>>> John Gulick CB: I basically agree too. Whenever we have these left "who lost China?" debates, I think, on Marxist fundamentals, there was not enough capitalism in pre-revolutionary China to "make" socialism right away. China didn't take the name "Socialist", but "Peoples's" Republic , I thought for this reason. There was a slogan regarding " the road to socialism by passing capitalism". Experience taught that it was not possible to bypass capitalism in getting to socialism, in the world as it is, with imperialism still dominate, and willing to commit super-genocides to destroy countries trying to avoid capitalism, etc.
JG: Charles, this is just ex post facto nonsense, archly geared to validate your embrace of the CCP's current orientation. ^^^^ CB: No it's not nonsense. In fact, it's extremely sensible, if you are a Marxist. Surely you know that Marx , Engels and Lenin's speculated on this that socialist revolution must start in _advanced_ capitalist countries (except for late writings by Marx about Russian peasant communes). There were big debates in Russia in the early 1900's as to whether there was enough capitalism in Russia to "go for" socialism. Lenin's book on the development of capitalism in Russia was written because of this debate. Anyway, it is entirely sensible and ordinary from a Marxist standpoint to consider that perhaps China did not have enough capitalist development to go straight to socialism. It started with less capitalism than Russia did. As to ex post facto, whatever your explanation of what has happened in China, it is ex post facto , too, since it comes after what happened. I don't embrace the CCP's current orientation. I can just see how they arrived at their policy while remaining in a basic Marxist framework as I describe above. I wish there was a viable road to socialism bypassing capitalism, but evidently that's wishful thinking on my part. ^^^^^^^ I don't even know where or how to begin. First of all, yes, in the early years of the PRC (1949-1955) the CCP permitted small landholders and private capitalists to coexist side by side with state enterprise, but this was done not only in the name of building the productive forces but also in the name of building the CCP's political authority, that is to lay the groundwork for a rapid transition to communism. As you surely know but deliberately occlude, by 1955, with Mao as the prime mover, a decisive move was made to advance toward communism with the compensated expropriation of private industry and the headlong rush from peasant cooperatives to rural communes. You can doubt both his wisdom and his sincerity, but one of Mao's justifications for so doing was his belief that there was an inherent connection between ideological mobilization and economic productivity... that is, that communism cannot be defined alone by the advancement of the productive forces, and that in any event it is sheer dogma to equate the building of productive forces with the capitalist harnessing of productive forces. And this of course unleashed 20 years of factional warfare that became so severe that for a short period of time (early 1967) it appeared that workers' committees were actually going to rule the country (a condition that none of the CCP factions could tolerate, of course, all of them agreeing that the PLA must squash the unfolding anarchy). After 20 years of inter- and intra-class warfare, to make it sound as if there was a polite discussion with a rational conclusion -- "experience tells us that you cannot bypass capitalism en route to socialism" -- is such a ruse. ^^^^^ CB: If it is , there is nothing in what you have said so far that demonstrates it to be a ruse. Everything you've said so far tends to support the proposition that the Chinese experience demonstrated that, sadly, the heroic and honorable efforts that Mao led did not work out, that they demonstrated that there was no way to socialism bypassing capitalism for China at this concrete "conjuncture". Especially, I think you have ignored my reference to the threats from imperialism to a country that is not economically and therefore not militarily equal to imperialism. The inability to bypass capitalism is not due to only the internal conditions of China , but the relationship of China and all the socialist countries to imperialism. The Soviet Union's efforts to build socialism were thwarted substantially by imperialist militarism , war , threat of war, too. China drew conclusions from the Soviet experience as well, no doubt. ^^^^^^^ So too is your insinuating that there is some kind of undisturbed lineage from 1949-1955 to the Deng Xiaoping era and afterwards. Perhaps party intellectuals differed on the pacing and the extent of the move toward full-blown communism, but it was always understood in the 1949-1955 period that the petty capitalists would soon be bought out or fused together in cooperatives. The main debate revolved around how much to ape the Soviet model and how much to squeeze the rural producers, not how much to use capitalism to build socialism. Anyway, I can't afford to go on with this and explain my argument more clearly... ^^^^^^^ CB: I didn't insinuate any undisturbed lineage in the Party. What I said is completely compatible with a change in the Party. Specifically it is compatible with a change from thinking that socialism could be reached bypassing capitalism, to thinking that it could not especially in the world as it actually was and is, i.e. with imperialism still dominating it. If there were no more capitalist powers in the world, making socialism while bypassing capitalism might be viable. _________________________________________________________
