War with China was Always the Goal: Part 3/5

So you made it through Part 1 and 2. We’ve been from semi-feudal China through WWII, the defeat of Japanese colonialism and empire, and the Sino-Soviet split that tore the socialist world in two.

Now we get to a dark, stormy and uncertain period, one that lays the foundation of modern China. In part 2, I discussed the material basis for the need to open up to foreign investment and relations with capitalist states such as the US. Today we’ll cover what is currently the most significantly misunderstood topic as it relates to China.

Millions on the so-called left have written off China as ‘capitalist roaders’. Capitalists waving a red flag. This statement in and of itself is rather odd. One would have to admit that capitalism is somehow good, that it is capable of alleviating extreme (or any!) poverty. That it can avoid crisis of overproduction for decades on end, and that it can maintain a democratic, non-oligarchic balance. If this was true, I’d have to become a capitalist myself! But it is not true to China’s experience.

The truth is that existing socialist states are a product of existing conditions. After 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the underlying conditions of the world veered towards US hegemonic ‘rules based order’. Any analysis of existing socialism, including China, must account for the reality of imperialist domination in the world market. China chose not to cut itself off from this global market, and in doing so has intertwined with global capitalism in both rewarding and dangerous ways. However, through it all, we can see a revolutionary dictatorship of the working class at the center of progress, guiding the country through all the ups and downs, the contradictions that are involved with free enterprise.

Part three focuses on Deng and the period of ‘Reform and Opening Up’. It will cover the main internal struggle of the party (in brief), the contradictions and sacrifices made by the country and party, and the socialist base of production at work then and today. We’ll wrap up right around the War on Terror, namely because this marks a turning point in external relations with the West, how the US is viewed by the majority of the planet, and begins a more direct trajectory towards anti-imperialism and internationalism by the PRC. I’ll break up the sections based on what was happening inside China versus how the US was responding, always with the goal of crushing communism.

Internal Struggle, External Threat

In China:

A central theme of China’s intraparty struggle during the last year’s of Mao’s life revolved around overcoming the role of colonialism and underdevelopment, and what role the proletariat would play in relation to the party, and vice versa. This came to ahead during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, but the central question of this period and really many of the decades following was ‘politics’ or ‘economics’ in command: should China actively involve the proletariat in political life? What role should they play? Or should the party focus on pragmatic development goals? Is the difference significant, as long as working conditions for all are concerned? And how to deal with the external threats knocking at the door?

When Deng entered leadership in around 1978, it was the feeling of himself and others that Mao had been a great and needed leader for China, but that in later years the struggle of the party had become too ideological, and not practical and economic enough. His philosophy was to re-balance the party’s work, keeping ideology at the core but moving the party in a direction that allowed them to begin building the economy in earnest. This of course opened China up to great risk, not only by allowing private capital to infiltrate the country, but rebalancing the party in a more right direction (mostly be leaning away from the ultra-left faction). This is not to say Deng was in any way ‘on the right’. That would be categorically false. But a careful study of intra-party contradictions in the period between roughly 1978–1991 shows a tumultuous push and pull between these more economic and ideological forces. A materialist will use the ideological to guide the economic, and never become overly focused on one of the other. Opportunists will use the ‘façade’ of ideology but in reality bring the overall project back to a bourgeoise-friendly state if allowed power. A fine balance indeed!

Between 1952 and 1976, China saw industrial output increase by 11.2%, and agricultural also increased moderately. The country was certainly gaining momentum even before the reform period. What many feared in 1978, after Mao’s passing, wasn’t that China wouldn’t keep growing. There were a few concerns: external and internal.

Externally, the USSR was no longer even a full on ally. The Sino-Soviet split had ruptured ties. China’s development long term was in serious question due to this. And come 1991, most of the socialist block would be dealt a tremendous blow. The collapse of international support and solidarity, despite the already growing divide, left China and others as prime targets for the next strike. And the imperialists in Washington did attempt to strike. Western funded student movements in 1991 were only defeated by a strong Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and a party able and willing to protect the majority from capitalist infiltration.

Internally, the concern when opening up was at whose expense China might see growth… Would the party lose control of the economy to foreign capitalists? We’ll discuss in the final section how this all panned out, and the place of the party in today’s world. It’s safe to say that fears at this time were both valid and shared by much of the left world. This was an unprecedented route to development, and it came with many downsides.

Ultimately, Deng Xiaoping would lead China on this precarious path of opening up to foreign capital. However, the way China opened up would differ tremendously from the way the USSR restored capitalism in its end days. It is extremely disingenuous to flatten the differences for the sake of making an ideological, dogmatic point against modern China, something I see often.

“China made contributions to the world down through the ages, but for a long time conditions have been at a standstill in China and development has been slow. Now it is time for us to learn from the advanced countries.” — Deng Xiaoping in 1978

The US Role in the Sino-Soviet Split and Hopes for Capitalist Restoration

The US very much had a plan at this time. And a whole lot of it worked…until it didn’t. The first part was driving a wedge between the two great socialist powers. This worked splendidly. The comrades were at arms even.

Khrushchev’s ‘de-Stalinization’ in the USSR and open calls for peaceful development with the Western Bloc rang like threat to the Chinese, and rightfully so.

The US, in some ways, caused the Sino-Soviet split to occur. US ability to use nuclear weapons, as showcased at the end of WWII against hundreds of thousands of civilians, meant that China wanted to gain nuclear ability in order to defend itself. It also meant that the USSR was ready to take more conciliatory stance on the issue, to appease the West.

Next step was to destroy the projects from within or without. Recent uncovered documents show that the United States had full plans to incinerate the majority of the USSR and/or China at this time. This was the backup plan, it would seem. The primary method of attack was political and economic strangulation. Embargoes, freezes, sabotage, infiltration in the party, any and all of the above were fair game in the class war, as far as the United States is concerned. Their not real supporters of sovereignty, despite talking about it quite a bit.

In the Western world, the Sino-Soviet split transformed the bi-polar cold war into a tri-polar one. The rivalry gave birth to Mao’s Sino-American rapprochement in 1972, where the US President Richard Nixon’s visited China. Historically, the Sino-Soviet split facilitated tri-polar geopolitics for the first time between the PRC, USA, and USSR, something Mao supported in order to create an anti-Soviet front. Maoists of the time connected this to Three Worlds Theory, which was an extrapolation of geopolitics and class struggle that separated the world into super-imperialist conflict (represented by the US and USSR), capitalist conflict (Japan, UK, France, others), and the now Global South, the previously colonized and the PRC. This theory actually holds up in some way today, with that top ring being completed owned and operated by the United States. However, the use of this theory to further the wedge between allies feels in many ways a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sacrifice and Contradiction

In China:

So counterrevolution seemed to have failed. The US was not able to balkanize, privatize and destroy China the way it did the USSR, which saw the greatest peace time decrease in living conditions ever recorded between 1991–1999. Yeltsin called this ‘shock therapy’, and it was truly a shocking, violent transformation away from public ownership.

On the contrary, China’s opening up did not see drastic lowering in living conditions, although as with all private ownership, there have been offenses that may not have happened otherwise. Most of these have been greatly exaggerated, and its difficult to find cases where the party didn’t respond in kind, something we don’t see here often, if ever.

But still, since 1980, wages have gone up four-fold. That is difficult to even fathom when the US has seen nearly flat wages in the same time period.

All along the way, the Party has centered class struggle. “In 1995 it enacted a labor law which granted all workers the right to a wage, rest periods, no excessive overtime and the right to carry out group negotiations.” (see previous). Workers have been using their rights frequently to better their conditions, and wages are increasing even now around 10% per year.

One of the more exciting parts of China’s story has been the growth of the proletariat, both in an demographic and political way. When China completed its revolution in 1949, it numbers only around 540 million, largely peasants. Now, the country is closer to 1.4 billion, and the urban community only recently overtook the peasant population (2011). What this says is that the proletariat, the working class and wage earners are entering a predominant phase, and all of this change and transformation occurred not in spite of the reforms, but because of them. Otherwise, China would not have had a developed proletariat to lead the class struggle. This might be why Deng called the reform period a ‘second revolution’.

We can see that despite the very real step ‘backward’ that allowing even a small level of privatization has for workers, their struggle has been central and the very character of China’s economy something quite different than the West. It is more accurate to say that China has attempted to use capitalism as a tool to its benefit, rather than a chain to shackle its people with.

The US: Hopes and Dreams Crushed

The reform period did see serious levels of privatization and selling off of China’s previously state owned businesses. The US believed at this time that all that was needed was to let capitalism do its thing, and of course to goad it along however they could.

In 1978, when the shift to the reform and open-door policy began, state-owned enterprises still accounted for 77.03% of gross industrial production. By 1992–93, however, this share had fallen to less than 50%, and by 1996, it was below 30%. As of 1997, state-owned enterprises were contributing to only one-quarter (25.52%) of gross industrial production. Where did this all go? Well, a large portion no doubt went to US businesses.

From 1985–2000, imports from China to the US grew from $3.8B to over $100B. At the same time, imports from the US to China decreased. The US almost entirely de-industrialized, choosing short term profits (oftentimes at the expense of Chinese workers, sadly) over long term self-reliance. Think about that next time you criticize China for emissions: how many of those businesses are run by foreign capitalists?

The effect of this enmeshing was desirable for the US capitalist class, and helped protect the Chinese communist project from military attack then and now. It is quite hard to go to war with a country you are deeply indebted and committed to economically. I expect this will be shifting in the 2020s, as a great decoupling period is ongoing. It’s important to also keep in mind how little the US actually cares about the economic consequences of attacking a partner country, as long as the ruling class get their outcome.

Socialist Base

“We must stick to that which has proven to be effective, and in particular, to our basic systems, that is, the socialist system and socialist public ownership, and we must never waver in doing so. We shall not allow a new bourgeoisie to come into being. We will introduce advanced technology for the purpose of expanding our productive forces and improving the people’s living standards. This will benefit our socialist country and our socialist system. It is even closer to following our socialist system to find ways to achieve greater, better, faster, and more economical results in development than not to do so.” — Deng 1978

The Four Cardinal Principles guiding China through today:

1. We must keep to the socialist road.

2. We must uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat.

3. We must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party.

4. We must uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

The status of the collective enterprises in this period of time (non-private AND non-state owned enterprises), is less clear than before. “In 1975, before the adoption of the reform and open-door policy, these enterprises accounted for 18.90% of gross industrial production. They consisted mainly of manufacturing cooperative-owned enterprises in the rural sector, and of collective ward-owned enterprises in the cities. After the shift to the reform and open-door policy, collective enterprises has maintained over 30% of gross industrial production. The share has gradually expanded and is now the largest.”

When we get to a present day evaluation of China, we will return to these figures.

This shows that things are not as ‘clear’ as the left ‘communists’ seem to make them. China is not purely capitalist, and certainly not in the second stage of communism with full public ownership. Luckily, we have plenty of theory to lean on here. I will leave you with a few quotes that show the continuity and lack of rupture of the Chinese Communist Party, and how if we refuse to be dogmatic in our application of Marxism, we can come to the conclusion that the working class of China is still driving action and should be supported rather than denounced.

“What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers’ party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes.” — Karl Marx in Critique of the Gotha Programme

“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.” — Karl Marx

“The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production — the factories, machines, land, etc. — and make them private property.” — Lenin in State and Revolution

This last quote shows the real dynamic nature of China’s task: not all of it is currently applicable to their conditions, even as the party maintains control over the worst excesses of capital. And that is okay. We can learn so much from their efforts though, and that is the issue I take with the dogmatists. If one ignores everything Deng wrote and said, they can easily paint him as a capitalist and a betrayer of Marxism. However, if we study his praxis and party…we find contradiction yes, of course. But we also find continuity, strength and perseverance. Stalin said: “Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian revolution had become an immediate practical question, when the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at and passed into a new period, that of direct assault on capitalism.” (Foundations of Leninism)

Stalin goes on to explain how imperialism as a world economic system has changed everything. Revolutions no longer occurred as the product of their own internal conditions only. They occurred as a break in the chain of imperialism in the world. Individual countries are no longer self-reliant, and any analysis of China and its actions must take the imperialist global system into account to be in good faith.

I will start part four with some details on how China has managed to keep capital under control, and we will outline how China managed the 2008 crisis, as well as stepping up into a more international role during the US War on Terror.

I hope you enjoyed the read.