This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 34, October 2-8, 2005
Mao's Legacy in
China's Current Development
A Chinese worker said,”This is
not socialism with Chinese characteristics as Deng Xiaoping told us. Instead,
what we have here is capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”
A Chinese peasant said, “When
Chairman Mao warned us about the restoration of capitalism, we really did not
understand what he was talking about. Now we do.”
By Pao-Yu Ching In China & Socialism --
Market Reforms and Class Struggle[i],
Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett argued successfully why the so-called
“market socialism” in China is in fact the restoration of capitalism, and that
China’s economic Reform of the past twenty-five years can not serve as a
socialist model of development for other less developed countries. Hart-Landsberg
and Burkett’s research on this topic in current literature (in English) is very
thorough and includes perspectives from the Left liberals and some progressives,
who had mistaken China’s economic development since the Reform as socialist.
Hart-Landsberg and Burkett also give a detailed and accurate account of the
Reform itself from 1979 to the present. Hart-Landsberg and Burkett
give credible reports on how the capitalist restoration in China has dismantled
the social welfare system and other protections the working population enjoyed
before the Reform, and thus resulting their tremendous hardships and sufferings.
They also report how workers and peasants in China have resisted the Reform, and
the different ways by which they have fought back. Hart-Landsberg and
Burkett’s book and other studies listed in their references give us an overview
on the West’s (mostly the US) current debates on China’s Reform. These debates
are timely, because workers, peasants, and intellectuals in China have
themselves been actively engaging in similar debates. However, I do not agree
with Hart-Landsberg and Burkett on their view expressed in the “Historical
Context for Post-Mao Economic Reform” (27-30); this view is inaccurate and is
inconsistent with the rest of their analysis. The reasons Hart-Landsberg and
Burkett state in the “historical context” for the post-Mao Reform, are the very
same excuses that Deng and his supporters used to embark on their capitalist
restoration. If we were to agree with Hart-Landsberg and Burkett’s negative
evaluation of the socialist period (1949-1979), why would it even matter to
those on the Left, whether the current development in China is socialist or
capitalist? And more importantly, why would workers and peasants in China fight
so heroically in the last twenty-five years against the Reform that is designed
to deconstruct socialism? Capitalism, as it has
developed in China in the two and half decades, has its distinguished
characteristics and is a product of China’s past: – the long feudal history,
over a century of foreign domination that condemned China to a semi-feudal and
semi-colonial status - and the 1949 revolution. The radical changes in
post-revolution society and the legacy of Mao stand out as the most important
factors affecting China’s current development. It was the suffering endured and
struggle engaged by the Chinese people from 1840 on that made the revolution of
1949 a reality. It is the legacy of those years between 1949 and 1979 that has
played a determinate role in shaping China’s current development. Without an
understanding of this time period and the legacy it has left, it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to understand the current class struggle taking
place in China. China’s socialist past and Mao’s legacy makes its current
situation different from other less developed countries, and I believe it will
continue to have a dominant influence on its future development. While Hart-Landsberg and
Burkett contribute much to our understanding of China’s development in the past
two and half decades, I believe they are mistaken in their evaluation of China’s
past. In response, this essay will discuss the following: I) the origin of
Deng’s Reform-using labor reform as an example, II) Mao’s legacy, and III) the
relevance of China from the Left perspective. I) The
Origin of Deng’s Reform – the Case of Labor Reform Deng Xiaoping seized power
after Mao’s death and formally began his Reform after the Third Plenary Session
of the Eleventh Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in December of 1978.
When Hart-Landsberg and Burkett explain how Deng began the Reform and how the
capitalist restoration has continued for the past twenty-five years, they
searched for reasons beyond personal greed and explained that the capitalist
restoration, once started, generated “structural contradictions” that have kept
it going. We, of course, have to look for reasons other than personal greed to
explain the political, economic, and social development in China or in any other
countries; however, Hart-Landsberg and Burkett seemed to imply that the
Reformers did not have a clear idea about their Reform programs and that they
indeed have been “crossing the river by touching the stones” – a famous saying
of Deng Xiaoping and – and once the Reform got started it seemed to generate
enough contradictions to keep it going. However, if we look into
the history of struggle in China, we would reach a very different conclusion.
Deng’s Reform programs--the dismantling of the Commune, the privatizing of
state-owned enterprises, the Labor Reform, the opening up of the economy to
foreign investment, and many others--all have their origins long before 1979.
Deng and his predecessor and mentor, Liu Shaoqi, tried repeatedly to institute
these programs since the 1950’s. Therefore, contrary to what Deng openly said,
the Reform that began in 1979 not only had a clear direction but also a
well-planned road map. One example of this plan is
the history of the post 1979 Labor Reform that Hart-Landsberg and Burkett
documented. Contract Labor instituted in 1986 was part of the overall Labor
Reform that abolished the permanent employment system in State-owned
enterprises, and it has its origin in the 1950’s. My co-author and I wrote the
following in “Labor Reform - Mao vs. Liu – Deng” in 1993: ...The Labor Contract
System, implemented since the beginning of the Reform, did not originate with
the current reformers. As early as the 1950's Liu Shaoqi began advocating the
advantages of the Contract Labor System. An essay from the recently published
Labor Contract System Handbook revealed the history of Liu's attempts to
institute temporary contract workers in state owned factories.[ii]
The essay stated that in
1956, Liu sent a team to the Soviet Union to study their labor system. Upon its
return, the team proposed the adoption of the Contract Labor System modeled
after what the Soviet Union had adopted. However, when the changes were about to
take place, the Great Leap Forward started, thus interrupting its
implementation. The essay continued in stating that in the early 1960's Liu
again attempted to change the permanent employment status by adopting a
"two-track system," enterprises were to employ more temporary and fewer
permanent workers, and the mines were to employ peasants as temporary workers.
Then, in 1965, the State Council announced a new regulation on the employment of
temporary workers, indicating that, instead of permanent workers, more temporary
workers should be hired. The regulation also gave individual enterprises the
authority to use allocated wage funds to replace permanent workers with
temporary workers. Again, according to the author of this essay, the Cultural
Revolution interrupted Liu's effort to reform the labor system, and, in 1971,
large numbers of temporary workers were given permanent status. Although Liu
could not fully implement his labor reform, he had "experimental projects" going
on here and there, and before the Cultural Revolution began, large numbers of
temporary workers had been hired.[iii] The author of Labor
Contract System Handbook expressed his regrets that these earlier efforts to
institute labor reform failed, and he stated that if there had not been the
Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it would have been possible to
carry out these Labor Reform long before the current time. In fact, Liu-Deng and their
allies had a plan to develop capitalism in China since the 1950’s. The
afore-mentioned Labor Reform was only one of the many projects they prepared to
carry out. Their plan to develop capitalism in China before 1979 consisted of
projects to be implemented in every economic, political, social, and cultural
sphere. This short essay only allows a brief discussion of one of many projects.
The purpose of this discussion is to show the current class struggle in China so
carefully documented by Hart-Landsberg and Burkett has its origin. From what to
be discussed below, it is not difficult to understand from this one example of
Labor Reform how Deng’s Reform was diametrically opposed to that of Mao’s. That
was and is the precise reason for the past and current class struggles in China.
II. Mao’s
Legacy As Deng and his supporters
began their 1979 Reform, they denounced China’s mass movements in general and
the Cultural Revolution in particular. The Reformers attributed, though not
openly, what they called the “calamity” of the Cultural Revolution to Mao’s
declining years, implying that the aging Mao could no longer think clearly. At
that time, they were not yet questioning Mao’s many other contributions before
1966. As the Reform gathered steam in the 1980s, Deng and his supporters began
attacking the Great Leap Forward, the formation of Communes, as well as the 1956
transfer of ownership of the means of production in industries to the State.
Their attacks also included the permanent employment system in State-owned
enterprises. For awhile, the attack, though not openly, went as far back as the
Land Reform (1949-1953); therefore, limiting Mao’s contribution solely to his
role in winning the Chinese Revolution in 1949.[iv]
What has been most
interesting, however, is that while denouncing all the major achievements during
the socialist period, and eagerly demonstrating how they had hurt China’s
economic development, to this day, the Reformer have never been able to publicly
denounce Mao. The reason is that those who have hold power in China since the
Reform fully realize the prestige and admiration Mao has among the broad masses,
so they put him up on a pedestal while denounce everything he represents. Mao’s
portrait still hangs in the most prominent place in Tiananmen Square, in all
public offices, factories and schools. On the other hand, workers and peasants
have shown their genuine love and respect for Mao by hanging Mao’s portrait in
their homes. Recently, more and more people, including some lower level
government officials, are wearing Mao’s button to show their allegiance to Mao.[v]
So what exactly is Mao’s
legacy, and why has Mao become more popular today after two and half decades of
Reform? Why have the Reformers been so eager to denounce all mass movements,
particularly the Cultural Revolution? These questions can be
answered by going back to examine how class struggles played out in China before
1979. In the example shown above, Liu’s Labor Reform was blocked more than once
by the mass movements. In addition to mass movements, there were also other
positive steps taken to resist Liu’s effort to institute changes in employment
policies of State enterprises. Positive steps taken to reform the labor system
in State enterprises aimed at phasing out wage labor as the long-term goal when
eventually labor power would cease to be a commodity. Here again, in “Labor
Reform - Mao vs. Liu – Deng”: As opposed to Liu's
attempts to institute contract labor, the Anshan Constitution was the most
serious attempt made to change the organization of work and the labor process in
the work place. The workers of the Anshan Metallurgical Combine took the
initiative to lay out new rules to change the existing operation of their work
place. On March 22, 1960, Mao proclaimed that these new rules should be used as
guidelines for the operation of state enterprises, and named them the Anshan
Constitution. The Anshan Constitution contains the most fundamental elements as
well as concrete steps in revolutionizing work organization and the labor
process of state owned enterprises. There are five principles in the Anshan
Constitution: (1) put politics in command, (2) strengthen the party leadership,
(3) launch vigorous mass movement, (4) systematically promote the participation
of cadres in productive labor and of workers in management, and (5) reform any
unreasonable rules, assure close cooperation among workers, cadres, and
technicians, and energetically promote technical revolution.[vi]
The principles in the Anshan Constitution represent a spirit, which lead toward
the direction of eventually phasing out the wage labor.[vii] In the essay, we went on to
say that before the Cultural Revolution began, factories only paid lip service
to the Anshan Constitution. Management in State-owned factories did not see any
need to change and workers were rather passive; they were content with their
State endowed privileges and benefits and assumed that the conditions of their
employment were there to stay. In addition, we stated that the political
struggle within the Chinese Communist Party during this period over the
direction of the transition was reflected in the factory by changes in wage and
employment policies: At times, policies
issued from above pushed the implementation of the piece wage rate and expanded
the employment of temporary workers. Then, often during mass movements, these
policies were criticized and reversed. Before the Cultural Revolution, however,
workers did not comprehend the reasons behind these reversals of policies. They
were not aware that Liu had made numerous attempts to abolish permanent
employment status. Without the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution,
Liu and his supporters might have succeeded in their attempts to repeal the laws
that protected the state employees. If that had been the case, permanent
employment status and other benefits endowed to state employees might have
become history decades ago. When workers participated in the mass movements in
the 1950's and 60's, their class consciousness was gradually raised; but workers
did not realize, until the Cultural Revolution, that class struggle continued
after the judicial transfer of the ownership of the means of production to the
state. It was during the Cultural Revolution -- a period of intensive political
struggle in the factory and in society at large -- that many crucial issues were
raised.[viii] Workers and cadres openly
discussed and debated many other important issues relating to wages and benefits
and labor processes in factories, such as material incentives, cadres'
participation in production work, workers' participation in management, and what
constituted unreasonable rules and regulations. Through these debates, State
enterprise workers grasped the meaning of “putting politics in command” and
other principles in the Anshan Constitution. The kind of labor system a
socialist country adopts is only one of many major issues regarding the
direction and nature of a socialist vs. capitalist transition. Questions
regarding the transition’s direction existed before 1979 and they still exist in
all political, economic, social, and cultural spheres in China today. While this
short essay does not allow a more comprehensive overall analysis, we can
understand how programs in transition toward socialism are diametrically opposed
to programs in transition toward capitalism from the example of the labor
reform. Programs, or projects, in
transition toward socialism are completely different from the programs in
transition toward capitalism, as are the methods of implementing them. During
the socialist period, programs were carried out by mass line and often through
mass movements. The meaning of mass line is rather simple. It means involving
those who are directly affected by the program. When policies were formulated,
cadres were urged to talk to the masses, take surveys, or even live with them
for periods of time. When policies were implemented, cadres engaged the masses
in discussions, debates, campaigns, and protests. All major changes in China
during 1949-1979, including the Land Reform, were accomplished through mass
campaigns/movements. In the past, mass movements provided the only opportunity
for the masses to validate government policies. Policies so validated by the
masses had a better chance to succeed.[ix]
Clearly, however, there
were plenty of cases, when “mass line” in practice did not match the ideal
described. Instead of soliciting opinions and ideas from the masses, cadres
often saw themselves as carrying out orders from above. Whenever cadres failed
to follow the mass line, commandism and bureaucracy inevitably occurred.[x]
In the past, mass movement
was also a vehicle for the appropriation of new ideology. During Land Reform the
new appropriated ideology was: “It is wrong for landlords to take rent (the
product of the peasants’ labor) from the peasants. Rent is a form of
exploitation.” Using mass movements to appropriate new ideology helped turn the
logic of exploitation upside down and gave moral validity to policies that would
right past wrongs. It is not unlike what anti-war demonstrations have done in
the past three years to undo the logic of the US invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan and Iraq. The only difference is that the ideology appropriated
during China’s past mass movements came directly from the center of power while
the ideology of the anti-war demonstration came from the protesters themselves.
Critics charge that during mass movements, ideas were often imposed from the
top, and such ideas had little relevance to the problems and concerns of the
masses. It is a valid criticism in that workers and peasants oftentimes had a
difficult time grasping the meaning of ideas, if they were detached from their
reality, let alone adopting or owning them. This happened during the latter part
of the Cultural Revolution and possibly happened in other mass movements as
well. When it did happen, open discussion and debate disappeared and
indoctrination set in, discarding the practice of the “mass line”.[xi]
However, overall, mass
movements during 1949-78 politicized the Chinese population. One of the most
important legacies of Mao is that he believed that mass participation is the
only way to prevent the party bureaucrats from hijacking the transition and
turning it to capitalist without workers’ and peasants’ knowledge and
resistance. With the practice of initiating mass movements, Mao was able to
communicate his beliefs to the masses at large in the process. In contrast, all of the
Reform programs since 1979 were implemented by passing laws and issuing
decrees/regulations strictly from above. In the early stages of the Reform, the
Reformers introduced material incentives, such as piece wage rate and bonuses,
because Deng and other Reformers believed that material incentive would increase
competition among workers, thus promoting efficiency and productivity. Workers
in State enterprises, however, were very suspicious, because using piece wage
rate and bonuses to increase the pace and intensity of work were not new to
them. They decided to resist the piece wage rate and, instead of competing for
the bonuses, they shared this the extra pay more or less equally (allowing for
small differences based on seniority). They used the bonus money instead to
compensate for the loss of purchasing power due to inflation. Deng and other
Reformers could not, as long as the workers were able to resist, change the
culture of cooperation to the cultural of competition by simply issuing decrees
and passing laws from above. Workers knew enough not to take the bribe.
Obviously, the Reformers
would not dream of getting workers’ support through discussion and debates;
clearly the programs they wanted to implement would take away workers’ rights to
work, wages and benefits, and to make decisions about work rules and voice their
opinions in the factories. How could any worker be expected to support programs
that are designed to intensify their own exploitation and lower their political,
economic, and social status to that of wage labor? While workers and cadres
discussed and debated issues such as material incentives, employing temporary
workers, and the Anshan constitution in factories, in the countryside, commune
members discussed and debated other issues, such as breaking up the Communes by
contracting land to individual peasants. Through these discussions and debates,
major issues regarding the direction of the transition became clear. These
debates reflected the contradictions of the time, and those contradictions
reached a new height during the Cultural Revolution, when the class struggle
became fierce, resulting occasionally in fights and even violence. The transformation of
China's proletariat and peasants in the previous three decades before the
Reform, although still in its beginning stages, was significant. When the Reform
began, although workers and peasants did not have a good understanding of what a
full pledged capitalist restoration would be like, they did not face Deng’s
Reform with total ignorance. They understood the issues and were equipped with
the experiences accumulated from past struggles. The class struggles described
by Hart-Landsberg and Burkett, are in fact a continuation of the struggles of
the past. The Reformers have good reason to denounce all past mass movements and
prohibit any new ones from taking place. Deng and his supporters firmly believed
that the demonstrations in major cities all over China in the spring 1989 had to
be suppressed by any means necessary. The bloody suppression sent a chilling
message to those who thought that open demonstration, like mass movements of the
past, could be an avenue to express their frustrations and vent their anger.
As stated above, one of
Mao’s most important legacies is that through mass movements, people become
politicized. People of all walks of life had and still have much to say about
government polices. But China’s current regime has gathered tight control over
the press and other forms of mass media; unlike the past, where people could
freely express their opinions in big character posters (dazibao) the Chinese
people in the past two and half decades have not had means of open expression.[xii]
Without any means to openly express themselves, people have found ingenious ways
to let voices be heard. One popular method is making up verses and sayings and
circulating them privately. Most of these verses/sayings creatively speak the
minds of those who made them up, as well as those who pass them on so they can
be widely circulated. Some of them are very long and complex – here are two
short ones that have remained popular: On corrupted government
officials: “If you were to line up all the high level government officials and
shoot every other one you would still let many guilty ones go free.”
On smashing the iron
rice bowl: “Chairman Mao gave us a rice bowl, Deng Xiaoping drilled a hole in
it, the capitalists connected a siphoning tube to the hole, and Jiang Zemin
shattered the bowl into pieces.” When Deng said that the
Reformers were “crossing the river by touching the stones,” he tried to impress
on those who clearly remembered Deng’s line in the past, and how it had been
criticized. It seemed to be a deliberate effort on Deng’s part to imply that the
Reformers did not have a set of well thought out programs to implement. Thus,
there was no need for people to be alarmed. Another saying of Deng’s is “It
doesn’t matter whether the cat is black of white. If it catches mice, it’s a
good cat.” The black cat vs. white cat saying sent the message that politics
does not really matter what's important is that the Reform will develop the
productive forces and raise people’ standard of living. The Reformers used these
sayings as a ploy to deemphasize “politics in command” and “class struggle is
the key link”. At the same time, they have carried out the fiercest whole scale
class struggle against the workers and peasants. I think it is rather
interesting to observe how the Left in the United States in recent years has
tried many ways to politicize the general public without much success, while the
current regime in China has tried their best to de-politicize the Chinese
population – their efforts have not been very successful either. III. The
Relevance of China from the Left Perspective. The representatives of
international monopoly capital obviously think China is relevant. They set China
up as, in the words of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett, their “poster country” for
good reasons. In an era of global crisis and economic stagnation, China has
become one country where the economic growth rates have stayed high.
Multinational corporations have profited from China by investing their surplus
capital and exploiting its cheap labor. Deng’s Reform to open up China to
foreign goods and investments, and China further liberalizing its economy since
its accession into the WTO, came at an opportune time for global monopoly
capital. They seized the time to expand to this large piece of virgin land and
into what they see as a gargantuan market for their surplus products.
Moreover, the development
in China in the past two and half decades has been relevant ideologically to the
representatives of the global capital and the ruling class in imperialist
countries. The scholars on the Right regard China as one more piece of evidence
in their argument that capitalism has won and that history has indeed come to an
end. They argue that China abandoned socialism and embraced capitalism to save
itself from its turbulent past that left its economy in ruins. Since the Right
conveniently possesses the power to interpret freedom and democracy, they have
further asserted that capitalism will eventually bring freedom and democracy to
the Chinese people. The question then is: Why
should China be relevant to the Left? After China was on its way
to restore capitalism and the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries
collapsed, many on the Left lost their confidence that socialism would one day
replace capitalism. The Right, on the other hand, had a well-planned strategy to
aggressively attack and discredit socialism and proclaimed the triumph of
capitalism at a moment when capitalism itself was in deep crisis. In the West,
most on the Left had a difficult time defending those former socialist
countries; they also had trouble explaining why attempts to institute socialism
ended so disastrously. Some on the Left, however, did offer some explanations.
In May 1998 the Monthly
Review published a special issue commemorating the 150 year anniversary of the
Communist Manifesto, which included an article written by Ellen Meiksins Wood
--“The Communist Manifesto After 150 Years.”[xiii]
In her article Wood returned to Marx’s manifesto to explain the historic
“failures” of socialism. She said, “...[W]e should not underestimate the
significance of his [Marx’s] assumption that a socialist revolution would be
most likely to succeed in the context of a more advanced capitalism. In that
sense, it could be argued that the ultimate failure of the Russian revolution,
which occurred in the absence of those preconditions, fulfilled his predictions
all too well”[xiv].
(Note: Three of us disagreed with her analysis and conclusions and we responded
by writing a letter to the Monthly Review editors. I am integrating portions of
that letter below.) Wood’s article represented
a good number of people on the Left, who were at a loss to defend the former
socialist countries. Since they felt defenseless from the vicious attacks of the
Right, they tried to disassociate and unburden themselves from the histories and
realities of those countries. In making that choice, they also disassociated
themselves from the heroic struggles of the Russian people in winning the
revolution, the liberation of Russian people after the revolution, and the
achievements made in the early decades of the Soviet Union. They relieved
themselves of the burden of explaining or understanding how and why so called
communist leaders betrayed the revolution, why a country that began with such
great hopes, degenerated into the conditions that we all witnessed, until its
final collapse. Wood chose to explain the
failure of socialism by asserting that the former socialist countries did not
meet what she called “Marx’s prerequisites for a transition from capitalism to
socialism...” – an assertion with some rather serious implications. One of these
implications is that all former attempts to develop socialism were doomed to
fail from the beginning, because those countries did not meet the prerequisites
set forth by Marx. It’s unfortunate then, that people in the past did not
understand Marx’s prerequisites, and as a consequence sacrificed their lives for
an unattainable goal. It also implies that oppressed people living in less
developed countries today, would do well to learn from the mistakes made by
revolutionaries in the past and not to engage in any revolutionary struggles
lest they repeat them. If we were to believe her analysis and conclusions, then
this argument would have the same impact as arguments made by the Right, who
debunk Marxism and socialism as utopian dreams. We responded in our letter:
What Marx did not
foresee was the emergence of imperialism. Its dominance changed the landscape…
For the most part, imperialism does not develop the productive forces in its
“client” countries. In countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand,
and Mexico (to name a few), there is no illusion that the exploitation of their
labor forces and natural resources will lead to any kind of advanced capitalist
development. They are merely pools of disposable workers for low skill, low pay
jobs in factories and in fertile fields that agribusiness seized and converted
from sustainable agriculture to huge cash crops. The factories manufacture goods
and the plantations grow food for export that the native people cannot use or
afford. They are environmental dumping grounds that are destroying the land,
water, and air. Marx’s prediction about capitalism developing productive forces
can only be taken in context of the time in which he wrote, and reexamined in
the context of the world today. But, as it is laid out in the context of his
other work, culminating in his masterpiece Das Capital, his overall analysis of
capitalism is still dead on.
[xv] Why then, did the Soviet
Union collapse? Why is China restoring capitalism? These are heavy questions,
ones that require further study of concrete history. The lack of advanced
capitalist development in those countries may well have been a factor. It is
not, however, the only nor most important one. It is of the utmost important for
the Left to study and to analyze the reasons behind the failures to attempt to
build socialism. The Left in China are already engaged in analyzing why a system
that benefited so many people could be so “peacefully” transformed. If the Left in the West
indeed believes that the development of productive forces is the precondition
for socialism, what should the Left tell people in the less developed world, who
have suffered even more severely in the past two and half decades, when
imperialist countries with the help of international financial and trade
organizations, shifted the burden of global crisis to them through so called
globalization? Should the Left in the West tell them not to move forward, even
when the conditions for revolution already exist? Should they hold off any
actions because according to Marx they have not yet met the preconditions for
socialist transition, and so they should wait for their brothers and sisters in
the advanced countries to take the lead? Later we were encouraged to
read Harry Magdoff write -- “A Note on the Communist Manifesto” in the same
issue: ...in view of the way
capitalism has spread throughout the world... it is essential that the vision of
socialism focus on a social transformation which will put first and foremost:
the empowerment and meeting the basic human needs of the poorest, the most
oppressed, and disadvantaged.[xvi] The Chinese people, before
the 1949 revolution were among the poorest, the most oppressed, and
disadvantaged. Chinese peasants suffered thousands of years under the cruel land
tenure system of feudalism, that entitled landlords to take all (if not more) of
the agricultural surpluses through exorbitant rent on their land and usury
interests on their loans. In more recent history, the Chinese people suffered
more than one hundred years of war imposed upon them by imperialist aggressors.
The 1911 revolution, led by the bourgeoisie, did not terminate the land tenure
system, nor did it lead to any economic development. China remained weak and
defenseless against foreign aggression. The founding of the Chinese Communist
Party in 1921 brought hope to the China. The Chinese people, under the
leadership of CCP in a coalition with the Kuomingtang (KMT), fought eight long
years against Japanese invasion and occupation and finally won the war against
Japan in 1945. In June 1945, on the eve of
the victory against Japan, Mao wrote “The Foolish Old Man who Moved the
Mountains.” He used an old Chinese folklore as a metaphor, showing the Chinese
people that the two big mountains blocking their way and pressing down upon them
were imperialism and feudalism. He urged the Chinese people to learn from the
foolish old man who proved that he could move the two mountains, one shovelful
at a time, to work as diligently to dig their way out from under the oppression
of these two big mountains.[xvii]
In the next four years, the
Chinese people, under the leadership of the CCP, won the revolution. And during
the 30 years of socialist construction that followed, China was able to achieve
rapid development in agriculture, industry, transport, and construction. The
annual growth rate for agriculture, industry and transport, and construction
grew at the average rates of 3.4%, 9.4% and 10.7%, respectively during the
period of 1952 and 1978.[xviii]
China was able to develop
both its heavy and light industries and lay the foundation for long-term and
sustainable growth. It achieved in those thirty years, a balanced growth between
industry and agriculture, so that the peasants’ standard of living in the
countryside, though still behind urban residents, improved, narrowing the gap
between the two. The peasants worked extremely hard to build the foundation of
agriculture, including irrigation and drainage systems, basic infrastructure
such as roads and bridges, and land conservation and improvement. The State also
gradually reduced agricultural taxes, improving the terms of trade in favor of
the agricultural sector, and increased State investment in large agricultural
infrastructure, such as the Red Flag Canal and Yellow River Project among many
others. One of the most important
accomplishments in those 30 years, was that by the end of the 1970’s, even
though China was still a poor country, it was able to raise the welfare of its
population at large. In that relatively short span of time, indicators such as
life expectancy, infant mortality, nutrition levels, and literacy rates in
China, were closer to those of developed countries than of the underdeveloped
countries.[xix]
China was able to make those accomplishments in the most unfavorable and hostile
international environment. China developed its economy by relying on its
internal savings, without any outside help.[xx]
During those years, China was under an economic embargo by the United States and
other Western countries. Moreover, China had to spend a lot of its scarce
resources to build its military defenses, as it faced constant military threats
during the twenty years between the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Some may argue that the
China has achieved even higher rates of economic growth in the post-Reform
years.xxi In addition to the question of who has actually benefited from the
high rates of growth, China’s current development is unsustainable. The high
rates of growth, on the one hand, were generated by large sums of foreign
investment, in the magnitude of $50 billion a year, for the past few years.
Foreign investment coupled with government investment in infrastructure,
buildings and industries has been used to combat recession in the few years
after 1998 and has created excess capacity of over 90% of China’s industries.[xxii]
[xxiii] In 1995 excess capacity for bicycles, color TV’s, washing machines,
and air-conditioners, was 45%, 54%, 57% and 70%, respectively. Moreover, China’s
overwhelming dependence on exports for growth can no longer continue. European
Union and Japanese economies are stagnated and US trade deficits (one third of
which is with China), which have been financed entirely by external borrowing,
has reached an alarming level; China’s exports will soon run out of places to
go. China’s financial institutions, heavily burdened by bad debts, are very
fragile and will have to face increasing competition from foreign banks in
China. The real estate bubble in China’s big cities looks increasingly like
those experienced by the Southeast Asia countries in the late 1990s. Even some
mainstream economists agree that the crisis is China is inevitable. Hart-Landsberg and Burkett
accurately stated that China’s development since the Reform cannot serve as a
model for other less developed countries. The crisis when it does occur in China
will further destroy the myth that in the long run a country can depend on
export to develop its economy. However, China’s revolutionary victory against
imperialism and the socialist development in the thirty years that followed,
served and still serves as a model of development for other Third World
countries. The Chinese people under Mao’s leadership did remove the two big
mountains pressing down on them, and in the process they empowered themselves.
Workers who have been laid-off or forced into retirement in China today still
say with full knowledge and confidence, “We built this country. We have a
glorious past. No one can deny that.” For these reasons China’s socialist
development is relevant to the poorest, the most oppressed, and disadvantaged
people of the world and, therefore, should be relevant to the Left. In conclusion, Deng’s
Reform programs implemented since 1979 have their origins in the previous
socialist period. The legacies from the socialist period have not only shaped
China’s current development – they will continue to play a dominant role in
China’s future, as well as the futures of many other countries, where the
poorest, most oppressed and disadvantaged people are engaging in their struggles
against imperialism and capitalism. It has been in Marx’s name and with Marx’s
teaching, the workers and peasants in China and elsewhere brought about and will
continue to bring great changes and progress. It is their achievements that have
made the Communist Manifesto worth celebrating after 157 years. As Mao said,
“The road has many twists and turns but the future is bright.” =============
[i] Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul
Burkett, China & Socialism -- Market Reforms and Class Struggle, Monthly Review
Press, 2005, first published in Monthly Review, July-August 2004.
[ii] "The History of Our Contract Labor.
System" in Labor Contract System Handbook edited by Liu Chiang-tan, Science
Publisher, 1987, pp. 1-18.
[iii] D. Y. Hsu and P. Y. Ching, “Labor
Reform : Mao vs. Liu-Deng,” in Mao Zedong Thought Lives, Vol. I, Center for
Social Studies & New Road Publications, 1995, pp. 189-190.
[iv] Some pro Reform scholars in the
West quickly supported this unofficial view held by the Reformers One good
example is: Chinese Village, Socialist State,(Yale University Press, 1991)
written by Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz, Mark Seldon and Kay Johnson.
[v] Taxi drivers have for a long time
have displayed Mao’s photo on their rear view mirrors as good luck charms. The
more recent wearing Mao’s button seems to be more political indicating that
people want to show that they are taking a pro Mao stand. In addition,
revolutionary songs and films including the ones from the period of the Cultural
Revolution have also become popular.
[vi] See Charles Bettelheim, Cultural
Revolution and Industrial Organization in China, Monthly Review Press, 1974.
[vii] D. Y. Hsu and P.Y. Ching, “Labor
Reform: Mao vs. Liu-Deng,” in Mao Zedong Thought Lives, Vol. I, Center for
Social Studies & New Road Publications, 1995, p. 190.
[viii] Ibid., p.191.
[ix] D. Y. Hsu and P.Y. Ching, “Mass
Movement” Mao’s Socialist Strategy for Change.” in Mao Zedong Thought Lives,
Vol. I, Center for Social Studies & New Road Publications, 1995.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] When the Reformer amended the
Chinese Constitution in 1979 to abolish workers’ right to strike they also
abolished peoples’ right to freedom of expression, namely the four da’s: daming,
dafang, dabianlun, and dazebao (big openness, big voice, big debates, and big
character posters.)
[xiii] Ellen Meiksins Wood, “The
Communist Manifesto After 150 Years”, Monthly Review, May 1998, pp. 14-35.
[xiv] Ibid., 29.
[xv] Dao-yuan Chou, Fred Engst, and
Pao-yu Ching, Response to Ellen Meiksins Wood’s article “The Communist Manifesto
After 150 Years,” Monthly Review, May 1998, pp. 14-35.
[xvi] Harry Magdoff, “A Note on the
Communist Manifesto,” Monthly Review, May 1998, p.13.
[xvii] Mao Zedong, “The Foolish Old Man
who Moved the Mountains,” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Peoples’ Publishing
Co., 1964, pp. 1101-1104. Another version of “the Foolish Old Man who removed he
mountains has three mountains and the third one was bureaucratic capitalism.
[xviii] Thomas Rawski, Economic Growth
and Employment in China, Oxford University Press, 1979.
[xix] Sidel, Ruth and Victor W. Sidel,
The Health of China, Beacon Press, 1982.
[xx] Soviet Union pulled back its
original aid projects after the ideological disputes between China and the
Soviet Union began. China had since paid back all loans extended by the Soviet
Union.
[xxi] According to some estimates, the
official rates of growth posted by Chinese officials are overstated. The World
Bank estimated that the real rate of growth between 1978 and 1995 was 1.2% below
the official figure. Research published by OECD estimated China’s growth rate in
1986-1994 was only 6%. See Nicholas R. Lardy, Integrating China into the Global
Economy, (Brookings Institution Press, 2002) pp. 11-15 for further discussion.
[xxii] New York Times Magazine, July 4,
2004, p. 30.
[xxiii] China’s Industrial Development
Report, 2003, p. 27. © 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Posted by Bulatlat
Any evaluation of the Cultural Revolution must be grounded in this reality. If
the Cultural Revolution had not taken place, Liu-Deng and their supporters would
have been able to carry out their capitalist programs in the 1960’s instead of
the 1980’s. Attempt to evaluate the Cultural Revolution without recognizing the
fierce struggle at that juncture of China’s post revolution society would
mistakenly lead us to the Right’s assertion, that it was a political move by Mao
based on a personal vendetta against his opponents in the Chinese Party out of
sheer madness and desperation. An increasing number of people in China are now
rejecting the authority’s interpretation of the Cultural Revolution, and many
have come to understand that, although the Cultural Revolution had its excesses
and mistakes (all of which require careful investigation) it was, as Mao said
and now many in China have come to agree, a practice or an exercise to prepare
for the real struggle that was to come.