7000 workers strike in China

[Susurrus]

http://sysiphus-angrynewsfromaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/beijing-china-dozens-of-workers-injured.html

[Grigori]

450,00 workers replace them the next day:mad::mad:

Seriously though, China isn't what it used to be. The petty bourgeoisie of China yet again have no interest in siding with the oppressed peasants. It is strange that Maoism is the only strategy that can work in a revolutionary China.

[CynicalIdealist]

Capitalist agents!

</derpyMarxist-Leninists>

[Ocean Seal]

Capitalist agents!

</derpyMarxist-Leninists>
Actually most ML's see China as completely capitalist, if you don't count the FSRO fight back guys. I mean who can defend China: they allow the bourgeoisie into the Communist Party and they allow you to buy parts of the government.

[OhYesIdid]

about god damn time.
has any opposition group taken up their banner? hell, other than maybe the Falun Gong, is there any worthwhile Chinese opposition to speak of?

[Susurrus]

about god damn time.
has any opposition group taken up their banner? hell, other than maybe the Falun Gong, is there any worthwhile Chinese opposition to speak of?

Quite ironically, the Maoists in China have taken up an anti-authoritarian bent in favor of more worker's democracy. How big that is, idk.

[OhYesIdid]

anti-authoritarian Maoists, well what'd ya know

[Grigori]

about god damn time.
has any opposition group taken up their banner? hell, other than maybe the Falun Gong, is there any worthwhile Chinese opposition to speak of?

The falun Gong aren't a resistance movement, they are a martyred religious movement. I don't think they believe in violent rebellion

[Le Socialiste]

Aren't strikes in China fairly common, albeit underreported?

[Grigori]

Aren't strikes in China fairly common, albeit underreported?

They are very common in rural areas (along with sabotage)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The falun Gong aren't a resistance movement, they are a martyred religious movement. I don't think they believe in violent rebellion

They are effective non-violent propagandists though, the Epoch Times is almost ubiquitous in areas with many Chinese Americans and is almost always headlined with negative news about the PRC or one of its allies. Mind you, the negative stories are often legitimate, but makes the false claim that the government of the PRC is "Communist".


Quite ironically, the Maoists in China have taken up an anti-authoritarian bent in favor of more worker's democracy. How big that is, idk.

This has been interesting to hear. It is ironic that Maoism, the ideology that lead most directly to market state capitalism more rapidly than any other form of Leninism and came out of a highly authoritarian system, would develop thoughts more in line with "Left-Communism" over time. Perhaps that is because the deification of Mao has led to him taking on the form of a symbol without any use of much of his actual theory. The cult of personality has come full circle.

[Susurrus]

This has been interesting to hear. It is ironic that Maoism, the ideology that lead most directly to market state capitalism more rapidly than any other form of Leninism and came out of a highly authoritarian system, would develop thoughts more in line with "Left-Communism" over time. Perhaps that is because the deification of Mao has led to him taking on the form of a symbol without any use of much of his actual theory. The cult of personality has come full circle.

This. They seem to claim that the system under Mao was free and democratic, as well as egalitarian. Perhaps as a result of the historic propaganda that claimed it was so. I believe they are mostly young people as well.

[OhYesIdid]

. Perhaps as a result of the historic propaganda that claimed it was so.

oh the irony the sweet sweet irony it's hot and delicious

[Rusty Shackleford]

Workers actions in china are a good thing. since the right wing won out in the CPC the interests of the working class in china was put on the back burner and replaced with interests of market growth and the importation of western technology and capital.

There are still socialist institutions in China but with the existence of a semi-market economy there is a division in the working class, to an extent.

Workers in state industries(which are doing well) tend to live pretty well off since no one can actually make profit off of them while at the same time workers in foreign owned factories and stuff tend to be living pretty poorly.

When the working class expresses its frustration and takes action, it may help slow the right wing shift of the CPC or even reverse the tide. Of course, the capitalists within the party also need to be purged.

The worst thing that could happen though is it turning into a Chinese version of the Polish 'solidarity' movement which overthrows the CPC. If such a thing were to happen, China would once again be plundered.

[promethean]

Workers actions in china are a good thing. since the right wing won out in the CPC the interests of the working class in china was put on the back burner and replaced with interests of market growth and the importation of western technology and capital.

There are still socialist institutions in China but with the existence of a semi-market economy there is a division in the working class, to an extent.

Workers in state industries(which are doing well) tend to live pretty well off since no one can actually make profit off of them while at the same time workers in foreign owned factories and stuff tend to be living pretty poorly.

When the working class expresses its frustration and takes action, it may help slow the right wing shift of the CPC or even reverse the tide. Of course, the capitalists within the party also need to be purged.

The worst thing that could happen though is it turning into a Chinese version of the Polish 'solidarity' movement which overthrows the CPC. If such a thing were to happen, China would once again be plundered.
So, you advocate reform over revolution?

[Rusty Shackleford]

So, you advocate reform over revolution?
nice play on words.


no.


china had its revolution, the basis is already there for a return to DOTP but the issue is the party and the struggle over ideology within the party. either a new communist movement grows and overthrows the CPC or the CPC drops the whole market socialism thing. for the CPC to change, the masses have to be in motion in China.

[promethean]

Wow, what a bunch of contradictory statements.

china had its revolution, the basis is already there for a return to DOTP but the issue is the party and the struggle over ideology within the party. either a new communist movement grows and overthrows the CPC or the CPC drops the whole market socialism thing. for the CPC to change, the masses have to be in motion in China.China never actually had a "revolution", as in the proletariat seizing power and enforcing the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1949, the Chinese communist party merely effected a change in regime and later enacted some 'progressive' measures. This was not a proletarian revolution and so, it is not possible to return to the DOTP since there was none before. In either case, I am interested in knowing how you think this can be achieved. If you think the ruling party can just 'drop' market socialism and return to socialism, you need to explain how there was socialism in the first place. Marx defined socialism as a stateless and moneyless society. When was there this kind of a society in China? Also, you claim that the CPC can be either overthrown or it can merely drop its market socialism thing. Do you think socialism can be achieved both by reform or by revolution?

[black magick hustla]

Workers in state industries(which are doing well) tend to live pretty well off since no one can actually make profit off of them while at the same time workers in foreign owned factories and stuff tend to be living pretty poorly.


this is the case for almost every country in the world. generally working for the state is better.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Wow, what a bunch of contradictory statements.China never actually had a "revolution", as in the proletariat seizing power and enforcing the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1949, the Chinese communist party merely effected a change in regime and later enacted some 'progressive' measures. This was not a proletarian revolution and so, it is not possible to return to the DOTP since there was none before. In either case, I am interested in knowing how you think this can be achieved. If you think the ruling party can just 'drop' market socialism and return to socialism, you need to explain how there was socialism in the first place. Marx defined socialism as a stateless and moneyless society. When was there this kind of a society in China? Also, you claim that the CPC can be either overthrown or it can merely drop its market socialism thing. Do you think socialism can be achieved both by reform or by revolution?
keep thumping your chest.



The Chinese revolution is fundamentally different from what you think or say it was.

Yes, the revolution was fought for mostly by peasants, but the character of the revolution was proletarian. Development in China immediately afterward was along the lines of socialist construction.

and im not really advocating the overthrow of the CPC(also, whos heard of a communist organization overthrowing a communist party besides Vietnam ousting the Khmer Rouge?). the CPC has its own character that makes it seemingly unique. Sure, it wont just 'drop market socialism' like it didnt just drop maoism/socialist construction. Changes within the CPC happened through internal intra-party struggle and the conditions of the world at the point of changing to the right.

And it seems we have different understandings of what socialism means and how it comes about. Surely it doesnt come about immediately after a revolution, does it? It must be built. You cannot just proclaim "socialism!" Effort has to go into enforcing that claim and making the changes in society that actually transform society from one stage to another. Its never a smooth process, and its never a pretty process and it surely isnt a quick process. And if a revolution were to happen tomorrow, we would not see that higher stage of socialism we know as a classless and stateless society within our lifetimes. Even if we were born the minute the working class came to power.







Your argument is that i am advocating reformism because i see the situation in China as a struggle to return the CPC to Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-Tung thought?

The CPC is already in power, it has the ability to control trade, its origins are in class struggle and socialist construction and there is no bourgeois democratic process that would get in the way of anything.

If the workers struggle in china grows, then so does the chance of a change in the CPC. Its not the same as the CPUSA, or the Communist Party of Russia.







this is the case for almost every country in the world. generally working for the state is better.

Yeah, i wont really contest that. Generally, workers in the few remaining (and shrinking) SOEs from what i have read are viewed as semi-privileged

[Crux]

about god damn time.
has any opposition group taken up their banner? hell, other than maybe the Falun Gong, is there any worthwhile Chinese opposition to speak of?

www.chinaworker.info I am, for obvious reasons, not at liberty to say how many supporters we have in mainland china. We are building a decent group in hong kong though as well as being in the process of building a group in taiwan. I'll post more once I get to the library.

[Crux]

Aren't strikes in China fairly common, albeit underreported?
there are over 10000 "mass incidents", as the regime calls it, each year. And they are increasing. To be clear though the term includes major protests as well and not just strikes.

[promethean]

keep thumping your chest.keep pounding your fists.:rolleyes:


The Chinese revolution is fundamentally different from what you think or say it was.

Yes, the revolution was fought for mostly by peasants, but the character of the revolution was proletarian. Development in China immediately afterward was along the lines of socialist construction.
For any revolution to be a proletarian revolution, it needs to be carried out by the proletariat. This is what Karl Marx defined a proletarian revolution to be. You say the revolution was fought for by peasants, but which peasants? Was it peasants as a class for itself? This would be impossible since the peasantry cannot be a class for itself. This is a defining character of peasants. It is only the working class that can transform from a class in itself to a class for itself through gaining class consciousness. This cannot happen in the case of peasants. In reality, the so-called peasants who fought in the Chinese Civil War were mainly those employed by the CPC. The reason why there was no revolution was because Mao's seizing of power was more due to his victory in the Civil war, than because of the acts of the Chinese proletariat. The civil war was fought between two capitalist factions, the KMT, supported by Western forces, and the CPC, supported by the USSR.


and im not really advocating the overthrow of the CPC(also, whos heard of a communist organization overthrowing a communist party besides Vietnam ousting the Khmer Rouge?). Rusty is just talking about Stalinist parties here, none of which have to do with communism, hence his apparent confusion about 'communist parties' overthrowing each other.


the CPC has its own character that makes it seemingly unique. Sure, it wont just 'drop market socialism' like it didnt just drop maoism/socialist construction. Changes within the CPC happened through internal intra-party struggle and the conditions of the world at the point of changing to the right. Here you seem to be advocating that the left-wing of the CPC should overthrow the right-wing of the CPC and so, bring back the so-called socialist road, which was nothing other than capitalism under state control. What do any of your ideas have to do with the Chinese proletariat themselves? You claim that the workers should not overthrow the CPC and the CPC should just adjust itself, which is nothing other than reformism. Your nonsensical ideas just show your contempt towards Chinese workers and towards this strike in which they are involved.


And it seems we have different understandings of what socialism means and how it comes about. Yes. Your understanding of socialism is totally unrelated to what Karl Marx advocated.

[Jose Gracchus]

Also, Rusty, is it your contention that state-owned capital in China does not return a profit, and the state does not look at it that way? Because they very much do, even if you ask them. State-owned enterprises do return profits. Sure certain SOEs are mandated by the state to do such and such, but this tells us nothing but the state is the juridicial monopsony (single-buyer) in certain markets. The same is true for Western defense industries. They post profits and collect income from sales, but the nature of the sale is totally non-competitive in the traditional sense. Bureaucratic factions within the political edifice of the state jockey over the material composition of desired outputs, which the producer who complies with successfully will receive payment at negotiated values, guaranteed. No different than the operation of Soviet or Chinese state enterprises who only do business (officially, juridicially) with the state.

Alienated labor in China is linked into to the self-expansion of value, the accumulation of capital. Chinese state policy and state ideology, openly reflects the accumulation of capital as the highest social goal, for purportedly 'progressive' purposes. The People's Republic of China is a capitalist state, and even if you stubbornly cling to the "property-form" school of thought, in China the process of statification and administrative control never reached the apex of the Stalinist USSR. Hoxhaists do not even contend, for example, that China constructed socialism, even by "Marxist-Leninist" standards. Generally the only ones who do claim this are Maoists (obliged to defend everything PRC from 49-75) or Brezhnevite-type 'pan-socialism', the kind of 1980s politics that saw every populist who did business with Moscow and had guerillas in the field as "socialist". All the was needed was the name. The Soviet Encyclopedia even came up with a fatuous descriptor for the non-aligned's who did not even pay lipservice to ML ideology (and thus their state could not be fashioned as 'socialist' merely on account of the ideological pronunciations of the government), of "non-capitalist development." To go down this rabbit hole is to evacuate any substantive content from Marxism, and turn it into nothing but backdrop romance for fleshing out what remains basically Robin Hood politics.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It is ironic that Maoism, the ideology that lead most directly to market state capitalism more rapidly than any other form of Leninism and came out of a highly authoritarian system, would develop thoughts more in line with "Left-Communism" over time. Perhaps that is because the deification of Mao has led to him taking on the form of a symbol without any use of much of his actual theory. The cult of personality has come full circle.

The new "Maoism" isn't particularly left-communist. National symbols and perceptions of national heroism cannot be discounted.

If the new "Maoism" gains momentum in the PRC, I hope something similar occurs in Russia with some new "Anti-Revisionism" under the symbolic banner of either Stalin himself or the "worker-Stalinists" around him (like Bulganin, Kirov, Rudzutak, and even the mass famine perpetrators Chubar, Kaganovich, and Kosior) because, let's face it, just before expulsion Trotsky and co. broke the straw of the most libertarian interpretation of "unity in action" by pulling off a demonstration stunt contrary to party resolutions, then refusing to apologize for this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-left-unity-t155794/index.html).

[Crux]

Yes, the revolution was fought for mostly by peasants, but the character of the revolution was proletarian. Development in China immediately afterward was along the lines of socialist construction.
Well, along the lines of the expropriation of large parts of bourgeoisie at least. Something not sought after by Mao and his friends, might I add, by the way.


and im not really advocating the overthrow of the CPC(also, whos heard of a communist organization overthrowing a communist party besides Vietnam ousting the Khmer Rouge?).
Well, check out the sino-russian conflict, which I know the marcyite perspective tries to paint over, you're going to see quite more of that kind of bussines. Who ever heard of communist party supporting Pinochet? Oh right that would be the CPC.


the CPC has its own character that makes it seemingly unique. Sure, it wont just 'drop market socialism' like it didnt just drop maoism/socialist construction. Changes within the CPC happened through internal intra-party struggle and the conditions of the world at the point of changing to the right.
Yeah the right managed to to take over the CPC, with the aid of Komintern, in the early 30's. It's known as Stalinism. Anyway, if we are going to get more practical trying to push the CPC to the left is nigh impossible, not because there isn't a massive emembership still, but because you'd be walking around with a target on your back and surrounded by potential informants. More than a few maoist activists have had to learn that lesson and not lightly. Even the, as far as I understand, mostly etxraparty Maoist party had to learn this, when Bo Xilai, that would be the same Bo Xilai cited as an example of a "left" in CPC because he has some populism going on, hit down on their activities and hit down hard.

[Crux]

Also I find this two articles very good, both in adressing the general upturn in protests and the CPC:
Is China facing a summer of discontent? (http://www.chinaworker.info/en/content/news/1496/)
China: Repression or ‘reform’? (http://www.chinaworker.info/en/content/news/1507/)

[Rusty Shackleford]

Well, check out the sino-russian conflict, which I know the marcyite perspective tries to paint over, you're going to see quite more of that kind of bussines. Who ever heard of communist party supporting Pinochet? Oh right that would be the CPC.



Actually, the Sino-Soviet Split is a whole section of education for newer members. Generally, we side with the principles set forth by the CPC in the early portion of it as being revolutionary and the soviets being chauvanist, at the same time though we recognize that because of imperialist powers doing as much as possible to take advantage of it, the CPC started making wild accusations of the Soviet Union being fascist and what not and then later on siding with imperialism(though not becoming imperialist itself) against the soviet union.

its not wholly the CPCs fault though. soviet leaders were publicly going to western capitals discussing the issue of china. While the PRC and USSR were fighting each other the imperialsits were winning out big time. out of this also grew the chance of the dengists and capitalist roaders coming out on top in the party and ultimately triyng to 'not offend the US' so they can make massive growth and become a 'medium developed country' by 2050.

[promethean]

Actually, the Sino-Soviet Split is a whole section of education for newer members. Generally, we side with the principles set forth by the CPC in the early portion of it as being revolutionary and the soviets being chauvanist, at the same time though we recognize that because of imperialist powers doing as much as possible to take advantage of it, the CPC started making wild accusations of the Soviet Union being fascist and what not and then later on siding with imperialism(though not becoming imperialist itself) against the soviet union.On this occasion, both the Chinese state and the Russian state were being chauvinist. The Russians always had acted as 'big brother' to China. It began with the intervention of the dutch comintern representative, Sneevliet, in the affairs of the CPC when the CPC members found the directives given by the comintern to be contrary to their original aim of working class liberation. The early CPC was not actually a class collaborationist party like it became later but actually believed in the workers movement. The comintern and Stalin had a big part to play in this. The comintern basically directed the CPC to make a united front with their bourgeoisie. This was the usual Soviet way of transforming foreign communist movements into pawns of their foreign policy, as seen by their involvement in other countries too. However, once the People's Republic was created, the leaders of the CPC, who were now the new state officials, began to feel they were ready to assert their own chauvinism against the Russians and hence they displayed their feelings towards the past injustices committed by their former masters. Of course, both the USSR and the PRC were capitalist countries when the latter broke with the former and their mutual relations is just an example of foreign relations between two capitalist countries.

[Rusty Shackleford]

yes, the CPC was indeed a very workers oriented organization at first. Until they were slaughtered in the cities by the KMT and forced to retreat to the country side. Because they focused so much on the peasantry did not make the CPC uncommunist. Its orientation was still proletarian. It was the reality of the day, that and kickinig out imperial powers was a big priority.

[promethean]

yes, the CPC was indeed a very workers oriented organization at first. Until they were slaughtered in the cities by the KMT and forced to retreat to the country side. Because they focused so much on the peasantry did not make the CPC uncommunist. Its orientation was still proletarian. It was the reality of the day, that and kickinig out imperial powers was a big priority.
For the orientation of a "communist party" to be considered proletarian, it needs to be at the very least involved in the activities of the proletariat. On the other hand, the CPC actually never took part in any class struggle after 1927. This was of course, not the fault of the CPC themselves alone, since Stalin and the Comintern had continuously forced them to accept the Popular Front. Once they gained power following the Civil War, they ruthlessly crushed all workers dissent and banned all strikes. All this indicates that they were and continue to be just another bourgeois Stalinist party.