So I’ve been putting off writing this for a long time and it’ll probably need to be a series, but I’ve had a difficult time answering challenges from my friends who assert that China is either a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie or of the Bureaucracy (i.e. state capitalists), and that it’s a competing imperialist power along with America (and they also say Russia but I can answer that one being stupid on my own).
The problem with China Discourse is that there is a serious paucity of sources dealing with nuanced critiques rather than just “debt trap!” bullshit or whatever, since the objections of liberals and the objections of smarter ultras are very different. At the very least, the sources dealing with this Discourse are less accessible to me.
But now I’m extremely bored and also recently saw Comrade Queermmunist’s excellent rebuttal against the claim of China doing imperialism in the DRC, which gave me some hope that Hexbear would be able to answer some of these claims with something at least plausible.
The main objects of concern are the for-profit national businesses causing bureacratic class antagonism, foreign policy in the form of UN peacekeeping contributions, and straightforward imperialism at the base of its supply chain, along with miscellany like this:
https://newworker.us/international/chinas-stock-market-a-lesson-on-what-socialism-is-not/
I don’t know, it’s all a mess and putting off ideological work causes problems. If nothing else, let this be a practical lesson to you:
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
It catches up with you and makes things worse in the end.
Socialism is the transitionary stage between capitalism and communism.
This stage was begun with proletariat taking control of the state with the goal of achieving communism.
The proletariat remain in control of the state. The goal has not changed and is not pretend.
It is socialism. Regardless of its current economic mode of operation. It is a state operating between capitalism and communism. Capitalism requires the CAPITALISTS to be in control of the state, they are not.
This is really super incredibly simple to define.
Criticism of China for continuing to use the capitalist mode of production is fine, there’s very good reasons to dislike that, but it doesn’t make it not-socialism, it just makes it socialism that has not yet socialised its economy.
The question is whether the people have remained in power or if, for example, Deng used his credibility and connections to instigate a counterrevolution like, in many respects, Khrushchev could be said to have done. The fact that there was a revolution does not, itself, insulate a country from such criticism when a lot has happened since that time and they seem to give about as much credit to a right-deviationist as they do to the country’s founder.