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China: Socialist Construction

Intro IR

Dilemmas of Victory

• How to build socialism in a peasant majority country? • How to modernize and socialize the means of production? • How to avoid the Soviet experience of “Forced Collectivization”? • How to avoid bureaucracy and authoritarianism? • How to maintain revolutionary mass politics without creating chaos

inimical to stability and modernization? • How to address new inequalities within the revolution?

Dilemmas of Victory

• Mao makes genuine and consistent efforts to avoid the bureaucratization of the revolution, and to create mass politics to achieve real communism, but problems result • In the US, the problems of Chinese attempts at building socialism are all

pinned on Mao as an “evil” individual leader • But it is important to recognize that these are problems of history, of political

economy, and of class struggle, and can’t be pinned on individual leaders in a simplistic way, as if they stand above and beyond these matters and can control them by themselves.

Dilemmas of Victory

• The key dynamic involved Class Formation within Revolutionary China: • Modernization efforts create growth and new inequalities • Mao responds with revolutionary enthusiasm, transforming social relations in

a socialist manner, but unleashing political, economic and social instabilities • In the end, Mao is sidelined, revolutionary mass politics end, and political

elites embark upon a reform process in the late 1970s

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New State, 1949-52

• The PRC takes the form of a “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” • This was a new type of democracy, comprised of the united revolutionary

classes (peasants and workers) under the leadership of the CCP • Although the CCP led and ruled with support of the revolutionary classes, the

People’s Democratic Dictatorship was not yet Communist

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New State, 1949-52

• The PRC faced an economy in ruins • The GMD had stripped the country of all liquid assets of gold, silver and

dollar reserves • They had also stolen much of the cultural heritage and artifacts of Chinese

civilization, including the treasures of Beijing’s Forbidden City • They had also firebombed industrial assets and sites • Bandits and war refugees roamed the countryside • There was no national economy or currency • Many intellectuals fled with the GMD

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New State, 1949-52

• Immediate goals: • Complete “bourgeois revolution”

• Economic reconstruction • Unification and national defense • Stabilize country after century of conflict

• Not an immediate transition to Communism; an intermediate stage

The New State, 1949-52

• The “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” is established, resulting in: • Unified territory • Abolished all feudal relations and the landlord class • Redistributed land to peasant households • Restored agricultural and industrial production • Women’s rights, including freedom of choice in marriage and right to divorce • Ended opium addiction • Ended prostitution • Regulated foreign business, then nationalized it • By the mid-1950s, nationalization of most medium and large industry

The New State and the World

• After the Communist victory, the US slapped an embargo on China, cutting off all aid and trade, and forced its allies to do the same • Until April 1949, Stalin had also remained an ally of Chiang Kaishek • But Stalin invites Mao to Moscow in December 1949 • Stalin offers assistance if China was attacked by the US or Japan, and

offers a small amount of aid and industrial expertise and assistance, but refused to support the liberation of Taiwan or to remove Soviet troops from ports in Manchuria

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The New State and the World

• In 1950, war in Korea begins • The US enters, and China sees this a major threat • Oct 1950, US forces almost reach Yalu river between Manchuria and

Korea • US Senators call for “nuking” China • Oct 8, Mao orders People’s Volunteer forces to move into Korea to

“repel the attacks of the American imperialists and their running dogs” • Under Peng Dehuai, China defeats US forces, which are pushed down

the peninsula

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The New State and the World

• In the context of the Cold War, many Third World leaders, such as Nehru from India, and Sukarno from Indonesia, proposed a new type of international relations, at the Bandung Conference (April 1955), a summit of non-aligned nations • The PRC delegation was led by Premier Zhou Enlai, who promoted a

“new democratic” development plan and “five principles for peaceful coexistence” • mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual

non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence

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Post-War Development

• After the security situation was stabilized, Mao turns to internal development questions • Mao was intent not simply on modernizing China but on creating

communism – a modern society of equal social relations • In 1953, China adopts the Soviet system of economic growth • Modernization based on extracting surpluses from the countryside to fund

urban industry • A centralized state to plan and distribute resources according to both

economic and social criteria

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First Five-Year Plan, 1953-57

• Adopts the Soviet system of central planning • Returns an average of 16% annual industrial growth • Total industrial output more than doubled • Industrial working-class grows from 6 to 10 million • Subsidized housing, lifetime medical care, permanent jobs • Public education from pre-school through high school

Land Collectivization

• By mid-1950s, with the country stable and growth occurring, Mao decided that China was ready for step forward in building socialism • Land Collectivization occurs in stages between 1953-57 • First ‘mutual aid’ teams established for farming support on private lands • Then voluntary cooperatives were encouraged and formed • After July 1955, mandatory large cooperatives, and the abolition of private

property in land

Land Collectivization

• What were the motives of Land Collectivization? • Reduce inequalities between rich and poor peasants • Apply advanced farm technology • Allow state control over food production and distribution

Land Collectivization

• What were the results? • 100 million households organized into large cooperatives • But families kept small plots for subsistence • Payment based on equal pay, equal work • Rising productivity and supply, but peasant incomes rise slowly because

profits used to fund urban industry

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• The next stage in the social revolution led by Mao • In a July 1957 article, Mao wrote that China’s predicaments were part of the

struggle “between the two roads – capitalism and socialism.” • Mao was concerned that new inequalities would create room for capitalism to

re-emerge • China needed to accelerate its transition to real socialism

• The key maxim was: • use communist organizational methods to get communist economic

outcomes • Or, as Mao put it in early 1958: • “Go all-out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, better, and

more economical results.”

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• The strategy of the GLF was to industrialize and modernize the countryside • This was based on Mao’s belief in peasant radicalism and

commitment to communism, and in the notion that revolutionary struggle, or “permanent revolution” could accomplish any goal in politics, economics, or even war. • In other words, if people worked with a higher purpose and with a subjective

will, any existing barriers to productivity could be shattered

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• By industrializing and modernizing the countryside, the GLF would also: • Reduce unemployment in cities by developing the countryside • Reduce the urban-rural development gap • Avoid the Russian experience of rural exploitation • Reduce inequalities in countryside

• Mao said these objectives were necessary for • “walking on two legs” • “simultaneous” development

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• People’s Communes • Amalgamated collective farms into large Communes

• Large work brigades • Socialized kitchen work

• This would create Communism based on: • A decentralized state • Local administration • The abolition of classes • The elimination of the urban-rural divide

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• By the end of 1958: • 24,000 Communes established • 500 million people organized into communes, including 90% of rural families • Average commune = 5,000 families • Communist payment methods, work structures • Abolition of personal possessions

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• But problems result • Food shortages were produced by diverting labor to rural industry • Organizational chaos • Lack of accounting skills • No national planning • Redundant production of the same items within every Commune, when trade

between Communes might have been more efficient

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• Famine • 1959 would have been the largest harvest in Chinese history • But diversion of agricultural labor to rural industry left food supplies rotting in fields

• 1960 floods cause pests and bugs, affecting 60% of the land • Agriculture fails, famine results, communes collapse • Some estimate 10-20 million deaths, but no reliable numbers exist and many studies are politically-motivated to damage the reputation of Mao and the CCP

• Local officials aggravated the situation by misrepresenting food supplies to central planners

Great Leap Forward, 1958-60

• Mao blamed falsified agricultural reporting and poor local administration for the famine, but recognized that he was ultimately responsible as designer of the GLF • Mao resigns as Chairman of the PRC, retained his position as

Chairman of the CCP, but gave up its daily management, which fell to Liu Shaoqi • Only the army, under Lin Biao, was under Mao’s influence • From 1960-65, Mao withdrew from political center stage • Argued that “Bourgeois elements have infiltrated our Communist

Party.”

New Economic Policy, 1961-65

• Led by Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi • Reverses the Great Leap Forward • Re-allows private farming plots, market sales • Profit motives for industry • Management power is enforced • Private possessions allowed • Central planning enhanced • Reduced sizes of communes

• Results: political stability, and a revival of agricultural and industrial production • But Mao observes new rural inequalities, calls this “the restoration of

capitalism in the countryside.”

Cultural Revolution, 1966-76 • Mao’s last revolutionary act • Fears the growth of class inequalities

inside Chinese communism, fears the growing power of the state bureaucracy, and fears the legacy of old culture, old ideas, old customs, and old habits -- the “four olds” – holding back the revolution • Calls for a cultural revolution against

the party and state elite and privileged social strata

CR in Practice • Mao rallies the PLA against the new

political elite, which he calls ‘rightists’ • Calls for the purging of cultural/media

organs and Beijing party organs • Mao issued a call to students:

• « Dare to rebel against authority »

• Students respond in the millions: • Form Red Guards

CR in Practice - The popular response was

immense and genuine - Millions gather in Beijing

Square - Red Guard Manifesto urges

youth ‘to turn the old world upside down, smash it to pieces, pulverize it, create chaos and make a tremendous mess, the bigger the better.’

CR in Practice

For many, the CR was exhilarating, liberating, optimistic But it also used violence and persecution of those viewed as “capitalist roaders” and bureaucratic elites This cruelty and suffering led to demoralization, and the political exhaustion of the population Today the CR is widely seen as a dark chapter in Chinese history

Aftermath

• Mao withdraws to his study in 1973 • Dies September 9, 1976 • Central Committee purged of

Maoist elements • End of revolutionary mass

politics

Assessment of Revolutionary China

• The Chinese revolution was an event of world-historical significance • It was rooted in the historical contradictions of Chinese feudalism,

China’s class structure, and imperialism • The Revolution completes the bourgeois revolution • Ends feudalism and creates a sovereign state

• From the standpoint of Marxism, it makes historical gains for the working class and peasantry: nationalized industry and collectivized land and rational planning for social needs, not private profit.

Assessment of Revolutionary China

• More than this, it launches modernization and development – the strongest record in the developing world – 1952-1977: 11% average industrial growth rates – By the 1970s, China was the 6th largest industrial power in the world,

producing jets, satellites, nuclear weapons, modern ships, heavy machinery, and ballistic missiles

Major Questions and Challenges

• How to create socialism in a peasant-majority country? • How to modernize and socialize simultaneously? • Mao called for a new type of democracy and mass politics, but

created a one-party state, characteristic of Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union • Key economic and social gains were sometimes vitiated by destructive

political conflicts amongst elites • Mao leads the revolution and contributes to its exhaustion...and this

paves the wave for market reforms after 1978

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Note: this academic essay is from 1977, i.e. before China’s market reforms are implemented

• It is the purpose of this essay to raise some questions about certain aspects of "the Maoist legacy," which is not without its ambiguities, especially in so far as the question of the theory and practice of socialism is concerned.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• In 1949 China was one of the most economically backward countries in the world and its people among the most impoverished. The modern sector of the economy was tiny and structurally unbalanced, largely confined to the coastal treaty ports and Manchuria and built under foreign imperialist auspices; the modern industrial capacity of the world's most populous land was smaller than that of Belgium at the time. The vast majority of the Chinese people lived and worked in rural areas still dominated by "precapitalist" forms of socioeconomic relationships. Moreover, China was a land that lacked genuine national unity and had yet to achieve full national independence.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• In short, the country which the Communists came to rule was one where bourgeois revolutionary movements had failed for over a half century, and where previous governments had failed to create a modern nation-state, much less promote any sustained process of modern economic development.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Thus when the Communists established the People's Republic (PRC) in 1949, they promise not one revolution but two – a bourgeois revolution and a socialist one. The former, left unfinished by the old Guomintang regime, was swiftly accomplished by the new Communist regime.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• In the early 1950s, the Communists rapidly cemented the land that Sun Yat-sen once called “a loose sheet of sand” into a modern nation- state, establishing a powerful centralized government, unifying most of the vast territories of the old empire, and instilling the Chinese people with a strong and modern sense of national identity. The long- deferred antifeudal revolution in the countryside was carried out and completed by the end of 1952 with the conclusion of the land reform campaign, liberating the great majority of the Chinese people from the more horrendous traditional forms of socioeconomic oppression.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• In the cities, the Communists permitted and, indeed, encouraged the privately owned industrial and commercial enterprises and activities of those designated as “national capitalists,” at least until 1953. • The land reform campaign produced not a socialist agrarian economy

but rather a massive class of “petty bourgeois” individual peasant owner-cultivators.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• The era of “national capitalism” in the cities and the period of individual peasant proprietorship in the countryside proved to be brief. Between the years 1953 and 1957, the private sector of the urban economy was effectively nationalized. And with the collectivization campaign of 1955-1956 private land ownership in the rural areas was all but eliminated.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• The brevity of the bourgeois phase was of course determined by the fact that political power was in the hands of Marxists whose objective was the abolition of private property and capitalism. Having concluded that the essential "bourgeois" tasks had been accomplished, they sought to bring about the second of the two revolutions they had promised. The era of “the transition to socialism” officially was announced in 1953 and by the late 1950s the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" had replaced “people's democratic dictatorship” as the formal ideological description of the nature of state power in the PRC.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Nearly a quarter century has passed since the Chinese Communists announced the beginning of the socialist stage of the revolution. Have they succeeded in building a socialist society, as they claim?

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the Chinese process has been the Maoist attempt to reconcile the means of modern industrialism with the ends of socialism • Maoists have demanded that modern economic development must

be accompanied by (and, indeed, preceded by) “continuous” processes of struggle which radically transform social relationships and popular political consciousness, a demand that socialist organizational forms and Communist values must be created in the here and now in the very process of building the material foundations of the new society

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Mao eventually arrived at the conclusion that the socialist transformation of social relationships and consciousness were the prerequisites for, not the products of, the development of the material forces of production.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• These Maoist demands and assumptions received their fullest and most pristine practical expression in the ill-fated Great Leap Forward campaign of 1958-1960. But despite the economic catastrophe into which the utopianism of the Great Leap degenerated, many of the policies and programs hastily introduced during that era survived the debacle (or were later revived) to become central features of the Maoist strategy of development. Among these one might mention the Maoist emphasis on combining industrial with agricultural production, the various programs for rural industrialization, educational policies which stress the combination of learning with productive labor, and the obligation of officials and intellectuals to periodically engage in manual labor on farms or in factories.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• At the close of the Maoist era, the PRC is far from realizing such ultimate Marxist goals, but the striving for them has served to narrow the range of socioeconomic inequalities, to mitigate bureaucratic elitism, and to forestall the full differentiation of a professional vocational ethic from the Maoist political ethic. In general, the thrust of Maoism over the first quarter century of the history of the PRC has been specifically socialist and not generally “modernistic.”

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• Yet while it might be argued that many of the socioeconomic pre- conditions for socialism were laid during the Maoist era, it hardly can be argued that it was an era which saw the creation of the essential political preconditions for socialism. Socialism, after all, demands more than the abolition of private property and a general social leveling. It also demands that political power be exercised directly by the masses of the producers themselves to enable them to control the conditions and the products of their labor.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• If Maoism is a doctrine that is noteworthy for having confronted (even if it did not resolve) the dilemma of reconciling the means of modern economic development with socialist ends, it is most notably not a doctrine that recognizes popular democracy as both the means and ends of socialism.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• For almost two decades Maoists have pointed to the Soviet Union as a "negative example" for the building of a socialist society. Yet Maoists have been remarkably selective in what they have regarded as "negative" in Soviet history. They have not, for example, derived from the Soviet experience the obvious lesson that socialism is an historical impossibility without freedom and popular democracy, nor the lesson that conditions of economic backwardness and a hostile international environment cannot indefinitely be used to justify the absence of a system of internal democracy.

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• The legacy of Mao Tse-tung is thus a most ambiguous one, for it is marked by a deep incongruity between its progressive socioeconomic achievements and its retrogressive political features

Reading: Maurice Meisner on Mao’s Legacy

• The absence of political and intellectual freedom precludes the possibility that political power in China will take the form of "the self- government of the producers," the form that is both the essential condition of socialism and the necessary precondition for its genuine emergence and development.

• Was the absence of revolutionary democracy the reason, then, that the post-Mao leadership of the PRC was able to reverse the direction of socialist development by introducing market reforms?