Okay im an ML and not denouncing china but this is definitely an L
Class struggle is an integral part to marxism leninism
I believe the last time this was brought up, it was clarified to be more of a rejection of Mao Zedong Thought’s theory of Class Struggle, and a return to more Marxian theory. I will search for where I found that and edit my comment if I find it, or delete it if someone else finds it first.
Edit: found it archived on Lemmygrad from r/GenZhou here pasted in full below (the entire thread is great and offers far more insight into Historical Materialism as is relevant to China’s course of development):
He is correct. Mao’s focus on “unrelenting class struggle” was incorrect and destructive.
After a communist party takes power, if all they focus on is class struggle, they will completely destroy all elements of the bourgeoisie in a short period of time, and fully abolish private property.
This idea sounds great emotionally. The idea of quickly achieving a fully public economy, the complete and unrelenting destruction of the bourgeoisie, both big and petty, for national and foreign, etc. This all sounds good emotionally. But in practice, it makes no sense.
If you simply kill enough people to reach socialism, you are pretty much rejecting Marx’s entire concept of historical materialism and viewing economic systems as something that can simply be implemented by government fiat, and rejecting the idea that one economic system develops out of the other. You can’t just implement socialism by fiat or by killing enough people. You have to develop towards it.
Trying to construct a fully planned economy through government fiat is a rejection of Marxian theory of social development and would inevitably lead you to implement an economic system that would be fundamentally impossible from Marx’s own analysis, you would be implementing full planning simply by fiat without ever developing the material basis for it. This would be an inevitable outcome of focusing purely on unrelenting class struggle.
The relentless destruction of all non-proletarian classes would inevitably lead you to construct an economy that is economically impossible and would be filled with internal contradictions and bound to collapse in the long-term. A communist party can only transform society gradually alongside rapid economic development.
“Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.” -– Friedrich Engels, “The Principles of Communism”If it can only transform society gradually, this implies that private property must also continue to exist for some time. This makes sense from a classical understanding of Marxism because you cannot abolish it by fiat, the conditions for the abolition of private property are not implemented by government fiat but are formed by the development of markets themselves as markets have a tendency to socialize/centralize as they develop.
Hence, the communist party can’t simply go out and abolish all private property. It has to primarily focus on developing the country as rapidly as possible, and can only abolish private property “by degree” alongside this rapid development.
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.” -– Marx & Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”While the idea of completely destroying the bourgeoisie in unrelenting class struggle sounds good emotionally, in practice it is nonsense. You have to develop the economy, and private property remains a part of the economy for a long time. Simply destroying even the national petty bourgeoisie just because of “muh class struggle” does not help you develop your economy. It is in fact destructive to your own economy.
The harsh pill which many Marxists refuse to swallow because of their “unrelenting class struggle” dogma is that the communist party will be forced to work with some elements of the bourgeoisie in order to develop its economy. Not all elements of course, but at least some, because private property inherently cannot be abolished in one stroke but requires material development.
“Due to the hasty and early entry into socialism, we didn’t accumulate enough experience to enable us to have a very clear understanding on the issues of social development. Throughout the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the People’s Commune Movement in 1958, there had occurred a blind optimism of targeting ‘the realization of communism in our country, which is no longer a distant future’, and thus made a serious and erroneous estimation on the development stages of socialism….As Deng Xiaoping pointed out: As early as the second half of 1957 we began to make ‘Left’ mistakes. To put it briefly, we pursued a closed-door policy in foreign affairs and took class struggle as the central task at home no attempt was made to expand the productive forces, and the policies we formulated were too ambitious for the primary stage of socialism. After the 3rd Plenary Session of the Party, after the comparison of our both positive and negative experiences, the Chinese Communist Party has gradually made a scientific conclusion that China is in and will be in the Primary stage of socialism.” — Xu Hongzhi & Qin Xuan, Basics of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese CharacteristicsWhile class struggle is still important to communist parties, it is only of primary importance before they take power. After they take power, it cannot be their primary focus. Their primary focus has to be to achieve communism. The communist party is already in power, they can already expropriate private property at will, and we saw this for example during COVID when they expropriated the PPE manufacturers. So the primary thing preventing China from becoming a fully planned economy is not the bourgeoisie. It is underdevelopment.
I see it as akin to the fact that even after a couple centuries of capitalist hegemony, we still have a handful of nobles around. Obviously they don’t have the same power they used to (with a couple isolated exceptions) and they’re largely ceremonial. But I think that shows there’s a path to be drawn where the bourgeoisie can retain form while losing function within a transitional political economy.
That’s a good take on it. Essentially, jumping to Communism is Utopian, trying to quickly go through actual development stages is Scientific. The next Mode of Production emerges from the current, not outside of it.
reading through this but does developing the productive forces necessitate the restoration of private property?
another critique i have also seen in relation to the ‘private property is necessary’ is that Dengs own theory was that private property should only exist in the context of china then, and that it would be only limited and without and capitalists emerging. Deng considered it to still be socialist if 90 percent of the economy was publically owned and that no national capitalists would develop.
Deng himself states: “Socialism has two major requirements. First, its economy must be dominated by public ownership, and second, there must be no polarization. Public ownership may consist of both ownership by the entire people and ownership by a collective. The publicly owned sector of our economy accounts for more than 90 percent of the total . . . As to the requirement that there must be no polarization, we have given much thought to this question in the course of formulating and implementing our policies. If there is polarization, the reform will have been a failure.”
What deng means by ‘polarization’ is the circuit of exchange of capitalists profiting from exploitation. Deng advocated for allowing foreign markets and investments but without the existence of a new capitalist class. If such a class arises, the reform is a failure and capitalism will have been fully restored.
“Is it possible that a new bourgeoisie will emerge? If we took the capitalist road, a small number of people in certain areas would quickly grow rich, and a new bourgeoisie would emerge along with a number of millionaires — all of these people amounting to less than one per cent of the population — while the overwhelming majority of the people would remain in poverty, scarcely able to feed and clothe themselves. Only the socialist system can eradicate poverty. That is why we do not allow people to oppose socialism.”
Again I reject maoism but the concerns of capitalist restoration in china have ground even under dengist reason. I definitely dont want to start a china hating thing but such critiques need examining.
Stalin’s position is also that under socialism class conflict will escalate and must be a major focus to solve it. Disputing this was literally the line of the Bukharin right-deviationists. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1929/04/22.htm#IVb
again not trying to do a ‘denounce china’ thing im not a big fan of the sino soviet split kinda nonsense, i just have some new perspectives that i want to bring up and test.
Like I said, I personally do not fully understand it, and thus I am hopeful more well-read Marxists can offer clarification.
What we can observe, is that China is rising, and it doesn’t appear to be practicing Imperialism. China is aiding other AES states, and is maintaining a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Poverty is decreasing. By metrics, there absolutely is a bourgeois class, to the contrary of Deng and Stalin, but there is an increase in Proletarian metrics in the context of the global stage.
I am not Xi. I do not have a doctorate in Marxism. What I do know is that the US’s Hegemony is not beaten, Imperialism is still at large, but it is weakening. All we can hope for is that the Long Game and its Contradictions pays off, US Hegemony is overthrown, and the CPC can more rapidly Socialize the economy without risking Capital Flight as the industrial backbone of much of the world.
Edit: I recommend reading the full thread. There is a lot of back and forth there that is entirely understandable, and ultimately loops back to Historical Materialism. Ultimately, I find myself agreeing with the quoted comrade, especially after seeing them defend their initial comment after questioning.
Like I said, I personally do not fully understand it, and thus I am hopeful more well-read Marxists can offer clarification.
similar for me, im new to this and trying to get some help to reason it out. Marxism is hard lmao.
What we can observe, is that China is rising, and it doesn’t appear to be practicing Imperialism. China is aiding other AES states, and is maintaining a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Poverty is decreasing. By metrics, there absolutely is a bourgeois class, to the contrary of Deng and Stalin, but there is an increase in Proletarian metrics in the context of the global stage.
although people’s welfare is a central and extremely important part of socialism, it is not what makes something socialist. Otherwise Finland could be called socialist for having state ownership and social welfare. Not just deng and stalin, but all heads of marxism leninism reject this restoration of capitalism especially if private property was already eliminated to a large extent. Lenin’s NEP could be referenced but that was very very short and in a different situation, and was fortunately reversed by Stalin after it had outlived its short usefullness.
the increasing proletarian class is just a feature of any economy developing the productive forces. As well is the fact that the working class will always grow fastest due to them being the masses themselves.
I am not Xi. I do not have a doctorate in Marxism. What I do know is that the US’s Hegemony is not beaten, Imperialism is still at large, but it is weakening. All we can hope for is that the Long Game and its Contradictions pays off, US Hegemony is overthrown, and the CPC can more rapidly Socialize the economy without risking Capital Flight as the industrial backbone of much of the world.
I more or less agree with this. Again I will always reject maoist third world theory, new democracy, and PPW for being dogmatically applied incorrectly to every situation. I do appreciate china’s growth and its contribution to more independent economies, but this does not mean they are socialist or non revisionist. Revisionism in my view being ideology that leads to or allows the expansion and existence of private property.
But even then, the reds gotta stick together even if they’re ‘revisionist’ or not, the sino soviet split was dogmatic opportunism on mao’s part and revisionist nonsense on kruschev’s and just generally a disaster for the world communist movement that would only contribute to its downfall. If a large socialist country emerged i would hope for them and china to seek close relations.
Of course I also recognize that I could very well be wrong and of course retract my positions or adjust them if incorrect. My main concern with all of this is the existence of private property, i do not care for state ownership critiques as ‘state capitalism’ is a dogmatic critique in my eyes.
similar for me, im new to this and trying to get some help to reason it out. Marxism is hard lmao.
I agree! You can see my personal growth even looking at the oldest comments in my 8 month old Lemmy.ml account, and I was far worse back on Reddit. Learning takes time (and reading theory, and matching it to practice).
although people’s welfare is a central and extremely important part of socialism, it is not what makes something socialist. Otherwise Finland could be called socialist for having state ownership and social welfare.
Important bit here, Finland is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, and practices Imperialism to fund its safety nets. The PRC has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and funds its safety nets and infrastructure from itself. Additionally, we see increased privitization and sliding worker protections in Finland, and rising public infrastructure and worker protections in the PRC. Their power dynamics, trajectories, and sources are different.
Not just deng and stalin, but all heads of marxism leninism reject this restoration of capitalism especially if private property was already eliminated to a large extent. Lenin’s NEP could be referenced but that was very very short and in a different situation, and was fortunately reversed by Stalin after it had outlived its short usefullness.
I think you would benefit from reading the entire thread. Development of Material Conditions determines Mode of Production, China cannot skip to full socialization even if everyone knew how to do it, hence Deng’s original reforms.
Of course I also recognize that I could very well be wrong and of course retract my positions or adjust them if incorrect. My main concern with all of this is the existence of private property, i do not care for state ownership critiques as ‘state capitalism’ is a dogmatic critique in my eyes.
I again want to stress the importance of the entire thread. Many comrades had the same or similar concerns, and ultimately it loops back to Historical Materialism and the Marxist Theory of Development, rather than the Maoist.
Important bit here, Finland is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, and practices Imperialism to fund its safety nets. The PRC has a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and funds its safety nets and infrastructure from itself. Additionally, we see increased privitization and sliding worker protections in Finland, and rising public infrastructure and worker protections in the PRC. Their power dynamics, trajectories, and sources are different.
Although I agree these things are true, a communist party in charge shouldn’t be the end all be all behind being communist. tito’s ‘market socialist’ system directly led to its own downfall through the empowerment of petite and national bourgeoisie backing nationalist splitters. Though Tito’s Yugoslavia was ruled by a communist party it still facilitated the growth of private property, speculation, and the capitalist class, even if it was alongside the proletariat. Like I highlighted how it was different for lenin’s NEP done under lenin and stalin, which destroyed its revisionist elements, but under Yugoslavia the communist party was building up capitalism in the name of socialism.
of course China does not practice imperialism, but there is a medium between neoimperialism and the USSR’s Mutual aid that china is between and sometimes leans too closely to extractive relations. again i dont think that china or the soviet union were or are imperialist, but the trade of china is sometimes cooperation between unrestrained capitalists in china developing private markets in the rest of the developed world. Not grouping them in with the actual imperialists, not in the slightest, and it is important to highlight that many projects (especially that of the Belt and Road) are done in co-operation with CPC SOCs and the governments of that nation, and are far more beneficial to the underdeveloped country (like that of soviet trade and foreign investment). China gives a good deal, far better than the west, but it could be improved and they are capable of making that improvement.
Again not everyone has to be the soviet union or the bolsheviks, but a consensus must be reached on what is necessary for material conditions and when that goes too far and becomes truly revisionist. Revisionism led directly to the fall of the soviet union and the temporary collapse of socialism across the world, it must be treated as the grave threat it is.
I think you would benefit from reading the entire thread. Development of Material Conditions determines Mode of Production, China cannot skip to full socialization even if everyone knew how to do it, hence Deng’s original reforms.
I again want to stress the importance of the entire thread. Many comrades had the same or similar concerns, and ultimately it loops back to Historical Materialism and the Marxist Theory of Development, rather than the Maoist.
sorry did you link the thread?
I referenced in an earlier comment that under Deng’s own conditions listed from those quotes the reform has removedd into a capitalist restoration. Development is a primary concern but that does not mean throw away communism to do so, as it is rather successful at doing so in many instances. I do not think Deng’s original reform was inherently revisionist either, especially with the goal of furthering development and getting the capitalist powers to warm relations, but after deng there was an immediate un-tethering of capitalism. Capitalist relations were fully re-introduced (of course majority remained in state control but a lot became privately owned). Healthcare privatization was completely unnecessary at the time and still is, and is exploitative, although the party has recently helped ensure 90 percent coverage as of recently it is still under private insurance. Capitalists dictate far too much in the economy where they shouldn’t, as seen with the re-introduction of the landlord class in the 90s only causing massive issues in the modern day that the party must amend.
China can of course reverse these revisionist tendencies and is capable of doing so, but their ‘pragmatism’ has itself become dogmatic. I have a decent amount of hope that the party can be reigned in and thus the capitalists, but only time will tell. Until then its a good trading partner, a peaceful country, and a vital part of resisting US capitalism. Very important, but the efforts can be improved.
Again, I do not claim maoism or its many critiques, i am a marxist leninist whose read mostly everyone but mao lmao.
also definitely supporting them retaking taiwan the US can fuck the hell off.
any critiques are most welcomed, as I know I have much to learn.
I’ll fully admit that I am not familiar enough to challenge anything you’ve said here correctly, no investigation, no right to speak. I don’t want you to think I didn’t read your reply, but I do not intend on trying to answer it either, as I do not know enough to give a good answer for you or myself.
I linked the thread in my original comment, but I will link it again here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/230000
Again, I appreciate your analysis, and I don’t want you to take this as dismissive.
I linked the thread in my original comment, but I will link it again here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/230000
thank you sorry i will read this
thank you, your arguments are much appreciated and i hold many of your opinions as well. We are communists, comrades, at the end of the day!
Revisionism in my view being ideology that leads to or allows the expansion and existence of private property.
Private property is not eternally bad or good, and capitalism is not simply private ownership or commodity production; the “superstructure” is not just a product of the “base”, but reinforces it and shapes it onwards, as Engels said, not cause and effect but reciprocation. You cannot split the dialectic apart (although sometimes it’s necessary for explanation), as people try to do with imperialism, narrowing Lenin’s “definition” to exclude the political and falling into vulgar materialism. China has private property, but it is itself public property extended, and the state in its ideological and practical spheres has shown itself to be a state of the workers.
If you read Anti-Dühring, Engels gives insight into the negation of the negation, that there are special conditions required for the sublation of the negation, i.e. you can negate capitalism by destructive madness, but you make it impossible to sublate this negation, and so everything resets. The negation of primitive classless society provides the groundwork for its own negation, advanced classless society (communism) by expanding production/socialization (put simply). There is no way you can get to socialism without private property, commodity production, etc., as Lenin says: “Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science” (The Tax in Kind).
Or Marx: “even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement — and it is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society — it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs” (Capital Vol. 1).
Leninism, emerging out of imperialism, showed that communists could take power where imperialism was most concentrated, so mainly less developed countries, and this was the case with China. Mao himself acknowledged that private property was necessary for China’s development: “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” (On New Democracy].
China and the USSR had no choice but to not only let private property exist but grow in some cases, of course while maintaining control over it, and you point to the fact that the NEP
was very very short
But as you say it was Stalin who ended it, not Lenin, and I think maybe that was a mistake, but maybe it wasn’t. In The Tax in Kind, Lenin talks about transitioning from a wartime economy, but it’s lucky this transition was reeled back, because later the USSR would be threatened by Hitler’s colonial invasion, and things like collective farming would play a big part in the Soviet victory against fascism.
thank you for this response!
reading through this but does developing the productive forces necessitate the restoration of private property?
China allowed the restoration of private property because that was the Faustian deal for them to get ahead of the USSR while avoiding major confrontations with the US. Since 1991, there isn’t a network of socialist allies to help you build your forces. The few socialist countries that exist today are either blockaded in the globalized economy, or have unresolved issues that transcend ideology.
Now everyone’s economies are intertwined, no one cares about ideology, so your options are appealing to the institutions that have the resources for your people, or gamble on the lives on a billion people by being pure. Even then, becoming neutral and allowing controlled capitalism is still gambling on the lives of billions, but as we’ve seen, less disastrous than Russia post 1991, at least for now. But China has goals to develop its resources domestically and with developing nations. They likely won’t eliminate the diet of western trade, but cutting reliance on the ideological enemy is one way of hopefully cutting reliance on compromise with capitalists internationally and domestically.
You’re right that allowing a capitalist class to emerge will inevitably lead to destruction of socialism, but I don’t think it’s possible to engage in a capitalist world economy without experts in the system. And even though a lot of Marx’s work is about explaining capitalism, it doesn’t mean that every adherent of Marx is an adherent of communism. Michael Hudson wrote his books to explain the US’ parasitic drain of the world - he did not support this system, but you know who did? Neocons, the White House and the CIA - they were so drawn and needed him to break it down for them because even they didn’t know how they were pulling off the hegemony. And even then, Marx’s theories are on the backburner in China. Most of the economists in the government and in academics are western trained, but like I said, this doesn’t mean they support capitalism, just like experts and believers in Marxian economics aren’t automatically communists.
Deng is right in that we cannot allow people to oppose socialism, so ultimately, it comes down to whether China’s ideological agenda is able to retain a socialist end goal in its experts and businessmen who, on paper, support China and socialism, but in reality are free agents.
if that is the context then that is good, but what would be the difference in that case? Is Mao’s class struggle so different from marxian theory? what is their new position?
but thank you
I found the clarification, see my edit. I personally don’t fully understand it all as I am still working my way through theory. It sounds reasonable to me, but I need to investigate more.
Essentially, he maintained the line of “50% Deng, 50% Mao.” He’s upholding Socialism With Chinese Characteristics, and returning to the Marxist theory of development, rather than trying to jump straight to Communism overnight.
smh xi not killing my parents is proof of his revisionism smh smh protracted peoples war time
This is just a reference to and confirmation of Deng’s position and changes versus those of Mao and then the Gang of Four when Deng’s faction won out. The central focus of Deng was in recognizing China’s economic instability (and its impact on the people) and coming to the conclusion that this was due to China being in a state of under-development of its productive forces. After the implementation of Deng’s reforms, China’s economy continued to improve as it had before but in a less boom-and-bust fashion.
Re: class struggle itself, the position here is not that it is not important, but in that Dengism did not see it as the primary contradiction within China (not the world - that is/was imperialist struggle), instead saying it was the underdeveloped productive forces vs. the material needs of the people. This is just a Marxist phrasing for “using our analytical method, this is the most important thing to focus on, it colors all other contradictions more than they color it”. Dengism still adhered to the concept and importance of class struggle itself and all schools teach it.
but even under dengs own requirements the reform has gone way too far, see my comment referencing this to Cowbee.
Deng’s position i still think is quite correct, im more referencing the post-deng party
Your title says that the CPC has rejected class struggle per this video. As you can see, this is incorrect. My suspicion is that there was a misunderstanding of the very specific reference to a position taken by Mao and then its eventual counter by Deng, and what a primary contradiction is.
huh, then thats my mistake
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
