China is not Communist

charles ferraro

History taught us that there was a fatal systemic deficiency within all Communist forms of government. Communist governments' centralized planned economies simply could not produce enough quality goods and services to meet even the basic needs of their citizens/subjects. Witness, for example, the severe economic failures of the former Soviet Union, of the former Eastern Block nations, of present day Cuba, and of present day Venezuela.

The only reason why China has overcome this problem is because its oligarchic-plutocratic leadership, reading the handwriting on the wall, decided to gradually transition China away from a strictly Communist to a National Socialist form of government which sponsors and subsidizes a wide range of government supervised/closely regulated Capitalist enterprises throughout the state. Certain Chinese elites have also been permitted to acquire wealth, significant wealth, only so long as what they do benefits the State.

In other words, China is still Totalitarian, while having become Communist in name only. In reality, China has been transformed into a Fascist form of government functioning not under a single leader, but under an oligarchic-plutocratic form of group leadership. As in Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, China fully adheres to the dictum: "Everything within the State, Nothing outside the State, Nothing against the State."

It, too, practices a wide range of well-coordinated methods of social control in this regard, including the establishment of concentration (re-education) camps within which to facilitate erasure of the Uighurs' ethnic-religious identity under completely controlled conditions.

The rights of the Chinese state are more important than the rights of its individual citizens/subjects, as is amply demonstrated by the suffering of the Tibetans and the Uighurs.

China is also pursuing its own Sudetenland (Hong Kong) and Austrian Anschluss (Taiwan). Who then, one might ask, will be China's Poland?

National Socialist China, unlike Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany, appears to have all the human resources and raw materials it needs to compete successfully economically and militarily on the world stage, and it is significantly more adept than they were at using propaganda and other highly sophisticated technological methods, even biological, to try to infiltrate and sabotage foreign governments, societies, and corporations.

Non-totalitarian nations which are founded upon a respect for, and a safeguarding of, the God given rights of the individual and democratic constitutional forms of representative government had better wake up and prepare themselves for an extended era of stiff competition with this future, formidable adversary. This non-Communist China.

T Clark

Non-totalitarian nations which are founded upon a respect for, and a safeguarding of, the God given rights of the individual and democratic constitutional forms of representative government had better wake up and prepare themselves for an extended era of stiff competition with this future, formidable adversary. This non-Communist China. — charles ferraro

Interesting and well written. I thought we were heading for a China hawk manifesto about the need to confront China militarily. I'm pleased to see you took a more measured approach.

fishfry

I thought we were heading for a China hawk manifesto about the need to confront China militarily. — T Clark

Pay no attention to those million Uyghurs behind the curtain.

Would you have said the same in 1935 about u-no-hoo? Asking for six million friends.

Streetlight

Duh.

Apollodorus

↪charles ferraro

Good post. But I wouldn't say that China is "communist in name only".

The basic ideology of China’s Communist Party is Marxism-Leninism laced with “Xi Jinping Thought”. So, internally, the leadership is communist.

However, having learned the lesson from the economic collapse of Communist Russia, the regime has introduced Lenin’s “state capitalism” doctrine of the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Lenin was a close collaborator of Britain’s Fabian Socialists who advocated a “third way” between capitalism and communism as a means of attaining socialism. Weeks before the Revolution, he announced that state capitalism is a step toward socialism. In 1918 he wrote:

Only the development of state capitalism, only the painstaking establishment of accounting and control, only the strictest organization and labor discipline, will lead us to socialism. Without this there is no socialism … If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism in Russia, that would be a victory.

Lenin Collected Works - Internet Archive (Vol. 27, pp. 279 ff.)

Just a few years later Lenin was dead, possibly bumped off by Stalin who became Russia’s own Hitler.

In the 1970's the Rockefellers were expanding their worldwide oil and banking empire. Kissinger and David Rockefeller payed a visit to China and suggested US-China economic cooperation as part of the Rockefellers' East-West rapprochement plan. So, the Chinese communists started introducing state capitalism, i.e. capitalism controlled by the communist state with the help of the Rockefellers and other big bankers and industrialists.

So, internally, the CCP is Marxist-Leninist but externally it advocates national socialist policies (including state capitalism) as a means to achieve socialism and, ultimately, communism.

It is important not to forget that in Marxism-Leninism, socialism is a phase of transition to communism and is defined as “dictatorship of the proletariat” i.e. dictatorship of the Communist Party as “representative” of the proletariat.

Under President Xi’s national socialist regime, China has been pursuing an increasingly aggressive and expansionist foreign policy reminiscent of 1930’s Germany.

It [China] has “garrisoned the South China Sea, imposed party rule on Hong Kong, threatened Taiwan, skirmished with India and has tried to subvert Western values in international bodies” such as the UN ... A senior Biden administration official has admitted that China seeks “to assert its authority globally” and that “We're dealing with a country that is perhaps less interested in coexistence, and more interested in dominance”

Joe Biden is determined that China should not displace America | The Economist

Meantime, America, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and other nations including NATO members, have identified China as responsible for hostile action such as malicious cyber activity.

The group of nations said Monday that the Chinese government has been the mastermind behind a series of malicious ransomware, data theft and cyber-espionage attacks against public and private entities, including the sprawling Microsoft Exchange hack earlier this year.

U.S., U.K., Allies Tie Chinese Government to Microsoft Hack – Bloomberg

I think it is becoming increasingly clear that China is turning itself into a rogue state that is posing a growing threat to international peace and stability, as well as freedom and democracy. The pandemic is just the beginning. Therefore, the regime needs to go now, before things get worse.

charles ferraro

↪Apollodorus

Nice nuanced analysis.

Fundamentally, I think we are on the same page.

However, I do not think the Chinese leaders really believe in pursuing an "international Communist revolution," or in bringing about a "dictatorship of the proletariat."

Nor do I think that they really consider their brand of National Socialism to be in any way merely a "transitional" phenomenon, a la Lenin.

All such theoretical-ideological phraseology about ultimately transitioning to true Communism as a noble end sounds good for purposes of public and international consumption.

Internally, China is and will steadfastly seek to remain a rigid Totalitarian National Socialist regime.

What they really want to transition to is no different than what Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany wanted to "transition" to; viz., world domination.

Gnomon

History taught us that there was a fatal systemic deficiency within all Communist forms of government. Communist governments' centralized planned economies simply could not produce enough quality goods and services to meet even the basic needs of their citizens/subjects. — charles ferraro

A pragmatic accommodation to that inherent weakness of top-down planned economies may be why China has quickly converted from a purely Socialist economy to a Mixed economy. That switch has allowed them to become an economic powerhouse. But the political ideology is still basically Marxist & Communist, which tends to minimize political independence, and to mandate Unity (collectives, communes), which minimizes Diversity, and suppresses minorities. So, they have adapted to the practical requirements of a complex economy, even as they are reluctant to follow the West into their currently chaotic social systems, pitting individual rights against collective rights, and the few rich against the many poor.

However, I suspect that social unrest will eventually catch up with them. As it already has in Russia, nominally Socialist, but ruled by Oligarchs. Finding the sweet spot between a free economy and an inverted social pyramid, is like walking a tightrope : it helps to have a counter-balancing pole with enough inertia to keep the struggle between left & right from throwing the system off-balance. In the US, the Constitution has so-far provided sufficient moderating stability to keep us from plunging into the safety-net of Left or Right-wing Totalitarianism. But, the tightrope walker is trying to walk a fine line between two kinds of fatal systemic social failure. And is currently recovering its balance from a near fall into National Socialism, with a "free" economy for the rich & powerful, but requiring elimination of de-stabilizing social elements (those who are different). And the wavering goes on . . . . :cool:

Apollodorus

What they really want to transition to is no different than what Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany wanted to "transition" to; viz., world domination. — charles ferraro

Of course there is no transition to communism, because communism as described by Marx, Engels, and Lenin, does not and can not exist in the real world.

However, world domination a la China will be domination of the world by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Communism has failed to take over the world for the simple reason that it is unable to match capitalism in economic terms. But once the CPC has become the dominant power by means of communist-controlled state capitalism, there will be nothing to prevent it from imposing communist rule, i.e. dictatorship of the Communist Party, on the whole world.

charles ferraro

↪Gnomon

Nicely put!

However, despite the smokescreen of the ideological verbiage and symbolism of Communism, I still contend that the actual day-to-day Totalitarian social, cultural, and economic practices implemented by the Chinese leadership is no different than that which defined Totalitarian Fascist or National Socialist states.

National Socialist states also minimized (or even obliterated) political independence, also mandated strict unity (One Nation, One People, One Leader), and also claimed one superior national ethnicity (the Nordic) to the severe detriment of other so-called inferior ethnicities. Just look at what the Mandarin Chinese are doing to the Uighurs!

Let the oligarchic-plutocrats call it what they will, in practice, it is still a totalitarian national socialist capitalist state.

Apollodorus

Russia, nominally Socialist, but ruled by Oligarchs. — Gnomon

I agree that Russia is largely ruled by oligarchs, but only with permission from the state. And the Russian state is not socialist and has not been since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 when the ruling Supreme Soviet disbanded itself.

Incidentally, Russia could have made a deal with the Rockefellers like China did, but it chose to get involved in Afghanistan and after Reagan stopped the flow of US cash and technology in the 1980's, the regime simply collapsed and gave up.

The new government tried to reintroduce capitalism but in order to do so it was forced to privatize all state-owned assets. And that meant selling everything at dumping prices to anyone who had the cash, like the World Bank, big multinational corporations, and local oligarchs ....

China is not Communist

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions