As the title says, i am interested in understanding xi’s idealogy as we understand it at this moment.
I don’t know the details, but seems a bit authoritarian for my taste. Not to mention the genocidal tenancies.
Xi is a marxist-leninist but the PRC recognizes Xi Jinping Thought (like they had MZT etc for all general secretaries) https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping_Thought
He is “redder than red” according to an article I read in the New Yorker. But some Americans think Joe Biden is communist so I don’t know what that entails.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)
He’s a Communist. He’s people first, so he is a good Communist. He ran a poverty alleviation program as a provincial secretary which got him the national position, which he has been overseeing poverty alleviation at the national level. The program he ran took wealth and Capital from his coastal province Fujian and built up the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The poverty alleviation in Xinjiang that occured in the last decade is a continuation of Xi’s work. He was really the guy Xinjiang needed in a time of crisis with deep poverty where the citizens there have a larger barrier to migrant labor opportunities due to language barriers (many older Uighurs don’t know Mandarin or Chinese script and only use Uighur script).
Xi’s ideology in terms of which theories he upholds is honestly less relevant (even so, he upholds ML), because he is the lead organizer of an AES state where attending to the needs of the people is most important. For him and China’s context this means improving peoples’ lives without bringing too much chaos, but always identifying problems by their primary contradictions so that they are eventually solved.
Here are some common “criticisms” of Xi from different angles (not meant to be serious):
- West (imperialists, neoliberals, anarchists, racists): Xitler
- Ultras: revisionist, nationalist
- Maoists: Dengist, revisionist, pacifist
- Dengists: Maoist
Jokes aside, I think Socialism with Chinese characteristics focuses more on how to maintain and build upon a socialist country, rather than how to become a socialist country (Mao’s great achievement). That doesn’t mean other countries can’t learn from China’s experience, but it means keeping in mind China’s historical background when researching. This includes its 5000 year-old history as a civilization with some setbacks but still going strong today. If you learn Chinese, you’ll be able to read text from ye olden days. Ancient Chinese philosophies still have influence in modern-day China, like how people still read the works of ancient Greek philosophers.
How is any of this relevant to Xi’s ideology? Xi Jinping Thought is the latest theory of the CPC put into practice, it includes new theory, but also builds upon tried and tested theory from past leaders. Xi is an important foreman of this period (since 2012), but also part of the collective leadership of the CPC. Collectivism doesn’t exclude individual ideas, but is more resilient to corosion from individualism. The CPC upholds a long list of theory from Marxist-Leninism, Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu and now Xi, so when we talk about “Xi’s ideology”, do not forget the collective body of knowledge and people surrounding it in the background.
To be fair, China is “revisionist” in that it no longer follows a thoroughly centrally-planned economy, publicly advocates for class war against the international bourgeoisie by exporting revolution, and makes defense pacts with other left-wing governments out of ideological solidarity; similar to what existed in the USSR. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Chinese saw that their current model wasn’t improving the quality of life of the people - at least, not as much as they had hoped for; so, they decided to stave from political fundamentalism and strive to do whatever it takes to objectively raise the living standards of the common person; and to accomplish that goal, a mixed economy where the public sector remains dominant was adopted.
At the end of the day, reality is the final arbiter of theory; and reality has greatly rewarded the Chinese.
I think a more interesting question is what China would be like if the reforms and opening up didn’t occur; whether the PRC would have survived, or even thrived, if its’ mode of production wasn’t revamped.
Reform and opening up has always been controversial up to this day, but it doesn’t stop there, market economy, One Country Two Systems, supporting private enterprises, not meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, largest trading partner of the US, all used as evidence by different people to call the CPC “revisionist”/“class traitor”.
History has no ifs or buts, the Cultural Revolution has shown that those who claim to be Maoists could not defend their ideals, even from within a socialist country, this is a disgrace to Mao whose banner they hold high. High respect for Mao is one thing, but using said respect to lure people into a cult of Mao is what some people are doing now in China to erode the legitimacy of the CPC.
Maybe there was another path, maybe not, doesn’t matter now to China, and other countries should definitely learn from the lessons and mistakes of the CPC. Turns out that running a country isn’t as easy as what people imagine, and the dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t easy when you have to worry about underdevelopment, poverty, corruption, global imperialists, the list goes on.
Theory is nice and all, but it only matters when you put it into practice, that’s why Marxism is scientific socialism, and that’s what kept the CPC going for 102 years. If you don’t hold the reins, nothing else will matter, and any ideals you’d want to protect won’t be worth a damn.
So a bit of background info, I’ve read all 4 volumes of The Governance of China.
Xi is most definitely in the same camp as the ‘reform and open up’ crowd, so a revisionist. He supports the market and wants to open more industries to the market and remove government involvement in some areas.
That said I can respect the crackdown on corruption and the elimination of poverty even though I don’t like how pro private business it was
You’ve read the books: anything in particular in them that makes you think what you do?
From The Governance of China vol 4 I would say the two sections that most make me think this way are:
- High-Quality Development - pg 209-256
- Further Reform and Opening Up - pg 259-274
Both of these sections deal with the special economic zones and free trade zones. Throughout vol 4 there are other points where more market oriented things are discussed but these two are where it is more of a focus. If I recall correctly from vols 1-3 there was a bit less discussion around these topics.
Additionally Xi’s “Up and Out of Poverty” is very much about reform and opening up. It has a collection of his works from 1988-1990 so it makes sense that reform and opening up was a topic he mentioned frequently.
Reform and opening up is always one of those things I didn’t like, but understood. So far it’s worked to massively increase China’s control over global production and is in line with how Lenin saw the NEP (If they want to sell us the rope, let them). So far the downsides include over exploitation of workers in any of these zones and also exploitation of specifically migrant workers near these zones to generate profit for a new capitalist class.
If this new capitalist class can be controlled and kept from creating a new power structure, it’s a useful tool for dealing with imperialists, but it needs to always be subject to complete liquidation. Which is how China seems to approach this class.
The leveraging of foreign capital to develop domestic production for domestic consumption is also a plus. A trade surplus allows China to have some financial levers of power and keeping foreign capitalists from private ownership of the land their factories sit on also creates a positive power dynamic.
The development of China’s domestic consumption has also made it irresistible to western capitalists who will continually prostrate themselves at the CPC’s feet for access to it no matter what they say in the west.
Yea I can definitely understand how towards the end of the GPCR that reform and opening up would look tempting particularly with the state of the USSR and the lack of revolutions in the imperial core.
I think the comparison to the NEP is fair, however the NEP was only around for 7 years and reform and opening has been going on for close to 50 years. So this looks less temporary to solve an immediate issue and more like a permanent fixture. The increase in opening that they are pushing for also makes me think it is less likely to be reversed any time soon.
I think the controlling the new captialist class is a big if. Not in the sense of individuals but more on the promotion of capitalist ideology and their influence on culture which will lead to further erosion of communism. When I lived in China it did seem a lot more consumerist and capitalist than a lot of places I have lived in the West.
The CPC has done a good job of getting western capitalists to want access. They do have many skilled politicians and leaders. I would happily take Xi over many world leaders today, but I see the CPC as having stepped off the correct path. I don’t think they are irredeemable in any way, I just don’t see them pushing towards communism in the same ways they have in the past.
Totally understand, there is a tendency with the Western left to idolize the CPC, which kinda makes sense. There isn’t really an alternative except maybe Cuba, Vietnam, and DPRK. Those nations are also not in a position to really influence the positions of global capital.
There’s also the fact that Marxists who don’t live in China don’t have to interface or deal with the domestic issues that come up there. All they have to interact with is the foreign policy of the CPC, which is significantly better than any other country (at least any country with a similar GDP, Cuba and even DPRK both do fantastic work with aid programs given their size).
I’ll always be critically supportive of Chinese governance with the knowledge that many of their decisions arise from the conditions of China within the global market system and the reliance of China on access to that system. We can hypothesize about how things would be different if the Sino-Soviet split didn’t happen and the entire East was unified under one socialist market that drarfed that of the west, but that’s not the reality.
The reality is that China until recently had a relatively small domestic market for light industrial goods and developed their economy through export of labor and import of MOP. The current factor that we need to pay attention to is how the CPC transitions that model as China’s internal markets develop to the point where they don’t need to rely on export and can entirely function as a closed loop.
At that point, the need for “reform and opening up” will be basically gone except maybe for dealing with third world nations still shackled to the Dollar, but as the B&R continues to be built, those nations will be able to more easily divest from the dollar market and subsist on Chinese trade routes that honor their local currencies.
So yes, I agree that there’s issues and that if things stagnate where they are then China and the CPC run the risk of backsliding into revisionism and a new form of capitalism, but as of now the pieces are in play that could absolutely be used to cast off that system. All we need to watch out for is how these programs and policies actually play out.
Tell me you don’t understand Marxism-Leninism without doing so outright.
How did one read The Governance of China and think revisionist?
All I can say it’s certainly not communism. Although if you have arguments to say otherwise, I’ll gladly hear them.
