Resistance in China

[Os Cangaceiros]

"As China grows into its role as a 21st-century economic powerhouse, its government is struggling with the growth of popular unrest. Groups of Chinese citizens, from small bands of workers to entire villages, have been staging protests across the massive nation with increasing frequency. According to research by the Chinese Academy of Governance, the number of protests in China doubled between 2006 and 2010, rising to 180,000 reported "mass incidents." The uprisings are responses to myriad issues, primarily official corruption, government land grabs, Tibetan autonomy, and environmental problems. Late last year, the residents of Wukan -- angered by a land grab by corrupt officials -- rose up and briefly seized control of their village. After several days, the government gave in, admitting to mistakes and vowing to crack down on corruption. Villagers were also allowed to hold their first-ever secret ballot elections, apparently free from Communist Party interference. On February 11, 2012, Wukan residents elected their own governing committee, with a voter turnout of 85 percent."

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/02/rising-protests-in-china/100247/

[daft punk]

would be nice if socialism started in China. Those guys deserve better. They dont even get free healthcare or education, both are expensive as is housing. It is a fucking shithole. But many believe they already have socialism. Anyway, they need to keep the publicly owned stuff and get democratic control over it, and then expand it.

[Welshy]

Does anyone know how big the socialist presence in their protests have been? A part of me is excited to see more working class action but another part of me is worried that it will be turned into a movement that just wants to ove throw the CPC and establish free market capitalism with a western style democracy.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

If these protest become a Chinese Spring, it wont be a movement for socialism, but for increased (free-market) capitalism. The imperialist powers are gonna get involved and tell the people that it is actually the idea of communism that has hurt them, not the individual Party. I do not support another Chinese Revolution, though I do not support the revisionist Chinese government or Party either. Yet, only the Communist Party can lead the nation and they will most likely return back to pure Marxism-Leninism when another Marxist-Leninist superpower arises and ensures them that they no longer need market reforms to survive.

[Os Cangaceiros]

So what you're saying is that it's not good that people are resisting things like having their land seized for private development, having their friends and neighbors die at the hands of the authorities, get paid shit and treated like shit at their places of work, etc? That ethnic minorities in China should just "know their place"?

The CPC is an abomination. With resistance comes risk. Risk doesn't mean you just poo-poo ordinary people's struggle for agency in their own lives.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

If someone does know of any socialist presence in the protests in China they should not mention it. This would be a death sentence for the people involved. There is organizing going on. Maoism remains popular among the working classes and peasants. For the most part though many people in China still have the "good czar" paradigm, its the local corrupt and greedy officials who are to blame, if only President Hu knew our plight, then he'd help us.

This seems to be gradually wearing thin though and there's been a dramatic upsurge of protests and "mass incidents". the country is a powder keg. Any uprising would more or less have a socialist direction to it. The main danger is of a rebellion being diluted by liberal reformers, people who belief that the CPC and Dengism can be reformed, when the entire system and every layer of Chinese society is consumed by corruption.

An uprising in China would be a game changer for the entire global system.

[Die Neue Zeit]

For the most part though many people in China still have the "good czar" paradigm, its the local corrupt and greedy officials who are to blame, if only President Hu knew our plight, then he'd help us.

History has shown time and again that peasant patrimonialism is more difficult to eliminate than the likes of Engels and Trotsky surmised.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The peasants that voted in 85% turnout... who did they vote for? Was the elected individual a communist or non-leftist?

[Prometeo liberado]

So what you're saying is that it's not good that people are resisting things like having their land seized for private development, having their friends and neighbors die at the hands of the authorities, get paid shit and treated like shit at their places of work, etc? That ethnic minorities in China should just "know their place"?

The CPC is an abomination. With resistance comes risk. Risk doesn't mean you just poo-poo ordinary people's struggle for agency in their own lives.

I think what Comrade Commistar is saying is that if all goes according to history,the struggle against a supposed communist governments only logical outcome if the protestors succeeded would be more capitalism not less.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

History has shown time and again that peasant patrimonialism is more difficult to eliminate than the likes of Engels and Trotsky surmised.

My understanding is that much of the rural economy in China collapsed in the 90s. The communes were broken up and there was a brief (and unrelated) rural boom in the 80s. This did not last long and conditions became increasingly difficult for peasants in the 90s. There was a massive growth of Rural Township Enterprises, farmers and villages were forced into developing many types of business enterprises.In the late 90s this system began to collapse as urban firms either collapsed, were privatized and found cheaper suppliers. The result was a huge pool of partly employed rural labor (about 200 million people) who live in vast shanty towns surrounding the big cities like Beijing (where its especially evident), shanghai, and elsewhere.

This is also is a huge source of potential unrest. The state has forestalled this somewhat by the "stimulus" in 2008 but the current bubble is bound to burst soon.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I think what Comrade Commissar is saying is that if all goes according to history,the struggle against a supposed communist governments only logical outcome if the protestors succeeded would be more capitalism not less.

There is nothing communist about the CPC. The logical outcome of a workers and peasants revolt against a repressive capitalist state could be socialism.

[Welshy]

If someone does know of any socialist presence in the protests in China they should not mention it. This would be a death sentence for the people involved. There is organizing going on. Maoism remains popular among the working classes and peasants. For the most part though many people in China still have the "good czar" paradigm, its the local corrupt and greedy officials who are to blame, if only President Hu knew our plight, then he'd help us.



Of course I don't think we should list an organizations or individuals involved, but I was just curious how popular communism/socialism is among the workers in China. The main reason why I asked is that I got into an argument about it with my roommate who is an anti-communist (mainly because of the whole tiananmen square thing) and he argue that the workers their hated socialism according to some of the workers involved in the protests he interviewed. So sources would be nice.

sorry for the derailment of this thread.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

My understanding is that the Tianamen Square protestors had "mixed consciousness". Much of the student movement was as a protest against the massive corruption engulfing China and the priveleges of the elite (which of course has reached even higher levels since then) Many students were socialists. Thousands of students and workers sang the Internationale.

On the other hand it has to be admitted that many of the students had liberal "anti-communist" illusions. It was mixed.

The crackdown occurred when the Beijing working class jopined the protesrts. There were almost a million workers in the streets and there was a very real possibility of a revolution.

After the crackdown, when the working class had been crushed, Deng went even more forcefuly towards enforcing capitalism on China.

This is an interesting take on Tianamen by a Western socialist who was there.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/literature/china/contents.html

(Click on the links)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Kind of a funny article put out a few months ago by the Economist about old Maoists:

http://www.economist.com/node/21533378

[Die Neue Zeit]

My understanding is that much of the rural economy in China collapsed in the 90s. The communes were broken up and there was a brief (and unrelated) rural boom in the 80s. This did not last long and conditions became increasingly difficult for peasants in the 90s. There was a massive growth of Rural Township Enterprises, farmers and villages were forced into developing many types of business enterprises.In the late 90s this system began to collapse as urban firms either collapsed, were privatized and found cheaper suppliers. The result was a huge pool of partly employed rural labor (about 200 million people) who live in vast shanty towns surrounding the big cities like Beijing (where its especially evident), shanghai, and elsewhere.

This is also is a huge source of potential unrest. The state has forestalled this somewhat by the "stimulus" in 2008 but the current bubble is bound to burst soon.

I was discussing the "cult" of the central authority which you mentioned, not the economic goings-on. I think China has reached the point of having a proletarian demographic majority, but its next-door sub-continental neighbour broken into four smaller countries doesn't. Where such majority doesn't exist, peasant patrimonialism shouldn't be thrown out with the bath water.

[Zulu]

The Chinese people should take all the chances they can to influence the Communist Party to repair/renovate/purify itself and return to its ML/Maoist roots. Because, like the others have already noted, if it goes down the "Fair Democracy vs. Corrupt Communism" path, it'll end just with more capitalism, and they won't have anybody to blame but themselves, really.

The economy of the PRC is still in the upswing, which allows the CPC some room for maneuver, but time is off the essence. If it suffers a downturn as a result of the global crisis of capitalism, the CPC will most likely lose control, in which case the Soviet scenario, or even the Yugoslav one will most likely take place.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The Chinese "communist" party is a capitalist party. There is nothing socialist about it. Those who seek to reform it merely put a break on worker's struggles, the same as the Democratic Party in the US.China has gone the "Soviet route" over twenty years ago.

The bubble is bound to burst soon and the system could become unstable. There could be space for worker's struggles to be nationally coordinated with the possibility of the class overthrowing the corrupt party factions and their allied bourgeois class and taking power.

Why are people on this thread so afraid of the possibility of revolution in China? People here sound like liberal reformists. "We have to make badly needed reforms, or the masses wil revolt and we will lose everything" Have more faith in the working class!

Forget about George Soros or the CIA or the Endowment for Democracy. The only successful engine of a revolution s the working class. The color revolutions were,, by definition, ephemeral.

[Ostrinski]

The Chinese "communist" party is a capitalist party. There is nothing socialist about it. Those who seek to reform it merely put a break on worker's struggles, the same as the Democratic Party in the US.China has gone the "Soviet route" over twenty years ago.

The bubble is bound to burst soon and the system could become unstable. There could be space for worker's struggles to be nationally coordinated with the possibility of the class overthrowing the corrupt party factions and their allied bourgeois class and taking power.

Why are people on this thread so afraid of thye possibility of revolution in China? People here sound like liberal reformists. "We have to make badly needed reforms, or the masses wil revolt and we will lose everything" Have more faith in the working class!Indeed, there seems to be a double standard regarding the western working class vs. the eastern working class.

[Minima]

Even though there is something radical in wukan, people shouting "死而后生" which is like "today we'd rather die" it's (makes you fuzzy and warm inside) still aways away from any kind of mass political conciousness- all the political energy is being directed towards anti-corruption and pro-democratic rhetoric. I mean, many still believe in the economic reforms toward capitalism, and see taiwan as model for the future. There are some villages who still worship mao, and want to protect the collectivised farming model that officials like those in wukan are taking, but its really token and localized instances and nothing broad based or political.

I am over here in north america so I don't know shit but that's what i read and what my cousins and friends in china tell me. I just don't feel there is much grounds for optimism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Chinese "communist" party is a capitalist party. There is nothing socialist about it. Those who seek to reform it merely put a break on worker's struggles, the same as the Democratic Party in the US.China has gone the "Soviet route" over twenty years ago.

The bubble is bound to burst soon and the system could become unstable. There could be space for worker's struggles to be nationally coordinated with the possibility of the class overthrowing the corrupt party factions and their allied bourgeois class and taking power.

Why are people on this thread so afraid of the possibility of revolution in China? People here sound like liberal reformists. "We have to make badly needed reforms, or the masses wil revolt and we will lose everything" Have more faith in the working class!

Forget about George Soros or the CIA or the Endowment for Democracy. The only successful engine of a revolution s the working class. The color revolutions were,, by definition, ephemeral.

See, I don't like the word "faith" being used. It reeks of a secular but politicized equivalent to religion.

Of course the left should work outside the CCP, but how come more radicalized workers prefer even Mao than Trotsky?

[Crux]

If these protest become a Chinese Spring, it wont be a movement for socialism, but for increased (free-market) capitalism.
Why? Most chinese proponents of the free market seem content in supporting the regime, and with good reason too.



The imperialist powers are gonna get involved and tell the people that it is actually the idea of communism that has hurt them, not the individual Party.
Ah the ever convincing outside agitator argument. Revolutions don't really work like that, you know.


I do not support another Chinese Revolution, though I do not support the revisionist Chinese government or Party either.
I take it you are some kind of reformist?


Yet, only the Communist Party can lead the nation and they will most likely return back to pure Marxism-Leninism when another Marxist-Leninist superpower arises and ensures them that they no longer need market reforms to survive.
Why is this "most likely"? And are you actually defending the market reforms as necessary?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

See, I don't like the word "faith" being used. It reeks of a secular but politicized equivalent to religion.

Of course the left should work outside the CCP, but how come more radicalized workers prefer even Mao than Trotsky?


The way I used the word "faith" had nothing to do with religion. Religion is the believe in something which has no objective verifyabity. We can have faith in the working acting as a class for itself from our knowledge of history and the dynamics of struggle.

In China the cult of Mao is big and is growing. This represents an understandable nostalgia of an era when despite hardships China was more egalitarian and for some of the positive achievements of Mao's regime. "Maoism" is also being revived by the regime in an attempt to coopt working class anger.

The Bolshevik-Leninists have had a rich tradition in China. The point now isn't which "ism" has more popularity among the masses but which strategy provides the best way forward.

In the US "capitalism" is the most popular ideology but it isn't what we want. "The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of society", etc.

Neo-maoists groups in China such as the "Maoist Communist Party" appear to be reformists, believing they can reform a bourgeois party. They are similar to Kucinich supporters in the US Democratic Party.

[Prometeo liberado]

There is nothing communist about the CPC. The logical outcome of a workers and peasants revolt against a repressive capitalist state could be socialism.

Instead letting this thread get derailed by this I chose the phrase "supposed communist". But I do feel your conclusion ignores recent trends.

[Grenzer]

Instead letting this thread get derailed by this I chose the phrase "supposed communist". But I do feel your conclusion ignores recent trends.

I agree with Lenina. There is absolutely no reason to think that the CPC is moving towards socialism again, unless of course you can provide us some compelling evidence to think otherwise.

In fact, it seems like capitalism is just becoming more entrenched in China. I believe it was only in the last few years that China passed a new set of laws entrenching property rights, which might be interpreted as a move in the direction of neo-liberalism. Whether this is just an isolated case, I'm not sure; but it is clear that capitalism isn't going away in China anytime in the near future. On the bright side, it's good to see that class struggle is occurring on some level and that the framework is being laid for future revolution.

Anyone checked out China's website lately? The Marxist sloganeering is hilarious, I'm surprised they bother with it anymore.

[RedHal]

Here's Minqi Li's latest on therealnews.com

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7953

Not much really, but there does exist a left opposition in the CCP and some info on the next leader Xi Jinping.

[A Marxist Historian]

My understanding is that the Tianamen Square protestors had "mixed consciousness". Much of the student movement was as a protest against the massive corruption engulfing China and the priveleges of the elite (which of course has reached even higher levels since then) Many students were socialists. Thousands of students and workers sang the Internationale.

On the other hand it has to be admitted that many of the students had liberal "anti-communist" illusions. It was mixed.

The crackdown occurred when the Beijing working class jopined the protesrts. There were almost a million workers in the streets and there was a very real possibility of a revolution.

After the crackdown, when the working class had been crushed, Deng went even more forcefuly towards enforcing capitalism on China.

This is an interesting take on Tianamen by a Western socialist who was there.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/literature/china/contents.html

(Click on the links)

China is a huge country. Western accounts of what went down in 1989 all focus on those photogenic students in Tienanmen Square, who by and large were Gorbachev admirers, with all the contradictions that implies.

The fact is that the entire country was in upheaval, riots everywhere, burning and looting LA 1992 style all over the country.

And away from Tienanmen Square it was the workers not the students. A lot of them wearing Mao buttons and thinking of all this as a rebellion against Deng and his capitalist roadism.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

See, I don't like the word "faith" being used. It reeks of a secular but politicized equivalent to religion.

Of course the left should work outside the CCP, but how come more radicalized workers prefer even Mao than Trotsky?

Because the Chinese Revolution of 1949, which the Chinese workers do see as their revolution, even though they played little role in it, was led by Mao, not Trotsky.

BTW, folks who think the CCP is a capitalist party are consistent if they are anarchists or state caps who saw Mao's regime as capitalist from the getgo. Or, of course, if they are Maoists who agree with Mao that Deng was a "capitalist roader."

But anybody from the Trotskyist tradition who thinks that Mao led a deformed workers state whereas Deng and his successors are capitalists, well, that just doesn't compute, as it's the same damn party in command now as under Mao. Same people, same uniforms, same everything. Just different policies.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Why? Most chinese proponents of the free market seem content in supporting the regime, and with good reason too.
...


Hm? An odd statement. You have that whole dissident movement that gets played up in the press, like that guy who just got the Nobel Prize. They all think the CCP are absolutely dreadful tyrants, and think it needs to be replaced by a free market regime.

For that matter you have a good number of former Tienanmen Square students in exile, like that guy who does the CIA-backed "Hong Kong Labor Review" or whatever the name is, who advocates the free market.

There are lots of people like that, and they have quite considerable support, though most actual Chinese capitalists in China, as opposed to Taiwan, are more interested in making money than going to prison, being as the CCP is currently pretty secure in the saddle.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

I agree with Lenina. There is absolutely no reason to think that the CPC is moving towards socialism again, unless of course you can provide us some compelling evidence to think otherwise.

In fact, it seems like capitalism is just becoming more entrenched in China. I believe it was only in the last few years that China passed a new set of laws entrenching property rights, which might be interpreted as a move in the direction of neo-liberalism. Whether this is just an isolated case, I'm not sure; but it is clear that capitalism isn't going away in China anytime in the near future. On the bright side, it's good to see that class struggle is occurring on some level and that the framework is being laid for future revolution.

Anyone checked out China's website lately? The Marxist sloganeering is hilarious, I'm surprised they bother with it anymore.

Odd that you are surprised. With the working class and the peasantry in a state of boiling insurgency, the bureaucrats are making all sorts of concessions to the workers, wages doubling, new labor laws, etc. etc. All that Marxist rhetoric on the website is just one side of that.

The CCP if it had its druthers would probably like to just go allout capitalist, with the "princelings" all becoming billionaires. But they can't, if they did they'd get overthrown.

So the classic Stalinist Bonapartist tightwire balancing act between the capitalists and the workers that Trotsky talked about just keeps on going, with wages doubling and property rights enshrined into law -- simultaneously! All kept afloat by Chinese prosperity while the rest of the world is in crisis.

If a real Chinese economic crisis develops, China will explode. It's pretty close to explosion now anyway, with "mass incidents" daily.

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

The way I used the word "faith" had nothing to do with religion. Religion is the believe in something which has no objective verifyabity. We can have faith in the working acting as a class for itself from our knowledge of history and the dynamics of struggle.

That doesn't address liberal criticisms about this secular stuff having almost religious overtones, something like "messianic agent" or whatever.


In China the cult of Mao is big and is growing. This represents an understandable nostalgia of an era when despite hardships China was more egalitarian and for some of the positive achievements of Mao's regime. "Maoism" is also being revived by the regime in an attempt to coopt working class anger.

The Bolshevik-Leninists have had a rich tradition in China. The point now isn't which "ism" has more popularity among the masses but which strategy provides the best way forward.

In the US "capitalism" is the most popular ideology but it isn't what we want. "The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of society", etc.

Neo-maoists groups in China such as the "Maoist Communist Party" appear to be reformists, believing they can reform a bourgeois party. They are similar to Kucinich supporters in the US Democratic Party.

FYI, European Social Democracy had a bit of a posthumous Lassalle cult going, even after the Eisenachers won the ideological dispute. When the pre-revisionist Bernstein wrote of him, he wrote of the personality cult as a useful tool.


Because the Chinese Revolution of 1949, which the Chinese workers do see as their revolution, even though they played little role in it, was led by Mao, not Trotsky.

Anyway, I think that Chinese Trotskyists should drop the insulting "Bonapartist" label when criticizing Mao, continue to criticize New Democracy and all that, then still conclude that he was a progressive figure.

[I'm just borrowing from my suggestions for the Russian Left re. "Stalin the Icon".]

[Thirsty Crow]

If these protest become a Chinese Spring, it wont be a movement for socialism, but for increased (free-market) capitalism. The imperialist powers are gonna get involved and tell the people that it is actually the idea of communism that has hurt them, not the individual Party. I do not support another Chinese Revolution, though I do not support the revisionist Chinese government or Party either. Yet, only the Communist Party can lead the nation and they will most likely return back to pure Marxism-Leninism when another Marxist-Leninist superpower arises and ensures them that they no longer need market reforms to survive.
You've got to be kidding.
You have to be a total idiot to allow for the possibility of, overt or covert, western operations in order that the growing socil momentum be chanelled into the support for free market policies and political revolution. The existing Chinese state is an imperialist force on its own, and one with a sufficiently developed repressive apparatus and vigilant enough that its power remains intact, and growing.
And you don't support a social revolution in a capitalist country. Great, though I'm sure that you have some tricks up ypur sleeve like "oh but no, China is not capitalist 'cause its the COMMUNIST party in control and there's nationalization!". And you dare to throw the term revisionist around.
But hey, that's not all, you obviously imagine it to be pragmatic to expect another Marxist-Leninist superpower, yes another superpower (bourgeois codeword for dominant imperialist bloc/nation-state), to educate the stupid Chinese masses and their revisionist leaders in the true ways of socialism. That's not even pathetic, it's worse than that, it's an abandonment of revolutionary politics and a big fat "fuck you" to Chinese workers.

You're doing a horrible job advertising pragmatic politics and reasoning.



If a real Chinese economic crisis develops, China will explode. It's pretty close to explosion now anyway, with "mass incidents" daily.

-M.H.-It's not a question of "if", but "when", given the economic situation in China's export target areas, especially Europe.



I take it you are some kind of reformist?

S/he's merely pragmatic, and try to take a guess where being pragmatic leads to.

[Crux]

Hm? An odd statement. You have that whole dissident movement that gets played up in the press, like that guy who just got the Nobel Prize. They all think the CCP are absolutely dreadful tyrants, and think it needs to be replaced by a free market regime.

For that matter you have a good number of former Tienanmen Square students in exile, like that guy who does the CIA-backed "Hong Kong Labor Review" or whatever the name is, who advocates the free market.

There are lots of people like that, and they have quite considerable support, though most actual Chinese capitalists in China, as opposed to Taiwan, are more interested in making money than going to prison, being as the CCP is currently pretty secure in the saddle.

-M.H.-
The term Loyal Opposition comes to mind.


Anyway, I think that Chinese Trotskyists should drop the insulting "Bonapartist" label when criticizing Mao, continue to criticize New Democracy and all that, then still conclude that he was a progressive figure.
Have we insulted your stalinist sensibilities? Well, for the record Bonaparte too had progressive features, that's kind of the point of the term Bonapartism.

[Babeufist]

Interesting article on China here
http://sdonline.org/41/%e2%80%9cto-be-attacked-by-the-enemy-is-a-good-thing%e2%80%9d-the-struggle-over-the-legacy-of-mao-zedong-and-the-chinese-socialist-revolution/

[Thirsty Crow]

Here is an interesting excerpt from a text by a Greek communist group (2009 I think; http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org (http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/)regarding China:


For example, primitive accumulation in China has provided a cheaper labor power than in the “West”, which resulted in cheaper commodities for private consumption and also in cheaper means of production. Since the beginning of the 80s, the model of capitalist development in China has been based precisely on the gradual dissolution of the Maoist welfare state and on the permanent devaluation of labour power. China’s economy has been completely dependent on extensive foreign investments of (cheap) labour-seeking and export-oriented global capital and, consequently, not on the expansion of domestic consumption. Rapid export growth led to ballooning foreign reserves which boosted debt-financed overinvestment in export-oriented sectors of the economy, whose maintenance hangs on the even greater export expansion. Thus, idle capacity has been soaring ever since the mid-1990s and it is estimated that 75% of China’s industries are plagued by overcapacity. In parallel, over the past decade there has been a shift from exports of labour intensive consumer goods to capital-intensive capital goods, parts and components. Such a shift has made China’s
economy far more dependent on foreign demand as well as on the real effective exchange rate which depends on the relation of wages to productivity. A drastic fall of foreign demand stemming from an economic recession due to the overaccumulation crisis in the West may have catastrophic results leading to an intense outbreak of enterprise bankruptcy
and a destabilization of the banking sector, which in its turn would hugely aggravate the global crisis of overaccumulation by directly influencing the credit stability of the United States. On the other hand, wage increases
gained through class struggles or through “income redistribution programmes”, labor legislation and a relative strengthening of the Chinese welfare state would prop up domestic consumption and would reduce both the dependence of China on foreign demand and the danger of a total collapse. Also, wage increases would provide a vast market for
foreign capital, especially from the United States, supporting growth and employment overseas. Nevertheless, if such an option is not accompanied by a faster rise in productivity through higher worker retention rates, increased efficiency and higher skills –which is totally unsure given the spreading of industrial unrest throughout China’s factories in the previous
years– it would also lead to a reduction of exports as well as to an increase of the cost of constant capital in the global economy, worsening the overaccumulation problem from a different route. If this situation seems like a dead end –which is reflected in articles and studies by organizations such as the “Financial Times” (e.g. Tables turn on Chinese employers,
FT 4 June 2010)– it, however, originates from the character of the neoliberal project which is based on “spatial-temporal” fixes to global overaccumulation which do nothing more than switch the crisis from one territory of the planet to another territory of the planet –turning the recipients of surplus capital (in this case China) to exporters of surplus capital– or from one point of time to another point of time –through the reallocation of capital into financial and real-estate investments that delay the moment of profit realization. In other words, neoliberal politics have not been able to constitute a new regime of accumulation, all the more so that this would require an extended devaluation and destruction of the non-productive capital. See Ho-fung Hung, Rise of China and the Global Overaccumulation Crisis, Review of International Political Economy, vol. 15, no. 2, 2008; Li Cui, China’s Growing External Dependence, Finance & Development – A Quarterly Magazine of the IMF, vol. 44, no. 3, 2007 and David Harvey, The Limits to Capital, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982. (By the way, in the latter title as well as in a recent book by the same author, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, some terms and themes of the present text are discussed more fully and thus they may be very useful to those who are not versed in marxist lingo).

[sanpal]

I think China is now in unique situation. It is:

1) China goes the way which has the road fork: to the left or to the right;

2) China is situated now closer to true marxist socialism than any "socialist" countries, today's or former.

About the first: If China will be developing something like "market socialism" without any communist perspective then earlier or later the property stratification, the commodity-money relations, apathy of the working class, etc. will lead to regeneration and restoration of bourgeois society and China will turn to the right. Alternative way is the creation of communist society through the Proletarian State (DotP).

About the second: China has all necessary components for building the true proletarian socialism: nominally the power is "in the hands of the working class" by means of ruling CCP as distinct from advanced modern capitalist countries which have had no Proletarian revolutions yet and they still have to fight for power for the working class by overcoming of resistance of bourgeoisie. China successfully develops as mighty productive power creating simultaneously masses of new proletariat. They have correctly functioning market economy which is not now distorted with Duhring's wrong scheme as it was in Mao's period when Mao repeated after Stalin with the same utopian model of mr. Duhring.

It is similar to Lenin's NEP. Unfortunately in the USSR Stalin closed the NEP and replaced it with Duhrin's scheme but in China, on the contrary, the NEP was as a reforming of the non-working Stalin-Mao-Duhring's economic model into the working market economy.

What have to do CP of China further?
1) to emphasize in the programme of CP the final aim - creating of communist society;
2) to create the special multi-economy of transition period which has to consist of three-sectors economy:
- State-capitalist sector,
- traditional private-capitalist sector of economy,
using for both [1); 2)] the capitalist mode of production and (it is obligatory)
- communist sector using communist mode of production (non-market, moneyless, planned economy).
This scheme will help to give hope to the working class to get their emancipation in a fair, equal society and will give to neo-liberals (for a while) their piece of economy. It has to prevent new "Tienanmen Square" protests.

[GoddessCleoLover]

NEP in China is NEP on steroids or some type of super-steroids. Seriously, the distinction between NEP and today's China is that the "commanding heights" of the Chinese economy have largely been privatized. For this reason, I have to sadly conclude that socialism even of the backward Maoist variety no longer exists in China, and that the party leaders are a "new class" that is the functional equivalent of a national bourgeoisie. My conclusion is that only proletarian revolutionary change can alter this sad state of affairs.

[sanpal]

NEP in China is NEP on steroids or some type of super-steroids. Seriously, the distinction between NEP and today's China is that the "commanding heights" of the Chinese economy have largely been privatized.

China has vast state-capitalist sector (not privatized). Limited private-capitalist sector don't contradict policy of NEP.



For this reason, I have to sadly conclude that socialism even of the backward Maoist variety no longer exists in China, and that the party leaders are a "new class" that is the functional equivalent of a national bourgeoisie. My conclusion is that only proletarian revolutionary change can alter this sad state of affairs.


Do you mean China needs a new Proletarian revolution? Hm, the revolutionary proletariat overthrows Communist Party from the power? It sounds discouragingly. :blink:


I think that choice of the road (the left or the right) depends from processes going inside of CCP, how CCP develop its party programme (what to do further). If the final goal of building communist society will be clearly denoted so CCP will be forced to self-purity (maybe pressure from below). If there will not be any communist perspective in party programme of CCP but only indistinct perspective of market socialism then restoration of capitalism in full measure is inevitably. It is what I have said above of two roads.

[Thirsty Crow]

About the second: China has all necessary components for building the true proletarian socialism: nominally the power is "in the hands of the working class" by means of ruling CCP as distinct from advanced modern capitalist countries which have had no Proletarian revolutions yet and they still have to fight for power for the working class by overcoming of resistance of bourgeoisie. China successfully develops as mighty productive power creating simultaneously masses of new proletariat. They have correctly functioning market economy which is not now distorted with Duhring's wrong scheme as it was in Mao's period when Mao repeated after Stalin with the same utopian model of mr. Duhring. In order that you might successfully defend the notion that political power is nominally in the hands of the working class, you'd have to abandon Marxist theory entirely. In other words, no, power is not only nominally, but actually in the hands of the capitalist class, and that is why China develops as it does, creating masses of proletarians.
I have no clue what would correctly functioning market economy mean. As if economic practices were founded on previously elaborated theories, and not growing out of the current balance of class forces and the situation of capital accumulation. I can only envision correctly functioning market economy as correct and healthy for the continued accumulation in China.


It is similar to Lenin's NEP. Unfortunately in the USSR Stalin closed the NEP and replaced it with Duhrin's scheme but in China, on the contrary, the NEP was as a reforming of the non-working Stalin-Mao-Duhring's economic model into the working market economy.

How could this analogy stand? It misses on the essential purpose of NEP, which was to alleviate social conflicts along the lines of countryside-city, while what we have in China is decades' old, full blooded integration into the world market and ongoing process of capital accumulation.



Do you mean China needs a new Proletarian revolution? Hm, the revolutionary proletariat overthrows Communist Party from the power? It sounds discouragingly. :blink:

Yet it's absolutely vital and necessary for proletarians in China.

[Crux]

The Wukan Uprising and it's lessons. (http://www.revleft.org/vb/showthread.php?p=2367088#post2367088)

[sanpal]

In order that you might successfully defend the notion that political power is nominally in the hands of the working class, you'd have to abandon Marxist theory entirely. In other words, no, power is not only nominally, but actually in the hands of the capitalist class, and that is why China develops as it does, creating masses of proletarians.



I mean another thing. Industrialization creates arithmetical diminution of quantity of peasants and accordingly augmentation of quantity of proletarians, it less depends from sort of power.

I agree that there is no sense to have instead of actual political power only nominal power. But I proceed from actual situation when China's proletariat at the present moment has only nominal political power by means of ruling Communist party, and CP in its essence is exponent of working class interest (in any case it must be so by definition of CP).

The main task of any Communist party after Proletarian revolution - to organize the power of the working class. How to do it? I suppose neither China's communist leaders nor leaders of another communist parties knew / know how to do it. Councils? Soviet system? These kind of systems are considered as self-organization of the working class, theirs self-management and are more fited for stateless society aka communism.
But we deal with the Proletarian State, the State which has to be organized for the transitional period, the State which was named by Marx the Dictatorship of the proletariat or the State of Democracy and Dictatorship of the proletariat. It is still class society because it has in its economic base the capitalist mode of production and correctly functioning market system with the wages system as component ("correctly" it means it's not deformed by Duhring's scheme as in Stalin's or Mao's period). So contradictions arise between state-governing and society self-management. To solve these contradictions it is needed to create fundamentally new State apparatus instead of destroyed bourgeois State apparatus. This new apparatus has to answer the demand: to have democracy and dictatorship principles simultaneously. The model of such state power apparatus "the Proletarian Parliament" was proposed by us some years ago http://www.revleft.com/vb/proletarskiy-parlament-istinnaya-t74678/index.html?t=74678.

Thus after a successful political coup/revolution has happened, Communist party seizes the power and if CP is really genuine it passes the power from CP to the working class by creating the Proletarian Parliament. In that case there is no Dictatorship of Party but there is the Dictatorship of Class and this Class is Proletarian class as it consist of majority (interests of petty-bourgeois and middle bourgeois classes could be protected also through the Proletarian Parliament's mechanism).

In China as much as in the f.USSR was deformed the commodity-money relations what was identified by us as realization of Duhring's utopian scheme in practice. I wrote it many times earlier. And as it was predicted in "Anti-Duhring" this utopian scheme of society inevitably will collapse. To prevent the collapsing the communist parties having the state power were forced to limit democratic liberty not to create plural dissidents and opposition and keep such kind of "socialism" as they understood it. So in China, historically, as a fact, we have OneParty political power which was caused by circumstance described above.
We have to recognise those positive things which CCP made during the last decades namely reform in economy i.e. correcting the wrong scheme a la Duhring into the right market economic system and keep till now socialist/communist ideology and what CPSU was fail to do.

Now an important moment for CCP is coming, either CCP does party's self-purification, creates state mechanism of proletarian power kinda 'Proletarian parliament" to give working class the real but not nominal power and helps ideologically the working class to organize sector of communist economy (non-market, moneyless, planned system) as a component of NEP multi-economy or CCP will be removed from the state power by the protest movement arising in China..


How could this analogy stand? It misses on the essential purpose of NEP, which was to alleviate social conflicts along the lines of countryside-city, while what we have in China is decades' old, full blooded integration into the world market and ongoing process of capital accumulation.



Commodity-money relations cannot be abolished by one stroke. Lenin understood his own mistake to come to communist relations immediately after revolution and after Kronshtadt rebellion he came to conclusion to come to NEP as necessity. Chinese communists have realized the same thing that NEP is essential.


Yet it's absolutely vital and necessary for proletarians in China.


Absolutely vital and necessary for proletarians in China or elsewhere is their emancipation and to cease to be a proletariat. It is the goal. What road would be chosen is tactics.

Are you sure that all protesters mostly peasants and farmers will support proletarians in next revolution? Are you sure that all mass of proletarians will accept socialist/communist ideology after those abuses which Chinese communists have made? Are you sure that all national and international bourgeoisie won't do everything to convert China into ordinary bourgeois state? I'm not. And China would follow Russia.

Now CCP has a chance. Sorry if CCP would lose this unique situation.