blake 3:17
4th January 2013, 07:17
Below is an excerpt from Paul Le Blanc's report on the Lenin conference he attended in China. The revival of actual Marxist ideas in China is a very positive sign and the fact they had an American Trotskyist there is quite welcome.
The link to the article is here: http://links.org.au/node/3164 , and there are more links there, including his talk and a few backgrounders and bits of debate.
China: Lenin’s ideas, Marxism discussed at international conference in Wuhan
By Paul Le Blanc
January 2, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in central China, is graced by the prestigious Wuhan University, which has been the site of international conferences on two of the world’s foremost revolutionary thinkers and organisers – Rosa Luxemburg in 2006 and most recently Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
On October 20-22, 2012, it hosted the "International Conference on Lenin’s Thought in the Twenty-First Century: Interpretation and its Value”. Both events were organised under the leadership of Professor He Ping, an outstanding scholar whose qualities of thoughtfulness and caring result in a loyal following among her studentsand whose global reach and intellectual openness have generated impressive intellectual exchanges.
The conference was jointly sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and several components of Wuhan University – the School of Philosophy, the Institute of Marxist Philosophy and the Institute of Western Marxist Philosophy. I reported elsewhere on the complex and wondrous experience of the Rosa Luxemburg conference, containing information and analysis not repeated here).
Six years later, the conference on Lenin had many of the same qualities – for example, almost all papers were made available in both languages and simultaneous translation was carried out in English and Chinese. While both conferences were scheduled for three days, however, this one was shorter – an entire day was taken up with touring museums and historic sites in Wuhan, which were definitely enriching but cut down on the amount of contact and discussion that had been possible at the Luxemburg conference. There definitely seemed to be fewer Chinese students engaging in the conference and this similarly cut down – it seems to me – on a certain spirit of youthfulness and open engagement that (at least in my memory) infused the Luxemburg conference.
There was definitely a certain diversity, of course, given the fact that in attendance were approximately 100 scholars – a majority from China, but roughly one-fourth from outside, including a cluster of European students studying in China. Among the countries represented, one way or another, in addition to the host country, were Austria, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and the United States.* Also among the foreign guests and also among the Chinese participants there were different currents that could be identified.
Context
Wuhan is one of the largest of China’s cities and it is one of the key components of that vast and amazing country’s past, present and future.
The radical-nationalist 1911 Revolution – which transformed Imperial China into the Republic of China – began there. Wuhan was one of the strongholds of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang or Kuomintang) and in 1927 where the Nationalists murderously turned against their left-wing allies of the Communist Party of China (CPC). During the Second World War, under the impact of Japan’s onslaught, China’s national capital under the Nationalist Party was moved to Wuhan. Since the Communist revolutionary triumph that shook the world in 1949, it has been one of the great urban industrial and educational centres of the People’s Republic of China – currently with a population of more than 10 million people, well known for its automobile and steel manufacturing, optic-electronics, pharmaceuticals, biology engineering and more. At the conclusion of their tour of the remarkable Revolution of 1911 Museum – with its modernistic architecture and sophisticated exhibits – visitors were treated to a massive wrap-around video portrayal of a futuristic Wuhan, with bright lights and super-modern skyscrapers and obvious prosperity for all.
On the jet plane that took me back to the United States at the conclusion of the conference, I was able to read in the October 23, 2012, issue of the China Daily that this is “a critical time when China is building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, deepening reform and opening up and accelerating the transformation of economic development in difficult areas” (this in an article on the CPC’s coming 18th national congress).
It is commonly understood that the CPC, while maintaining its exclusive political rule over China, has for some years been working hard to make the country a dominant player in the global economy by transforming the economy along capitalist lines. The official ideology of MMD (Marxism-Leninism/Mao Zedong Thought/Deng Xioping Theory) projects this as the path to socialism and communism: creating sufficient wealth today that can be shared tomorrow. At the conference, this was likened to Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) of the early 1920s by Polish participant Professor Zbigniew Wiktor, whose terminology and conceptualisations matched those of the China Daily, which explained that the forthcoming CPC congress “carries high significance in inspiring CPC members and people of all ethnic groups to continue to forge ahead with the building of a moderately prosperous society, the modernization drive, as well as the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics”. It would seem that many of the Chinese participants also saw things from this standpoint.
Despite set formulations that are repeated over and over (referring to “all ethnic groups”, a “moderately prosperous” society, “Chinese characteristics”, etc.) in a number of articles, China Daily is a well-edited and informative publication, a sort of government-owned USA Today, which gives a sense of what is going on in the world and especially in the People’s Republic of China. In the copy of the paper carrying the previously quoted article, there is reportage on other concerns – for example, the persistence of inequality and poverty among millions of the Chinese people, inadequate health care for many, environmental challenges, a significant amount of corruption among powerful figures in the government. All such concerns are presented in an upbeat manner – new policies and programs and solutions being advanced to address and overcome the problems.
Of course, if democracy (rule by the people) and an international cooperative commonwealth under the control of the labouring majority are central to overcoming such problem sand are at the same time central to the very definition and existence of socialism – as Marx, Luxemburg and Lenin repeatedly emphasised in many writings – then the challenges touched on by the China Daily are formidable indeed. As the article on the coming CPC congress put it, now is the time to “advance innovation in theoretical terms, among others and draw out guidelines and policies that respond to the call of the times and the people”.
There are naturally different ways to interpret these words, but such formulations would certainly justify the kind of international interchanges that the Luxemburg and Lenin conferences in Wuhan represented. Also of special interest is the fact that among the 70 million members of the CPC – in a country of 1.3 billion or more people – there are many who, despite the utilisation and glorification of capitalist economic practices, still believe in the importance of a continued adherence to socialist/communist goals of the Chinese Revolution. For some, the use of the old idealism may be quite cynical, a manipulative mask for greed and power-lust and the advancement of careerist aspirations, but this is simply not true for all the millions of people who are members of the CPC and who identify with the ideals of the Chinese Revolution. Among these are intellectually honest individuals seeking to connect with broader streams of Marxist thought than were commonly propagated or permitted in earlier decades.
Questions about what seems to be a yawning gap between the development of a voracious capitalism and the persistence of an ideology suffused with Marxist rhetoric (and serious efforts of some to develop and deepen Marxist theory and analysis) cannot be addressed adequately in this report. But that fascinating contradiction certainly exists and is not without meaning.
Different currents of thought
Conference organisers explained:
The aim of this conference is to develop the study of Lenin, Marxist thought and contemporary issues in the today’s world and enhance the academic exchanges between Western and Eastern scholars.
Among the themes explored by speakers and panels were the relationship of Lenin to Marx, the Marxism of the Second International, Russian Marxism, Chinese Marxism, and the Western Marxist tradition. Attention was also given to the relationship of Lenin’s thought to issues of imperialism and international economic development, nationalism, democracy and feminism, and also to official domestic and international policies of the People’s Republic of China.
I cannot provide a detailed account of the conference and apologise to those whose presentations I fail to mention. Considering the more than 40 papers presented, however, it is possible to identify specific currents that crystallised.
Among the Chinese participants, there were some – as was the case in the earlier Luxemburg conference – whose presentations defended and expounded Lenin’s thought in terms that were consistent with CPC “orthodoxy” (MMD and perspectives expressed in the China Daily), sometimes in what seemed a rigid and dogmatic style. (This is unfortunate, since that was alien to Lenin’s own approach.)
Particularly noteworthy, however, was another current of somewhat younger academics who had studiously combed through Lenin’s writings for the purpose of developing theoretical constructions to explain and perhaps clarify and strengthen Chinese governmental policies in regard to international relations, post-revolutionary “socialist reform”, efforts to combat corruption, the contemporary women’s movement in China and the existence of the CPC as a “ruling party”.
Despite the obvious intellectual labour and in some cases a certain creativity permeating some of these presentations, it seemed to me that they tended to suffer from a two-fold problem: first, Lenin’s writings tended to be historically specific, not as easily transferable to very different historical contexts as some of the presenters seemed to believe; second, nor would he have been comfortable with having any or all of his words put forward as some undeviating or unquestioned standard of political correctness.
The link to the article is here: http://links.org.au/node/3164 , and there are more links there, including his talk and a few backgrounders and bits of debate.
China: Lenin’s ideas, Marxism discussed at international conference in Wuhan
By Paul Le Blanc
January 2, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in central China, is graced by the prestigious Wuhan University, which has been the site of international conferences on two of the world’s foremost revolutionary thinkers and organisers – Rosa Luxemburg in 2006 and most recently Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
On October 20-22, 2012, it hosted the "International Conference on Lenin’s Thought in the Twenty-First Century: Interpretation and its Value”. Both events were organised under the leadership of Professor He Ping, an outstanding scholar whose qualities of thoughtfulness and caring result in a loyal following among her studentsand whose global reach and intellectual openness have generated impressive intellectual exchanges.
The conference was jointly sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and several components of Wuhan University – the School of Philosophy, the Institute of Marxist Philosophy and the Institute of Western Marxist Philosophy. I reported elsewhere on the complex and wondrous experience of the Rosa Luxemburg conference, containing information and analysis not repeated here).
Six years later, the conference on Lenin had many of the same qualities – for example, almost all papers were made available in both languages and simultaneous translation was carried out in English and Chinese. While both conferences were scheduled for three days, however, this one was shorter – an entire day was taken up with touring museums and historic sites in Wuhan, which were definitely enriching but cut down on the amount of contact and discussion that had been possible at the Luxemburg conference. There definitely seemed to be fewer Chinese students engaging in the conference and this similarly cut down – it seems to me – on a certain spirit of youthfulness and open engagement that (at least in my memory) infused the Luxemburg conference.
There was definitely a certain diversity, of course, given the fact that in attendance were approximately 100 scholars – a majority from China, but roughly one-fourth from outside, including a cluster of European students studying in China. Among the countries represented, one way or another, in addition to the host country, were Austria, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and the United States.* Also among the foreign guests and also among the Chinese participants there were different currents that could be identified.
Context
Wuhan is one of the largest of China’s cities and it is one of the key components of that vast and amazing country’s past, present and future.
The radical-nationalist 1911 Revolution – which transformed Imperial China into the Republic of China – began there. Wuhan was one of the strongholds of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang or Kuomintang) and in 1927 where the Nationalists murderously turned against their left-wing allies of the Communist Party of China (CPC). During the Second World War, under the impact of Japan’s onslaught, China’s national capital under the Nationalist Party was moved to Wuhan. Since the Communist revolutionary triumph that shook the world in 1949, it has been one of the great urban industrial and educational centres of the People’s Republic of China – currently with a population of more than 10 million people, well known for its automobile and steel manufacturing, optic-electronics, pharmaceuticals, biology engineering and more. At the conclusion of their tour of the remarkable Revolution of 1911 Museum – with its modernistic architecture and sophisticated exhibits – visitors were treated to a massive wrap-around video portrayal of a futuristic Wuhan, with bright lights and super-modern skyscrapers and obvious prosperity for all.
On the jet plane that took me back to the United States at the conclusion of the conference, I was able to read in the October 23, 2012, issue of the China Daily that this is “a critical time when China is building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, deepening reform and opening up and accelerating the transformation of economic development in difficult areas” (this in an article on the CPC’s coming 18th national congress).
It is commonly understood that the CPC, while maintaining its exclusive political rule over China, has for some years been working hard to make the country a dominant player in the global economy by transforming the economy along capitalist lines. The official ideology of MMD (Marxism-Leninism/Mao Zedong Thought/Deng Xioping Theory) projects this as the path to socialism and communism: creating sufficient wealth today that can be shared tomorrow. At the conference, this was likened to Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) of the early 1920s by Polish participant Professor Zbigniew Wiktor, whose terminology and conceptualisations matched those of the China Daily, which explained that the forthcoming CPC congress “carries high significance in inspiring CPC members and people of all ethnic groups to continue to forge ahead with the building of a moderately prosperous society, the modernization drive, as well as the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics”. It would seem that many of the Chinese participants also saw things from this standpoint.
Despite set formulations that are repeated over and over (referring to “all ethnic groups”, a “moderately prosperous” society, “Chinese characteristics”, etc.) in a number of articles, China Daily is a well-edited and informative publication, a sort of government-owned USA Today, which gives a sense of what is going on in the world and especially in the People’s Republic of China. In the copy of the paper carrying the previously quoted article, there is reportage on other concerns – for example, the persistence of inequality and poverty among millions of the Chinese people, inadequate health care for many, environmental challenges, a significant amount of corruption among powerful figures in the government. All such concerns are presented in an upbeat manner – new policies and programs and solutions being advanced to address and overcome the problems.
Of course, if democracy (rule by the people) and an international cooperative commonwealth under the control of the labouring majority are central to overcoming such problem sand are at the same time central to the very definition and existence of socialism – as Marx, Luxemburg and Lenin repeatedly emphasised in many writings – then the challenges touched on by the China Daily are formidable indeed. As the article on the coming CPC congress put it, now is the time to “advance innovation in theoretical terms, among others and draw out guidelines and policies that respond to the call of the times and the people”.
There are naturally different ways to interpret these words, but such formulations would certainly justify the kind of international interchanges that the Luxemburg and Lenin conferences in Wuhan represented. Also of special interest is the fact that among the 70 million members of the CPC – in a country of 1.3 billion or more people – there are many who, despite the utilisation and glorification of capitalist economic practices, still believe in the importance of a continued adherence to socialist/communist goals of the Chinese Revolution. For some, the use of the old idealism may be quite cynical, a manipulative mask for greed and power-lust and the advancement of careerist aspirations, but this is simply not true for all the millions of people who are members of the CPC and who identify with the ideals of the Chinese Revolution. Among these are intellectually honest individuals seeking to connect with broader streams of Marxist thought than were commonly propagated or permitted in earlier decades.
Questions about what seems to be a yawning gap between the development of a voracious capitalism and the persistence of an ideology suffused with Marxist rhetoric (and serious efforts of some to develop and deepen Marxist theory and analysis) cannot be addressed adequately in this report. But that fascinating contradiction certainly exists and is not without meaning.
Different currents of thought
Conference organisers explained:
The aim of this conference is to develop the study of Lenin, Marxist thought and contemporary issues in the today’s world and enhance the academic exchanges between Western and Eastern scholars.
Among the themes explored by speakers and panels were the relationship of Lenin to Marx, the Marxism of the Second International, Russian Marxism, Chinese Marxism, and the Western Marxist tradition. Attention was also given to the relationship of Lenin’s thought to issues of imperialism and international economic development, nationalism, democracy and feminism, and also to official domestic and international policies of the People’s Republic of China.
I cannot provide a detailed account of the conference and apologise to those whose presentations I fail to mention. Considering the more than 40 papers presented, however, it is possible to identify specific currents that crystallised.
Among the Chinese participants, there were some – as was the case in the earlier Luxemburg conference – whose presentations defended and expounded Lenin’s thought in terms that were consistent with CPC “orthodoxy” (MMD and perspectives expressed in the China Daily), sometimes in what seemed a rigid and dogmatic style. (This is unfortunate, since that was alien to Lenin’s own approach.)
Particularly noteworthy, however, was another current of somewhat younger academics who had studiously combed through Lenin’s writings for the purpose of developing theoretical constructions to explain and perhaps clarify and strengthen Chinese governmental policies in regard to international relations, post-revolutionary “socialist reform”, efforts to combat corruption, the contemporary women’s movement in China and the existence of the CPC as a “ruling party”.
Despite the obvious intellectual labour and in some cases a certain creativity permeating some of these presentations, it seemed to me that they tended to suffer from a two-fold problem: first, Lenin’s writings tended to be historically specific, not as easily transferable to very different historical contexts as some of the presenters seemed to believe; second, nor would he have been comfortable with having any or all of his words put forward as some undeviating or unquestioned standard of political correctness.