Learning from the Chinese Revolution
What will communism be like? How do we know? We have general principles. But knowledge depends on the particular as well as the general, the concrete as well as the abstract. Can we know how mangoes taste without anyone ever tasting a mango?
We can’t determine every detail of communism on general principles alone. Or how they will be shaped by local conditions. Much will depend on the experience of the masses, mobilized on communist principles to take concrete, particular actions.
“Where has communism ever worked?” people ask. Sometimes we say “it’s never really been tried.” Or we talk about pre-class societies. All true.
But as dialectical and historical materialists, we need to study the history of our communist movement. We need to know it in enough depth and particularity to learn and teach its lessons.
A recent Red Flag article claimed that China established socialism in 1949. That’s not true. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led a “democratic revolution” that openly embraced capitalist private enterprise.
“All privately owned factories, stores, banks, warehouses, vessels, wharves, etc. will be protected,” proclaimed the CCP-led “People’s Government” (April, 1949). And they were. The revolutionary government only took over enterprises previously owned by the Kuomintang (KMT) government and its bureaucrats.
The “People’s Government” included the Democratic League and the KMT’s “left-wing.” It was not a “dictatorship of the proletariat” or “proletariat and poor peasants.”
The governor of a communist-held area explained: “We aim to remove the obstacles that feudalism places in the way of capitalism so that capitalism may thrive and grow.” Trade unions, said a labor leader, “cooperated with the capitalists, urging them on to make profits, from which all might benefit.”
Communists promoting free-market capitalism? A contradiction! Moreover, the same communist party, at the same time, was nurturing seeds of communism.
In “The Chinese Conquer China” (1949) Strong reported that hundreds of thousands of peasants, mostly women, had formed and joined industrial cooperatives. “The most successful were those whose aim was not profit, but the supplying of the members’ needs.” These coops struck a blow against women’s subordination.
Students flocked to liberated zones, allying with peasants and promoting literacy and political education. Prisoners of war, quickly released, stayed to help build the new society. Leaders lived in caves, like the masses.
Mao said in 1949 that Chinese capitalism would develop for decades, maybe longer. The masses didn’t allow that. By the mid-1950s, the groundswell of land reform carried over into a huge “People’s Commune” movement. The contradiction inside the CCP intensified until it exploded in the Cultural Revolution.
We’ve written about how capitalism won that struggle. Let’s also study the stories of the Chinese masses’ struggles for communism, going back to 1949 and before.
—LA (USA) comrade
Housing in Communism
The article on housing in Red Flag Vol. 7 # 6 would have been more useful if it had talked more about housing in a communist society. On this subject it said:
“We’ll expropriate empty dwellings and mansions and put them to good use. We’ll collectively plan, build and occupy forms of housing (old and new) that meet our needs.
Slum dwellers everywhere are very resourceful – and often collective – in housing themselves. Communism will liberate their creativity and power!”
Communism is much more than just expropriating private property like housing and all the means of production. Communism is mainly about developing communist relations among the masses concerning all aspects of social activity, and how to use our advances to develop and recruit more communists to advance and spread this process even more.
Viewed from this perspective, housing would play a very important role. We need to write more on this question. I am writing this to stimulate discussion and advance this process.
Housing under communism should strive to eradicate the capitalist concept of the “nuclear family” as the basis of society. This implies collective living in relatively large communes and doing everything collectively, including the rearing of children, cooking, eating, cleaning and maintaining the premises, entertainment, etc.
Therefore, the building and layout of housing should aim to develop communist social relations to the maximum in order to change “my house, my children, my life, etc.” to “our house, our children, our lives, etc.”
Housing will also impact how we work and where we work, our learning, our wellbeing, health care and many other things in our lives.
In such communal living environment – integrating workers from different “races,” nationalities, cultures, ages, etc.- is where the decisive battles to defeat racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, individualism and all other remnants of capitalism’s toxic ideologies will be fought and won.
—Comrade Looking Ahead
Communists are not cynical about change—We know what it takes
A letter from Chile is very discouraging and individualistic. It advocates action without political ideas to guide the action. Communist political ideas, dialectical and historical materialism, is the guide for action. Theory and practice are not separate; they interact. “Without revolutionary theory there is no revolution,” Lenin.
Historical materialism explains and takes the class struggle from the inception of social class. The change from primitive communal system to slavery feudalism and to capitalism and then to communism, a classless society based on mutual relation and collective production to meet the need of society. Dialectical materialism teaches us about the contradiction of things, how they interact and how interpenetration of things develops and makes changes. This is the guide of action. “When revolutionary theory becomes the property of the masses of workers it will be a material force for action.”
The writer talks about his unhappiness based on his individualism. To organize the working-class masses is not to fulfill the individual happiness. It is to emancipate the whole working class from capitalist exploitation and oppression to build communism, a classless society. It will take a communist armed revolution to achieve it.
We communists are not cynical about change and we know what it takes to get it. The writer should shake off his individualism and learn from the history of class struggle to see himself as part of the collective of the working class. We invite the writer to join ICWP and fight for together with us for communism.
— A comrade
Chinese students read posters criticizing right wing literature during 1960’s Cultural Revolution. The big sign says “Uphold the literary revolution and counter the rightist trend”
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