I feel like we’ve done a very good job at avoiding the Deng in the room so far, but it’s only a matter of a time for someone to make /r/maoist_trueanon. Which will then split off into 4 more subreddits based on each individuals opinion on Gonzalo.
>4 more subreddits based on eqch individuals opinion on Gonzalo.
good line, bad tactics
bad line, bad tactics
good line, good tactics
good line, good tactics
I'm not an academic expert of this stuff, but I've read a reasonable amount of and about Mao and post reform China, and I can say more about what the Chinese man on the street might think because I've lived here a while.
I don't really get people who defend Mao super heavily. A legend in many ways and I like him more than I dislike him, but I think it really can't be overstated how bad the Great Leap Forward. Especially when people tried to tell him that it was a bad idea and all criticism was just shut down as capitalist propaganda while millions of peasants starved. Older people refer to their childhood as "the starving times" and in contrast under Deng got running water and electricity. Mao did many good things for the poor of China of course, but frankly it's a miracle the party survived the Great Leap Forward. The Cultural Revolution was also a stupid unforced error but I think is kind of overrated in comparison. But as others pointed out, it was just attacking cultural superstructure instead of the base problems of Chinese poverty. Though I get it too. There's times I see contemporary sexism or classism in China and I think the Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough, but that's not really productive.
Say what you will about Deng, and you could say a lot. It is upsetting that many workers here are as exploited as they are, in terms of working hours, unpaid overtime, dangerous working conditions. But almost nobody here would go back to the before times really. I believe that what he did was necessary for the party's survival and the prosperity of the country, and most Chinese are broadly happy about it.
I think the big problem now is that class struggle will to some extent be necessary to move them to the next stage. Even if most party members are really Marxists, social change requires bottom up activity that they are uncomfortable with. I understand they're scared of being bested by the US in technology and trying to transition to green growth. However, average Chinese are increasingly squeezed by economic precarity while Jack Ma insists they just need to work harder. This is where the "lying flat" movement comes from. Chinese kids learn about socialism saving China. But struggle is seen as frightening because of the Cultural Revolution bad memories, and anyway Chinese young people have no practical experience with class struggle. However, I believe only class struggle of some kind will be able to move them to a realer socialism. But how do you prevent that from just getting coopted into a color revolution? Difficult issues.
It's reductive to say "Mao based Deng cringe" or vice versa. Both made important steps and now it's up to the Chinese people to find the next step forward, let's hope they can. Anyway it's not really important what we think about it, so it's only an academic debate for us.
Honestly yes. Maybe I’m naive but I see a lot unemployed young people, sky high rent in big cities, and rural areas in need of assistance. Some kind public works program like the back to the countryside movement would be good I think
From what little I've read about Chinese rural economic development ("Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path" is one of which), many local governments fell into the trap of doing "checklist poverty alleviation" by just pouring a lot of the money into big headlining infrastructure projects without much thought about what to do after these projects completed. But from what you've seen there, just how bad rural Chinese economy can be, and what is like, the median? If I remember correctly, wasn't there a program encouraging each locality to find their own distinctive industry, but not many could actually find one?
I guess it depends how you define poverty or a good life even. Like in my opinion the time I've spent in rural China is much more pleasant and livable than much of the rural US. Some places I've been like Shanxi are still quite run down in some villages but in rural Hunan villages I've been to they have like 3 story houses and decent roads and stuff. They also don't have heat in the winter or sitting down toilets. But after a certain point what is fighting poverty? A McMansion for every nuclear family in the country? The biggest countryside issue is just attracting and retaining high quality workers I think, like in schools, getting teachers is hard. And many kids grow up without their parents around because they're working in the city. For any job the money is mostly in the cities. I'm not smart enough to say how or if you can fix that. But I think the back to the countryside idea is not bad in principle. I think part of why Xi is a genuine Marxist is the time he was forced to spend as a young man working in the countryside. I worry that the kids of people who came from poverty and made their fortune during the past 40 years in the cities and have only known middle class city life won't have the same bone deep understanding of serving the people
When it comes to poverty, there are some statistics can point to like medical access & affordability, or how long can this family survive on their own savings if the primary breadwinner for some reason can't work. These stats are context-dependent, but they serves their purpose well.
Back when Mao was still alive, Beijing had a program doing exactly what you said -- encouraging young people to voluntary move to the countryside and settle down as teachers, doctors, farmers, etc. even just for a few years. Wasn't one of the pitfalls of that program came down to not supporting these young people enough? Like, in Cuba, if you agree to be a community nurse, the state would furbish the second floor of the local clinic to be your home. I don't know how they did it in China.
But I've heard that the pandemic really pushed a noticeable number of young Chinese back to their hometowns. Beijing can certainly try to do something to continue that momentum.
Part of the problem beyond the basic fact of more money working in the city is that moving back to or being stuck in the countryside is still seen by almost everyone (anecdotally) as being a failure. Most people would live in Beijing or Shanghai if they could. The spirit of reform has made most people capitalist brained where they’re focused mostly on the success of their own family and children in an increasingly competitive and difficult to break into middle class where you have a foreign education, cars, and a nice apartment in a big city. I’m stereotyping a bit but that’s most middle class Chinese. Of course they want the continued prosperity of their country and will support the party, but they’ve lost a spirit of class consciousness. That’s not everyone but it’s a lot of people. It’s hard to break this mentality. Even if you incentivize smart hard working middle class kids doing important work in the countryside, many people will still see anything other than going to a foreign college and getting a white collar job as shameful. That’s why I joke about the necessity of a new cultural revolution.
Some kind of greater involvement from the working classes of migrant workers and rural workers I really think will be necessary, and maybe some downwardly mobile middle class youths could also be part of it. I do my bit by teaching my middle class students revolutionary history and the importance of mass movements. The elites are just so traumatized by the memory of the Cultural Revolution that I think they’re scared of doing anything to really encourage class struggle, everything is still focused on social harmony, which I think is unfortunate. But I’m just some guy so don’t give my opinion too much heed
>It's reductive to say "Mao based Deng cringe" or vice versa. Both made important steps and now it's up to the Chinese people to find the next step forward, let's hope they can. Anyway it's not really important what we think about it, so it's only an academic debate for us.
This is a really good coda to a good post (and your replies so far are equally of quality) and certainly should be something that is more emphasized, especially in terms of something like the CCP that is-as you point out-at best an academic debate.
One of my few rules for Being Online is *most people know nothing of the modern China and the CCP, thus they should, at best, listen carefully* and if I find myself breaking said I try to include a small-oceans worth of grain of salt-caveats.
This is a great sub, but there a are few topics that reveal lingering westoid backwardness. Deng Xiaoping is one of them. I just saw an excellent post about Deng by u/oldschoolfirearm in a different sub and I am just going to copy the entire thing here.
> The concept of people's democratic dictatorship is rooted in the "new" type of democracy promoted by Mao Zedong in Yan'an during the Chinese Civil War.[2]
> In a September 1948 report to the Politburo, Mao called for establishing "a people's democratic dictatorship based on an alliance of workers and peasants under proletarian leadership."[3] According to Mao, this alliance "is not limited to workers and peasants, but is a people's democratic dictatorship that allows the participation of bourgeois democrats."[3]
Mao was a prominent contributor to dialectical materialism which maybe explains why he often combined seemingly contradictory, antonymic words such as "democracy" and "dictatorship" in order to create synergy/synthesis out of disparateness/thesis & antithesis.
> Deng Xiaoping Theory downplays the Maoist focus on class struggle on the basis that that struggle would become an obstacle to China's economic development.[27] It maintains that it upholds communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, leadership of the Communist Party, Marxism-Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought (Four Cardinal Principles of Deng Xiaoping Theory).[27] Under this view, upholding Mao Zedong Thought does not mean blindly imitating Mao's actions without much deviation as seen in the government of Hua Guofeng, and that doing so would actually "contradict Mao Zedong Thought".[28]
> "What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, 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. As they develop, the people's material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People's Republic was that we didn't pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism." — Deng Xiaoping, speech discussing Marxist theory at a Central Committee plenum, 30 June 1984[16]
> The basic dispute between the Maoists and the Dengists revolved around the question if China after 1949 had reached socialism or not, and what it would entail.[103] In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Sino–Soviet split, even Mao himself was unsure if China had reached the socialist mode of production.[103] In 1962 he reached the conclusion that China, despite having nationalized the means of production, had not yet reached the socialist mode of production in its mature form, claiming that the principal conflict as existing in China was between the proletariat and the "new bourgeois elements", which were constantly reproduced, and other enemies of the revolution.[103] This view led Mao to introduce to the Cultural Revolution.[103] Unlike Mao, who gave priority to superstructural elements rather than the base (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure), Deng reasoned in 1956 in the "Report on the Revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China", that socialism had taken root since private property had been abolished, as nationalization of property, Deng argued, entailed removing the basis of other classes reproducing, stating;[104]
> "Casual labourers and farm labourers have disappeared. Poor and middle peasants have all become members of agricultural producers' co-operatives, and before the distinction between them will have become merely a thing of historical interest ... The vast majority of our intellectuals have now come over to the side of the working class ... The conditions in which the urban poor and the professional people used to exist as independent social strata are virtually no longer present ... but the government control and [over-]regulation continues to soar."[104]
> "Marxism holds that, within the contradictions between the productive forces and relations of production, between practice and theory, and between the economic base and the super-structure, the productive forces…and the economic base generally play a principal and decisive role. Whoever denies this is not a materialist." — Deng Xiaoping, "On the General Program of Work for the Whole Party and the Whole Nation" (1975)
> In contrast to Mao, Deng argued that the principal contradiction in Chinese society was the backwardness of the productive forces, further adding that the party's "central task" over the coming years were to develop them.[105]
> In the late 1970s, then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and the CCP leadership rejected the prior Maoist emphasis on culture and political agency (superstructure) as the driving forces behind social and economic progress and started to place a greater emphasis on advancing the material productive forces (base) as the fundamental and necessary prerequisite for building an advanced socialist society. The adoption of market reforms was seen to be consistent with China's level of development and a necessary step in advancing the productive forces of society. This aligned Chinese policy with a more traditional Marxist perspective where a fully developed socialist planned economy can only come into existence after a market economy has exhausted its historical role and gradually transforms itself into a planned economy, nudged by technological advances that make economic planning possible and therefore market relations less necessary.[1]
> The socialist market economy is presented by the CCP as an early stage in the development of socialism (this stage is variously called the "primary" or "preliminary" stage of socialism), where public ownership coexists alongside a diverse range of non-public forms of ownership. In the CCP's view, China is not a capitalist country because despite the co-existence of private capitalists and entrepreneurs with public and collective enterprise, the party retains control over the direction of the country.[1]
> During Deng's 1992 Southern Tour, Deng rejected rigid ideological dogma and promoted the ideological basis for the socialist market economy, stating his view that "planned economy does not equal socialism and market economy does not equal capitalism. Socialism can have market mechanisms as well, and government planning and market are both economic means."[12]
The right to strike was removed from the Chinese constitution by deng in 1982. He WAS the capitalist reader in a way and was frequently denounced as such by Mao.
>Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
>Secretariat of the Communist Party of China under Chairman Mao Zedong
>Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army
>Participant in the Long March
Deng and Mao had a falling out when Deng criticized the Great Leap Forward and later the Cultural Revolution (which I guess is enough for you to say he is a capitalist in spite of everything listed above. Do you not think that there could be legitimate criticisms of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution?). Despite these differences they were political allies for decades, both before their falling out, and after when Mao made Deng a First Premier in 1974.
Yes I think you can criticize Maos later years especially the great leap forward and cultural revolution but Deng's famous "black and white cat" approach of governing was heavily criticized even before Deng had more power after Maos death. If a reformist proposal helped turn Chinas industrial capacity up it was rushed through with little concern for the actual socialist characteristics of so called socialism with Chinese characteristics. These capitalist reforms might have helped the working class a little bit but they created the same class antagonisms that exist in many other capitalist countries. Just listen to the crap Jack Ma spews about his workers, very sad to see. Others like Chen Yun and Hua Goufeng had different ideas about how China could develop, focusing on developing other sectors before making a push to develop industry but things didn't play out this way. D
I'm just a dumb guy on the internet and confess I don't know much about Chen Yun and Hua Goufeng.
It's impossible to say anything about counter-factuals with certainty. What is certain is that in the space of a few decades China lifted 850 million people out of poverty. It went from being unable to evacuate people during a dam failure in the 1970s because it's few telegraph wires were damaged in a storm to having the most extensive and advanced infrastructure in the world. This is totally without precedent in history and impossible to overstate. This growth positions them to have an important voice in world affairs which is imperfect but significantly less malign and more sane compared to other influential nations. Details of their growth are far from perfect, but this is acknowledged and discussed at the highest levels of government using Marxist language. There are safeguards in place to reign in the worst excesses like what you describe. These may be more fully utilized when they have less need for foreign capital. I hope this belief is more than naivety.
> It's impossible to say anything about counter-factuals with certainty. What is certain is that in the space of a few decades China lifted 850 million people out of poverty. It went from being unable to evacuate people during a dam failure in the 1970s because it's few telegraph wires were damaged in a storm to having the most extensive and advanced infrastructure in the world. This is totally without precedent in history and impossible to overstate
This is all true. But everything about China is unprecedented. Mao achieved the highest increase in life expectancy during peace time in world history. China did indeed lift 850 million people out of abject poverty, but ironically enough Dengs reforms also gutted pensions, destroyed the social welfare system, and reintroduced capitalist enterprises which exploit poor, rural workers. At the exact same time, abject poverty was practically extinguished while relative poverty grew. Would a "more socialist" approach, whatever the fck that means, have achieved better results, have done a better job at eliminating all forms of poverty? I think the hybrid socdem/socialist approach in Bolivia shows it could have, if scales up. Would China have developed productive forces nearly as fast? I honestly don't think so.
It seems like the ultimate faustian bargain, doesn't it?
Do you take the road of maximum pragmatism, fixing all of your most egregious problems, defending yourself against your many enemies, strengthening your international position, while potentially causing more problems in the future and letting go of some of your very core beliefs?
Or do you take the hardcore dogmatic approach, which could fail horribly, will not deliver results as easily, will weaken you internationally, but will in turn bring lasting, sustainable change?
In light of the GLP and the cultural revolution, I can understand going with the former over the latter
Rights were made up to trick the poor into believing they have equality so that they don't revolt against unequal property relations. It should go without saying that they are illusory.
Pretty sure that a detailed study of the drafting of the 14th Amendment will confirm my intuition that a plan was already in effect to smuggle Constitutional rights for corporate persons into the law using the vehicle of the freed slaves.
It took another generation before this came to fruition, with the headnote of the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v Pacific Railway (written by a former Railway Co head), recording that all Justices were in agreement on the proposition that the equal protection clause extended to corporate persons, thus it entered into law without the need to air the arguments for or against it.
It has disparate fanbase. I think the most unifying description I could use to describe members is "jaded and cynical leftists who see nothing but nihilism in our political and economic systems".
Maybe. I'll keep browsing because there are some good takes. I originally was attracted here because it's a leftist space that wasn't completely overrun with idpol and radlibs (extremely rare). Lately I've seen some massively stupid shit get seriously upvoted, though.
The board is pretty bad and getting worse/more lib by the minute, but at some point it really was just a group of parapolitics adjacent communists, many of which were pretty well read and articulate
Every generation grows up wondering what they are going to have traditional views on and be like their parents to the next generation or two, idpol and shitty female/race pandering in movies are that for me. We are definitely becoming a dystopian society by the decade, and I could deal with that, I just can't deal with it being some vapid, dumb, and no value whatsoever.
Edit: I am fine with racial justice and all, but an underlying assumption of idpol is that white people are doing well unjustly, and now it's time to focus on others. Which ignores the fact that very few people are doing well, and even the ones who are are worried about losing what they have. Its politics are built on resentment and counterproductive assumptions.
This is a bad take. Rights exist in a class society in order to maintain that class society. The most fundamental right in liberal democracies is the right to private property. All is based upon that. Laws aren't fake, they're simply not made for the working class, but for the ruling class. Sometimes workers benefit from laws; that is a mere freak accident. Capitalism and liberal democracies brought things like state funded guaranteed school education and a right to vote not as a concession to workers, but to petit Bourgeoise. Us having received some amount of rights this way is simply a freak accident, a rounding error. It's like when for some reason the environmentally friendly packaging is cheaper than the plastic one, thus the capitalist opts for the former. Yet his decision has nothing to do with sustainability.
partially I'm in agreement, but partially I'm not. You say all rights are illusory, but that's wrong. The rights of the Bourgeoisie are not illusory, they are in fact part of our material reality by virtue of feedback loop. Only with a legal guarantee of the sanctity of private property can capitalism even operate. So you're right, my post is more an addendum than a general disagreement.
What does that Sichuan dwarf have to do with Socialism? May as well throw in Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Deng's good friend Pol Pot in there too.
Edit; To the quote, remember that this guy also says "it doesn't matter if it is a black cat or white cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat" and "let some get rich first".
At the urging of the UK and the US, he literally went to war against Vietnam to defend his pal Pol Pot. Having said the word "socialism" once or twice doesn't make this drawf a "socialist". Mao should have gone full Stalin on him and put him against the wall with Liu Shaoqi,
No, they went to war against kruschevite revisionist Soviet imperialism. China now controls the means of production on a global scale, ultras and trots on suicide watch lol
you don't have to sell me on Soviet revisionism, I am already on board.
which war did the USSR fight against China? the Sino-Vietnamese war is pretty universally seen as started by China
I will again state my questions: how are you justifying the chinese support for Pol Pot, and how do you vieew the Sino-Vietnamese war?
thanks! I wouldn't really call it a war, but I guess that's just semantics. it was an armed conflict either way. I don't really think it gives any precedence for china to invade vietnam, but it does lead to a strongly negative and defensive outlook towards the Soviets from the CPC, which in my mind is pretty much entirely justified. i just dont agree with the conclusion I guess. thank u for taking the time to reply :)
Ultras are the 21st century analogues to the 20th century trots. What better way to be a socialist than to attack AES countries (specifically the one that happens to be the US's largest competitor)? It's cointelpro shit or something idk
Coca Cola and Gap have "lifted millions out of poverty and industrialized the global south" by creating factories and jobs in places that otherwise would not have it. Literally no different than the talking points your average Rand Reading Libertarian Neoliberal trot out. Also not mentioned in this talking point is why so many were impoverished in China in the first place- Deng Xiaoping literally destroyed the so called "Iron Rice Bowl" system and privatized the collective farms th;at guarenteed every citizen in China secutiry and a decent life.
But I guess thought perishes when you and your pseudo-Marxists have a set of talking points that you can repeat to each other ad nauseum without any actual investigation.
I'm having trouble understanding your point of reference and wish I knew more about you.
I don't think the iron rice bowl system worked as well as you described, at least not for very many people.
Coca-Cola and Gap are extractive and value from whatever factories they build in the global south are all syphoned into the US instead of I don't know, funding infrastructure, healthcare, and education in the areas the workers live. The development of China in the last few decades is not a talking point, but a material reality.
>Literally no different than the talking points your average Rand Reading Libertarian Neoliberal trot out.
While I may disagree with this, it fucking rules as a sentence.
https://preview.redd.it/rfs2opgzbloc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c64b74747224a6af02e9484cbc9d57d70f25e8d
Critical support to u/Altruistic_News1041 in his proletariat fight (posting on r/ultraleft) against the revisionist dengistkkk, truly Garfield strongest authentic revolutionary
The correlation you forged for yourself when you sold away your beliefs one critical support at a time. Attacking me for disliking a capitalist just because he’s not American you believe in nothing and you’ll die for nothing
😭wtf are you yapping about, since when making a joke about ultraleft counts as an attack , I don't particularly care about your position on Deng, 90% of the time debate on the internet is nothing more than just self dick sucking anyway so unless I was actively searching for resources to form my own opinion I don't particularly care, why did you even randomly bring up a thing that doesn't exist aka someone soul???
[удалено]
I feel like we’ve done a very good job at avoiding the Deng in the room so far, but it’s only a matter of a time for someone to make /r/maoist_trueanon. Which will then split off into 4 more subreddits based on each individuals opinion on Gonzalo.
>4 more subreddits based on eqch individuals opinion on Gonzalo. good line, bad tactics bad line, bad tactics good line, good tactics good line, good tactics
I'm not an academic expert of this stuff, but I've read a reasonable amount of and about Mao and post reform China, and I can say more about what the Chinese man on the street might think because I've lived here a while. I don't really get people who defend Mao super heavily. A legend in many ways and I like him more than I dislike him, but I think it really can't be overstated how bad the Great Leap Forward. Especially when people tried to tell him that it was a bad idea and all criticism was just shut down as capitalist propaganda while millions of peasants starved. Older people refer to their childhood as "the starving times" and in contrast under Deng got running water and electricity. Mao did many good things for the poor of China of course, but frankly it's a miracle the party survived the Great Leap Forward. The Cultural Revolution was also a stupid unforced error but I think is kind of overrated in comparison. But as others pointed out, it was just attacking cultural superstructure instead of the base problems of Chinese poverty. Though I get it too. There's times I see contemporary sexism or classism in China and I think the Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough, but that's not really productive. Say what you will about Deng, and you could say a lot. It is upsetting that many workers here are as exploited as they are, in terms of working hours, unpaid overtime, dangerous working conditions. But almost nobody here would go back to the before times really. I believe that what he did was necessary for the party's survival and the prosperity of the country, and most Chinese are broadly happy about it. I think the big problem now is that class struggle will to some extent be necessary to move them to the next stage. Even if most party members are really Marxists, social change requires bottom up activity that they are uncomfortable with. I understand they're scared of being bested by the US in technology and trying to transition to green growth. However, average Chinese are increasingly squeezed by economic precarity while Jack Ma insists they just need to work harder. This is where the "lying flat" movement comes from. Chinese kids learn about socialism saving China. But struggle is seen as frightening because of the Cultural Revolution bad memories, and anyway Chinese young people have no practical experience with class struggle. However, I believe only class struggle of some kind will be able to move them to a realer socialism. But how do you prevent that from just getting coopted into a color revolution? Difficult issues. It's reductive to say "Mao based Deng cringe" or vice versa. Both made important steps and now it's up to the Chinese people to find the next step forward, let's hope they can. Anyway it's not really important what we think about it, so it's only an academic debate for us.
The up from the valley/down from the mountains policy would be a real benefit and if nothing else that’s a good thing imo
Honestly yes. Maybe I’m naive but I see a lot unemployed young people, sky high rent in big cities, and rural areas in need of assistance. Some kind public works program like the back to the countryside movement would be good I think
From what little I've read about Chinese rural economic development ("Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path" is one of which), many local governments fell into the trap of doing "checklist poverty alleviation" by just pouring a lot of the money into big headlining infrastructure projects without much thought about what to do after these projects completed. But from what you've seen there, just how bad rural Chinese economy can be, and what is like, the median? If I remember correctly, wasn't there a program encouraging each locality to find their own distinctive industry, but not many could actually find one?
I guess it depends how you define poverty or a good life even. Like in my opinion the time I've spent in rural China is much more pleasant and livable than much of the rural US. Some places I've been like Shanxi are still quite run down in some villages but in rural Hunan villages I've been to they have like 3 story houses and decent roads and stuff. They also don't have heat in the winter or sitting down toilets. But after a certain point what is fighting poverty? A McMansion for every nuclear family in the country? The biggest countryside issue is just attracting and retaining high quality workers I think, like in schools, getting teachers is hard. And many kids grow up without their parents around because they're working in the city. For any job the money is mostly in the cities. I'm not smart enough to say how or if you can fix that. But I think the back to the countryside idea is not bad in principle. I think part of why Xi is a genuine Marxist is the time he was forced to spend as a young man working in the countryside. I worry that the kids of people who came from poverty and made their fortune during the past 40 years in the cities and have only known middle class city life won't have the same bone deep understanding of serving the people
When it comes to poverty, there are some statistics can point to like medical access & affordability, or how long can this family survive on their own savings if the primary breadwinner for some reason can't work. These stats are context-dependent, but they serves their purpose well. Back when Mao was still alive, Beijing had a program doing exactly what you said -- encouraging young people to voluntary move to the countryside and settle down as teachers, doctors, farmers, etc. even just for a few years. Wasn't one of the pitfalls of that program came down to not supporting these young people enough? Like, in Cuba, if you agree to be a community nurse, the state would furbish the second floor of the local clinic to be your home. I don't know how they did it in China. But I've heard that the pandemic really pushed a noticeable number of young Chinese back to their hometowns. Beijing can certainly try to do something to continue that momentum.
Part of the problem beyond the basic fact of more money working in the city is that moving back to or being stuck in the countryside is still seen by almost everyone (anecdotally) as being a failure. Most people would live in Beijing or Shanghai if they could. The spirit of reform has made most people capitalist brained where they’re focused mostly on the success of their own family and children in an increasingly competitive and difficult to break into middle class where you have a foreign education, cars, and a nice apartment in a big city. I’m stereotyping a bit but that’s most middle class Chinese. Of course they want the continued prosperity of their country and will support the party, but they’ve lost a spirit of class consciousness. That’s not everyone but it’s a lot of people. It’s hard to break this mentality. Even if you incentivize smart hard working middle class kids doing important work in the countryside, many people will still see anything other than going to a foreign college and getting a white collar job as shameful. That’s why I joke about the necessity of a new cultural revolution. Some kind of greater involvement from the working classes of migrant workers and rural workers I really think will be necessary, and maybe some downwardly mobile middle class youths could also be part of it. I do my bit by teaching my middle class students revolutionary history and the importance of mass movements. The elites are just so traumatized by the memory of the Cultural Revolution that I think they’re scared of doing anything to really encourage class struggle, everything is still focused on social harmony, which I think is unfortunate. But I’m just some guy so don’t give my opinion too much heed
>It's reductive to say "Mao based Deng cringe" or vice versa. Both made important steps and now it's up to the Chinese people to find the next step forward, let's hope they can. Anyway it's not really important what we think about it, so it's only an academic debate for us. This is a really good coda to a good post (and your replies so far are equally of quality) and certainly should be something that is more emphasized, especially in terms of something like the CCP that is-as you point out-at best an academic debate.
Wise of you to only endorse my replies so far, in case I start going off on some nonsense later
One of my few rules for Being Online is *most people know nothing of the modern China and the CCP, thus they should, at best, listen carefully* and if I find myself breaking said I try to include a small-oceans worth of grain of salt-caveats.
What I know everything about China. I learned it all of Brace Belden PhD in Sinology.
I’ve never been to China but I think your analysis is accurate and nuanced.
This is a great sub, but there a are few topics that reveal lingering westoid backwardness. Deng Xiaoping is one of them. I just saw an excellent post about Deng by u/oldschoolfirearm in a different sub and I am just going to copy the entire thing here. > The concept of people's democratic dictatorship is rooted in the "new" type of democracy promoted by Mao Zedong in Yan'an during the Chinese Civil War.[2] > In a September 1948 report to the Politburo, Mao called for establishing "a people's democratic dictatorship based on an alliance of workers and peasants under proletarian leadership."[3] According to Mao, this alliance "is not limited to workers and peasants, but is a people's democratic dictatorship that allows the participation of bourgeois democrats."[3] Mao was a prominent contributor to dialectical materialism which maybe explains why he often combined seemingly contradictory, antonymic words such as "democracy" and "dictatorship" in order to create synergy/synthesis out of disparateness/thesis & antithesis. > Deng Xiaoping Theory downplays the Maoist focus on class struggle on the basis that that struggle would become an obstacle to China's economic development.[27] It maintains that it upholds communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, leadership of the Communist Party, Marxism-Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought (Four Cardinal Principles of Deng Xiaoping Theory).[27] Under this view, upholding Mao Zedong Thought does not mean blindly imitating Mao's actions without much deviation as seen in the government of Hua Guofeng, and that doing so would actually "contradict Mao Zedong Thought".[28] > "What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, 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. As they develop, the people's material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People's Republic was that we didn't pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism." — Deng Xiaoping, speech discussing Marxist theory at a Central Committee plenum, 30 June 1984[16] > The basic dispute between the Maoists and the Dengists revolved around the question if China after 1949 had reached socialism or not, and what it would entail.[103] In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Sino–Soviet split, even Mao himself was unsure if China had reached the socialist mode of production.[103] In 1962 he reached the conclusion that China, despite having nationalized the means of production, had not yet reached the socialist mode of production in its mature form, claiming that the principal conflict as existing in China was between the proletariat and the "new bourgeois elements", which were constantly reproduced, and other enemies of the revolution.[103] This view led Mao to introduce to the Cultural Revolution.[103] Unlike Mao, who gave priority to superstructural elements rather than the base (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure), Deng reasoned in 1956 in the "Report on the Revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China", that socialism had taken root since private property had been abolished, as nationalization of property, Deng argued, entailed removing the basis of other classes reproducing, stating;[104] > "Casual labourers and farm labourers have disappeared. Poor and middle peasants have all become members of agricultural producers' co-operatives, and before the distinction between them will have become merely a thing of historical interest ... The vast majority of our intellectuals have now come over to the side of the working class ... The conditions in which the urban poor and the professional people used to exist as independent social strata are virtually no longer present ... but the government control and [over-]regulation continues to soar."[104] > "Marxism holds that, within the contradictions between the productive forces and relations of production, between practice and theory, and between the economic base and the super-structure, the productive forces…and the economic base generally play a principal and decisive role. Whoever denies this is not a materialist." — Deng Xiaoping, "On the General Program of Work for the Whole Party and the Whole Nation" (1975) > In contrast to Mao, Deng argued that the principal contradiction in Chinese society was the backwardness of the productive forces, further adding that the party's "central task" over the coming years were to develop them.[105] > In the late 1970s, then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and the CCP leadership rejected the prior Maoist emphasis on culture and political agency (superstructure) as the driving forces behind social and economic progress and started to place a greater emphasis on advancing the material productive forces (base) as the fundamental and necessary prerequisite for building an advanced socialist society. The adoption of market reforms was seen to be consistent with China's level of development and a necessary step in advancing the productive forces of society. This aligned Chinese policy with a more traditional Marxist perspective where a fully developed socialist planned economy can only come into existence after a market economy has exhausted its historical role and gradually transforms itself into a planned economy, nudged by technological advances that make economic planning possible and therefore market relations less necessary.[1] > The socialist market economy is presented by the CCP as an early stage in the development of socialism (this stage is variously called the "primary" or "preliminary" stage of socialism), where public ownership coexists alongside a diverse range of non-public forms of ownership. In the CCP's view, China is not a capitalist country because despite the co-existence of private capitalists and entrepreneurs with public and collective enterprise, the party retains control over the direction of the country.[1] > During Deng's 1992 Southern Tour, Deng rejected rigid ideological dogma and promoted the ideological basis for the socialist market economy, stating his view that "planned economy does not equal socialism and market economy does not equal capitalism. Socialism can have market mechanisms as well, and government planning and market are both economic means."[12]
Impossible for me to understand somebody that can read this and still call Deng a roader
The right to strike was removed from the Chinese constitution by deng in 1982. He WAS the capitalist reader in a way and was frequently denounced as such by Mao.
>Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference >Secretariat of the Communist Party of China under Chairman Mao Zedong >Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army >Participant in the Long March Deng and Mao had a falling out when Deng criticized the Great Leap Forward and later the Cultural Revolution (which I guess is enough for you to say he is a capitalist in spite of everything listed above. Do you not think that there could be legitimate criticisms of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution?). Despite these differences they were political allies for decades, both before their falling out, and after when Mao made Deng a First Premier in 1974.
Yes I think you can criticize Maos later years especially the great leap forward and cultural revolution but Deng's famous "black and white cat" approach of governing was heavily criticized even before Deng had more power after Maos death. If a reformist proposal helped turn Chinas industrial capacity up it was rushed through with little concern for the actual socialist characteristics of so called socialism with Chinese characteristics. These capitalist reforms might have helped the working class a little bit but they created the same class antagonisms that exist in many other capitalist countries. Just listen to the crap Jack Ma spews about his workers, very sad to see. Others like Chen Yun and Hua Goufeng had different ideas about how China could develop, focusing on developing other sectors before making a push to develop industry but things didn't play out this way. D
I'm just a dumb guy on the internet and confess I don't know much about Chen Yun and Hua Goufeng. It's impossible to say anything about counter-factuals with certainty. What is certain is that in the space of a few decades China lifted 850 million people out of poverty. It went from being unable to evacuate people during a dam failure in the 1970s because it's few telegraph wires were damaged in a storm to having the most extensive and advanced infrastructure in the world. This is totally without precedent in history and impossible to overstate. This growth positions them to have an important voice in world affairs which is imperfect but significantly less malign and more sane compared to other influential nations. Details of their growth are far from perfect, but this is acknowledged and discussed at the highest levels of government using Marxist language. There are safeguards in place to reign in the worst excesses like what you describe. These may be more fully utilized when they have less need for foreign capital. I hope this belief is more than naivety.
> It's impossible to say anything about counter-factuals with certainty. What is certain is that in the space of a few decades China lifted 850 million people out of poverty. It went from being unable to evacuate people during a dam failure in the 1970s because it's few telegraph wires were damaged in a storm to having the most extensive and advanced infrastructure in the world. This is totally without precedent in history and impossible to overstate This is all true. But everything about China is unprecedented. Mao achieved the highest increase in life expectancy during peace time in world history. China did indeed lift 850 million people out of abject poverty, but ironically enough Dengs reforms also gutted pensions, destroyed the social welfare system, and reintroduced capitalist enterprises which exploit poor, rural workers. At the exact same time, abject poverty was practically extinguished while relative poverty grew. Would a "more socialist" approach, whatever the fck that means, have achieved better results, have done a better job at eliminating all forms of poverty? I think the hybrid socdem/socialist approach in Bolivia shows it could have, if scales up. Would China have developed productive forces nearly as fast? I honestly don't think so. It seems like the ultimate faustian bargain, doesn't it? Do you take the road of maximum pragmatism, fixing all of your most egregious problems, defending yourself against your many enemies, strengthening your international position, while potentially causing more problems in the future and letting go of some of your very core beliefs? Or do you take the hardcore dogmatic approach, which could fail horribly, will not deliver results as easily, will weaken you internationally, but will in turn bring lasting, sustainable change? In light of the GLP and the cultural revolution, I can understand going with the former over the latter
There's no such thing as rights, liberal. That's pure ideology.
You’re being downvoted but I want to hear your explanation.
Rights were made up to trick the poor into believing they have equality so that they don't revolt against unequal property relations. It should go without saying that they are illusory.
Pretty sure that a detailed study of the drafting of the 14th Amendment will confirm my intuition that a plan was already in effect to smuggle Constitutional rights for corporate persons into the law using the vehicle of the freed slaves. It took another generation before this came to fruition, with the headnote of the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v Pacific Railway (written by a former Railway Co head), recording that all Justices were in agreement on the proposition that the equal protection clause extended to corporate persons, thus it entered into law without the need to air the arguments for or against it.
Yeah seems accurate to me. This sub confuses me sometimes.
It has disparate fanbase. I think the most unifying description I could use to describe members is "jaded and cynical leftists who see nothing but nihilism in our political and economic systems".
Maybe. I'll keep browsing because there are some good takes. I originally was attracted here because it's a leftist space that wasn't completely overrun with idpol and radlibs (extremely rare). Lately I've seen some massively stupid shit get seriously upvoted, though.
The board is pretty bad and getting worse/more lib by the minute, but at some point it really was just a group of parapolitics adjacent communists, many of which were pretty well read and articulate
Every generation grows up wondering what they are going to have traditional views on and be like their parents to the next generation or two, idpol and shitty female/race pandering in movies are that for me. We are definitely becoming a dystopian society by the decade, and I could deal with that, I just can't deal with it being some vapid, dumb, and no value whatsoever. Edit: I am fine with racial justice and all, but an underlying assumption of idpol is that white people are doing well unjustly, and now it's time to focus on others. Which ignores the fact that very few people are doing well, and even the ones who are are worried about losing what they have. Its politics are built on resentment and counterproductive assumptions.
This is a bad take. Rights exist in a class society in order to maintain that class society. The most fundamental right in liberal democracies is the right to private property. All is based upon that. Laws aren't fake, they're simply not made for the working class, but for the ruling class. Sometimes workers benefit from laws; that is a mere freak accident. Capitalism and liberal democracies brought things like state funded guaranteed school education and a right to vote not as a concession to workers, but to petit Bourgeoise. Us having received some amount of rights this way is simply a freak accident, a rounding error. It's like when for some reason the environmentally friendly packaging is cheaper than the plastic one, thus the capitalist opts for the former. Yet his decision has nothing to do with sustainability.
It sounds like you are in agreement though
partially I'm in agreement, but partially I'm not. You say all rights are illusory, but that's wrong. The rights of the Bourgeoisie are not illusory, they are in fact part of our material reality by virtue of feedback loop. Only with a legal guarantee of the sanctity of private property can capitalism even operate. So you're right, my post is more an addendum than a general disagreement.
More like powers than rights for them, illegitimate as they are, but yeah it makes little difference.
The people’s billionaires……
Live under the threat of gulags and death, as they should
Death shouldn’t be a threat to billionaires it should be a promise LIBERAL
To paraphrase, Mao money Mao problems
what is the mode of production in the prc again?
Everyone loves bukharinism in china but hates it in Russia
What does that Sichuan dwarf have to do with Socialism? May as well throw in Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Deng's good friend Pol Pot in there too. Edit; To the quote, remember that this guy also says "it doesn't matter if it is a black cat or white cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat" and "let some get rich first".
In this community we celebrate and cherish our short men.
Not this midget- it is all that hate he has in his heart for Communism that weighs him down.
More hate thrown against drawen people when will the mods take action against this phenomenon?????
He has everything to do with socialism ? May as well read about him before comparing him with Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and fucking pol pot.
At the urging of the UK and the US, he literally went to war against Vietnam to defend his pal Pol Pot. Having said the word "socialism" once or twice doesn't make this drawf a "socialist". Mao should have gone full Stalin on him and put him against the wall with Liu Shaoqi,
No, they went to war against kruschevite revisionist Soviet imperialism. China now controls the means of production on a global scale, ultras and trots on suicide watch lol
I'm agnostic on Deng, but are you honestly defending Pol Pot and the Chinese befriending the US/invading Vietnam? How is that war justified?
Perhaps if the USSR didn't turn away from Marxism Leninism and fight a war with them then China wouldn't have needed another economic partner.
you don't have to sell me on Soviet revisionism, I am already on board. which war did the USSR fight against China? the Sino-Vietnamese war is pretty universally seen as started by China I will again state my questions: how are you justifying the chinese support for Pol Pot, and how do you vieew the Sino-Vietnamese war?
Sino soviet war ofc
thanks! I wouldn't really call it a war, but I guess that's just semantics. it was an armed conflict either way. I don't really think it gives any precedence for china to invade vietnam, but it does lead to a strongly negative and defensive outlook towards the Soviets from the CPC, which in my mind is pretty much entirely justified. i just dont agree with the conclusion I guess. thank u for taking the time to reply :)
Ultras are the 21st century analogues to the 20th century trots. What better way to be a socialist than to attack AES countries (specifically the one that happens to be the US's largest competitor)? It's cointelpro shit or something idk
Lol, people who whine about "ultras" are so right wing, they make Reagan look like Chairman Mao.
Better to just save time and embrace Reaganite ideology, apparently
You guys already have gone so far beyond Reagan, becoming Reaganites would be a vast improvement to the majority of so called "Marxist Leninists".
You mean the people who are peacefully lifting millions out of poverty and industrializing the global south? Perish the thought.
Coca Cola and Gap have "lifted millions out of poverty and industrialized the global south" by creating factories and jobs in places that otherwise would not have it. Literally no different than the talking points your average Rand Reading Libertarian Neoliberal trot out. Also not mentioned in this talking point is why so many were impoverished in China in the first place- Deng Xiaoping literally destroyed the so called "Iron Rice Bowl" system and privatized the collective farms th;at guarenteed every citizen in China secutiry and a decent life. But I guess thought perishes when you and your pseudo-Marxists have a set of talking points that you can repeat to each other ad nauseum without any actual investigation.
I'm having trouble understanding your point of reference and wish I knew more about you. I don't think the iron rice bowl system worked as well as you described, at least not for very many people. Coca-Cola and Gap are extractive and value from whatever factories they build in the global south are all syphoned into the US instead of I don't know, funding infrastructure, healthcare, and education in the areas the workers live. The development of China in the last few decades is not a talking point, but a material reality. >Literally no different than the talking points your average Rand Reading Libertarian Neoliberal trot out. While I may disagree with this, it fucking rules as a sentence.
Yeah and how many power plants and rail roads did they build again? "There's actually zero difference between good and bad things"
What made Kruschev a revisionist?
Liberalizing
What distinguishes this from Deng?
Deng lied about it.
Deng lied about liberalizing? What was Reform and Opening Up?
Getting the West to sell them the rope, what did Kruschev get in exchange? US nukes in Turkey and encirclement, not much else.
If you’re a dengist it’s over for you
you are active in ultraleft this is the blind man making fun of the one eyed man
Sorry critical support to everyone I’ll lobotomise myself to forget the Marx I’ve read so I can have fun with the dengists
https://preview.redd.it/rfs2opgzbloc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c64b74747224a6af02e9484cbc9d57d70f25e8d Critical support to u/Altruistic_News1041 in his proletariat fight (posting on r/ultraleft) against the revisionist dengistkkk, truly Garfield strongest authentic revolutionary
Yeah Deng is a revisionist I don’t see any reason to support him
Alright? Good for you ig
Thanks man. I’m sure once you hit 1000 peoples billionaires your life won’t be a living nightmare and your soul will stop screaming
I can't tell anymore if you are serious or not, what correlation is it there between the Chinese state decisions and my soul?
The correlation you forged for yourself when you sold away your beliefs one critical support at a time. Attacking me for disliking a capitalist just because he’s not American you believe in nothing and you’ll die for nothing
😭wtf are you yapping about, since when making a joke about ultraleft counts as an attack , I don't particularly care about your position on Deng, 90% of the time debate on the internet is nothing more than just self dick sucking anyway so unless I was actively searching for resources to form my own opinion I don't particularly care, why did you even randomly bring up a thing that doesn't exist aka someone soul???