Ignorance of Deng Xiaoping Theory

[jacobin1949]

It seems to me that most Marxist-Leninists int he west are ignorant of Deng Xiaoping Theory and criticize it as a knee-jerk reaction because of ultra-leftists. The Maoism of the west, is not the Maoism of Mao Zedong's Communist Party but as small counterrevolutionary clique around Lin Biao and the Gang of $, that was hated by Mao, the CPC, and the masses of Chinese. Deng Xiaoping Theory has deep roots in Leninism and the New Economic Policy. Both Lenin and Stalin inteneded to continue NEP despite Trotsky's opposition. The draconina 5 year plan was only adapted out of the neccesity of German-European aggression. The CPUSA is the only American party that has any understanding of the facts in today's China. I trace the origin to this ignorance to the wackos in the PLP back in the 1960s who broke with China, because they were enraged the GPCR was not killing enough people. I do not like to use the term Maoist, nor does the CPC. I prefer the term Mao Zedong Thought. Nonetheless I must point out that anti-Dengism is Anti-Maoism.

Whether you like it not the experiances of Marx, Engles, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, and Mao Zedong all rest on the "revisionist" policies in Vietnam, China, Cuba and Venezuela. We need parties in the west to uphold Hu Jintao's China the same ways Lenin, Stalin and Mao were upheld in the past.

To quote Deng Xiaoping - pauperism is not Communism.

We must learn to except Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents, and the Hramonious Society, or find ourselves in the dustbin of history.

[chimx]

We need parties in the west to uphold Hu Jintao's China the same ways Lenin, Stalin and Mao were upheld in the past.

Why do we need communist parties upholding Hu Jintao's China when all the major international capitalist banking companies are upholding it?


To quote Deng Xiaoping - pauperism is not Communism.

And what, upholding capitalist modes of production is? Deng Xiaoping Theory opened China to privatization, in effect increasing the amount of worker exploitation.

We've already rebutted your Deng Xiaopingist fantasies in another thread. Are you going to respond, or just spam this message board with threads that you don't reply to?

[Dros]

Jacobin, you are dillusional.

[jacobin1949]

Lenin and Stalin also had relationships with western corporations and bankers

[Keyser]

Anyone who upholds Deng Ziaoping 'theory' is not a communist.

China today is capitalist, no amount of debate or analysing fake anti-communist 'theories' like the above will alter that. Marxists base their understanding on concrete materialistic analysis, not falling for rubbish slogans like 'Deng Xiaoping Theory', the 'Three Represents', and the 'Harmonious Society'.

The 'Harmounious Society' slogan is nothing short of a slogan for working class slavery to capitalism, imperialist exploitation and theoppression of the working class of China under it's corrupt capitalist class and bourgeois state.


To quote Deng Xiaoping - pauperism is not Communism.


Thats rich coming from a bloodthirsty bourgeois parasite like Deng Xiaoping.

The China of today is not one where the working class is either free of poverty of exploitation, wealth is not equaly shared or ruled, but a tiny parasitic bourgeois elite in the Chinese 'Communist' Party and the parasite wannabe's of China's middle class steal, keep and control the wealth for their own class interests. which are the opposite of the interests of the working class.



or find ourselves in the dustbin of history.


Real communists reject the China of today, as do the working class of China.

The only thing that belongs in the dustbin of history is Deng Xiaoping, his 'theories', the bourgeois Chinese state and all the bourgeois parasites who rule and exploit the Chinese working class.

[EricTheRed]

"Deng Xiaoping theory" is a bunch of reactionary, anti-communist trash.

[Keyser]

Lenin and Stalin also had relationships with western corporations and bankers


What evidence do you have of this, or is this another 'fact' of your anti-communist delusions?

Even if this were true (which I doubt) then that does not mean that either Lenin or Stalin were right.

There have been times in history were socialist leaders, Marxist theorists and revolutionaries have made mistakes or held an incorrect political line and communists should always be open and honest about that and point it out when needed.

[EricTheRed]

It seems to me that most Marxist-Leninists int he west are ignorant of Deng Xiaoping Theory and criticize it as a knee-jerk reaction because of ultra-leftists. The Maoism of the west, is not the Maoism of Mao Zedong's Communist Party but as small counterrevolutionary clique around Lin Biao and the Gang of $, that was hated by Mao, the CPC, and the masses of Chinese. Deng Xiaoping Theory has deep roots in Leninism and the New Economic Policy. Both Lenin and Stalin inteneded to continue NEP despite Trotsky's opposition. The draconina 5 year plan was only adapted out of the neccesity of German-European aggression. The CPUSA is the only American party that has any understanding of the facts in today's China. I trace the origin to this ignorance to the wackos in the PLP back in the 1960s who broke with China, because they were enraged the GPCR was not killing enough people. I do not like to use the term Maoist, nor does the CPC. I prefer the term Mao Zedong Thought. Nonetheless I must point out that anti-Dengism is Anti-Maoism.

Whether you like it not the experiances of Marx, Engles, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, and Mao Zedong all rest on the "revisionist" policies in Vietnam, China, Cuba and Venezuela. We need parties in the west to uphold Hu Jintao's China the same ways Lenin, Stalin and Mao were upheld in the past.

To quote Deng Xiaoping - pauperism is not Communism.

We must learn to except Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents, and the Hramonious Society, or find ourselves in the dustbin of history.

If I recall correctly, the NEP was instated out of desperation and necessity after the very destructive civil war. China's neo-liberal state-interventionist economy was not instituted out of necessity, but to entrench the Chinese ruling class. It is a more explicit version of the state-backed capitalism that we have in the US.

[Keyser]

Given Jacobin1949's support for capitalism and anti-communist views, does this not merit him being restricted to Opposing Ideologies (OI)?

Personally I think so and it should be put forward for consideration.

[Unicorn]

Deng Xiaoping has always been a supporter of US imperialism. He supported anti-Soviet regimes like Pol Pot in the 1970s and Taleban in the 1980s.

[spartan]

Deng Xiaoping has always been a supporter of US imperialism. He supported anti-Soviet regimes like Pol Pot in the 1970s and Taleban in the 1980s.

Exactly.

It was under Deng that the special anti-Soviet relationship, flirted with by Mao, was cemented between the US and China.


If I recall correctly, the NEP was instated out of desperation and necessity after the very destructive civil war.

There is also a theory that Lenin realised that Russia couldnt get to Socialism as they hadnt yet fully developed Capitalism.

[BobKKKindle$]

We must learn to except Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents, and the Hramonious Society, or find ourselves in the dustbin of history.No. If you examine the PRC, it is clear that social tension is emerging between the workers and peasants, and the government bureaucracy, which is increasingly tied to foreign capital. The state is using violence to force peasants to move away from land at the edge of cities to clear space for further industrial development (example (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/12/AR2005061201531.html)) and the poor no longer have access to a basic standard of health care, due to the increased cost of treatment (source (http://www.upi.com/Health_Business/Analysis/2007/04/10/analysis_chinese_healthcare_gap_widens/)) which was previously available for free as part of the "iron-ricebowl" system of welfare provision. Workers are unable to demand improvements in their conditions, because the trade unions are still controlled by the state, and any industrial organization outside of these trade unions is illegal (source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2050886.stm)) These changes are a result of China's counterrevolution, which was initiated by the bureaucracy to solidify their position and convert themselves into a class.

It should also not be forgotten that Deng-Xiaoping used force to break up the Tienanmen Square demonstrations in 1989; many of the participants were, in addition to the democratic demands of the students, arguing for a halt to the market reforms, and a return to a socialist economic system, due to the disruption of welfare provision that occurred. That these protests occurred, and that Deng used force to eliminate them, is an indication of the Chinese State's lack of concern for the welfare of its citizens.

Have you actually been to China, J1949? I live in Hong Kong, and so I have been to China, and the poverty there, and the gap between rich and poor, is clear to see, just by walking on the streets.

[Random Precision]

Here is all one needs to understand Deng Xiaoping Theory:


We should let some people get rich first, both in the countryside and in the urban areas. To get rich by hard work is glorious.


When I die, they will not call me a good Marxist.

- Deng Xiaoping

[jacobin1949]

Even if you accept that NEP was temporary- which is highly debatable, even under those standards China has not met the level of productive forces equivalent to the USSR in 1928. China is still farm more agrarian than 1928 USSR. And while in gross terms China is far more advanced than 1928 USSR, China still remains relatively more far behind the west. So China's first aim is to increase productive forces.

The idea that is anti-Marxist to support markets in a nation moving out of feudalism is ridiculous. Socialism was always intended as a means towards distribution not production. And whatever ideological pitfalls of Deng Theory, in its favor - it works. You can wish all you want that GPCR style economics was more efficient but look at the facts.

Every single nation in the world ruled by a Communist party today, and every single mainstream opposition Communist Party in the world backs Deng Xiaoping Theory. The only "parties" that reject Deng Xiaoping Theory are small ultra-leftist sectarian parties found only in the first world.

[jacobin1949]

Take a look at this article published by the CPUSA

Our Way: Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

By Wang Yu (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/author/view/10)
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/ezimagecatalogue/catalogue/variations/22-100x100.jpg
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/images/1x1.gif
It has been 45 years since the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people under its leadership began to build socialism. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee convened at the end of 1978 blazed a trail for the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This trail wasn’t easily found: it was the result of hard exploration by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people for half a century and a heavy price was paid.

Building socialism in an economically and socially backward populous eastern country like China is full of challenges. The national conditions Chinese Communists face are not only different from those envisaged by the founders of Marxism (where socialism would be built on the basis of a highly developed capitalist society), but also somewhat different from other socialist countries. In building socialism, neither blindly following what books say or wholesale copying other countries’ experiences will work. We must proceed from China’s realities and integrate the fundamental tenets of Marxism with these concrete realities, finding new ways of building socialism in China. This is the most basic historical conclusion Chinese Communists have reached in their practice.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/ezimagecatalogue/catalogue/variations/42-200x200.jpg (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/imagecatalogue/imageview/42/?RefererURL=/article/view/36/) Development of internal transportation systems have accelerated growth in isolated regions of the country.
For quite some time, China was “not wholly sober-minded,” “not very sure about” and “there were different understandings” of what socialism was and how to build it. As a result, the superiority of socialism was not given full play, the social productive forces were not fully developed, and the living standards of the people were not raised as they should have been. China failed to quickly get rid of poverty and backwardness. In the face of harsh reality, Chinese Communists and the Chinese people began to reflect on a basic question: what is socialism and how to build it?

The first question to reflect on was what is socialism’s fundamental task and should socialism develop the productive forces? For a very long time, because the “left” policy of taking class struggle as the key link was followed, the task of developing the productive forces was severely neglected and people were asked to be content with poverty. As a result, production stagnated for a long time. There was little improvement in people’s quality of life, and China’s gap with developed economies widened further. All of this made Chinese Communists ask themselves time and again the following questions: Where on earth was the superiority of socialism? Was socialism rich or poor? What is revolution and what was its purpose? The theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, which took the development of the productive forces as its fundamental task, came into being amid and as a result of these reflections and reviews.

The second question to reflect on was what form of production relations and ownership structure should be adopted? In handling the basic contradiction between socialist productive forces and production relations, the Chinese Communist Party erred in two aspects. One was to talk about production relations without taking into account the level of the development of the productive forces, thinking that with regard to socialist ownership, the bigger and more public the better.

The other was the failure to give priority to the development of productive forces. Things that fettered development of the productive forces and were not essential to socialism were regarded as socialist principles and adhered to. Things that were good for the development of the productive forces under socialist conditions were condemned as capitalist and opposed. The form of production relations and structure of ownership should depend on whether it can develop the productive forces more efficiently and rapidly. It should depend on whatever form people like. There is no set model for the development of production relations. Their reform and improvement must be in line with the level of the development of productive forces and must favor the expansion of production.

The third question to reflect on was whether a planned economy was still viable, whether a socialist economy was a commodity economy and whether a market economy could be practiced in socialism. These questions perplexed Chinese Communists for a very long time. Besides China, this issue was heatedly debated and explored in other socialist countries. After carefully reviewing their historical experience and lessons, the CPC came to realize that although the centralized planned economy was advantageous in that we could pool resources to accomplish big tasks, it was becoming a fetter on the development of productive forces. When production was more and more socialized, economic activities and relations were all the more complicated.

The fourth question to reflect on was whether socialism was common poverty or common prosperity. Did socialism call for breaking [what we call] the “Big Rice Pot”? With farmers representing the majority of the population, egalitarianism was deeply rooted in people’s minds. Common prosperity was very often misconstrued as equally rich or egalitarian prosperity. Thus, for a very long time, people “ate out of a big rice pot.” Under low efficiency, the pursuit of common prosperity led nowhere but to common poverty. Egalitarianism was by no means socialism. It inhibited people’s enthusiasm and initiative. In order to achieve the goal of common prosperity, some people, some areas should be encouraged to become rich first so that they can help backward areas in an effort to realize common prosperity. Common prosperity is the important essence of socialism.

Basic Theory and Practice of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics


Socialism with Chinese characteristics is based on yet different from socialism defined by Marx. It is Chinese socialism in tune with China’s reality. It reflects the objective laws of building socialism in China in a more systematic, in-depth and detailed way and is a perfect combination of the universality and particularity of socialism. Therefore it can serve as a better guide for the CPC and the Chinese people in building socialism.

There are seven points with regard to the theory and practice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics:

1. It defines the essence of socialism for the first time and from a scientific viewpoint. The essence of socialism is to liberate productive forces, develop productive forces, eliminate exploitation and polarization, and finally achieve common prosperity. This definition deepened people’s understanding of socialism. By defining it as the fundamental task and the essence of socialism, it raises the importance of liberating and developing the productive forces.

In the meantime, it places emphasis on the basic value and goal of socialism, i.e. to eliminate exploitation and finally achieve common prosperity. To reach this goal, we must adhere to the basic socialist principle, which retains a dominant position for public ownership and the system of distribution according to work. We must also adopt diversified forms for realizing the socialist essence. The above points to the correct direction for improving China’s socialist ownership structure.

2. It decides in a scientific way that China is in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so for a long period of time. This scientific judgment combines the nature of Chinese society and its stages of development. It includes two aspects: first, China is already a socialist society and must adhere to socialism and never scrap it. Second, with a large population, weak basis and disparities in the level of development of different regions, the productive forces are far from developed. [Again], the development of socialism is in the primary stage and will remain so for a long time. This is the biggest reality in China. This scientific judgment also serves as the most important basis on which the CPC formulates its basic lines, programs and policies.

3. It encompasses an economic system combining the basic socialist system and a socialist market economy. In the process of exploring socialism, the CPC has come to realize that the full development of a commodity market economy is a phase that cannot be surpassed during socialist economic development.

This is a breakthrough from traditional thinking that a planned economy equals socialism and market economy equals capitalism. Besides, the CPC has also come to realize there is no fundamental contradiction between socialism and a market economy. A market economy is indispensable to the allocation of resources in socialized production. By making the establishment and improvement of a socialist market economy as the goal of China’s economic restructuring, the CPC has found the ideal economic structure in the process of the socialist modernization drive. Combining socialism with the market economy is a creation and breakthrough in the Marxist theory on socialist economies. It is an extremely important and significant innovation during the development of the socialist system.

4. It establishes the basic strategy of the rule of law, the building of a socialist legal system and has put forward the important goal of building a socialist political civilization. China has a state system [of government] under the people’s democratic dictatorship. [This is a] system of political power as manifested in people’s congresses and a system of multi- arty cooperation and political consultation led by the Communist Party of China. All of these basic political systems are the results of people’s long-standing struggle and the natural choices of historical development. They are suited to national conditions and embody the essential requirements of socialist democracy. We must therefore adhere to and continue improving them. The key to promoting socialist democracy and political civilization is to combine the need to uphold the Party’s leadership and to ensure the people are the masters of the country with the rule of law. Leadership by the Party is the fundamental guarantee that the people are the masters of the country and that the country constitutes the essential requirement of socialist democracy. The rule of law is the basic principle the Party pursues while it leads the people in running the country.

5. It aims to build a socialist spiritual civilization (socialist cultural and ideological progress). Socialist spiritual civilization is a significant feature of socialist society and an important goal and guarantee of modernization. It has a direct bearing on the cause of socialism. Material progress serves as the basis and it is imperative to unswervingly take economic construction as the focus. However, if there is a lack of spiritual civilization, material progress will be hampered. It can even result in the degeneration and decaying of the society. Thus, socialism with Chinese characteristics can only be built on both material and cultural and ideological progress. Economic development offers the material basis for spiritual development while in return, cultural and ideological progress provides the ideological motive force and intellectual support.

6. It aims to improve Party building so that the CPC becomes a powerful leading core in leading the socialist modernization drive. Our Party plays a vital role in seeking solutions to all issues in China. History has endowed the CPC with great responsibilities while people have placed high expectations on it. Facing a new century, the CPC has raised and taken into its practice the “Three Represents:” the Party should always represents the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.”

In this regard, it is imperative to further address the two major historical topics of how to enhance the Party’s art of leadership and governance and how to raise the Party’s capacity to resist corruption, prevent degeneration and withstand risks. Unyielding efforts should be made to ensure that our Party is forever the vanguard of both the Chinese working class and the Chinese people and nation as a whole.

7. Reform and opening up is a basic practice and national policy. It remains the most outstanding feature in building socialism with Chinese characteristics in that the implementation of all six aims and tasks above requires the adoption of reform and opening up. To reform and open-up is to view socialism and its systems as a process requiring gradual development and perfection. Specifically speaking, socialism and its systems can be developed and perfected through the reform of the economic system, political system, and cultural system, etc. Furthermore, through the deepening of reform and the expansion of opening up, all the fruits of human civilization can be made use of in serving the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Consolidating and developing socialism through reform and opening up is a vital law in the development of socialism and it adds vigor and momentum to the undertakings of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics has given comparatively systematic answers to a series of basic issues such as the road, stages, fundamental tasks, motive force, external environment, political guarantee, strategic steps, leadership of the party, forces to rely on and unification of the motherland. All in all, it has become the Marxism of contemporary China.

Great Accomplishments


In over half a century, especially in the past two decades and more since the beginning of the reform and opening up, great achievements have been made by the CPC through leading the Chinese people to pioneer and advance on the road of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Wide-ranging changes have taken place from urban areas to rural areas, from coastal cities to border areas, from ways of production, styles of living and patterns of consumption to ways of thinking, manner of behavior and even migration. These changes, which are unprecedented in China’s history in terms of its degree, coverage and size, lie mainly in three aspects:

1. The national economy has enjoyed a sustained, sound and rapid development while overall national strength has substantially improved. China’s economy has developed so much that it now ranks sixth in the world. From 1997 to 2002, China’s GDP grew from 7.4 trillion RMB to 10.2 trillion RMB with an average annual growth rate of 7.7 percent. Per capita annual disposable income of urban households increased from 5,160 RMB in 1997 to 7,703 RMB in 2002, with an annual growth rate of 8.6 percent. China’s per capita income reached $850 in 2000 and $1,000 in 2002 at the current exchange rate. The output of many of China’s industrial and agricultural products also leads the world.

2. A socialist market economy in the primary stage has been established and the reform and opening up has yielded great fruits. In the past two decades since the beginning of reform and opening up, the public sector of the economy has further expanded and the reform of state-owned enterprises steadily advanced. Non-public sectors of the economy such as the self-employed and private-owned economy including foreign-owned economy have developed rapidly. Systems of markets are being built. The state continues to improve its macro-control mechanism. The government is adjusting its functions. The reform of finance, banking sectors, circulation, housing and governmental structures has been further deepened.

An open economy grows rapidly. A pattern of all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging opening up has taken shape. Total trade volume increased from $325.2 billion in 1997 to $620.8 in 2002, ascending from the tenth to the fifth on the international ranking list. Foreign reserves reached $286.4 billion in 2002 on the basis of $139.9 billion in 1997, being the second largest in the world. After China’s entry into the WTO, the opening up has reached a new stage. The pace of integration into the global economy is further quickened.

3. People’s living standard has generally reached the well-off level. Since the reform and opening up, residents’ income both in urban and rural areas has notably increased and a lot of durable consumer goods have become popular. Before the policy of reform and opening up was introduced, consumer goods such as watches, bicycles and sewing machines were symbols of family wealth. In present China, color-TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and cell-phones are no longer rare. Expensive consumer goods such as computers, real estate and automobiles have become popular among urban residents. The Engel Index (ratio of expenditure on food in total expenditure on consumption goods), which reflects changes in residents’ consumption structure, has plunged below 50 percent in 1994 (for urban residents) and in 2000 (for rural residents). The deposit outstanding for urban residents has reached 8,700 RMB, excluding banking assets such as stock shares, debenture, etc. In addition, people’s average life expectancy has reached 71.8 years in 2002, which approaches that of middle-developed countries.

--Wang Yu wrote on behalf of the Communist Party of China.

[Dimentio]

In ten years, I am sure that Deng Xiaoping theory will be popular in the West. I was reprimanded by my teacher recently for calling China a dictatorship. She claimed it was a democratic dictatorship. That is only so that we are prepared for a world where China is the superpower.

[jacobin1949]

Given Jacobin1949's support for capitalism and anti-communist views, does this not merit him being restricted to Opposing Ideologies (OI)?

Personally I think so and it should be put forward for consideration.

Given that every Communist Party in the world supports Deng Xiaoping Theory and at least SOME use of market forces, to implement this police you would have to start asking members "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"

[Raúl Duke]

Stalin inteneded to continue NEP despite Trotsky's opposition. The draconian 5 year plan was only adapted out of the neccesity of German-European aggression.

I actually heard other comrades and sources discuss otherwise: that Trotsky would have continued the NEP and Stalin wouldn't (although he made a strategic alliance with Bukharin, who supported the NEP or whatever pro-peasant policy, so to cement his position.) or that neither was for the continuation of the NEP.


I prefer the term Mao Zedong Thought. Nonetheless I must point out that anti-Dengism is Anti-Maoism.Maoism is directed for peasants, not much so for the working class, so either way I don't care.

Actually, the NEP was also to appease peasants. Unless I'm mistaken, in the cities (where the industrial working class is at) there was much hate for the "NEP men"

IS communism a working class movement or a peasantry based one? Do you think that policies directed to appease peasants will work for the working class and/or towards communism?


In ten years, I am sure that Deng Xiaoping theory will be popular in the West. I was reprimanded by my teacher recently for calling China a dictatorship. She claimed it was a democratic dictatorship. That is only so that we are prepared for a world where China is the superpower.That's interesting...

In the US it's still the same as expected. Although I openly call China a capitalist dictatorship a few people seem to believe it's "communist" just because they call themselves so (although it actually calls it's economic system: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics). However, they have a harder time arguing their position due to that the only thing communist about it is the title of the party.

[chimx]

Every single nation in the world ruled by a Communist party today, and every single mainstream opposition Communist Party in the world backs Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Every single nation in the world ruled by a capitalist party today, and every single mainstream opposition capitalist party in the world backs the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping. Because capitalists like seeing the spread of capitalism.

[Keyser]

Given that every Communist Party in the world supports Deng Xiaoping Theory and at least SOME use of market forces, to implement this police you would have to start asking members "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"


Well my own personal feelings are that these 'communist' parties are infact social democrats and outright reformists who have long since departed from communism, Marxism and Leninism and the working class.

They are not the future of communism and will not play any meaningful role for future revolutions and given their social democratic leanings, will most likely sabotage any revolution to the interest of the capitalist class they serve.

How ever most of these 'communist' parties uphold 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' as suited to China's specific conditions. Whilst I feel that they are wrong on this, they no the less do not (like you do) believe that Deng Xiaoping 'Theory' should be applied by all communist movements and revolutions the world over.

Nor do they add 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' to that of what real communists follow, that of Marx, Engles and Lenin.

You urge all communists the world over to apply this fake theory to their communist ideology and theory.

For arguements sake, lets say that 'Deng Xiaoping Theory', as applied in China, was needed for industrialising the country and raising the productive forces of it's society and economy (though the exprience of the USSR shows that this can be done under socialism and not by selling out to capitalism).

Why then do you urge communists in industrialised countries to follow this line, given that countries is Northern America and Europe and the Far East are industrialised and their productive forces are even greater than that of China's.

Even back in the 19th century Marx correctly made the claim that Western Europe had developed capitalism and the productive forces to the extent that a working class communist revolution was both possible and desirable, a revolution that did not need the working class and the communists to ally with any other reactionary class like the petit-bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie, the producive forces existed for outright proletarian rule and socialist construction without any need to use the market.

As for the question of restricting you, I am not alone on RevLeft on this issue.

If you simply made a thread on this issue of 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' and backed it up with real facts, not crappy reactionary slogans from tyrants like Hu Jintao, then I and oters will debate you.

But your whole time and effort on RevLeft seems to be on starting thread after thread on this issue, not giving real arguement or debate.

It is classic trolling tactics, though I'll give you credit for not doing one line/sentence posts, you seem to be someone who trolls with a bit of effort.

[jacobin1949]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.

[Raúl Duke]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.

So?

The reason why they "bash" china is different from ours.
They do so because they see China as a threat to their imperialism or because of racism.

We do so because it's not representative of socialism or of our goals towards communism. Also because it has instead of heading over towards communism has been moving towards to capitalism.

[chimx]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.

Yeah right, I forgot how much Nixon hated China.

[Keyser]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.

Capitalist/bourgeois parties includes all liberal and social democratic parties too, not just conservatives.

As for the conservatives parties, hardly China bashers, sure they make the token slogan or speech on the real human rights abuses and horrific exploitation of the Chinese working class by their bourgeois rulers, but they do the same thing about Saudi Arabia and other tyrannical regimes.

That does not stop them from doing business with them. China is treated well and is close with the capitalist countries of the world for good reason (despite it's growing power), it's capitalist.

Compare that to tiny Cuba, with no military that can actually challenge imperialism on a global scale or a economy or population to do likewise. Yet it's real harsh treatment and bashing, both by every speech, every action and policy by most capitalist countries shows that when a real socialist society exists, it's faces the most harsh and stern oppoisition from the imperialists.

As for Japan's conservatives, well the fact they play the nationalist anti-Chinese card now more than they did in the past shows, that Japan is no longer happy that it is now not the only major capitalist economy in Asia. It does not like losing the business of global finance capital to China.

[jacobin1949]

I have always made clear that all Communist Parties need to adapt Marxism-Leninism to their uniqe circumstances. While I have called for upholding the policies of the CPC IN China, as well as studying and learning from China's experianced, I never called it desirable nor possible for foreign nations to do exactly what China does.

For your information the CPUSA, and most Comintern parties including the British, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, South African, Venezuelan, Cuban, German, Swedish, Italian, Mongolian and COUNTLESS others DO support the use of market forces even in 1st world nations. So stop going half-way and trying to sperate me from the main current of the COMINTERN. If you want to condemn Communist Parties using markets than I'm far from alone.

You are throwing the term trolling around as recklessly as you use the term revisionist and capitalist. Although thank you for now suggesting that I;m a more sophisticated troll, who puts in a "bit of effort". I guess I'm not a "classical" troll. Im a deviated troll.

Anyone can look at my past posts and see that the majority of my threads do not relate to Deng, and that I have posted about a vast plethora of different topics from philosophy to physics.

If I'm using classic "trolling tactics" you are using classic "McCarthyist tactics". With your half-truths, misquotes, exagerations and outright lies.

[jacobin1949]

The USA hostility to Cuba is based more on the hatred of the Cuban exile community, the geogrpahic proximity to the USA than any ideaological differences. The USA was willing to trade with Mao's China, Stalin's Russia and Vietnam.

Some Maoist you are defending Cuba. the market reforms are just a smaller version of China's revisionism.

Conservatives play geopolitical games. Some conservatives advocated allying with the USSR against Mao's China. Besides if there is a difference between left wing and right wing China -bashing why is there no difference between left-wing and right-wing China supporting.

Although you would be hardpressed to find any right-wing or even liberal party that "upholds" China. Being willing to do buisness with China is not the samething as upholding. Many American buisness men supported opening up the USSR in the 1930s.

[EricTheRed]

Again, any 'market reform' that has taken place in Cuba was implemented out of necessity after the Soviet Union collapsed. There is increasingly little need for the 'market forces' in Cuba as they have forged ties with the Latin American socialist movements and countries, which are moving increasingly to the left, away from capitalism, as opposed to the right.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think criticisms of Deng and Hu's China is based on an idea that Mao created some mystical worker's paradise. The fact is much of feudal economics survived through Mao's rule. Even today China is about 70% agrarian. It may seem cold to support policies that hurt real living people. And I think its important to not scoff at their suffering, but to rememeber to keep a scientific outlook. Marx supported child labor and British imperialism in India as a neccesary road out of feudalism. This did not stop him from painting painful portraits of the lives of child coal miners or Indian massacres.

Actually, you've got a point here. However, that is mainly because Mao failed to carry though with Soviet-style economic development (and to all you "anti-revisionist Maoists," you SHOULD be upholding Hua Guofeng :p ). The Great Leap Backward was anything but economic development, and on the agricultural front was a more haphazard version of Khrushchev's "hare-brained" Virgin Lands scheme.


This is not Menshevism. The Mensheviks believed that only capitalist-democratic parties could lead the feudal nation out of feudalism. Lenin did not deny the role of capitalism, but said the task could be done under the auspices of the CP. This is what is being done in China, cuba and Vietnam.

On the other hand, you don't understand revolutionary democracy here. The bourgeoisie as a whole, since the beginning of the 20th century, is incapable of leading feudal societies out of feudalism. It takes a revolutionary-democratic alliance of workers and petit-bourgeoisie (peasants included) to carry out the democratic tasks before a proper socialist revolution. Nowhere did Lenin (or even the Mensheviks, for that matter) talk about the role of political parties in this.



Besides, why not reorganize the whole of Chinese agriculture based on corporate agriculture (since I do think Deng was more than just a revisionist) in the US or on the more proper sovkhozization scheme that was initiated by Stalin's not-so-copout successors?

[Dros]

Given that every Communist Party in the world supports Deng Xiaoping Theory and at least SOME use of market forces, to implement this police you would have to start asking members "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"

You mean every ex-Commintern party.

No real communist party supports Deng or China. Only the sad sad little revisionists who have ceased to have support from anyone for seventy years.

[Dimentio]

Well my own personal feelings are that these 'communist' parties are infact social democrats and outright reformists who have long since departed from communism, Marxism and Leninism and the working class.

They are not the future of communism and will not play any meaningful role for future revolutions and given their social democratic leanings, will most likely sabotage any revolution to the interest of the capitalist class they serve.

How ever most of these 'communist' parties uphold 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' as suited to China's specific conditions. Whilst I feel that they are wrong on this, they no the less do not (like you do) believe that Deng Xiaoping 'Theory' should be applied by all communist movements and revolutions the world over.

Nor do they add 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' to that of what real communists follow, that of Marx, Engles and Lenin.

You urge all communists the world over to apply this fake theory to their communist ideology and theory.

For arguements sake, lets say that 'Deng Xiaoping Theory', as applied in China, was needed for industrialising the country and raising the productive forces of it's society and economy (though the exprience of the USSR shows that this can be done under socialism and not by selling out to capitalism).

Why then do you urge communists in industrialised countries to follow this line, given that countries is Northern America and Europe and the Far East are industrialised and their productive forces are even greater than that of China's.

Even back in the 19th century Marx correctly made the claim that Western Europe had developed capitalism and the productive forces to the extent that a working class communist revolution was both possible and desirable, a revolution that did not need the working class and the communists to ally with any other reactionary class like the petit-bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie, the producive forces existed for outright proletarian rule and socialist construction without any need to use the market.

As for the question of restricting you, I am not alone on RevLeft on this issue.

If you simply made a thread on this issue of 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' and backed it up with real facts, not crappy reactionary slogans from tyrants like Hu Jintao, then I and oters will debate you.

But your whole time and effort on RevLeft seems to be on starting thread after thread on this issue, not giving real arguement or debate.

It is classic trolling tactics, though I'll give you credit for not doing one line/sentence posts, you seem to be someone who trolls with a bit of effort.

In fact, the main "communist" party in Sweden denounces the dictatorship and economic reforms of China.

[jacobin1949]

On the other hand, you don't understand revolutionary democracy here. The bourgeoisie as a whole, since the beginning of the 20th century, is incapable of leading feudal societies out of feudalism. It takes a revolutionary-democratic alliance of workers and petit-bourgeoisie (peasants included) to carry out the democratic tasks before a proper socialist revolution. Nowhere did Lenin (or even the Mensheviks, for that matter) talk about the role of political parties in this.



Besides, why not reorganize the whole of Chinese agriculture based on corporate agriculture (since I do think Deng was more than just a revisionist) in the US or on the more proper sovkhozization scheme that was initiated by Stalin's not-so-copout successors?

You misunderstood me. I said the Mensehviks believed only the bourgeoisie could bring capitalism to Russia, while Lenin said the Bolsheviks could take over the role of the bourgeoisie. Mao said the same thing with his "New Democracy". But both NEP and New Democracy make clear of the need of a market-reform era.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^


The Mensheviks believed that only capitalist-democratic parties

You wrote about political parties here, not about whole classes. ;) Any thoughts on Hua Guofeng and Soviet economic development?


while Lenin said the Bolsheviks could take over the role of the bourgeoisie

No, you are substituting political parties for whole classes (substitutionism, which is reductionist). He talked extensively about the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

P.S. - I read your Soviet-Empire.com thread on Soviet economic development (http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?t=42674). I believe the earlier would-be market reformers were Beria and Andropov (and to a lesser extent Kosygin):

http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?t=34266
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/09/72d3efd3-7c5c-4cec-af91-9a609ff08218.html

[jacobin1949]

Christians, Satanic cult members, Buddhists, Catholics, Neocons, human rights "liberals", protectionists, business men, racists, nativists, Trotskyists, anarchists, ultra-Maoists, fascists, war hawks, patriots etc etc

left right or in the air it seems any where you look China is the boogie man. And yet all of the above groups claim that everyone else loves China.

I can;t help but feel a tinge of "Yellow peril" to the almost universal disdain for China across the poltical spectrum in the west.

In Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, China is actually highly admired both by patriots and Communists.

[jacobin1949]

^^^



You wrote about political parties here, not about whole classes. ;) Any thoughts on Hua Guofeng and Soviet economic development?



P.S. - I read your Soviet-Empire.com thread on Soviet economic development. I believe the earlier would-be market reformers were Beria and Andropov (and to a lesser extent Kosygin).

I completely agree with you that Hua Guofeng type policies would have been superior from 1957-1976. However by the late 1970s the Chinese state owned industries were stagnating and had Deng not fixed the problem it probably would have suffered the same type of Brezhnev stagnation as the Soviets. Liu Shaoqi was the main architect of the 1950s economics boom and First Five Year Plan and Deng Xiaoping was his protege and heir. Thus I see Deng as having more claim to continuing the successful economics of the 1950s than Hua. I think Hua played an important role in suppressing the ultra-left and the fact that Mao deliberately chose him illustrates Mao's disdain for the ultra-left. But I do not believe Hua would have generated the economic growth China had in the 1980s. In some respects he is comparable to Jiang Zemin. He served an important purpose but was not personally important.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ And no thoughts regarding Beria or Andropov (bumping up your thread there or the thread on Beria), or sovkhozization enacted by Stalin's successors?

[Unicorn]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.
Some far-right troglodytes still see China as a communist state and are anti-China. They are a tiny minority in the Republican party. Most "conservatives" today are free-traders who couldn't care less about human rights abuse etc. in China.

Nancy Pelosi is more hostile towards China than George W. Bush.

[jacobin1949]

To be honest I'm not that familiar with the economic policies of Beria. Although I understand that Andropov was somewhat similar to Deng in his desire to maintain poltical stability while reforming the economy.

As for Beria, politically I think he was a hard-core Stalinist. So it somewhat confirms my view of Stalin that one of his top supporters also advocated economic reform. I have argued that the Five Year Plans were largely a military measure made during desperate times to counter the threat of invasion. Stalin vigorously defended the NEP throughout the 1920s, and I believe he was sincere and not using it as a ploy to defeat Trotsky and the ultra-left.

To an extent Stalinism can be seen as another form of the market economy although not in the Trotsktyist sense.

Here is a quote from PWW of the CPUSA on the topic of Stalin and the market economy


"An honest appraisal of markets and planning must begin with the warning that they are not two mutually exclusive options. Stalin characterized the Soviet economy – at its most rigidly planned moment – as still a commodity producing, exchange-based economy. Conversely, the modern transnational corporation wholeheartedly embraces planning. With the development of information technologies, corporate executives develop extensive and detailed plans involving product development, production and marketing, plans that extend forward many years. Ironically, as advocates for socialism retreat from planning, the captains of industry welcome it.

Friends of the market accept other myths. Professor Marquit asserts that previous socialist economies suffered from non-cyclical crises, a failure to meet goals, balance distribution, and achieve productivity, suggesting that these factors caused the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies. The collapse of the Soviet Union was largely a political collapse brought on by political failures. Even today, opinion polls show strong support among Eastern Europeans for the benefits of the now-dismantled socialist economy. "

[jacobin1949]

Ignorance is a good title for this thread.

It seems most critics of Deng Xiaoping have no understanding or knowledge about Marxist-Leninist theory, basic economics, the situation in China in 1976 or history. Before we can debate opponents of Deng Xiaoping Theory, we need to educate them first.

I think the Ultra-Maoists need to go back and read what Mao actually wrote especially his earlier works and his main theoretical works from the 1930s. Most Maoists seem to be capable of only reciting a few catchy lines from posters or the little Red book and have no understanding of Mao's more serious contributions. Read Mao's essay on New Democracy and tell me how Deng is revisionist.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_26.htm

Try reading some of Mao's lesser known and earlier works instead of the Little Red Book and poster slogans

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/cwcia/mcwindex.html

Sorry if I sound arrogant, but I'm sick of the self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitude of the ultra-Maoists. Especially since attacks on me have become personal and a few have even suggested banning me for the crime of Revisionism.

I'm beginning to understand why the CPUSA discussion forum banned the insult revisionism, it is thrown around so much like Fascism it has lost all meaning.

[jacobin1949]

As someone who's read every scrap of paper Mao wrote between 1911-1941 including his excuses for overdue library books, I think I can claim a better understanding of Mao Zedong Thought than most internet warriors.

I have also worked with conservative white AFL-CIO unions including the teamsters instead of just college kids.


And I have been to several major cities in China and seen both the flaws and benefits of China's socialism in action.

Now reading and union organizing may not make me a Bob Avakian. but It seems that many of my critics have no grasp of theory nor practice.

To quote Mao, no investigation, no right to speak

[jacobin1949]

The Leninist Heritage of the Socialist Market Economy

By C.J. Atkins


9-05-07, 9:13 am

Just as China's socialist market economy is today dismissed by many in academia and the bourgeois press as a return to capitalism, it is important to recall that Lenin too faced similar criticism during the early years of Soviet power. His New Economic Policy (NEP) was often characterized by critics, both outside and inside the Communist movement, as an abandonment of socialism and Marxist ideology. While the conditions which necessitated the NEP in 1920's Soviet Russia and those which brought about the need for economic reform in China following the chaos of the Cultural Revolution were quite different, the ideological challenges the Russian Communist Party faced in the aftermath of the civil war and those that Chinese Communists were forced to address in the late 1970s do share some similarities.

Lenin understood there could be no successful advance to socialist relations of production without a highly-developed set of productive forces to sustain socialist methods of distribution. Addressing the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March of 1921, referring to the necessity of cooperation with foreign and domestic capitalist elements, Lenin stated:

We are now in a transitional stage, and our revolution is surrounded by capitalist countries. As long as we are in this phase, we are forced to seek highly complex forms of relationships. (LCW, vol. 32, p. 189)




A component of these "highly complex forms of relationships," of course, was the institution of the market mechanism in first the agricultural and later other sectors of the economy. In further remarks to the Congress, Lenin assured delegates that the gravest problem in the immediate period was not the policy of concessions to capitalism as some, particularly those on the left, warned. Rather, it was the very low level of the productive forces that threatened the survival of the October Revolution.

We must not be afraid of the growth of the petty bourgeoisie and small capital. What we must fear is protracted starvation, want and food shortage, which create the danger that the proletariat will give way to petty-bourgeois vacillation and despair. (LCW, vol. 32, p. 237-8)



Many of Lenin's writings from the early 1920s demonstrate the conclusion that in a predominantly peasant country with low levels of productive forces and education there could be no leap to socialist or communist lines of production and distribution. Instead, the transition would have to take place in stages. These kinds of measures were intended to build up the material-technical foundations for socialism that Marx and Engels had envisioned being already developed by capitalism in advanced industrial societies, where they had predicted the first socialist revolutions would take place. The proletarian revolution was expected to occur in the most technologically and economically advanced capitalist countries because of the development of a large industrial working class and the acute contradictions of advanced capitalist development which would serve as a catalyst for rising class consciousness.

The socialist revolutions of poor, underdeveloped, and usually overwhelmingly agrarian countries created a new challenge; once the working class and its Marxist parties succeeded in capturing state power, they were confronted with the task of trying to develop socialism in economies that were in no way prepared to support socialist relations of distribution. Lenin himself was the first to face the real-life situation of creating a socialist system on an underdeveloped base. He proposed what has recently been described as a "socialist market economy in embryonic form." (Sargis, PA Jan. 2004, p. 33) Shortly after the victory of the October Revolution, Soviet Russia became embroiled in a civil war and came under attack by interventionist armies from fourteen nations, among them the United States, Britain, and Japan. Under these conditions, with food and industrial shortages plaguing the country, a harsh system of surplus extraction from the peasants was introduced and wages were leveled, the policy of "war communism." After the civil war was won by the Red Army and the foreign interventionists were pushed out of the country, the Soviet economy was in ruins. The productive capacity of the nation had dwindled; agriculture was below even pre-WWI levels. There was an urgent need to raise capital and jumpstart the development of the productive forces.

In 1921, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy to replace the extreme measures of war communism, "with which," in Lenin's words, the country "was saddled by the imperative conditions of wartime." (LCW, vol. 32, p. 187) The NEP allowed limited denationalization, foreign-domestic joint ventures, some foreign-owned enterprises, cooperatives running on market principles, and the use of economic administrators who had been trained in capitalist management methods. State-owned enterprises, which for the most part only constituted the commanding heights, had to be self-reliant and operated on profit/loss principles. The commanding heights referred to the lifeline sectors of the economy, such as energy, transport, finance/banking, and steel--those sectors that effectively control or support most other areas of the economy. Under the NEP, the state still formulated an overall plan for the economy, but it was achieved primarily through market, not administrative, means. Production of individual goods and services would be based on supply and demand, not on the decree of a central planning authority. Economic competition defined relations between public and private sectors. Of primary importance in this competition was which sector would win out. Addressing the Second Congress of Political Education Departments in the fall of 1921, Lenin stated the matter bluntly.

We must face this issue squarely—who will come out on top? Either the capitalists will succeed… Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper reign on these gentlemen, the capitalists… The question must be put soberly. (LCW, vol. 33, p. 66)



Lenin admitted that such an arrangement was not fully socialist. "Retreat is a difficult matter, especially for revolutionaries who are accustomed to advance." (LCW, vol. 33, p. 280) He realized, however, that market relations were necessary until the capacity and infrastructure of a fully socialized economy could be constructed and secured. This was a task which he foresaw as encompassing years, even decades of transition. Lenin spent much time trying to explain what the New Economic Policy was and why it was an absolute necessity.


What is free exchange? It is unrestricted trade, and that means turning back towards capitalism… How then can the Communist Party recognize freedom to trade and accept it? Does not the proposition contain irreconcilable contradictions? The answer is that the practical solution of the problem naturally presents exceedingly great difficulties… How this is to be done, practice will show. (LCW, vol. 32, p. 218)

Since the state cannot provide the peasant with goods from socialist factories in exchange for all his surplus, freedom to trade with this surplus necessarily means freedom for the development of capitalism. Within the limits indicated, however, this is not at all dangerous for socialism as long as transport and large-scale industry remain in the hands of the proletariat. (LCW, vol. 32, p. 457)



The development of such a form of capitalism controlled and regulated by the state, which Lenin time and again referred to as state capitalism, if directed carefully by a socialist state, would be not only advantageous, but even necessary, in an underdeveloped country.

Like Soviet Russia in the years following the October Revolution, China today also finds itself facing a world economy dominated by and structured in the interests of the most powerful capitalist economies. Just as Lenin did in the 1920s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has, since 1978, reached the conclusion that the liberation and development of the productive forces is the key to building the foundations for a transition to socialism. This idea was stressed throughout the first years of the reform period. Deng Xiaoping pointed out that,


"The fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system." (Selected Works, vol. 3, p. 73)



The rapid development of China over the past three decades has demonstrated the correctness of the CPC's overall approach, though of course there are contradictions which remain to be overcome. Like Lenin, the CPC estimates that the socialist market economy is a formation which will cover decades of development. The CPC Constitution states that China is in the "primary stage of socialism" and will remain so for a long period of time as it modernizes, even over "a hundred years." (2002, 78-9)

For the socialist market economy to truly be a means of navigating the transition to socialism (whether in China, Vietnam, or anywhere else), there must be a workers' state led by a proletarian party to promote a trajectory toward socialism. This has been recognized as a necessity since the days of Lenin's NEP. In his pamphlet, The Tax in Kind, Lenin stated without reservation that "…socialism is inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state." (LCW, vol. 32, p. 334) There is always the danger in a socialist economy which contains elements of both the plan and the market that capitalist thinking could threaten socialist development and ideology. As referenced above, Lenin warned his fellow Bolsheviks of such a possibility. The main function of the state in a socialist market economy is to maintain a path directed toward socialism and uphold the dominance of the working class.


The socialist market economy, however, should not be viewed as the end result of socialist development; as Lenin said, mixed economic forms are transitional. Though the economic model of socialism based on the centralized plan and total public ownership of all sectors may have been instituted prematurely in the past, advances in technology and computer accounting makes an efficient central plan a greater possibility for the future (assuming the productive forces are in place to support it). It is difficult to predict what the exact characteristics and details of socialist economies may be in the future, though public ownership, working class power, and planned development figure highly in any projection. However, under current conditions, there is no reason to conclude that the socialist market economy is necessarily a departure from the socialist path. Changing conditions necessitate new strategies for development.

REFERENCE LIST

Communist Party of China. 2002. Constitution of the Communist Party of China. In Documents of the 16th National Congress of the CPC, 76-114. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Deng Xiaoping. 1994. Building a Socialism with a Specifically Chinese Character. In vol. 3 of Selected Works, 72-5. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Lenin, Vladimir I. 1977a. Report on the Political Work of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.). In vol. 32 of Collected Works, 170-91. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
------. 1977b. Report on the Substitution of a Tax in Kind for the Surplus-Grain Appropriation System. In vol. 32 of Collected Works, 214-38. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
------. 1977c. The Tax in Kind. In vol. 32 of Collected Works. 329-65.
------. 1977d. Theses for a Report on the Tactics of the R.C.P. In vol. 32 of Collected Works, 453-61.
------. 1980a. The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments. In vol. 33 of Collected Works, 60-79. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
------. 1980b. Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.) In vol 33 of Collected Works, 263-309. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Sargis, Al L. 2004. Unfinished Business: Socialist Market Economy. Political Affairs, January, 32-34.

http://img.revleft.com/revleft/misc/progress.gif

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I'm not a Maoist, and I do think that Deng, like Hua, Zhou, Mao, Andropov, Beria, Bukharin, and that founder of "Marxism-Leninism" (Stalin himself), were all revisionists.

[jacobin1949]

Fair enough. I disagree with you. But I have no problem debating with you on the topic.

I hope you did not take my points about ultra-Maoists as attacks on yourself. I was referring to those who instead of debating can only throw slogans around.

Whatever criticisms I may have of your conclusions, I can not deny they are grounded in knowledge of history and Marxist theory

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Not at all. That's their business. :)

[BobKKKindle$]

J1949, can you respond to my criticisms of contemporary China I made in my first post?

In addition to the negative socioeconomic impacts described in my post, how can you account for the central government's repression of political activity outside of the Communist Party? Chinese activists continue to suffer punishment (for example, long prison sentences and the harassment of family members) if they voice criticism of the government's policies, and the internet is also subject to strict control, which limits communication between human rights activists, and prevents people from learning about ideas (e.g. democracy) which might lead them to question the authority of the government and press for political change. This is not "socialist" because Socialism must allow for open discussion and political freedom.

Most importantly, how can you justify the Tienanmen massacre, which is still not recognized by the central government. Any attempts to commemorate those who died are prevented by the government during the massacre's anniversary each year - although in Hong Kong we are able to have candle-light vigils. I mentioned this in my original post but you did not respond.

I want to see you answer from Deng's crimes - how can anyone justify the massacre of innocent workers and students at the hands of the state?

I'm actually surprised that no-one else has brought up the Tienanmen massacre.

Stop posting boring and pathetic diatribes from government lackeys, and deal with my criticisms. As a citizen of Hong Kong, where many people feel strongly about the central government's crimes, I am not willing to see you brush these issues aside. Come the revolution, most of the CCP will be up against the wall.

[BobKKKindle$]

Actually most conservative parties in USA, Europe and Japan are virulant China bashers.

Yes, and? Many Nazi Parties are Israel bashers - does that mean we should cosy up to Israel? Logical fallacy.

[jacobin1949]

The criticisms of China's record on civil liberties is an open charge to ANY government under People's democratic dictatorship. As far as human rights goes, China currently has the best record its' ever had in its' 5000 year history. I would say it has the best human rights record post-1976 of any socialist nation with the possible exception of Cuba.

Socialism does not necessarily have to recognize complete open discussion. Not socialist government in the history of the world has ever done so. Considering the vast wealth, technology assets, and propaganda outlets of the west, no socialist nation can compete fairly in the battle of ideas.

The idea that the Tiannaman square movement represented a return to leftist ideas is complete fallacy. While many of the students may have had an idealist intent, had they succeeded China would have suffered a fate far worse than Yeltsin's Russia.

[jacobin1949]

Trotskyist analysis of 1989
http://www.workers.org/ww/tienanmen.html
CHINA'S TIENANMEN SQUARE:

HISTORY CLARIFIES WHAT HAPPENED IN 1989

By Andy McInerney

It's been an annual event since 1989. Beginning in May and through June, the big-business media in this country open up a campaign against the Peoples Republic of China.
Usually they target some supposed human-rights violation committed by the Chinese government, and threaten to end normal trade between the United States and China-called "most favored nation" status.
The occasion for the yearly anti-China campaign is the anniversary of the suppression of the Tienanmen Square demonstrations on June 4, 1989. This year, PBS-TV commemorated the event by showing a film, "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," purporting to be a documentary of the events.
Many students had been camped in Beijing's central square for weeks, demonstrating under the banners of "democracy" and "freedom." Their most prominent symbol was a large figure resembling the Statue of Liberty.
The Chinese government negotiated with student leaders, but the demonstrations grew. Troops were finally called in. At first they were unarmed. There were excited rumors in the Western press that the Chinese leadership and even the army were split over what to do.
The troops were issued arms on June 3 after some students took some soldiers hostage. On June 4, the demonstration changed from a peaceful protest to violent attacks on the soldiers. Then, the Chinese government condemned it as a counter-revolutionary rebellion and used military force to quell it.
There was immediately a worldwide media campaign condemning China and characterizing the events as a massacre.
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT

Many things have happened in the last seven years. They should compel those in the progressive movement who were skeptical or hostile to the Chinese leadership's assessment at the time to reconsider their views.
In 1989, there were still the Soviet Union and its socialist allies in Eastern Europe, although they were already weakened by President Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. Gorbachev was actually invited to visit Beijing during the Tienanmen demonstrations. He talked to some of the students in what was a conciliatory gesture by the Chinese authorities.
Today, there is no Soviet Union. The reforms Gorbachev began led to the break-up of that vast country. The consequences were devastating for the workers and farmers of so many different nationalities who had been bound together by a socialized economy.
A tiny handful have become fabulously rich while the vast majority face poverty. That situation is being repeated across Eastern Europe where pro-capitalist forces usurped political power in the former workers' states.
Would China have shared this fate had the "democracy" movement triumphed? During the Tienanmen demonstrations leading up to the June 4 violence, student leaders carefully concealed their political program behind abstract slogans of "freedom and democracy."
Given the number of students involved in the demonstrations, there were undoubtedly many political trends within the movement. But there was a dominant leadership group, and it had nothing to do with building democracy for China's vast majority of peasants and industrial workers.
That has become clear from many interviews with acknowledged leaders of the student movement. They were the most vocal expression of a growing bourgeois, pro-imperialist current in China that wanted to end socialism altogether and turn to the capitalist world market.
`THE PURSUIT OF WEALTH'

For example, Chai Ling, who the students recognized as the "comman der-in-chief" of the Tienanmen demonstrations, gave an interview to Western reporters on the eve of the June 4 riots. In the interview, first aired in the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" film, she says her goal was to provoke the Chinese Communist Party into attacking the demonstrations.
She says she hoped it would galvanize the Chinese population to overthrow the CCP.
Overthrow the Chinese Communist Party? That would have been news to many of the participants in the student demonstrations. In fact, she wept during the interview, describing how bad she felt that she could not explain her real plans to the students.
Of course, it was not news to all the students. Wuer Kaixi, another student leader interviewed for "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," said the student movement was for the right "to wear Nikes."
This leader didn't seem to be confused about what "democracy and freedom" meant-it meant the right of Western corporations to plunder the Chinese market.
Another student leader, Wang Dan, said in the days before the demonstration was dispersed that "the movement is not ready for worker participation because democracy must first be absorbed by the students and intellectuals before they can spread it to others." In a June 4, 1993, Washington Post interview, he was even more blunt.
"The pursuit of wealth is part of the impetus for democracy," he said. "The south," referring to the region in China where capitalist enterprise has gone the furthest, "is China's new hope."
Western capitalists understood this orientation toward capitalist democracy. The Voice of America broadcast countless hours of propaganda supporting the demonstrations. Corporations like AT&T spent millions of dollars providing fax machines and long-distance calls to the United States.
What would have been the effect had the student demonstrations contributed to fracturing China's socialist government, which had already gone through decades of internal struggle over what road to take? At the time, only speculation was possible.
Now, you have only to look at the collapsed Soviet Union for a measure of the human destruction such a counter-revolution would wreak. In China, a developing country with over a billion people, the devastation would have been magnified 10-fold.
The CCP had introduced some capitalist market reforms after Mao Zedong's death, when the grouping around Deng Xiaoping assumed Party leadership. These reforms, which allowed many of those who had been purged during the Cultural Revolution to return to privileged positions, had encouraged "pragmatism"-meaning learn from the capitalist countries.
Many Chinese youths were sent to study abroad, where they enjoyed luxuries unthinkable in China. The reforms helped create the social basis for the student demonstrations.
But even with the economic changes that have taken place in China, the CCP continues to be rooted in socialized property. The state-including the People's Liberation Army--remains an obstacle to complete capitalist restoration in China. It has also prevented China from being broken up into different pieces to be sold to the highest corporate bidders.
A BATTLE, NOT A MASSACRE

A factor that eroded the solidarity of many progressives with the Chinese government at the time was the imperialist media's mass campaign to portray the suppression of the riots as a "massacre." In the weeks following the movement's defeat, there was endless speculation claiming that thousands-even tens of thousands!--of students had been killed in Tienanmen Square.
These portrayals have been proven false.
In fact, even bourgeois reporters have admitted there was no such massacre. As early as June 13, 1989, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof reported that no students were killed in the square-that the fighting occurred in the streets leading to the square. At that time, Kristof wrote that "there is no firm indication that troops fired on students" occupying Tienanmen Square.
Elaborating on that report, in a Jan. 16, 1990, article, Kristof related how pop singer Hou Dejian, who was present throughout the night as the square was cleared, "had seen no one killed in Tienanmen Square." He said that at 5 a.m. on June 4, the 3,000 students remaining in the square marched out peacefully.
In the same Jan. 16 article, Kristof estimated that hundreds-not thousands or tens of thousands-were killed. The Chinese government reported that 300 people were killed, roughly half students and half soldiers.
The number of casualties and their location is important because the media have given everyone the impression that Chinese government troops gunned down peaceful demonstrators in the square. In fact, the casualties took place in the outlying streets, where small detachments of armed students and others fought, sometimes hand to hand, with the People's Liberation Army.
Television footage shows rioters firebombing tanks and buses full of soldiers, dragging them out and beating them. Some were burned alive in the vehicles. These soldiers were not some hardened fascist force, but young peasants recently recruited from the countryside.
A June 5, 1989, Washington Post report described how the rioters organized into squads of 100-150, armed with chains, Molotov cocktails and iron clubs, to meet the PLA. PLA soldiers had been unarmed in the days leading up to the decision to clear the square.
In other words, the June 4 events were a battle-not a massacre.
To this day, Western powers are doing everything in their power to dismantle the Chinese workers' state. The continuing capitalist reforms in China mean there is a growing-if still relatively small-bourgeois class in China with which the imperialists can find common cause.
Leslie Gelb wrote a Nov. 13, 1991, New York Times column about a plan to suck the industrial zones of coastal China into the imperialist orbit. Citing a report by then-Secretary of State Howard Baker, Gelb said "the southern provinces and Hong Kong ... along with Taiwan could demand self-determination."
The United States, he wrote, would not be "above using the implied threat of separatism" against China. The recent Taiwan election revolved around this threat-first formulated by the State Department.
The U.S. capitalist class is very aware of its class interests with regard to China. Those who aspire to give leadership to the working-class struggle here need to be able to unmask the high-sounding pretensions of the imperialist pirates and defend the great achievements of the revolutionary Chinese workers and peasants.
Their sacrifice and struggle wrenched China out of semi-colonial slavery and set it on the road of socialist construction. The bourgeoisie has made important inroads there, but it has not been able to dismantle the Chinese Communist Party, the state or the socialized industry. These stand as a barrier to China being carved up and gobbled down like the former Soviet republics.

- END -

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[jacobin1949]

Take a look at this capitalist Dengist revisionist dribble.. about allowing private ownership of farms, and not confiscating private property of the capitalist industrialists

VI. THE ECONOMY OF NEW DEMOCRACY

If such a republic is to be established in China, it must be new-democratic not only in its politics but also in its economy.
It will own the big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises.
Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned or foreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for private management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the main principle of the regulation of capital.
This is another solemn declaration in the Manifesto of the Kuomintang's First National Congress held during the period of Kuomintang-Communist co-operation, and it is the correct policy for the economic structure of the new-democratic republic. In the new-democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat, the state enterprises will be of a socialist character and will constitute the leading force in the whole national economy, but the republic will neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production as does not "dominate the livelihood of the people", for China's economy is still very backward.
The republic will take certain necessary steps to confiscate the land of the landlords and distribute it to those peasants having little or no land, carry out Dr. Sun Yat-sen's slogan of "land to the tiller", abolish feudal relations in the rural areas, and turn the land over to the private ownership of the peasants. A rich peasant economy will be allowed in the rural areas. Such is the policy of "equalization of landownership". "Land to the tiller" is the correct slogan for this policy. In general, socialist agriculture will not be established at this stage, though various types of co-operative enterprises developed on the basis of "land to the tiller" will contain elements of socialism.
China's economy must develop along the path of the "regulation of capital" and the "equalization of landownership", and must never be "privately owned by the few"; we must never permit the few capitalists and landlords to "dominate the livelihood of the people"; we must never establish a capitalist society of the European-American type or allow the old semi-feudal society to survive. Whoever dares to go counter to this line of advance will certainly not succeed but will run into a brick wall.
Such are the internal economic relations which a revolutionary China, a China fighting Japanese aggression, must and necessarily will establish.
Such is the economy of New Democracy.
And the politics of New Democracy are the concentrated expression of the economy of New Democracy.

[RHIZOMES]

Fair enough. I disagree with you. But I have no problem debating with you on the topic.

I hope you did not take my points about ultra-Maoists as attacks on yourself. I was referring to those who instead of debating can only throw slogans around.

Wow for some reason when you said that, I though of the Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Three Represents and Harmonious Society theories. :rolleyes: