opinion within the orthodox Trotskyist camp at the moment, that's just an objective fact. Of course, you may fundamentally disagree with orthodox Trotskyism, but that's another matter entirely.

[The Vegan Marxist]

How is being the largest trading partner not relating? They have obvious relations with eachother.

Relate under similarity. I was told that since I believe China is Socialist, then I must believe that where I live is Socialist as well - the US - that person apparently comparing China to the US. Which is absolutely wrong.

[The Vegan Marxist]

People sharing a belief is not evidence for the belief itself.

:confused:

Did I state that that was the evidence to prove China is Socialist? No.

[gorillafuck]

Relate under similarity. I was told that since I believe China is Socialist, then I must believe that where I live is Socialist as well - the US - that person apparently comparing China to the US. Which is absolutely wrong.
Oh.


I didn't state the SDS, itself, though. I specifically stated various members of the SDS believe such. The SDS & the FRSO-FB are closely together, & consult political relations all the time. Given why there's various amounts of SDS members that are known to think of China as Socialist as well.
There are also people in SDS who oppose China and don't consider it socialist. I don't see why it's worth bringing up as an organization in this thread. SDS has worked with RAAN. Does that mean that SDS is worth bringing up as an organization in a discussion about groups that support RAAN? No, it doesn't.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Oh.


There are also people in SDS who oppose China and don't consider it socialist. I don't see why it's worth bringing up as an organization in this thread. SDS has worked with RAAN. Does that mean that SDS is worth bringing up as an organization in a discussion about groups that support RAAN? No, it doesn't.

Well that's a matter of opinion on who I bring up to show who believes what. It's a given that the SDS is very diverse in differentiating supporters. There's those of RAAN, FRSO, PSL, CPUSA, etc. etc. Granted, not every SDS member believes China is Socialist, but others do, which I feel is good enough to at least mention. Though I don't really want to debate on this particularly, because it's not worth debating over. Just mere opinions.

[Jazzhands]

:confused:

Did I state that that was the evidence to prove China is Socialist? No.

My point is that it's pretty much completely irrelevant.

[The Vegan Marxist]

My point is that it's pretty much completely irrelevant.

To the topic, itself, I would agree. But I was merely responding to a statement where one asked if anyone else believes China is Socialist besides me, in which I conclude by showing that hundreds of thousands of people still believe such (a good proportion of that is within Cuba, given the number of the CP of Cuba). Not to mention there are many more who at least understand that China is still a workers state. China is on a very thin edge of completely restoring capitalism. We, those who defend China, don't defend the capitalist policies & the close restoration of capitalism, but what's left of the workers state of China, in the hopes that possibly capitalism will be defeated in China once again.

[Os Cangaceiros]

To compare China to the US shows how ignorant you really are. By no means does China relate to the US at all. Of course, if we were to implement the Charter 08 by Liu Xiaobo, then you'd be able to say such.

Um, what he said had absolutely nothing to do with comparing the USA's and China's socio-political/economic structure. It had to do with the fact that just because citizens think that they're country is something doesn't necessarily make it true.

[Saorsa]

Yes, I'm sure. I've talked to members of the UCPN (maoist), I believe PLA, & when I asked them what they think of the political relations the Maoists & China are gaining, they state that they think it's a good idea & hope to see more of this.

No, you're not sure. Don't misrepresent the line of the UCPN (M) on China.

The official line of the Nepali Maoists on China is that capitalism has been restored and the 'Communist' Party is revisionist. Now, the Maoists have developed diplomatic links with China and have sent delegations there to try and analyse various aspects of its development, hydropower projects in particular. They need Chinese diplomatic support if they are to pull off a revolution and not get immediately crushed by India. China gains from India's defeat in Nepal. There's a regional rivalry being played out in the Himalayas.

Now, it should be blindingly obvious but I'll say it anyway. There is a big, big difference between individual Maoist cadre saying they're pleased China is prepared to intervene against India and is prepared to invest in building roads, dams and so on in Nepal... and them believing China is still on the socialist road.

The UCPN (M) do not believe China is socialist. The Indian Maoists do not believe China is socialist. The Bangladeshi Maoists do not believe China is socialist. The Peruvian Maoists never believed China was socialist. The Philippino Maoists occasionally come out with some (in my opinion) overly high praise of China as an 'anti-imperialist' force, but they don't say it's socialist.

Basically, your statement that "the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries" think China is still socialist is complete bullshit.

[The Vegan Marxist]

No, you're not sure. Don't misrepresent the line of the UCPN (M) on China.

The official line of the Nepali Maoists on China is that capitalism has been restored and the 'Communist' Party is revisionist. Now, the Maoists have developed diplomatic links with China and have sent delegations there to try and analyse various aspects of its development, hydropower projects in particular. They need Chinese diplomatic support if they are to pull off a revolution and not get immediately crushed by India. China gains from India's defeat in Nepal. There's a regional rivalry being played out in the Himalayas.

Now, it should be blindingly obvious but I'll say it anyway. There is a big, big difference between individual Maoist cadre saying they're pleased China is prepared to intervene against India and is prepared to invest in building roads, dams and so on in Nepal... and them believing China is still on the socialist road.

The UCPN (M) do not believe China is socialist. The Indian Maoists do not believe China is socialist. The Bangladeshi Maoists do not believe China is socialist. The Peruvian Maoists never believed China was socialist. The Philippino Maoists occasionally come out with some (in my opinion) overly high praise of China as an 'anti-imperialist' force, but they don't say it's socialist.

Basically, your statement that "the Maoists that are actually waging revolution in foreign countries" think China is still socialist is complete bullshit.

I've never read them state that China restored back to capitalism. Of course, I could be wrong on this assertion. Any links where they state such? And I have talked to members of the UCPN (maoist) who've stated they're glad to see them doing political relations with China.

[Queercommie Girl]

We, those who defend China, don't defend the capitalist policies & the close restoration of capitalism, but what's left of the workers state of China, in the hopes that possibly capitalism will be defeated in China once again.


My view is that it is impossible for there to be a restoration of socialism in any sense in China without a genuine socialist mass movement from below of some kind. The option of "limited reforms within the ruling structure" to restore socialism is no longer a possibility. The class basis of the ruling bloc of the CCP today is increasingly becoming bureaucratic-capitalist, and while I certainly don't write off the lower levels of the CCP, who are objectively by and large still working class and middle class, without intra-party democracy numerical superiority means nothing. The lower ranks of the CCP have no real political power to change things, short of a class war and a political revolution (not a social revolution) within the party.

So basically my position is that I support an "internal political revolution" within China but I still defend the country, including the CCP state machine, against Western imperialism as well as bourgeois ethnic separatism. I would in principle support a genuinely proletarian Tibetan or Uyghur independence movement, but frankly in reality such things are virtually completely impossible. There is no way I would support the likes of the Dalai Lama, this has nothing to do with "Han nationalism" as some people have accused me before, because objectively a bourgeois-based Tibetan independence would hit Tibetan workers and peasants harder than Han workers and peasants, Tibet being such an impoverished region. This has been proven by what happened in the FSU. The workers of the Central Asian republics got hit even harder by the break-up and subsequent economic decline than workers in Russia itself.

National rights in the abstract sense are not unconditional. I care more about concrete socio-economic welfare for the working class of all ethnicities.

[The Vegan Marxist]

My view is that it is impossible for there to be a restoration of socialism in any sense in China without a genuine socialist mass movement from below of some kind. The option of "limited reforms within the ruling structure" to restore socialism is no longer a possibility. The class basis of the ruling bloc of the CCP today is increasingly becoming bureaucratic-capitalist, and while I certainly don't write off the lower levels of the CCP, who are objectively by and large still working class and middle class, without intra-party democracy numerical superiority means nothing. The lower ranks of the CCP have no real political power to change things, short of a class war and a political revolution (not a social revolution) within the party.

So basically my position is that I support an "internal political revolution" within China but I still defend the country, including the CCP state machine, against Western imperialism as well as bourgeois ethnic separatism. I would in principle support a genuinely proletarian Tibetan or Uyghur independence movement, but frankly in reality such things are virtually completely impossible. There is no way I would support the likes of the Dalai Lama, this has nothing to do with "Han nationalism" as some people have accused me before, because objectively a bourgeois-based Tibetan independence would hit Tibetan workers and peasants harder than Han workers and peasants, Tibet being such an impoverished region. This has been proven by what happened in the FSU. The workers of the Central Asian republics got hit even harder by the break-up and subsequent economic decline than workers in Russia itself.

National rights in the abstract sense are not unconditional. I care more about concrete socio-economic welfare for the working class of all ethnicities.

I'm with you on the internal revolution. I want to see the workers rise up in China. But of course, we must recognize that it is, for the time being, still at least a workers state. How long this'll last is unknown, but the workers are getting angrier in China & getting tired of the SEZ policies taking over their workforce.

[penguinfoot]

I don't think I've actually said anywhere that China today is a "socialist" society or a worker's state

You made it quite clear that "in China today a full scale counter-revolution, the qualitative change back into capitalism, has yet to occur". As I said in my last post, Trotsky was very clear that a reversion from a degenerated workers state to capitalism was not possible without a violent counter-revolution - he says that the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Soviet Russia was only possible as a result of civil war and that historically counter-revolutions of both the bourgeois and feudal form have been possible only through intervention, that is, not "organically", and he concludes on this basis that it is reformist to say that the Soviet government and economy have gradually changed from being proletarian to bourgeois, or that this is a theoretical possible. Now, we should of course be open to the ambiguities and complexities of social change and recognize that just as socialist revolution is a process that takes place over a whole historical epoch so it may also be the case that a counter-revolution in a society where capitalism has been overthrown may also take place through an extended series of class combats and challenges to the state, with it being possible for the process of capitalist restoration to stall and even be reversed on a temporary basis, and in fact this is true for heterodox Trotskyists as well insofar as we identify the purges against the old guard of the Bolsheviks as the civil war that signaled the restoration of capitalism in Russia, but all the same there is a need for precision here and it seems impossible for you to argue that China was a workers state at some point in time but is not still a workers state without being able to identify the period during which a counter-revolution took place, a definite counter-revolution, involving a civil war, without totally ignoring some of Trotsky's most fundamental comments on the course of capitalist restoration in workers states. There is a need, in other words, to define precisely whether capitalism is still absent from China or whether it has been restored.


People tend to underestimate the size of the state sector in the Chinese economy today

I agree, they do, and I also find that people are surprised when you tell them that the original Chinese Revolution was not intended to be a socialist revolution at all, at least in terms of its immediate objectives, and that the willingness of the CPC to secure the support of the national bourgeoisie and maintain the bloc of four classes was such that they explicitly called on workers not to pursue the expropriation of their enterprises or to fight for increases in wages and conditions that were liable to intensify class struggle between themselves and those whom the government regarded as patriotic capitalists - people are even more surprised when you tell them that the government pursued an active policy of offering benefits and privileges to capitalists who were considering moving their assets and families to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and that, even after the state extended its control of the economy during the three- and five-anti campaigns, former capitalists were still granted interest on their property, which only came to an end during the Cultural Revolution, and often allowed to take up positions as managers in enterprises that were then being run by the government. These points aside, the fact that such a large segment of the Chinese economy is run by the state says nothing about the relations of production that exist in China or whether China has yet to experience the restoration of capitalism, because there is nothing inherently socialist about state property - one of the points that Marx emphasizes most of all in the final chapters of the first volume of Capital when he is giving his account of primitive accumulation in Britain is that part of the mythology of the bourgeoisie is that the state occupies only a minor role in capitalist economic life, when the exact opposite is true.


and public welfare is still generally better.

Relative to where? and does a "better" public welfare system make a country socialist? In Marx's analysis on the Corn Laws he makes it quite clear that what may initially appear to be concessions that have been granted by governments in capitalist societies to their producers can actually be a reflection of the underlying interests of the bourgeoisie - in the case of the Corn Laws this was the case in an immediate sense because the removal of the laws was the result of a coalition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat whereby the former wanted the laws removed so that they would be able to pay workers lower wages, as a reflection of the value of labour power itself having decreased, but this is also true of welfare more generally in advanced capitalist societies because the provision of goods like healthcare and education ensure that the bourgeoisie has access to a workforce of sufficient strength and the education system in particular plays a key role as one of the foremost ideological state apparatuses and bases for hegemony. This doesn't mean that these institutions are never the result of workers putting pressure on the state, or that they shouldn't be defended when they come under attack, but there's no point in citing a welfare system as evidence that a country is in some way removed from capitalism.


during the Maoist period under the Angang constitution (something many people in the West don't know about at all)

Neither do you, or else you would know it was called the Anshan constitution. You would also know something about the context in which the Anshan constitution and other policy documents were publicized, as the period from the 9th party congress up until the fall of Lin Biao marked the increasing militarization of Chinese politics and society whereby the PLA gained an important role in the running of economic enterprises and political life more generally, as reflected in the composition of the revolutionary committees, and especially their standing committees, which were overwhelmingly dominated by military officers from the provincial to county level.


Indeed, which is why I said China today is fading into private capitalism, not completely private capitalist.

It's fine to see that China is moving towards a form of capitalism in which the market and judicial recognition of private property have a more important role, but this doesn't mean that China was anything other than capitalist in one form or another. The 1970s marked huge structural changes in European economies as well.


doesn't mean it can escape forever from the fate of a counter-revolution

In which case a counter-revolution has not occurred yet, so that capitalism has not been restored. That is, after all, what the definition of a counter-revolution is - the removal of a historically progressive class from power and its replacement with a class from a mode of production that had been overthrown at one point or another.


I'm not going to debate with you about Maoism because frankly I don't think you are informed enough about that

Try me.

[RED DAVE]

Also, of course I don't pretend that workers in the state-owned enterprises in China now have any kind of real democracy or control, which they once did but only to a limited extent during the Maoist period under the Angang constitution (something many people in the West don't know about at all), but actually conditions for workers in Chinese SOEs are still considerably better than conditions for workers in enterprises that are privately owned by either Chinese or foreign capitalists.This is liberalism. You are saying that because working conditions are better and there are undemocratic state-owned istitutions (like in Taiwan and Singapore) China is still some kind of a workers state.


But as I said, objectively China is now closer to capitalism than socialism, only that a qualitative change has yet to occur.If the workers don't control the industries, the qualitative change has most certainly occurred.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

This is liberalism. You are saying that because working conditions are better and there are undemocratic state-owned istitutions (like in Taiwan and Singapore) China is still some kind of a workers state.


I don't care what damn "political hat" you put onto me (to use a Chinese phrase), but frankly most workers (including me) care more about concrete socio-economic interests than some purely abstract ideology.

You sound as if better conditions mean nothing. Well, if socialism can't produce better conditions for workers, even if it is democratic it is still a failure, and workers will still go over to the capitalist side. (Because many workers would prefer the lack of direct democracy but with much better welfare than the reverse option) Base determines superstructure.

Call it liberalism, call it economism, I don't give a damn. All I know is that your ultra-leftist dogmas won't work since you don't even know how real workers think. Good luck with trying to impose your ideological dogmas onto the working class like a good old Stalinist bureaucrat, that for the interests of some abstract "worker's democracy", they must tighten their belts and sacrifice their pay checks. (The top-down imposition of political dogmas by party vanguards onto workers is called bureaucratism)

The Labour Party in the UK is called a "bourgeois worker's party", even though there is no direct worker's democracy. Now why is that?

[penguinfoot]

Well, if socialism can't produce better conditions for workers, even if it is democratic it is still a failure, and workers will still go over to the capitalist

It's interesting you say this, because in December of 1966 there was a movement in Shanghai which later became known as the "wind of economism" and was centered around those workers who had been excluded from the benefits and advantages that were available to other sections of the workforce, such as apprentices, workers who continued to be employed in private enterprises such as teachers at private schools, those workers who had been mobilized to return to their native places as a result of the recovery campaigns of the 1960s, and who had then returned to Shanghai once the economic situation had resolved itself and not been allowed to gain permanent status, those workers who had been sent to the interior to support industrialization, young people who had been sent to distant locales to assist with work on state farms, including the 20,000 teenagers from Shanghai who had been sent to Xinjiang in 1963 alone, and so on - what happened was that these workers took advantage of the political situation to pursue their material interests, and as a consequence the Workers General Headquarter, the main "rebel" organization in the city, with the support of Mao and his allies at the national level, rejected their activities as economism under the control of the revisionists. In fact, the WGH released an “Urgent Notice” which was published throughout the country as part of the People's Daily on the 12th of January and decreed that those who had sabotaged production would be arrested by the Public Security Bureau, “in accordance with the law”, that the participants were also guilty of having opposed Mao, that workers would no longer be allowed to share revolutionary experiences, that they would be made to repay the expense money they had used to travel to other work units and cities, that workers and cadres both had a duty to return to their original units and work for eight hours each day, that wages would be frozen, and that enterprise funds would no longer be used to make unauthorized payments to workers making “economistic” demands. In this instance what we had was the Maoist wing of the Cultural Revolution rejecting a movement that was rooted in the material concerns of China's most exploited workers, and there was nothing unique about the "wind of economism" in this respect, because the emphasis of the Maoist centre was on production and workplace discipline throughout the Cultural Revolution - and you think you should accuse other posters of ignoring material conditions in favour of abstract ideology!

Oh, and also, the base does not mean people's material interests, it means the relations of production.

[The Douche]

To compare China to the US shows how ignorant you really are. By no means does China relate to the US at all. Of course, if we were to implement the Charter 08 by Liu Xiaobo, then you'd be able to say such.

You really are a moron.

[The Vegan Marxist]

You really are a moron.

I seriously don't give a fuck what you think. None of you understand the reason why China is at least a workers state, & rather classify it as capitalist. But I'm done arguing this matter. I've got better things to do than to debate with ultra-leftists on a political forum.

[RED DAVE]

I seriously don't give a fuck what you think. None of you understand the reason why China is at least a workers state, & rather classify it as capitalist. But I'm done arguing this matter. I've got better things to do than to debate with ultra-leftists on a political forum.By all means do them. :D

But seriously, basically your political ass has been whipped. You have been unable to demonstrate that China is in any way a workers state.

RED DAVE

[gorillafuck]

I seriously don't give a fuck what you think. None of you understand the reason why China is at least a workers state, & rather classify it as capitalist. But I'm done arguing this matter. I've got better things to do than to debate with ultra-leftists on a political forum.
Thinking China is capitalist is not an "ultra-left" view. That's just a stupid thing to say since the people you're arguing with are so obviously not all or necessarily "ultra-leftists".

[Crux]

I seriously don't give a fuck what you think. None of you understand the reason why China is at least a workers state, & rather classify it as capitalist. But I'm done arguing this matter. I've got better things to do than to debate with ultra-leftists on a political forum.
Does that mean you'll stop making these thread's were you kind of underhandedly try to present countries like China and Vietnam as socialist and then cop-out when you realize you can't back your shit up (no doubt because you're too busy working. yeah.)?
Also, if we are only going by common conceptions rather than any kind of materialist analysis, is it your belief that sweden is or has ever been a socialist country? After all that's a common misconception even today. And supposing you do, would disagreeing with you make me an ultra-leftist?

[The Douche]

Duh guys, if we analyze the situation in a logical manner (I dunno, the actual, material conditions, maybe property relations, income disparity etc) then we're ultra left. The only way to be a true communist is to just agree with TVM when he says something, otherwise you can just fuck off and be "an anarchist or ISO".

[The Vegan Marxist]

By all means do them. :D

But seriously, basically your political ass has been whipped. You have been unable to demonstrate that China is in any way a workers state.

RED DAVE

Oh yes [we] have shown that China is a worker's state, at least. It's just you & your deranged theories of China, among various other places, that see them as nothing more than State-Capitalist.

[Sir Comradical]

“Communism was my dream when I was young, and is still my dream. I don’t want to call China a communist country, I prefer to call it capitalist socialist country!”

lolwtf

[The Douche]

Oh yes [we] have shown that China is a worker's state, at least. It's just you & your deranged theories of China, among various other places, that see them as nothing more than State-Capitalist.

Yeah bro, we're deranged for not seeing china as socialist...:laugh:

You keep saying they are socialist, how? Because there is some state-owned industry? Is that really your litmus test for socialism? Are they socialist just because they say so? For fucks sake, there are millionaires in the CP...

[Os Cangaceiros]

Oh yes [we] have shown that China is a worker's state, at least. It's just you & your deranged theories of China, among various other places, that see them as nothing more than State-Capitalist.

"We"? Who is "we"?

Even the large majority of Marxist-Leninists on this site view China as capitalist.

[Sir Comradical]

Oh yes [we] have shown that China is a worker's state, at least. It's just you & your deranged theories of China, among various other places, that see them as nothing more than State-Capitalist.

China doesn't even offer its citizens free healthcare.

[The Vegan Marxist]

China doesn't even offer its citizens free healthcare.

That is definitely a problem. Look, at least, China is a workers state. As Iseul has correctly pointed out. Whether it's socialist or not can be argued all we want. But to make one thing clear, free healthcare doesn't define a "workers state". France is most definitely not a workers state, yet they've got the #1 single-payer healthcare system in the world! Free healthcare is something I would hope a workers state would recommend, & since it isn't, that's something we need to criticize & start demanding for upon the workers.

In the end, it really doesn't matter how I view the current CPC, because they're on a dangerous thin edge back to capitalist restoration, & I really don't think they'll recover from such. Which is why I support 100% of the Chinese workers to rise up & take complete power.

[The Douche]

How are they on the edge of "capitalist restoration"? They are fucking capitalists.

[La Peur Rouge]

Look, at least, China is a workers state..........Which is why I support 100% of the Chinese workers to rise up & take complete power.

If China is a worker's state then why would the workers need to rise up and take power?

[Crux]

That is definitely a problem. Look, at least, China is a workers state. As Iseul has correctly pointed out.
I am pretty sure Iseul doesn't agree with you about china being socialist though, well not in the way you seem to imply anyhow.


Whether it's socialist or not can be argued all we want. But to make one thing clear, free healthcare doesn't define a "workers state". France is most definitely not a workers state, yet they've got the #1 single-payer healthcare system in the world! Free healthcare is something I would hope a workers state would recommend, & since it isn't, that's something we need to criticize & start demanding for upon the workers.

Nice dodge. We need to start criticizing china you say? Who's we?


In the end, it really doesn't matter how I view the current CPC, because they're on a dangerous thin edge back to capitalist restoration, & I really don't think they'll recover from such. Which is why I support 100% of the Chinese workers to rise up & take complete power.
Under the glorious Hu Jintao and "left-wing" of the CCP?

[The Vegan Marxist]

I am pretty sure Iseul doesn't agree with you about china being socialist though, well not in the way you seem to imply anyhow.


Nice dodge. We need to start criticizing china you say? Who's we?


Under the glorious Hu Jintao and "left-wing" of the CCP?

Under a real socialist banner than a banner of socialism with tolerance over capitalists. For them to take over the CPC completely & eliminate any membership that's pertained by capitalists.

[RED DAVE]

Under a real socialist banner than a banner of socialism with tolerance over capitalists. For them to take over the CPC completely & eliminate any membership that's pertained by capitalists.That would be like trying to take over the Democratic Party in the US.

RED DAVE

[EvilRedGuy]

The last line said it well

“We don’t know communism. We know the Communist Party!” THEY DONT KNOW COMMUNISM, or socialism, China is a Free Market-capitalist country its not even State-capitalist, fro crying out loud so FUCK IT.

TVM, you need to consider what you are doing.

[Reznov]

Or we could not do that and save ourselves the embarrassment of looking like idiots.

You realize we are trying to see what the Chinese people seem to be saying about the current economy, right?

And, what embarrassment and exactly how do we look like idiots?

Or was that your one shot line to try to get some rep?

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

You realize we are trying to see what the Chinese people seem to be saying about the current economy, right?

And, what embarrassment and exactly how do we look like idiots?

Or was that your one shot line to try to get some rep?

Intresting quotes from Chinese people about communism; a good thing.

Arguing about wheter China is Sociaist or communist because it has "more workers rights than comparable countries"; makes us look like fucking crank morons.

[Queercommie Girl]

That would be like trying to take over the Democratic Party in the US.

RED DAVE

The CCP isn't the Democratic Party. The lower ranks of the CCP (who have no power at the moment) have far more class consciousness than Democratic Party members in the US.

A better analogy would be the working class taking over the British Labour Party, but even that comparison is not correct in some ways.

[KC]

You realize we are trying to see what the Chinese people seem to be saying about the current economy, right?

And, what embarrassment and exactly how do we look like idiots?

Or was that your one shot line to try to get some rep?

A handful of Chinese =/= "the Chinese people". :rolleyes:

[bailey_187]

The last line said it well

“We don’t know communism. We know the Communist Party!” THEY DONT KNOW COMMUNISM, or socialism, China is a Free Market-capitalist country its not even State-capitalist, fro crying out loud so FUCK IT.

TVM, you need to consider what you are doing.

Not that i think China is socialist, but the sentance from the interview you quoted is from some 10 year old school children, so its expected they dont know what Communism is.

[EvilRedGuy]

Not that i think China is socialist, but the sentance from the interview you quoted is from some 10 year old school children, so its expected they dont know what Communism is.

Ohhh, lol. The chinese majority (not just china the whole planet) dont know what communism is so the answer still stays.

[scarletghoul]

Ohhh, lol. The chinese majority (not just china the whole planet) dont know what communism is so the answer still stays.Shut the fuck up.

[EvilRedGuy]

Shut the fuck up.

What was the point in this post? Shut up? Only if you say please Troll. :D

[bailey_187]

Ohhh, lol. The chinese majority (not just china the whole planet) dont know what communism is so the answer still stays.

The majority of Chinese will have learnt Marxism at school

[EvilRedGuy]

Not today.

[Queercommie Girl]

Not today.

Actually even today the People's Republic of China is still officially a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist state, and Marxism and scientific socialism are the guiding ideology of the entire country and people.

But what is taught now is a Dengist version of Marxism that does not mention class struggle, but rather advocates "market socialism" and state things like "capitalists are also workers"...

[The Douche]

How is that even a "version of marxism"? Its absurd to call dengism a "version of marxism" but say that communists like TIC or autonomists or whatever are "not marxists, but really anarchists".

[Queercommie Girl]

How is that even a "version of marxism"? Its absurd to call dengism a "version of marxism" but say that communists like TIC or autonomists or whatever are "not marxists, but really anarchists".

I never said Dengism is genuine Marxism objectively. But the Dengists claim it is subjectively. I'm merely describing reality, not evaluating it.

[The Douche]

I never said Dengism is genuine Marxism objectively. But the Dengists claim it is subjectively. I'm merely describing reality, not evaluating it.

I figured thats what you meant, but you did say, "a Dengist version of Marxism", as opposed to a dengist "misinterpretation" or something like that. I was just checking.:thumbup1:

[RED DAVE]

The majority of Chinese will have learnt Marxism at schoolIf you are talking about the present, having taught hundreds of young people from China, Marxism is no longer part of the school curriculum.

RED DAVE

[penguinfoot]

If you are talking about the present, having taught hundreds of young people from China, Marxism is no longer part of the school curriculum.

RED DAVE

This is true, but it is still the case that students have to have knowledge of the Chinese state's distortions of Marxism - such as Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" - in order to attend university and go on to do graduate study. The Chinese university students who I've spoken to generally seem to regard it as a pointless annoyance.

[scarletghoul]

Is it true they are taught dialectics ? If so that's good; a major problem here is that people are raised to think that the system is not negatable, that that's 'just the way it is", and shit like fukuyama's "the end of history"..

edit: "I don't think the students are taught dialectically, and one of the reasons they are not is that it would be detrimental to the bourgeois educational system to do so. I think it is a fair statement that the schools are agencies of the status quo: the bourgeoisie needs to train technicians and to give students a conglomeration of facts, but it would be detrimental for them to give students the tools to show that the status quo cannot stand and so to analyse them out of existence." - H P Newton

[RED DAVE]

This is true, but it is still the case that students have to have knowledge of the Chinese state's distortions of Marxism - such as Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" - in order to attend university and go on to do graduate study. The Chinese university students who I've spoken to generally seem to regard it as a pointless annoyance.If it is true that htey are taught these things, i have never seen any evidence of it in the hundreds of Chinese students I have had. Mao seems to be taught as a George Washing-like figure. For them, the "father" of the present system (which my students support or take for granted) is Deng.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

If it is true that htey are taught these things, i have never seen any evidence of it in the hundreds of Chinese students I have had. Mao seems to be rught as a eorge Washing-like figure. For them, the "father" of the present system (which my students support or take for granted) is Deng.

RED DAVE

Jiang Zemin is also a Dengist. Dengism has eclipsed Maoism in China.