Tiananmen massacre - split from Ongoing Struggles [Archive]

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 12:33

though, what they seemed to conveniently not mention is the fact that protesters were beating the shit out of Red Army personnel (10 to 1) and then stealing their weaponry

Good on them, too bad they didn't go further and butcher the whole of the Politburo, beginning with your mate Deng Xiaoping. The whole of the CPC leadership should be lynched and/or hanged from lampposts.

China used tanks to dispel "protesters" (liberal bourgeois students who were in favor of Western "democracy")

Yeah yeah yeah, more ignorant crap from a Stalinist who has never read a book because they can't read.

I'm just going to quote from previous occasions where I've smashed pro-capitalist ignorant scum like this poster:

"It was an open-ended situation. What's laughable is not the idea that there could conceivably have been a socialist revolution but to assume that the students involved were a viable replacement for the ruling class - they were utterly naive in every respect, in that they thought a hunger strike would bring down the government or put sufficient pressure on the leadership to introduce political reform, they were internally disunited, in that there was constant fighting between the representatives of different universities and between Beijing-based institutions and students from the provinces, the organization of the sit-in at the square itself was poorly carried out so that there was a serious risk of an epidemic by the time they were evicted, and there was overall no way that they could have presented themselves as credible leaders for a country as vast and complex as China. How exactly do you think the Chinese government could possibly have been overthrown by a gaggle of inexperienced students? It almost certanly couldn't have been, and we'll never know how the situation would have panned out, had the working class acted in different ways, had there been a different balance of forces inside the party leadership, and so on."

"...the primary characteristic of the Tiananmen protest movement was that it was not a homogenous or stable movement but was comprised of a wide range of social, political, and ideological groups, both in terms of there being different perspectives and groups within the student participants, such as the division between universities in different parts of the country and different faculties, and more importantly in terms of the division between the student participants on the one hand and a whole range of non-student groups on the other, including party cadres, state journalists, small businessmen who donated various supplies to the movement, and of course industrial workers - including workers from some of Beijing's most important industrial enterprises, such as Shougang Iron and Steel and Yanshan Petrochemicals, along with marginal (e.g. temporary) workers and the recently unemployed. Beyond the square itself, the movement extended to the citizens of Beijing, the hospital staff who cooperated with the students during the crackdown in rescuing the wounded and shielding identities, and the workers in Beijing and other cities who took strike action and other forms of industrial action like slow-downs. Simply speaking in terms of "the students" of "the protest movement" obscures these deep internal differences and the multiple possibilities they embodied."

"...there was widespread strike action, especially in the aftermath of the crackdown, even though the government had aimed specifically to prevent the workers from linking up with the movement, and even though many students were dismissive of the workers. The day of the crackdown itself (June 4th) and the day after were marked by the formation of new Workers Autonomous Federations in Guangdong and Hangzhou on the model of the body that had been formed by workers participants in Beijing at the square itself, the BWAF, and whilst it is not straightforward to get an accurate estimate of the number of workers who took part in subsequent strikes, there was a sharp drop in industrial production from May through to July, and there were so many reports of strikes and mass absenteeism that it would be stupid to think that there was no strike action or that industrial unrest was limited to a small minority. In X'ian, to give a particular example, there was a virtual standstill across the city for six days and a loss in industrial output of 40 million yuan, and it is hard to explain the scale of these events if you accept the government's line, namely that it was down to a small bunch of "hooligans". There were also reports of roads, bridges, and railways being blocked all over China, and here again the line of the government was to refer to "hooligans" and "criminal elements" in order to avoid having to acknowledge that there was mass civilian involvement. Significantly, the language of worker organizations was permeated with a Marxian language of social justice and also bore the imprints of previous events like the Cultural Revolution. The statement of purpose of the BWAF, for example, began "the working class is the most advanced class, and we, in the Democratic Movement, should be prepared to demonstrate its great power" - hardly the language of workers who submitted to a bunch of students. Consistent with the sweep of Chinese history, the government also imposed much harsher penalties on workers than they did on student participants. All the above is from Sheehan, Jackie, Chinese Workers: A New History (1998), pp. 209-23."

From this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/glorious-socialist-republic-t153636/index.html?highlight=tiananmen

bailey_187

12th May 2011, 12:42

how can u take someones opinion on this seriously when they call China's army the "Red Army"?

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

12th May 2011, 17:03

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 17:20

Hey, it saved the Chinese people from the fate of their Russian and central Asian neighbors in the 90s I suppose. The PRC was state-capitalist by that point but it could still be sooo much worse as Yugoslavia showed.

I guess we can thank our lucky stars that we can rely on capitalist state apparatuses to use their might to save workers from neo-liberalism! No, you're talking shit, of course, the Chinese state did not save workers from neo-liberalism, the living standards of Chinese workers have continued to face attack, and in any case the events in 1989 were not based around support for neo-liberalism or an attempted student coup, whatever idiots like you want to believe. Also, answer me this, if the PRC was state-capitalist by 1989, but there had not been a violent overthrow of the CPC or the state system they had built up, and if you also believe that the PRC was socialist at some point after 1949, how then does that relate to the Marxist theory of the state? How can there be a change in the mode of production (from socialism to capitalism) alongside such institutional and personal continuity? Or how did such a change take place without any resistance on the part of the Chinese working class?

how can u take someones opinion on this seriously when they call China's army the "Red Army"?

Indeed, not least because that wasn't/isn't even the official name of the Chinese ground forces (OP: they're called the PLA, you ignorant excuse for a human being) let alone a decent description of their political role.

pranabjyoti

12th May 2011, 17:28

Well, no question of supporting the CPC i.e. Deng and Co. But, the question is the Tienanmen "protestors" were much more reactionary and they are openly advocating for liberal capitalism, anyone supporting them can not call him/herself even "leftist", being "communist" are a far cry.
Another question is do we support any kind of "anti-state" activity without judging its class nature. From the posts, it seems that many "leftists" posting in the thread and website have this kind of callous mentality. By that standard, imperialist counter-revolutionaries of USSR after 1917 was supportable by "leftists" as they take arms against the "state".

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 17:32

But, the question is the Tienanmen "protestors" were much more reactionary and they are openly advocating for liberal capitalism, anyone supporting them can not call him/herself even "leftist", being "communist" are a far cry.

Any evidence? No. Are you an idiot? Yes. Fuck off.

pranabjyoti

12th May 2011, 17:37

Any evidence? No. Are you an idiot? Yes. Fuck off.
You are asking for evidence? Do you have any idea about the slogans and posters in the Tienanmen square? Better have some knowledge and then come to debate.

Nolan

12th May 2011, 17:43

And the songs??!! Geezus you imperialists better wake the fuck up. I heard they were singing the internationa...oh wait

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 17:43

You are asking for evidence? Do you have any idea about the slogans and posters in the Tienanmen square? Better have some knowledge and then come to debate.

Yes, I am asking for the evidence. Still don't see any!

W1N5T0N

12th May 2011, 17:57

These protesters in Tianmen square were simply protesting for their freedom of speech! And the pseudo-communist government of course cracked down on them. I think that they had a right to protest and revolute. The China of then would have made Marx rotate in his grave. And what are they now? the 'sweatshop of the world'...Its just another form of state capitalism there, and the utopia dreamt up by Marx had turned into a dystopia. I MEAN, THESE GUYS WANTED FREEDOM! this wasn't even about capitalism, it was about their dreams! i mean, everybody wants to have a say, especially in socialism 'power to the people'. Well, i call cracking down on students instead of trying to TALK to them weak. Marx heavily objected to the use of terror in a revolution and/or communist/socialist state. terror was for him a sign of weakness and immaturity of a revolution which had to try to impose by sheer force what was not yet inherent in society. I mean, they could have educated these students differently, shown them that capitalism won't work in the long run, but that's kinda hard if you bash in someone's skull, someone with their whole future ahead of them... and one more thing: what on earth makes you think that someone is not a leftist only because they dont agree with you on one issue?? ;):confused: :star:

pranabjyoti

12th May 2011, 18:16

Yes, I am asking for the evidence. Still don't see any!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tienanmen_Square_Massacre
Evidence enough.

manic expression

12th May 2011, 18:21

Yes, I am asking for the evidence. Still don't see any!
How about the huge Statue of Liberty replica they had...or the statements made by protest leaders that they were not only disinterested in working-class power, but hoping to cause bloodshed and instability from the start:

Wang Dan, one of the central leaders of the student movement, was quoted in the June 3 New York Times: “The movement is not ready for worker participation because the principles of democracy must first be absorbed by students and intellectuals before they can be spread to others.” In a June 2, 1993, interview with the Washington Post, Dan goes further to say that “the pursuit of wealth [was] part of the impetus for democracy.”

---------------------(earlier in the article)--------------------

The student leaders who remained in the square were pushing for a harder line with the government. On May 28, Chai Ling, who many of the students acknowledged as the “commander-in-chief” of the Tiananmen demonstrations, stated that the student leadership’s goal was to provoke the Communist Party into attacking the demonstrators.

“I feel so sad,” Chai sobbed to U.S. reporter Philip Cunningham. “How can I tell [the students in the Square] that what we are actually hoping for is bloodshed, the moment when the government is ready to butcher the people brazenly? Only when the Square is awash in blood will the people of China open their eyes. Only then will they be really united.”

http://www2.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12203&news_iv_ctrl=1040

Stranger Than Paradise

12th May 2011, 18:23

China used tanks to dispel "protesters" (liberal bourgeois students who were in favor of Western "democracy").

Dispel is a severe understatement. The 1989 Tiananmen square protest were in part a reaction against the economic reforms of Zhao Ziyang, and workers were involved in the protests.

Why did the Beijing barracks of 'the Red Army' refuse to 'dispel' the protestors?

pranabjyoti

12th May 2011, 18:29

Dispel is a severe understatement. The 1989 Tiananmen square protest were in part a reaction against the economic reforms of Zhao Ziyang, and workers were involved in the protests.

Why did the Beijing barracks of 'the Red Army' refuse to 'dispel' the protestors?
Any source? So far, the leaders of the "protest" had openly advocated capitalism. At least, I don't know about any kind of "labor support" behind the Tienanmen "protest".

Chimurenga.

12th May 2011, 18:32

The Tiananmen Square protests were spearheaded by a group of students who were adamantly pro-West. They erected the Goddess Of Democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_of_Democracy) which was intended to be like the Statue of Liberty.

Wang Dan, one of the central leaders of the student movement, was quoted in the June 3 New York Times: “The movement is not ready for worker participation because the principles of democracy must first be absorbed by students and intellectuals before they can be spread to others.” In a June 2, 1993, interview with the Washington Post, Dan goes further to say that “the pursuit of wealth [was] part of the impetus for democracy. (http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/09-06-04-tiananmen-square-threat-counterr.html)”
Were there open Communists involved with these protests? Sure.
Was there working people engaged in the protest? Sure.

However, the student leadership must not be overlooked as they were the bulwark. The fantasies of the protests being majorly "Maoist" or Socialist must be put to rest. 1989 was the start of the rollback by Imperialism. The bourgeois media did not hesitate at jumping to the conclusion that thousands were mass murdered by the Chinese Communist Party and other such nonsense.

From the same article:

A June 12, 1989, article in the Wall Street Journal reported, “Aerial pictures of the conflagration and columns of smoke have powerfully bolstered the [Chinese] government’s arguments that the troops were victims, not executioners.”

On June 13, 1989, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof reported, “there is no firm indication that troops fired on students” occupying the Square itself, but rather the fighting had taken place in the streets outside the square.

In a Jan. 16, 1990, article by Kristof, students and pop singer Hou Dejian, who were present on June 4, admitted seeing “no one killed in Tiananmen Square.” According to Dejian, the 3,000 students remaining in the square were negotiating with the troops and decided to leave in the early morning hours. In the same article, it was declared that 300 people were killed in fights in the streets leading up to the square, many of whom were soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army.

What's even more of a shame is how many Communists believed it and still believe it.

FRSO's article, linked in the third post, seems really extensive and a good read.

Edit; It appears that Manicexpression has beaten me to the punch.

Stranger Than Paradise

12th May 2011, 18:59

Any source? So far, the leaders of the "protest" had openly advocated capitalism. At least, I don't know about any kind of "labor support" behind the Tienanmen "protest".

this: http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4145

the comments section talks of eyewitness reports

bricolage

12th May 2011, 19:18

I don't really know much about Tiananmen Square at all so I'm not really going to comment but...

How about the huge Statue of Liberty replica they had
I had a quick glance at wikipedia and it has this section;

While many people have noted its resemblance to the Statue of Liberty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty), a sculptor present during its construction, Tsao Tsing-yuan, has written that the students decided not to model their statue on the Statue of Liberty because they were concerned that it would be unoriginal and "too openly pro-American." Tsao further notes the influence on the statue of the work of Russian sculptor Vera Mukhina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Mukhina), associated with the school of revolutionary realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism). Her piece Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_and_Kolkhoz_Woman) was especially influential for their statue's head and facial features.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_of_Democracy#cite_note-Tsao-1)
And thoughts?

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 19:33

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tienanmen_Square_Massacre
Evidence enough.

This is only evidence of how laughably ignorant you are, if you think that linking to a wiki article (which ironically identities the events at the square as a massacre, this being something you would presumably deny!) is a sufficient form of evidence or is a decent argument.

How about the huge Statue of Liberty replica they had

What about it? The empirical fact that some of the protestors built a replica of the Statute of Liberty does not logically point towards any conclusion. Ho Chi Minh drew on the Declaration of Independence in his speeches to the Vietnamese and appeals to figures like Woodrow Wilson. The programme of the CPC during the War of Resistance was based on agrarian legislation formally enacted by the KMT. The students who were involved in the May 4th Movement intentionally wrote some of their banners in English. None of these empirical facts mean that the people involved were evil reactionaries who wanted neo-liberalism, only in your stupidity is it possible for you to make those kinds of assertions. Only the most superficial of analysts could think a protest movement can be understood solely on the basis of the inspiration behind a statue.

or the statements made by protest leaders that they were not only disinterested in working-class power, but hoping to cause bloodshed and instability from the start

Been there, done that, seen the same shitty journalism from the PSL. You're behind the times little boy. I said this to your fellow hack Kassad in another thread in reference to Chai Ling and much the same applies to Wang Dan:

"Simply pointing to a comment made by one student leader to a Western journalist during the course of the movement, a student leader who has subsequently argued with the support of other student activists (whether rightly or wrongly) that she was misquoted or that there were issues of erroneous translation, is not sufficient evidence for the claim you're making, which is that the movement possessed no possibilities other than the overthrow of the Chinese government and the installation of a new ruling apparatus geared towards shock therapy. If you are making a claim as big as that, you need to have corresponding evidence of similar weight and complexity. This quote, if anything, indicates the extent of emotionalism and inexperience on the part of the students."

Your style of argumentation is absurd - you can't just point to a statement made by one individual either during or after the protests and expect that to support an entire thesis about the class character and political orientation of a complex protest movement. I dealt with some of these issues in the first post I made in this thread. Go read, if you can.

At least, I don't know about any kind of "labor support" behind the Tienanmen "protest".

That's because you're an ignorant shit who should fuck off. Go read something other than a wiki article. Ironically, the wiki article that you linked to provides references to the existence of "labor support", which only proves that, despite its paucity as a source of evidence, you haven't even read the wiki article that you linked to as sufficient evidence for your earlier allegations.

manic expression

12th May 2011, 19:56

What about it? The empirical fact that some of the protestors built a replica of the Statute of Liberty does not logically point towards any conclusion. Ho Chi Minh drew on the Declaration of Independence in his speeches to the Vietnamese and appeals to figures like Woodrow Wilson. The programme of the CPC during the War of Resistance was based on agrarian legislation formally enacted by the KMT. The students who were involved in the May 4th Movement intentionally wrote some of their banners in English. None of these empirical facts mean that the people involved were evil reactionaries who wanted neo-liberalism, only in your stupidity is it possible for you to make those kinds of assertions. Only the most superficial of analysts could think a protest movement can be understood solely on the basis of the inspiration behind a statue.
You're making absurd comparisons, obviously in order to get away from the very clear fact that the Statue of Liberty was and is a known symbol of US imperialism and power. It was an appeal to "the west" (aka capitalism), nothing less. It wasn't inspiration from the American Revolution, it wasn't applying land reform, it wasn't writing banners in English....

Been there, done that, seen the same shitty journalism from the PSL. You're behind the times little boy. I said this to your fellow hack Kassad in another thread in reference to Chai Ling and much the same applies to Wang Dan:
:laugh: Backpeddling at its finest. Some anti-socialist activist goes on record, and all of a sudden it's our fault for not fully comprehending the truth of their ideals.

So once again, until you deal with the quotes, which are clearly anti-socialist and reactionary, have fun tap-dancing around the facts.

Your style of argumentation is absurd - you can't just point to a statement made by one individual either during or after the protests and expect that to support an entire thesis about the class character and political orientation of a complex protest movement. I dealt with some of these issues in the first post I made in this thread. Go read, if you can.
That's rich. Apparently, I can't point to the student leaders' OWN WORDS as evidence. Why not? Well, because it pokes a hole in your argument, one that's fed by the rhetoric of the imperialist press.

You asked for evidence. I provided it. Now you're telling me it's not applicable because you said so. Pathetic.

That's because you're an ignorant shit who should fuck off. Go read something other than a wiki article. Ironically, the wiki article that you linked to provides references to the existence of "labor support", which only proves that, despite its paucity as a source of evidence, you haven't even read the wiki article that you linked to as sufficient evidence for your earlier allegations.
:lol: In other words, you can't see that the student protestors were actively against workers taking a large part in their "movement"...they even said so.

If you can't make an argument worth reading, run along and go to bed.

caramelpence

12th May 2011, 20:10

You're making absurd comparisons

Your argument was absurd. Let me try and break it down for you so you can understand - hopefully. The premise you've selected is that some of the students made a replica of the Statue of Liberty. The conclusion you've reached is that the entire protest movement supported US imperialism, were rabidly pro-market, and whatever other buzz words you want to pluck from PSL articles and throw in. What analytical link is there between this premise and the conclusion that you've drawn? We might say that the decision to build a Statue of Liberty was interesting and important for some reasons - it suggests that some of the protestors thought that the Statue of Liberty was relevant to their goals, whatever those goals were, and insofar as they had a stable and coherent set of goals, and it might plausibly (though not necessarily) be argued that they were also interested in using it as a way of making appeals to external audiences, whether in the form of foreign populations or foreign governments. Then again, we might also not think that the building of the replica was significant. We can also have discussions about the kind of symbols and notions that Ho Chi Minh used including whether his decision to deploy them was significant and if so what his intention was. I actually made those comparisons because I don't think any of those empirical facts are important or sufficient for a nuanced understanding of the events and actors they relate to. But if you genuinely think that the decision to construct the replica is indicative of the whole character of an internally complex and constantly shifting movement you need to explain an analytical link. Pointing to a given empirical fact and then assuming a logical conclusion is not an argument.

So, again: yes, some students built a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Yes, and? What's your conclusion? Why do you draw that conclusion?

Some anti-socialist activist goes on record, and all of a sudden it's our fault for not fully comprehending the truth of their ideals.

I don't think I really said anything about "comprehending the truth of their ideals". The issue is once again one of premises, conclusions, and analytical links. Yes, a couple of notable students made, according to the reporting of the movement, some pretty patronizing and telling comments. Some of those comments were apparently made during the movement, others some years later. One individual, Chai Ling, has said that she was misquoted or that there were issues of translation, as I said, though that doesn't strike me as particularly significant. What conclusions do you draw from these empirical facts? Why do you think they are important or sufficient for our understanding of the complex phenomenon that was the 1989 protest movement?

Let me once again simplify for you. Your premise is that some individuals made some comments at different times, and that these comments are not ones that any socialists should agree with. Your conclusion is that these comments tell us a great deal about the character of the movement as a whole. Where is the analytical link? Your arguments are empty in the fullest (excuse the pun) sense of the word.

one that's fed by the rhetoric of the imperialist press.

The PSL article actually cites "the imperialist press" as its source for these comments, which constitutes the main form of evidence for the allegedly reactionary character of the entire movement, so your comment seems a bit odd in that respect. More directly, it's actually quite ironic that when it comes to the character of the movement, the narratives of the Chinese government (and you) on the one hand and foreign mainstream journalists and foreign governments on the other were actually the same in many respects - they both presented the movement as essentially about students supporting economic and/or political liberalization. Which makes sense - both actors have an interest in denying the role of the working class.

You asked for evidence. I provided it. Now you're telling me it's not applicable because you said so. Pathetic.

This isn't evidence for your basic claim though - that the movement was essentially reactionary. An assertion that bold requires a decent body of supporting evidence.

you can't see that the student protestors were actively against workers taking a large part in their "movement"...they even said so.

This is empirically true and significant. But I've never denied this.

manic expression

12th May 2011, 21:20

So, again: yes, some students built a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Yes, and? What's your conclusion? Why do you draw that conclusion?
It was a central symbol of the demonstrations. It was a symbol reaching out to "the west", to capitalism. The conclusion is that this central symbol was clearly not progressive but reactionary.

Let me once again simplify for you. Your premise is that some individuals made some comments at different times, and that these comments are not ones that any socialists should agree with. Your conclusion is that these comments tell us a great deal about the character of the movement as a whole. Where is the analytical link? Your arguments are empty in the fullest (excuse the pun) sense of the word.
You're trying to reduce this again. Those weren't "some individuals", they were noted leaders of the protests. They weren't "some comments", they were on-the-record statements proving that they were aiming to create instability and bloodshed and that they didn't want workers to have a part in their "movement".

The PSL article actually cites "the imperialist press" as its source for these comments, which constitutes the main form of evidence for the allegedly reactionary character of the entire movement, so your comment seems a bit odd in that respect. More directly, it's actually quite ironic that when it comes to the character of the movement, the narratives of the Chinese government (and you) on the one hand and foreign mainstream journalists and foreign governments on the other were actually the same in many respects - they both presented the movement as essentially about students supporting economic and/or political liberalization. Which makes sense - both actors have an interest in denying the role of the working class.
THE STUDENT LEADERS THEMSELVES denied the role of the working class, because they've said that they didn't want to have anything to do with working-class self-interest. You've run away from this time and again.

Also, yes, the PSL article cites reports from members of the imperialist press, but it cites journalists who were on the ground and whose reports were buried or ignored in the imperialist media. Interestingly enough, by this point no one seriously claims that there was a "massacre" because the facts have been established, and they all point to the contrary.

This isn't evidence for your basic claim though - that the movement was essentially reactionary. An assertion that bold requires a decent body of supporting evidence.
The leadership was reactionary. A very decent body of evidence has been put forth for this, including willful statements from protest leaders.

This is empirically true and significant. But I've never denied this.
Then we can agree that the protests were not progressive, that the protest leadership was actively reactionary and that the PRC is not to blame here.

syndicat

12th May 2011, 21:56

Threetune

12th May 2011, 22:15

Almost every western agent that could be smuggled in to China, on the pretext that they were journalists, NGOs officials etc were in there. More cameras and tape recorders than any spy agency could wish for and not one of them managed to show the “massacre” in the square or the removal or burning of “thousands of dead bodies”. Why not?

Threetune

12th May 2011, 22:35

Who started the fighting?

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/ig/Tiananmen-Photo-Gallery/Captured-PLA-Tank.htm (http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/ig/Tiananmen-Photo-Gallery/Captured-PLA-Tank.htm)
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/ig/Tiananmen-Photo-Gallery/Goddess-of-Democracy.htm (http://asianhistory.about.com/od/china/ig/Tiananmen-Photo-Gallery/Goddess-of-Democracy.htm)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p50a1.jpg (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p50a1.jpg)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p50c1.jpg (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p50c1.jpg)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p51c1.jpg (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p51c1.jpg)
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/p52b1.jpg

Princess Luna

12th May 2011, 22:51

What i find strange is the fact that China (even in 1989) was just as much, if not more capitalist then the U.S., so how were the protesters "counter-revolutionarys" there was no revolution to counter.......

Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk

12th May 2011, 23:03

Chimurenga.

12th May 2011, 23:06

it wasn't just students. a Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation...an independent union...had been formed recently and they participated in the protests. That union was crushed. in China the "unions" usually are headed by managers, and attack workers when they strike or do nothing. Hence the recent development of strikes & organizations independent of the official union, which is just an arm of the bosses...as is the CCP also.

I seem to recall another independent and autonomous union that arose out another country that led to a huge rollback of benefits after they were the majority in Senate and their crypto-Fascist was made President.

I believe their name was Solidarity?

Speaking of which:

The PLA’s armed crackdown on protesters ended the BWAF’s short existence. Late on the evening of June 3, 1989, a group of young people escorted BWAF leader Han Dongfang away from Tiananmen Square. As the youth tried to persuade Han to leave, they compared him to Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa. Han fled on his bicycle to neighboring Hebei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Workers%27_Autonomous_Federation#Crackdown _and_arrests) province.

Without saying who they were, they insisted I should not stay, and mentioned Solidarność, comparing me to Lech Wałęsa. Of course, I was flattered to be accorded such importance, but I didn’t think my life was more valuable than anyone else’s. (http://newleftreview.org/?view=2571)Awesome.

KlÃ©ber

12th May 2011, 23:39

The Dengist Stalinists in this thread are very ignorant, if not outright liars. The only thing they are good for is mimicking the rhetorical "style" of Glenn Beck.

It's too much to ask some people to read a book. So please, watch the documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace, produced by Carma Hinton. It is made from a leftist perspective, includes material that is critical of both the government and the protest leaders (Chai Ling sued the producers for defamation), and shows footage of uniformed PLA soldiers fraternizing with the protesters and a few actually joining them.

This documentary will make it clear to any real communist that the workers of Beijing supported and joined the student protesters. They were demonstrating against a capitalist dictatorship which was allied to the United States. If they spoke English and wore Nike shoes it's because Deng Xiaoping's government made them learn English and brought in the American companies to sell them Western products. To say they were pro-US CIA agents is so fucking stupid it's unbelievable.

Part 1 of 22:
vVvwA_34WB8
The other 21 parts are available on YouTube in English from the same uploader.

Lenina Rosenweg

13th May 2011, 00:16

The Beijing working class was starting to move, about a million Beijing workers joined the protests. The capitalist restorationist Dengist regime was wobbly.That is when the crackdown began. After the crackdown/massacre Deng , knowing the working class had been defeated, accelerated the move towards capitalism.
In addition to the excellent documentary Kleber posted there is an interesting eyewitness account by a British/Australian socialist, Steve Jolly.

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/1278

Another take

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/tien-j05.shtml

People reading this thread shouldn't have to be reminded that the OP is a blatant Qaddaffi apologist.

When a revolutionary situation does come and its time to pick sides, I do not want to be on the same side as those who support brutal capitalist regimes just because they are thought to be (in the minds of those who haven't read Marx) to be "anti-imperialist". I do not want to be on the same side as apologists of those who run the world's largest sweatshop manufacturing platform.I do not want to be on the same side as those who apologize for brutal capitalist dictators. These people have a lot to account for. Instead I want to be on the side of the working class.

The Dengist Stalinists in this thread are very ignorant, if not outright liars. The only thing they are good for is mimicking the rhetorical "style" of Glenn Beck.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 00:31

to be honest, even if the majority were calling for some kind of western system (i believe that wasn't strictly the case), then doesn't that tell us that the chinese system was an utter failure? if the majority of these protesters - all workers we would assume if china was a 'worker's state' (lol) - called for a western style system, then how god awful was their system in the first place? and can people really disregard the movement as bourgeois in its entirety?

No, not all of the students advocated a Western system, only some did, but including some of its famous leaders. And most of the workers were not really pro-West.

The workers were mainly fighting for free union representation and an end to the neoliberal policies that were being implemented in China at the time, they didn't even fundamentally challenge the Chinese state in a political sense.

From a socialist perspective, one should put more emphasis on the worker's participation than on the student's one. The student's movement was mixed, some had red flags and sang the Internationale, some were pro-West and built the Statue of Liberty. But most of the workers were not pro-West.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 00:34

I seem to recall another independent and autonomous union that arose out another country that led to a huge rollback of benefits after they were the majority in Senate and their crypto-Fascist was made President.

I believe their name was Solidarity?

Speaking of which:
Awesome.

Solidarity again was a mixed movement that failed tragically, because it didn't have the right programme and was detracted by pro-Western petit-bourgeois and bourgeois elements, but it doesn't imply that the Polish working class was like those elements, certainly not at the beginning. But the petit-bourgeois and bourgeois elements stole the show from them, due to the lack of genuine worker's leadership.

Tim Finnegan

13th May 2011, 01:48

Any source? So far, the leaders of the "protest" had openly advocated capitalism. At least, I don't know about any kind of "labor support" behind the Tienanmen "protest".
"Openly advocating" capitalism in China is like "openly advocating" rain in Scotland. :rolleyes:

I seem to recall another independent and autonomous union that arose out another country that led to a huge rollback of benefits after they were the majority in Senate and their crypto-Fascist was made President.

I believe their name was Solidarity?
What a singularly vapid comment.

agnixie

13th May 2011, 02:03

What a singularly vapid comment.

Which assuming it's the same way the CCP is Communist, means it's profound ;)

Chimurenga.

13th May 2011, 03:05

From a socialist perspective, one should put more emphasis on the worker's participation than on the student's one.

Sure. I mean, whatever helps us ignore reality and idealize instead.

But the petit-bourgeois and bourgeois elements stole the show from them, due to the lack of genuine worker's leadership.

What are you talking about "stole the show"? Lech Walesa was the main figurehead of Solidarity since the very beginning. You know, since he was a co-founder and all... Are you going to try and tell me that he was corrupted and what manifested from 1990-on wasn't his real intentions?

"Failed tragically"?? On the contrary. I think they were a smashing success!

"Lack of genuine workers leadership"? The workers aligned with Solidarity didn't think so. Western "Communists" didn't think so. Its easy to say this in hindsight while in the late 80's, most Communists in the West were singing a different tune.

This actually has relevance to this discussion. Since the leader of the BAWF still had a positive view of Lech Walesa and Solidarity in 2005, when that article was written. Its a little telling of his personal politics.

Users can shrug my reference off as "vapid", 'rhetorical', whatever. It doesn't matter to me. Most of this forum does this (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2010/05/lalalala_ottercanthearyou.jpg) whenever you bring something up that shatters their idealized view of some trade union, some "popular" movement, and whatever else anyway.

Tim Finnegan

13th May 2011, 03:28

Users can shrug my reference off as "vapid", 'rhetorical', whatever. It doesn't matter to me. Most of this forum does this (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2010/05/lalalala_ottercanthearyou.jpg) whenever you bring something up that shatters their idealized view of some trade union, some "popular" movement, and whatever else anyway.
I'm really not sure that Stalinists, I'm sorry, "Marxist-Leninists" are in much of a position to dictate what and what is not an "idealised view".

pranabjyoti

13th May 2011, 03:35

This is only evidence of how laughably ignorant you are, if you think that linking to a wiki article (which ironically identities the events at the square as a massacre, this being something you would presumably deny!) is a sufficient form of evidence or is a decent argument.
An example of how callous you are and how little patience you have to read and understand others posts. My point isn't about whether Tienanmen was a massacre or not, but rather whether we should support any "anti-state" movement or not and I posted the wiki link just to show class character of the movement.
There are many posts in this forum who are trying to prove that the nature of the movement is Tienanmen are not "pro-western", but so far, I have no idea about any group of protesters calling that they were not "pro-western" and wasn't called for US styled capitalism in China. If anybody have any source regarding that matter, kindly post it in this thread.

Lenina Rosenweg

13th May 2011, 05:23

The students at Tienanmen were politically mixed. Many of them supported pro-western liberalism. On the other hand many students and workers clearly had socialist consciousness.The Internationale was sung by thousands.There were large student demonstrations everywhere in China. In Beijing the working class began taking to the streets in vast numbers.There was a period of about two weeks when the regime was tottering.There was the possibility of a socialist revolution in China, to fully fulfill the 1949 promise of "Jiefeng".

Did you actually read the Steve Jolly article I posted a link to? You might learn something.

Students and workers were enraged by an increasingly corrupt, repressive, nepotistic regime.If there had been a revolutionary workers leadership to give the movement focus the corrupt autocrats running the PRC would have been tossed in the dustbin of history. Instead the moment past.A few days after the movement was crushed Deng went on national TV and said the "reforms" would now be dramatically sped up.The corruption and nepotism increased exponentially. The hardliner Li Peng's son is a billionaire as is the offspring of a large faction of the CCP, which has rapidly become a vast corrupt patronage network, not too different in form from Assad's security state in Syria.I do not understand how anyone could be an apologist for the regime which has given us the "sweatshop of the world". To fight for socialism and oppose liberalism is not the same as supporting repressive capitalist kleptocracies in the name of "anti-imperialism".

Jose Gracchus

13th May 2011, 05:54

Solidarity had Marxist sections and some called for untrammeled workers' control over production. Sadly, the major bureaucratic and pro-Church wings of the movement did negotiate away the rise in militancy of the 1980 strikes--which was desired both by the Stalinist apparatchiks they were "opposed to" and their Western handlers [who had, by the way, financed the Poles into the debt-hole they found themselves in in 1980 with the Party eagerly taking the loans promising the workers' labor would pay it off]. When the military regime - again a loyal arm of the Stalinists' beloved "gains" to the working class - repressed Solidarity, only the arms which could count on the church, and the Vatican and West abroad were able to survive. Remember, this is somehow the workers' fault who self-organized and supported Solidarity, and somehow not the Stalinist military regime. Nonetheless, Solidarity still as a workers' organization had to pretend to offer a kind of self-managed "market socialism" to their constituency. When the "counterrevolution" imagined by populists like Swag came, it was a roundtable talk between church-"fascist" Solidarity rump-leadership and the apparatchikki who were ready to give up those "workers' gains" so they could both be the new elite of capitalist state on the NATO-EU model. The electoral success of Solidarity's new apparatus quickly dropped to nil as their real program became obvious, militancy faded, and Poland slid into greater poverty, inequality

Swag's solution to this? Western leftists should've talked more shit about Solidarity before 1980, when the revolutionary factions were still extant and agitating, in favor of encouraging among the workers an attitude of unflinching loyalty to the party-state which was mortgaging the nation on the workers' backs and filled with apparatchikki who were desperately looking for a way out of the Leninist social contract [subsidized wages and goods, rations, and makework] and to get to buy themselves some nice vacation homes in the West or become new millionaires.

Tim Finnegan

13th May 2011, 06:05

And let's remember, Solidarity was campaigning against a state which cheerfully sold coal to the British government during the '84-85 miners' strike, even as miners from across the Eastern Bloc- including some Solidarity members!- scraped together what little they could spare to donate to their British comrades. Whatever one thinks of Solidarity, it's quite beyond question that the PRP was as rotten, as rancid and as utterly anti-worker as any bourgeois state you'd care to name.

Jose Gracchus

13th May 2011, 08:47

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 10:27

...Sadly, the major bureaucratic and pro-Church wings of the movement did negotiate away the rise in militancy of the 1980 strikes--which was desired both by the Stalinist apparatchiks they were "opposed to" and their Western handlers...only the arms which could count on the church, and the Vatican and West abroad were able to survive.

... ...

When the "counterrevolution" imagined by populists like Swag came, it was a roundtable talk between church-"fascist" Solidarity rump-leadership and the apparatchikki who were ready to give up those "workers' gains" so they could both be the new elite of capitalist state

Much of the Solidarity leadership was indeed reactionary, which is why it failed.

Remember, this is somehow the workers' fault who self-organized and supported Solidarity

It's certainly not their moral fault, but it is a "fault" in the purely objectively strategic sense - the workers were not politically conscious enough and didn't possess their own genuine leadership (as opposed to the rump Church-led "leadership"). This is why Leninism insists the importance of having a genuine vanguard party during political movements, rather the "pure spontaneous actions" ultra-leftists advocate.

Swag's solution to this? Western leftists should've talked more shit about Solidarity before 1980, when the revolutionary factions were still extant and agitating, in favor of encouraging among the workers an attitude of unflinching loyalty to the party-state which was mortgaging the nation on the workers' backs and filled with apparatchikki who were desperately looking for a way out of the Leninist social contract [subsidized wages and goods, rations, and makework] and to get to buy themselves some nice vacation homes in the West or become new millionaires.

Poland was a deformed worker's state, so a genuine political movement would keep the essential structure of the state, but would replace the corrupt bureaucrats in power with genuine worker's and trade union leaders.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 10:29

To be clear, I don't think Solidarity in 1980 was a proper revolutionary, much less revolutionary socialist in character, organization. It was however an authentic workers' mass organization, forged under great repression and difficulty by the Polish working class. That said, most of the real class tendencies were wiped out by the martial law period, while "Solidarity" that remained was a Vatican-Western-backed front, and devoid of real proletarian credibility. Still, I do not think the Eurocommunists and market socialists and other overly despairing capitalist triumphalists were right to support its sops to the working class in the name of some kind of reformist state socialism. That said, it certainly does not put them behind the people who cared for not a shred for any workers at all: those supporting uncritically the PRL.

The rank-and-file of Solidarity consisted many genuine elements, but much of the leadership were collaborators with the Catholic Church (unfortunately some of the workers were still relatively naive and still looked to the Church for some kind of political salvation - again emphasising the importance of possessing the right kind of political consciousness in any movement) and relatively reactionary. Those leaders who advocated some kind of "market socialism" were reactionary too.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 10:35

Sure. I mean, whatever helps us ignore reality and idealize instead.

What are you talking about "stole the show"? Lech Walesa was the main figurehead of Solidarity since the very beginning. You know, since he was a co-founder and all... Are you going to try and tell me that he was corrupted and what manifested from 1990-on wasn't his real intentions?

"Failed tragically"?? On the contrary. I think they were a smashing success!

"Lack of genuine workers leadership"? The workers aligned with Solidarity didn't think so. Western "Communists" didn't think so. Its easy to say this in hindsight while in the late 80's, most Communists in the West were singing a different tune.

This actually has relevance to this discussion. Since the leader of the BAWF still had a positive view of Lech Walesa and Solidarity in 2005, when that article was written. Its a little telling of his personal politics.

Users can shrug my reference off as "vapid", 'rhetorical', whatever. It doesn't matter to me. Most of this forum does this (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2010/05/lalalala_ottercanthearyou.jpg) whenever you bring something up that shatters their idealized view of some trade union, some "popular" movement, and whatever else anyway.

I don't completely disagree with you, in fact, I agree with a lot of the geopolitical analysis of PSL.

However, when it comes to internal analysis, PSL often takes a minimalist approach - just support whichever side one perceives to have the least political risk, the "lesser of two evils".

But often socialist politics is inevitably filled with all kinds of risks. One must be willing to take risks. As the ancient Chinese saying goes: If one is not willing to risk sacrificing his own wife, one will never be able to catch the wolf. (Excuse the implicit sexist nature of this ancient statement, but that's how much risk sometimes people must take - gamble everything) My point here is that both Tiananmen and Solidarity were essentially mixed movements, (I essentially disagree with both those people who completely support such movements and those who completely oppose them, such simplistic viewpoints are not dialectical) and if they really did possess the correct political consciousness and leadership, could have terminated pro-capitalist revisionism in China and Poland on the one hand, and still defended these worker's states against Western imperialism on the other. These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, mind you.

The objective material conditions were certainly sufficient for this to happen. The only thing missing was the correct political vanguard. This is why I keep on insisting the importance of genuine Leninist vanguardism in socialist politics, instead of just the so-called "spontaneous mass action" advocated by ultra-leftists. "Spontaneous mass actions" are always prone to be detracted and misled by reactionary elements in the leadership layers. A worker's movement must never be mindless, if it's mindless, then it will fail. Mind matters. A worker's movement is never just the mechanical product of objective material conditions solely by itself.

manic expression

13th May 2011, 10:59

Much of the Solidarity leadership was indeed reactionary, which is why it failed.
This deserves far more attention. Solidarity's leadership was reactionary, and that leadership achieved its goals in reestablishing capitalism and destroying socialism. That it had working-class support and involvement only made it a more dangerous threat to progress. And we can also see from Solidarity that capitalist agents will lie and lie and lie...all the promises of "worker democracy" and whatever other garbage came out of Solidarity were only to blind workers to the fact that Solidarity was spearheading their reenslavement.

So while the anti-socialist voices continue to repeat over and over that there were some working-class elements involved in Tianamen, they fail to grasp that it is the leadership of a movement (which no one has even half-seriously asserted was truly progressive) that determines its class character. History is chock-full of such examples. That's why the Tianamen protests themselves were reactionary, and that's why the actions taken by the PRC were appropriate and positive for the interests of the workers.

"Openly advocating" capitalism in China is like "openly advocating" rain in Scotland. :rolleyes:Don't be hysterical. It's more like advocating snow in Scotland...sure it's there, but not nearly all the time and not nearly as much as some would want.

But your characterization of socialism as "just as bad" as capitalism is absolutely ludicrous. Life expectancy in Eastern Europe alone is enough to show such a claim is nothing but reductionist hot air. The "it's just as bad!!!!!!!" position is an argument made without an analysis behind it.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 11:09

This deserves far more attention. Solidarity's leadership was reactionary, and that leadership achieved its goals in reestablishing capitalism and destroying socialism. That it had working-class support and involvement only made it a more dangerous threat to progress. And we can also see from Solidarity that capitalist agents will lie and lie and lie...all the promises of "worker democracy" and whatever other garbage came out of Solidarity were only to blind workers to the fact that Solidarity was spearheading their reenslavement.

So while the anti-socialist voices continue to repeat over and over that there were some working-class elements involved in Tianamen, they fail to grasp that it is the leadership of a movement (which no one has even half-seriously asserted was truly progressive) that determines its class character. History is chock-full of such examples. That's why the Tianamen protests themselves were reactionary, and that's why the actions taken by the PRC were appropriate and positive for the interests of the workers.

I'm not essentially disputing what you are saying here objectively, but then instead of calling for a genuine political vanguard to challenge the reactionary rump "leadership" and truly lead the workers in the right progressive direction, you simply call for people to "fall back" and take the "lesser of the two evils", which in the concrete sense means tacit support for the revisionist pro-capitalist leadership in the government. Had Lenin taken such an approach then there would be no October Revolution.

You are like those socialists in the West who continue to call on people to give tacit support for the Labour Party because it's supposed to be "slightly better" than the Conservative alternative. It's a minimalist political position - just doing enough not to make major mistakes. It's not sufficient to transform society.

Labour is objectively somewhat better for workers than the Conservatives, just like the deformed worker's states were still better for workers than how Russia and Eastern Europe is like now, under full-scale neoliberal capitalism. But it doesn't mean socialists should simply call on people to give support to Labour. Indeed, socialists must challenge Labour even it means there is a serious risk of the Conservatives coming to power if Labour is not supported sufficiently by people, which would mean even more drastic public cuts and neoliberal policies, and even more severe mass unemployment.

The objective material conditions were sufficient in China to successfully challenge the revisionist leadership, the only thing missing was the political vanguard and political consciousness. Obviously any "spontaneous worker's movement" without the right political programme would always be misled.

manic expression

13th May 2011, 11:21

I'm not essentially disputing what you are saying here objectively, but then instead of calling for a genuine political vanguard to challenge the reactionary rump "leadership" and truly lead the workers in the right progressive direction, you simply call for people to "fall back" and take the "lesser of the two evils", which in the concrete sense means tacit support for the revisionist pro-capitalist leadership in the government. Had Lenin taken such an approach then there would be no October Revolution.
No, that's not my contention at all. I want the workers to "fall back" from reactionary movements with reactionary leadership, yes. However, I want them to run, not walk, to progressive movements within the PRC.

You are like those socialists in the West who continue to call on people to give tacit support for the Labour Party because it's supposed to be "slightly better" than the Conservative alternative. It's a minimalist political position - just doing enough not to make major mistakes. It's not sufficient to transform society.

Labour is objectively somewhat better for workers than the Conservatives, just like the deformed worker's states were still better for workers than how Russia and Eastern Europe is like now, under full-scale neoliberal capitalism. But it doesn't mean socialists should simply call on people to give support to Labour.
The worker states were "better" in that they represented an entirely different system from capitalism that had, as its result, a better society for the workers. The Labour Party very truly is not that, and so with respect, the comparison is void IMO.

The objective material conditions were sufficient in China to successfully challenge the revisionist leadership, the only thing missing was the political vanguard and political consciousness. Obviously any "spontaneous worker's movement" without the right political programme would always be misled.
The objective material conditions were also sufficient to throw the PRC down the mine shaft of capitalist restoration. It was happening all around the world, European socialism was falling apart and no one was sure if Cuban socialism could even survive. Would you not say that these material conditions lent themselves to reactionary shifts as much as a challenge to revisionist leadership, especially when the Tianamen protests were led by reactionary forces, and especially without a solidly progressive political programme?

Lenina Rosenweg

13th May 2011, 11:43

No, that's not my contention at all. I want the workers to "fall back" from reactionary movements with reactionary leadership, yes. However, I want them to run, not walk, to progressive movements within the PRC. Alright, but I also want to see workers run, not walk from the likes of Assad, Qaddaffi, Mugabe, et al.

The worker states were "better" in that they represented an entirely different system from capitalism that had, as its result, a better society for the workers. The Labour Party very truly is not that, and so with respect, the comparison is void IMO.
Agree

The objective material conditions were also sufficient to throw the PRC down the mine shaft of capitalist restoration. It was happening all around the world, European socialism was falling apart and no one was sure if Cuban socialism could even survive. Would you not say that these material conditions lent themselves to reactionary shifts as much as a challenge to revisionist leadership, especially when the Tianamen protests were led by reactionary forces, and especially without a solidly progressive political programme?

A short answer to this would be that capitalist restoration occured anyway in China. Cuba is currently restoring capitalism, there can be no doubt about this.Its not a matter of "revisionist leadership" of "socialist" states but the class relationship to the means of production,

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 11:43

No, that's not my contention at all. I want the workers to "fall back" from reactionary movements with reactionary leadership, yes. However, I want them to run, not walk, to progressive movements within the PRC.

You (the PSL) are not actively calling for a genuine vanguard to lead the workers to victory.

The worker states were "better" in that they represented an entirely different system from capitalism that had, as its result, a better society for the workers. The Labour Party very truly is not that, and so with respect, the comparison is void IMO.
This is only true in the most pedantic sense. My approach to politics is much more empirical. Why should ordinary poor workers put abstract ideology above their own living standards and working conditions? If an ideology cannot improve worker's conditions, then it must be a failure, period.

Technically you could say that even today the PRC is still a "deformed worker's state" to some extent, but that doesn't change the fact that generally Chinese workers suffer much worse working conditions than workers in capitalist America.

I don't think the objective advantages to the ordinary workers on the ground were really very significant in countries with a heavily pro-capitalist and revisionist leadership.

The objective material conditions were also sufficient to throw the PRC down the mine shaft of capitalist restoration.
Yes, and capitalist restoration happened anyway in China, China today is essentially a capitalist state for all practical purposes, only that it's now more under the national bourgeois than it would be the case if China went the way of the former Soviet Union. National capitalism may be better than comparador capitalism, but would I ever actually support national capitalism? Not really.

Not to mention that despite the fact that the PRC never broke up, there is already a significant comparador element in China today anyway. The shell may still be fully intact, but the insides have been corroded very severely already.

You think explicitly breaking up a state is the only way for Western imperialists to intervene in a country? Nope, imperialism is often much more subtle than that.

To use an analogy, Chinese "national capitalism" today is to comparador capitalism led by Western imperialism what "New Labour" is to the Conservative Party.

It was happening all around the world, European socialism was falling apart and no one was sure if Cuban socialism could even survive. Would you not say that these material conditions lent themselves to reactionary shifts as much as a challenge to revisionist leadership, especially when the Tianamen protests were led by reactionary forces, and especially without a solidly progressive political programme?
It's not just that the possibility for both progress and reaction were present (which indeed they were) relative to a "neutral" state, but rather that "state" itself was already deeply reactionary in its own way. Socialism was falling apart with or without Western intervention, because it was being corrupted from the inside.

Jose Gracchus

13th May 2011, 12:01

bailey_187

13th May 2011, 13:11

As reactionary as Solidarity leadership was, and the disasters it brang, it has to be considered that the strikes in Poland did start as a response to increase in work norms and price rises (which meant a decline in living standards), workers being fired etc

However, all these things happened post-Communism too - does that not say something about the difference between membership and leaders?

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 13:15

it has to be considered that the strikes in Poland did start as a response to increase in work norms and price rises (which meant a decline in living standards), workers being fired etc

Yeah of course, obviously there were serious material reasons for why workers acted in the way they did.

But for Leninists material reasons solely in themselves are not good enough. Without the correct leadership and political programme, every "spontaneous worker's movement" will inevitably fail, every single time without exception. It will inevitably get hijacked by reactionary elements. You can bet your life on that.

manic expression

13th May 2011, 13:20

You (the PSL) are not actively calling for a genuine vanguard to lead the workers to victory.
Any progressive change in the PRC will come from within the CPC.

This is only true in the most pedantic sense. My approach to politics is much more empirical. Why should ordinary poor workers put abstract ideology above their own living standards and working conditions? If an ideology cannot improve worker's conditions, then it must be a failure, period.
Working-class living standards are tied fully to the structure of the society they live in. The worker states you spoke of provided far better living standards precisely because they were worker states. Why, then, did you compare defending these states to voting for the Labour Party? My position is that living standards and societal structure go hand-in-hand. Defend progressive states and you defend better working-class living standards.

Technically you could say that even today the PRC is still a "deformed worker's state" to some extent, but that doesn't change the fact that generally Chinese workers suffer much worse working conditions than workers in capitalist America.
I find the comparison unpersuasive because of the historical differences in development between the two.

Yes, and capitalist restoration happened anyway in China, China today is essentially a capitalist state for all practical purposes, only that it's now more under the national bourgeois than it would be the case if China went the way of the former Soviet Union. National capitalism may be better than comparador capitalism, but would I ever actually support national capitalism? Not really.

Not to mention that despite the fact that the PRC never broke up, there is already a significant comparador element in China today anyway. The shell may still be fully intact, but the insides have been corroded very severely already.
Capitalist restoration has not happened in China. Capitalist elements have been reintroduced, of course, but the CPC holds the political power, not any capitalist class. These are empirical facts.

You think explicitly breaking up a state is the only way for Western imperialists to intervene in a country? Nope, imperialism is often much more subtle than that.

To use an analogy, Chinese "national capitalism" today is to comparador capitalism led by Western imperialism what "New Labour" is to the Conservative Party.
That analogy has already been shown to be incorrect.

It's not just that the possibility for both progress and reaction were present (which indeed they were) relative to a "neutral" state, but rather that "state" itself was already deeply reactionary in its own way. Socialism was falling apart with or without Western intervention, because it was being corrupted from the inside.
Reactionary compared to what? Compared to what the PRC was 20 years prior? Sure. Compared to the Statue of Liberty being built in Tianamen Square? Not a chance.

You are right that socialism in the PRC had been deteriorating, but the whole point is that the Tianamen Square "movement" was trying to capitalize on this and push China far to the right. What happened was a defense of the progressive aspects still at work in the PRC.

Yup, and those PRL leaders were doing there utmost to help repressing the most militant workers on the fringes of the movement, then negotiating the rest of the workers' social contract away in a sit-down pow-wow with the rump leadership of the same movement.
Ah, so you also say that Solidarity was reactionary after all.

manic expression

13th May 2011, 13:34

Alright, but I also want to see workers run, not walk from the likes of Assad, Qaddaffi, Mugabe, et al.
I don't disagree, but I would add the qualification that if those countries are threatened with imperialist meddling, national liberation must be a priority for the workers. Let's not forget how much workers throughout the world have to run, not walk from imperialist bombs.

A short answer to this would be that capitalist restoration occured anyway in China. Cuba is currently restoring capitalism, there can be no doubt about this.Its not a matter of "revisionist leadership" of "socialist" states but the class relationship to the means of production,
No, I don't think we can say that. The CPC has reintroduced capitalist elements, but it can just as easily reverse that (and has, in the past few years). Political power is not held by a capitalist class, hence the contradictions in the PRC.

Not to get off-topic, but Cuba is definitely not restoring capitalism. It's trying to improve productivity within its socialist system (as the Cuban Workers Confederation put it, "Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining enterprises with inflated payrolls, losses that pull down our economy and make us counterproductive, generate bad habits and distort worker behavior.") Most, if not almost all the "privatizations" are being done through self-employment and cooperatives, not through the buying and selling of labor power on a capitalist market. Such policy changes should be analyzed carefully, not condemned. Anyway, it's a completely different situation than the PRC.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 13:37

Any progressive change in the PRC will come from within the CPC.

That's a line even radical reformist Maoists based in China wouldn't agree with.

While I don't write-off the poor rank-and-file of the CCP, for instance courageous radical reformist Maoists like Zhao Dongmin, who was imprisoned for his trade unionism work (something PSL never seem to have mentioned, it's all over leftist websites in mainland China), do you really think the CCP ruling bloc, who now possess personal wealth measured in millions and even billions in many cases, would ever genuinely shift to the left even in a limited sense?

Economic base determines superstructure. Rich people can never become socialists.

Working-class living standards are tied fully to the structure of the society they live in. The worker states you spoke of provided far better living standards precisely because they were worker states. Why, then, did you compare defending these states to voting for the Labour Party? My position is that living standards and societal structure go hand-in-hand. Defend progressive states and you defend better working-class living standards.
There is a difference between "worker's state" under Maoism and "worker's state" under post-Mao Dengist revisionism. What you said here is true to a significant extent for the Maoist period, but not for the Dengist period.

You think the PRC even today is still essentially a "socialist state", therefore by your logic of "living standards and societal structure go hand-in-hand", workers in China must still generally enjoy more rights and better labour conditions than workers in the capitalist West. Well, try to tell that to the 17 Foxconn workers who committed suicide (again, such a major event which isn't even covered on the PSL site), try to tell that to the miners in China's sub-standard coal-mines doing back-breaking labour every day of the year. Even American trade unions have criticised the working conditions in China, such are the great advantages of living in a "deformed worker's state"!

Capitalist restoration has not happened in China. Capitalist elements have been reintroduced, of course, but the CPC holds the political power, not any capitalist class. These are empirical facts.
No you are wrong. The CCP ruling bloc today is on the whole a part of the capitalist class. The only thing that's still socialist in China is the constitutional shell, which has no real power at all.

Also, the CCP ruling bloc today is not even genuinely national capitalist, but rather it's selling the Chinese people out to Western imperialism like what comparador capitalists do. Western imperialism has already got a foothold in China, even without explicitly breaking up the PRC state.

That analogy has already been shown to be incorrect.
That's only because you insist China today is still a "socialist state".

Reactionary compared to what? Compared to what the PRC was 20 years prior? Sure. Compared to the Statue of Liberty being built in Tianamen Square? Not a chance.
Well no, I didn't say revisionism in China is just as bad as full-scale Western intervention. However, as I said already, the CCP ruling bloc today is not even properly national capitalist, never mind socialist, since it's already selling the Chinese people out to Western imperialism anyway. Much of the exploitation done by Western corporations in China today has the full support and collaboration of the CCP regime.

You are on guard against comparador capitalism in China. I can understand that, in principle. What you fail to recognise is that the CCP ruling bloc today is not only revisionist or capitalist, but it's already semi-comparador capitalist in itself. Never mind socialism, even from a national liberation or left-wing nationalist perspective, the CCP regime today is reactionary.

You are right that socialism in the PRC had been deteriorating, but the whole point is that the Tianamen Square "movement" was trying to capitalize on this and push China far to the right. What happened was a defense of the progressive aspects still at work in the PRC.
Well, most of the ruling bloc in China today is even worse than the revisionists in power in 1989. So a "move to the right" has happened anyway, only slower and to a lesser extent.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 13:40

No, I don't think we can say that. The CPC has reintroduced capitalist elements, but it can just as easily reverse that (and has, in the past few years). Political power is not held by a capitalist class, hence the contradictions in the PRC.

Not to get off-topic, but Cuba is definitely not restoring capitalism. It's trying to improve productivity within its socialist system (as the Cuban Workers Confederation put it, "Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining enterprises with inflated payrolls, losses that pull down our economy and make us counterproductive, generate bad habits and distort worker behavior.") Most, if not almost all the "privatizations" are being done through self-employment and cooperatives, not through the buying and selling of labor power on a capitalist market. Such policy changes should be analyzed carefully, not condemned. Anyway, it's a completely different situation than the PRC.

I don't disagree so much with the PSL's current analysis on Cuba, but China today is nothing like Cuba.

Have you ever seen Castroists arrested and imprisoned in Cuba? Nope. But in China today even reformist Maoists like Zhao Dongmin are often imprisoned without any proper sentences.

Also, did you know that a while ago a Chinese documentary praising the socialist system in Cuba was banned by the Chinese government because it was too pro-socialist and "anti-market"? You don't know this, do you?

China and Cuba today are qualitatively different.

Even if you support Cuban-style socialism you wouldn't consider China today to be really "socialist". Where is the free healthcare, free education, and guaranteed employment for everyone in China? Don't blame it on "economic development level", Cuba is also a poor country, and much smaller than China, also it's surrounded on all sides by imperialism, yet Cuba is still able to offer everyone in the country these things. There isn't any significant economic inequality in Cuba either. Yet China with its rapid economic growth of more than 8% a year for 30 years cannot even afford to provide everyone of its citizens free healthcare? Cannot even reduce its ridiculous Ginni Index of 0.5? You've got to be kidding. It's not a problem with "economic development level", it's a problem with the political system in China. China spends more than twice as much money every year on maintaining "internal order" against the waves of "mass incidents" as it does on public healthcare. Even orthodox Dengists would realise that once economic inequality reaches a certain level, then the country simply can't be genuinely socialist anymore.

"Market Socialism" is now the new ideological religion in the PRC, not Maoism anymore. Anyone who dares to challenge Market Socialism will be suppressed, including Maoists.

manic expression

13th May 2011, 13:59

That's a line even radical reformist Maoists based in China wouldn't agree with.

While I don't write-off the poor rank-and-file of the CCP, for instance courageous radical reformist Maoists like Zhao Dongmin, who was imprisoned for his trade unionism work (something PSL never seem to have mentioned, it's all over leftist websites in mainland China), do you really think the CCP ruling bloc, who now possess personal wealth measured in millions and even billions in many cases, would ever genuinely shift to the left even in a limited sense?
As I've said before, I support a complete upheaval within the CPC along class lines. I think those working-class rank-and-file members are the ones to look to. That's why I don't support the Tianamen protests.

Economic base determines superstructure. Rich people can never become socialists.
I don't agree. All sorts of great leaders and members of our movement have been from rich backgrounds.

There is a difference between "worker's state" under Maoism and "worker's state" under post-Mao Dengist revisionism. What you said here is true to a significant extent for the Maoist period, but not for the Dengist period.

You think the PRC even today is still essentially a "socialist state", therefore by your logic of "living standards and societal structure go hand-in-hand", workers in China must still generally enjoy more rights and better labour conditions than workers in the capitalist West. Well, try to tell that to the 17 Foxconn workers who committed suicide (again, such a major event which isn't even covered on the PSL site), try to tell that to the miners in China's sub-standard coal-mines doing back-breaking labour every day of the year. Even American trade unions have criticised the working conditions in China, such are the great advantages of living in a "deformed worker's state"!
Let's try to stay on topic: Are you really trying to tell me that the pro-west objectives of the Tianamen protestors would have resulted in better working conditions? Is that actually your argument? If not, this is for another time and place, because even though I partially agree I don't think it relates to the topic at hand.

No you are wrong. The CCP ruling bloc today is on the whole a part of the capitalist class. The only thing that's still socialist in China is the constitutional shell, which has no real power at all.

Also, the CCP ruling bloc today is not even genuinely national capitalist, but rather it's selling the Chinese people out to Western imperialism like what comparador capitalists do. Western imperialism has already got a foothold in China, even without explicitly breaking up the PRC state.
You alluded to it yourself: economic substructure determines superstructure. Why do we not see wholesale bourgeois reforms in the political arena? Why is the CPC even there? A bourgeoisie would not permit these institutions of the Revolution to persist, it would do its best Yeltsin impression.

That's only because you insist China today is still a "socialist state".
I insist there are socialist aspects to the PRC. The state itself is the picture of contradiction. I also insist it is still a worker state, however heavily deformed it may be.

Well no, I didn't say revisionism in China is just as bad as full-scale Western intervention. However, as I said already, the CCP ruling bloc today is not even properly national capitalist, never mind socialist, since it's already selling the Chinese people out to Western imperialism anyway. Much of the exploitation done by Western corporations in China today has the full support and collaboration of the CCP regime.

You are on guard against comparador capitalism in China. I can understand that, in principle. What you fail to recognise is that the CCP ruling bloc today is not only revisionist or capitalist, but it's already semi-comparador capitalist in itself. Never mind socialism, even from a national liberation or left-wing nationalist perspective, the CCP regime today is reactionary.
I agree with that, I've said that the CPC now is reactionary compared to what it was in 1970. However, we have to look at the best opportunities for the workers of the PRC to change that. I do not see anything other than the CPC, the working-class membership of that party, capable of bringing this about. And the Tianamen protests certainly weren't progressive, given the reactionary alignment of their leadership.

You point out that the CPC and the CPC's ruling bloc are not the same. This is what I'm getting at.

Well, most of the ruling bloc in China today is even worse than the revisionists in power in 1989. So a "move to the right" has happened anyway, only slower and to a lesser extent.
And it can still be reversed by the institutions already in place, as there hasn't been a wholesale overturn of the worker state as we saw in Europe/USSR.

I don't disagree so much with the PSL's current analysis on Cuba, but China today is nothing like Cuba.

Have you ever seen Castroists arrested and imprisoned in Cuba? Nope. But in China today even reformist Maoists like Zhao Dongmin are often imprisoned without any proper sentences.

Also, did you know that a while ago a Chinese documentary praising the socialist system in Cuba was banned by the Chinese government because it was too pro-socialist? You don't know this, do you?

China and Cuba today are qualitatively different.
I didn't know that. I fully agree with what you're saying, though.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 14:12

As I've said before, I support a complete upheaval within the CPC along class lines. I think those working-class rank-and-file members are the ones to look to.

This is true in principle, but it would be wrong to solely rely on the CCP rank-and-file. Of course I certainly don't agree with some Western Marxists who completely write them off either.

Also, in practical strategic terms, in order for the CCP rank-and-file to successfully rise-up against the ruling bloc, they would most likely have to form their own political organisation anyway, like the Maoist Communist Party of China (MCPC), which largely consists of ex-CCP members, but is a banned organisation in the PRC at the moment.

It's simply not strategically viable to insist that the CCP rank-and-file must unconditionally stay inside the current institutional framework of the CCP.

I don't agree. All sorts of great leaders and members of our movement have been from rich backgrounds.
You are not being objective and scientific. It's a matter of statistics. There are a few rich socialists, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of rich people will never become socialists, because they are bourgeois. This is based on economic class. So in general I don't trust rich people, such as those rich elites in the ruling bloc of China today.

And there is no such thing as a "rich proletarian", if a rich person becomes a socialist, he/she would have to give up much of their wealth. A "rich proletarian" is a simple contradiction in terms.

You point out that the CPC and the CPC's ruling bloc are not the same. This is what I'm getting at.
I think there is a fundamental contradiction between the CCP ruling bloc and the CCP rank-and-file, based on economic class.

Thirsty Crow

13th May 2011, 14:50

You alluded to it yourself: economic substructure determines superstructure. Why do we not see wholesale bourgeois reforms in the political arena? Why is the CPC even there? A bourgeoisie would not permit these institutions of the Revolution to persist, it would do its best Yeltsin impression.

That's just unscientific, ahistorical bullshit.
Try to mind the historical and political specificity and complexity of the relationship between the political and the economic. Or in other words, we do not see a wholesale set of bourgeois reforms because the conditions of capital accumulation in China permit a specific role on behalf of the state, and this state has its historical roots and will not be wiped away at one blow by liberal elements, not if economic conditions do not necessitate such a shift in political management of capital accumulation.

Seriously, get a grip.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 15:07

That's just unscientific, ahistorical bullshit.
Try to mind the historical and political specificity and complexity of the relationship between the political and the economic. Or in other words, we do not see a wholesale set of bourgeois reforms because the conditions of capital accumulation in China permit a specific role on behalf of the state, and this state has its historical roots and will not be wiped away at one blow by liberal elements, not if economic conditions do not necessitate such a shift in political management of capital accumulation.

Seriously, get a grip.

I would add that given the current CCP regime is already semi-comparador capitalist anyway, not all of the "bourgeois elements" in China that are not pro-CCP are necessarily more reactionary than the CCP ruling bloc relatively speaking. For instance, genuine national capitalists in China would be able to defend the Chinese masses against Western imperialist exploitation better than the CCP itself is doing.

The CCP regime is essentially collaborating with Western corporations in their exploitation of the Chinese people.

Thirsty Crow

13th May 2011, 16:16

I would add that given the current CCP regime is already semi-comparador capitalist anyway, not all of the "bourgeois elements" in China that are not pro-CCP are necessarily more reactionary than the CCP ruling bloc relatively speaking. For instance, genuine national capitalists in China would be able to defend the Chinese masses against Western imperialist exploitation better than the CCP itself is doing.

The CCP regime is essentially collaborating with Western corporations in their exploitation of the Chinese people.

Agreed.
Though, I think the point abour the "semi-comprador" character of the ruling regime should be elaborated further since, in my opinion, it would be wrong to conflate the "classical" use of the term in Marxism with the position of the Chinese ruling regime. Could you explain what exactly do you mean by "semi-comprador"?

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 16:34

Agreed.
Though, I think the point abour the "semi-comprador" character of the ruling regime should be elaborated further since, in my opinion, it would be wrong to conflate the "classical" use of the term in Marxism with the position of the Chinese ruling regime. Could you explain what exactly do you mean by "semi-comprador"?

Of course, on the face of it, the Chinese regime today does not literally function as the comprador capitalists do. However, to a significant extent its concrete policies are not so different from those of comprador capitalism. It's collaborating with Western corporations to exploit cheap Chinese labour, it has also literally sold off many key national industries in China to Western capitalists.

But I said it's essentially semi-comprador, not fully comprador. (Similar in some ways to how the term "semi-feudal" might be used by Marxists)

Lenina Rosenweg

13th May 2011, 16:48

The CCP has long since abandoned any pretense to socialism. It is not a workers and peasants party but rather the party for the Chinese bourgeois and of the Chinese bourgeois.There is a popular Chinese saying to the effect that "if someone is a party cadre and they're not rich, that means they must be an idiot." Any working class movement will have to start on an entirely new basis.

Cuba is terminating the jobs of half a million people. These people are now supposed to become entrepreneurs, petty bourgeois, whether they like it or not. This is an important step in capitalist restoration.According to recent reading I've done I've done Cuba's restoration of capitalism is due to pressure from China, which has extended vast loans to Cuba.

caramelpence

13th May 2011, 16:58

It was a central symbol of the demonstrations.

This is true in the sense that the replica had a spatially central position in the square and it has also become symbolically important in current representations of the protests.

It was a symbol reaching out to "the west", to capitalism. The conclusion is that this central symbol was clearly not progressive but reactionary.

Do you have any evidence that this was the meaning attached to the replica by its creators, or that anyone else understood the replica in these terms? I don't think you need to engage in any postmodernist posturing to make this argument because it's a simple one, but the underlying philosophical point here is that people assign different values and meanings to the same object or symbol and you have no evidence to show that the protestors understood a replica of the Statue of Liberty in the same way that you do, i.e. as a symbol of reaction.

You're trying to reduce this again. Those weren't "some individuals", they were noted leaders of the protests. They weren't "some comments", they were on-the-record statements proving that they were aiming to create instability and bloodshed and that they didn't want workers to have a part in their "movement".

I am trying to "reduce" these comments only in the sense that I don't think you've given a convincing argument that they are a sufficient evidential basis for the understanding of the protest movement that you've put forward. In the first place, and as I pointed out in my first post in this thread, to which you haven't responded, even if we look at the student aspect of the protest movement alone, it's misleading to make it seem as if there was a stable leadership group, not least because there was persistent infighting between student activists from different departments and universities and with different political perspectives. But it is fair to say that Chai Ling and Wang Dan were heavily publicized individuals, and we can agree in an empirical sense that, both during the protest movement itself, and years after it, they made some arguments, out of the many other things they said over the course of a long and complex protest movement, that indicated a desire to exclude the working class and to precipitate bloodshed. We also know, again in an empirical sense, that Chai Ling has called the reporting of her comments into question with accusations that the context was ignored and her words were mistranslated. Whether her complaints are valid is another matter. These are, to be clear, empirical facts on which we can agree. The question that you still haven't answered is, what follows? The fact that they may have wanted to do this and that doesn't mean that their desires can be taken as sufficient for an adequate understanding of all the objectives and feelings of the students, let alone the protest movement as a whole, and the fact that workers did participate in huge numbers is itself an indication that their so-called leadership positions didn't offer them anything in the way of meaningful control over the protests. You are still simply pointing to a given set of facts and assuming that they are significant ones in the sense of being sufficient for us to arrive at a conclusion and that they necessarily yield a certain conclusion, namely that the protests were reactionary and so on and so forth.

THE STUDENT LEADERS THEMSELVES denied the role of the working class, because they've said that they didn't want to have anything to do with working-class self-interes

My only reaction can only be, once again, yes, and? Whilst I dispute the connotations of the term "student leaders", we can agree that several high-profile students made those arguments. What follows? As I said above, it's clear that they couldn't easily transform their desires into reality, because workers did participate, both before and after June 4th.

by this point no one seriously claims that there was a "massacre" because the facts have been established, and they all point to the contrary

This is obviously false, because there are people who still call the events a massacre and they take that term seriously. The editors of the wiki article presumably hold this view, or they wouldn't have called the article The Tiananmen Square Massacre. The same is true of organizations like Amnesty. I personally don't think the term massacre is appropriate. You may not view these individuals and organizations as serious, and doubtless you'd come out with the PSL's set of slogans if asked to describe them. But there are obviously people who do seriously claim there was a massacre.

The leadership was reactionary

I don't accept that the students you quoted can be taken as "the leadership" in any straightforward sense because of the complexity of the movement. I explained all these issues in my first post, so you can go read that. But at least now we are kind-of approaching an argument. If you can show that the individuals who made those comments did so in order to present an accurate overview of their motives and aims, if you can present an argument as to how those aims were reactionary, if you can show that those individuals were in a meaningful position to control the direction and actions of the movement and were therefore leaders, and if you can show that there were no progressive forces within the movement and no opportunity for supplanting these so-called reactionary leaders, then that might be a decent argument showing why the protest movement as a whole deserves to be understood as reactionary. But, beyond pointing to a small number of comments by two individuals and shouting, you haven't done any of those necessary argumentative steps. Which is why, when you point to those quotes, for example, I can only ask you what follows, because you haven't actually shown how they yield the conclusion that you're emphasizing.

Then we can agree that the protests were not progressive

No we can't because that would be a huge assertive jump rather than an argument. The fact that some students followed the trajectory of modern Chinese history in seeking to exclude workers doesn't straightforwardly the conclusion that "the protests were not progressive". If you think that empirical fact does automatically generate your conclusion, you need to explain why, which you haven't done.

At the end of the day, manic expression, it doesn't seem to me that you're actually putting forward arguments. You need to explain analytical linkages rather than assuming that a small amount of evidence can speak for itself and that it necessarily leads to the conclusion you want people to accept.

Let's try to stay on topic: Are you really trying to tell me that the pro-west objectives of the Tianamen protestors would have resulted in better working conditions? Is that actually your argument? If not, this is for another time and place, because even though I partially agree I don't think it relates to the topic at hand

I won't speak for others, but personally I find your basic characterization here grossly simplistic. There was no single group called "the Tiananmen protestors", it was an ideologically and socially heterogenous movement, and was in constant flux, as I explained for you in my very first post in this thread. It did not have a single or stable set of objectives, let alone "pro-west" ones, and nor did it have a stable or meaningful leadership.

but so far, I have no idea about any group of protesters calling that they were not "pro-western"

Be quiet and read through the thread then. Or, more simply, the wiki article that you yourself cited as evidence, despite being apparently totally ignorant about its contents.

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 17:05

The CCP has long since abandoned any pretense to socialism. It is not a workers and peasants party but rather the party for the Chinese bourgeois and of the Chinese bourgeois.

Actually I wouldn't call the current CCP a Chinese "national capitalist" regime. It's objectively semi-comprador since it's literally selling out Chinese national interests to the West. I think even petit-bourgeois left-wing nationalism in China today would be relatively more progressive than the CCP ruling bloc.

Most of the time, the national bourgeois class arises out of a particular nation's natural capitalist development. China's contemporary bureaucratic capitalists did not arise naturally at all, they only became rich capitalists by selling off the assets of the deformed Chinese worker's state to capitalists, including many Western capitalists. Consequently bureaucratic capitalists are an even more corrupt and degenerate layer compared with genuine national capitalism.

Chimurenga.

13th May 2011, 17:25

Also, did you know that a while ago a Chinese documentary praising the socialist system in Cuba was banned by the Chinese government because it was too pro-socialist and "anti-market"? You don't know this, do you?

:confused:

"Market Socialism" is now the new ideological religion in the PRC, not Maoism anymore. Anyone who dares to challenge Market Socialism will be suppressed, including Maoists.

Which is exactly why our party calls the so-called "Socialist Market Economy" a 'betrayal of the working class and a decisive move away from building a socialist society.'

Queercommie Girl

13th May 2011, 18:34

:confused:

What, you don't know? The Chinese state initially started promoting a documentary about Cuba, but pulled it off when they found out that the "economic reforms" in Cuba at the moment are very different from the "reforms" China had.

Which is exactly why our party calls the so-called "Socialist Market Economy" a 'betrayal of the working class and a decisive move away from building a socialist society.'

Yet you agree with Manic that billionnaires can potentially become genuine Marxists. :rolleyes:

Chimurenga.

13th May 2011, 18:55

What, you don't know?

Clearly. Why do you think I posted that smilie?

The Chinese state initially started promoting a documentary about Cuba, but pulled it off when they found out that the "economic reforms" in Cuba at the moment are very different from the "reforms" China had.

Wouldn't surprise me.

Yet you agree with Manic that billionnaires can potentially become genuine Marxists. :rolleyes:

Don't be an idiot. That's not what he said.

And I agree with Manicexpression, Mao, Lenin, Fidel, Che, etc have come from privileged backgrounds. That's what he was getting at.

Am I foolish enough to think that the average Chinese billionaire will give up his/her own wealth or privilege for the good of building Socialism in China? Hell no.

Jose Gracchus

13th May 2011, 23:50

All the backflips trying to lead one to believe that the bureaucrats and apparatchikki in the CPC and state apparatus somehow are a workers' vanguard and have any way to show forward...

Threetune

14th May 2011, 00:03

Much of the Solidarity leadership was indeed reactionary, which is why it failed.

It's certainly not their moral fault, but it is a "fault" in the purely objectively strategic sense - the workers were not politically conscious enough and didn't possess their own genuine leadership (as opposed to the rump Church-led "leadership"). This is why Leninism insists the importance of having a genuine vanguard party during political movements, rather the "pure spontaneous actions" ultra-leftists advocate.

Poland was a deformed worker's state, so a genuine political movement would keep the essential structure of the state, but would replace the corrupt bureaucrats in power with genuine worker's and trade union leaders.

What would you do? Smart ass.

bailey_187

14th May 2011, 00:39

can someone answer this though

if poland was under workers dictatorship, why were living standards for workers attacked through work norm increase and price increases, which was clearly opposed by workers?

does this show some sort of gap between the workers and statemen of Poland

anarchists, trots, maos etc, i know u think it was state-cap or whatever before one of u try explain why there was this gap between workers and leaders lol

bailey_187

14th May 2011, 00:41

What would you do? Smart ass.

what would u do if your state kept raising prices and making u work harder, fuck

Tim Finnegan

14th May 2011, 00:43

Actually I wouldn't call the current CCP a Chinese "national capitalist" regime. It's objectively semi-comprador since it's literally selling out Chinese national interests to the West. I think even petit-bourgeois left-wing nationalism in China today would be relatively more progressive than the CCP ruling bloc.

Most of the time, the national bourgeois class arises out of a particular nation's natural capitalist development. China's contemporary bureaucratic capitalists did not arise naturally at all, they only became rich capitalists by selling off the assets of the deformed Chinese worker's state to capitalists, including many Western capitalists. Consequently bureaucratic capitalists are an even more corrupt and degenerate layer compared with genuine national capitalism.
I think I've heard this sort of "comprador" bourgeoisie described as a "lumpenbourgoisie", that is, a bourgeois class that becomes practically dependent on a more established foreign bourgeoisie. The term was coined in reference to the way in which post-colonial elites in Latin American re-tooled themselves to serve Western interests, but do you think that it would be possible to extend a similar understanding to the Chinese state bureaucracy?

Chimurenga.

14th May 2011, 00:51

All the backflips trying to lead one to believe that the bureaucrats and apparatchikki in the CPC and state apparatus somehow are a workers' vanguard and have any way to show forward...

The bureaucrats and members of the capitalist class in China obviously aren't the ones to look to for progressive change within the CPC. It's the cadre that comes from the working class. Only when those forces are in power can China be put back on the course for Socialism.

Jose Gracchus

14th May 2011, 01:27

And why would rank-and-file workers turn to the state that beats them's primary political apparatus as a mode of self-emancipation? :rolleyes:

Tim Finnegan

14th May 2011, 01:36

And why would rank-and-file workers turn to the state that beats them's primary political apparatus as a mode of self-emancipation? :rolleyes:
Don't you remember that it's only "reformism" if the national flag is less than 80% red? Revolutionary Socialism 101, surely? http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/mischief.gif

Jose Gracchus

14th May 2011, 01:48

Yeah, well I think you're being totally unfair. They're also willing to support Third Positionists provided they're...y'know, at least a little brown.

I mean in person, everyone one of these "anti-imperialists" I've met has been a relatively privileged white college student. Not that they should not help out, but the hysterical attempts to side with "people of color" in the Global South against "liberals" makes one wonder. I've been told Libya has a functioning "council system" by one of them, that China is "actually existing socialism", that Bolivia and Venezuela's capitulations to foriegn capital were necessary...to amass capital [why this isn't just "socialists" playing capitalism...don't ask me], and even that Gaddhafi's Libya was a kind of "socialism" [having been long evacuated of any content besides BROWN + SOCIAL WELFARE + TALKING SHIT ABOUT THE WEST = SOCIALISM!] and not everyone can have as good a socialist leader as Lenin, but we shouldn't take that waway from Libyan "socialism".

:rolleyes:

Queercommie Girl

14th May 2011, 10:46

What would you do? Smart ass.

It's not about what "I" would do in any personal sense, it's the objective fact that a genuine vanguard would potentially be able to lead the workers to victory, whereas either a purely "spontaneous worker's uprising" (what ultra-leftists advocate) or simply tacitly supporting the existing regime (what parties like PSL promote) wouldn't be able to achieve anything in the positive sense.

I don't know whether you are on the ultra-left side or the PSL side, but either would be wrong, and you are blind if you don't acknowledge that the main reason Solidarity failed was due to its stupid and reactionary pro-Catholic and/or pro-market leadership. The rank-and-file workers were like "lions led by donkeys", so to speak.

What would "I" do? If I were a leader back then, at least I wouldn't have had any illusions in the Church or in pro-Western and pro-market elements at all.

If you don't properly analyse why something failed in the past, you can't learn from history, and all you would be able to do would be to pathetically cry out the "principle" of "spontaneous worker's rule" all the time, but never being able to realise it. "Principles" mean absolutely nothing if they are useless.

Queercommie Girl

14th May 2011, 10:52

And I agree with Manicexpression, Mao, Lenin, Fidel, Che, etc have come from privileged backgrounds. That's what he was getting at.

Mao came from a middle peasant background, which is essentially "middle class", he was hardly rich or privileged. "Privileged" relative to the poorest layers in society, sure, but not wealthy at all. The same with Lenin.

Am I foolish enough to think that the average Chinese billionaire will give up his/her own wealth or privilege for the good of building Socialism in China? Hell no.The important thing here is: Are you foolish enough to think that the average billionaire bureaucratic capitalist in the CCP ruling bloc today would ever genuinely turn to the left and embrace true socialism in any sense?

Queercommie Girl

14th May 2011, 11:01

I think I've heard this sort of "comprador" bourgeoisie described as a "lumpenbourgoisie", that is, a bourgeois class that becomes practically dependent on a more established foreign bourgeoisie. The term was coined in reference to the way in which post-colonial elites in Latin American re-tooled themselves to serve Western interests, but do you think that it would be possible to extend a similar understanding to the Chinese state bureaucracy?

Chinese bureaucratic capitalists aren't fully comprador in the Latin American sense of course, but there are some semi-comprador elements in their economic behaviour. Note that such things are probably widespread among many poorer countries in the world, including other BRIC countries like India and Russia.

Basically, these bureaucratic capitalists are generally incompetent and talentless, they lack the means to make a lot of money in a "natural" way, like how real capitalists such as Bill Gates did in the West. Since they cannot produce a major innovation or successfully market a brand to become rich, the only way for them to accumulate personal wealth is to use their political power to generate economic power - that is, sell-off the state economic sector and damage China's national interest in order to enrich themselves. Through these actions not only do they damage the interests of Chinese workers and peasants, but also the interests of the genuine national bourgeois, who aim to become rich through their own work and innovations rather than through political connections and power like the bureaucratic capitalists. They are essentially a parasitic rather than creative layer, in some sense like some of the financial capitalists in the West, but in a completely different manner.

Queercommie Girl

14th May 2011, 11:06

All the backflips trying to lead one to believe that the bureaucrats and apparatchikki in the CPC and state apparatus somehow are a workers' vanguard and have any way to show forward...

I wouldn't call the bureaucratic capitalists ruling China today "apparatchiks", actually. Apparatchiks in the old USSR were bureaucrats who had a different relation to the means of production compared with the mass of ordinary workers, but the level of economic inequality in the USSR in those days was nothing like the level of inequality in China today, and the old apparatchiks were hardly super-rich like the bureaucratic capitalists in China today.

China today has more in common with a fully capitalist state like the US than it does to the old deformed worker's states like the Soviet Union. China's Ginni Index (an objective measure of economic inequality) is even greater than that of the capitalist USA.

The thing is, if one is actually a super-rich billionaire of any type, then one simply cannot be a socialist. There have been a few socialists from "privileged middle-class" (at most "upper-middle-class") backgrounds, but I've never seen a super-rich billionaire socialist.

Jose Gracchus

15th May 2011, 07:33

China is quite fascinating in that it actually succeeded in executing the outcome that the right-wing of the Soviet ruling class probably had in mind when the USSR was heading into major top-down bureaucratic reconstruction moving openly toward orthodox capitalism.

Chimurenga.

15th May 2011, 08:38

Mao came from a middle peasant background, which is essentially "middle class", he was hardly rich or privileged. "Privileged" relative to the poorest layers in society, sure, but not wealthy at all. The same with Lenin.

Lenin was able to get money wired to him whenever he needed it while attending university. Compared to the conditions in Russia at that time, Lenin was quite privileged. Not that there is anything wrong with that though.

The important thing here is: Are you foolish enough to think that the average billionaire bureaucratic capitalist in the CCP ruling bloc today would ever genuinely turn to the left and embrace true socialism in any sense?

I essentially already answered this.

CynicalIdealist

15th May 2011, 09:41

What is this topic I don't even

manic expression

17th May 2011, 03:07

The important thing here is: Are you foolish enough to think that the average billionaire bureaucratic capitalist in the CCP ruling bloc today would ever genuinely turn to the left and embrace true socialism in any sense?
I haven't seen anyone here argue that.

It's simply not strategically viable to insist that the CCP rank-and-file must unconditionally stay inside the current institutional framework of the CCP.
I don't object to formations outside of the CPC...I just think it's extremely important that their presence remains in place in that party.

I think there is a fundamental contradiction between the CCP ruling bloc and the CCP rank-and-file, based on economic class.
Hence the necessity for class struggle within that organization.

China is quite fascinating in that it actually succeeded in executing the outcome that the right-wing of the Soviet ruling class probably had in mind when the USSR was heading into major top-down bureaucratic reconstruction moving openly toward orthodox capitalism.
So your argument is that the PRC pursued vastly different policies to the USSR over the course of decades in order to come to the same intended objective? You need to think that over.

And why would rank-and-file workers turn to the state that beats them's primary political apparatus as a mode of self-emancipation?
Go back and read the thread again. You obviously missed how we're talking about rank-and-fire CPC members.

That's just unscientific, ahistorical bullshit.
Try to mind the historical and political specificity and complexity of the relationship between the political and the economic. Or in other words, we do not see a wholesale set of bourgeois reforms because the conditions of capital accumulation in China permit a specific role on behalf of the state, and this state has its historical roots and will not be wiped away at one blow by liberal elements, not if economic conditions do not necessitate such a shift in political management of capital accumulation.

Seriously, get a grip.
So what you're saying is that yes, the PRC is characterized by contradictions owing to capitalist relations existing alongside aspects of the Chinese Revolution and socialist construction. The only question is how to proceed, which is what we have been discussing this whole time.

Do you have any evidence that this was the meaning attached to the replica by its creators, or that anyone else understood the replica in these terms? I don't think you need to engage in any postmodernist posturing to make this argument because it's a simple one, but the underlying philosophical point here is that people assign different values and meanings to the same object or symbol and you have no evidence to show that the protestors understood a replica of the Statue of Liberty in the same way that you do, i.e. as a symbol of reaction.
The quotes provided by protest leaders show how they were appealing to the "west", and furthermore if you notice to which countries these leaders fled the connection should become all the clearer.

Is it your position that the state represented a return to socialism? Exactly how would that work, exactly? Does socialism sail up New York harbor?

My only reaction can only be, once again, yes, and? Whilst I dispute the connotations of the term "student leaders", we can agree that several high-profile students made those arguments. What follows? As I said above, it's clear that they couldn't easily transform their desires into reality, because workers did participate, both before and after June 4th.
It's quite simple. Those "high-profile students" (as you call them) were trying to exclude workers from their "movement" while they were intending to create instability and bloodshed. This is indicative of an anti-worker, reactionary mindset. They didn't want socialism (that is, working-class power), they wanted LESS working-class power...they wanted less socialism.

What kind of politics actively refuses working-class participation? Reactionary politics.

This is obviously false, because there are people who still call the events a massacre and they take that term seriously. The editors of the wiki article presumably hold this view, or they wouldn't have called the article The Tiananmen Square Massacre. The same is true of organizations like Amnesty. I personally don't think the term massacre is appropriate. You may not view these individuals and organizations as serious, and doubtless you'd come out with the PSL's set of slogans if asked to describe them. But there are obviously people who do seriously claim there was a massacre.
I said sources worth taking seriously. Wikipedia and Amnesty International pretty comfortably falls outside of that category.

I don't accept that the students you quoted can be taken as "the leadership" in any straightforward sense because of the complexity of the movement.
I don't think you're accepting the quotes because they clash with your perception of the demonstrations. Just because they held complexity does not mean they lacked a leadership, especially when demonstrators had been leaving the square for some time by the time the PLA was called in to retake the area (meaning those complexities dwindled along with those who remained).

Your argument is to sit back and say individuals recognized by observers as leaders can't be seen as leaders because not everyone paid attention to them, because it was complex. I say, as I did before, that the demonstrations were being used to create instability, and were excluding working-class voices from their ranks. The overall character of the protests and their consequences point to this. What do you say in response?

No we can't because that would be a huge assertive jump rather than an argument. The fact that some students followed the trajectory of modern Chinese history in seeking to exclude workers doesn't straightforwardly the conclusion that "the protests were not progressive". If you think that empirical fact does automatically generate your conclusion, you need to explain why, which you haven't done.
The trajectory of modern Chinese history is the participation of the masses in social change. That's what the Chinese Revolution was: the masses overturning society. The Tiananmen leaders turned their backs on that, and admitted it.

I won't speak for others, but personally I find your basic characterization here grossly simplistic. There was no single group called "the Tiananmen protestors", it was an ideologically and socially heterogenous movement, and was in constant flux, as I explained for you in my very first post in this thread. It did not have a single or stable set of objectives, let alone "pro-west" ones, and nor did it have a stable or meaningful leadership.
There were recognized leaders of the "movement" who had a set of objectives, even if they were vague. Most particularly, those objectives as stated by leaders themselves was instability, bloodshed and blocking workers from having any real influence. Saying "it was too heterogeneous to characterize" is dodging the issue entirely instead of looking at the leadership and the results of the "movement" head-on.