Is China socialist?
Socialist patriotism
The Communist Party of China and the government of China advocate socialist patriotism. The Communist Party of China describes the policy of socialist patriotism as the following: "Socialist patriotism has three levels. At the first level, individuals should subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the state. At the second level, individuals should subordinate their personal destiny to the destiny of our socialist system. At the third level, individuals should subordinate their personal future to the future of our communist cause." The PRC portrays the Communist government as the embodiment of the will of the Chinese people.
Socialist ideology of the Kuomintang
The Three Principles of the People are officially the ideology of the Republic of China, as stated in the Constitution of the Republic of China. Mínshēng, defined as democratic socialism, is one of these principles.
History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)
According to Hua-yu Li, writing in "Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953" in 1953, Mao, misled by glowing reports in "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik): Short Course", authorized by Stalin of social and economic progress in the Soviet Union, abandoned the liberal economic programs of "New Democracy" and instituted the "general line for socialist transition", a program to build socialism based on Soviet models. He was reportedly moved in part by personal and national rivalry with Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Socialist ideology of the Kuomintang
The former socialist ideology of the Kuomintang is a unique form of socialism and socialist thought developed in mainland China during the early Republic of China. The Tongmenghui revolutionary organization led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first to promote socialist ideology in China.
New Left in China
These New Leftists are also against capitalist "so-called" democracy and look favorably on the "revolutionary Maoism" of a generation ago, in contrast to the corruption and money-centeredness they see in current Chinese society. Many of these New Leftists also regret the erosion of guaranteed employment, education, health care, and other former gains of the Chinese Revolution that have been largely lost in the new profit-driven economy. The New Left collection of Chinese tend to look at themselves, like most socialists, as defenders of the people against a dehumanizing and inherently corrupt capitalist system.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
When asked how long the primary stage of socialism would last, Zhao replied "[i]t will be at least 100 years [...] [before] socialist modernization will have been in the main accomplished". The state constitution states that "China will be in the primary stage of socialism for a long time to come". As with Zhao, Jiang believed that it would take at least 100 years to reach a more advanced stage.
Scientific Outlook on Development
The SOD incorporates scientific socialism, sustainable development, social welfare, a humanistic society, increased democracy, and, ultimately, the creation of a Socialist Harmonious Society. According to official statements by the CPC, the concept integrates "Marxism with the reality of contemporary China and with the underlying features of our times, and it fully embodies the Marxist worldview on and methodology for development."
History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)
President Nixon made his historic trip to Beijing in February 1972 and met with Zhou and Mao. The trip caused some confusion in the communist world. The Soviet Union could not outright condemn it, but they clearly felt that the US and China were both plotting against them. North Korea viewed it as a victory for socialism (under the reasoning that the US had failed in its attempt to isolate China and was forced to come to terms), while North Vietnam, Albania, and Cuba felt that China had made a mistake by negotiating with the enemy. It also had a demoralizing effect on Taiwan, whose leadership had sensed the inevitable, but who were nonetheless upset at not having been consulted first. With the Nixon visit, most anti-American propaganda disappeared in China. The US was still criticized for imperialism, but not to the degree it had been before 1972. Instead, Soviet revisionism and "social imperialism" was now seen as China's main enemy.
Socialist market economy
The transition to a socialist market economy began in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping introduced his program of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Initial reforms in decollectivising agriculture and opening the economy to foreign investment in the late 1970s and early 1980s later led to large-scale radical reforms, including corporatization of the state sector, partial privatisation of some enterprises, liberalisation of trade and prices and dismantling of the "iron rice bowl" system of job security in the late 1990s. With Deng Xiaoping's reforms, China's GDP rose from some US$150 billion in 1978 to more than $1.6 trillion in 2004, with an annual increase of 9.4 percent.
Ten Major Relationships
In terms of economic development, China had followed the Soviet model of socialism ever since Mao's decision to lean on the side of the Soviet Union. As his speech On the People's Democratic Dictatorship (论人民民主专政) in June 1949 states,“We must learn to do economic work from all who know how, no matter who they are. We must esteem them as teachers, learning from them respectfully and conscientiously. We must not pretend to know when we do not know. We must not put on bureaucratic airs. If we dig into a subject for several months, for a year or two, for three or five years, we shall eventually master it. At first some of the Soviet Communists also were not very good at handling economic matters and the imperialists awaited their failure too. But the Communist Party of the Soviet Union emerged victorious and, under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, it learned not only how to make the revolution but also how to carry on construction. It has built a great and splendid socialist state. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is our best teacher and we must learn from it. The situation both at home and abroad is in our favour, we can rely fully on the weapon of the people’s democratic dictatorship, unite the people throughout the country, the reactionaries excepted, and advance steadily to our goal.”Following Mao's visit to Moscow from late 1949 to early 1950, on February 14, 1950 the two countries signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance (中苏友好同盟互助条约) which promised the Soviet Union's commitment to help build socialism in the newly founded People's Republic of China. From 1950 to 1956, a total of 5,092 Soviet experts were sent to China for technical assistant and the total number of visits of the Soviet experts was over 18,000 throughout the years. The areas they provided assistance included government bureaus, military, large enterprises, and higher institutions. In the countryside, from late 1955 to early 1956, China's agricultural sector completed the Socialist High Tide, transforming from having only 14.2% (16.9 million out of 120 million) of peasant families collectivized to 91.2% of them joining the co-operatives and 61.9% joining collectives. Likewise in the cities, private factories and shops were either turned into cooperatives or nationalized in the name of joint public-private ownership.
History of foreign relations of the People's Republic of China
By the second half of the 1980s, China's participation in international organizations reflected the two primary goals of its independent foreign policy: furthering domestic economic development through cooperation with the outside world and promoting peace and stability by cultivating ties with other nations on an equal basis. As expressed by Zhao Ziyang in a 1986 report to the National People's Congress, "China is a developing socialist country with a population of over 1 billion. We are well aware of our obligations and responsibilities in the world. We will therefore continue to work hard on both fronts, domestic and international, to push forward the socialist modernization of our country and to make greater contributions to world peace and human progress."
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
The concept of a primary stage of socialism was developed mainly by Xue Muqiao and Su Shaozi. The concept began to evolve when the new post-Mao leadership of Deng began questioning Mao' assertion that "class struggle as the key link". Su, coauthoring with Feng Langrui, published an article in "Economic Research" () in 1979 which called into question the Chinese socialist project by using Marxist methodology. The article analyzed the basis of Chinese socialism by looking at Karl Marx's writings; Marx drew a distinction between lower-stage communism (commonly referred to as the socialist mode of production) and higher-phase communism (often referred to as simply communism). Su's and Feng's article created three subdivisions within the socialist mode of production; the first phase was the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production; which was (a) the phase in which the proletariat seized power and set-up the dictatorship of the proletariat and (b) in which undeveloped socialism was created, the second phase was advanced socialism (the socialism of which Marx wrote about). They argued that China was an undeveloped socialist nation since;
Socialist Party (Australia)
SP campaigns for democratic socialism, opposing the bureaucratic 'communist' dictatorships of countries such as China, North Korea, and Cuba. It is closely affiliated with the CWI sections in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China which stand in opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. It follows in the Trotskyist tradition of internationalism, and attempts to produce a Marxist analysis of current events to inform its various campaigns. It approaches collaboration with other left groups from a 'united front' perspective, working alongside other groups while maintaining independent political views.
Primary stage of socialism
The primary stage of socialism (sometimes referred to as the preliminary stage of socialism), introduced into official discourse by Mao Zedong as the initial stage of socialism, is a sub-theory of Chinese Marxist thought which explains why capitalist techniques are used in the Chinese economy.
Tiao-kuai
In 1949, the Chinese Revolution established the People's Republic of China, a constitutionally socialist state. While China experimented with centralization and decentralization policies for a few years, the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 solidified the principle of ideological unity among all local governments. During the Cultural Revolution, and especially the 1971-1975 "unified income and unified expenditure" () period, bureaucrats across China implemented similar agricultural and industrial policies modeled in Beijing.
Xi Jinping
Xi himself has described the Thought as part of the broad framework created around Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, a Dengist term that places China in the "primary stage of socialism". In official party documentation and pronouncements by Xi's colleagues, the Thought is said to be a continuation of Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the "Three Represents", and the Scientific Development Perspective, as part of a series of guiding ideologies that embody "Marxism adopted to Chinese conditions" and contemporary considerations.
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also referred to as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China. The Communist Party is the sole governing party within mainland China, permitting only eight other, subordinated parties to co-exist, those making up the United Front. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. The party grew quickly, and by 1949 it had driven the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government from mainland China after the Chinese Civil War, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China. It also controls the world's largest armed forces, the People's Liberation Army.
Socialist heraldry
Socialist heraldry is still seen in the emblems of several countries, such as the People's Republic of China. North Korea has a national emblem in pure socialist style, as does Vietnam.
Chinese social structure
In a speech made shortly after the communist's victory in 1949, Mao Zedong claimed that Chinese society had four distinct social classes; this is often cited as the reason why the Chinese flag has four small stars on it. In his On the People's Democratic Dictatorship speech he defined the Chinese people as consisting of four social classes, also referred to in Asian cultures as the four occupations (士農工商) shi, nong, gong, shang ("the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie". Mao made the claim that these classes had been unified by the revolution, but severe class stratification still existed in post 1949 China, especially when comparing the rights ordinary citizen to the extreme privileges afforded to the elites of the Communist party.
History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)
Mao's social and cultural programs, including collectivization, were most popular in the early 1950s. However, China's strained relations with new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and newfound contradictions between the Chinese and Soviet schools of communism seeded a novel and radical drive to reform China's economic system in its entirety. This split developed after Stalin's death in 1953 when new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced him. The "secret speech" in 1956 stunned the communist world. China rejected de-Stalinization and in fact displayed large Stalin portraits at the May Day celebrations that year. Mao declared that despite some faults, Stalin had basically been a good, well-meaning Marxist. He felt that the Soviets were not treating China as an equal partner. Cultural differences also contributed to friction between the two communist giants. Khrushchev's idea of peaceful competition with the United States rather than overt hostility did not resonate well with Beijing. Mao said that "Do you think the capitalists will put down their butcher knife and become Buddhas?"
Socialism
[[File:RIAN archive 850809 General Secretary of the CPSU CC M. Gorbachev (crop).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Mikhail Gorbachev]], [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] from 1985 until 1991]]
After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the faction known as the [[Gang of Four]], who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, [[Deng Xiaoping]] took power and led the People's Republic of China to [[Chinese economic reform|significant economic reforms]]. The Communist Party of China loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the [[People's commune|communes]] were disbanded in favour of private land leases, thus China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy named as "[[socialism with Chinese characteristics]]" which maintained state ownership rights over land, state or cooperative ownership of much of the heavy industrial and manufacturing sectors and state influence in the banking and financial sectors. China adopted its current [[constitution of the People's Republic of China|constitution]] on 4 December 1982. [[President of the People's Republic of China|President]] [[Jiang Zemin]] and [[Premier of the People's Republic of China|Premier]] [[Zhu Rongji]] led the nation in the 1990s. Under their administration, China's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual [[gross domestic product]] growth rate of 11.2%. At the [[6th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam|Sixth National Congress]] of the [[Communist Party of Vietnam]] in December 1986, reformist politicians replaced the "old guard" government with new leadership. The reformers were led by 71-year-old [[Nguyen Van Linh]], who became the party's new general secretary. Linh and the reformers implemented a series of [[free market]] reforms—known as "" ("Renovation")—which carefully managed the transition from a [[planned economy]] to a "[[socialist-oriented market economy]]". [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] wished to move the Soviet Union towards of Nordic-style social democracy, calling it "a socialist beacon for all mankind". Prior to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union had [[economy of the Soviet Union|the second largest economy in the world]] after the United States. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic integration of the Soviet republics was dissolved and overall industrial activity declined substantially. A lasting legacy remains in the physical infrastructure created during decades of combined industrial production practices, and widespread environmental destruction. The transition to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and [[Eastern bloc]], which was accompanied by [[Washington Consensus]]-inspired "[[Shock therapy (economics)|shock therapy]]", resulted in a steep fall in the standard of living. The region experienced rising economic inequality and poverty a surge in excess mortality and a decline in life expectancy, which was accompanied by the entrenchment of a [[Russian oligarch|newly established business oligarchy]] in the former. The average post-communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005, although some are still far behind that. These developments led to increased nationalist sentiment and [[Nostalgia for the Soviet Union|nostalgia for the Communist era]].
Erwin Engst
In a 1996 interview with CNN, after nearly 50 years in China, Hinton stated "[we] never intended to stay in China so long, but were too caught up to leave."  Hinton describes the changes she and Engst had witnessed in China since the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. They state they "have watched their socialist dream fall apart" as much of China embraced capitalism. As CNN correspondent Andrea Koppel notes, "Once considered radical leftists by their native countrymen, Hinton and Engst are now too radical for most of China's countrymen."
Red
The Communist Party of China, founded in 1920, adopted the red flag and hammer and sickle emblem of the Soviet Union, which became the national symbols when the Party took power in China in 1949. Under Party leader Mao Zedong, the Party anthem became "The East Is Red", and Mao Zedong himself was sometimes referred to as a "red sun". During the Cultural Revolution in China, Party ideology was enforced by the Red Guards, and the sayings of Mao Zedong were published as a small red book in hundreds of millions of copies. Today the Communist Party of China claims to be the largest political party in the world, with eighty million members.
Joan Hinton
In a 1996 interview with CNN, after nearly 50 years in China, she stated "[we] never intended to stay in China so long, but were too caught up to leave." Hinton described the changes she and her husband had witnessed in China since the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. They stated they "have watched their socialist dream fall apart" as much of China embraced capitalism. A 2004 MSNBC interviews noted her critical assessment of economic change as "betrayals of the socialist cause." She noted what she describes as a rise of exploitation in Chinese society.
Geography of China
The structure of government in China is in the framework of a socialist republic which is run by a single party: the Communist Party of China. The party wishes to control and manage the ideology of their subjects to maintain their political dominance in China. For example, Document number 9, or the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere, was a document circulated in China in 2013 to warn the citizens of China against some western values such as media freedom. The president of China is the highest position of the country and is the ceremonial figurehead of the National People's Congress. Currently Xi Jinping is the president of China and the chairman of the Central military commission.
Real socialism
Another aspect of the term real socialism contained elements of the Sino-Soviet split and other "disagreements", which were actually ideological gulfs, between the Soviet Union and its satellite states on one side and the People's Republic of China and the followers of a more Maoist brand of communist ideology on the other. The Soviets wished to enforce the idea that their version of socialism was "real" and the Chinese and their followers were not, precisely because the Maoist-inspired communist movement, which had grown so rapidly worldwide as a "radical left" alternative to Soviet ideas, had consistently claimed that the Soviet Union was no longer socialist and had betrayed the revolution. To counter this claim of Marxist revisionism, the Soviets defiantly claimed that their socialism was "real socialism", implying that other models of socialism were unrealistic.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
The Communist Party of China still considers private ownership to be non-socialist. However, according to party theorists the existence and growth of private ownership does not necessarily undermine socialism and promote capitalism in China. It is argued that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels never proposed the immediate abolishment of private ownership. According to Engel's book "Principles of Communism", the proletariat can only abolish private ownership when the necessary conditions have been met. In the phase before the abolishment of private ownership, Engels proposed progressive taxation, high inheritance taxes and compulsory bond purchases to restrict private property while using the competitive powers of state-owned enterprises to expand the public sector. Marx and Engels proposed similar measures in "The Communist Manifesto" in regards to advanced countries, but since China was economically undeveloped party theorists called for flexibility regarding the party's handling of private property. According to party theorist Liu Shuiyuan, the New Economic Policy program initiated by Soviet authorities in the aftermath of the war communism program is a good example of flexibility by socialist authorities.
New Left in China
The New Left () in the People's Republic of China is a school of political thought that is critical of capitalism and aspects of the Chinese economic reforms and in favour of elements of Maoist-style socialism, which includes a significant role for state planning, the preservation of state-owned enterprises, and a renewed spirit of collectivism. It is also correlated with increased Chinese nationalism after a period of 'low-profile' presence on the world stage during Deng Xiaoping's era. It is seen as a response to problems faced by China during its modernization drive since the 1980s, which has led to mounting social inequality between the coast and the hinterlands, as well as between the rich and the poor.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
At the 13th National Congress, acting General Secretary Zhao Ziyang on behalf of the 12th Central Committee delivered the report "Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese characteristics". He wrote that China was a socialist society, but that socialism in China was in its primary stage, a Chinese peculiarity which was due to the undeveloped state of the country's productive forces. During this phase of development, Zhao recommended introducing a planned commodity economy on the basis of public ownership. The main failure of the communist right according to Zhao was that they failed to acknowledge that China could reach socialism by bypassing capitalism. The main failure of the communist left was that they held the "utopian position" that China could bypass the primary stage of socialism in which the productive forces are to be modernized.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Some have likened the CCP's position under Deng to that of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin when he introduced the planned economy. Adrian Chan, the author of "Chinese Marxism", opposes this view: "To Stalin, the development of productive forces was the prerequisite for the Soviet Union to become communist." He further argues that such a view does not make sense in light of the different situations; Stalin emphasized production because of the Soviet Union's backwardness in all areas, while in China, the reforms were seen as one way to further develop the productive forces. These interpretations, while not in agreement, shed light on the fact that Chinese socialism did change during the Deng era. In 1987, the "Beijing Review" stated that the achievements of socialism were "evaluated according to the level of the productive forces".
Socialist state
A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country (sometimes workers' state or workers' republic) is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term "Communist state" is often used interchangeably in the West specifically when referring to single-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist political parties despite being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism; these countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having achieved a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries which are not single-party states based on Marxism–Leninism make reference to socialism in their constitutions; in most cases these are constitutional references alluding to the building of a socialist society that have little to no bearing on the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems.
Wartime perception of the Chinese Communists
In the 1944 Dixie Mission, US Colonel John Service visited the Communists and praised them, claimed that they were democratic reformers, likening them to European socialists rather than Soviet Communists and claimed that they were less corrupt and chaotic than the Nationalists, and that they would preserve levels of capitalism for an extended time until a peaceful transition to a fully realized communist society.
Communist-controlled China (1927–1949)
Communist-controlled China (), officially called the Soviet Zone (), was the part of the territories of China controlled by the Communist Party of China from 1927 to 1949 during the Republican era and the Chinese Civil War with Nationalist China. There were six soviet areas from 1927 to 1933: the Ching-kang-shan, the Central Soviet in Eastern Jiangxi on the border of Fujian, the O-Yu-Wan (Hubei-Henan-Anhui) Soviet, Hsiang-o-hsi (West Hupei and Hunan), and Hsiang-kan (Hunan-Kiangsi). The first soviet was the Hailufeng Soviet created in 1927. The Central Soviet was the main base of the Communist Party where Communist Party leader Mao Zedong issued a directive on 1 September 1931 for the Central Soviet to mass mobilize the region as a base area. As problems occurred over being able to control territories outside the Central Soviet, by 1933 a full transfer of Communist forces to the Central Soviet was achieved.
Communist Party of China
Deng did not believe that the fundamental difference between the capitalist mode of production and the socialist mode of production was central planning versus free markets. He said, "A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity". Jiang Zemin supported Deng's thinking, and stated in a party gathering that it did not matter if a certain mechanism was capitalist or socialist, because the only thing that mattered was whether it worked. It was at this gathering that Jiang Zemin introduced the term socialist market economy, which replaced Chen Yun's "planned socialist market economy". In his report to the 14th National Congress Jiang Zemin told the delegates that the socialist state would "let market forces play a basic role in resource allocation." At the 15th National Congress, the party line was changed to "make market forces further play their role in resource allocation"; this line continued until the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, when it was amended to "let market forces play a "decisive" role in resource allocation." Despite this, the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee upheld the creed "Maintain the dominance of the public sector and strengthen the economic vitality of the State-owned economy."
Primary stage of socialism
While the CPC pursued non-orthodox economic policies, it believed the party would be able to safeguard China's goal of socialist development by transforming Marxism into a dominant value system. This was reflected by the introduction of the term "socialist spiritual civilization", a concept introduced in 1981 and mentioned in the Political Report to the 13th National Congress. The main function of socialist spiritual civilization was to check against the dangers of ideological retreat in the party's effort to progress toward socialism. A CPC resolution in 1986 said, "we will be not able to guarantee the socialist direction of our modernization course, and our socialist society will lose its goals and ideals" if the party stopped upholding Marxist doctrine. However, because the material base, officially referred to as material civilization, created by the economic reforms did not conform with Marxist analysis of socialism, the CPC concluded that in the new era Marxism would be given the role as the dominant value system, which entailed that other value systems could be accepted but these systems could not negate Marxism.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Mao said that the imposition of "progressive relations of production" would revolutionize production. His successor's rejection of this view according to A. James Gregor has thwarted the ideological continuity of Maoism—officially Mao Zedong Thought. Classical Marxism had argued that a socialist revolution would only take place in advanced capitalist societies and its success would signal the transition from a capitalist commodity-based economy to a "product economy" in which goods would be distributed for people's need and not for profit. If because of a lack of a coherent explanation in the chance of failure this revolution did not occur, the revolutionaries would be forced to take over the responsibilities of the bourgeoisie. Chinese communists are thus looking for a new Marxist theory of development. Party theorist Luo Rongqu recognized that the founders of Marxism had never "formulated any systematic theory on the development of the non-Western world" and said that the Communist Party of China should "establish their own synthesized theoretical framework to study the problem of modern development". According to A. James Gregor, the implication of this stance is that "Chinese Marxism is currently in a state of profound theoretical discontinuity".
History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)
China became almost totally cut off from the outside world in the late 1960s and only retained diplomatic relations with a few countries. The United States was denounced for imperialism, Britain for colonialism, Japan for militarism, and the Soviet Union for revisionism. Most of the communist world was stunned and horrified by the Cultural Revolution. This led to China dividing fellow communist nations into three groups. Cuba, Romania, North Korea, and North Vietnam were classified as "mostly socialist with a few mistakes". The USSR, Mongolia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Yugoslavia were classified as revisionists who pursued a false socialism. China itself and Albania were seen as the only true socialist countries in the world.
Deng Xiaoping
The strategy for achieving these aims of becoming a modern, industrial nation was the socialist market economy. Deng argued that China was in the primary stage of socialism and that the duty of the party was to perfect so-called "socialism with Chinese characteristics", and "seek truth from facts". (This somewhat resembles the Leninist theoretical justification of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the 1920s, which argued that the Soviet Union had not gone deeply enough into the capitalist phase and therefore needed limited capitalism in order to fully evolve its means of production.)
Five-year plans of China
Planning is a key characteristic of socialist economies, and one plan established for the entire country normally contains detailed economic development guidelines for all its regions. In order to more accurately reflect China's transition from a Soviet-style planned economy to a socialist market economy (socialism with Chinese characteristics), the name of the 11th five-year program of 2006 to 2010 was changed to "guideline" () instead of "plan" ().
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
General Secretary Jiang Zemin further elaborated on the concept ten years later, first during a speech to the Central Party School on 29 May 1997 and again in his report to the 15th National Congress on 12 September. According to Jiang, the 3rd plenum of the 11th Central Committee correctly analyzed and formulated a scientifically correct program for the problems facing China and socialism. In Jiang's words, the primary stage of socialism was an "undeveloped stage". The fundamental task of socialism is to develop the productive forces, therefore the main aim during the primary stage should be the further development of the national productive forces. The primary contradiction in Chinese society during the primary stage of socialism is "the growing material and cultural needs of the people and the backwardness of production". This contradiction will remain until China has completed the process of primary stage of socialism—and because of it—economic development should remain the party's main focus during this stage.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
The term entered common usage during the era of Deng Xiaoping and was largely associated with Deng's overall program of adopting elements of market economics as a means to foster growth using foreign investment and to increase productivity (especially in the countryside where 80% of China's population lived) while the Communist Party of China retained both its formal commitment to achieve communism and its monopoly on political power. In the party's official narrative, socialism with Chinese characteristics is Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese conditions and a product of scientific socialism. The theory stipulated that China was in the primary stage of socialism due to its relatively low level of material wealth and needed to engage in economic growth before it pursued a more egalitarian form of socialism, which in turn would lead to a communist society described in Marxist orthodoxy.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the Chinese economic reforms, did not believe that the market economy was synonymous with capitalism or that planning was synonymous with socialism. During his southern tour, he said that "planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity".
Chinese socialism
Chinese socialism may refer to:
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Karl Marx argued that society went through different stages of development, and believed that the capitalist mode of production was the third stage. The stages were: ancient, based mostly on slavery; feudal; capitalist; socialist; and the communist mode of production. The attainment of true "communism" is described as the CCP's and China's "ultimate goal". While the CCP claims that China is in the primary stage of socialism, party theorists argue that the current development stage "looks a lot like capitalism". Alternately, certain party theorists argue that "capitalism is the early or first stage of communism." In official pronouncements, the primary stage of socialism is predicted to last about 100 years, after which China will reach another developmental stage. Some have dismissed the concept of a primary stage of socialism as intellectual cynicism. According to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a China analyst, "When I first heard this rationale, I thought it more comic than clever—a wry caricature of hack propagandists leaked by intellectual cynics. But the 100-year horizon comes from serious political theorists".
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Socialist patriotism is a concept invented by Vladimir Lenin, the informal leader of the Russian Bolshevik Party. It commits people to a non-nationalistic form of devotion to one's country. According to the standard Soviet definition, it means "boundless love for the socialist homeland, a commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society [and] the cause of communism". To ensure that socialist patriotism did not evolve into a form of nationalism (criticized as a bourgeois ideology), the people had to be committed to proletarian internationalism. The CCP, shortly after seizing power, defined three levels of socialist patriotism. "At the first level, individuals should subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the state. At the second level, individuals should subordinate their personal destiny to the destiny of our socialist system. At the third level, individuals should subordinate their personal future to the future of our communist cause." Mao's nationalism was not inclusivist, and people from certain classes were deemed unpatriotic from the outset. Chinese nationalism under Mao was defined as "anti-imperialist" and "anti-feudal" in principle. However, Mao believed that nationalism was of secondary importance, and his main aim was to further expand the reach of the world revolution.
Mixed economy
The People's Republic of China adopted a socialist market economy, which represents an early stage of socialist development according to the Communist Party of China. The Communist Party takes the Marxist position that an economic system containing diverse forms of ownership—but with the public sector playing a decisive role—is a necessary characteristic of an economy in the preliminary stage of developing socialism.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
The term "socialism with Chinese characteristics" was added to the General Program of the party's constitution at the 12th National Congress, without a definition of the term. At the 13th National Congress, held in 1987, Zhao Ziyang, the CCP General Secretary, claimed that socialism with Chinese characteristics was the "integration of the fundamental tenets of Marxism with the modernization drive in China" and was "scientific socialism rooted in the realities of present-day China". By this time the CCP believed that China was in the primary stage of socialism, and therefore needed market relations to develop into a socialist society. Two years earlier, Su had tried to internationalize the term "primary stage of socialism" by claiming that socialism contained three different production phases. China was currently in the first phase, while the Soviet Union and the remaining Eastern Bloc countries were in the second phase. Because China was in the primary stage of socialism, Zhao argued that in "[China] for a long time to come, we shall develop various sectors of the economy, always ensuring the dominant position of the public sector". Further, some individuals should be allowed to become rich "before the objective of common prosperity [pure communism] is achieved". Lastly, during the primary stage of socialism, planning would no longer be the primary means of organization of the economy. Upon hearing this remark, Chen Yun, a cautious reformer and the second-most powerful politician in China, walked out of the meeting.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
In a parliamentary democracy, the only way for a party to gain legitimacy is through elections, but due to the involvement of the bourgeoisie in the election process this legitimacy is not considered as genuine. The CCP gained legitimacy, Yang asserts, through its victory in the "Chinese democratic revolution". Yang claims that the introduction of constitutionalism in any form would lead to the fall of the CCP, and even claims that socialist constitutionalism of the Soviet Union and the former socialist states was a main factor contributing to their downfall.
Chinese ideals of female beauty
Modern Chinese society is highly influenced by Western capitalist and Marxist thoughts. The Chinese would not describe themselves as a completely Capitalist country, nor a purely Marxist country. They fundamentally ignore this type of question about the essence of its political position, and develop their economy, politics, culture and feminism in their own way. They call themselves a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics. The rise of Chinese feminist development is highly influenced by the claims of the “new “ China (since the early 19th century) and its government that it would save the Chinese woman from the “old society” and set women’s minds free (Chun, 2008). An article published in the widely circulated journal Dushu uses an earlier nativist satire to argue that women themselves voluntarily
desired the beauty of small feet (footbinding) into the first decades of the twentieth century, despite the elite, male-dominated discourse of liberation and equality that assailed the practice.
Scientific Outlook on Development
The ideology is recognized by observers as a comprehensive response to the ideological gap left by the social problems that resulted from China's market economic reforms. Credit for the theory is given to former Chinese leader Hu Jintao and his administration, who was in power from 2002 to 2012. It is the newest slogan added to the idea of Socialism with Chinese characteristics ratified into the Communist Party of China's constitution at the 17th Party Congress in October 2007. It is lauded by the Chinese government as a successor and extension ideology to Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the "Three Represents".
List of communist ideologies
A reformist communism and a branch of Maoism is often criticised by traditional Maoists. Dengists believe that isolated in our current international order and with an extremely underdeveloped economy it is first and foremost necessary to bridge the gap between China and western capitalism as quickly as possible in order for socialism to be successful (see primary stage of socialism). In order to encourage and promote the advancement of the productivity by creating competition and innovation, Dengist thought promotes the idea that the PRC needs to introduce a certain market element in a Socialist country. Dengists still believe that the PRC needs public ownership of land, banks, raw materials, and "strategic" central industries so a democratically elected government can make decisions on how to use them for the benefit of the country as a whole instead of the land owners, but at the same time limited private ownership is allowed and encouraged in industries of finished goods and services. According to the Dengist theory, private owners in those industries are not a bourgeoisie. Because in accordance with Marxist theory, bourgeois owns land and raw materials. Therefore, in a Dengist country private company owners are called "minyinqiyejia" (; "civil run enterprises"). The People's Republic of China was the first country which adopted this belief. It boosted its economy and achieved the "China Miracle". It has increased the Chinese GDP growth rate to over 8% per year for 30 years and China now has the second highest GDP in the world. Due to the influence of Dengism, Vietnam and Laos have also adopted this belief, which allowed Laos to increase its real GDP growth rate to 8.3%. Cuba is also starting to embrace this idea.
Socialist economics
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has pursued similar economic reforms to China, though less extensively, resulting in a socialist-oriented market economy, a mixed economy in which the state plays a dominant role intended to be a transitional phase in establishment of a socialist economy.
Communist Workers' Party (United States)
In 1980, there was a dramatic reversal of this line. In his book "The Socialist Road", CWP Chairman Jerry Tung announced that both the Soviet Union and China were socialist, although an unhealthy bureaucracy had taken shape in the governments of both countries.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
The guiding ideology of Marxism, the common ideal of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, the national spirit with patriotism as the core, the spirit of the times with reform and innovation as the core, and the socialist concept of honour and disgrace constitute the basic contents of the socialist core values system. We should persist in integrating the socialist core values system into the entire process of national education and the building of a spiritual civilization and having it run through the various aspect of the modernization drive.
History of the People's Republic of China (1976–1989)
In late 1978, many emboldened people began staging rallies and protests in Beijing. They erected a large number of wall posters (the so-called "Democracy Wall") criticizing the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong, the Gang of Four, and Hua Guofeng. All these were tolerated because of being more-or-less in line with official positions, but some began calling for democracy and open elections. This was more than the authorities were willing to tolerate and they quickly stressed that the party would continue to hold power and guide the nation towards socialism. While greater freedom of thought would be allowed, loyalty to the party and socialist thought would still be required. Nonetheless, writers began criticizing corruption, privileges enjoyed by party officials, and unemployment, all things that supposedly could not exist under socialism. It was now officially admitted that 20 million Chinese were unemployed and 100 million did not have enough food to eat.
Names of China
The name New China has been frequently applied to China by the Communist Party of China as a positive political and social term contrasting pre-1949 China (the establishment of the PRC) and the new socialist state, which eventually became Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó (see below), known in English as the "People's Republic of China". This term is also sometimes used by writers outside mainland China. The PRC was known to many in the West during the Cold War as "Communist China" or "Red China" to distinguish it from the Republic of China which is commonly called "Taiwan", "Nationalist China" or "Free China". In some contexts, particularly in economics, trade, and sports, "China" is often used to refer to mainland China to the exclusion of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Chinese Marxist philosophy
In modern China, Marxism is modified as the political ideology by the Communist Party of China to govern the party and the nation. The important concepts of Marxism, such as the ruling class and the ruling ideas, the material labor and the mental labor, superstructure and economic base, and the ideological state apparatuses, are used by the paramount leaders of People’s Republic of China to create guiding socio-political theories which make up the Chinese Marxist Philosophy. Two of the most important theories created by the leaders of China are: the Three Represents coined by the former leader of China, Jiang Zemin; and the Chinese Dream coined by Xi Jinping, the current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. - Citation needed for all claims
Democracy in China
Modern Chinese leaders state that they run a "socialist democracy" where the Communist Party of China is a central authority that acts in the interest of the people. The Communist Party approves what political parties can run. The Democracy Index scores China a 3.1 out of 10, classifying its government as authoritarian.
Socialist market economy
Julan Du and Chenggang Xu analyzed the Chinese model in a 2005 paper to assess whether it represents a type of market socialism or capitalism. They concluded that China's contemporary economic system represents a form of capitalism rather than market socialism because financial markets exist which permit private share ownership—a feature absent in the economic literature on market socialism—and because state profits are retained by enterprises rather than being distributed among the population in a social dividend or similar scheme, which are central features in most models of market socialism. They concluded that China is not a market socialist economy, but it is an unstable form of capitalism.
Wage reform in China, 1949–1976
Politically, it aimed at creating a more equal society that fits the vision of socialist society. Following Marx's conception of the communist society, CCP held that the optimal principle of distribution is “distribution according to need” (按需分配). The need mentioned here was determined by the nature of the society. However, the socialist period is still a transitive period towards the communist society.It is transitive in two senses: in the sense of forces of production and also in the sense of social consciousness. The Marxism's orthodox discussion about productivity and social consciousness is expressed as “the economic base determines the superstructure”. Due to the low level of economic development in China, there were different kinds of ownership existing during this period, making the market remain a necessary mediation between different parts of the economy. More importantly, according to this thought, the social consciousness is still undeveloped due to the backwards in the economy. Thus people were supposed to continue being guided by the commodity exchange. During this transitive period, the “distribution according to need” is impossible. Alternatively, the general principle in it was called “distribution according to labor” (按劳分配).
State capitalism
Analysis of the "Chinese model" by the economists Julan Du and Chenggang Xu finds that the contemporary economic system of the People's Republic of China represents a state capitalist system as opposed to a market socialist system. The reason for this categorization is the existence of financial markets in the Chinese economic system, which are absent in the market socialist literature and in the classic models of market socialism; and that state profits are retained by enterprises rather than being equitably distributed among the population in a basic income/social dividend or similar scheme, which are major features in the market socialist literature. They conclude that China is neither a form of market socialism nor a stable form of capitalism.
Labor relations in China
One of the hallmarks of China's socialist economy was its promise of employment to all able and willing to work and job-security with virtually lifelong tenure. Reformers targeted the labor market as unproductive because industries were frequently overstaffed to fulfill socialist goals and job-security reduced workers' incentive to work. This socialist policy was pejoratively called the iron rice bowl.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
The basic conflict between the Maoists and the Dengists was if China after 1949 had reached socialism or not, and what it would entail. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Sino–Soviet split Mao himself, was even unsure if China had reached the socialist mode of production. In 1962 he reached the conclusion that China, despite having nationalized the means of production, had not reached the socialist mode of production in its mature form, claiming that the principle conflict as existing in China was between the proletariat and the "new bourgeois elements", which were constantly reproduced, and other enemies of the revolution. This view led Mao to introduce to the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Mao, who gave priority to superstructural elements, Deng argued in 1956 in the "Report on the Revision of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China", that socialism had taken root in socialism, since private property had been abolished, since nationalization of property Deng argued (again following the basic premises of classical Marxism) entailed removing the basis of other classes reproducing, stating;
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 ... What is the point, then, of classifying these social strata into two different categories? And even if we were to try to devise a classification, how could we make it neat and clear-cut?
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. In addition he believed that China, since 1957, had been unable "to figure out what socialism is and how to build it". He criticized Mao's policies, particularly those after 1957, arguing that the CCP had "wasted twenty year."
Chinese philosophy
When the Communist Party of China took over the reign, previous schools of thought, excepting notably Legalism, were denounced as backward, and later even purged during the Cultural Revolution, whereas their influences on Chinese thoughts remain until today. The current government of the People's Republic of China is trying to encourage a form of market socialism.
Sino-Albanian split
Following the split with China, the Albanians proclaimed that their country was the only one in the world genuinely constructing a socialist society. In December 1977 Hoxha wrote an analysis of the Chinese revolution, declaring that, contrary to the Chinese view, "in general, the decisions and directives of the Comintern, first of all of the time of Lenin, were correct, and that those of the time of Stalin were correct, too." On the character of the revolution he wrote that, "In my opinion, and as far as I can judge, China carried out a bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type through the national liberation armed struggle" and that "the revolution in China could not be carried through to the end. ... So long as the working class in China shared power with the bourgeoisie, this power, in essence, was never transformed into a dictatorship of the proletariat, and consequently the Chinese revolution could not be a socialist revolution."
History of the Communist Party of China
Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, however, the CPC under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping moved towards "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and instituted Chinese economic reform. In reversing some of Mao's "extreme-leftist" policies, Deng argued that a socialist country and the market economy model were not mutually exclusive. While asserting the political power of the Party itself, the change in policy generated significant economic growth. The ideology itself, however, came into conflict on both sides of the spectrum with Maoists as well as progressive liberals, culminating with other social factors to cause the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. Deng's vision for economic success and a new socialist market model became entrenched in the Party constitution in 1997 as "Deng Xiaoping Theory".
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split allowed only written communications between the quarreling socialist countries; thus, the PRC and the USSR supported their geopolitical actions with formal statements of ideology concerning the true road to world communism, that is the general line of the party. In June 1963, the PRC published "The Chinese Communist Party's Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement", to which the USSR replied with the "Open Letter of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". In 1964, as a theoretician of Communism, Chairman Mao said that, in light of their differences of interpretation of Orthodox Marxism, a counter-revolution in the USSR had re-established capitalism; consequently, the USSR and then the Warsaw Pact countries broke relations with the People's Republic of China .
Sociology in China
Sociology became a subject of academic interest in China in 1920s, and in 1947 sociologist Fei Xiaotong published a book, "From the Soil", that sought to establish a framework for detailing Chinese society and its moral and ethics. A few years later, in 1949, the Communist party established control of Mainland China, and by 1952 sociology was banned by communist authorities as a bourgeois pseudoscience, similar to what happened in other communist countries (see for example history of sociology in the Soviet Union or sociology in People's Republic of Poland). Existing sociologists were discriminated against during the Cultural Revolution and their works restricted. In 1979, Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping noted the need for more studies of the Chinese society and supported the reestablishment of the discipline. That year, in March, Chinese Sociological Association (CSA) was reestablished. Since then, sociology has been widely accepted as a useful tool for the state, and sociology graduates have often been employed in government institutions. Reestablishment of the field was also aided by the growing cooperation between Chinese and American sociologists.
Types of socialism
With the Soviet Union's creation after the end of Russian Civil War that followed to initial success of Red October Revolution in Russia, other socialist parties in other countries and the Bolshevik party itself became Communist parties, owing allegiance of varying degrees to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (see Communist International). After World War II, regimes calling themselves Communist took power in Eastern Europe. In 1949, the Communists in China, supported by Soviet Union and led by Mao Zedong, came to power and established the People's Republic of China. Among the other countries in the Third World that adopted a bureaucratic Communist state as form of government at some point were Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Angola and Mozambique. By the early 1980s, almost one third of the world's population lived under Communist states.
Christian socialism
Some Christian socialists have become active communists. This phenomenon was most common among missionaries in China, the most notable being James Gareth Endicott, who became supportive of the struggle of the Communist Party of China in the 1930s and 1940s.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Despite admitting that globalization developed through the capitalist system, the party's leaders and theorists argue that globalization is not intrinsically capitalist, the reason being that, if globalization were purely capitalist, it would exclude an alternate socialist form of modernity. Globalization, as with the market economy, therefore does not have one specific class character (either socialist or capitalist) according to the party. The instance that globalization is not fixed in nature, comes from Deng's insistence that China can pursue socialist modernization by incorporating elements of capitalism. Because of this there is considerable optimism within the CCP that despite the current capitalist dominance of globalization, globalization can be turned into a vehicle supporting socialism. This event will occur through capitalism's own contradictions. These contradictions are, according to party theorist Yue Yi from the Academy of Social Sciences, "that between private ownership of the means of production and socialised production. This contradiction has manifested itself globally as the following contradictions; the contradiction between planned and regulated national economies and the unplanned and unregulated world economy; the contradiction between well-organized and scientifically managed Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and a blindly expanding and chaotic world market; the contradiction between the unlimited increase of productive capacity and the limited world market; and the contradiction between sovereign states and TNCs." It was these contradictions, argues Yue Yi, that led to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, that has caused unbalanced development and polarization, and widened the gap between rich and poor. These contradictions will lead to the inevitable demise of capitalism and the resultant dominance of socialism.
Communism
The People's Republic of China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy and along with Laos, Vietnam and to a lesser degree Cuba has decentralized state control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. Chinese economic reforms were started in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and since then China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era to just 6% in 2001. These reforms are sometimes described by outside commentators as a regression to capitalism, but the communist parties describe it as a necessary adjustment to existing realities in the post-Soviet world in order to maximize industrial productive capacity. In these countries, the land is a universal public monopoly administered by the state, as are natural resources and vital industries and services. The public sector is the dominant sector in these economies and the state plays a central role in coordinating economic development.
Economy of China
The socialist market economy of the People's Republic of China is the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity. Until 2015, China was the world's fastest-growing major economy, with growth rates averaging 10% over 30 years. Due to historical and political facts of China's developing economy, China's public sector accounts for a bigger share of the national economy than the burgeoning private sector. According to the IMF, on a per capita income basis China ranked 71st by GDP (nominal) and 78th by GDP (PPP) per capita in 2016. The country has an estimated $23 trillion worth of natural resources, 90% of which are coal and rare earth metals. China also has the world's largest total banking sector assets of $39.9 trillion (252 trillion CNY) with $26.54 trillion in total deposits.
Marxism–Leninism
In the 1950s, the de-Stalinisation of the Soviet Union was ideological bad news for the PRC, because Russian interpretations and applications of Leninism and Orthodox Marxism contradicted the Sinified Marxism–Leninism of Mao Zedong — his Chinese adaptations of Stalinist interpretation and praxis for establishing socialism in China. To realise that leap of Marxist faith in the development of Chinese socialism, the Communist Party of China developed Maoism (the Thought of Mao Zedong) as the official state ideology of the People's Republic of China. As the specifically Chinese development of Marxism–Leninism, Maoism illuminated the cultural differences between the European-Russian and the Asian-Chinese interpretations and practical applications of Leninism and Orthodox Marxism in each country. The political differences then provoked geopolitical, ideological, and nationalist tensions, which derived from the different stages of development, between the urban society of the industrialised USSR and the agricultural society of the pre-industrial PRC. The theory-vs-praxis arguments escalated to theoretic disputes about Marxist revisionism, and provoked the Sino-Soviet split (1956–1966), and the PRC and the USSR broke their international relations (diplomatic and political, cultural and economic).
Socialist Action (Hong Kong)
Socialist Action () is a Trotskyist political organisation in Hong Kong. It is affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI).
It works closely with the CWI sections in China and Taiwan. It describes itself as being based on the method and analysis of Marxism, to politically re-arm and organise the working class in the fight for a socialist world. They oppose the billionaire-dominated Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictatorship, which they claim has made China the 'Sweatshop of the World' with one of the most extreme wealth gaps on the planet. They stand for the creation of fighting independent trade unions by Chinese workers to fight against capitalist exploitation and authoritarian rule.
Constitution of the People's Republic of China
Article 1 of the State Constitution describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship" meaning that the system is based on an alliance of the working classes—in communist terminology, the workers and peasants—and is led by the Communist Party, the vanguard of the working class. Elsewhere, the Constitution provides for a renewed and vital role for the groups that make up that basic alliance—the CPPCC, democratic parties, and mass organizations. The 1982 Constitution expunges almost all of the rhetoric associated with the Cultural Revolution incorporated in the 1978 version. In fact, the Constitution omits all references to the Cultural Revolution and restates Chairman Mao Zedong's contributions in accordance with a major historical reassessment produced in June 1981 at the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, the "Resolution on Some Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic."
Russian Revolution
The Chinese Communist Revolution began in 1946 and was part of the ongoing Chinese Civil War. Marx had envisioned European revolutions to be intertwined with Asian revolutions in the mid-19th century with his 1853 "New York Tribune" article, "Revolution in China and Europe," in which he references the Chinese as people in "revolutionary convulsion," brought about by British economic control. The May Fourth Movement is considered a turning point where Communism took root in Chinese society, especially among intellectuals. China was officially made a communist country on October 1, 1949, resulting in the establishment of the People's Republic of China (which still remains to this day) with Chairman Mao Zedong at its head. China's current leaders retain that Mao "developed the theory of revolutionary socialism" whilst reformer Deng Xiopeng "developed the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics."
Socialist market economy
Deng Xiaoping introduced the concept of the socialist market economy in order to incorporate the market into the planned economy in the People's Republic of China. Deng first used the term during a meeting with vice chairman of the United States "Encyclopædia Britannica" Company Frank Gibney and director of the East Asian Studies Institute of Montreal's McGill University Professor Paul Lin Daguang, asking: "Under socialism, there can also be a market economy. [...] We can't say that this is capitalism. Our planned economy is in the primary position; it integrates with the market economy, but this is a socialist market economy". The Đổi Mới in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam later adopted the concept. Following its implementation, this economic system has supplemented the centrally planned economy in the People's Republic of China, with high growth-rates in GDP during the past decades having been attributed to it. Within this model, privately owned enterprises have become a major component of the economic system alongside the central state-owned enterprises and the collective/township village enterprises.
Primary stage of socialism
CPC theoretician Su Shaozhi, an official from the "People's Daily", began a debate in 1979 at a CPC theory conference to re-examine Mao Zedong's assertion of "class struggle as the key link" when he introduced the term "undeveloped socialism" to refer to China. Su, co-writing with Feng Langrui, published an article in "Economic Research" () in 1979 which called into question the Chinese socialist project by using Marxist methodology. The article analyzed the basis of Chinese socialism by looking at the writings of Karl Marx. Marx drew a distinction between lower-stage communismcommonly referred to as the socialist mode of production and higher-phase communismoften referred to as communism. Su's and Feng's article created three subdivisions within the socialist mode of production; the first phase was the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of productionthe phase in which the proletariat seized power and set-up the dictatorship of the proletariat and in which undeveloped socialism was created. The second phase was advanced socialism; the socialism that Marx wrote about. They said China was an undeveloped socialist nation because:
Communist Party of China
Marxism–Leninism was the first official ideology of the Communist Party of China. According to the CCP, "Marxism–Leninism reveals the universal laws governing the development of history of human society." To the CCP, Marxism–Leninism provides a "vision of the contradictions in capitalist society and of the inevitability of a future socialist and communist societies". According to the "People's Daily", Mao Zedong Thought "is Marxism–Leninism applied and developed in China". Mao Zedong Thought was conceived not only by Mao Zedong, but by leading party officials.
While non-Chinese analysts generally agree that the CCP has rejected orthodox Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (or at least basic thoughts within orthodox thinking), the CCP itself disagrees. Certain groups argue that Jiang Zemin ended the CCP's formal commitment to Marxism with the introduction of the ideological theory, the Three Represents. However, party theorist Leng Rong disagrees, claiming that "President Jiang rid the Party of the ideological obstacles to different kinds of ownership [...] He did not give up Marxism or socialism. He strengthened the Party by providing a modern understanding of Marxism and socialism—which is why we talk about a 'socialist market economy' with Chinese characteristics." The attainment of true "communism" is still described as the CCP's and China's "ultimate goal". While the CCP claims that China is in the primary stage of socialism, party theorists argue that the current development stage "looks a lot like capitalism". Alternatively, certain party theorists argue that "capitalism is the early or first stage of communism." Some have dismissed the concept of a primary stage of socialism as intellectual cynicism. According to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a China analyst, "When I first heard this rationale, I thought it more comic than clever—a wry caricature of hack propagandists leaked by intellectual cynics. But the 100-year horizon comes from serious political theorists".
History of socialism
In the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 1967, the terms Ultra-Left and left communist refers to political theory and practice self-defined as further "left" than that of the central Maoist leaders at the height of the GPCR ("Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"). The terms are also used retroactively to describe some early 20th century Chinese anarchist orientations. As a slur, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has used the term "ultra-left" more broadly to denounce any orientation it considers further "left" than the party line. According to the latter usage, in 1978 the CPC Central Committee denounced as "ultra-left" the line of Mao Zedong from 1956 until his death in 1976. "Ultra-Left" refers to those GPCR rebel positions that diverged from the central Maoist line by identifying an antagonistic contradiction between the CPC-PRC party-state itself and the masses of workers and "peasants" conceived as a single proletarian class divorced from any meaningful control over production or distribution. Whereas the central Maoist line maintained that the masses controlled the means of production through the Party's mediation, the Ultra-Left argued that the objective interests of bureaucrats were structurally determined by the centralist state-form in direct opposition to the objective interests of the masses, regardless of however "red" a given bureaucrat's "thought" might be. Whereas the central Maoist leaders encouraged the masses to criticize reactionary "ideas" and "habits" among the alleged 5% of bad cadres, giving them a chance to "turn over a new leaf" after they had undergone "thought reform," the Ultra-Left argued that "cultural revolution" had to give way to "political revolution" – "in which one class overthrows another class".
Politics of China (disambiguation)
Politics of China is the politics of the People's Republic of China, a single-party socialist republic.
Peasant Party (Taiwan)
The Peasant Party regards the two belligerent parties of the Chinese Civil War (the People's Republic of China versus the Republic of China; or the Communist Party of China versus the Kuomintang) should recognize each other as sovereign States, similar to the model adopted by the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. It predicts that the two parties will reunite when the economic conditions become similar. However, the Peasant Party does not consider the islands of Taiwan and the Pescadores part of China, because they consider the Republic of Formosa of 1895 recovers de jure sovereignty over these islands, after the surrender of Japan following World War 2. This led them to assert that the current sovereign territory of the Republic of China only covers Quemoy and Matsu (both historically and administratively part of Fujian).
List of political parties in China
Third, Article 1 of the Constitution defines China as a "people's democratic dictatorship" with "the socialist system" as its "basic system". It explicitly forbids "sabotage of the socialist system by any individual or organization".
Communist state
During the 20th century, the world's first constitutionally socialist state was in Russia in 1917. In 1922, it joined other former territories of the empire to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). After World War II, the Soviet Army occupied much of Eastern Europe and thus helped establish Communist states in these countries. Most Communist states in Eastern Europe were allied with the Soviet Union, except for Yugoslavia which declared itself non-aligned. In 1949, after a war against Japanese occupation and a civil war resulting in a Communist victory, the People's Republic of China (PRC) was established. Communist states were also established in Cambodia, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. A Communist state was established in North Korea, although it later adopted its own ideology called Juche. In 1989, the Communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed under public pressure during a wave of non-violent movements which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, the existing Communist states in the world are in China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam.
Criticism of capitalism
In mainland China, differences in terminology sometimes confuse and complicate discussions of Chinese economic reform. Under Marxist ideology, capitalism refers to a stage of history in which there is a class system in which the proletariat is exploited by the bourgeoisie. Officially, according to the Chinese governments stateideology, China is currently in the primary stage of socialism. However, because of Deng Xiaoping and subsequent leaders' Chinese economic reforms, instituting pragmatism within policy, China has undertaken policies that are commonly considered capitalistic, including employing wage labor, increasing unemployment to motivate those who are still working, transforming state owned enterprises into joint stock companies and encouraging the growth of the joint venture and private capitalist sectors. A contrary Marxist view would describe China as just another variant of capitalism (state capitalism), much like the former Soviet Union, which was also claiming to be operating on principals of socialism. This is echoed by what Mao Zedong termed "capitalist roaders", who he argued existed within the ruling party structures and would try to restore the bourgeoisie and thus their class interests to power reflected in new policies while only keeping the outer appearance of socialism for legitimacy purposes. Deng Xiaoping was identified as one of these "capitalist roaders" during the Cultural Revolution, when he was placed under house arrest.
History of socialism
By the start of the 21st century, though, the leadership of China was embarked upon a program of market-based reform that was more sweeping than had been Soviet leader Gorbachev's perestroika program of the late 1980s, which is tracable to Deng's Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Communist state
Countries such as the Soviet Union and China were criticized by Western authors and organisations on the basis of a lack of multi-party Western democracy, in addition to several other areas where socialist society and Western societies differed. For instance, socialist societies were commonly characterised by state ownership or social ownership of the means of production either through administration through party organisations, democratically elected councils and communes and co-operative structures—in opposition to the liberal democratic capitalist free market paradigm of management, ownership and control by corporations and private individuals. Communist states have also been criticised for the influence and outreach of their respective ruling parties on society, in addition to lack of recognition for some Western legal rights and liberties such as the right to ownership of private property and the restriction of the right to free speech.
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
In 2007, Hu Jintao noted in a speech that "people's democracy is the lifeblood of socialism ... without democracy there can be no socialism, and there can be no socialist modernization." To be clear, democracy, in the CCP's understanding of the word, does not mean democracy as practiced in liberal democracies. Instead it means the creation of a more balanced, equal society, "with socialism bringing about social justice. The CCP still believes that the Party and country is led by the unity of the peasant and working classes. However, for the further development of democracy and socialism, stability is needed.
Yang Xiaoqing in the article "A Comparative Study of Constitutional Governance and the People's Democratic Regime", published in the party's journal "Seeking Truth from Facts" in 2013, argues that the people's democratic dictatorship and Western constitutional government are mutually exclusive. She notes, in line with classical Marxist theory, that constitutionalism in general fits with the capitalist mode of production and bourgeois democracy, and does not fit in with China's socialist system of people's democratic dictatorship. Constitutional government has a market economy in which private property plays the predominant role, as the basis unlike the Chinese socialist market economy in which public ownership is the basis. The rallying cries of the liberal revolutions in the 17th and 18th century she notes was "Private property is sacred and inviolable, and constitutional governance was established around this premise. While things have changed since the 17th and 18th centuries the basic premise remains the same in Western societies; a small government which protects the interests of private property.
Chinese Soviet Republic
The Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR), also known as the Soviet Republic of China or the China Soviet Republic, is often referred to in historical sources as the Jiangxi Soviet (after its largest component territory, the Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet). It was established in November 1931 by future Communist Party of China leader Mao Zedong, General Zhu De and others, and it lasted until 1937. Discontiguous territories included the Northeastern Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi, Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi, Hunan-Western Hubei, Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou, Shaanxi-Gansu, Szechuan-Shensi, Hubei-Henan-Anhui, Honghu and Haifeng-Lufeng Soviets.
Mao Zedong was both CSR state chairman and prime minister; he led the state and its government. Mao's tenure as head of a "small state within a state" gave him experience in mobile warfare and peasant organization; this experience helped him accomplish the Communist reunification of China during the late 1940s. The CSR was eventually destroyed by the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in a series of 1934 encirclement campaigns. Following the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, the Communists and Kuomintang formed an uneasy "United Front" to resist Japanese pressure, which led to the Communists recognizing at least for the moment Chiang Kai-shek as China's leader and the official dissolution of the Soviet Republic on 22 September 1937.
Socialist market economy
Another analysis carried out by the Global Studies Association at the DePaul University in 2006 reports that the Chinese economic system does not constitute a form of socialism when socialism is defined as a planned economy where production for use has replaced production for profit as the driving force behind economic activity, or when socialism is defined as a system where the working class is the dominant class which controls the surplus value produced by the economy. The Chinese economy also does not constitute socialism in the sense of widespread self-management or workplace democracy. The study concluded that as of 2006 capitalism is not the dominant mode of organization either and it is instead partially a pre-capitalist agrarian system with almost 50% of its population engaged in agricultural work.
China Democratic Socialist Party
The CDSP's platform was to promote democratic socialism in China, world peace, individual freedoms, economic development, a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor, and equal rights for women. The party also sought the implementation of a social welfare system for public health and social security.
Socialism 3.0
Socialism 3.0 refers to the third era of socialism in China which is distinguished from Mao Zedong's equalitarianism era and Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening-up era. It is also referred to as the post-reform era. This concept was first proposed by Professor Wang Shaoguang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in a non-published speech. It was later referred by Peter Martin and David Cohen in their article Socialism 3.0 in China, which mainly focused on Bo Xilai's Chongqing Model. The authors cast doubt on the Maoist policies adopted by Bo Xilai, a high-rank of Communist Party of China and chief official of Chongqing, China, being a feasible future for China's Socialism.
Hu Angang
Hu is known in China for his strong support of socialism and the Chinese Communist Party. In July 2013 he wrote a controversial op-ed for the "People's Daily" stating: "Compared with the civil society in the West, the people's society is superior... it is a great made-in-China innovation in theory and practice." He went on to say that "[t]he people's society is a socialist society under the leadership of the Communist Party." This drew strong criticism within China from social media sites and Chinese academics such as Yu Jianrong.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
On 5 May 1978, the article "Putting into Effect the Socialist Principle of Distribution According to Work" (贯彻执行按劳分配的社会主义原则) elaborated on the idea that China was still at the first stage of reaching pure communism and that it had not become a truly socialist society. The article was written by members in the State Council's Political Research Office led by economist Yu Guangyuan on the orders of Deng Xiaoping so as to "criticize and repudiate" the beliefs of the communist left. After reading it, Deng himself authored a brief memo saying that it was "well-written, and shows that the nature of distribution by labor is not capitalist, but socialist [...] [and] to implement this principle, many things are to be done, and many institutions to be revived. In all, this is to give incentives for us to do better". The term reappeared at the 6th plenum of the 11th Central Committee on 27 June 1981 in the document "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of our Party since the Founding of the PRC". Hu Yaobang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, used the term in his report to the 12th National Congress on 1 September 1982. It was not until the "Resolution Concerning the Guiding Principle in Building Socialist Spiritual Civilization" at the 6th plenum of the 12th Central Committee that the term was used in the defense of the economic reforms which were being introduced.
Hu Angang
Hu claims that the Chinese socialist system is "superior" to other systems. In a July 2011 article for the "People's Forum", Hu wrote that: "The CPC has always adhered to the mass line, rooting itself among the people in order to make democratic decisions. This is manifested in the superiority of the socialist policy-making system with Chinese characteristics. This policy-making system is based on the mass line of the Party, that is from the masses, to the masses and putting into practice what has been learned from practice."
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
The theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics (, literally "zhōngguó tèsè", meaning "Chinese characteristics"; and "shèhuì zhǔyì" meaning "socialism") is a broad term for political theories and policies that are seen by their proponents as representing Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese circumstances and specific time periods. For instance, in this view Xi Jinping Thought is considered to represent Marxist–Leninist policies suited for China's present condition while Deng Xiaoping Theory was considered relevant for the period when it was formulated.
Politics of China
The politics of the People's Republic of China takes place in a framework of a socialist republic run by a single party, the Communist Party of China, headed by General Secretary. State power within the People's Republic of China (PRC) is exercised through the Communist Party, the Central People's Government (State Council) and their provincial and local representation. The Communist Party of China uses to manage and monitor internal disagreements among the citizens of People's Republic of China. Document Number Nine was circulated among the Chinese Communist Party in 2013 by Xi–Li Administration to tighten control of the ideological sphere in China to ensure the supreme leadership of the Communist Party will not be challenged by Western influences. The PRC controls mainland China, Hainan island, Hong Kong, Macau and some South China Sea islands.
Marshall Mission
Throughout the length of the Second Sino-Japanese War an uneasy stalemate had existed between the Chinese Communists (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalists (KMT), while prior to the war, both parties had been in open conflict with each other. During the period numerous US military personnel and private writers visited and reported on the Communist Part of China. In 1936, international journalist Edgar Snow traveled and interviewed leading members of the Communist Party of China. Snow reported that Mao was a reformer rather than a radical revolutionary, and many readers got the impression that the Chinese communists were "agrarian reformers." In the 1944 Dixie Mission, US Colonel John Service visited the Communists and praised them, claimed that they were democratic reformers, likening them to European socialists rather than Soviet Communists and claimed that they were less corrupt and chaotic than the Nationalists.
Sino-Soviet relations
After 1946, the CCP was increasingly successful in the Civil War. On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong, and by May 1950 the KMT had been expelled from Mainland China, remaining in control of Taiwan. With the creation of the People's Republic of China, the supreme political authority in the two countries became centred in two communist parties, both espousing revolutionary, Marxist–Leninist ideology: the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Politics of China
Central government leaders must increasingly build consensus for new policies among party members, local and regional leaders, influential non-party members, and the population at large. However, control is often maintained over the larger group through control of information.
The Chinese Communist Party considers China to be in the initial stages of socialism. Many Chinese and foreign observers see the PRC as in transition from a system of public ownership to one in which private ownership plays an increasingly important role. Privatization of housing and increasing freedom to make choices about education and employment severely weakened the work unit system that was once the basic cell of Communist Party control over society. China's complex political, ethnic and ideological mosaic, much less uniform beneath the surface than in the idealized story of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, resists simple categorization.