Continuing the "great revival" of China?

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"To achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation, we must certainly firmly uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party," President Hu Jinto of China

http://news.yahoo.com/china-marks-century-old-revolution-amid-controversy-064131766.html

Now this bring ups a couple of interesting points....

1. If you look at modern history of China the Communist Party didn't overthrow the monarchy (emperors, empresses & dynasties). People who wanted a republic did.

2. Some of them wanted a democracy but many lent themselves to something similar to fascism & corruption-which is one of the reasons the Communists were able to force them out of the mainland and into retreat (to Taiwan).

3. The Chinese government & communist party is itself corrupt in many ways and one of the reasons we don't know just how bad is because the government there limits local media coverage of it (though perhaps less so than coverage of social unrest such as riots, worker strikes, and the like).

4. If China wanted to continue to reform its government then it should be more rather than less open to democratic reforms that give the population a way to vote out corrupt leaders (though they aren't the only corrupt ones in China).

5. The whole revival of the Chinese nation part is interesting. It alludes to China's current rise and that it could be either 1 of 2 (USA as a counterpart) superpowers in the world (provided we don't smash each other apart in WW3) or a major nation in a multi-polar (many powerful nations) world. This could be a peaceful or more militant rise. China could keep getting richer and leave it at that or it could become more militant and use its military in more aggressive manners (currently its military is largely defensive-and not just because it is trying to colonize Tibet and Xinjiang which are internationally-some locals have trouble with this-seen as within its borders).

 

Playing devil's advocate to an extent:

1. The Communists (as verified by wikipedia ) would argue that overthrowing the monarchy was an essential first step on the road to communionism. Also, despite being completely ignorant of Chinese history, I'd be amazed if some factions of the rebels did not end up on the Communist side in the end. So the Communists can claim they did play their role.

2. This flows too easily from the overthrow of the Royals. In the decades afterwards you had the Japanese invasion and occupation, WWII and the beginning of the Cold War. The entire period is chaotic and you can't say the Communists usurped power from the Republicans. More that they filled the void after the Japanese.

3. Sadly true. It's hard to know just how bad things actually are.

4. Do the Chinese people actually want this? Many, including educated youngsters, are happy to put up with a bit of corruption and a lack of personal freedoms for increased prosperity. I'd obviously love to see China become a "Western Democracy" so to speak but I wouldn't say it's inevitable.

5. I think it's only natural for people to become more proud of their country when it goes from sucking to doing well. Especially when it's on its way to becoming the most powerful in the world.

Call me an optimist but I think the world will largely be peaceful. We're so integrated now everyone has too much to lose and trade wars will replace military ones. The major danger would be resource wars.

Multi-polar seems the most likely outcome to me. What's very interesting is whether blocs of countries will become powers, say the EU. It'll require much more cohesion and intergration than currently exists but smaller countries may start banding together rather than being bullied around.

 

Don't mind questioning-at least not most of the time. And while I did study Chinese history at one point I'm pretty sure I'm no expert.

The Communists can claim whatever they want. The fact is that the primary groups and the majority of people putting an end to the monarchy were not doing it to promote communism.

Yes I can, the Communists and Republicans (which were arguably internally usurped by fascists) fought a civil war-hence the mainland China & Taiwan divide that exists to this day (it was never totally won by one side or the other and at one point Taiwan held China's seat in the UN).

As for the Japanese......... I think at one point the Republicans may have been fighting both them and the Communists at once but I could be very wrong. What I do know is that they ended up fighting both of them. If you ever read The Rape of Nanking it was the Republican Army that tried and failed to defend the city against the Japanese Imperial Army.

Some do. And in China promoting the idea can sometimes be a quick way to see the inside of a jail or prison cell.

And since the current government in China is often setting aside Communism as a justification for its existence the we give you jobs line is something the government seems to be using on purpose with its population.

But with China we may be talking about much more than a bit of corruption/lack of freedoms.

I think we both would like to see China become a democracy. I think of it as a possibility rather than an inevitability within the next 40-50 years. I would be thrilled if it happened (and if it included environmentalism) but we'll see.

Some in the Chinese federal government may not mind elections (or at least experiments with them) but it is an open question if they will be expanded beyond just a few areas (again, I wouldn't mind it).

Sure it is. But beware of nationalism run amok.

It is true we are more integrated but there may be moments when individuals in power opt to set aside trade in order to start shooting. I'm not saying I'd encourage it or want it-but it is a possibility. Resource wars may happen but wars have been fought over things other than resources in the past.

At the moment I agree. But I see China and the USA both still being major players. It may depend on seeing who wants to avoid a repeat of WWI-a rising empire (a now unified and industrializing Germany) and old empire (British Empire) fight and greatly strain (break?) each other.

Interesting things to see include the reaction of both India (a potential rising rival to China) and the rest of SE Asia (many nations are geographically close to China and may not want to face a potential major power on their own-perhaps a more united ASEAN).

Though other rising powers may include Brazil (not the same scale as China but they are getting their act together) and Indonesia.


Anyway, thanks for thinking all of this over and talking about it-if you want to keep on we can.

Oh, and if you like optimistic things (but which also try to include reality) here is a program you may like (it lasts almost an hour). It was on public radio here.

 

The Kuomingtang was practically a military dictatorship so calling them "republicans" is somewhat misleading in that sense, I would prefer instead to call them nationalists. It's important to remember that China was by no means united under nationalist rule, there were several independent warlords in Guangxi, Yunnan and Sinkiang. The warlords and the communists played their part in the struggle against monarchy. The communists being afterwards sent on their "long march" to the mountains where they remained until the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan and invaded Manchuria practically handing over the Japanese puppet of Manchukuo and its territories to the communists. After that the communists waged a civil war versus the disorganized nationalists and various independent warlords that allied with the nationalists during the civil war. The communists were the victors.

 

China's claim of being "communist" is about as valid as calling america socialist. Workers do not control the means of production, there are certainly wealth divisions, and state control of property most certainly does not equal public control. Every communist country that follows the "dictatorship of the proletariat" style advocated by Lenin is a tyrant state and has little to do with the historically proposed ideal of communism.

As for this quote: "To achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation, we must certainly firmly uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,"

This is just a tyrant justifying the tyrannical state, something that will always be tried with bad logic and guns. The "great revival" of China will come in my mind when it actually puts into practice something resembling a classless, free society.

"In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

Marx & Engels in the Communist Manifesto

 

I would like to point out that it was in fact Engels and Marx who came up with the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat" and not Lenin. Lenin unfortunately did not have the luxury of Engels and Marx in that he could not just write out vague guidelines how to achieve communism without proper methodology but instead he had to organize a revolution. Engels and Marx hailed the Paris Commune as a proper example of a dictatorship of the proletariat and Lenin implemented largely a similar organisation in organizing the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

 

Sorry, Marx came up with the idea of a dictatorship of working class interests within a democratic system, as a transition to a completely stateless system. Lenin and others abused the term and took away the democratic part, while also reversing the goal of statelessness into state tyranny.

 

It's important to note that Marx did not view democracy in the western sense but essentially what would be a one-party system. It was after all supposed to be a dictatorship of the working class. I would like to point out that even the Soviet Union had elections, heck it was even written in its constitution. Marx was also horribly vague in implementation of his revolution or the inner workings of the communist state. Lenin continued the works of Marx by developing those inner workings. Calling the work "distortion" of Marx is in my opinion intellectually inaccurate, Lenin had certainly read his Marx quite well. Probably better than you or I but he saw the flaws (which are unquestionable. Marx concentrates on being critical of the capitalist system instead of building a proper ideological program) and developed them further to suit his environment.

 

Thanks for the additional details/points.

I am under the impression that some who had a history of opposing the monarchy and were around when the monarchy fell did believe in democracy. So I use the term "republican" in the broad sense and to acknowledge that it wasn't simply fascism replacing a monarchy there were others who were overshadowed by the fascists that, had they gotten/kept power may have created a different history for China.

Now if you want to refer to Kuomingtang as nationalists I don't have a problem with it. I had at least alluded to fascism with regard to them already. And yes they were the ones to withdraw to Taiwan due to loosing the mainland to the Communist (self described damedog, maybe they don't live up to the ideal and China's current government sure doesn't but it is what they claimed to be) forces. Which means that the Communist victory was not a complete one and their opposition never surrendered (withdrawing instead).

Actually damedog this is a side topic but I once heard Communist party members were supportive of democracy in Russia before they took power. Once they took power we know a different path was taken.

 

Of course the Soviet Union had elections, a lot of dictatorial states do. That certainly doesn't mean they were real or fair in any way. There is a reason that a lot of the time winning candidates received 99% of the vote. I know the one-party system thing, that's why it was a dictatorship of the working class interests, which isn't even used in the classic sense but more as a dictatorship of an entire class that represents the interests of almost all people (almost being the key word, it excludes the rights of producers as equal to the rights of workers if they exist at all). I don't where you got the idea that he did not view it in the classic sense, unless you mean the capitalist democracies of today. The ancient democracies were way less participatory than this one was supposed to be, so i'm honestly not sure what definition you are drawing from for that claim. I've read my Marx (and my Adam Smith, don't worry), and Marx believed that an educated and exploited working class would naturally overthrow the capitalist system and install socialism or communism, while Lenin disagreed and believed there needed to be a "vanguard" of intellectual elites who controlled the workers interests. He did indeed cite the Paris Commune as an example of what he was talking about, but that had many of the same features as contemporary democracies.

"The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible, and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive, and legislative at the same time. This form of popular government, featuring revocable election of councilors and maximal public participation in governance, resembles contemporary direct democracy." Marx.

"the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts — administrative, judicial, and educational — by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates and to representative bodies, which were also added in profusion”; moreover noting that the State is “at best, an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the State on the scrap-heap”. -Engels.

These ideas and the "vanguard of intellectual elites" have nothing in common. In fact, they seem mutually exclusive. One cannot hope to overthrow the idea of the state as a whole if the state is the only thing keeping communism in place, since Lenin thought the workers were incapable of autonomous reform like is advocated in communism, something he specifically states in "What is to be done"?

He surely developed them more, but when you contradict the source material you draw from you can't really say it is an accurate description of said source material.

 

We are getting quite adrift of the original topic so I try to keep it short. I disagree that Lenin directly contradicts Marx. My opinion is that Lenin more or less saw the opportunities provided and the circumstances in Russia. It's true that Lenin saw the need of elites to guide the revolution, which Marx never wrote about, but again Marx was no revolutionary leader and more of a political theoretician. He had no need to define a methodology for the revolution. Lenin had to, and therefore made more explicit guidelines.

Oh and reading Adam Smith is fine (while mostly boring) but he's not really a counter to Marx or socialist economic theory. Adam Smith and the invisible hand is too often misunderstood as his support to laissez faire approach to the market which is not quite true. If you wish to balance the approach then I'd suggest Friedrich Hayek, von Mises or some other figure from the Austrian school since that entire family of economics was established as a counter to socialism.

 

Understood, and my opinion is that those guidelines were antithetical to the goals and ideals of communism, which is flawed either way.

I have a lot to say about Adam Smith, and the Austrian school of economics, but in the interests of not derailing this thread any further i'm going to shut up about it

 

Morgoroth covered most of this. I would phrase it that the Communists filled the vacuum after WWII rather than that they toppled the Nationalists.

The Communists are probably free to claim the revolution as part of their own. Some were involved. More importantly, the Communists would say that the revolution was just a stepping stone. People wanted to be rid of the monarchy and it was logical that they wanted what was normal elsewhere. It was a natural evolution after they had won their freedom that they then wanted the superior communist system to that which prevailed in the west.

It's probably not a straight choice between the current communist system and a Western democracy. If China brought in free elections and a free press it would probably resemble chaotic India, which also suffers massively from corruption. Interestingly, China is probably doing a better job of raising its people up from subsistence farming into a modern state. It's not outrageous for the Chinese to argue that their system is working better. It's all very subjective.