75 years of outstanding progress.

by John Maryon

People's China has been celebrating with its friends around the world, its foundation on 1st October 1949.  Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the new republic in Tienanmen Square 75 years ago. It has enabled the Chinese people to embark upon an epic road that has led from extreme poverty and enormous hardships to rising prosperity in a powerful modern industrial state. Chinese society has been transformed under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Peasants formed the greater part of Chinese society in those early days.  Serfdom still existed in Tibet and other areas.  With grinding poverty life expectancy in those part of China was less than 35 years.  The impact of colonisation by Japanese and European imperialism had seen a long period of brutal foreign domination and intensive exploitation that plundered the country.  China’s economy had been left in tatters and society in turmoil with any thoughts of a better life little more than an impossible dream.
Mao Zedong's revolutionary leadership enabled the Chinese nation’s rebirth. The Communist leader’s political theories were based upon Marxism-Leninism adapted to Chinese conditions. His achievements transformed China into a major world power and with it came the benefits of basic health care for the masses, education to the countryside, guaranteed women's rights and illiteracy a thing of the past.  Mao is widely regarded as the national hero who defeated foreign domination and secured freedom for his people. He led China from 1949 until his death in1976.
With the foundation of a new China firmly established new policies were introduced in 1978 to take the nation forward.  President Xi Jinping has described this path of development as Chinese Modernisation. This dynamic policy changes to suit new conditions as they arise and in addition to economic matter includes measures to boost social and cultural development. The new policy included an opening-up reform that allowed private investment, including foreign capital, to boost the economy. There is no doubt that the measures have been hugely successful allowing China to grow stronger and be in a position to resist US domination.
Certain aspects of the new policies have caused apprehension among China's friends.  The country now has a mixed economy with a private sector, a stock exchange and what's described as a socialist market economy. Does this mean a partial return to capitalism or does it mirror the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin in the USSR between 1921 and 1928?
China's leadership is mature and wise so being fully aware of any risks involved. The dialectical philosophy of Marxism examines the development of things and phenomenon that are universally interconnected. In simple terms, as changes take place they will affect other things that may also change. As China's economy grows many changes will occur presenting new challenges and opportunities. What is OK for today may not be so tomorrow.  In the future when science, technology and human endeavour have created an abundance of everything we could possibly require, then money will cease to be important eventually becoming obsolete as Communism is achieved. With the end of money the last chains that bind the working class will be gone for ever. 
For many years China was seen as just a source of cheap labour which, with its raw materials, were to be exploited by the imperialists. Things are very different today. The USA has become alarmed by the People's Republic's rapid progress in developing its economy, its scientific and technical achievements and amazing engineering projects. The American see China not only as a serious competitor but also as a direct threat to its world hegemony.  China, on the other hand would like to cooperate and trade fairly with everyone. 
China's impressive progress is well illustrated by its space exploration projects. With plans to return soil samples from Mars, bring back an extraction of atmosphere from Venus, search for life on Jupiter's moons, develop its new Haolong space shuttle and establish a manned research station on the lunar south pole, it has ambitious plans.  It would like to cooperate with the USA but is prevented from doing so by the notorious Wolf amendment that prevents NASA from from any contact with China. 
Manned space flight is associated with high risk.  It is inevitable that one day someone will become marooned and require rescue. For this reason a joint lifeboat project would make sense.  People's China is firmly opposed to the militarisation of Outer Space.
China produces innovative high quality products at an affordable price.  In the early days of competitive capitalism any competition would be met by an innovative response.  Today in the era of state monopoly capitalism for any challenge the answer is to ban, sabotage, sanction and disrupt supply chains and embark upon an economic war. Attempts to strangle Huawei have failed as the company has been stimulated to develop its own better and cheaper components. Following the implication of trade sanctions against Chinese electric vehicles drivers in the USA and EU will have to pay a lot more for their cars.  However by trading with BRICS and the Global South China will find other partners for honest trade. 
China is a vast country similar in size to the whole of Europe.  In the past it could take many days to travel to more remote regions. Today with China's remarkable transport infrastructure being constructed rapidly both citizens and an increasing number of visitors may within a short period of time experience sublime views, taste new regional dishes and become familiar with vibrant new cultures within the motherland.  Above all to meet different people and to make new friends.  Breathtaking bridges in the clouds carry high-speed trains over wild gorges between rugged mountains. Hundreds of thousands of new roads make driving easy for the growing fleet of green electric vehicles taking advantage of an ample charging network. Assisted by a growing number of their own developed commercial aircraft, the country is becoming more unified. China is alive, dynamic and on the move.  While the capitalist West is in decline the Chinese people are able to enjoy a higher standard of stress free living as a new harmonious society is built. 
China has grown in strength and can no longer be bullied into submission.  It is now able to assist smaller nations facing imperialist threats.  It's development exceeds purely economic attainment and is not only a powerful force for peace but also combines effective governance with cultural and ethical progress.  China's democracy works very differently from the Western models where sham elections achieve very little. It has adopted ‘whole-process people's democracy' which combines elections, consultations, decision making and an overview through a legal constitution. The Chinese Communist Party represents ordinary working people, not big business supported through lobby groups as in America.  Chinese modernisation is based upon harmony and nature. 
People's China's glorious 75 years has seen great advances in all fields under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. It is probable that within the next 75 years the great nation will not only achieve all it's development goals within a prosperous socialist society but also will have created communism.  A beautiful new form of society that is based upon full equality and guarantees a level of freedom impossible under exploitative capitalism. 

Mao’s Quotations on the Market

by Robin McGregor

the bright red book

 Sixty and a half years ago, in May 1964 to be precise, the first edition of Quotations from Chairman Mao, otherwise known as the “Little Red Book” was first published. 
 This weekend a collection of some 200 editions and related material such as a set of printer’s stereotypes used to print the first edition in English is being sold by Peter Harrington, one of London’s grandest antiquarian booksellers at a book fair in Hong Kong.  
 A brief, but well-illustrated catalogue (on which these notes are based) can be downloaded from https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog. It carries the note “Price on Application” which means “Don’t even think about it”, but readers can spend an agreeable leisure hour learning about its publication history in China and beyond for free. 
 It was first issued by the General Political Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Liberation
Army (PLA), intended as a basic instruction manual for the political instruction of the army’s rank and file who had only obtained their liberation in 1949. 
 It was published many times in print runs of millions and frequently translated becoming something of an icon of 1960s radicalism. Like all icons it was more admired than understood in detail, particularly by foreigners. In China, the book unfortunately became seen by many as the entire body of Marxism rather than the basic starting point it was intended to be.
  Best known in its red vinyl 320-page 33-chapter pocket sized version, the book went through many changes in arrangement, binding and text with authorised and unauthorised editions from friend and foes. Parodies such as Chairman Blair’s Little Red Book (with an aptly blue cover) appeared in 2001 and the Little Red Book of Corbyn Jokes came out in 2017 to say nothing of the 2010 Little Red Book of Liverpool FC. 
 Experimental collections first saw the light of day in 1960 when the PLA issued a Quotations from Mao Zedong’s Philosophical Thought on the poor paper available at the time. The first version of the now famous work publicly appeared in a four million print run for army battalions but were soon in demand by civilian institutions. 
 The first edition appeared in a variety of bindings including wrappers and brown or red vinyl which both had small variations which delight bibliophiles.  
 The first edition had an introduction by Mao’s deputy, Lin Biao, (with a small but telling calligraphic fault) which was of course soon corrected and finally removed after his 1971 sacking. 
 For speed and economy they were printed by stereotype, solid plates of type metal cast from papier-mâché moulds taken from the surface of the type setting. This made large print runs of the first edition possible, but also ensured small errors appeared in large numbers. 
 Provincial governments and individual parts of the PLA produced their own versions. Among many others, in Inner Mongolia, a larger format was produced.  
 A second edition, with substantial revisions appeared in March 1965 from the press of the 
Heilongjiang Provincial Party Committee with some additions and cuts. A third, expanded edition, promoted by Lin Biao appeared a year later. 
 By then an estimated 28 million had been issued, some in large-format versions. The variations often show important political changes with excerpts mentioning out of favour individuals removed.   
 In April 1966, national party leadership took it over with a claimed 240 million copies by late 1966. A bilingual Chinese-English version appeared along with editions in many of the minority languages of China, and in Braille. 
 By 1972 10 million copies of translations had been produced by the Foreign Languages Press. These include an Albanian edition from 1967, three English editions between 1966 and 1972. An Esperanto version appeared in 1967 and a Danish one in 1970. Abroad unauthorised versions appeared, including one helpfully entitled Quotations From Chairman Mao-Tse-Tung. Danger! This Book is Communist Propaganda! From the Voice of Americanism publisher in California.  
 In China, modern reprints are sold to the tourists at prices greatly below that which Harrington expects. Apart from this collection Harrington is presently offering a first edition of the Quotations for £13,750, but readers with a more limited budget can buy a Mongolian edition for a mere £225. 

The East is Red!

by J Sykes

 
The East is Still Red: Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century Carlos Martinez, Praxis Press Glasgow 2023, 238 pp £17:00

The book begins by acknowledging that there is a great deal of ignorance and confusion, especially in the imperialist countries, about People’s China. Martinez writes, “Even among socialists and communists, there are misconceptions and important gaps in understanding.” He addresses these issues head on.
The first chapter focuses on the continuities of the revolution in China, from the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921 until today. Martinez gives an overview of the history of the Chinese revolution and defends that legacy of Mao Zedong, while giving a balanced account of Mao’s more controversial initiatives, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
For example, while acknowledging that the turmoil and disruption of the Cultural Revolution significantly impeded China’s development, he also points out that it “had a more directly useful outcome” in terms of preventing the “ideological decay that was taking place in the Soviet Union.” Martinez says it “set the parameters of how far Reform and Opening Up could go” and “laid the groundwork for Deng Xiaoping’s Four Cardinal Principles, which the CPC continues to observe today: 1) We must keep to the socialist road; 2) We must uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship; 3) We must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party; 4) We must uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.
Furthermore, he explains that the movement to send young intellectuals down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution “was a crucial factor in the development of a new generation of young intellectuals with a close understanding of the needs of the peasantry and the situation in the countryside.” It is noteworthy that Chinese President Xi Jinping was himself sent to the countryside as part of this movement.
Looking at the post-1978 Reform and Opening Up period initiated by Deng Xiaoping, Martinez recognises that many see this period as “a turning point in the wrong direction” but argues against this view. Instead, Martinez notes, “Deng Xiaoping’s strong belief was that, unless the government delivered on a significant improvement in people’s standard of living, the entire socialist project would lose its legitimacy and therefore be in peril.”
This is a point that Martinez returns to later arguing that the combination of economic stagnation and ideological decay in the Soviet Union led to the collapse of socialism in the USSR.
This point should be made clearer. Indeed, while the material basis of Soviet revisionism was rooted in the economic reforms of the Khrushchev period, which emphasised market reforms, profitability, material incentives, and so on, a deciding factor was the question of the class struggle in the superstructure and the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism by the Soviet leadership. Contrast China’s Four Cardinal Principles with Khrushchev’s revisionist theses of the “state of the whole people” and “party of the whole people,” negating the class character of the USSR and Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and it is easy to see the gulf that stands between the two approaches.
Martinez rightly notes that the CPC’s reform period took a “grass-roots” approach that was “patient, incremental, and results-oriented” while the Gorbachev “reforms” that brought about the final restoration of capitalism in the USSR in 1991, were undemocratically imposed on the Soviet people, rather than leveraging the creativity of the Soviet masses.
Martinez explains “although China’s reform process served to introduce market forces into the economy, the whole process was carried out under the tight control of the government and took place within the context of a planned economy.” Indeed, the commanding heights of the Chinese economy remain state owned, with state owned enterprises making up 60 per cent of the economy; and most of the value created by the working class in China is socially distributed, going towards the betterment of society. And while the revisionists in the Soviet Union attacked the history of the USSR and spent 30 years dismantling the rule of the proletariat and its party, the opposite has taken place in China, where the CPC maintains its central, leading role, based on the scientific application of Marxism to Chinese conditions. In fact, when rightists in the CPC led by Zhao Ziyang tried to restore capitalism in 1989, the CPC stood firm in its commitment to the socialist road.
A highlight of the book is a careful and thorough analysis of China’s long war against poverty. China has eradicated extreme poverty. What does this mean? 
“At the start of the targeted poverty alleviation programme in 2014,” Martinez writes, “just under 100 million people were identified as living below the poverty line; seven years later, the number was zero.” The Chinese government defines extreme poverty alleviation in terms of what it calls the “two assurances and three guarantees.” As Martinez explains, “The two assurances are for adequate food and clothing; the three guarantees are for access to medical services, safe housing with drinking water and electricity, and at least nine years of free education.” He contrasts this to the advanced capitalist countries, where nothing is promised, where profit is more important than people, and where poverty and inequality are on the rise.
Likewise, the book highlights China’s commitment to ecological development. Martinez writes that “Over the last decade in particular, China has emerged as the undisputed leader in the fight against climate breakdown, and the results of this leadership are reverberating globally.”
Against the charge from some, even on the Left, that China is imperialist, Martinez argues that “imperialism doesn’t look like this.” He explains the Leninist theory of imperialism as monopoly capitalism. According to Lenin, imperialism is based on the concentration of capital into monopolies, whereby the economy becomes dominated by a “financial oligarchy.” The export of capital takes centRE stage, and monopolist capitalist associations share the world among themselves, leading to the total division of the world among the imperialist powers. The October Revolution in 1917 ruptured this imperialist chain, and the other socialist countries, including China, followed suit.
Against the claim that China is imperialist, The East is Still Red emphasizes that China’s role in the developing world is qualitatively different from that of the imperialist countries. It acknowledges that imperialism has the function of locking in underdevelopment, while China’s role encourages development while respecting sovereignty. The book discusses this issue in terms of China’s role in “building a multipolar world.” The concept of “multipolarity” doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue, however, as Martinez himself acknowledges by saying that “the multipolar narrative doesn’t make explicit reference to anti-imperialism.”
Indeed, it would be clearer to understand the place of China in relation to the four fundamental contradictions operating on a world scale: the contradiction between the working class and the capitalists, the contradiction between the imperialist powers, the contradiction between the imperialists and the oppressed nations, and the contradiction between the imperialists and the socialist countries. Of these, the contradiction between the imperialists and the oppressed nations is primary, meaning it is the contradiction that is driving things on a world scale. What China is doing is providing aid to the countries of the developing world that allows them to avoid the liberalisation, privatisation, domination and plunder that are central to the neo-colonialist approach of the imperialist countries. While this development isn’t sufficient to bring socialism to those countries, it does serve to further weaken imperialism.
Importantly, Martinez also discusses the growing drive for war against China from the imperialist powers, especially the United States. He explains how the US attempts to manufacture consent for aggression against China, and answers the propaganda with facts. Against the “Third Camp” Trotskyites who say “Neither a Washington nor Beijing,” Martinez is clear that they are, in fact, playing right into the hands of the imperialists.
The bulk of Chapter Five is devoted to debunking the imperialist accusations that China is committing human rights abuses against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. The book refutes the lie that the Chinese government is committing “cultural genocide” and is operating “concentration camps”. Similarly, it exposes the role of the U.S. in attempting to destabilize Xinjiang.
The book ends with a call to “unite to oppose the U.S.-led New Cold War on China,” and says that “All those that oppose imperialism must resolutely and consistently oppose the U.S.-led New Cold War in all its manifold forms.” This is certainly true, and this book makes a great contribution towards that effort.
Fightback News (USA)

 

1921 – A vivid panorama of revolution

  by Keith Bennett

The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China has been the occasion for many grand and impressive events throughout July. 1921, which has also been playing in selected cinemas in Britain and Ireland, and doubtless elsewhere, is the film for the centenary.
    A feature film, with special effects worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster, it also features some documentary footage, skilfully heightening the sense of both drama and realism.
    Whilst 1921 is focused on that momentous year, it deploys flashbacks as far as the 1850s, showing China’s degradation to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal ruined nation and then at its conclusion a potted but vivid historical reconstruction of subsequent years, which culminates in Chairman Mao proclaiming the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1st 1949, as well as Young Pioneers visiting the restored site of the first party congress 100 years later.
    A similar historical technique is deployed to depict aspects of some of the key characters, including such pioneering Chinese communists as Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Li Da and, of course, Mao Zedong. Particularly moving is the depiction of the tragic and heroic fates of some of the key early martyrs of Chinese communism, including Yang Kaihui, Mao’s first wife and great love. This provides a raw and poignant contrast to the youthful idealism, frenetic activity and infectious optimism of many of the key characters as they throw themselves into the preparations for the founding of the party whilst simultaneously immersing themselves in the surging movement of the young but extremely militant Chinese working class along with the youth and students. Shanghai, in particular, where the party was founded, is accurately depicted as a playground for wealthy Chinese and above all for foreign overlords, but as a living hell for the masses of Chinese people.
    Whilst the leading characters are presented in a more all-round, nuanced and ‘human’ way than was typical of an earlier period of Chinese revolutionary cinema, the film successfully combines action and romance with skilful expositions of key political questions. Quite lengthy readings from the Communist Manifesto highlight the young revolutionaries’ wholehearted embrace of the need for class struggle leading to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and their rejection of the reformism of the Second International, whilst the question of whether communists should hold office in a progressive bourgeois government, such as that of Dr Sun Yat Sen, is touched on in the case of Chen Duxiu. And in one short but highly significant scene Mao Zedong raises the importance of the peasant question, to the initial scepticism of his comrades. It was, of course, Chairman Mao’s grasp of the peasant question, and of the role that the peasants could play in the revolution in a country such as China, that created the conditions for victory and secured his eternal place as one of the greatest and most original leaders and theoreticians of the global communist movement.
     Also central to the political thrust of the film is the role played by the Communist International (Comintern). The two representatives from the Comintern who attended the CPC’s founding congress are rightly portrayed as heroic and selfless individuals, with some nail-biting scenes worthy of any genre of action movie. And the need to follow the path of the Russians, of the victorious October Revolution, is consistently highlighted. But there are also some pretty heavy hints of future tensions between the CPC and the Comintern, focused on the Chinese communists’ determination to forge an independent path as something intrinsic to their nation-building project.
    The role of the Comintern representatives in liaising with the fledgling Japanese Communist Party in Shanghai is also featured.
    The panoramic sweep of this film also takes us beyond China – to the Kremlin in Moscow, where we see Lenin addressing a congress of the Communist International, and to Paris, where we see the struggles of the Chinese workers and students to get organised under the banner of Marxism and to build support for China’s struggle among the French public. Here we are introduced to a 17-year-old Deng Xiaoping, with the affectionate name his comrades gave him at the time, Doctor of the Mimeograph, for his skill and diligence in producing revolutionary literature under difficult conditions.
    1921 is a touching, exciting and profound film – both great entertainment and a great education. It needs to be widely viewed, whether in China or around the world: for young Chinese people so that they might better know the struggles and sacrifices of their forebears that have made possible today’s increasingly strong and prosperous socialist China; and for those of us in the non-socialist world, who may sometimes feel daunted by the enormity of attempting to transcend the outmoded system of capitalism, to be reminded that a better world is indeed possible and that even a small number of people, with no resources to speak of, can really help to make it happen, so long as they have the spirit, in Marx’s words, to “storm heaven”.
    Or as Chairman Mao put it in his poem Chingkangshan Revisited: “Nothing is hard in this world if you dare to scale the heights”.

China’s immense achievements

by Dilip Barua
General Secretary, Communist Party of Bangladesh (ML)

The Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded on 23rd July 1921, in Shanghai. The birth of the Chinese communist party has now given a message to the world community that the historical mission of the founding of the CPC has succeeded for humanity. Following the ceaseless struggles and sacrifices of the Chinese people, the New China stood up on the 1st October 1949, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China led by Comrade Mao Zedong.
    History shows us that the CPC had a deep-rooted connection with the people, and the leaders were firm and committed to their causes and objectives. The party made some mistakes during the struggle but today’s leaders, having taken lessons from the mistakes of the past, have moved forward in a determined way. The outstanding quality of the CPC leadership is that they can feel accurately the pulse of the time, social development and the international situation. After the founding of New China, the leadership led the country in proper way and gradually transformed China into a modern, advanced and technologically developed country.
    After the collapse of the Soviet Union and in other socialist countries, the world communist movement was at a low ebb. The leadership of the CPC gathered experience from the collapse of the different socialist countries, subsequently formulating objective policies based on creative Marxism in localised form and upholding the banner of Marxism and Leninism. People’s China has now become the centre of the international communist movement.
    The western countries tried their best to transform the colour of China in the name of neo-liberalism, but western political scientists failed totally in this. The country is developing rapidly with its own model. The COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed deep flaws in the western systems. China’s achievement in its COVID-19 fight is a comprehensive manifestation of the capacity and capability of the people’s government. US political scientists now regard China as an ideological enemy. This perspective will continue to exist for a much longer period.
    The CPC, led by Comrade Xi Jinping, is upholding the banner of socialism. The Chinese government is continuing to run the administration, covering every aspect of social development, on this principle. Based on Comrade Xi Jinping’s farsightedness and thoughtfulness, the Chinese government has succeeded in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.
    The coronavirus has so far caused huge casualties and economic devastation throughout the world and even in China. But the CPC under the leadership of Comrade Xi was giving priority to protect lives, minimising the number of deaths, concentrating all their efforts on containing the onslaught of the coronavirus and finally to winning the battle. The Chinese government and the CPC also sent enormous support and materials needed to control the pandemic to different countries and political parties, including Bangladesh. This is the ethos of fraternal assistance. For this reason, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the People of China, the Chinese Government and the CPC for their solidarity with us.
    The Chinese government has focused objectively on the economic problems of the country, accelerating the momentum of economic growth. At the same time, they took into account the COVID-19 pandemic that has put the entire world economy into severe recession, disrupted industrial supply chains, and caused a contraction in international trade and investment, and volatility in commodity markets.
    Furthermore, the Chinese government has identified small and medium businesses that face growing difficulties as well as the pressure on employment that has risen significantly. To gear up the economic momentum, the Chinese government has taken pragmatic decisions such as supporting with stimulus packages. The people of the world are now witnessing China’s all-out success in controlling COVID-19 and creating a faster economic pace. On the other hand, the western countries and their followers are lagging behind in all respects, and still suffering from the devastating effects of COVID-19 as well as economic depression.
    In the prevailing world order, the Chinese people are relatively much better in all respects and are moving forward to build up a prosperous and harmonious world. The Chinese government has reformed its policies over time and has been proven capable of leading the people to brave difficulties to win victory after victory in the revolution, reforms and economic emancipation.
    Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on 1st October 1949, the Chinese people have done everything in their own way and developed their own model on the basis of their own national interest. The Chinese government has developed the basic foundation of industrial growth, continuing the reform process and technical innovation whilst improving the cultural conditions of the people.
    China has risen from being a semi-feudal, semi-colonial and culturally backward country, to become the second largest economy in the world. This is the glorious achievement of the CPC, and in this process the party will lead China to achieve its goal to become the number one economic giant.
    After the founding of the PRC production was low. Socio-economic conditions were backwards, and poverty was an integral part of the-then social systems. Poverty was gradually reduced but total alleviation of poverty has not been possible so far. In 2015, after becoming the General Secretary of the CPC, Comrade Xi said that poverty was the barrier that prevented China from transforming into a developed nation. He introduced stimulus packages and by the end of 2017 China’s rural population in poverty dropped from 98.99 million to 30.46 million – an impressive reduction rate of 70 per cent! Moreover, thanks to Comrade Xi’s party work at the end of the 1980s, Ningde prefecture, which was primarily a backward rural area in Fujian province, developed into to a modern and prosperous region. Since then, Comrade Xi has tirelessly worked to eradicate poverty entirely in People’s China.
    Under his able leadership, China will become a poverty-free society by the end of 2020. This will be earth-shattering news, particularly for western political scientists.
    Based on the Chinese model, the PRC has mobilised to eradicate poverty in a revolutionary drive to end the legacy of thousands of years of feudal society.
    Only the CPC could do it. Upholding the banner of Marxism and Leninism and continuing to develop the ideology from time to time with Chinese characteristics by Comrade Mao, Comrade Deng and Comrade Xi.
    Today the CPC under the leadership of Comrade Xi Jinping upholds the banner of socialism and faces all difficulties to make China one of the most modern, prosperous and harmonious countries in the world.

Which East is Red?

By Dermot Hudson

Which East is Red? The Maoist Presence in the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc – Europe 1956-1980 by AM Smith, 2019. Foreign Languages Press: Paris. Pp77; €5  / $6 ; ISBN: 978-2-491182-00-7.

There is no doubt that the 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the “secret speech” of Nikita Khrushchev attacking Stalin was a total disaster for the socialist camp and international communist movement. Khrushchev's speech was the first step on the road to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Many communist parties never recovered from the damage done. Internationally a split arose in the international communist movement as the USSR attempted to impose and force the dangerous revisionist line on other parties, notably the Chinese and Albanian parties. In many countries ‘anti-revisionist’ parties were formed and by the mid-1960s there was an open split. A few parties did not take sides or argued for unity, most notably the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which condemned both modern revisionism (ie the CPSU) and Left opportunism (China and Albania).

In those countries dominated by the USSR, there was a cosying up to the USA, the floodgates of imperialist ideological and cultural infiltration were opened, and internally there were reforms (the economic reforms usually resulted in prices going up) and a gradual dismantlement of the socialist system. When the Soviet bloc collapsed in the period of 1989–1991 people not only asked why but also raised the question of why didn’t anyone oppose what was going on?

This booklet goes part of the way to answering that question.

Smith is not a communist but a liberal and academic, and many of his views need to be taken with a ton of salt. Nevertheless, it is goldmine of information on resistance to revisionism from within the Soviet Union and the East European socialist countries, although an initial criticism is that the book could be longer with more depth.

It also misses out, because of its narrow framework, the non-Maoist communist movements in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia that were opposed to the 20^th Congress on traditional ‘Stalinist’ lines.

Smith details how in the Georgian SSR of the USSR in March 1956 there were huge pro-Stalin demonstrations of up to 70,000 people that ended in riots which were put down by the security forces with loss of life. Later on, rank-and-file members of the CPSU raised awkward questions about the direction of the CPSU, such as “Are we not in fact compromising with imperialism over West Berlin?” and questioned that generous aid was being given to non-socialist countries such as India whilst denying aid to socialist countries such as the People's Republic of China.

A number of anti-revisionist groupings were formed within the USSR. Most were small but one, the Workers Centre, was able to organise strikes.

The book contains short accounts of anti-revisionist movements in other socialist countries such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, and has a piece on Albania, the only ‘anti-revisionist’ European socialist country. The best sections, however, are on Bulgaria and Poland.

The piece on the little-known Bulgarian abortive coup in 1965 is a real nugget. The ‘hard-line’ Bulgarian leader Vâlko Chervenkov (brother-in-law of Georgi Dimitrov) had been forced out of power by Khrushchev in 1956 and later suspended from membership of the Bulgarian party. Todor Zhikov, who replaced Chervenkov, was not only seen as a revisionist but also a puppet of the USSR by more independent-minded Bulgarian communists. In 1965 a group of generals and some party leaders staged a coup to try to remove Zhikov but it failed.

In Poland, Kazimierz Mijal, who are been a communist partisan leader in the Second World War and a minister in the People's Republic of Poland, formed an anti-revisionist Communist Party of Poland in 1965. He went into exile in Albania, then China, and on return to Poland in 1984 was arrested by the revisionist regime. Mijal’s Communist Party combined anti-revisionism with militant anti-Zionism and Polish nationalism, which leads to Smith to criticism the party for anti-Semitism.

The section on Albania is fairly short. It does not really explain how Albania and China fell out so badly, with Hoxha even going as far as to say that China, which he previously praised to the skies, was not only revisionist but had never been a socialist country in the first place.

Apart from its short length the book has a number of weaknesses and inaccuracies. Firstly, the author seems totally unaware that there is evidence that GDR leader Walter Ulbricht was actually opposed to Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin but could not do anything because of the GDR's dependency on the USSR. Some German communists say Ulbricht was the best leader of the GDR and that Honecker was the revisionist. There is a serious howler in which Smith says the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953 was signed between “North and South Korea”. In fact the treaty was signed between the USA on one side and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China on the other, south Korea was never a signatory. Smith also claims that the Vietnamese and Korean parties “vacillated” between China and the USSR, which is inaccurate. The Workers’ Party of Korea took an independent position.

Nevertheless, this short and easy to read book throws an interesting light on a fascinating subject. You cannot help thinking that if only revisionism had been smashed into the ground, the USSR and other socialist countries would be still here today.

The book can be ordered online from the publishers or downloaded for free from the American Georgia State University (GSU) website.

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What is Maoism?

 Review

 by Ben Soton

 

Maoism – A Global History by Julia Lovell, Bodley Head. 2019.

In September 1993 I caught an early coach to London to join a protest against the arrest of a Peruvian guerrilla leader.  In 1970 a seven-year-old boy in a Scottish prep-school asked the Chinese embassy for literature to enable him to start a Cultural Revolution at his school.. What links these events is the movement known as Maoism.  In her book Julia Lovell charts its history.

Maoism is broadly defined as a variant of Marxism that places greater emphasis on the peasantry.  Regular Marxist-Leninists see this class as equal to the industrial working-class; whilst Trotskyists tend to be dismissive of it and the author shows a degree of ignorance when she uses the term ‘lumpen-proletariat’ in reference to the rural poor.  It also places specific emphasis on anti-imperialism whilst its supporters in the west tend to focus on oppressed groups such as ethnic minorities and those outside the official labour movement. 

Meanwhile Maoism is accused of supporting cult-like veneration of the leader although the same accusation was made against Soviet Union under Stalin.  Lovell argues that the distinct features of Maoism originate in the violent suppression of the Chinese Communist Party and labour movement in 1927.The brutality of these events led to Chinese Communist Party’s emphasis on armed struggle over trade unionism.

Much of the book focuses on Maoism outside of China; covering the Korean War, the tragic events in Indonesia in 1966, the Vietnam war and the horrors of Pol Pot.  It should be pointed out that the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh was not a Maoist and that Vietnam later overthrew the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea.

 It also covers the conflict in Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The guerrilla leader mentioned earlier was Abimael Guzman leader of the Shining Path. Guzman is now in a Peruvian jail. The seven-year-old boy was Andrew Marr who is now a mainstream journalist and television presenter.

A chapter on Maoism in the West explains how it influenced the anti-war and civil-rights protests of the 1960s and 70s.  British Maoism, or that section of the Communist movement opposed to Krushchevite revisionism originates from the Committee for the Defeat of Modern Revisionism and Communist Unity founded in 1963 by Michael McCreary.

But the book contains inaccuracies about British Maoism; for instance, it claims that the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPE-ML) later became the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPB–ML).  The two groups were, in fact,  separate organisations; the CPB-ML, was founded in 1968 by Reg Birch, a maverick member of the old mainstream communist party, while the CPE was established in 1972 to later become  the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) in 1979.

Lovell curiously argues that despite market reforms Maoism still influences Chinese policy citing a change to the Chinese constitution which lifts the limits the Chinese President to two terms in office, arguably making Xi Jinping president for life.  However, China never gave material assistance to most of the movements mentioned.  This was even the case with the Nepalese Maoists who overthrew the Nepalese monarchy in 2007.

She believes that in the light of recent disputes between China and the West (largely provoked by the latter) that our ruling class need to take a new look at Maoism.  The question is should those of us opposed to imperialism also take a look at it?