In The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy, Minqi Li maintains that with the death of Mao in 1976, there was a coup d’état that resulted in the triumph of a bureaucratic counterrevolution, which made possible a transition to capitalism in China, beginning in the 1980s and consolidated in the 1990s (Li, 2008:55-65).  Similarly, in Mao’s China and After, Maurice Meisner maintains that China after Mao underwent a transition to capitalism.  His chapter on China on the 1980s is entitled, “Market Reforms and the Development of Capitalism” (Meisner, 1999;449-79).

     Julio Díaz, a Cuban scholar and specialist on China and socialist economies, presents a different perspective.  He maintains that the period 1980 to 1984 was a time of awakening of the economic sciences in China, and this period of debate and reflection led to the formulation of the concept of a socialist road with Chinese characteristics.  The concept was affirmed by the Central Committee of the Party in 1984 and at the XIII Congress of the Party in 1987 (2010:76-77).

     Debate and reflection continued, and the Party affirmed further concepts at its XIV Congress in 1992.  It noted that the evolution of socialism in China demonstrates that practice is the foundation of truth; practice has been taking the initiative in China, and economic theory has followed.  It further affirmed that, taking into account the growing material needs of the people, the development of the forces of production and improving the standard of living is the basis for discerning the correct from the erroneous; therefore, the road in course, the Reform and Opening, is the correct way (2010:77-78).

     The 1992 Party Congress also affirmed the concept of a socialist market economy.  Previous theory had assumed that a market economy is inherent to capitalism, and a planned economy is inherent to socialism.  However, China is developing a planned market economy, where planning is primary, and the market plays an auxiliary role.  In a planned market economy, the separation between planning and the market is overcome, in a form in which planning rules, and the plan defines the helping role of the market.  There are various forms of property, but public property is the pillar.  Rejecting both Soviet centralized planning and Maoist collectivist values as ultra-Leftist errors, China has turned to indirect control of the economy by means of macro-economic levers, including mechanisms for the regulation of property, prices, and distribution.  Stocks can be emitted, insofar as doing so plays a positive role in the concentration of capital, overcoming deficiencies in the investment projections of the plan  (2010:78-80, 84-86, 102-3; 2016:75-76, 143).  As expressed by Wu and Wang, in a socialist market economic system, markets play a fundamental role in the allocation of resources under macroeconomic regulation and control (2014:150).

     I remember once overhearing a potential U.S. capitalist investor, who was involved in preliminary conservations in Cuba, in anticipation of the end of the U.S. “embargo.”  He declared that “these people [Cubans] are nuts; they do not have any idea how capitalism works.”  I thought, “Their message to you is that, if you do not like our conditions, you are free to go to some other country, where the government is giving the resources away.  But we do not do that here.”  Cuba has found that foreign investors often adjust to conditions that Cuba has designed to promote economic development and to defend the interests of the nation.  Insofar as Cuba is offering something that other countries cannot offer, and if the project includes return on the capital investment, then foreign investors accept, in spite of atypical Cuban conditions.  It is a question of mutually beneficial investment, benefitting the investor and also the Cuban nation and people.  This is different from both capitalism and socialism as they have historically developed in practice.  It is a pragmatic form of socialism, which permits space for private capital and foreign investment, but in a form that benefits the nation and the people, under the control and regulation of the state.  

    These folks in China and Cuba with their pragmatic socialism that is different from capitalism and classic socialism may be on to something, perhaps the necessary road for the future of humanity.  It is not a third way, different from both capitalism and socialism.  It is socialism, but an intelligent socialism, adapted to the particular economic and political conditions of the nation, and seeing the need for the economic development of the nation, as a necessary precondition for a socialism that is sustainable.

References
 
Díaz Vázquez, Julio Aracelio.  2010.  China: ¿Otro Socialismo? (LX aniversario).  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.   
 
__________.  2016.  China: Economía y democratización.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales 
 
Li, Minqi.  2008.  The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy.  New York:  Monthly Review Press.
 
Meisner, Maurice.  1999.  Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, Third Edition.  New York: The Free Press.
 
Wu Li and Wang Lei.  2014.  China, 1949-2014.  Beijing: Beijing Times Chinese Press.

​

     In 1978, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party approved a proposal by Deng Xiaoping on the revitalization of the Chinese economy.  It was based on the principle, formulated by the Chinese Revolution in 1949, of the four modernizations (in agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense), combined with a new dimension, the open-door policy.  The project of the four modernizations plus open door sought improvement in the standard of living of the people in three stages for a period of sixty years (Díaz, 2010:31-32).

     In 1978, China was impoverished, with 100 million people with insufficient food, and it was exhausted by the political conflicts of the Cultural Revolution (see “The Cultural Revolution in China” 1/25/2018).  Although Maoists had been removed from influence in the Central Committee, the Chinese leadership in 1978 did not opt for the Soviet model, which previously had been a source of conflict with Mao (see “The emergence of Maoism” 1/18/2018).  Aware of the limitations of socialism in the Soviet Union, the Chinese leadership rejected the European socialist way, or what could be called the classic socialist model.  Instead, they turned to the example of the Asian tigers, which had forged dynamic economies through a strong state role in an export-oriented economy (Díaz, 2010:33-35). 

     Reforms in agriculture.  The Reform and Opening sought to increase agricultural production by establishing structures that would facilitate the expansion of family farms and that would reward higher levels of production.  The price paid for cereals was increased, and the costs to peasants of fertilizers and pesticides were reduced.  The state introduced family contracts, which granted rights to families for the use of state-owned land, and which specified the crops and their quantity as well as the prices to be paid by the state.  Peasants were permitted to sell any surplus production beyond the contract in an expanded free market for agricultural products.  In 1999, a further reform permitted inheritance of family contracts as well as the use of salaried labor, with a maximum of seven laborers.  These measures struck at the heart of the system of agricultural cooperative, which had been established during 1955 and 1956 as a key part of the transition to socialism.  They were driven by economic considerations, and the urgent need to increase production, taking into account that growth in agricultural production had been stagnant, not sufficient to satisfy the demands of a growing and increasingly urbanized population.  The measures were effective in attaining their goal of expanding production.  There was constant growth in animal and livestock production from 1980 to 2003, and increase in the income of peasants, but with inequality (Díaz, 2010:37-47).

     Restructuring the industrial sector.  Since 1978, the reforms have been oriented to giving state-owned companies greater autonomy, and expanding the space for private capital.  These measures have enabled Chinese companies to adapt to continually changing technical and scientific requirements, and they have been successful in promoting a significant expansion in industrial production.  State companies remain, however, the pillar of the economy.  As of 2012, state companies comprised 63% of the 500 largest national firms, with 90% of the capital of said firms (Díaz, 2010:48-54, 101; Díaz, 2016:119-20, 143; Wu and Wang, 2104:149-50, 190).  

     Expansion of foreign investments in China.  The modernization of the economy required levels of investment beyond the reach of national capacity.  China thus turned to attracting foreign investment, a central component of the so-called “opening” of the economy.  From 1979 to 1995, various structures were established: Special Economic Zones, Zones of Economic and Technological Development, Duty-Free Zones, and Zones of Industrial Development of High- and New Technologies.  These structures have enabled a significant increase in foreign investment, in which 185 nations of the world have participated, in one form or another.  Although direct foreign investment takes various forms, joint ventures formed by the Chinese state with private capital are the most important (Díaz, 2010:55-61).

      Foreign investment created a rapid and sustained growth of the GNP in China.  The government has channeled the resources proceeding from foreign investment toward the creation of a productive base and the modernization of the economy, in accordance with its plan, thus effectively addressing the problem of insufficient funding for modernization.  Moreover, as it employed international capital, China did so in accordance with intelligent long-range guidelines, such as not contracting external debts that would place in danger the capacities of the nation.  The Cuban scholar Julio Díaz Vázquez maintains that China has created an effective system for the absorption of international resources in various stages, unique in the Third World and never imagined in real socialism (Díaz, 2010:61-63; 2016:98).

     Growth in international commerce.  In 2008, Chinese exports were 147 times what they had been in 1978; importations were 104 times what they had been.  As international commerce grew, it was moving away from the peripheral role in the world-economy: Traditional raw materials comprised more than 50% of exports in 1980, but only 10% in 2008; manufactured articles reached 90% of exports in 2008.  This is consistent with trends in the world-economy, where there has emerged during the last fifty years low-wage export manufacturing from peripheral and semiperipheral zones.  However, in the case of China, unlike other peripheral and semi-peripheral nations, the zones of export manufacturing are controlled and regulated by the state, and the state is a joint owner.  As a result, a significant amount of the generated capital does not leave the country, but is invested in the modernization and development of the country, and it is used for the alleviation of inequality (Díaz, 2010:65-68; 2016:100-2).  

     Cooperation in foreign policy.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, the European colonial empires and the American, Japanese, and Russian empires were in competition for control of the raw materials, labor, and markets of the earth.  The quest by all empires for expansion led to two world wars, and the period culminated with U.S. hegemony in a world-system that had evolved to neocolonialism.  During the rise of the United States to hegemony and the global transition to neocolonialism, the world-system reached and overextended the geographical limits of the earth, which created a situation in which the world-system could not be sustained without fundamental structural changes, involving a cessation of competition among empires for control of land, resources, and markets.  Therefore, the world-system today needs a fundamental transformation of the foreign policy assumptions of the global powers.  However, the United States and the ex-colonial powers of Europe continue to pursue the antiquated policies of seeking to expand their spheres of control and influence.

      China is forging a foreign policy that is an alternative to the assumptions and concepts of the foreign policies of the European colonial empires, the ex-colonial powers, and U.S. imperialism; and that is consistent with the objective needs of the world-system today.  Chinese foreign policy, formulated in theory and emerging is practice, respects the full sovereignty of all nations.  It affirms that all nations of the world are free to control their economies, their political systems, and their foreign policies, and they are free to trade among themselves, without interferences and interventions by global powers seeking control of resources and markets.  In accordance with this perspective, China peacefully and silently is challenging the United States and Europe, seeking to ascend in a form that changes the rules, thus moving the world-system toward cooperation and mutually beneficial trade.  Accordingly, China is promoting an approach to international affairs that the Non-Aligned Movement and the more independent governments of the Third World have demanded since the 1960s.  In pursuit of this goal, China has significantly expanded its commercial and diplomatic ties with Latin America since 1980 (Díaz, 2010:97-99, 104-5; Díaz, 2016:7-8, 73, 103; Wu and Wang, 2014:264-65).

     China since 1978, therefore, has become a force in the world, with an expanding economy and an increasingly important role in the world economy, promoting in practice alternative guidelines in international affairs.  But do these reforms in agriculture, industry, international commerce, and foreign policy signify an abandonment of socialism?  We will pursue this question in our next post.

​References
 
Díaz Vázquez, Julio Aracelio.  2010.  China: ¿Otro Socialismo? (LX aniversario).  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.   
 
__________.  2016.  China: Economía y democratización.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales 
 
Wu Li and Wang Lei.  2014.  China, 1949-2014.  Beijing: Beijing Times Chinese Press.

     On Sunday, March 11, 2018, Cuba held elections for the National Assembly of Popular Power.  Some 85.65% of the more than 8 million eligible voters, citizens sixteen year of age or older, cast their ballots, electing 605 deputies.  The national assembly is the highest political authority in the nation.  In addition to enacting legislation, it elects the executive branch of the government, which consists of the thirty-one members of the Council of State, including the President.

      The process began on June 15, 2017, with the designation of the National Electoral Commission by the Council of State.  On June 15, members of the provincial and municipal electoral commissions also were designated.  The national, provincial, and municipal electoral commissions are responsible for supervising and conducting the elections, including the recruitment and training of some 200,000 volunteers.  

     From September 4 to October 30, neighborhood nomination assemblies were held, several in each voting district.  In these local assemblies, the people put forth the names of persons and describe their qualities as citizens; a show of hands assesses the level of support for each person named.  In accordance with the popular will expressed in the nomination assemblies, two or three candidates from each voting district were included on the ballot as candidates for deputy in the municipal assembly.  One page biographies and photos of the candidates were displayed in public places from November 1 to November 26.  A secret vote, in which the voter selects one of the two or three candidates, was held on November 26, with a voter turnout of 85%.  Run-off elections, for voting districts in which no candidate received a majority, were held on December 3.  The elected delegates from 12,515 voting districts formed 169 municipal assemblies throughout the nation, which were constituted on December 17.  These 169 municipal assemblies, elected by the people in elections involving two or three candidates but not involving electoral campaigns or the participation of political parties, play an important role in nominating candidates for provincial and national assemblies, on the basis of proposals presented to the municipal assemblies by candidacy commissions.

      The candidacy commissions are composed of representatives of mass organizations of women, workers, university students, secondary students, small farmers, and neighborhoods.  (The mass organizations are independent of the government, and members elect leaders at the base, who it turn elect leaders to higher levels).  The formation of the candidacy commissions began on June 16, when the National Electoral Commission solicited mass organizations to propose persons for integration into the candidacy commissions at the municipal, national, and provincial levels.  The candidacy commissions were constituted from June 30 to July 4, 2017.  

       The candidacy commissions have responsibility for developing slates of candidates for the provincial and national assemblies.  By constitutional requirement, no more than half of the candidates for the provincial and national assemblies can be delegates of the municipal assemblies.  The other half are from the mass organizations and other social organizations.  They often are persons who have made contributions in such fields as health, education, science, and culture, but who do not necessarily emerge from the process of neighborhood nominations, because of their life style of dedication to their professions.  The candidacy commissions also try to ensure that all interests in the society have representation in the assemblies.

     In early January 2018, the candidacy commissions distributed their proposed slates of candidates.  On January 21, the candidacy commissions presented their proposed slates to extraordinary sessions of the 169 municipal assemblies of the country.  At these sessions, the delegates of the municipal assemblies approved or rejected each of the proposed candidates that pertain to their territories.  

     Therefore, on January 21, the slates of candidates for the fifteen provincial assemblies and the National Assembly were completed.  As can be seen, the candidates were proposed by commissions formed by mass organizations, and subsequently approved by municipal assemblies, which had been elected by the people two months earlier, on November 26 and December 3.

     From January 22 to March 11, one-page biographies and photos of the candidates were displayed in public places, and they were presented on national television.  During this time, the candidates visited communities and centers of work and study, joined by members of the electoral commissions and leaders of mass organizations.  The candidates do not make campaign promises.  They make commentaries of a general nature, and they listen to what the people may want to say.  In addition, the visits and the dissemination of biographies are financed the electoral commissions, so the candidates do not need to finance campaigns.  As expressed by Cuban journalist José Alejandro Rodríguez, in an editorial published on Election Day, “The Cuban electoral system is not based on the power of money and compromising campaign financing; nor does it promote political ambition and the buying of influence.”

      In the March 11 elections, voters were presented ballots with a list of those candidates that pertain to their geographical area, one ballot for the provincial assembly and another for the national assembly.  To be elected, a candidate must receive a majority of the valid votes cast.  Some 85.65% percent of the eligible citizens voted, and all of the candidates were elected.  

     Of the 605 deputies to the National Assembly elected on May 11, some 53% are women; 41% are blacks or mulattos; 13% are young, between eighteen and thirty-five years of age; 86% are college graduates; and 56% are first-term deputies, and 24% have completed only one term.  They represent all areas of work.  One hundred thirty-three work full time in the municipal, provincial, and national assemblies of popular power, on leave of absence from their regular employment.  Eighty-three are employed in some capacity in the production of goods and the distribution of services.  Forty-seven work in education.  Forty-six work on a full-time basis for the Communist Party at the national, provincial, or local level.  Forty-five work in the state ministries or other organs of the state.  Thirty-nine are writers or artists.  Thirty-nine are employed on a full time basis as administrators of the mass organizations.  Thirty-four work in the health sector.  Twenty-eight are farmers or members of farmers’ cooperatives.  Twenty-four are scientific researchers.  Twenty-two are military.  Twelve are tied to sport.  Eleven represent social organizations, distinct from the mass organizations.  Nine are student leaders.  Seven work in the criminal justice system.  Four represent religious institutions.  Four are self-employed in the private sector.  

      The nearly 86% voter turnout is high by world standards, even though it is slightly less than the Cuban elections in the past, in which voter participation of 89% to 95% was attained.  Some 94.42% percent of the votes were valid, and 80.44% of them were votes for all of the candidates.  Some 4.32% of the ballots were blank; and 1.26% were annulled, as a result of writing on the ballot, which is not permitted by the rules.  Thus, the nullified and blank ballots comprised 5.58% of the ballots cast; in the past, this figure has been higher, around 10%.  The entire process was carried forward without conflict, division, controversy, or scandal, and with dignity.  

     The assemblies elected on March 11 will convene on March 25, in the case of the provincial assemblies; and on April 19, in the case of the National Assembly.  They are elected to five-year terms.  Most delegates to the provincial assemblies and deputies to the National Assembly will not serve full-time, but will continue to work in their jobs.  Some, however, will be elected as officers of the assemblies, and others will be designated to work in commissions that investigate pending laws and regulations.  These officers and commission delegates and deputies will take leaves of absence from their employment, receiving the same salary that they receive in their regular jobs.

      The National Assembly of Popular Power has the duty of electing the thirty-one members of the Council of State.  This includes electing the President of the Council of State and Ministers, a position currently held by Raúl Castro.  There are not term limits, but at age 88, Raúl has stated publicly that the completion of his current term of office constitutes the fulfillment of his final duty.

      The Cuban system of popular democracy is an alternative to the system of representative democracy that exists in many nations of the world.  Established by the Constitution of 1976, the Cuban political system was developed consciously as a rejection of the representative democracy of the neocolonial Republic of 1902 to 1959, in which office-seeking electoral political parties were formed, campaign promises were made to the people, the interests of the national oligarchy and foreign capital were served, and corruption was rampant.  The Cuban system of popular democracy and popular power enjoys a high level of legitimacy among the Cuban people, who are conscious not only of their own history, but also of the fact that, in the world as a whole, representative democracy is falling into decadence.

     For further description of the Cuban political process, please see pages 130-42 of my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

     Raúl Castro has been a loyal second in command in the Revolution led by Fidel.  At the age of eighty-eight, he is near the completion of his final task in the fulfillment of that duty.
      
      Fidel was an educator of the people.  His long discourses were dedicated to the formation of historical, political, and social consciousness with respect to Cuba, its conflict with the United States, the meaning of socialism and revolution, and the structures and dynamics of a neocolonized world.  His teachings were central to the formation of a vanguard from the people, formalized in the Communist Party of Cuba, which has the duty of educating and leading the people, and exemplifying revolutionary conduct.  In addition, it has the duty of listening to the people, responding to their needs and aspirations, and to accomplish this, it must live and work among the people, never constituting itself as a separate social class.

      The vanguard formed by Fidel is impressive.  Its members are dedicated professionals and workers, who live and work among the people, from which they emerged and took their first steps in revolutionary consciousness.  Regardless of area of specialization or work, they are broadly and well informed about the historic struggle of the nation for true sovereignty and social transformation, and they are knowledgeable with respect to global structures of imperialism and neocolonialism.  They are committed to the revolution, and they have dedicated their lives to it.  They comprise perhaps fifteen to twenty-five percent of the people.

     The people, unlike the vanguard, have less internalized their teachers’ lessons.  Many do not have mastery of the historical developments and theoretical concepts that they have been taught in school.  They therefore are less likely to understand the factors that gave rise to the material hardships of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism.  And they are less likely do understand the causes of the economic difficulties today, which exist in spite of the remarkable economic recovery of the last twenty-five years.  For example, they do not always understand why Cubans cannot have material comforts on a level equal to the consumer societies of North, which are very visible to them through tourism, the emigration of family members, and the internet.  The dynamics of economic crisis combined with a recovery fueled in part by tourism and family remittances create a challenging environment for the formation of revolutionary consciousness, and confusion is more likely for those who are less armed with knowledge.  So there has emerged in Cuba during the past twenty-five years a more clearly visible distinction between the vanguard and the people.  

     But the people, in spite of their limitations, understand enough to appreciate the excellent and universally accessible systems of education, health, culture, and sport; the legitimacy of the Cuban political system of popular power and popular democracy, an alternative to the undignified spectacle of representative “democracy” in other nations; the exceptional understanding and commitment of Fidel; and the outstanding qualities of most members of the Cuban Communist Party as hardworking, committed, and responsible citizens.  And they understand that the powerful forces of imperialism in the world, in spite of their claims of support for the Cuban people, do not have the slightest concern with their needs or welfare.  These qualities of the people are the reason for the persistence of the Cuban socialist project, a phenomenon that has been recognized by the peoples and governments of Latin America.

      Whereas Fidel was the exceptional popular educator that has formed a revolutionary vanguard and a revolutionary people, Raúl has assumed a different role.  He served as second in command for many years, and when Fidel stepped down for health reasons, Raúl was named President of the Council of State.  Declaring it to be his final task, Raúl has led the nation in the final steps of a transition from a revolution led by a charismatic leader to a revolution led by a vanguard party.  The transition was initiated in the 1960s, with the first steps in the formation of a vanguard party through the uniting of revolutionary organizations.  In the future, there possibly could emerge in Cuba another charismatic leader, who would lead the revolution to a more advanced stage, on the basis of new international and national developments, with a new direction that would nonetheless be based on the foundation established by the unfolding revolutionary process from 1868 to the present.  However, at the present time, rather than expecting or anticipating another charismatic leader, Cuba is moving toward collective rule by the Party, with the support and participation of the people, institutionalized in the form of various popular mass organizations.  This political system of popular democracy and popular power was established by the Cuban Constitution of 1976, and it is an alternative to representative democracy, which is increasingly falling into decadence.

     His speech at the Fifteenth Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA for its initials in Spanish) was vintage Rául.  Reading from a prepared text, he succinctly and clearly condemned the imperialist and interventionist policies of the United States against Venezuela and progressive governments in Latin America, and he affirmed Cuba’s unequivocal support for the Bolivarian Revolution and for the government of Venezuela and its president Nicolás Maduro.  The full text of his discourse can be found at Raul Castro Speech on ALBA, March 5, 2018.

      Cuba is presently celebrating its 2017-18 General Elections of Popular Power.  The third round of elections in the process will be held on this coming Sunday, March 11, when the delegates of the fifteen Provincial Assemblies of Popular Power and the deputies of the National Assembly of Popular Power will be elected.  The National Assembly of Popular Power will convene on April 19, and it will elect the thirty-one members of the Council of State and Ministers, including its President.  Raúl has publically stated that he will not continue as President of the Council of State following the completion of his current term.

      Raúl can retire with the satisfaction that he has completed his final task and revolutionary duty. In leading the people in the final moments of transition to collective leadership, Raúl has completed the final steps in the fulfillment of the promise by Fidel to the people.  He leaves the continued evolution of the revolutionary project in the hands of the vanguard and the people, who have been formed as a revolutionary vanguard and revolutionary people by Fidel.

     Since 1982, the collective and sustained judgment of the Chinese Communist Party has been that Mao Zedong made political errors in formulating and promoting the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (see “The emergence of Maoism” 1/18/2018; “The Cultural Revolution in China” 1/25/2018).  Nevertheless, the Party also has judged that Mao’s contributions to the revolution and the nation far outweighed his mistakes, for he led the revolution to power and directed the revolution in power to a transition to socialism, which provided the foundation for the sovereignty of the nation and the modernization of the economy.  This recognition of Mao’s contributions is not merely a political concession to the people.  It reflects an understanding of the objective conditions, established by the revolution in power, in which modernization has occurred.  There should not be confusion on this fundamental point.  China today stands on a foundation built by Mao (Meisner, 1999:444-45).

     Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893, in the town of Shaoshan, in the southern province of Hunan.  Mao was the son of a well-to-do peasant who was able to pay for his son’s education, including his board in a secondary school in the provincial capital.  Mao took seriously his studies, and he was an avid reader.  But the young Mao lacked direction, such that during 1911 and 1912, he changed from one program to another, including a brief stint in the military.  However, from 1913 to 1918, he found the first steps on his road, at the provincial normal school in a teacher preparation program.  During this period, his political ideas began to take shape, which he expressed in an essay, “The power of the mind.”  He wrote of the need for a strong centralized state, the importance of human will, and the need for Chinese intellectuals to encounter the thought of the West (Díaz, 2016:12-14; Chang and Halliday 2006:3-15).

      In 1917, at the age of 24, Mao was elected student of the year as well as head of the Student Association.  He reactivated a night school for workers, and he organized a group of thirteen students in what later would become the Association of Studies of the New People.  He was critical of some Confucian principles, but unlike many students and intellectuals of his generation, he did not completely reject Chinese traditions.  He sought a synthesis of ancient Chinese customs and Western radicalism.  His ideas were full of a patriotic spirit, and he supported a boycott of foreign goods (Díaz, 2016:16-17).  

     Upon his graduation in 1918, Mao relocated to Peking, where he met Chen Duxiu, who was a professor at Peking University and editor of an intellectual magazine, New Youth.  Chen proposed the total transformation of Chinese culture, basing his projections on a mixture of Western ideas, including liberalism, democratic reformism, and utopian socialism (2016:18).  Upon returning to Hunan in 1919, Mao participated in the creation of the Association of United Students of Hunan, and he drafted a call to protest the Versailles decision to grant German concessions in China to Japan (2016:19).  He published an article, “The great union of the popular classes,” in which he called for the uniting of workers, peasants, students, professors, women, and rickshaw drivers in support of a progressive agenda that would promote reforms at all levels (Díaz, 2016:18-20).

      Articles on Marx and Chinese translations of the works of Marx and Lenin appeared in China in the period 1919-21.  Professor Chan became a Marxist, and he formed a communist group of five members, including Mao.  By 1921, Mao had embraced Marx’s materialist concept of history, which Mao saw as the theoretical base of a new political party (Díaz, 2016:22).

     The Chinese Communist Party was established in Shanghai in 1921 by twelve delegates that represented fifty-seven members, mostly students.  Mao was among those at the founding meeting, one of two representatives of the province of Hunan.  Two representatives of the Communist International in Moscow were present to provide assistance and advice, but there can be no doubt with respect to the Chinese initiative in the process, stimulated by reading of Chinese translations of Marx and Lenin.  Subsequent to the founding meeting, Mao dedicated himself to various activities in Hunan: recruitment of Party members; the organizing and directing of an alternative school dedicated to unifying the intellectual and working classes; and the organization of workers, in accordance with the orthodox Marxist emphasis on the working class (Díaz, 2016:23-24; Meisner, 1999:14-19).

      During 1922 and 1923, there was much debate among Chinese communists with respect to a united front with Chinese bourgeois organizations and parties.  The Communist International was proposing the strategy, but most Chinese communists, including Mao, were not in agreement, believing instead that they should focus on the organization and education of the popular masses.  However, inasmuch as the Chinese Communist Party at its Second Congress in 1922 voted for affiliation with the Communist International, the Party was obligated to adopt the united front strategy.  In spite of his disagreement with the strategy, Mao joined the Nationalist Party of Sun Yatsen, and he was appointed in 1924 to the position of Secretary of the propaganda section of the Nationalist Party (Díaz, 2016:25-27).

      In 1925, now 32 years old, Mao returned to his native town of Shaoshan, where he remained for seven months, conversing with residents with respect to local events.  During this time, he encouraged the poorest of the local peasants to create an association.  This experience led him to his first Marxist heresy.  He arrived to the conclusion that, in the context of Chinese conditions, the peasants would play a central role in the revolution, and an agrarian program would have to be pivotal to the revolutionary project.  In the early months of 1927, Mao wrote a report describing the peasant movement in Hunan and the revolutionary spontaneity of the peasants (Díaz, 2016:28-29; Meisner 1999:26; see “The five heresies of Chinese socialism” 3/2/2018).

     As developed in practice, Mao’s heterodox Marxism involved an armed struggle that began in the countryside and moved to the cities; the political education of the peasant soldiers; and a moderate agrarian reform program in territory controlled by the revolution.  Radical intellectuals, with commitment to social and economic transformation, were the leaders of the revolutionary process.  As we have seen, Mao directed the revolution to triumph, and he led a transition to socialism that would reestablish the sovereignty of China and that would take significant steps toward the protection of the social and economic rights of the people.  (See “The triumph of the Chinese Revolution, Oct. 1, 1949” 1/9/2018; and “The Chinese transition to socialism” 1/11/2018).

     However, further steps in protecting the social and economic rights of the people required the general improvement of the standard of living, which would necessitate the modernization of the economy.  As he developed his thoughts on this issue, Mao found himself not in agreement with the majority of the members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.  The disagreements were over the pace of the formation of agricultural cooperatives, and over the type of industry that ought to be developed.  Utilizing his support among the people, Mao prevailed in implementing his will.  But the two projects that he promoted, the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, resulted in tragedy, chaos, and division.  After Mao’s death in 1976, they would be criticized as ultra-Leftist political errors (see “The emergence of Maoism” 1/18/2018; “The Cultural Revolution in China” 1/25/2018; “Mao’s ‘ultra-Leftist’ political errors” 2/1/2018). 

      Beginning in 1978, the Chinese Communist Party proceeded on a program of modernization, which it called “Reform and Opening.”  The project was successful in promoting significant economic growth and development, attaining its success on the foundation of the transition to socialism forged by the Mao-directed revolution in power from 1949 to 1957.  However, the success of Reform and Opening would be at a price, particularly in the form of growing social inequality and environmental degradation.  These limitations have given rise to a new stage, launched in 2012, of “New Reform,” which seeks to continue with economic development, but in a form that attends more completely to the social and economic rights of all and that is ecologically sustainable.  We will address these themes in future posts.

     Conventional Marxism envisioned a revolution led by the industrial working class, with the most advanced workers in the vanguard; or a revolution of workers and peasants, led by a vanguard from the working class.  In the United States, such concepts led to a strategic emphasis on the organization of workers, to some extent with a disdainful view of students as part of a non-revolutionary petit bourgeoisie.  These ideas, however, were formulated in a context of revolutions unfolding in Europe, but the popular revolutions in China and the Third World did not develop in accordance with this pattern.  China illustrates the common tendency, in which professors and students conceived and initiated the revolutionary process.  They took seriously intellectual work, reading and writing with an orientation to understanding.  They tied their quest for understanding to the needs of the people and the nation, as they sought to organize and educate the people, and to lead the people to the taking of political power.  They illustrate the key role of the radical wing of the petit bourgeoisie in launching and sustaining revolutionary processes.  

     Are there not lessons here for Leftists in the nations of the North, as they face the challenge of responding to the evident political failure of imperialism and neoliberalism, which is generating the emergence of neofascism?   As we confront this challenging situation, let us set aside romanticized notions of revolutionary guerrillas and ultra-Leftist Maoism, through which we conceive of a revolution in a form that has little to do with us and with our political reality.  Let us focus instead on who Mao was.  As a student, he took seriously the quest for understanding and the importance of reading.  As an organizer, he also was a teacher, and he continued to read and write.  In his reading, he studied books from other lands, but always creatively adapting their insights to national conditions, which he came to understand by listening to the people.  He believed in the wisdom of the Chinese classics; in the virtues of the most humble among the people, whose revolutionary spontaneity did not nullify the fact that they must be led; and in the future of his nation.  With political intelligence, he led a political process that established the foundation for a more just and dignified nation.  In these respects, Mao is exemplary.

​References
 
Díaz Vázquez, Julio Aracelio.  2016.  China: Economía y democratización.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales 
 
Meisner, Maurice.  1999.  Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, Third Edition.  New York: The Free Press.
 
Chang Jung and Jon Halliday.  2006.  Mao: The Unknown Story.  New York: Random House, Anchor Books.
 

     The Cuban scholar Julio Díaz Vázquez, a specialist on China and socialist economies, notes that the Chinese socialist revolution, in its evolution from 1931 to 2012, formulated four heretical concepts, sacrileges from the vantage point of orthodox Marxist doctrine (Díaz, 2016:74).

       (1)  From the vantage point of orthodox Marxism, the peasantry was viewed as a politically backward class, and it needed to be directed by a proletarian vanguard.  As formulated at the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920:  “Only the urban, industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party, can free the rural working masses from the yoke of capital and the holders of large-scale agricultural property” (La Internacional Comunista, 2010:138).

      Mao Zedong, however, began in 1925 to formulate a different understanding, on the basis of his organizing work among poor peasants.  He came to believe that the peasants, who held resentments against the landholders, could be organized in a class struggle against the landholding class.  He conceived an agrarian revolution, in which the peasantry would form the basis of the armed forces of the people.  In 1927, in the aftermath of a brutal repression of the Chinese Communist Party by the Chinese Nationalists, Mao formed a guerrilla force in the mountains.  It grew in numbers through the recruitment of peasants, who were attracted by its program of agrarian reform.  It proceeded to control significant territory, such that in 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was proclaimed in the southern province of Jiangxi.  On the basis of this achievement in practice, Mao’s view of the revolutionary peasantry became the prevailing view in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.  In practice, the revolution was unfolding as a popular armed struggle in the countryside, in which the peasants were in the overwhelming majority.  The process included extensive political education, and it was directed in practice by Marxist intellectuals from the Chinese petit bourgeoisie, who were adapting Marx to the semi-colonial and economically backward conditions of China (Díaz, 2016:28-36).

     (2)  Orthodox Marxism believed that socialism must be constructed in stages, and that socialism could not be established until the bourgeois revolution is completed.  Accordingly, the prevailing view in the socialist world was that, when popular revolutions triumph in places where the bourgeois revolution had not been completed, the socialist state ought to focus on the development of heavy industry, as had been done in the Soviet Union.  Mao, however, favored an alternative road that included rural industrial development, in which rural labor would be mobilized to develop labor-intensive, light, and small-to-medium industry connected to agricultural production.  Lacking support for his heretical view in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao launched a divisive political campaign, which resulted in the removal of his opponents from the Central Committee, enabling him to proceed with his vision in the form of the Great Leap Forward.  The Great Leap resulted in economic chaos and tragedy, and it was a political disaster for Mao (see “The emergence of Maoism” 1/18/2018).

     (3)  The orthodox Marxist view is that the triumph of a socialist revolution ends the class struggle.  Mao, however, believed that bourgeois consciousness continues to survive after the triumph of the popular socialist revolution, so that the proletarian class struggle must continue.  In 1965, he maintained that high officials in the party and the state possessed bourgeois consciousness, and he called upon the people to identify and bring down high members of the Party and the government who were taking the capitalist road.  The result was the Cultural Revolution, a period of intense political conflict and tragedy, which unfolded primarily from 1966 to 1968 (see “The Cultural Revolution in China” 1/25/2018).    

      Since 1981, the Chinese Communist Party has maintained that the first heresy of Mao established the foundation for, first, the independence of China from the penetration by imperialist powers; secondly, the liquidation of the landholding class and the far more limited national bourgeoisie; and thirdly, the subsequent modernization of the economy.  At the same time, the Party has judged the second and third heresies of Mao to have been ultra-Leftist political errors (see “Mao’s ‘ultra-Leftist’ political errors” 2/1/2018).

     (4)  The orthodox view is that a market economy is inherent to capitalism, and a planned economy inherent to socialism.  Departing from this view, China in the period of 1978 to 2012 pursued a program of “Reform and Opening,” based on the concept of a socialist market economy, which overcomes the separation between planning and market.  In a socialist market economy, economic planning is primary, and the market plays an auxiliary role, which is defined by the plan.  Public property is the pillar of the economy (Díaz, 2010:78-79, 84-86; 2016:75).  As expressed by Wu and Wang, in a socialist market economic system, markets “play a fundamental role in the allocation of resources under macroeconomic regulation and control” (2014:150).
     
     Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping were the principle formulators of the Reform and Opening, with Deng serving as the de facto ruler of China from 1978 to 1994.  We will be reflecting on this stage of the Chinese Revolution in subsequent posts.

     (5)  In 2012, the XVIII Congress of the Chinese Communist Party approved a “New Reform,”  which is a new vision of the Reform and Opening.  The New Reform continues with economic growth and modernization, and it seeks to expand further the space for private capital.  However, it intends to place greater emphasis on the expansion of domestic consumption, with less dependency on exportation and foreign investment.  Moreover, it plans to give greater emphasis to social equality and to the protection of the environment (Díaz, 2016:vii, 2-6, 119-21; Wu and Wang 227).  

      The New Reform has been formulated principally by Xi Jinping, current President of the People’s Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.  His public discourses appeal to national pride, and he credits the Chinese Communist Party with overcoming the humiliations inflicted on China by imperialist powers in the past and with leading the people toward mastery of their own destiny (2016:6).  He speaks of the attainment of the Chinese dream of the great revitalization of the Chinese nation.  This constitutes the fifth heresy in the history of the Chinese Revolution, in that orthodox Marxism promoted a form of internationalism that disapproved of national pride and patriotism.  We will be reflecting on Xi’s speeches in future posts.

     Conscious of the heretical character of its socialism, the leaders of the Chinese Revolution have continuously proclaimed that they are developing a socialist road with Chinese characteristics.  The gains and success of the Chinese socialist road is evident, and they have been attained on the foundation of the wisdom of the first, fourth, and fifty heresies; and on the lessons learned through the political errors of the second and third heresies.
      

​References
 
Díaz Vázquez, Julio Aracelio.  2010.  China: ¿Otro Socialismo? (LX aniversario).  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.   
 
__________.  2016.  China: Economía y democratización.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales 
 
La Internacional Comunista: Tesis, manifiestos, y resoluciones de los cuatro primeros congresos (1919-1922).  2010.  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.
 
Wu Li and Wang Lei.  2014.  China, 1949-2014.  Beijing: Beijing Times Chinese Press.