How do you reconcile that this revisionist is responsible for China being the only hope left for socialists? What does China‘s success change about Marxist thought?
Deng not revisionist
You revisionist
<Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875
<Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism, 1847
Read the above, now consider the fact that China, which already had a proletarian revolution, having overcome their semi-feudal conditions, and having done a speedrun of capitalist production, is gradually building the system with the red box around it in pic related.
<not enough time cuz climate change
vid related. they lead in renewables and are 9 years ahead of holding up their end of the Paris climate agreement which the burger reich completely abandoned. How much more heavy lifting must they do? The USA is 4-5% of the world's population but consumes 25% of the world's resources. They refuse to build renewable energy, and even as they decouple from China and reindustrialize they double down on carbon emitting forms of energy. China is close to building fusion.
>The only hope for socialism is a foreign country
The absolute state of "socialism" nowadays.
When are you people going to admit this is just secularized religion to you?
>>2522861When are we gonna have a revolution at home? We've been waiting for 250 years.
>>2522861Dengists are not socialists they are anti-communists.
>>2522895How so? Marx wanted the productive forces to be built internationally so that international communism could be achieved.
The PRC is the greatest nationalist project of all time.
Hopefully in 50 years I can come back here and say it has become the greatest socialist project of all time. Anarcho-retards will still be bitching though. And yes, belgian boys , there will commodity production.
>>2522899>vulgar marxismFuck off and die anti-communist.
>>2522819where is that first table from?
>>2522940He is just a retard no need to ascribe a specific position.
bloodgasm never has real arguments, just snarky sneedposts and low effort bait
>>2522895absolute false nuke
>>2522899china didn't just wait for international communism, they stabbed it in the back
>>2522744He's a capitalist. China before the CCP was semi-feudalist. Even Marx acknowledged that capitalism was better than feudalism. That's why China is much better now than it was just a few decades ago. That doesn't make the CCP socialist, unfortunately.
>>2523021>I don't need to distort Marx, Lenin, or Mao like you losers do.This is
>>2522940 literally a whole paragraph from the German Ideology.
>>2523030Taking quotes from the classics in order to defend capitalism/capitalist restoration is distortion dumbass.
>>2522744Chat is this true:
>when deng actually governed (while mao was still alive) his planned economy policy was a totally failure and further depressed the Chinese economy. The actually Chinese Growth Miracle was engineered by Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang the people who actually lead the country whilst a senile deng ostenabily was in charge (despite basically not holding any real positions).I guess it's usually the leaders who get the credit/blame for what people under them do but yeah I dunno much about Chinese politics.
I don't know much about Michael Hudson but I was watching interviews with him and he seems to like China for putting finance rentiers in a box and unleashing industry like Adam Smith wanted. It's funny if you told me he was actually a libertarian I'd believe it but I guess he likes defending classic political economy to bolster Marx.
>>2522744He wasn't a revisionist. He resolutely opposed revising the roles of Stalin and Mao in history
Is there a reasonable middle ground between
>Engels: private property cannot be abolished in one stroke
and
>Just wait for 50 years for the Chinese bourgeoisie to build the productive forces, trust the plan
>>2523137AES countries like China, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are in a holding pattern while they wait for you to overthrow your own bourgeoisie in the imperial core. The required productive forces for defense of the revolution is always relative to the external forces that seek to overthrow it. A communist party governs over China in the transition from state capitalism to socialism to communism, but that transition will be crippled unless other countries have their own revolutions, because China is just 1 country in a global capitalist system. China will not violate your country's sovereignty to bring you socialism because it has strategically embraced non-interventionist foreign policy in defense of its own past revolution, and besides that, socialism is unlikely to be embraced by any given country if it is seen as a 5th column for some foreign power. It is up to the American proletariat to overthrow their own bourgeoisie. The same is true of DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. They will not invade America to bring America socialism. That is not their job. They might provide socialist Americans strategic aid once a real movement is off the ground, but as of yet there is no such militant mass movement that can claim legitimacy at a national scale.
>>2523013And socialism should be better than both, right? So why was Maoist China prior to Deng‘s revisions so miserable in comparison to today‘s China?
>>2523194Because whatever his initial intentions, Mao ultimately did not end up pursuing socialism. As soon as he felt threatened he created a cult of personality, imposed authoritarianism and state repression even against people who agreed with him on many things but not everything, and created stupid policies that made no sense like the Great Leap Forward. He was a red fascist presiding over a semi-feudal state; of course Mao's China is going to be worse off than Deng's state capitalist China.
>>2523023the PRC is international menshevism, thus?
>>2523211Both the US and China are corrupt capitalist imperialists. Cope.
>>2523212Damn I didn't know China also has the world reserve currency, control over the world bank and the IMF, 800 military bases around the world and the largest military force ever assembled in history by far, which it uses for it's imperialist ends, stealing resources and killing millions of people across the world. But I guess they're both the same because china is also a big country and so is the US, so I see your point
>>2523212This is true because such a large state as China must be an empire and all competent empires(as opposed to the stagnant isolationism of historical Chinese empires) with the capability to do so will try to expand their power outwards and thus are imperialist. But you need an empire to destroy an empire, don't you?
>>2523212>Capitalist99% communist doe
>Imperialist????????
Me China, me love tradmaxing yummy yummy markets plz gib money
Bot-tier thread
>>2522819Yes, but the USA invented clean beautiful coal, so all is okay.
If Deng is a revisionist, so is Mao for inviting him back to the heights of the party
>>2523207
>socialism is le people centered economyyeah this is meaningless drivel that could be written by any government in the world
>>2523229>But I guess they're both the sameWhen did I say they were exactly the same in all aspects? Of course they aren't, because they're two separate nation-states. But if you told the CCP they could have all the power the USA does as long as they give up even pretending to be socialist, I guarantee they would do it.
>>2523247Even the CCP doesn't pretend to have reached communism. Nor do they claim to have achieved socialism yet either. See
>>2523207 they claim that they're "on the road to socialism"
>>2523236If they destroy each other, all is well and good. I just don't agree with people who naively think replacing one evil imperial power (USA) with another (China) will somehow significantly fix anything.
>>2524452>When did I say they were exactly the same in all aspects?You said they are both "corrupt, capitalist and imperialist". So for all the important defining characteristics they are the same in your eyes faggot. Of course in the real world, in terms of actual charactistics they are vastly different nations that share very few commonalities other than both being big countries.
>But if I make up an imagined scenario in my head that would never ever happen in a million years irl then I'm right, I guarantee it Kill yourself rerard
>>2524461>So for all the important defining characteristics they are the sameThey have the same essence, but they don't express that essence in the exact same way. The USA and Russia are both corrupt, capitalist and imperialist, does that mean they are the exact same? Of course not. The same applies to the USA and China.
>faggot>rerardCompelling argument. Gonna cry?
>only hope left for socialist
China never had a proletarian revolution
>China‘s success change about Marxist thought?
Nothing, China is capitalist state
Chinese proletariat will rise and rape the counterrevolutionary CPC members. Then, they will join in internationalism with USA proletariat who will rape american counterrevolutionaries.
>>2524464Whats with the titillating image
>>2524600What was the revolution in china of, then? If not proletarian idfk, geniuenly clueless and want to know
>>2524649Bourgeois revolution, Mao was Asia’s Simon Bolivar
>>2524669Can we appreciate the elegance of Mao's solution though?
>>2524679Solution to what?
>>2524649a peasent nationalist revolution.
>>2522744>revisionistwhy? he basically fullfilled the developement of productive forces and restraining of banking and land capital that is studied by classical political economy which marx culminated
>>2524722Which is ironic because Deng administration was collective, there wasn’t at all any sense of One Man Rile which there very much was with Mao and today with Xi
>>2524718>>2524722>le great man theoryok ok, by "him" i mean "the economic direction china took after dengism, for x and y material conditioners and a w number of other factors"
>>2524730and by "for x and y conditioners…" i meant "because of x and…" (esl…)
>>2524740It is, you being sarcastic isn’t changing that
>>2524742Welcum back Lassale
>>2524740>>2524748the state CAN be AN historic (relative, contingent upon material, class, productive… conditions) agent for communism IF it is a dictatorship of the proletariat, just as the capitalist state is and has been AN agent, but not THE historical agent by any means… Otherwise, if it is the case that the state lacks any historical agency, why should we communism seek to control it as a mean for our goal? and why has it been effectively used to hinder our goals by our class enemies?
>>2523063>Zhao Ziyangyep thats bait
If you are a Sino-Marxist, there is no contradiction. As Mao said, Praxis is the Sole Criterion of Truth.
>>2523063Like hideo kojima
>>2524763holy shit what??? hahahaha
>>2524464>they have the same essenceJust cut to the chase and say they have the same vibes or the same aura or whatever. If you can't actually say how they are the same in any concrete way, when in reality they are vastly different both historically and in terms of political economy, then you're just labelling them as identical based on nothing but your assertion that they are.
>russian imperialismIf imperialism is when a country is mean to it's smaller neighboring countries then sure
>Compelling argumentThe argument was that in order to justify your own argument you have to conjure an imagined world that doesn't exist and say "see in my imagined world I'm right!". Calling you retarded and a faggot were obviously just insults, you obtuse fucking moron
>What does China‘s success change about Marxist thought?
did the Scandinavian economic model change anything about marxist thought ?
China doesn’t exist, stop talking about it
>>2524933Scandinavian social model is just serfs with benefits, economic elites held over 70% of national wealth, but income was evenly distributed.
China is the Lenin-Deng gamble, do you trust a vanguard party or not?
How do you reconcile being an unloved cunt?
>>2525149Til nazi germany was not imperialist
>>2525169nazi germany does fit the 5 criteria
>>2525149>imperialism is a checklist you have to fill out and not a stage of global capitalismsomeone post the autism box clip from haz
russia and china both proved marx wrong in the sense that marx thought that the most industrialized nations would have the most revolutionary potential rather than imperialistically exploited largely agrarian/peasant nations. Marxism is a science that adapts to new evidence, not a religious dogma immune to reasonable and rigorous criticism and change.
>>2565499you need to actually read the book bro
Who cares? The libration of the working class will be done by the working class, first winning the battle for democracy, that is, establishing itself the ruling class of a nation. The PRC ain't gonna save you bro, it's up to us
>>2565498No shit you simpleton. I‘m asking for how Deng‘s success changes Marxist thought.
>>2522744>this revisionistBy accepting the fact that Marxism is a science and not a religious cult.
>>2565504Marxism is a ideology, not a science
REMINDER THAT SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY DIDN'T WORK
REMINDER THAT MARX WANTED THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES TO BE GLOBALLY ADVANCED SO THAT THE REVOLUTION WILL BE GLOBAL
REMINDER THAT CHINA IS SPEEDRUNNING THE INSUSTRIALIZATION IN AFRICA
>>2525169Are you going to tell me Nazi Germany did not have colonies? Do you understand the term lebensraum?
>>2565488if you read the book you would know that the 5 criteria in the image are updated for the modern era. the checklist is a simplified explanation of the dynamics of capitalism under monopoly conditions.
>a stage of global capitalismno its not a stage of global capitalism, its a stage of national development, because monopolies begin in and are defined by national conditions before becoming global. when we speak of imperialism as a stage of capitalist development, we are talking about the national economy of a given country, and not of capitalism as a global system which consists of many nations at different levels of development.
imperialism is global, yes, but that does not make the victims of imperialism imperialist themselves for being exploited. it does not even mean that willing comprador bourgios governments are themselves imperialist, because imperialism refers to the monopoly status of capital as a merger of industry with banking into finance capital, and as the image indicates "dominate world markets", "reserve" and "net goods exporter" because just as lenin did not consider the mere existence of finance capital as sufficient for imperialism, but the primary importance of finance capital as the engine of imperialist economy, and in modern times its not the mere existence of a national monopoly, but transnational monopolies that dominate world markets, because as lenin correctly pointed out monopoly is not simply regional control, but lack of market competition, and as we can see while russia has state monopolies in oil, which is a commodity good and not finance capital, it is also subject to market competition from the global cartel controlled by the US, who is in fact not subject to competition and we see this reflected in the pricing of russian oil being subject to western dictates and not the other way around.
to actually understand imperialism you first have to understand marx, and how market competition leads to consolidation, how technological innovation stagnates under monopoly, how the organic composition of capital lowers the rate of profit, and how as identified by lenin this dynamic necessitates extraterritorial expansion into underdeveloped markets to counteract that falling profit rate. and careful analysis shows this does not apply to russia generally, and definitely not in the case of their intervention in ukraine
I despise you social imperialist scum. The way you dress up Chinese imperialism as a positive 'industrialisation' is sickening. Imperialists and social imperialists deserve skinning.
>>2565714Elaborate how china is imperialist?
>>2565715Union of industrial and financial capital and export of said financial capital through loans (What evil defenders celebrate as the Belt and Road Initiative, as if it is any different from the wicked World Bank).
Example of Imperialism: Oil in South Sudan, where China owned the plurality of oil in the country since OVER A DECADE ago.
It's only revisionism if you refuse to read it.
>>2565711>updatedModernizer
>>2565726You can just admit you lost the argument anon, it's fine we won't laugh at you. No need to bring out your thought terminators
Chinaman are pragmatic people, they deal with the necessity born by reality
>>2522744>China being the only hope left for socialistscitation needed
>>2565892I buy it. Whenever I look into Chinese socialism it‘s always
>We need X so we will do Y<5 years later>We now have X after we did YThere isn‘t much abstract theory involved
China will build factories everywhere and prolerarianize everyone. Then everyone will be WORKING HARD like chinese people. This is progressive.
>>2565976We will all convege to become the Han master race.
>>2565915I think many leftist suffer from the ideological purity, they don't like to adapt their action to the need that reality present to them, like sometimes you need to use the instruments of capitalism to actually achieve something, but ideology purist prefer to burn the world into the ground then to adapt.
>>2565982>he is implying china is revisionistComrade Deng, rape this man for slandering CPC
>>2565978Mods, rape this man for racism
>>2565976>Outsourcing is progressiveWho knew
>>2525169TBH Nazi Germany was just ordinary colonialism, not imperialism. Same with Japan and Italy. Compared with Britain and the USA, the Axis were historically progressive. It was only because of the USSR that socialist politics memed fascism that hard.
>>25227441.Dengism is capitalism.
2.Dengism is still both more humane and more progressive than Amerikkkan liberalism.
Both can be true at the same time, you know. Thinking that the modern Western capitalism is the ultimate form of capitalism is ALSO a form of Western chauvinism.
>>2566131american liberalism = capitalism in it's pure form
"dengism"/marxism-leninism = socialism with an NEP
to call one capitalist in itself is slanderous and belittling to the most successful anti-capitalist project to have ever hit planet earth
>>2522744First of all, let's understand the theoretical pinnings of historical materialism and dialectical materialism.
In Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx says:
"In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces."
Marx is saying that the structure of society emerges in accordance with the level of development of its productive forces, particularly its tools and technology.
In the earliest human societies, people lived in small groups where everything was shared and there was no private property. These communities were mostly equal because their tools and technology were very basic. They hunted, gathered, and later farmed in simple ways. Since they couldn't produce much extra beyond what they needed to survive, there wasn’t room for wealth or class differences to develop.
Marx talks about how as the forces of production advances, it drives changes to the relations of production:
“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production… From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.” – Marx
"No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. " – Marx
Once the material productive forces advances or outgrow beyond what the existing relations of production can accommodate, a contradiction arises. The relations of production, which once facilitated the development of the productive forces, begin to act as constraint (what Marx calls "fetters") on further progress. This contradiction gives rise to a transitional period marked by social revolution. In this period, class conflict intensifies and ultimately leads to the overthrow of the existing social order. A new set of relations of production then emerge, ones that are better suited to the level of development of the productive forces.
The Agricultural Revolution marks a critical turning point in human history. It represented a leap in the the productive forces where agriculture, domestication of animals, irrigation systems, and improved tool led to a significant increase in food surplus. Settlements grew, and with them, social hierarchies and more complex economies developed, including allowing some individuals to specialize in activities other than food production, initiating a division of labor.
With the emergence of surplus came the concept of private property and systems of inheritance, which laid the foundation for the first class divisions. Those who controlled land, tools, or surplus resources began to hold power over others. Over time, these material inequalities became institutionalized in social structures. The need to protect property and manage growing, more complex societies gave rise to centralized authority which manifests in the formation of city-states, organized religion, standing armies, and hierarchical rule by kings and priests. In sum, the development of the productive forces eventually necessitates a transformation of the social and economic relations meaning the relations of production. This in turns create a new superstructure.
Feudalism eventually took over as the dominant system where most most people were peasants (or serfs) who worked the land for a landlord in exchange for protection and a place to live. The economy was based on tradition, agriculture, and rigid class hierarchy. You were basically born into your role and stuck there.
But over time, things started to change again. New tools, better farming methods, growing trade routes, and the rise of towns made the old feudal structure less efficient. A new class, the bourgeoisie, emerged: merchants, artisans, and early capitalists who weren’t tied to land but made their wealth through trade and production. As their economic power grew, they started challenging the feudal lords for political and social control. Eventually, feudalism couldn’t contain the new economic realities. Social revolutions took place and capitalism started to take over.
In the era of the capitalist mode of production, Marx talks about how
"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." (The Communist Manifesto)
In this new relations of production, the bourgeoisie, in their drive for profit and competition, rapidly innovates the productive forces and breaks up old stagnating systems, like feudalism, and pushes humanity forward technologically and economically. Marx then surmise that socialism will emerge from western countries with advance productive forces:
"The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism."'
Picture is the largest sickle and hammer statue in the world that can be found in China. It has the Communist Manifesto in the original German carved on it.
>>2566290For Marx, Capitalism is seen as necessary and historically progressive in developing the productive forces much more than any previous mode of production. He believed that socialist revolution requires mature or “ripe” productive forces i.e., a society where capitalism has:
- Fully developed industry and technology
- Created a large, organized proletariat
- Reached a point where the relations of production (private property, wage labor) contradict the productive forces (technology, labor potential, infrastructure)
Only when this contradiction becomes extreme does revolution become historically possible or necessary.
He also saw liberal democracy as the typical superstructure of capitalism, which in essence is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. After a sharp enough contradiction, the proletariat will then overthrow the existing superstructure to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat to mark a transition to communism. This transition will be called socialism, a transitional state where the working class holds political power. Marx and Engels talk about how after the DotP emerges, the main priority will be to further advance the productive forces to facilitate the sufficient conditions for communism. During this initial stage, which emerged from the womb of capitalism, it shall still be "stamped with the birthmarks of the old society." But eventually, class distinctions will have dissolved as abundance is achieved and the state itself would “wither away”. Society would then enter communism: a stateless, classless and moneyless society.
However, thus far, the countries with the most advanced productive forces (U.S., UK, Germany, Japan, etc.) have not had socialist revolutions. Marx didn’t fully anticipate:
The resilience and adaptability of capitalism (e.g., welfare states, consumer culture)
The integration of the working class into the system (via reforms, credit, rising living standards)
The absence of class consciousness on a revolutionary scale
And this means that the productive forces may very well not be mature enough to cause as sharp enough of a class contradiction for a social revolution. This however could change with the coming of highly sophisticated AI systems, robotics, advanced automation, abundant renewable energy, fission energy, etc., as this creates a superabundance society or the material basis for socialism and communism. The capitalist logic of scarcity, profit, and class should then become obsolete. The bourgeois become their own grave digger as Marx predicts. Mass unemployment from automation severs the link between labor and value creation central to capitalism as AI becomes more capable of automating cognitive, physical, and logistical labor. There will be no meaningful scarcity which then will undermine markets, prices and market motives. Private businesses become inefficient as central planning and coordination can now be done intelligently, flexibly by AI which will continue to become more advanced.
If labor is no longer the source of value, if abundance becomes the norm, if centralized coordination replaces markets, it then becomes historically necessary for a social revolution to fundamentally change the current relations of production in order to match the new productive reality. That's because trying to fit this level of productive power into capitalism is like pouring molten metal into a wooden mold, it breaks the form.
It should also be noted that Marx did not anticipate socialist revolutions in agrarian, pre-capitalist countries by political parties that studied his theories, and then launched revolutions to seize and remake the superstructure under a socialist vanguard. Mao emphasized that Third World revolutions had to be rooted in local conditions, “the peasantry is the main force” in China’s case. For him, they will be the agent of proletarian leadership in practice, under the guidance of the Communist Party.
Paradoxically, it may be “easier” for a vanguard party (like the Bolsheviks or Chinese Communist Party) to seize the state in these conditions because: the bourgeoisie was weak or non-existent and state institutions were fragile or in crisis. By contrast, in advanced capitalist democracies, bourgeois class power is deeply entrenched: economically, politically, and ideologically. Any revolutionary transformation in the West may be far more chaotic, contested, and violent due to how much power the bourgeoisie have accrued.
However, after the revolutions, China and Russia had inverted Marx's sequence to find themselves on the other side of the dialectical coin. The major contradiction in 1949 for China was that the base was weak and the superstructure was revolutionary. Thus the logic became: once the productive forces are mature, the already-established Marxist-Leninist state can guide society peacefully toward mature socialism, and eventually communism.
As a result, the USSR and China had to catch up technologically and industrially to the capitalist West before they could even begin to approximate the conditions that Marx saw as necessary for socialism. Their goals were to simulate the capitalist development phase, but under party control, not market anarchy. Mao used land reforms, literacy campaigns, and mass mobilization which did raise China’s productive capacity in certain areas. He used the collectivization of agriculture and land reforms aimed to dismantle traditional hierarchies and redistribute land to peasants. Some of his plans were successful while others ended in failure like the GLF. In the end, despite some of his errors, Mao still established China's sovereignty, turned China into a nuclear power, dramatically improved life expectancy and literacy rates, and laid the foundations for Deng Xiaoping. However, Mao himself did not believe he ever came close to achieving communism during his lifetime as the productive forces were still far from sufficient and behind the West.
As for the USSR, early Soviet development embodied Marx’s belief that: Human beings, when liberated from private profit motives, can organize production rationally. They are driven by the material need to improve their conditions. The USSR, through central planning, literacy campaigns, industrialization, and scientific development, achieved astonishing gains especially from the 1920s to the 1950s.
However, by the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR fell behind. Economic growth slowed and innovation lagged compared to the dynamic, consumer-driven West. The world wide web and the laptop was invented in capitalist societies like the UK and Japan. In the Soviet Union, the central planning model started becoming inflexible and unresponsive. Shortages, inefficiencies, and black markets grew. Part of this is because the USSR began in material deprivation, surrounded by hostile capitalist powers. And unlike the West, it did not benefit from centuries of colonial plunder or capital accumulation. The global system remained capitalist; the USSR was constantly under pressure (economic, military, ideological). Meanwhile, the West had access to global labor, markets, and resources via neo-colonial structures, foreign debt, and imperial alliances (e.g., Bretton Woods, IMF, NATO). Planned economies can initially mobilize resources efficiently, especially in catching up. But they tend to struggle with responsiveness, and complexity. The material conditions also weren’t ready. Automation, AI, abundant renewable energy, robotics, global productivity weren’t there yet.
>>2566292After the cultural revolution, the geopolitical landscape had changed, and the Sino-Soviet split gave the US an incentive to start getting along with China in an effort to debilitate the USSR. Deng Xiaoping saw the opportunity and took it. At the time, there was still a major contradiction for Chinese socialism in the 1970s: China was still a largely agrarian state and the technological gap between China and the capitalist West was only accelerating.
To address this issue, Deng coined the concept of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," which meant dialectically reconciling the contradictions of
1. Marxist idea of socialism and communism
2. China’s concrete historical and material conditions (backward productive forces, semi-feudal legacy, legacy of revolution, national context).
Thesis: Universal socialism (as per Marx)
Antithesis: Chinese material conditions (agrarian, poor, underdeveloped)
Contradiction: How to realize socialism in an unripe historical context
Synthesis: “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” aka a historically grounded path to reconcile the universal and particular
Aufhebung: As the contradiction is resolved through development, the two categories, "socialism" and "Chinese characteristics" begin to merge and dissolve into one historical form
So when Deng says "Chinese characteristics", he's not talking about a static Confucianism or an Orientalist image of some eternal cultural "Chinese-ness." Chinese characteristics are the stage of development and concrete historical condition that China finds itself in. Deng's goal is for China to bridge the gap between the mental and material until the two dissolve. When Deng said “seek truth from facts,” he wasn’t advocating pragmatism in the abstract, he was invoking a dialectical materialist method. He recognized that ideas (truth, socialism) must grow out of and adapt to material conditions. To attempt to impose a universal blueprint on an underdeveloped base would not produce socialism, but crisis and failure.
This is why Cambodia dividing everything up in a poor population and abolishing money and markets overnight during the 1970s is not communism. It's socialized poverty. It is un-dialectical. They had a revolutionary superstructure but a weak base. Socialism can’t be built unless the productive forces are sufficiently developed. If the material base is underdeveloped, the new government will struggle to meet people’s needs, leading to disillusionment, instability, and possible failure, which is bad for socialism long-term.
In the same sense, Vietnam as A.E.S. today can't just abolish money and class and split the land up and call it communism. That would simply be idealistic and not Marxist. Although Vietnam is further along than Cambodia, socialism requires advanced productive forces as Marx said. Without highly developed productive forces, even a well-intentioned "socialist" state will struggle to evolve toward true communism and may even regress.
Marx did not believe communism would come about through sheer will, idealism, or moral desire alone. It took a long time for primitive human societies to improve their productive forces, and from there to feudalism and capitalism and now, the horizon of socialism.
"It is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse" – Karl Marx
In China, the base was weak but they had a revolutionary superstructure in the Marxist Leninist system. To bridge the technological gap and build the base, China began opening themselves up to Western investments and trade. However, rather than abandoning Marxism, China sought to embed itself back into the long arc of historical materialism, rejoining a global process shaped by capitalist development. Through joint ventures, tech transfers, and participation in global supply chains, China was able to access technology and productive knowledge accumulated by advanced capitalist nations, much of which was rooted in centuries of imperial expansion and capital accumulation.
This shift also marked a definitive end to China’s long era of isolationism, which had begun under the Ming Dynasty and contributed to its relative stagnation in the modern era. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has accelerated the advancement of their productive forces and built up the material base under the guidance of the CPC. China deliberately reintroduced capitalist forces and markets to develop productive capacity, as the logic of capital ie. competitive innovation, market incentives, and decentralized initiative, can drive rapid technological change. As Marx himself observed in the Communist Manifesto: “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.” However, the country sought to harvest capitalism’s productive power, while avoiding capitalism’s political hegemony. Thus, the logic of capital is tactically deployed, but the logic of socialism (planning, class leadership of the proletariat through the Party) still hegemonizes the system.
Deng made it absolutely clear that China would not liberalize the superstructure, that is, they would keep the Leninist one party state with the CPC in power; they would not liberalize land reforms, that land is still owned by the state and rural land is owned by the collective. China would direct capital rather than be directed by it, maintaining sovereignty over development. They would continue to use 5 year plans to direct industrialization and that foreign corporations wanting to do business in China must enter into a joint venture with a local Chinese company. Deng also used SEZs to strictly control capital flows and guard against foreign capital from accruing immense power. The commanding heights of the economy is still owned by the state. Only AES countries, particularly China, have executed billionaires. It further serves as a warning to show who is in charge.
This is why Deng and Xi have talked about how the primary contradiction now in China is not class struggle but the advancement of the productive force. This is because they already had their social revolution and built a superstructure based on a Marxist Leninist one party state. And while not the primary contradiction, class struggle has not disappeared in theory. Xi has revived “common prosperity” and has ramped up on the execution of billionaires. In its Marxist Leninist state structure, the bourgeois are structurally blocked from becoming core political decision-makers through a cadre control and promotion system. There are no elections that capitalists can buy and no independent media or political parties for them to fund. The state controls and regulates the media and can censor any opposition from the bourgeois. It maintains tight ideological control (Xi Jinping Thought). Efforts to bribe officials is strictly punished with possibly life imprisonment and the death penalty. This acts as a major deterrence as Xi has made the punishments much harsher. China has also implemented a salary cap for employees at state owned financial institutions. 98% of finance is state-controlled in China.
In the period since Deng, China's goal has been to rapidly build up their industrial manufacturing capacity and build out the critical infrastructure for modern healthcare, education, roads, highways, mass transit, energy grids, and more. This marked the beginning of a period of intense modernization, which was also challenging due to the sheer size of China's 1.4 billion population. However, the CPC has made massive progress and has rapidly improved every social indicator for the Chinese people including for health, education and living standards. No other country has urbanized more people in such a short time. Recently, China is also focused on building the new productive forces which is key to achieving superabundance or the mature material basis for a socialist and communist society. This includes heavy investments toward AI, automation, renewable energy, nuclear fission and robotics. Thus, the CPC’s long-term governance is anchored in two strategic temporal goals: By 2035, China aims to achieve “basic socialist modernization,” including industrial and technological leadership, a high-income economy, and more equitable social outcomes. By 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic, the Party envisions a “modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious.”
These milestones function as dialectical horizons: points at which the base (i.e., productive forces and social relations) is expected to “catch up” with and eventually become congruent with the superstructure. But once it "catches up" with the superstructure, it can then outgrow the social relations, which is when the superstructure will also transform. As Xi Jinping has said, "To develop new quality productive forces, it is imperative to deepen reform across the board as to create a new type of relations of production that is compatible with the development of new quality productive forces." And when the new productive forces are fully "ripe", China’s Marxist-Leninist state structure, built on the foundations of the original revolution, gives China a unique position to transition peacefully and strategically to a mature socialism and the horizon of communism. On the other hand, advanced Western states will likely find themselves in a path that would be far more destabilized, contested, or even violent in capitalist democracies, where the bourgeoisie remains in control of both the state and the ideological apparatus.
Burger """leftists""" haye him.
>>2566302great posts anon, a joy to read
>>2566302I like this take. In the Manifesto, it is written that communists must win the battle for democracy. This is just a reformulation of the idea of the proletarian dictatorship or the political supremacy of the proletariat. But the working class must first to make itself the demos, a political body able to push its historical class interest, before it can rule itself. The Russian and Chinese revolution effectively made the conditions that first 1) made the working classes, and secondly 2) could make the working classes the demos.
>the two categories, "socialism" and "Chinese characteristics" begin to merge and dissolve into one historical formIt reminds of Lenin's claim that there is world-historic significance to the Russian revolution, and there are a lot of universal truths in it, despite the particularities. The quote from Xi about new 'relations of production' is making me hopeful.
Thanks for making me have new thoughts.
TURNS OUT THE russian saboteurNESE ONLY CARE ABOUT PROTECTING CAPITAL FLOWS
>vgh why are dengoids building infrastructure overseas? dont they know that this is imperialism…
<No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.
<At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
>b-but developing productive forces internationally isn't necessary, think of the noble savage, I'd hate to see third worlders play genshin impact… they are so pure…
<And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the “propertyless” mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism.
>this is fucking woke bullshit globohomo, dengoids are no different than democrap obama
<National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
>ok then why do dengoids not liberate me right nao??? heh debonked
<Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
>>2566529Russia is imperialist though
>>2566542why, for allowing largely russian-speaking regions on its border to join the federation? for protecting ethnic russians from neo-nazi gangs?
>>2566568Yes they are chauvinists in addition of being imperialists
>>2566649Sorry, but Hitler lost.
>>2524464CIA hands wrote this thread which is ironic since its defending Russian imperialism but killing workers is something both camps can unite on
>>2566649Of course capitalism is global and the conflicts between countries are not permanent and not based on moral principles. Every country tries to trade as much as possible with every other country, only limited by security concerns, sanctions and public image concerns.
>>2566898>they're rebuilding iran, israel, afghanistan, iraq. maybe the middle east will have stabilitymeanwhile burgers in usapol cope they're imperialist because they only look into chinese-israeli relations and don't look at the broader context of China rebuilding the region America has spent every year since 1948 working hard to destabilize.
>>2567413b-but they are making money while doing it and thats bad they should be broke!
>>2567492posted it again award
>>2522744>How do you reconcile that this revisionist is responsible for China being the only hope left for socialists? What does China‘s success change about Marxist thought?Your post contains four assumptions:
>Deng is responsible for the continued existance of the PRC and his way was the only one>China is hope for the communists>China is a success for the world proletariat>China's supposed success undermines Marxism somehowLets see
>No>No given every bit of their foreign policy history even since Mao and their continued refusal to take up the mantle of vanguard of world revolution>Not significantly, unless you believe the mere existance of China as a counterpower to the USA/NATO creates favourable conditions for world revolution. Which would have also happened over time in some other way, we can already see USA-EU conflict, so this isn't something that could only be done by China and by extention Deng>No, the existance of a developmentalist nationalist government (which has existed in various forms all over the world since the first world war) does not undermine the core tennants of marxismI do think the tactics of China can be studied if actually employed by Marxist government of substantial size who did do the bare minimum in terms of internationalism for the proletariat.
Cue the Dengists telling me:
>Building factories builds socialism even if it only enriches the rich, and you cannot skip the capitalist stage!<Both Lenin and Mao departed from old dogma by refuting this very point, which is the very basis of the Chinese state, even officially, the proletariat leading the development, so there is no reason why you can't do the same abroad>You're a lazy westerner! Why don't you make your own revolution!?<If it was not for the USSR coming to the aid of China for decades on end, it would be a Japanese colony right now.>Forces of production, NEP!<If the Soviets could end NEP and transition to the fastest growing economy after just 7 years why does China need 35+ years? Just admit you're a Bukharinist, the right wing of the right wing of the communist movement.>Trust the plan bro! Why do you not trust China? 2050!<We have been betrayed by supposed leaders of our movement over and over again, and China has not given any real indication of being true believers and being willing to trade some of their gained position as a nation for gains of the global communist movement. >>2566524><Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.We have long developed beyond this stage. There is no more national bourgoiesie. There is only international bourgoiesie which uses the nation states politics to play populations out against one another.
>>2523078Honestly I agree with this, and I think my country should do the same, but let's be real for a second here: this is Keynesianism, or a set of capitalist policies very related to it and favoring demand, or at least production over finance capital and supply. This is no edgy revolutionary Marxism, it's just economists being less retarded than Reaganite Americans all while remaining with the framework of capitalism. I'm okay with this, but saying "this is acktually what Marx wanted!!!" while LARPing as a Soviet komissar is megacope.
>>2523159>Cambodia>AESMegakek. Guess the prostitutes blowing bald passport bros are building the productive forces too, heh.
>>2567418Deng: Socialism isn't poverty
Anti-Deng Contrarians: I hate Deng therefore socialism is poverty
>>2567569except in keynesianism we see the rollback of state regulations as the profit rate falls and in china we see the opposite. this is due to the class character of the state
>>2567736ok now do one for gutting pensions instead of helping retirement and reprivatizing the commanding heights of the economy, you know something that actually addresses the claims
>>2566524Dengism is historically progressive capitalism. That doesn't make China socialist. The USSR was also historically progressive capitalism.
>What does China‘s success change about Marxist thought?
Sometimes history unfolds as two steps forward (Mao), one step back (Deng), 1.5 steps forward (Xi).
>>2567775>2 -1 +1.5 = 2.5xi is more communister than mao
>>2567784Hes just sitting on the cumulative communisterisms Mao achieved.
>>2567798I would say DoTP is more important term here as, like people have said, not even USSR achieved socialism.
>>2567798no,it's not that weird,as an intellectual at some point you need to find one W no matter what if you don't want to end up like nick land or Mark Fisher
>>2567798Why should I care about bourgeois college professors opinions, furthermore they are american or teaching in america, and they teach fucking economics which is capitalist pseudoscience
>>2523041Its a common perestroika era technique used by Gorby & co.
The egregious abuse is quote-mining Lenin, who often is doing concrete analysis & policy making in a concrete situation, and then taking what he said to be generalized or generalizable.
>>2522895I would say the proper term is revisionist. But kust like Khrushchev it inevitably leads to capitalist restoration.
>>2567798if you read the scroll you would know why
>>2567918Reminder that "capitalist" is not an ideology, its a class, retard.
>>2567918you are anti-intellectual, NGMI
>>2567822but isn't that just a semantic difference? the people saying it is socialist mean dtop and the people that say its not mean full last stage communism
>>2522744 >China being the only hope left for socialistsIts a strong country thanks to Deng.
>>2568945Socialism is a mode of production. DoTP is a matter of state control.
>>2568956>Socialism is a mode of production.is it? first time hearing so
>>2568956no, socialism is a transitionary stage headed by a dotp who aims to advance the productive forces as rapidly as possible in order to obtain the material basis for a classless society. marx also said this stage will look different in each country due to their historical circumstances and level of development. full on communism (classless, stateless, moneyless) is the next mode of production.
>>2568997>no, socialism is a transitionary stage headed by a dotp This is leninist revisionism. Marx never said this.
>>2569008no, it's classical marxism.
>Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.marx always framed socialism as a transitional stage, not a final economic system. it also retains elements of the old society. and because it is transitional and contains elements of capitalism, marx does not treat it as a fully realized mode of production.
>>2569036It was bait but Marx rarely even mentions socialism and instead talks about lower stage communism.
>>2569146right but thats a semantic difference. we can call it lower stage communism or use the convention of socialism and communism being different stages. the important thing is the class character of the state, and a dtop is not a dtob, its not social production for private profit, but social production for public need according to democratic decision through representative democracy.
i think the reason a lot of people get it twisted is because liberals appropriated a lot of communist rhetoric. like a rising tide really does lift all boats if you actually build necessary infrastructure, but thats not what liberals do thats just what they say.
>the only hope left for socialists?
Hope would imply that they're doing something for socialists but they don't. Are submarines or helicopters our only hope because they occassionally kill a billionaire? No. I'll do what I always do and I hope Chynah won't fund the reactionaries in my country.
>>2573064Do you really want to dogmatically cite Marx‘s work from a time where he was young and had a less developed outlook? What would the late Marx say?
>>2573080Yes, this is invariant communist doctrine and (you) are a denier.
>the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the NATION, it is, so far, itself NATIONAL, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. >United action of the leading civilized countries at least is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
Why is there no united action? People will blame the chinese proletariat for that.
>>2573170Yeah, all these ultroid bordiggers suddenly become voluntarist when it comes to China. They are so inconsistent man. And they never elaborate.
>>2573080> What would the late Marx say?You tell us. Late marx wrote Capital, his critique of poiltical economy but as far as I know never rejected the content of the 1848 Manifesto
>>2573080lol he gets even more explicit and economic determinist
>>2573064reminder that he surmised that socialism will likely come about in advance western countries because they had the most advance productive forces and he was writing the communist manifesto with that in mind.
he even says
>These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.this means that the development of the socialist project in a post colonial agrarian countries will not be the same as socialist development in advance western countries. marx's view is not actually rigid as often claim, he mainly gives direction and a method call dialectical materialism. by the end of his life, he even allows for different starting points and uneven development, with his writings in his letters on russia.
when china established a dotp with the founding of the PRC in 1949, it was still agrarian and technologically backwards and far behind the west. its industrial output was tiny and like 1% of its population would even be considered proletariats in the marxist sense. so mao's central goal was to build a strong industrial base that is necessary for socialism in marxist theory as well as modernize society by improving living standards and urbanization.
by the late 1970s, the prc did achieve some basic industrialization and improved the quality of life for its people with a dramatic increase in life expectancy and literacy. however, china still remained overwhelmingly rural with subsistence farming being the norm for most people. there was still limited connectivity between rural areas and industrial centers. most people were living in extreme poverty and they were far behind in living standards to the west as many did not have access to electricity, running water, or modern healthcare.
according to historical materialism, the capitalist phase is considered necessary before socialism. marx even admired capitalism, not morally, but as a historical force in its ability to revolutionize the productive faster than previous modes of production. he also says,
>The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism.so when the khmer rouge claimed it established communism, that would be considered utopian delusion by marx. the people were extremely poor and agrarian. they would be skipping both the capitalist and the socialist stage without the productive forces being highly developed and beyond post scarcity. deng's central insight is that he did not believe china needed to go "full capitalism" like russia after the fall of the USSR. however, china had already went through their social revolutionary by mao, so he would keep the DOTP intact with political power being monopolized by the CPC. the heights of the commands would be owned under the CPC. deng believes that PRC, under CPC guidance could rapidly increase the productive forces faster than capitalism. deng used SEZs to strictly control capital flows and guard against foreign capital from accruing power. he required foreign companies to transfer tech along with joint ownership if they wanted to set up shop in china. the PRC sought to harvest capitalism’s productive power, while avoiding capitalism’s political hegemony. thus, the logic of capital is tactically deployed, but the logic of socialism (planning, class leadership of the proletariat through the party) still hegemonizes the system. in a capitalist society, the logic of capitalism hegemonizes the system.
>>2573064by the way, you should also highlight
>centralization of credit in the hands of the state they have a monopoly on banking and can easily issue immense flow of credit to an industry based on five year plans.
>centralization of the means of communicationnews organizations are all state owned. tv networks and film studios are state owned. a great firewall and golden shares in tech companies so companies aligns with national priorities
>centralization of transportrail, roads, airlines, airports, highways, mass transit, maritime ports, maritime lanes are owned by the state
>extensions of factories and instruments of producion owned by the statethey have it to a significant extent, commanding heights of the economy are owned by the state aka the slogan of "grasping the large, letting go of the small," so not fully highlighted.
>free education for all children in public schools and abolition of child laborall children are entitled to free education and laws have been passed that prohibit employing children, with offending employers getting harshly punished now.
>combination of agriculture with manufacturing industriesthis has acelerated in the past decades where rural regions host factories, food processing plants, and light manufacturing, closely linked to agricultural output. highways, railways, and logistics networks connect rural areas to industrial and urban markets. during mao's era there were barely any highways and most rural roads were unpaved.
>gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution over the countryafter the costal cities became developed, china's regional disparity has been shrinking for the past two decades due to targeted poverty alleviation initiatives.
marx said gradual and it's happening. gini index has gone from 0.43 to .35 in a decade. also, reducing income inequality is not the only measure of equailty.
study shows the inequality gap between educational outcomes in rural and ruban areas is shrinking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10877417/the inequality gap in health outcomes between rural and urban areas is narrowing as well
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9566669/ Unique IPs: 103