Modern China and the NEP

[AmericanCommie421]

Some Leftists have argued that modern China, though introducing market reforms in the past few decades, remains a Socialist nation. Often they will claim that these reforms have been necessary to build a strong Socialist nation, often citing Lenin's New Economic Policy as an example of allowing Capitalism to advance the economy, as a basis for further building Socialism in a nation with a weak infrastructure and economy. Also, many cite advances in living conditions and wages as further evidence that, although developing it's economy using Capitalism, and despite its numerous problems, it is still a Socialist country in the process of building a strong Socialist nation, fighting against its historical disadvantages posed to it before the revolution in 1949. What are the thoughts among you all here on this?

[GoddessCleoLover]

I have many thoughts about this, since I first became a Leftist about forty years ago, and at the time was favorably disposed toward Mao and the PRC. Let us start with an issue raised elsewhere by another poster, that of the state monopoly over trade, where I believe that the current PRC leadership has pursued a bourgeois policy not only compared to Lenin and the NEP, but even compared to Gorbachev. To paraphrase Lenins Rosenweg, the bottom line is that today Chins is merely a manufacturing platform for US corporations. China may be industrializing, but its workers are subject to brutal exploitation, and the vanguard party responsible for allowing this has committed treason against the working class.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

China's capitalist policy cannot be compared to the New Economic Policy of Lenin. First of all, Lenin's NEP, which built the necessary state capitalism for feudal Russia and replaced War Communism, came before Stalin's Five Year Plans, which built socialism. It is absolutely stupid to claim that it is the correct order to have Mao Zedong's First Five Year Plan and Great Leap Foward come before Deng's establishment of state-controlled capitalism. That is the reverse of the correct order. Yet, some communists claim that they needed to return to capitalism because China started off as a feudalist nation, making socialism troubled from the beginning. But so did the early Soviet Union.

Second of all, the PRC leadership never talks about returning China back to socialism once the benefits of capitalism have been reaped. They seem to be intent on making capitalism in China permanent. When Stalin came to power, he kept the NEP, but he knew that eventually he had to trade it for the development of socialism. Not only did he know this, but he also spoke of it.

Third of all, Lenin's state capitalism only lasted for seven years. Deng's capitalist betrayals (which were not even state capitalist, but just state-controlled/supervised capitalist) have been continued and further reformed since 1978. It is now 2012; China has been capitalist for 34 years!

Fourth of all, China's capitalist reforms create an economy that is not as controlled by the government as was the economy created by the NEP. Under the NEP, the state still controlled banks, foreign trade, and large industries. None of these things are under absolute government control in capitalist China.

Capitalism in China appears to be going nowhere soon. Not only that, but China has the worst kind of capitalism, in which only foriegn corporations and elites get to profit off of the system. A new Marxist-Leninist superpower must arise and convince the Chinese Communist Party to return back to the real path of socialism.

[GoddessCleoLover]

What entity could constitute such as Marxist-Leninist superpower? To my mind only a workers' revolution could accomplish this result.

[l'Enfermé]

China's capitalist policy cannot be compared to the New Economic Policy of Lenin. First of all, Lenin's NEP, which built the necessary state capitalism for feudal Russia and replaced War Communism, came before Stalin's Five Year Plans, which built socialism. It is absolutely stupid to claim that it is the correct order to have Mao Zedong's First Five Year Plan and Great Leap Foward come before Deng's establishment of state-controlled capitalism. That is the reverse of the correct order. Yet, some communists claim that they needed to return to capitalism because China started off as a feudalist nation, making socialism troubled from the beginning. But so did the early Soviet Union.

Second of all, the PRC leadership never talks about returning China back to socialism once the benefits of capitalism have been reaped. They seem to be intent on making capitalism in China permanent. When Stalin came to power, he kept the NEP, but he knew that eventually he had to trade it for the development of socialism. Not only did he know this, but he also spoke of it.

Third of all, Lenin's state capitalism only lasted for seven years. Deng's capitalist betrayals (which were not even state capitalist, but just state-controlled/supervised capitalist) have been continued and further reformed since 1978. It is now 2012; China has been capitalist for 34 years!

Fourth of all, China's capitalist reforms create an economy that is not as controlled by the government as was the economy created by the NEP. Under the NEP, the state still controlled banks, foreign trade, and large industries. None of these things are under absolute government control in capitalist China.

Capitalism in China appears to be going nowhere soon. Not only that, but China has the worst kind of capitalism, in which only foriegn corporations and elites get to profit off of the system. A new Marxist-Leninist superpower must arise and convince the Chinese Communist Party to return back to the real path of socialism.
Stalin's five-year plan? The five-year plan was Trotsky's idea, advanced by the Opposition in 1923(and mocked by the right-wing camp, Tomsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Stalin, etc, etc.). Stalin's five-year plan was a recycled version of the Opposition's.

[Zulu]

Stalin's five-year plan? The five-year plan was Trotsky's idea, advanced by the Opposition in 1923(and mocked by the right-wing camp, Tomsky, Bukharin, Rykov, Stalin, etc, etc.). Stalin's five-year plan was a recycled version of the Opposition's.

You forgot the most notorious right-winger going by the name of Lenin, who was the main proponent of the NEP. There was no way to commence a 5-year plan in 1923, as the economy laid in shambles after the 7 years of war (1914-1921), the working class was virtually non-existent and the countryside was still trying to recuperate from the famine caused by the war.

[Zulu]

Some Leftists have argued that modern China, though introducing market reforms in the past few decades, remains a Socialist nation. Often they will claim that these reforms have been necessary to build a strong Socialist nation, often citing Lenin's New Economic Policy as an example of allowing Capitalism to advance the economy, as a basis for further building Socialism in a nation with a weak infrastructure and economy. Also, many cite advances in living conditions and wages as further evidence that, although developing it's economy using Capitalism, and despite its numerous problems, it is still a Socialist country in the process of building a strong Socialist nation, fighting against its historical disadvantages posed to it before the revolution in 1949. What are the thoughts among you all here on this?

Although the NEP-style rationale is good and all, it seems to have been going for too long now. The CPC has too many "NEP-men" in its midst, and it's doubtful they are willing to make a voluntary about-turn. However, there is a chance that the current crisis of the global capitalist system may prompt the new Chinese leadership (the shift in the Politburo membership is slated for this year, btw) to take some steps. If those steps are wrong (capitalist, rather than socialist), China is likely to share the fate of the rest of the world in the coming turmoil as the transnational financial oligarchy fights to preserve itself through a global fascist corporate NWO.

[A Marxist Historian]

You forgot the most notorious right-winger going by the name of Lenin, who was the main proponent of the NEP. There was no way to commence a 5-year plan in 1923, as the economy laid in shambles after the 7 years of war (1914-1921), the working class was virtually non-existent and the countryside was still trying to recuperate from the famine caused by the war.

Borz was a bit inexact here. Trotsky did not in fact advocate a 5 year plan in spring 1923, when he delivered the economic report at the party congress. In fact, Stalin and the other party leaders all went along with Trotsky's economic ideas at that conference, in return for Trotsky not trying to carry through on Lenin's so called "testament," which called for Stalin's removal as party General Secretary. Nor did he incorporate a 5 year plan into the platform of the opposition movement he led that fall.

Yes, Lenin was a main proponent of the NEP, and so was Trotsky. And Lenin was sympathetic to Trotsky's ideas about economic planning, though he felt that Trotsky looked at too many things from an administrative point of view. (In fact, Trotsky going along with Stalin keeping his post in return for Trotsky's economic-administrative ideas being the party line shows that Lenin had a point.) In particular he himself called for an electrification plan for the USSR, even during NEP, famously saying that socialism "equalled electrification plus soviet power."

The idea of a five year plan for the whole economy came up in 1925 and 1926, at which point Trotsky, though he had been removed from political and military posts, still had an important post in economic planning. Trotsky was in favor and Bukharin and Stalin, then close allies, were opposed.

Later Stalin adopted a bastardized version of Trotsky's ideas, as a weapon against his former ally Bukharin.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Although the NEP-style rationale is good and all, it seems to have been going for too long now. The CPC has too many "NEP-men" in its midst, and it's doubtful they are willing to make a voluntary about-turn. However, there is a chance that the current crisis of the global capitalist system may prompt the new Chinese leadership (the shift in the Politburo membership is slated for this year, btw) to take some steps. If those steps are wrong (capitalist, rather than socialist), China is likely to share the fate of the rest of the world in the coming turmoil as the transnational financial oligarchy fights to preserve itself through a global fascist corporate NWO.

Why has this been going on so long? Well, for two reasons.

Firstly, the horrible example of the USSR next door is a real serious obstacle in the minds of Chinese bureaucrats to following the Gorbachev route and dumping socialism altogether.

Secondly, the policy has been so extremely successful, so nobody at the top wants to change anything.

The NEP, due to Stalin and Bukharin's fumblings, led to a serious economic and food crisis in the year 1928, just after the expulsion of the Left Opposition critics. So some sort of radical change was needed, and Stalin wanted to go left, in his bureaucratic-dictatorial fashion, and Bukharin wanted to go right, further towards capitalism.

If you have a serious economic crisis in China, something similar will happen and the CCP will split and shatter, with probably most of it wanting to go all out capitalist, but other CCP leaders wanting to actually listen to the voices of the workers and peasants in rebellion.

Right now, there is no country on the face of the earth where you have more "mass incidents" as they call them, with workers and peasants revolting here, there and everywhere. The CCP only stays in power because of how extremely successful its economic policies have been.

A real economic crisis and the country will explode and the CCP will explode too.

-M.H.-

[Rooster]

China's capitalist policy cannot be compared to the New Economic Policy of Lenin. First of all, Lenin's NEP, which built the necessary state capitalism for feudal Russia and replaced War Communism, came before Stalin's Five Year Plans, which built socialism.

Jeez... So much wrong here. It's like you're using the Soviet Encyclopaedia as a reference. China's state capitalist policy can absolutely be compared with Lenin's state capitalist policy that you just mentioned. And secondly, Russia was capitalist before the revolution cause you know.... it had things like a proletariat, wage labour, generalised commodity production.... and don't get me started on whether or not the USSR was socialist, cause I'll just start laughing.


It is absolutely stupid to claim that it is the correct order to have Mao Zedong's First Five Year Plan and Great Leap Foward come before Deng's establishment of state-controlled capitalism. That is the reverse of the correct order. Yet, some communists claim that they needed to return to capitalism because China started off as a feudalist nation, making socialism troubled from the beginning. But so did the early Soviet Union.

It's absolutely stupid to claim that there's this order to anything. The early soviet union wasn't as backward as China was though, like I said, capitalism and all that, some of the biggest and most advanced factories, etc. So, in your conception, the correct order was: feudalism > NEP > Socialism > ? > capitalism? How can one go from socialism to capitalism anyway without a revolution or an invading army? Oh wait, maybe they can't.... maybe both were capitalist all along :blink:


Second of all, the PRC leadership never talks about returning China back to socialism once the benefits of capitalism have been reaped. They seem to be intent on making capitalism in China permanent. When Stalin came to power, he kept the NEP, but he knew that eventually he had to trade it for the development of socialism. Not only did he know this, but he also spoke of it.

Hmm, I'm more convinced, looking at the general history of the time, that Stalin kept the NEP more as a political manoeuvre (rather like socialism in one country) rather as a planned out decision. Heh, I like the last sentence. Stalin! Such foresight!


Third of all, Lenin's state capitalism only lasted for seven years. Deng's capitalist betrayals (which were not even state capitalist, but just state-controlled/supervised capitalist) have been continued and further reformed since 1978. It is now 2012; China has been capitalist for 34 years!

Meh, if you look at the actual way that surplus value was extracted from the direct producers, how the organs of the state tried to plan things and how state organs interacted with each other, you'd see that things barely changed from the NEP to the fiver year plans. Also, just as an aside; if the NEP was capitalist.... and then then five year plans was socialist construction... then where was the revolution between capitalism and socialism? :confused:

[sanpal]

Also, just as an aside; if the NEP was capitalist.... and then then five year plans was socialist construction... then where was the revolution between capitalism and socialism? :confused:


I think it is wrong to confuse proletarian socialism which uses capitalist mode of production ( for a while) in its economy of transition period with capitalism with ruling by the bourgeois class.
It depends in great degrees from what ruling class is in a power.