Massive Workers Riots in China

[RED DAVE]

Police stem south China riots amid migrant workers' anger

ZENGCHENG, China (Reuters) - Chinese riot police brought a semblance of calm to the riot-torn southern Chinese city of Zengcheng on Tuesday, but the anger of migrant workers at being discriminated against by the authorities remained palpable in this key export hub.

In the wake of the latest protests, a state think-tank warned that China's tens of millions of workers pouring into cities from the countryside would become a serious threat to stability unless they were treated more fairly.
Riot police poured into Zengcheng after migrant workers went on the rampage over the weekend to protest the abuse of a pregnant street hawker who had become a symbol of simmering grassroots discontent.

The protesters wrecked the government office in the city's Dadun suburb, setting alight at least six vehicles. Parts of iron gates and spiked fence lay twisted and broken.

"We're angry," said a migrant worker from Sichuan, nervous about revealing his name given the massive deployment of riot police in his neighbourhood. "I feel the rule of law here doesn't seem to exist ... the local officials can do what they want."

Zengcheng is around an hour's drive from Guangzhou, the affluent capital of far southern Guangdong province, which produces about a third of the country's exports. About 150 million workers have moved from the countryside to the city in search of a better standard of living.

Wages have improved, but there remains a stark gap between migrant workers and those originally from the city, which has fomented resentment and made many feel like second class citizens.

Other clashes have erupted in southern China in recent weeks, including in Chaozhou, where hundreds of migrant workers demanding payment of wages at a ceramics factory attacked government buildings and set vehicles ablaze.

"We have seen these kinds of disturbance on a regular basis in China for several years now. I think you can possibly say there has been a bit of an upsurge, certainly visible disturbance in the last few weeks," said Geoffrey Crothall of workers' rights group China Labour Bulletin.

"I don't think it will affect the investment environment in China as a whole. I think the impact of these disturbances on the Chinese economy as a whole are still very low level," he added.

TENEMENT BLOCKS

Zengcheng, surrounded by a warren of tenement blocks and small jeans factories, has become a vibrant export hub for garments. More than half of the city's population of 800,000 are migrant workers, many of whom from Sichuan.

Like millions of other migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta, those at Zengcheng say their already grim lives have become worse due to rampant inflation and discrimination.

Many migrant workers in Dadun complained about corrupt officials making random street arrests against hawkers, imposing discretionary "hygeine" charges and security fines on family-run denim factories, further eroding razor-thin earnings as the price of cotton yarn and wholesale denim fabric rise.

"We sometimes only earn several hundred yuan a month because we're paid per garment. There tend to be less orders in the first half of the year," said a middle-aged woman from Sichuan as she stitched a pile of black denim shorts while colleagues used abrasive tools to rip and scar jeans for a modish look.

Pork, a staple for many migrant workers, has increased from around 9 yuan to 13 yuan for half a kg over the past year, said Yu, the elderly migrant worker.

"We have no choice, we just have to make a living," he said in a grimy jeans factory where he was printing labels for a local brand. "We can't go home."
The state think-tank report said the majority of migrant workers had no intention of returning to their rural origins, making them a serious threat to China's stability if their needs in the cities they now call home, were not better addressed.

"If they are not absorbed into urban society, and do not enjoy the rights that are their due, many conflicts will accumulate," the report, published on Tuesday, said.

"If mishandled, this will create a major destabilising threat," it said of the festering resentment. Though protests have become relatively common over anything from corruption to abuse of power, the ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any possible threat to its hold on power in the wake of the protests that have swept the Arab world. Despite pervasive censorship and government controls, word of protests, along with often dramatic pictures, spreads fast in China on mobile telephones and the Internet, especially on popular microblogging sites.

(Additional reporting by Kelvin Soh, Alison Leung, Xavier Ng and Charlie Zhu, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE75D0ZM20110614

RED DAVE

[danyboy27]

haa that good old worker state.

[Pretty Flaco]

they're obviously counterrevolutionaries

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

How dare you accuse the glorious worker's state in China of being authoritarian? What, are you a liberal or something?

It was clear that the pregnant woman the cops beat up was an agent of bourgeois American interests. These poor migrant workers aren't good proletarians since they disagree with the stated policies of the true proletarians, the CCP. All power to the party officials local police officers!

[RED DAVE]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

[La Comédie Noire]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

Inb4 the "Capitalist Roaders" rant.

[Tablo]

Lol, lot of joking going on in this thread. I think it is great that Chinese workers are fighting back against mistreatment. As much as the CCP tries, you can't censor everything on the internet.

[Broletariat]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

Do they ever say anything? :P

[Os Cangaceiros]

Aren't most Maoists opposed to the PRC today?

[Hebrew Hammer]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

What? Are we supposed to support the CCP? No, they have become state capitalist and this is a workers uprising. This is no different then workers in a bourgeois-democratic nation doing the same thing, it's a rebellion against capital.

[Forward Union]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

Before you go down that line I think you should remember that since Deng, Maoists have been a despised minority within the CCP, subject to ridicule and even purges, and so have no reason to apologise for the actions of the CCP. You should go after "Dengists" but I don't think you will find too many here.

[Spawn of Stalin]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE
You say that like it was the Chairman himself who gave the order to crackdown these workers

Newsflash: It's been about thirty years since Maoism was the dominant political force in China. You already know that Maoists are a minority in the Party

[Queercommie Girl]

Newsflash: It's been about thirty years since Maoism was the dominant political force in China. You already know that Maoists are a minority in the Party


No it's a lot worse than that. Even reformist Maoists who are completely loyal to the People's Republic but challenge the regime on certain matters (like worker's basic rights) get thrown into jail without a fair trial.

In China today, genuine Maoists are oppressed just as much as pro-Western liberals, if not more so.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

There have been some people on here trying to defend China along anti-imperialist lines, whilst even blindly denying China's own imperialistic tendencies as physically seen.

I'm not even sure if they're Maoists, they're a new breed of crazy.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Oh sure, people who actually pose a threat to the way socialism with Chinese characteristics works are most definitely an oppressed group

[RED DAVE]

No it's a lot worse than that. Even reformist Maoists who are completely loyal to the People's Republic but challenge the regime on certain matters (like worker's basic rights) get thrown into jail without a fair trial.

In China today, genuine Maoists are oppressed just as much as pro-Western liberals, if not more so.As you reaped, so have you sown.

Maoism contains the seed of its own destruction with the block of four classes, which includes the bourgeoisie. This is obvious right now in Nepal, where the Nepalese Maoists have done what the Chinese did with the same result: capitalism.

RED DAVE

[scarletghoul]

Maoists supported the anti-government uprisings even when China was a socialist state (this is why Maoism is a qualitative development of Marxism-Leninism), so obviously they support uprisings against what is now a fully capitalist regime.

In fact, the reason Maoists were rebelling against reactionary elements in the CPC in the 1960s was precisely to try and prevent China becoming what it has now become. I don't want to sound sectarian but I must say their theory/method for preventing capitalist restoration seems much more accurate and thought out than the old "ohhh if only trotsky had took over and succeeded lenin as the king of russia he would have spred the revolution aaalllll over the wurrrrrld hoorraaaayyyy!!!!!!!!!!!"

[scarletghoul]

Anyway it is indeed awesome to see the Chinese people standing up once more. There is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent.

[S.Artesian]

Anyway it is indeed awesome to see the Chinese people standing up once more. There is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent.


That's one major point isn't it? The other point being not to make the same mistakes again... what do I mean again? Those mistakes that subordinate the workers to the party; that create a mythology of a revolutionary peasantry when in fact agriculture remains fundamentally circumscribed in and by patterns that have existed for hundreds of years in China.

Those mistakes that isolate this struggle in China from the international struggles going on in Greece, France; and in Zambia where miners battle, and have died in the battle, against the Chinese mine owners.

And something else to keep in mind; the proliferation of struggle is symptomatic of real distress in the economy; high inflation rates, land dis-possessions, real estate bubbles, etc.

This could get very, very interesting.

[Thirsty Crow]

Oh sure, people who actually pose a threat to the way socialism with Chinese characteristics works are most definitely an oppressed group
Socialism with Chinese characteristics?

Wow, I didn't know that macroscopic forms of capitalist organization and management of accumulation of capital can acquire inherent ethnic characteristics.

Y'know what else I didn't know? I didn't know that "anti-imperialists", that is, those who defend PRC as some kind of a "workers' state", got so desperate in their confusion of what socialism actually entails. Pretty pathetic.

Iseul, could you comment on my thought that these remarks made by the "state think tank" (that the current situation will inevitably lead to a lack of stability and that migrant workers should be treated better) may be interpreted as a sign of possibly "better times" for the reformist left, reformist Maoists, in China?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think this belongs in the "if you want to undermine China" thread. Workers trying to undermine China, damn imperialists.

[RedStarOverChina]

This is a workers riot, but it's also a regionalist rivalry between the locals and Sichuan Migrant workers who are discriminated against.

It's a particularly bloody scenario where Sichuan migrant workers attacked local residents to vent out anger.

NOT a good thing. I dont think this article make things very clear.

[The_Outernationalist]

This is a workers riot, but it's also a regionalist rivalry between the locals and Sichuan Migrant workers who are discriminated against.


sugarcoating the details as mere regionalism doesn't make it any less than it actually is, seeing as most people aren't that easily fooled. This is the reactionary capitalist state of China acting as aggressor, putting down a worker's insurrection against corruption and land grabs, and the pregnant woman's murder was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[RedStarOverChina]

sugarcoating the details as mere regionalism doesn't make it any less than it actually is, seeing as most people aren't that easily fooled. This is the reactionary capitalist state of China acting as aggressor, putting down a worker's insurrection against corruption and land grabs, and the pregnant woman's murder was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Three things.
1st, I didn't "sugar coat" anything. In fact, I was trying to point out how brutal it was, and needlessly brutal at that. I did say it WAS a worker's riot, but no Marxist would suggest slaughtering innocent bystanders in a worker's riot is a good thing.

2ed, this has nothing to do with land grabs. The rioters are migrant workers, not peasants.

3rd, the pregnant woman did not die. That turned out to be rumour. The woman fell onto the ground and was immediately rushed to the hospital. Of course, she survived without bruises, and is expecting her baby.

[The_Outernationalist]

Three things.
1st, I didn't "sugar coat" anything. In fact, I was trying to point out how brutal it was, and needlessly brutal at that. I did say it WAS a worker's riot, but no Marxist would suggest slaughtering innocent bystanders in a worker's riot is a good thing.

the only ones doing the slaughtering it seems are PRC loyalists.


2ed, this has nothing to do with land grabs. The rioters are migrant workers, not peasants.

But to say the recent unrest in Outer Mongolia and other provinces over land grabs has nothing to do with this, or at least hasn't acted as a catalyst in the slightest, is a bit dishonest wouldn't you agree?


3rd, the pregnant woman did not die. That turned out to be rumour. The woman fell onto the ground and was immediately rushed to the hospital. Of course, she survived without bruises, and is expecting her baby.

So that makes it alright?

[RedStarOverChina]

the only ones doing the slaughtering it seems are PRC loyalists.WTF? Are you high? You mean these people actually do a online background check on every random local guy walking on the street to see if he is a "PRC loyalist" and then proceed to butcher him?

That's not how violent riots happen.


But to say the recent unrest in Outer Mongolia and other provinces over land grabs has nothing to do with this, or at least hasn't acted as a catalyst in the slightest, is a bit dishonest wouldn't you agree?No. There are hundreds of massive protests in China every year and they are not necessarily related. Inner Mongolia and Guangzhou happen to be thousands of miles part, and they have entirely different grievences.

Now stop making uneducated guesses.




So that makes it alright?
Makes what right? I dont have an pro-government or anti-Sichuan migrants agenda here.

I am, however, for making informed comments and against sprewing bullshit on things you have no understanding of.

[RED DAVE]

Maoists supported the anti-government uprisings even when China was a socialist stateThis is the first time I have ever heard of this.


(this is why Maoism is a qualitative development of Marxism-Leninism), so obviously they support uprisings against what is now a fully capitalist regime.(1) Maoists did not support the workers in such situations where they rose up during the Cultural Revolution. (2) Where are the Maoist leaders now?


In fact, the reason Maoists were rebelling against reactionary elements in the CPC in the 1960s was precisely to try and prevent China becoming what it has now become.What Maoists were rebelling?


I don't want to sound sectarian but I must say their theory/method for preventing capitalist restoration seems much more accurate and thought out than the old "ohhh if only trotsky had took over and succeeded lenin as the king of russia he would have spred the revolution aaalllll over the wurrrrrld hoorraaaayyyy!!!!!!!!!!!"Maoists were on both side during the Cultural Revolution. The present capitalist situation in China stems from the state capitalism that the Maoists established.

RED DAVE

[Reznov]

Its ok, they have a red Flag and can be called Maoist.

[Rocky Rococo]

This needs to be understood in a larger context, the growing uprooting of labor in the era of globalized neoliberal capitalism. In a global environment in which capital, raw materials, goods and services move around the world unimpeded, it becomes necessary for labor to also become mobile to the point of nomadic in following the work, wherever that free-flowing capital takes it. The Chinese internal migrant conflicts with the settled populations seem to match the same patterns that we've seen in Europe with the arrival of large numbers of economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and in the US with a similar influx of Latin American workers uprooted by NAFTA and other neoliberal projects.

I'll suggest that by the middle of the century, this sort of economic nomadism will be the norm in the experience of working people of all origins.

[Kléber]

Maoists supported the anti-government uprisings even when China was a socialist state (this is why Maoism is a qualitative development of Marxism-Leninism), so obviously they support uprisings against what is now a fully capitalist regime.
Not true. Mao ended the GPCR in 1968 and supported bureaucratic repression of the leftist "rebel" groups, then spent the next years of his life rehabilitating rightists while aligning the PRC with US imperialism.

[RedStarOverChina]

Not true. Mao ended the GPCR in 1968 and supported bureaucratic repression of the leftist "rebel" groups, then spent the next years of his life rehabilitating rightists while aligning the PRC with US imperialism.
No, the Cultural Revolution did not end until his death in 1976.

By the end of it, out of the three structural pillers of the PRC---The state, the party, and the PLA---Only the PLA came out unscathed. The state was basically defunct, the party was effectively disbanded because of 10 years of popular struggle against these two institutions.

It's fairly certain that Mao did NOT like political establishments, even when he himself is at its helms.

[Kléber]

No, the Cultural Revolution did not end until his death in 1976.
That's phrasemongering. Mao sided with the reactionaries in late 1968 and the GPCR officially ended in 1969. The workers were violently disarmed, the army restored order, Nixon was invited as a guest of honor as US imperialist bombs fell on Hanoi, Deng Xiaoping and his cohorts began to be rehabilitated - all this happened before 1976, while Mao was still alive.


By the end of it, out of the three structural pillers of the PRC---The state, the party, and the PLA---Only the PLA came out unscathed. The state was basically defunct, the party was effectively disbanded because of 10 years of popular struggle against these two institutions. Various party factions took turns at power but the same bureaucracy remained in charge.

[RedStarOverChina]

That's phrasemongering. Mao sided with the reactionaries in late 1968 and the GPCR officially ended in 1969.
Trust me on this one, the GPCR is considered to have ended in 1976. In 1968 the PLA violently put down some of the more violent factions of the Red Guard. Mao then reluctantly declared the GPCR to be over.

But as we all know, things didnt end there. Although the Red Guard no longer existed as powerful, armed political organizations, smaller groups of red guards continue to wage struggle against real or perceived enemies, really until around 1976. My grandfather, an CCP official, was under a sort of citizen's arrest in the "Niu Peng" (make shift prison) until as late as 1972.

I don't know who the "reactionaries" you're refering to are. I think in terms of inner party struggle it's hard to draw a clear line between reactionaries and revolutionaries, things are way more complicated than that.



Various party factions took turns at power but the same bureaucracy remained in charge.Not quite true.

Though I don't have the exact statistics, it is often said that up to 80% of higher level cadres were struggled against during the Cultural Revolution.

Some of those who survived did come back to power when things cooled down a bit, of course.

[internasyonalista]

Whether the "Cultural Revolution" ended in 1972 or '76 is not important for genuine proletarian revolutionaries.

What is more important is the nature of maoism: is it part or development of marxism and for proletarian revolution? Is state capitalism (core of maoism) a way forward to socialism? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat equals or similar to "dictatorship of the party" as the "leader" and "representative of the class"?

These are the questions that the disgruntled workers in China who are waging struggles for the past years are asking.

Yes, there is an underground "Maoist Communist Party of China" "waging struggle against the current party/state". But is it because they are in "opposition" they are genuine communists?

All factions within the CCP at the time of "Cultural Revolution" claimed they were the real maoist and loyal followers of "Chairman" Mao. Each faction accusing their rivals as agent of modern revisionist Russia (like Lin Piao) or agents of Western imperialism (like Liu ShaoChi and Deng Xiaoping). Others were accused as ultra-Maoists like the "Gang of Four".

[Queercommie Girl]

Whether the "Cultural Revolution" ended in 1972 or '76 is not important for genuine proletarian revolutionaries.

What is more important is the nature of maoism: is it part or development of marxism and for proletarian revolution? Is state capitalism (core of maoism) a way forward to socialism? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat equals or similar to "dictatorship of the party" as the "leader" and "representative of the class"?

These are the questions that the disgruntled workers in China who are waging struggles for the past years are asking.

Yes, there is an underground "Maoist Communist Party of China" "waging struggle against the current party/state". But is it because they are in "opposition" they are genuine communists?

All factions within the CCP at the time of "Cultural Revolution" claimed they were the real maoist and loyal followers of "Chairman" Mao. Each faction accusing their rivals as agent of modern revisionist Russia (like Lin Piao) or agents of Western imperialism (like Liu ShaoChi and Deng Xiaoping). Others were accused as ultra-Maoists like the "Gang of Four".

What is also wrong is to completely write-off a tendency dogmatically simply because you think in every tendency there must be an "immutable ideological core" that never change.

Fact is, all tendencies and all organisations change and evolve with time. Just because Maoist groups in the past had some significant problems doesn't necessarily imply Maoist groups in the future will forever have them as well.

Which tendency hasn't got any problems? Trotskyism, Left Communism, Anarchism? Are any of these "perfect"? All tendencies frankly need to self-reflect and self-criticise.

I have some personal contact with the MCPC. They claim to support worker's and peasant's democracy. I'm only a critical supporter and I won't simply take them at face-value but I certainly won't write them off either just because they label themselves as "Maoist". I actually prefer to analyse politics in a more empirical way, on a case-by-case basis.

[internasyonalista]

What is also wrong is to completely write-off a tendency dogmatically simply because you think in every tendency there must be an "immutable ideological core" that never change.

There are only two opposing camps under capitalism: bourgeois and proletarian. Both camps gave their own different tendencies/factions. But still these different factions/tendencies belong to the same camp: whether bourgeois or proletarian.

Each camp has its own "immutable ideological core" (program/platform) to differentiate from the other camp.

The other non-exploiting strata in capitalism's history chose between the bourgeois and proletarian camp.

[Queercommie Girl]

There are only two opposing camps under capitalism: bourgeois and proletarian. Both camps gave their own different tendencies/factions. But still these different factions/tendencies belong to the same camp: whether bourgeois or proletarian.

Each camp has its own "immutable ideological core" (program/platform) to differentiate from the other camp.

The other non-exploiting strata in capitalism's history chose between the bourgeois and proletarian camp.

I would say radical Maoists in China today, ideologically flawed they may be in some ways, definitely belong to the proletarian camp empirically speaking. This is evident in the class composition of the radical Maoist forces in China today.

[S.Artesian]

This needs to be understood in a larger context, the growing uprooting of labor in the era of globalized neoliberal capitalism. In a global environment in which capital, raw materials, goods and services move around the world unimpeded, it becomes necessary for labor to also become mobile to the point of nomadic in following the work, wherever that free-flowing capital takes it. The Chinese internal migrant conflicts with the settled populations seem to match the same patterns that we've seen in Europe with the arrival of large numbers of economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and in the US with a similar influx of Latin American workers uprooted by NAFTA and other neoliberal projects.

I'll suggest that by the middle of the century, this sort of economic nomadism will be the norm in the experience of working people of all origins.


I'd suggest, OTOH, that by the middle of the century capitalism will be overthrown, or there isn't going to be any middle of the century.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Socialism with Chinese characteristics?

Wow, I didn't know that macroscopic forms of capitalist organization and management of accumulation of capital can acquire inherent ethnic characteristics.
It has nothing to do with ethnic characteristics. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, Dengism, market socialism, it doesn't matter what people call it as long as they understand what it actually means.

[Thirsty Crow]

It has nothing to do with ethnic characteristics. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, Dengism, market socialism, it doesn't matter what people call it as long as they understand what it actually means.
I agree. It's important that they understand that China is thoroughly capitalist and that the political structure, which is different from that of the liberal democratic "west" (a political structure which is thought to be emblematic and "normal" for capitalism as a mode of production), does not and can not change this simple fact. Moreover, China is imperialist as well. At least that's what the Zambian miners would probably be inclined to conclude.

Hacks such as yourself, and all those who spout nonsense such as "market socialism" are partly responsible for the general confusion surrounding Marxism these days.

[RED DAVE]

I would say radical Maoists in China today, ideologically flawed they may be in some ways, definitely belong to the proletarian camp empirically speaking. This is evident in the class composition of the radical Maoist forces in China today.There's only one problem with this. There is no evidence that "radical Maoists" exist.

Anyone who is not (a) in conscious opposition to the current government, (b) out of the Maoist party and (c) organizing among the workers, is not any kind of radical or revolutionary.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

There's only one problem with this. There is no evidence that "radical Maoists" exist.

Anyone who is not (a) in conscious opposition to the current government, (b) out of the Maoist party and (c) organizing among the workers, is not any kind of radical or revolutionary.

RED DAVE

I have personal contact with the underground and illegal Maoist Communist Party of China.

[RED DAVE]

I have personal contact with the underground and illegal Maoist Communist Party of China.This may well be, so, are they:

(a) in conscious opposition to the current government,

(b) out of the Maoist party and

(c) organizing among the workers?

These would be some criteria for them being considered revolutionaries. As we have seen in Nepal, Maoists have no problem working with overtly capitalist parties in overtly capitalist governments.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

If they're illegal, don't tell us if they are in or out of the government or the party, please.

[RedStarOverChina]

There's only one problem with this. There is no evidence that "radical Maoists" exist.

:lol:
I must have been chatting with figments of my own imagination all this time, then.

[caramelpence]

Trust me on this one, the GPCR is considered to have ended in 1976.

There is an important point here that you are not acknowledging. The idea that the Cultural Revolution lasted over an entire decade (as in the expression shinian haojie) is actually a fairly recent innovation in the PRC's understanding of its own past in that it was affirmed only through comments that Mao himself made during the 1970s and with the publication of the resolution on party history in 1981 - during the decade itself, however, the broad contemporary understanding was that the Cultural Revolution lasted only until the 9th Party Congress in 1969 and came to an end in that year, such that it was only a three-year event. The fact that this was the contemporary understanding and that the current official account differs from it as far as chronology is concerned suggests that the restoration of order through the PLA in 1968/69 was an important process but one that the Chinese state seeks to deny - perhaps because to recognize that mass upheaval came to an end in that year would be to problematize the entire discourse of haojie and to risk acknowledging that Chinese politics was overwhelmingly conservative during the 1969-1976 period. The initial three-year chronology was present not only in Chinese popular consciousness but also in the secondary accounts that were produced by Western authors during and shortly after the decade - if you skim over this (http://www.marxists.de/china/harris/06-after.htm) chapter of Harris' book The Mandate of Heaven, for example, it is clear that the author considers the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969.

EDIT: In fact, I will quote a footnote from Anita Chan's editor's introduction to Liu Guokai's A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution (1987):

"To avoid confusion, it should be noted that the term “Cultural Revolution,” as used by Liu Guokai in this essay, denotes the three-year period from mid-1966 to mid-1969. Both in the official Chinese press and among the common people this three-year time span was universally understood as demarcating the Cultural Revolution until a directive by Mao in October 1974 referred to the Cultural Revolution in the present tense. The party officialdom was quick to follow suit, but most Chinese continued to speak of the Cultural Revolution as the three-year period of strife that had concluded with the Ninth Party Congress in 1969. Drawing upon the wording in Mao’s 1974 directive, however, the politicians who took power after Mao’s death chose, for their own political reasons, to designate 1966 to 1976 as “ten years of the Cultural Revolution.” By doing so,they strategically sought to merge in the public’s thinking the 1966-69 period and the repressive seven-year period that followed it. The only Western scholar who to my knowledge has contested this post-Mao manipulation of the term Cultural Revolution is William Brugger. See an interview with Brugger in The Seventies (Hong Kong) 145 (February 1982), pp. 80-83."

[S.Artesian]

I'm sure there are "radical Maoists" in China. How could there not be? I'm sure there are some, maybe more than some, who regard the current direction of China as "revisionist," a "betrayal" of Mao, long for the return of the Gang of Four, whatever?

Of course this will happen. Maoism represents at least the verbiage of "socialism" and some bit of "egalitarianism," not to mention the era of the "iron rice bowl."

The issue of course is will those groups, individuals, clandestine organizations be able to articulate a class program, a class analysis that does more, indeed rejects, the notion of bringing back the "good old days," that understands the economic forces that have driven the morphing of China, economic forces that, if we examine them critically enough we will find, connect Maoism to Dengism.

[scarletghoul]

I'm sure there are "radical Maoists" in China. How could there not be? I'm sure there are some, maybe more than some, who regard the current direction of China as "revisionist," a "betrayal" of Mao, long for the return of the Gang of Four, whatever?

Of course this will happen. Maoism represents at least the verbiage of "socialism" and some bit of "egalitarianism," not to mention the era of the "iron rice bowl."

The issue of course is will those groups, individuals, clandestine organizations be able to articulate a class program, a class analysis that does more, indeed rejects, the notion of bringing back the "good old days," that understands the economic forces that have driven the morphing of China, economic forces that, if we examine them critically enough we will find, connect Maoism to Dengism.
Why wouldn't they ? They are not idiots.

[Crux]

There's only one problem with this. There is no evidence that "radical Maoists" exist.

Anyone who is not (a) in conscious opposition to the current government, (b) out of the Maoist party and (c) organizing among the workers, is not any kind of radical or revolutionary.

RED DAVE
Shaanxi: Support the arrested Maoist trade unionist activist Zhao Dongmin (http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/1231/)

[Prairie Fire]

I've read the whole thread...

Erm, who are you arguing against?

I mean, the first couple of posters came in blustering as though they were being really avante garde and controversial by taking shots at contemporary China. I suppose that they expected a deluge of people rushing to defend the contemporary PRC?

Who is contesting that China is a capitalist power (with the exception of the Vegan Marxist, the resident "Dengist" that we had at one point, and the guy with the website where Libya is a revolutionary socialist state) ?

Most ML's worth their salt beat you to the punch by '78-'79 (at the latest).

The Maoists jumped ship around the rise of Hua Ko Feng and Deng Xioping, in fact they became their most vocal critics.

Now,the last page or so of the thread has completely foresaken the inital article, and now we are discussing contemporary Maoism, and whether or not contemporary China is the logical end result of Maoism.

It is difficult to be productive or do anything productive with Revleft specifically because, at the end of the day, it is only a forum. For this reason, I can't even propose taking a collective resolution on what is currently going in China, as that is the work of an organization, and nothing written on revleft is binding (or even relevent) to real-world forces in motion.

So, what will probably happen is we will go in a circular discussion, a battle of wills between the different tendencies with each trying to sway others, rival historical outlooks, and in the end contemporary political practice will get lost in the process to the agendas of the posters here.

If we need a historical re-cap on China, Enver Hoxha quite literally wrote the book on it (a few books, actually,), and other writers also elaborated (some better than others).

In the meantime, the only thing that came to my mind from this thread is how we're going around in circles, we have been here before and we will be here again. This doesn't even count as D-C style arguing out a political line, because revleft isn't an organization, so nothing that is said here has any salvaging political consequence.

I've been here for about five years, I'll be here for another five years, and we will see this discussion re-incarnated again and again. The infantile left will play their gadfly role of highlighting every flaw in a nominally "Socialist" country (as though this somehow validates their own theories by default,), some of the tankies will take the bait and rise to the occasion, tendency war ensues, inconclusive resolution.

In the meantime, perhaps we should get back on topic. On a related note, I don't know if it has ever been suggested or put in practice before, but perhaps we should have a mediator for the discussion? Someone knowledgable on the subject to keep it on track, and maybe try and do something productive with it? That idea just came to me, because after five years, I'm out of ideas with revleft.

I dunno. Moving on.

[S.Artesian]

Why wouldn't they ? They are not idiots.


Assume nothing. It's not foreordained. It takes actual work. Some might wish to do it; some might not.

There are those who want to bring back the good old days of Stalin in the fSU, aren't there?

[Crux]

I've read the whole thread...

Erm, who are you arguing against?

I mean, the first couple of posters came in blustering as though they were being really avante garde and controversial by taking shots at contemporary China. I suppose that they expected a deluge of people rushing to defend the contemporary PRC?

Who is contesting that China is a capitalist power (with the exception of the Vegan Marxist, the resident "Dengist" that we had at one point, and the guy with the website where Libya is a revolutionary socialist state) ?
http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?t=156307
http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?t=156156
Or pretty much any other thread where china has been discussed in the politics forum. Seems we have quite afew "ML"'s not worth their salt then.

[Kléber]

Trust me on this one, the GPCR is considered to have ended in 1976.
That view may be widespread but it is simply incorrect. It misrepresents the political character of Mao's party-state while failing to correctly define the GPCR. The only reason this discussion is even relevant to the thread is to clarify that Mao, even at his most radical, did not represent the working class. While in power, Mao came down on the side of the ruling elite against any independent political expression of the workers, be it independent labor unions in 1949-51, the strike movement in Shanghai 1957 or the independent communist organizations which arose during the GPCR period (1966-69).

As for the GPCR itself, it was not definitive of Mao's complex political career, even during the last decade of his life. It was one of many specific political campaigns, like the GLF, that only lasted for a few years, and it was left-wing in appearance but right-wing in essence, designed to corral the energy of the masses into a sterile feud between Mao and rival leaders of the party-state apparatus. Its revolutionary "excesses" were denounced while Mao was still alive as being the work of Lin Biao and other "ultraleft" scapegoats.


In 1968 the PLA violently put down some of the more violent factions of the Red Guard. Mao then reluctantly declared the GPCR to be over.I'm not aware of any evidence which shows that the extreme left-wing groups in Hunan and Guangxi were more violent than their opponents. What they definitely were was more revolutionary, more threatening to powerful bureaucrats and officers like Mao and Lin.

All I have read on the subject indicates that repression by the army during 1968-9 claimed far more lives than all preceding violence by rebel and conservative guardists combined. In Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi, the army carried out massacres of tens of thousands of suspected rebels.


But as we all know, things didnt end there. Although the Red Guard no longer existed as powerful, armed political organizations, smaller groups of red guards continue to wage struggle against real or perceived enemies, really until around 1976.The GPCR was not synonymous with CPC factional disputes or worker resistance against the bureaucracy, both began before 1966 and continued after 1976. It was a policy of calculated co-option of the radical student movement used by Mao's clique to regain control of the party. Their support for leftist radicals cut out in 1968 as the bureaucracy reunited under Mao's supporters to face the threat of independent proletarian forces which had armed themselves during the chaos and threatened to overthrow the entire ruling caste. As you noted, the army had smashed those groups by the beginning of 1969, and the youth were dispersed through the countryside to prevent a resurgence of unrest. The official end of the GPCR thus coincided with a dramatic change in the political situation and an end to the most unstable period of political turmoil. Mao's death seven years later was not a watershed moment, because neither Mao nor the GPCR had represented the workers in the first place, and it was during his last years that the the right wing of the CPC began to be rehabilitated while the PRC entered a tacit alliance with US imperialism.


Though I don't have the exact statistics, it is often said that up to 80% of higher level cadres were struggled against during the Cultural Revolution. Not surprising for a faction fight within the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. Ivan the Terrible also killed a lot of his fellow aristocrats.


My grandfather, an CCP official, was under a sort of citizen's arrest in the "Niu Peng" (make shift prison) until as late as 1972. ... Some of those who survived did come back to power when things cooled down a bit, of course. Yes, reconciliation within the bureaucracy was well underway before 1976. Deng Xiaoping's rehabilitation began in 74 and he became Vice Premier in 75.

[L.A.P.]

No Maoists with anything to say?

RED DAVE

I have something to say; China is capitalist.

[Astral_Disaster]

Solidarity to the Maoists out there. Deng Xiaoping initiated a vendetta against the working class, epitomized in by the bloody massacre at Tiananmen Square of his own comrades. It's about time the people bring the movement back to its roots.

[Rocky Rococo]

I'd suggest, OTOH, that by the middle of the century capitalism will be overthrown, or there isn't going to be any middle of the century.

Well that may be That comes down to what some assholes with some bombs choose to do. I won't dispute it's a possibility. But on the other hand we've been waiting for that revolution for over 150 years now, it hasn't come yet and there's more of us than ever.

However, that whole topic goes tangentially away from the main point I was trying to make (probably my own fault for throwing that in as an afterthought). What I was trying to point to, in the context of China's internal migration conflicts, is the practical daily-life reality that the changing conditions of capitalist production have for the working people. We in the settled west don't really think about this very much, most of us have been immune to these impacts of capitalism in the past, enjoying our side-benefits of imperialism. But as things like the race to the bottom should be making clear to us by now, one of the big consequences of the progress of the neoliberal globalizing project is that our working and living conditions and experiences are being made more and more in line with workers in the neo-colonial states. And all the evidence and experience says that one of the biggest of these impacts is large scale economic migrations, whether internal or external.

[internasyonalista]

"Radical" maoism, "reformist" maoism or "revolutionary" maoism, all the prefixes do not matter. Are they? What matter is the core program of maoism: the "revolutionary" nature of the peasantry as the "main force" of the revolution for the backward countries (ie, "semi-feudal), the NDR as the "1st step" towards socialism, state capitalism, etc.

On the workers' struggles in China for the past years: I think these struggles in order to have a strong foundation as an independent movement should link to the international struggles; should coordinate with the proletariat in the West. The problems can only be posed in China but cannot be resolved within the Chinese (national) framework. This is the main obstacle why the Chinese proletarian struggles cannot advance as an organize force.

This is not easy. The road for the Chinese proletariat to have an independent movement and to link in the West is very difficult. Also, there is the danger of nationalist even regionalist/ethic ideologies that are harmful for real proletarian unity.

[danyboy27]

Oh sure, people who actually pose a threat to the way socialism with Chinese characteristics works are most definitely an oppressed group

Stop defending the chinese capitalist state, it will lead you nowhere.

[Queercommie Girl]

Shaanxi: Support the arrested Maoist trade unionist activist Zhao Dongmin (http://chinaworker.info/en/content/news/1231/)

Zhao Dongmin isn't even very radical by radical Maoist standards. He is actually very loyal to the Chinese state. Yet he is arrested and imprisoned all the same.

[RED DAVE]

The latest:


Authorities arrest 19 over S.China riots - report

(Reuters) - Police in southern China have arrested 19 people in connection with one of the worst outbreaks of civil unrest seen in the export-oriented Guangdong province in years, Chinese media reported on Friday.

A heavy police presence remained on the streets of Zengcheng city, where simmering resentment among the huge migrant worker community over perceived discrimination and social pressures such as rising inflation erupted in rioting over the weekend.

Authorities in Guangzhou said they had arrested 19 people on various charges including intentional damage of property, creating disturbances and obstruction of official functions, Caijing magazine reported, citing a public notice.

The riots, which sparked off on Friday evening after the abuse of a pregnant migrant street hawker, flared over three days and saw rampaging mobs smash and burn government offices, pelt police with stones and bottles and overturn scores of vehicles.

A newspaper in Zengcheng(www.zcwin.comm), a major denin and garments hub, carried a detailed list of the 19 suspects, most of whom were migrants from outside provinces and included nine teenagers.

Though China's 150 million or so rural migrant workers have gained better wages and treatment in recent years, the gap between them and established urban residents remains wide, fuelling anger about discrimination and ill-treatment.

Other clashes have erupted in southern China in recent weeks, including in Chaozhou, where hundreds of migrant workers demanding payment of their wages at a ceramics factory attacked government buildings and set vehicles ablaze.

Authorities stressed that the riot police had not caused any deaths or injuries in restoring order, nor had they fired any shots, contradicting some online rumours, Caijing said.

Some migrants in Zengcheng, however, told Reuters that dozens, if not hundreds of people had been detained during the clashes and many still had not been released.

Police earlier detained a suspect on suspicion of spreading rumours on the Internet that may have exacerbated the unrest [ID:nL3E7HG1Y6], with many feverish rumours circulating during the unrest of numerous deaths from police brutality.

(Reporting by James Pomfret and Justina Lee; Editing by Alex Richardson)http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/idINIndia-57754820110617

RED DAVE

[Spawn of Stalin]

Stop defending the chinese capitalist state, it will lead you nowhere.
Excuse me?

[danyboy27]

Excuse me?

China is a capitalist state bro.

[Thirsty Crow]

Who is contesting that China is a capitalist power (with the exception of the Vegan Marxist, the resident "Dengist" that we had at one point, and the guy with the website where Libya is a revolutionary socialist state) ?

Spawn of Stalin, apparently.