War with China was Always the Goal: Part 2/5
In this article we will focus on the period between 1949–1991. This period will be dominated by a few different global and regional events:
- The Cold War — as the US, acting as the vanguard of global capital wages a class war on the working class of the world, China and the USSR act as the main defendants.
- The Sino-Soviet Split — unfortunately, one of the most tragic events of working class history occurs during this time, when Stalin passes away and Khrushchev gives his famous, lie-ridden secret speech: this speech is still suppling most of the rounds of academic and media ammo for the propaganda machines in the West.
- Reform and Opening up period and near counter-revolution in China
These are extremely major events, and they are deeply intertwined. One cannot look at the reform and opening up period as anything put the outcome of a weakening socialist block and rising counter-revolutionary power. However, this article will necessarily be abbreviated in certain ways. I will try to point to further resources where it makes sense to.
The Cold (Class) War
It is often said that after WWII, the imperialists seem to have given up fighting each other and that a ‘peace’ of sorts followed. In reality, it is quite the opposite. In fact, the Cold War is really WWIII, but the sides are divided by class content, rather than national borders. The Western world, predominantly the US, went to war on workers everywhere. It orchestrated coups in the Global South to fight back the rising decolonial tide. It utilized fascist stay-behind armies to terrorize Europe during Operation Gladio, effectively justifying US military buildup, stronger security states and apparatuses for capitalist allies, and giving birth to the sibling of the German war machine: NATO. NATO, in many ways, perfected the expansionist model of the Reich, and can be seen as a international capitalist army, charged with securing markets, fighting the left and opposing alternative models of development. These models do not actually have to be socialist at all, but it certainly does paint a brighter target if they are. You can ask Yugoslavia about that. Or you can ask Syria, Libya, even Afghanistan. Stability and ‘peace’ is the stated goal of NATO…in reality death and destruction have followed its murderous expansion eastward.
1917 was an incredible year for the working class of the world. It was a terrifying year for the capitalist world. It was the year of the Bolshevik revolution. As Stalin outlines in ‘Foundations of Leninism’, this was the year that the front of capital was pierced “where the chain of imperialism [was] weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link; and it may turn out that the country which has started the revolution, which has made a breach in the front of capital, is less developed in a capitalist sense than other, more developed, countries, which have, however, remained within the framework of capitalism.” Russia became the breaking point of international capitalism as a result of the first World War, and conditions in China had reached a near-breaking point just a few years earlier in 1911. It would take a few more years due to the aggression from Japan and need to drive out imperialism, but China would soon join the USSR as a triumphant working class power in the world.
The end of WWII saw the real first act of war of the Cold War, which wasn’t cold in the slightest. This act was the unnecessary and brutal use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Stalin had already all but guaranteed a Japanese surrender, and internal US documents even admit the bomb was not necessary for victory, but was only used in order to threaten the Soviet Union. This shows the real base of depravity with which foreign policy is decided. It is the depravity of corporations that were left threatened by the idea of a communist revolution worldwide, an arms industry which wanted to use Japanese civilians as a live test for the bomb. Depravity of the colonialists, who were and are unable to fathom a world where they are not guaranteed cheap labor and export markets in subjugated countries. Herein lies one of the major ‘gripes’ the US and others have with China: as Mao stated in 1949, ‘China has stood up’. No longer allowing itself to be anyone’s colony, China began building revolutionary socialism, transforming the country in a matter of years what used to take decades. Literacy soared, living standards skyrocketed, food stability was achieved even after initial mistakes, and the communist party remained stable internally and externally.
As the Cold War escalated, and after Stalin’s passing in the late 30s, however, the two largest socialist parties would start to see a gradually increasing divide growing between them. It would be true to say that contradictions had long existed between the two socialist states, with the USSR taking a leadership role. The leadership style of Stalin, particularly tactical decisions made during WWII and in his later life, created antagonisms within the socialist block. Of course, one of Mao’s greatest theoretical achievements was to put forth that the class struggle, facilitated through contradictions and their resolvent, would continue even after revolution. This is a great example of one that socialist’s will need to deal with. The split, in many ways, was for good reason and justified. In still other ways, it was one of the more tragic events in working class history, one that may have set the movement back in difficult to quantify ways. The Sino-Soviet split.
The Sino-Soviet Split (~1960–1989)
I come down somewhere in the middle on this issue. The split began fomenting at the time of Khrushchev’s secret speech and de-Stalinization efforts…a completely understandable and obvious opportunist turn in the USSR. Khrushchev could not have uttered more revisionist history in less time without turning blue from the need to breath. The speech is well known to have been laced with numerous lies, half truths and falsehoods that served more to signal to the West and elevate Khrushchev’s personal career than anything else. Less well known is the military coup he used to consolidate power. Class war, after all, is always a violent affair, despite the way capitalist’s try to make it sound. The effects of the Secret Speech were not just local to the USSR. Many across the world abandoned the movement, and the West used the ‘truths’ revealed in the speech to accelerate Red Scare escalation and slander the left as ‘just as bad’ as the right (laughable notion).
Mao, seeing this, distanced the party and China from the now revisionist USSR. I would have to. This fissure, however, turns into a great chasm that nearly swallowed the entire movement, in large part due to ultra-left deviations in China and incorrect ideas within the Party that the primary contradiction in the world had changed. Mao and China began to see ‘socio-imperialism’ as the main contradiction, and warmed relations to the West. They believed the US was in an inevitable decline, and that imperialism in a weaker spot than earlier in the century. Part of this focus on Soviet ‘imperialism’ was indeed due to the USSR’s disregard for China in certain nuclear weapon agreements, pulling of scientific and cooperative personnel previously shared between the communist countries, disagreements on land rights, etc. As the split reached its point if diversion, border skirmishes broke out, and red blood drew red blood.
There are a myriad of reasons the split developed, and one should study the dialectical process and contradictions at length if they want to prevent something like this from happening again. The reason I claim that Mao and China took a somewhat ‘ultra-left’ position here corresponds with internal mistakes as well: the Great Leap Forward for example. In the external case, China lost sight of the main enemy in imperialism, mistaking Soviet revisionism in the Party for an imperialist economic base. The base would not truly become capitalist again for some time, and the destruction of the USSR saw the countries of the old republic set back decades…most of which haven’t developed to the highest stage of capitalism even to this day. It’s important to remember that party makeup does not overnight change the relations of production, but it IS true to say that leadership after Stalin took steady steps towards the restoration of capitalism, with economic reforms that privatized and most importantly, gave capitalist’s political power. One of the major differences in China’s reforms later on was the firm grip the party maintained on capital and its excesses. This cannot be ignored in any comparison.
Internally, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) saw China ‘putting the cart before the horse’. There is a dialectical relationship between the forces of production and the relations of production. (“Forces of production” refers to machinery, raw material and labor; “relations of production” refers to the way different people and classes relate to each other in the process of production.) In the main, advances in the forces will create the basis for advances in the relations, but it is also true that changes in the relations of production can speed economic development. China in this period threw this dialectical balance into chaos, attempting to introduce more advanced relations of production via the Cultural Revolution (two line struggle). This moment in time could have led China down a similar path of revisionism in response, and the eventual collapse of the system. However, China after Mao would not make the same mistakes as the USSR.
“There was no de-Maoification. When Deng Xiaoping was asked by a journalist about the role of Mao in Chinese history, Deng responded: “We will reaffirm that his contributions are primary and his mistakes are secondary. We will adopt a realistic approach towards the mistakes he made late in life. We will continue to adhere to Mao Zedong Thought, which represents the correct part of Chairman Mao’s life. Not only did Mao Zedong Thought lead us to victory in the past, it is, and will continue to be, a treasured possession of the Chinese Communist Party and of our country….We will not do to Chairman Mao what Khrushchev did to Stalin.” (Happy birthday this week comrade!)
Reform and Opening Up
The period of reform and opening up, officially kickstarting Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, began in 1978. The purpose of it was multi-factorial:
- Sino-size socialism aka adapt socialism to China’s characteristics
- Put the relations of production back in line with the forces of production aka correct for ultra-left errors in policy
- Guard against imperialism and safeguard the future of the social system. At this point in time, the USSR was entering stagflation (really just smaller growth), but the reforms they had introduced had served to give political power back to the bourgeoise and therefore begin capitalist restoration. All of this would come to a head in 1991 with the USSR’s illegal dissolution against the will of the people.
Fundamentally, China had to answer a few questions for itself. How does a socialist economy work from within a global system dominated by the US and other capitalist powers? How does it guard against infiltration and sabotage, without isolating itself from the rest of the world? This isolation technique was used by other socialist projects, due to their own internal and external situation (often times isolation was not desired but forced on them by the imperialist system).
Even after the decision to open up, more questions and contradictions burst forth. How do you deal with the new wave of corruption that inevitably comes with the introduction of private enterprise? How do you address the contradiction between environment and profit motive? How do you return China to a fully socialized economy after these productive forces are built to a sufficient level? Capitalists have money and influence, even if it is not in the political sphere in the same way it is in Western liberal ‘democracies’… how do you avoid surrendering excess power to them? Will a new bourgeoise class emerge? If so, how do you navigate the contradictions within this development in the long term favor of the working class? China in the 1990s certainly showed a development in the size and scope of its bourgeoise class, and even leading up to Xi’s assumption of leadership, the country navigated a precarious minefield of class warfare in the time of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
China needed a way to signal good faith to the capitalist powers, rectify for the mistakes the USSR had made, and provide a safe space for the growth and maturity of socialism in the world. Additionally, any anti-imperialist action and framework would draw the direct intervention of capitalist powers, and therefore had to be done both strategically and sparingly, at least until the time came where China was strong enough to withstand opposition. We can see this happening now more directly from 2014–present, but back in the late 70s, this was not an assured outcome. Enter ‘Reform and Opening Up’.
Theoretical Basis of SWCC:
Lenin:
We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighboring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!”
What Lenin was so eloquently laying out here ended up being the basis of the NEP or New Economic Plan. China’s period from 1978-present can be seen as an extended version of this, unique to China’s conditions and the present system of imperialism, which has changed hugely since WWI and WWII. Lenin and the USSR implemented the NEP after a period of ‘War Communism’, and it involved allowing some level of free enterprise and foreign direct investment, strictly controlled by the party, in order to improve the conditions of Russia and begin a transition away from capitalism. China has also focused on this task, building up the productive forces in order to achieve post-scarcity, self reliance and independence from capital. They are still on course to introduce a fully worker owned economy by mid-century, and in the meantime, over 50% of China’s businesses are state-owned and by extension worker-owned.
Engels:
“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.”
Marx:
“Between capitalist and communist society 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.”
These two quotes show that neither Lenin, Mao (pre 1959) or Deng and his successors have abandoned theory in their practice. Quite the contrary. The SWCC re-aligned China to meet its development goals and begin the slow battle to undermine imperialism on a global scale.
China’s Version of Communist Internationalism
To finish this section, it feels worthwhile to discuss the differences in how China has approached the issue of internationalism. Internationalism is a core tenant of socialism worldwide, and many criticize China for its non-interventionist stance throughout the decades, and inability to take on the hegemonic US dominated global market in a more direct fashion. The USSR had a more direct and confrontational stance here, and relied on military and direct support of liberation movements worldwide in their internationalism. Has China betrayed this? I don’t think so. Let’s take a few steps back here and explain three important aspects of China’s policy in the last 50 years:
- Win-win development that undermines dollar hegemony and dependence on former colonizers.
- Building of cooperative relations amongst socialist countries, alternative international systems via BRICS to challenge the IMF and World Bank hegemon.
- Development of reliance between China and the imperialists on an economic basis, effectively safeguarding them for a time.
The first part is pretty important and ongoing. Despite Western projection of ‘debt trap diplomacy’, China has continually invested in the Global South, focusing on relations that allow both sides to develop and benefit, and flexible in that the main objective is not profit driven. This is why they just last week forgave 23 loans to 17 African countries, and has re-structured billions in loans to help exploited countries shackled with predominantly Western debt.
The subtle added benefit and goal of these projects lies in dedollarization. The US currency has been the reserve currency of the world for decades, effectively allowing the US to offshore and offset inflation in the world market. One of the causes of recent US spikes in inflation is that the real and non-inflated value of the US dollar is beginning to show, as countries ditch the dollar for a more balanced portfolio of currencies. This is textbook anti-imperialism, and is just done in such an intelligent but boring way that a lot of western leftists shrug it off, or worse yet claim that China is ‘imperialist’ themselves. A truly confounding conclusion.
Similar to the previous point, BRICS and other alliances amongst Global South countries have begun to form an alternative to the West’s ‘rules based order’ (read: whatever is good for capital accumulation). This is an important step in allowing the world a transition away from profit driven depravity, and allowing exploited countries the space to develop.
Lastly, China made an intelligent move of allowing FDI from capitalist countries. What this has done is create a situation where the US would hurt itself tremendously by attacking China directly. A decoupling will be needed before this would happen.
Unfortunately, that brings us back to the title of the article. The US is taking steps to do just that, and is weaponizing Taiwan in a similar format to Ukraine, in an effort to foment a counter-revolution against the PRC. They already tried this in 1989 at Tiananmen Square, aiming for a ‘clean sweep’ of the socialist block. This counter revolution failed thanks to the resolve of the PRC.
Back then, the western-funded student movement failed to garner enough support to make the color revolution succeed, and China has since then been forced to deal with similar attempts by foreign influencers to create instability, namely in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang. All of this is to say that China’s 20th century tale is full of external and internal contradictions, and SWCC is the system that has best been able to manage and navigate these for the betterment of the entirety of China, which contains over 1.3 billion people.
Conclusion
Thank you to braised pork blog for the valuable insight on this time period! Please take a look at their blog if you have a few minutes.
Thus concludes part two of five of this series. Many of the topics were not given sufficient time or detail, as the nature of this series is rather expansive. Where possible, I linked additional reading and learning material.
If you made it to here, you are definitely going to want to follow for the remaining three parts of the series. I appreciate your time and support.
