SPGB Snippets: The Chinese Dream (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website

June 17, 2026

Workers in China are feeling jaded nowadays. After Tiananmen Square, Deng Xiaoping stopped pretending China was ‘communist’ and pulled the capitalist stops out. In 1980 home ownership was 20%. Today it’s 96%. So a success, right? But wait. 10% own over 70% of wealth (Economist – paywall).

The ‘entrepreneurial’ generation were ‘faced with open roads, you could go far even on a three-wheeled cart’. Now ‘the roads are jammed, and… the [wealthy heirs] can take helicopters’. Seeing nil prospects for success, today’s young people are ‘lying flat’ instead. ‘They think that effort is no longer rewarded… and that the keys to success are connections and being born rich.’

Welcome to our world. Capitalism is pretty dismal for workers, and utopia is only for the rich.

Thought and Contradiction (2026)

Book Review from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mao: Power and Contradiction. By Kerry Brown. Reaktion Books £20.

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong, and for over a quarter of a century before then he had been the ruler of China. Here Kerry Brown presents an account of his life, with a great deal of background information on developments in China, including since his death.

Born in 1893, Mao was one of fifteen people who attended the founding meeting of the Chinese ‘Communist’ Party (CCP) in 1921. This was a time when few of Marx’s writings were available in Chinese. The CCP’s first manifesto stated that one of its aims was to eradicate the capitalist system, even though the vast majority of China’s inhabitants were peasants, and capitalism was just getting off the ground. Mao argued that the peasantry would play a crucial role in bringing the CCP to power, though he also accepted the Leninist idea of a centralist, vanguard party. He had very little understanding of capitalism, and sometimes saw class as something that was inherited.

Mao gradually rose to the top of the CCP during its and the Red Army’s fight against the Nationalists, but his life at this time was not easy. In 1927 he narrowly avoided being executed by the Nationalists, and in 1930 his second wife Yang Kaihui was tortured and executed by the provincial government. On the Long March of 1934–5 his two children by his third wife were given up soon after birth to local families, but could not be traced later.

The CCP took power in 1949, after driving out the Nationalists. Brown points out that Chinese society at that time was in a dire condition, after two decades of civil war and Japanese occupation. Average life expectancy was just 35, and the country was worse off economically than it had been in 1820. Land reform and the expansion of state-owned enterprises led over time to much-improved living conditions, but movements such as the Great Leap Forward were the cause of maybe as many as fifty million deaths, by famine and persecution (it is not clear how much Mao knew about the consequences of his policies, or how hard he tried to find out). The Cultural Revolution from 1966 was a power struggle within the ruling class, with Mao turning on anyone he saw as an enemy.

Since Mao’s death China has become the world’s second largest economy, rivalling the US, and a major manufacturing base, also now a hub of technological development. There has been nothing in China like de-Stalinisation in Russia, and Mao is officially viewed in China as a great man who made mistakes. The term Mao Zedong Thought is used, rather than Maoism, and Brown seems to see his ideas as some odd mix of Marxism and Daoism, though this may mean little more than a supposed emphasis on contradiction. There is no recognition here that Mao’s views had little to do with those of Marx, and that he contributed to the spread of capitalism in China: not abolishing the wages system but forcing it on far more of the country’s population.

Paul Bennett

Letter: Class and the Individual (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class and the Individual

Being one who glories in the uniqueness of the individual, and who believes, at the end of the day, there are two fixities in this world—the individual and the world—all other relationships are created by man himself, I sometimes wonder where your concentration on the “class” leaves the individual. What will his part and his place be in the Socialist Society? The lessons of modern China repel me.

R .Thomas

Llanberis.

Reply:

Certainly an individual is unique—by definition. Having said that one is no further forward—one has learnt nothing, clarified nothing, explained nothing. Our emphasis on class is an important part of our analysis of society. History shows that all propertied societies have been divided into economic (and social) classes each of which has a different relation to the means of production. In capitalist society there are two classes—owners and non-owners of the means of life. We call these classes capitalists and workers respectively.

The class to which any individual belongs is determined objectively by his relationship to the means of life. No matter how unique he is as an individual, if he is a member of the working class he will have interests in common with other workers, interests which conflict with those of the unique individuals who make up the capitalist class. The most obvious clash of interests being the price at which labour-power is bought and sold. This is the interminable wages struggle which is inseparable from capitalist ownership.

The expression of one’s unique individual personality is viciously limited by economic circumstances. For many people at present the highest aim in life is simply to be the same as everyone else. Look round you at the armies of workers churned out by the so-called education process as machine minders and office fodder. Millions of passive participants in the labour process stripped of virtually all individuality by the need to conform to a system of class exploitation. Your example of China (which is not Socialist but state-capitalist) is just as repellent as anything the “free” west has to offer.

Only Socialism can give the individual the freedom to develop his personality and abilities to the full, unrestricted by today’s profit-seeking and measurement by money. When we have established common ownership the individual will take his place as a free and equal member of society, able to give of his best secure in the knowledge that society is being run in a harmonious way for the benefit of all its members.

Editors.

Material World: Right, left and fake communism (2026)

The Material World column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern politics is often presented as a battlefield between two irreconcilable forces: the right and the left. However, this opposition is more apparent than real.

Both currents are internal factions of the capitalist mode of production. The right defends the market, private initiative and competition as the engine of the economy; the left, for its part, advocates nationalisation, a regulated economy and state control. Two different paths, yes, but both leading to the same destination: the perpetuation of capitalist relations of production.

Many people, out of ignorance or historical unawareness, believe that nationalisation is equivalent to socialism. They confuse the presence of the state in the economy with the abolition of class struggle. But authentic socialism is not reduced to the state administering companies or nationalising strategic sectors. Socialism implies that workers directly control the means of production, that exploitation disappears and that society is organised consciously and collectively.

In countries that proclaimed themselves socialist — the USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela — what was actually established was state capitalism. There was no disappearance of property or wage labour. Individual private property was replaced by collective ownership by the state bureaucracy, not by direct management by the workers.

The worker continued to sell his labour power in exchange for a wage, while the surplus value was appropriated by the state. The fundamental difference is that, in private capitalism, exploitation is exercised by one individual over another; in state capitalism, exploitation is exercised by the state over the individual.

Lenin himself acknowledged in his pamphlet The State and Revolution that the USSR had not achieved communism, but was in a phase of state capitalism. What was established there was a system where the state absorbed the economy, centralised production and organised exploitation more efficiently, but without abolishing fundamental capitalist relations.

China repeated the same pattern. Under the slogan of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ it merged private and state capital. Today it is a capitalist power that competes in the world market with the same rules of value, competition, and exploitation as any other country.

In Cuba, massive nationalisations created the appearance of a society without a bourgeoisie, but state bureaucrats enjoyed privileges far superior to those of any worker. Centralised planning did not eliminate exploitation, it simply reorganised it under an omnipresent state apparatus.

Venezuela, for its part, used socialist rhetoric as a political banner, while keeping capitalist relations of production intact. Oil, the engine of its economy, was administered by the state as national capital, not as the collective heritage of the workers. Inequality, corruption and dependence on the world market are proof that communism was not built there, but rather a variant of state capitalism.

Authentic communism, understood as the abolition of social classes and the direct management of production by workers, has never existed in these countries. What has reigned is a hypertrophied, cold and bureaucratic state that devours civil society and presents itself as a saviour while perpetuating exploitation. State intervention is not a rationalisation of capitalism, but a manifestation of its decadence. It is a desperate attempt to sustain a system that can no longer spontaneously organise human relations and needs violence and bureaucracy to stay afloat.

In conclusion, the right and the left are two sides of the same coin: one defends the market, the other defends nationalisation. Both reproduce the same exploitative relationships. Countries that proclaimed themselves socialist have never been so; they are examples of how state capitalism can disguise itself as revolution, appropriate symbols and words, and construct one of the greatest mystifications in history. True socialism remains a pending task, yet to be realised in any corner of the planet.

(Translation of an article by Juan Morel Perez published in El Neuvo Diario in the Dominican Republic.)

A Tory View of China (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article in the Sunday Times on October 6th Sir Fitzroy Maclean, M.P., described the conditions he found on a recent visit and expressed the view that the peasants are better off than they were before the Communist Party got control of the government:

It is true that by one method or another they are regimented and made to toe the line. But they do not, as they used to, have the fear of actual starvation always hanging over their heads. Nor are they perpetually harassed by the rent collector and the money-lender or by the marauding war lords and bandits who caused such havoc.

He sees China developing militarily and economically and aiming to dominate Asia. He also noted that, despite the abuse the Chinese and Russian Communists hurl at each other there is one thing both countries (and all other countries) have in common:

In China, as elsewhere, how you live and what you buy depends on how much money you have. And who, it will be asked, has the money? The answer, as in the Soviet Union, is: the privileged classes, Officials, high-ranking officers, scientists, technicians, skilled workers and so on. But to those must be added a small and peculiarly Chinese category: the Communist Capitalists. These, surprisingly enough are the former owners of, for example, factories, whose enterprises have been taken over by the State and who receive annually from the State as compensation a percentage of the capital value of the enterprise. As they are also very often employed as managers of the factory, some of them are extremely well off.

Edgar Hardcastle

Cooking the Books: Has Trump gone state-capitalist? (2025)

The Cooking the Books column from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Trump embraces state capitalism’ declared the US news site Foreign Policy in July: ‘the level of U.S. government economic intervention under Trump 2.0 is off the charts’. In August the Wall Street Journal took up the theme in an article by its chief economics commentator, Greg Ig: ‘The U.S. Marches Toward State Capitalism With American Characteristics’, he wrote, ‘President Trump is imitating Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into economy’.

Ig instanced ‘Trump’s demand that Intel’s chief executive resign; the 15% of certain chip sales to China that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices will share with Washington; the “golden share” Washington will get in U.S. Steel as a condition of Nippon Steel’s takeover; and the $1.5 trillion of promised investment from trading partners Trump plans to personally direct’. He commented:

‘This isn’t socialism, in which the state owns the means of production. It is more like state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises. China calls its hybrid “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The U.S. hasn’t gone as far as China or even milder practitioners of state capitalism such as Russia, Brazil and, at times, France. So call this variant “state capitalism with American characteristics.”’

This is one definition of state capitalism, but state ownership is not socialism; nor can there be any hybrid between socialism and capitalism. Capitalism exists whenever there is minority ownership of the means of production, wage-labour and production for sale and profit, irrespective of whether that ownership is via individual ownership, a limited company or a nationalised industry.

The term ‘state capitalism’ first came into use towards the end of the 19th century, to describe instances where the government performs the role of capitalist by employing wage-labour and selling the product or service to realise a profit, such as state-owned and run mines and railways. After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, Lenin extended the term to include the development of private capitalism under the direction and control of the state. Others later extended the meaning further to include a nationalised economy without private capitalists but still with wage-labour, production for the market and a privileged ruling class such as eventually developed in Russia.

It was a term used more by critics than by supporters of capitalism. Latterly, however, it has come to be used routinely in the media to describe the economic system in China where political control is firmly in the hands of a single party but where profit-seeking private enterprises are allowed to operate, where their shares are traded and where state-owned enterprises compete on the world market with the same aim and methods as private capitalist enterprises.

Politically motivated government intervention in the economy is not new — governments have always done this to one degree or another via taxes, subsidies, tariffs, and monetary policy — but calling this ‘state capitalism’ is new, at least in openly pro-capitalist circles. This could even be seen as a step forward in that, previously, they called it ‘socialism’, ‘communism’, ‘Marxism’, a travesty of these words. The more backward of them still do, as this from Fortune (12 August) magazine:

‘Many free-market economists and business leaders who have long worshipped the free-market ideals of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman should be aware that their idols would be rolling in their graves right now, as rather than pursue standard laissez-faire conservative economic policies, MAGA has gone Marxist and even, increasingly, Maoist’).

Even though it is quite ludicrous to say that Trump has ‘gone Marxist’, there is a delicious irony in him being accused of undermining capitalism. Not that he is of course. He is using state power in what he considers to be the general interest of the US capitalist class.

Where East meets West (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although attention is today focussed on Korea, it is but a glittering spark in the great smouldering mass which is China. Throughout the past 100 years it has been the struggle for spheres of influence, trade, raw materials, which made China a hot bed of intrigue, murder and corruption. A glance at a map will show that the importance of Korea is its geographic position. It is a peninsula of land pointing like a great finger into the Sea of Japan, covering or threatening Vladivostok to the North, Shanghai and Hong-kong to the South and Japan to the East.

That the war which ended in 1945 solved no problems now becomes clear. The economic position that made occupation of Manchuria so essential to Japan is still the same. America as the political power in occupation of Japan is forced to take over the role of the Japanese militarists who preceded them. The Communist party of Russia carry on the same policy of expansion as did Czarist Russia.

But whereas the leading role of the West was played by British Imperialism in the carving up of China during the 19th century, that mantle too, has now fallen on American shoulders. The antagonism of China and Russia to both Britain and Japan now shows itself in open hostility to America. The drama remains the same, only the actors appear in different guises.

From time immemorial China had developed and perfected an economic and social system quite adequate for her needs. This was a system of production organised in the towns along lines similar to the Guilds of Mediaeval Europe. About 80 per cent. of her population were absorbed in agriculture. The basis of her rural life was the village community. The cohesive force that held together these almost exclusive units of town and village, was the organised Scholar Gentry; that is educated land owners from whose ranks the officials, provincial governors, magistrates, etc. were chosen. Following on the diverse products of different regions, there had developed in this society a rich merchant class which dealt in the finished products of the Guilds.

The only opportunity presenting itself to the owners of money as a source of investment aside from dealing in the products of the towns, was usury. The lending of money to peasants, the hiring of land from great land owners and reletting of it at exorbitant rents became one of the main sources of wealth.

However, with the breaking of the West into China, dealing in opium, and later, investing in foreign enterprises, banks, railroad building, mining etc., soon developed a class of Chinese who, while still retaining lucrative investments in usurous capital, also identified themselves with the interests of the foreigners.

It was from these that the foreign powers in their rivalries chose their puppet governments to rule in parts of China. But side by side with the foreigners there arose a small number of Chinese who emulated and copied the factory method of production. However meagrely they lived, however cheaply they paid their workers, however long they worked their employees, they found that they could not compete against the influx of Western made commodities. From them arose the cry for “Tariff Autonomy” that is to say the right to protect and nurture their budding industries by government action.

Because of the dissolution of the handicraft industries, labour capable of employment in factories became abundant and cheap. Industries dominated by foreign capital sprang up in the towns all round the coast of China. Workers who worked as many as 12 hours a day for as little as a shilling a day, formed a seething mass of discontent in the towns. As the capitalists who employed them were non-Chinese, their struggles took a nationalistic direction. They were the natural allies of a weak, embryonic Chinese capitalist class in their struggle for a “Free China.”

But the mass of the Chinese were still peasants. The land problem was still the crux of the unrest and turmoil troubling China.

Governments, in order to rule, need revenue, not only for administrative purposes but also to meet payments on foreign loans. Because of the privileges gained by the foreign invaders, they were exempt from Chinese government taxes. As the government was also denied access to the customs revenue at the ports, the burden of taxation fell, not only on Chinese industry, thus restricting its development still farther, but also on the peasant. Any increase of taxes levied on the land owner was easily shifted onto the peasant by the mere expedient of raising his rent. The government itself was peopled by men who had a vested interest in the land. Any movement organised by the peasants for a reduction in rents meant either a reduction of government revenue or a reduction of income accruing to the land owners who constitute a large and powerful section of the community.

As the government revenue was a source of income for the banking concerns of the Western powers, a reduction in it was out of the question. The struggle between the land owners and the peasant was settled by force. Non-payment of the required rent meant the eviction of the peasant from the land. This was accomplished either by the private army of the land owner or by some neighbouring War lord with whom he was intimately connected.

The Great War (’14-’18) however created the conditions for a rapid growth of a home-grown Chinese industry : furthermore, the Russian Revolution pointed a way to the solution of many of the problems that confronted the Chinese. It was just after this war that a Chinese Communist Party was formed. A child of the intellectuals of China, it had a somewhat chequered career from the time of its formation till the end of the last war (’39-’45). Its phenomenal success after the cessation of hostilities lies in the fact that the representative government of China, recognised and supported by the Allies in their war against the Axis powers, entered into agreements with America which virtually handed over the whole of Chinese assets. The National Sovereignty which had been promised to them as a reward for victory against Japan, although given on paper, was denied them in reality. The realization of this was the reason for the sudden and remarkable victories of the “communists.” Fear of Russian infiltration into China from the North East which she had already occupied after the defeat of Japan was no doubt one of the reasons that spurred America to almost frenzied support of the Kuomintang. Its reaction however, was to drive the “communists” into the arms of Russia in whom they saw a natural ally.

The “communists,” although the victors in the Civil War, have still to consolidate their position and implement their programme. It is to a consideration of this programme that we now turn.

Stuart Gelder in his book “The Chinese Communists” quotes a long political report of Mao Tse-Tung. Under the heading “Policy of the Communists,” on page 25, we find, “Troops and armed forces form an important part of the New Democratic State-authority. Without them, the nation is without protection. Like all other governmental authorities, and completely different from the old-time troops and police who belong to a few, and are tools for oppressing the people, all armed forces of New Democracy belong to the people and protect them.”

This of course rings true to a people long oppressed by bandits and the soldiers of thieving warlords. To a socialist however it means that the “New Democracy” means to maintain law and order. But what kind of law and order will this be? Mao Tse-Tung goes on:—“Imperialist and feudal oppression has restricted the development of individuality and private capital, and has ruined the property of the masses. The task of our New Democratic system is to remove this restriction and ruination, to safeguard the free development of the people’s individuality in their social life, to promote the free development of private capitalist economy that benefits and does not control the people’s livelihood, and to protect all proper private property.”

Like all pseudo-Marxists in backward countries, their alleged ultimate goal is communism but the immediate objective is the realization of the capitalist mode of production. This, apparently, can be striven for as a step towards the ultimate goal. Again from the report of Mao Tse-Tung (p. 26):—“When we joined the party, we had in our mind two clearly defined objectives : to fight for the new bourgeois-democratic revolution, and to strive for the materialisation of the future Socialist revolution of the proletariat.”

According to this line of reasoning the proletariat (propertyless workers) are quite capable of understanding the need for capitalism in order to obtain socialism. Not only is socialism to be the result of consciousness but capitalism also. In short, the large industrial working class created by the foreign capitalists are firstly to aid the native capitalist to get rid of his foreign competitor and then to joyfully help him onto their backs in the foreigners’ place. This of course is nonsense.

The Chinese worker will find, nay, has probably already discovered that capitalists of whatever nationality or colour are much of a muchness. The development of the capitalist mode of production is the beginning of new struggles between new classes. Capital and its growth depend on a greater degree of exploitation, greater amounts of surplus value and the complete subjugation of the workers to its sway. In so far as the workers are blinded to the real import of capitalist production and look on it as a prelude to something better in the future, to that extent will their struggle be blunted. To that extent will they be the more effectively milked.

The acceptance of the “communist” position, however sincere, must conflict with the real interests of the working class. Any resistance by the workers at any time must be construed as preventing accumulation of greater amounts of capital. It will therefore be opposed by the state. Basically, despite its Marxist jargon, the “communist party” are putting forward that old shibboleth so roundly condemned by Marx and Engels in the “Communist Manifesto”—“ Capitalism for the benefit of the working class.”

Again from the report of Mao Tse-tung (p. 46): — “ The New Democratic system of government will adopt the policy of harmonizing the relationship between capital and labour. . . .  On the other hand the proper profits of state, private and co-operative enterprises will be protected.”

Despite the day dream of developing capitalism first and socialism afterwards, the “communists” get down to brass tacks. “Large amounts of capital will be needed for the development of our industries. They will come chiefly from the accumulated wealth of the Chinese people, and in a lesser degree from foreign assistance. We welcome foreign investments if such are beneficial to China’s economy and are made in observance of China’s laws. What is beneficial to both the Chinese people and foreigners is that China, after winning a firm internal and international peace, and instituting thorough political and agrarian reforms will be able to develop her large-scale light and heavy industries and modernized agriculture. On this basis we shall be able to absorb vast amounts of foreign investments. A politically backward and economically impoverished China will be unprofitable not only to the Chinese people, but also to foreigners.” (P. 46)

To sum up; the relation of the West to China has been one of ruthless exploitation. The apparent struggle between the powers which presents itself as a struggle between ideas or differing ways of life, is in fact a struggle over the spoils. The development of a strong native capitalist government therefore enters the field to expel the foreigners. Armed with the history of exploitation as justification for its actions, it attempts to place itself in position as the future exploiter of China.

The position of the masses of China will still be that of exploited toilers.

Rufus.

Running Commentary: Man of Steel (1979)

The Running Commentary column from the November 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Man of Steel

Is your boss a bastard? Does he refuse to accept anything but the highest standards and does he berate you when you produce, as you often do, less than the best be it engineering, sales or documentation?

If he is, then do not be too hard on him; he may only be doing as he is told. Perhaps he was present at the September meeting of the Steel Industry Management Association when Sir Charles Villiers, chairman of the British Steel Corporation, advised all managers to be “bastards” to any of their workers who turned out sub-standard work.

It may be that Villiers is a sensitive man. BSC is not famous for being a vastly profitable concern and he, as its £30,000 a year head, is often under fire from the press. A little aggressiveness towards his employees, he may have calculated, could do his reputation no harm.

Or perhaps he meant it. Villiers is not just a representative of the capitalist class—he is a member of it. Educated at Eton and Oxford, a member of the exclusive Beefsteak Club (where none of his steel workers would be allowed past the doorman), living in Eaton Square (where none of his steel workers could afford much more than the space for a garden shed) and, before taking over at BSC. chairman of merchant bankers Guinness and Mahon.

Yet his speech was a curious thing. Firstly, what if all workers took him at his word and refused to turn out anything less than the best? What then would happen to capitalist industry, which turns, out mountains of trash when it is trash which pays?

Secondly, what was a member of the capitalist class doing, being so frank about class relationships under capitalism? The idea that we all live in a happy, united society of common interests is hardly best served by such a hard headed attitude.

He who lifts a comer of the truth about these matters will not be popular with the other members of the ruling class. Will Villiers soon be crying all the way to the Eaton Square dole office?

Pym's number one 

Another member of the ruling class to be offering some urging to workers recently—although with a rather different attitude—was Sir Francis Pym and all his friends will hope to see this ambitious politician's keenness rewarded.

Pym also went to Eton, then on to Magdalen College, Cambridge. He belongs to Bucks, the Cavalry and the Guards which are not brands of cigarettes but expensive West End clubs. He has a stately home in Bedfordshire. Clearly, he knows on which side of the bread is the capitalists' caviar.

So it is natural that Pym should be anxious to see the working class, who don’t go to posh schools or join exclusive clubs and who live in council fiats or mortgaged semis, readily accept the cuts in their living standards which the Tory government is so busily planning.

But of course Pym is a gentleman so he does not use coarse language. Instead, he hopes to inspire us all; speaking at the recent Manchester Central by-election, he said he thought we are “. . . fighting another Battle of Britain, only this time it is to the Many that we need to turn."

Politicians often use the trick of persuading workers to accept their lot by referring to former military events which are described —at least in British history books — as triumphs. Harold Macmillan was fond of ruminating tearfully on the agonies of the 1914/18 trenches. Harold Wilson, at a time when he seemed to be convinced that he was Winston Churchill, once urged us all to have a little of the Dunkirk spirit.

Both were playing the same game. Both were making pretty speeches about poverty, which is not pretty and which no worker should willingly accept.

It is likely that Pym was not aware of one very important implication of his speech, when he talked about the Many. It is, in fact, the Many who really matter. He did not appeal to the the capitalist minority to fight another Battle—to look up their shares in the Financial Times more assiduously, to buy extra large estates in the country, to lounge with greater intensity in the tropical sun. He addressed his plea to the majority, to the people who count because they produce everything and who run capitalism from one end to the other. He was talking to the working class.

And the workers, who are on the receiving end of government policy should beware. They should look with complete scepticism on all politicians' blandishments and know that—like Passchendaele, like Dunkirk—there is something nasty in store for them.

China syndrome

It must be very difficult being a supporter of the idea that socialism exists in China, when you get so little help from that country to back you up.

One after another, news from Peking indicates that, far from being a place where the means of production are owned in common, where there are no classes, no money and where there is free access to wealth (not that such a state of affairs is possible in any one part of the world), China is steadily seeking a prominent place among the powers of world capitalism.

Recently, for example, the Chinese government has signed some big trade agreements with the Western capitalist states; symbolic of this has been the normalising of its relations with the United States.

Now comes the news that China is trying to join the International Monetary Fund and in line with this is making what are meant to be reassuring noises to any capitalist thinking of investing in that country.

Chinese Vice Premier Gu Mu said in Peking recently that China is preparing new foreign investment regulations which would make it more attractive to investors. He added that overseas investors need not fear another “cultural revolution”—in other words that there will be political safeguards for such investments.

If China gets into the IMF it will be able to borrow from the World Bank, something it may see as essential if it is to expand its export trade into new areas. This comes as an emphasis to the fact that China is a rising threat to the more established capitalist powers—and may one day assert this threat, like Germany and Japan, by emphatic military means.

It also comes as an embarrassment to those who cling to the unsupportable idea that there is something different in China, something worth working class support, even sacrifice. The facts say otherwise; capitalism exists in China and increasingly makes no bones about it.

The Socialist-Myth Countries (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the: many factors which have contributed to the undoubtedly disappointing speed (if that is the word) at which the working class have progressed towards an understanding of Socialism in the years since the Socialist Party was formed, one which has undoubtedly had a serious effect is the emergence of the so-called socialist countries, commencing in 1917 with Russia and continuing with many others in more recent years. The effect has been pernicious in two ways. First, the picture of life as it affects the working class in those lands has been of sufficient grimness as to cause those workers who think at all about these things to say: if that is Socialism (and only the tiniest handful realise that it is isn’t), you can keep it.

Secondly, and perhaps of even greater importance, large numbers of workers who are dissatisfied with capitalism as they experience it in their daily lives, especially the younger and more idealistically-inclined elements, have been taken in by the propaganda put cut by these countries from Lenin’s time onwards, the mouthing of pseudo-Marxist phrases, the glib misuse of the terms Socialism and Communism for realities which were so different, often horrifically so. If all the youthful energy and enthusiasm which have been wasted on these false dawns had been channelled into genuinely Socialist effort, it is reasonable to suppose that the cause would have been materially advanced. The damage done to Socialist progress by Lenin and his ilk hardly bears thinking about.

It is of course no coincidence that the Socialist Party was never taken in by the spurious talk about the creation of Socialism in Russia. Our party was from the first anchored to the doctrine that there can be no Socialism until the material conditions for a society of abundance have been achieved (this, ironically or not, being the task of capitalism); and, equally important, till the majority of the working class understand and want the new system of common ownership. We stood behind Marx’s dictum that the establishment of the new society must be the work of the working class itself. And we therefore regarded with contempt Lenin’s completely opposite teaching (in What is to be done ? and other works) that the workers were not equipped to understand Socialism, which must be brought about by an élite Bolshevik leadership who were so equipped (presumably either by God or by nature). (It should be noted here that with Marx and Lenin having two mutually exclusive attitudes on this fundamental aspect, the very phrase “Marxism-Leninism”, always on the lips of the so-called Communists, is about as meaningful as square circles or black snowflakes.)

The rest of the world expressed puzzlement in 1917 (still does) that, contrary to Marx’s ideas, Socialism should come first not in the industrialised west but in backward Russia. We had no bother in dealing with this puzzle; we knew it was just a figment of the imagination. Lenin kept talking about Socialism. To many people that proved it existed. It didn’t. And doesn’t. The vast majority of Russians are propertyless workers who are forced to allow themselves to be exploited just as in the west. Marx’s “abolition of the wages system” is not even on the horizon in Russia. Any more than it is here. And the Russian workers are not even permitted the luxury of being allowed to talk about the idea or to publish papers like this one to propagate the idea of Socialism.

Since the Hitler war ended, the plague of fake socialist countries has spread widely. The countries of eastern Europe fell under the control of the military might of the state-capitalist giant in Moscow. The feelings of the workers who live under those pernicious régimes show through from time to time in the form of uprisings in Berlin, Budapest, Prague or Danzig (where Polish workers who merely protested against a massive increase in prices were mowed down by tanks sent by their “Communist” masters in Warsaw).

In China, a tiny gang of Maoists have imposed their iron grip over 800 million workers who are exploited without mercy and without the slightest vestige of trade union rights and other freedoms. And a British Labour Peeress, Lady Wootton, who has the nerve to call herself a Socialist, actually wrote in Encounter that it was quite right that these millions should not be allowed trade unions ! While in The Observer, an ignorant intellectual, Professor Galbraith, actually wrote: “It works for the Chinese” (this echoing a previous-generation American intellectual who returned from Moscow with the infamous remark : “I have seen the future and it works”). Of course it works well enough for these impudent carpet-baggers who enjoy VIP trips to see the exploitation of the Chinese workers and then return to their home comforts to get paid for writing lies about it. But it is a sad fact that many young workers and students, who apparently now see through the Russian fraud, have simply switched not to studying Marx but to bootlicking Mao.

The rash has now spread so that every tin-pot black dictatorship in Africa has the nerve to call itself Socialist. And of course, so-called radical papers like the Guardian play their ignoble part in fostering the myths and the confusion by conning their readers into thinking that Socialism exists in such unlikely places as Zambia, Tanzania or Cuba. It never seems to worry these western apostles of freedom that all these places have one thing in common — prisons crammed with poor wretches whose only crime is to have fallen foul of the tyrannies run by Kaunda, Nyerere or Castro. Perhaps they have a great deal to learn, but many of them must be already learning it.

L. E. Weidberg

China (2025)

Book Review from the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy. By Anne Stevenson-Yang. Bui Jones, 2024. xxii +149pp.

This book really is Chinese capitalism up close. Its American author, the mother of a Chinese family, spent over 25 years living in China between the 1980s and 2014, first as a journalist and then as an entrepreneur in publishing and software. This gave her experience of life in China both in its social dimension and, more relevantly to this book, in the economic twists and turns that followed the Mao era (late 1970s onwards) leading right up to the present day. She presents the knowledge gained from this experience in a fascinatingly detailed way and with a turn of phrase that makes it far more readable than any recent academic study of that country’s development.

Unlike many commentators who seek to differentiate China’s economic system from that of the West, she has no scruple about labelling it as capitalist, understanding that, even if the country is far more socially and politically coercive than Western liberal democracies, it still operates, as Western capitalism does, a system of production for profit which divides its population into two main classes, a small one of extremely wealthy people, whether private individuals or state bureaucrats, and a vast majority of others who are forced to survive by selling their energies to an employer (again whether state or private) for a wage or salary.

The ‘wild ride’ of the title refers to the various iterations Chinese capitalism has been through since the extremely backwards state-run capitalism of Mao’s reign (which by the way she calls ‘socialism’ – something we would not accept), and her analysis is detailed and compelling. She sees the ‘ride’, even if in many ways smoke and mirrors, as broadly progressive in the sense of bringing alleviation to poverty in China and, while the system remains politically authoritarian, of being less nakedly repressive than the previous era. However, she sees things as having gone backwards since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, both in terms of autocratic state control over the population and of state capitalism reasserting its primacy over private ownership of capital. And she is pessimistic about the chances of this changing any time soon. It should of course be added that other commentators on China take a different view and think the pendulum is more likely to swing the other way, ie towards the freer, more open exchange of ideas which tends to characterise advanced capitalist development and provides a better terrain for the spread of socialist ideas. But this remains to be seen.

Howard Moss

State capitalism (2025)

Book Review from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Spectre of State Capitalism. By Ilias Alami and Adam D. Dixon. Oxford University Press. 2024.

At one time the concept of ‘state capitalism’ was used only by socialists, to describe the state acting as a capitalist by investing capital, employing wage labour, and producing for the market. As far back as April 1910 the Socialist Standard carried an article entitled ‘Evolution and State Capitalism’ which explained that nationalisation was not socialism. From the 1920s we applied the concept to the economic system in the USSR. Other articles followed in the 1930s and 40s. The concept was also applied to other countries where, in the absence of a strong enough capitalist class, the government set up state enterprises to introduce and develop capitalism.

Today China is routinely described by politicians and the media as ‘state capitalist’. There is even a branch of academia devoted to ‘state capitalist studies’ of which Alami and Dixon’s book is both a product and a description. A large part of their book is taken up with questions of methodology and definitions for specialists in the subject, which makes it rather heavy-going for the general public.

Their conclusion is that the term should be applied only to particular state bodies, such as state-owned enterprises (SOEs), sovereign welfare funds, and state-funded development banks where the state is an actual owner, and not simply to any state intervention in the capitalist economy. They distinguish between an old state capitalism of nationalised industries, often natural monopolies, and a new state capitalism of ‘state-capital hybrids’ which are consciously structured and behave exactly like private capitalist corporations or investment funds, seeking to maximise profits, paying dividends, engaging in financial wheeling and dealing, and even taking over other businesses.

The authors come up with some perhaps surprising facts:

‘Their [SOEs] share among the world’s 2,000 largest firms doubled to 20 per cent over the last two decades. Over the same period, the assets controlled by SOEs grew from about $13 trillion in 2000 to $45 trillion (equivalent to half of global GDP) (IMF). Many SOEs are in top rankings such as the Fortune Global 500. According to the OECD, half of the top ten non-financial firms as measured by revenue are SOEs. In 2021, they made up 132 of the world’s 500 largest companies—up from thirty-two just two decades ago. UNCTAD estimates that there are at least 1,500 state-owned multinational enterprises, which are SOEs that control assets or other entities in countries other than its home country. In other words, many SOEs now compete on the world market, and perform as efficiently as private capitalist firms in some sectors.’

Alami and Dixon see the ‘new state capitalism’ of ‘state-capital hybrids’ as a new stage in the evolution of capitalism, after ‘neoliberalism’. This is certainly an increasing feature of contemporary capitalism but whether it represents a new era is another matter. In any event the advocates of ‘free market’ capitalism are back on the defensive. Even those who accept capitalism as we know it in the West are alarmed at Chinese-style state capitalism. Alami and Dixon quote the President of the European Commission complaining about ‘distortions created by China’s state capitalist system’ and Blinken, the late US Secretary of State, insisting on the need for protection ‘from the aggressive state capitalism of modern autocracies’.

Apologists for the West portray the conflict with China as one between ‘liberal capitalism’ and ‘state capitalism’. A case for this can be made out but it was that even under Mao when the apologists were calling China ‘communist’. At least they are now being honest.

In the final chapter Alami and Dixon come out as some sort of leftists, citing Marx. They see a potential ‘progressive’ side to their new state capitalism as, by further blurring the distinction between the economic and the political realms, it opens up the possibility of achieving ‘non-reformist reforms’. This, despite their conceding that (by ‘valorise’ they mean create surplus value):

‘State-owned capital is still subjected to the imperatives of self-valorization. The state can partially or temporarily suspend these imperatives (for instance, by accepting a lower-than-average rate of profit, or by institutionalizing other social and political goals alongside profit maximization), but if it does so over the long term, the risk is that the capital becomes devalued. State-owned capital must therefore continue to valorize not to be destroyed, and with it, the social wealth that it represents.’

Which is precisely why supposed non-reformist reforms can no more lastingly overcome the economic laws of capitalism than can common-or-garden reforms.

Adam Buick

The spectre of communism (1951)

From the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over 100 years ago, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels jointly produced the most famous of all political pamphlets “The Communist Manifesto.” In the prefatory paragraphs they wrote:—

“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. . . .

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties as well as against its re-actionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European Powers to be itself a Power.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself."

(S.P.G.B. edition, p. 59) 

When these words were written capitalism was developing in Europe. In England and France the capitalist class had obtained political power and the working class were making demands for political liberty. In other countries the workers supported the rising capitalist class against the feudal aristocracy. The hopes, dreams and aspirations of the more advanced workers were expressed in vague utopian communist ideas. This made the rising capitalist class “tremble in their shoes” and drove them to seek alliance with the feudalists powers.

It was Marx who made the discovery

“that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organisation necessarily following from it form the basis upon which is built up and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of the epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited; ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles form a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinction and class struggles." 

(Engels Preface to 1888 Ed., Communist Manifesto, S.P.G.B. Ed., p. 56).

With Engels, Marx applied this theory to the changes taking place in society and brilliantly sketched an outline of this development in the "manifesto.” 

They pointed out how the voyages of discovery in the latter part of 15th and the earlier part of the 16th centuries created a world market, giving incentive to the growth of industry and commerce. The inability of the existing methods of production to satisfy the demand forced the rising capitalist class to seek political power for the abolition of the restrictions which feudalism placed on production. Methods of production kept developing. The new methods, wherever they took root supplanted the older methods uprooting the old way of living and its traditional beliefs. The development of the means of production concentrated property into fewer hands, driving more people into the ranks of the working class, reducing society into two classes—the capitalist class, who own and control the means of production and the working class who, having no property in the means of production, must sell their labour power to live. The workers, due to the pressure of the circumstances in which they find themselves, must struggle to better their conditions. This struggle will ultimately lead the workers of all countries to realise they have a common interest, the abolition of capitalist society, which is based on the private ownership of the means of production—the source of their exploitation—and the establishment of socialism, which is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Today, 100 years after the publication of the pamphlet, the area has extended. The spectre of Communism is no longer confined to Europe. It haunts the world. Again the “nursery tale of the spectre of Communism ” must be met.

Communist still remains one of the most common terms of abuse. Defenders of free speech in the Western democracies, brigands in hills of Greece, bandits in the jungles of Malaya are all classified under this epithet.

The terms socialism and communism mean the same thing, a classless form of society. Marx and Engels chose to use the term communism because it was associated with the working class movements of the time whereas socialism referred to utopian movements, composed of reformers, and men like Robert Owen who thought the change must be brought about from above by the “educated classes,” while Marx and Engels maintained the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves (see Engels Intro to Manifesto). At the present time, the term communist usually refers to those who claim that Russia is a socialist country and endorse the Leninist-Stalinist interpretation of Marxist theories. They claim that socialism is the transitory stage to communism.

But according to the Chinese Communists the change taking place in China is “generally speaking, still a new-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism, and not a revolution of a socialist nature " (The Economist, Jan. 20th, 1951). Capitalism is developing in Asia, breaking up the age-old customs and beliefs, bringing with it Western ideas. The Chinese Communists are more truthful than their Russian predecessors and teachers, who stated that in Russia, at a similar stage in social development, a socialist revolution had taken place.

The underlying theory held by those who call themselves Communist, whichever nationality they claim, is that the working class can be led to socialism. This idea is principally the same as that of the “utopians” in 1848. It leaves out of account the economic conditions and the political development of the working class, and. therefore, it contradicts the fundamental Marxian theory quoted earlier in this article in Engels own words. The development of Russia since 1917 shows how this idea that socialism can be installed from above is false. Lenin regretted the need for the inequality of income which has now given rise to rouble millionaires. The law of inheritance was abolished and in later years restored. After the revolution, education was free, then later could be had at a fee; divorce laws were relaxed, and divorces easy to obtain, but now these laws have been changed and only the more privileged section of society can afford divorce.

These regressions demonstrate that it is impossible to construct socialism before certain conditions have arisen. These conditions arc a sufficiently developed means of production, which could provide the requisites for a comfortable living for all members of society and a working class, the majority of whom understand that only by the common ownership of the means for producing wealth can a comfortable living for all be obtained. Capitalism is run from top to bottom by the working class. If any socialist transformation is going to take place, the workers must want the change and know how to make it The change can’t take place in the face of their opposition. Society is a group of people with ideas in their heads; if it isn't socialist ideas then they will have non-socialist ones.

The task before the asiatic workers is the assimilation and the dissemination of socialist knowledge. Capitalism will look after the development of the means of production. Let these asiatic workers look after the other necessary condition for socialism, a majority of workers who know what socialism means and want it

And the task faring the workers in the more advanced Western world is the same. Learn what socialism is. When the workers in both Eastern and Western countries gain that knowledge they will obtain political power, and collectively set about to establish such a society. The main obstacle in the way of Socialism is that the workers don’t know what it means. Once they do, the obvious advantages of this system will compel the workers in the advanced countries to bring it about, and will bring their more backward brothers in swift pursuit.

J. T.

Working class China (2025)

Pamphlet Review from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalist China and Socialist Revolution. By Simon Hannah. Resistance Books, 2023. 67pp.

This pamphlet begins with some indisputable truths: ‘The working class in China is massive – the largest in the world. But they often work in terrible conditions with few effective rights and no independent trade unions. They labour under an authoritarian government calling itself “socialist with Chinese characteristics”.’ Its author then goes on to further characterise modern China as a country run by a ‘pro-business’ party, which, while calling itself ‘communist’, is so only in name. Nor is he impressed by those on the political left who defend China simply on the grounds that its government has massively developed the country’s productive forces and in so doing has lifted millions out of absolute poverty. He points out that this process has not been a prerogative of China and that globally capitalism has ‘lifted millions of people out of abject poverty, whilst condemning millions of others to live in misery’. He goes on to say that ‘the Chinese state corresponds to all the definitions of a capitalist state’, in which ‘both the state sector and the private sector follow capitalist imperatives of growth’.

Nothing here at all that socialists would disagree with. But disagreement does start when he asserts that this state of affairs (ie, China being capitalist) only began in 1976 ‘with the economic and political reforms after the death of Chairman Mao’. The author does recognise that things weren’t great under Mao and that the various schemes adopted by his regime such as the ‘five-year plan’ and ‘the Great Leap Forward’ were abject failures that heaped suffering on the people and led to, among other things, mass famine. Yet, at the same time he definitely soft-peddles that disastrous rule, even referring to it at one point as ‘a new course towards socialism’, albeit one that didn’t go to plan. But little is said about that overall, with the main criticism reserved for what happened after Mao’s death when Deng Xiaoping took over leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, as quite rightly observed here, opened up the economy to the world market, something he described, in a supreme exercise of smoke and mirrors, as ‘using capitalism to develop socialism’. The writer then goes into significant detail to show how this process of integration into the world market continued and intensified in the decades that followed continuing to the present day and how it was coupled with increasingly authoritarian political control by the CCP, which has managed, sometimes by brute force, to keep the lid on protest, as, for example, in the slaughter of students and workers at the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. As for the current situation in China under the leadership of Xi Jinping, he quotes the words of a recent Hong Kong opposition activist: ‘Today’s CCP, with its fusion of both political and economic power, its hostility towards people enjoying basic rights of association and free speech, its xenophobia, nationalism, Social Darwinism, cult of a corporate state, “unification” of thought, etc., is now comparable to a fascist state’. And he points to the fact that China, in its mix of state and private ownership, has more billionaires than any other country in the world, while workers are largely denied independent trade unions and, if they protest, are likely to be arrested or battered into submission by the police.

None of this can be denied, but what is hard to understand is how the author can see redeeming features in what happened previously (ie, under Mao) and can somehow see what is happening now as fundamentally different from – and worse than – the repressive and tyrannical state capitalism that existed then. He correctly points to the fact that ‘state ownership does not equate to socialism’, but it did not under Mao either. Mao’s journey was just as much down ‘the capitalist road’ as that of his successors.

As to how China will develop in the future, the author rightly sees this as unpredictable, but avers that the ruling party may not be ’as homogenous and united as it pretends to be’ and its leader, Xi Jinping, not quite so impregnable as he may seem. So he does not see it as impossible that China may develop into ‘a liberal democratic capitalist state on the model of Western democracy’ or into ‘a Russian style capitalism controlled by a small and powerful aristocracy’. But, as he makes clear, any such arrangement would still be capitalism. As an alternative to this, he calls for a society ‘not based on profit but on need, social development and human capacity’. As to whether this can happen in a single country or whether it must be global, there appears to be some contradiction in his mind. The fact that he sometimes makes reference to ‘socialist countries’ suggests that he does not necessarily see socialism as a world system, as we insist it must be. At the same time he does talk about the need for ‘an international working class movement’, and the ‘Anti-Capitalist Resistance’ group under whose aegis this pamphlet is published states its aim as ‘social transformation, based on mass participatory democracy’. Whatever the case, it is clear that socialism, meaning a system of free access to all goods and services based solely on human need, cannot exist in just one country. It must, by definition, be a world society and one that has to be consciously brought into being and then organised cooperatively by a majority of workers who have taken democratic action to opt for it.

Howard Moss

What’s happening in China (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called communist rulers of China are in trouble. They are trying to achieve two impossible feats; to make exploitation popular with the Chinese workers and to kid them along that the form of capitalism which is developing there is socialism.

The latest campaign to accomplish this is called the “Socialist Education Campaign”, now in full swing, which was recently commended by the Chinese premier as being “of great revolutionary and historical significance”. Such campaigns are no novelty in “communist” China, where the workers seem to need a lot of convincing.

Previous campaigns have been passed off as methods of getting rid of the remains of capitalism or as part of the building-up of a “communist” system of society, or as the eradication of specific errors and failings of the Old China. They were represented as a necessary process of cleaning up and modernising the social structure and they dealt largely with problems that were laid at the door of the old era.

But this time it is different, in that the government leaders have to deal with problems which, they frankly proclaim arise directly from the present system of society. The “Socialist Education Campaign” is teaching workers, both in industry and the civil service, to deal with the new problems caused by the creation of a modern, technically developed state from a recently backward country. It is this which enables Premier Chou-En-lai to assign “historical significance” to the current campaign.

To enable them to reconcile awkward facts with an incorrect interpretation of society, the Chinese have to be dosed with plenty of “communist” education.

One problem with which they have to deal is that of the new “managerial class”. Mao-Tze-tung, Chou-En-lai and the rest of the old die-hards of the Communist Party, were tough, unscrupulous but courageous labour leaders tested in battle and called upon for great personal sacrifices in prompting the Communist Party to the leadership of what they may have once believed was a different system of society.

But the old guard are getting older, and they are finding it difficult to select their successors from the ranks of the new business bureaucracy who seem to be taking their place. These young people are slick, well educated executive types who are rising to the top in the nationalised concerns and government departments. They have little understanding of political theory, little desire to make personal sacrifices, but, like business executives the world over, are ambitious to rise in the hierarchy and enjoy the luxuries which only the possession of money makes possible. Such is a thumb-nail sketch of one of the groups that the die-hards are trying to impregnate with so-called communist ideology. But the die-hards are as horrified at this developing class, as the swan was when it found it had hatched a duckling. Capitalist society develops along its own lines, irrespective of the muddled thinking of its apologists.

An Tzu-wen, Director of the Organisation Department of the Party’s Central Committee, considered the nature of some of these groups in some detail in an article which appeared in the Party journal Red Flag on 22/9/64 and which was reported in the China Quarterly April/June 1965. An is primarily concerned with the campaign to train successors to the present leadership. He distinguishes between the older cadres of pre-liberation vintage who have failed to adapt themselves to the technical and organisational development going on, and the younger ones who have not the political benefit of those who went through the Civil War.

It is from An’s article that it is possible to build up a picture of the various groups he sees developing around him. His criticisms have been publicised to the greatest extent possible in the Chinese national press and on the radio. He said that the gravest dilemma for the Chinese leaders may be the conflict between their own background and the need for modernisation in economic planning.

Chou-En-lai made it clear in his report last December that one of the main motives behind the “Socialist Education Movement’’ was the need to prepare the country for economic expansion. He speaks of the need for a “scientific and realistic approach”. An calls on the older cadres to adapt themselves and he describes the movement as “a mass movement for studying Marxist-Leninist and Mao Tse-tung ideology with emphasis in its flexible interpretation and application”.

The Chinese Government are training the new managerial class to a degree which must involve contact with the thinking of the outside world and they are at the same time inducing the old die-hards to work efficiently in the fervent atmosphere of industrial capitalism, misnamed “socialist expansion”.

Another section being “educated” are the Chinese followers of the Russian communist party. Since it now seems that many of the interests of the Chinese ruling class are opposed to those of .the Russian, Chinese supporters must be “re-educated” to enable them to make an intellectual somersault. China is living in a capitalist world jungle and must be prepared, in its own interests, to support a war against its erstwhile “comrades”. There must be no fifth column in the Chinese camp.

Another homegrown problem is the rise of the wealthy farmer, a new economic group since the seizure of governmental power by the Chinese “communists”. With their surpluses of commodity crops they have made a mockery of the food and clothing rationing which still obtains in China. The black market is now known as the free market and is officially recognised by the Government. Any of the rationed goods can be obtained at a higher price and this is part of a process whereby the rural rich are becoming richer. Universal rationing for all has become rationing by price, officially lauded by the authorities. This, of course, is the state of affairs to which the workers of the rest of the world are accustomed, whether they are starving in the backward countries or the “affluent” of western capitalism.

China has had a somewhat different history of social development to the West over the centuries, so that capitalism there is a little different from capitalism here in some of the details. But Chinese workers have basically the same economic interests as the workers here; and the so-called communist government there behaves domestically and in its foreign policies, like the capitalist power that in fact it is.

Frank Offord

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘I cried deep inside of my heart’, said Nisa, now 32, recounting her first contract wedding. ‘Who wants to sleep with an old man? I did this purely for the money, so my parents can eat and my siblings can go to school.’ With her encouragement, her sister also became a contract bride, bringing in a dowry of $3,000 for her first marriage because she was a virgin. Nisa estimated that she herself has been in 20 contract marriages (‘Sex tourism in Indonesia sells itself as Islamic temporary marriage’.) 

(Los Angeles Times).

‘Interestingly, some of these people were supporters of the communist regime only a few years ago. There are of course others who are still convinced by CCP propaganda, who believe that China is the safest place in the world and that everywhere else is in chaos’, Cui adds. He attributes China’s economic development to “the hard work of the people” who are exploited by Party leaders. As an example of the lack of political rights, he cites the fact that the regime has taken away the freedom and wealth of nouveau riche figures like Xu Jiayin and Jack Ma. He cites the words of late Premier Li Keqiang, who made public in 2020 that some 600 million Chinese live on less than US$140 a month. 

(Equal Times)

As for national liberation, all one can say is that with friends like Hamas, Palestinians do not need enemies. Rather than freedom, the so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ has nothing to offer them but poverty and bloodshed. Hamas’s position is crystal clear. ‘These are necessary sacrifices’, military commander Yahya Sinwar said of the mass. destruction in Gaza in a communication with fellow Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. 

(Daniel Lazere)

‘While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front – a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power. “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade’. 

(Libcom)

Ahn Chang-ho, who opposes anti-discrimination laws, also rejects the theory of evolution and wants creationism lessons in schools. A former judge nominated to lead South Korea’s human rights body has sparked outrage with his comments against the LGBTQ community and the theory of evolution, with observers citing him as proof of the country’s flawed system for official appointments. Ahn Chang-ho, 67, is under scrutiny for his statements in parliament suggesting that homosexuality is a tool used by communists to incite revolution. 

(MSN)

In a healthy ecosystem, the various sets of animal … get along with each other without the need of any system of authority or dominance—indeed, without overriding structure or organization of any kind soever. 

(Counterpunch)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Life & Times: Work in China and the UK (2024)

The Life and Times column from the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The other day I had a conversation with someone who told me he’d recently visited China and, having worked there in the past, now found things significantly changed. The context of this was a university academic, a social scientist, coming to speak with his trade union’s volunteer personal case officer (myself). He (I’ll call him Simon) was dissatisfied with his work situation largely owing to the volume of work he was being given, consisting of teaching, administration and research. In particular he was concerned that the teaching and administration had become so overwhelming that he was being left with little time to get on with and publish his research, which is what would dictate the progress of his career. What could be done? I made a few suggestions, among which was an approach by the union to his head of department protesting at his treatment and its apparent unfairness. He seemed happy with this – as a first step anyway.

‘Dire’

But in mentioning China at the start of our conversation, he’d also told me that, on his recent visit there with his wife, also a social scientist and herself Chinese, both of them had been offered jobs at a Chinese university. They’d thought about it but decided not to take up the offer because the current situation in China was ‘dire’ (his word). This made me curious, so after talking about Simon’s current employment issues, I asked him what he meant by ‘dire’ in relation to China. He was only too ready to explain.

He said there were three main reasons. The first one had been of particular concern to his wife – a noticeable increase in what he called misogyny. He explained that China’s ‘one-child’ policy having been abandoned quite some time ago, the government was concerned that the population now wasn’t replacing itself and so was putting considerable pressure on women to have more children and stay at home to bring them up. Women insisting on being employed were being portrayed almost as betrayers of the nation. The second thing was that they had noticed, since they last spent time there, that the climate had become noticeably more repressive. This manifested itself, for example, in university academics having to seek special permission simply if they wanted to spend a weekend away in another city or another part of the country and in it having become more difficult to get colleagues they knew to speak openly about any subject that might be considered sensitive or political. The third thing was that it was being made increasingly difficult for foreigners to obtain visas to stay in the country or to continue residence there, one consequence of which was that it was not unusual for western media correspondents not to have their visas renewed. Simon also told me they noticed a definite deterioration in economic conditions with signs that the government seemed nervous about possible unrest or protest and was seeking ways (eg, the furore about Taiwan) of distracting attention from deteriorating prospects and living conditions for its citizens. He ended by wondering, tongue in cheek of course, whether, given the increasingly repressive atmosphere, a comparison with the Ming dynasty might not be appropriate.

Xi Jinping: a ruler for ever?

All of this is anecdotal of course, but there does seem a lot of backing for Simon’s take on China from a good many other sources. For example, recent newspaper coverage has reported on the shrinking of China’s population and government concern about the low birth rate leading potentially to a loss of young workers. China’s apparently permanent leader Xi Jinping has been quoted as referring to women playing ‘a unique role in promoting traditional virtues’ and to the ‘need to cultivate a new marriage and childbearing culture to tackle the ageing population’. There is also evidence that, after decades of relatively high economic growth under a mixture of state and private capitalism, China’s economy is losing momentum, with significant downturns in various sectors (eg, building and construction, property, private tutoring, data management and transfer), unrest and unemployment leading to strikes and demonstrations among workers and also concern within the small Chinese private capitalist class, some of them fabulously rich, about government crackdowns, as the one-party regime seeks to tighten its control over both state and private economic activity.

As long ago as the 1980s, many people thought that China was moving towards less authoritarian, more democratic political institutions. Such hopes were dashed by the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, but there are again some commentators who consider that the current regime will find it difficult in the longer term to contain social unrest and this may lead to more enlightened government policies or at least a relaxation of repression – as happened for example in Eastern Europe where, against most people’s expectations, seemingly stable regimes crumbled almost overnight. This is obviously to be hoped for, since not only is the current anti-democratic, repressive regime an obstacle to the needs of continuing capitalist development, bumping up against the free circulation and exchange of ideas that need to go with that development, but it is also an obstacle to the subsequent development of socialist consciousness that we are looking for.

Socialism (with Chinese characteristics?)

To return to Simon and his wife, their perception of the way the Chinese regime currently operates (which it laughably called ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’) and their rationale for not staying there seem fully corroborated. There seems little doubt that their work situation and their freedoms, academic and otherwise, would have been far more restricted in China than in the UK. Of course, Simon had complaints about the way he was being treated by his employer here. But at least he was able to seek to address this via his trade union, a body independent of government or other ‘higher’ authority. How much more difficult would he have found the same kind of thing in China, where unions do exist but are closely government monitored and controlled? Would the outcome be a cancelled visa? Anyway, hasten the day when all such autocracies give way to at least the limited democracy that capitalism can offer and provide the ground for workers to decide collectively that they want to move on the road to that genuine alternative system of society beyond the system of wages, money and profit, which we call socialism.

Howard Moss