Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

1989 Poster, titled "Advance bravely along the road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics."

The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics (Chinese: 中国特色社会主义; pinyin: Zhōngguó tèsè shèhuìzhǔyì) is a set of socio-political theories, socio-economic theories and policies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that are the application of Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese circumstances and specific time periods, consisting of Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, Three Represents (Jiang Zemin), Scientific Outlook on Development (Hu Jintao), and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

In this view, Xi Jinping Thought is considered to represent Marxist–Leninist policies suited for China's present condition while Deng Xiaoping Theory was considered relevant for the period when it was formulated. Ultimately they are still core elements of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

Mao Zedong Thought

Mao Zedong Thought (Simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; Pinyin: Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng) is a development of Marxism-Leninism adapted for the material conditions of China. Mao Zedong Thought was originally developed by Mao Zedong and other leading members within the CPC. Mao Zedong thought is ultimately the Sinicization of Marxism. The belief that the Party should adapt the basic principles of Marxism to China's reality. Marxism is the system of socialism with a scientific world outlook. It is a practical Marxist philosophy, with it being applied to the material conditions of China through it being sinicized.

New Democracy

The New Democracy (Chinese: 新民主主义; Pinyin:Xīn mínzhǔ zhǔyì) is a revolutionary form of government developed by Mao Zedong, based on the alliance of 4 progressive classes (the proletariat as the ideological core, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie) in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries. The goal of New Democracy is to advance to the dictatorship of the proletariat through the dictatorship of the 4 classes or the people's democratic dictatorship.

The Mass Line

The Mass Line (Simplified Chinese: 群众路线; Pinyin: qúnzhòng lùxiàn) is the political, organizational and leadership method developed by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China (CPC) during the Chinese revolution. The essential element of the mass line is consulting the masses, interpreting their suggestions within the framework of Marxism–Leninism, and then enforcing the resulting policies. It is a basic part of Mao Zedong Thought , one of the guiding ideologies of the Chinese Communist Party, and is declared by the Chinese Communist Party to be one of the three basic aspects of the "living soul" of Mao Zedong Thought. Summarized by Mao Zedong as "all for the masses, everything depends on the masses" and "from the masses, to the masses"

The Sinicization of Marxism

The Sinicization of Marxism (Chinese: 中国化马克思主义; Pinyin: Zhōngguó huà mǎkèsī zhǔyì) was formally put forward by Ai Siqi in April, 1938 and firmly put forward in 1941. The Sinicization of Marxism is simply applying dialectical materialism to China’s reality, develop the world outlook of dialectics and historical materialism on China’s own territory according to China’s own material conditions, so that it can become a way to create a New China.

In the process of Sinicization of Marxism, Mao Zedong’s philosophical thought and the philosophical thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics came into being. These two achievements play an important role in guiding China’s progress.

People's Democratic Dictatorship

People's democratic dictatorship (simplified Chinese: 人民民主专政; traditional Chinese: 人民民主專政; pinyin: Rénmín Mínzhǔ Zhuānzhèng) is a phrase incorporated into the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. The concept of people's democratic dictatorship is rooted in the "new" type of democracy promoted by Mao Zedong in Yan'an during the Chinese Civil War.

At its founding the PRC took the form of a people's democratic dictatorship. In the Chinese political framework, revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary activity distinguish "the people" from counter-revolutionaries. Within the PRC, the democracy includes united revolutionary classes and supportive political parties operating under the leadership of the CPC. It could include workers, peasants, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisie, and even national bourgeoisie who supported the revolutionary project.

Deng Xiaoping Theory

Deng Xiaoping Theory (Chinese: 邓小平理论; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng Lǐlùn) was formulated by the "Architect of Reform" Deng Xiaoping to better account for the socioeconomic conditions of China during the time period of him being party chairman.

The 4 Cardinal Principles

The Four Cardinal Principles (simplified Chinese: 四项基本原则; traditional Chinese: 四項基本原則; pinyin: Sì-xiàng Jīběn Yuánzé) were stated by Deng Xiaoping in March 1979, during the early phase of Reform and Opening-up, and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the People's Republic of China. The Four Cardinal Principles were one of Deng's Two Basic Points, the other of which was Reform and Opening.

The principles include:

1. The principle of upholding the communist path.
2. The principle of upholding the people's democratic dictatorship.
3. The principle of upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
4. The principle of upholding Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism–Leninism.

The 4 Modernizations

The Four Modernizations (simplified Chinese: 四个现代化; traditional Chinese: 四個現代化) namely the modernization of agriculture, science and technology, defense and industry, are the national strategic goals proposed by the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China from the 1950s to the 1960s. Zhou Enlai first put forward the concept of "four modernizations" in the "Government Work Report " made at the First Session of the Third National People's Congress in September 1954.  At the beginning of reform and opening up , Deng Xiaoping allowed the "four modernizations" to become the focus of the work of the party and the government.

Reform and Opening Up

Reform and opening-up (Chinese: 改革开放; pinyin: Gǎigé kāifàng) was proposed and founded by Deng Xiaoping , the second-generation paramount leader of the People's Republic of China . It was a series of economic-oriented reform measures that were implemented after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on December 18, 1978. It can be summarized as "Reform internally and open externally".

It was proposed in order to deal with the main problems the country faced at the time: namely a very poor population, the lack of an industrial base, and the lack of a large urban population (80% of the population lived in rural areas at the time). Deng Xiaoping saw that the country was still too underdeveloped to build Socialism where premature collectivization has brought antagonistic contradictions between the relations of production and the social character of the productive forces. The idea was proposed of implementing market policies in order to build the productive forces in order to eventually be able to build Socialism.

Primary stage of socialism

During the Mao era

The term "Primary Stage of Socialism" (Chinese: 社会主义初级阶段; Pinyin: Shèhuì zhǔyì chūjí jiēduàn) was only briefly mentioned by Chairman Mao, While discussing the necessity of commodity relations at the 1st Zhengzhou Conference held between 2 and 10 November 1958. He specifically mentioned the "initial stage of socialism"

After Mao's death

The term had been used by the CPC during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign of 1983 but had never been explained. After consulting with Deng Xiaoping, the theory of a primary stage of socialism was used as the theoretical basis of the Political Report to the 13th National Congress held in 1987. The theory focused mainly on developing the productive forces and took a highly economic deterministic view on developing socialism.

Despite certain pitfalls, the theory is still used to explain the use of capitalist techniques in China. The main aim of the theory was to reconceptualize socialism to make Marxism fit for contemporary use. Su and Zhang Xiangyang said the primary stage of socialism in China began in the 1950s when the CPC put an end to the policies of New Democracy and would last an estimated 100 years. The previous emphasis on economic equality in favour of economic growth was abandoned. Deng stated:

"Of the many lessons we have to sum up, a very important one is this: we should make clear what is socialism and how to build socialism ... The primary task of socialism is to develop production forces and to elevate the standard of the material and cultural life of the people. Our twenty years of experience from 1958 to 1976 have told us: poverty is not socialism, socialism is to eliminate poverty. It is not socialism to not develop production forces and raise the people's living standards."

By this point, Deng had equated upholding socialism with developing the level of the productive forces; the ideal of common equality was postponed until an unspecified time. Su and Zhang reached similar conclusions, saying that Marx had two goals when he wrote about the socialist future: a social system in which the productive forces developed and the individual would be granted a great chance of self-development.

However, developing the productive forces became the precondition for the greater self-learning of the individual through common equality; Su and Zhang said that the former would lead to the latter. The left were generally pleased with the theory, which was based upon orthodox Marxist premises. However, some people on the right considered the theory was proof that China needed to reintroduce capitalism to build socialism. Marx had written that socialism developed from capitalism, but China had skipped the capitalist mode of production and went from feudalism to socialism.

The 3 Represents

The Three Represents or the important thought of Three Represents (Chinese: 三个代表; Pinyin: Sān ge dàibiǎo) is a guiding socio-political theory within China credited to then-general secretary of the Communist Party of China, Jiang Zemin, which was ratified at the 16th Party Congress in 2002. The "Three Represents" defines the role of the CPC. Jiang Zemin first introduced his theory on 25 February 2000 while on an inspection tour in Maoming, Guangdong province.

Core Ideas

The important thought of "Three Represents" requires the Communist Party of China

• It must always represent the development requirements of China's advanced social productive forces
• It must always represent the direction of China's advanced culture
• We must always represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.

Main Content

1. Development is the party's top priority in governing and rejuvenating the country.
2. Establish a socialist market economic system.
3. Building a moderately prosperous society.
4. Build a socialist political civilization.
5. Promote the new great project of party building.

Justification of the Three Represents

The Communist Party of China believes that the "Three Represents" is the inheritance and development of Marxism-Leninism , Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory , reflecting the new requirements of the development and changes of the contemporary world and China for the work of the CPC. It is an important theoretical weapon to promote the self-improvement and development of socialism in China, and it is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China.

In Jiang's speech on the "Three Represents" on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, he claimed that the expansion of "working class" would help the party remain advanced as the vanguard of the working class by expanding its popular support and increasing its social influence. Jiang made a statement on the concept of the working class that it includes intellectuals:

“With intellectuals being part of the working class, the scientific, technical and educational level of the working class has been raised considerably... Consequently some workers have changed their jobs. But this has not changed the status of the Chinese working class. On the contrary, this will serve to improve the overall quality of the working class and give play to its advantages as a group in the long run. The Chinese working class has always been the basic force for promoting the advanced productive forces in China. Our Party must remain the vanguard of the working class and unswervingly and wholeheartedly rely on the working class.”

The Scientific Outlook on Development

The Scientific Outlook on Development (Chinese: 科学发展观; pinyin: Kēxué Fāzhǎn Guān) is one of the guiding socio-economic principles of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), credited to former Chinese leader Hu Jintao and his administration, who was in power from 2002 to 2012. The ideology was ratified into the CPC constitution at the 17th Party Congress in October 2007. It is lauded by the Chinese government as a successor and extension ideology to Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Three Represents.

Core Ideology

Humanism is at the center of the scientific development concept. The people-oriented concept is "to take the interests of the people as the starting point and end point of all work, to continuously meet people's multifaceted needs and promote the overall development of people." It includes 4 specific aspects:

• On the basis of economic development, continuously improve the people's material and cultural living standards and health standards
• Respect and protect human rights, including the political, economic and cultural rights of citizens
• Continuously improve people's ideological and moral quality, scientific and cultural quality and health quality
• Create a social environment where people develop equally and give full play to their intelligence

Socialist Harmonious Society

The Socialist Harmonious Society (Chinese: 和谐社会; pinyin: héxié shèhuì) , is a strategic goal of social development proposed by the Communist Party of China in 2004 , which refers to a harmonious and harmonious social state in which all classes work together. On September 19, 2004, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , the concept of “persisting in mobilizing all positive factors in the broadest and most complete way, and continuously improving the ability to build a harmonious socialist society ” was formally put forward

The formulation of a harmonious society aims to point out the common interests accepted by all walks of life for the confused direction of reform. Prior to this, people repeatedly debated between "fairness" and "efficiency". There is no doubt that at the beginning of the reform and opening up , the CPC’s policy was to “prioritize efficiency and give consideration to fairness.” As a result, while achieving construction achievements, social injustice occurred, and the problem has hindered the deepening of reform.

Harmonious society is quite specific to the current Chinese society. The equalization of basic public services including education, medical care, social security and other social hotspots , as well as the system of guaranteeing democratic rights and widening channels for the expression of social conditions and public opinions are the specific contents of the theory of harmonious society.

The 8 Honors and 8 Shames

The 8 Honors and 8 Shames (simplified Chinese: 八荣八耻; pinyin: bā róng bā chǐ) is a set of concepts and guidelines put in place by Hu Jintao, used to measure the work, conduct and attitude of Chinese citizens and CPC members.

The 8 Honors and 8 Shames are as follows:

1. Love your nation; do it no harm.
2. Serve the people; never betray them
3. Follow science; discard superstition
4. Be diligent; not indolent
5. Be united and help each other; make no gains at another's expense
6. Be honest and trustworthy; do not sacrifice ethics for profit
7. Be disciplined and law-abiding; not chaotic and lawless
8. Live plainly, work hard; do not wallow in luxuries and pleasures.

The Party stressed Hu's list of eight honors and disgraces in the resolutions, saying that these virtues including patriotism, professional dedication and honesty should be further promoted and government, business and social credibility should be enhanced.

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Age

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era (Simplified Chinese:习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想; Pinyin: Xíjìnpíng xīn shídài zhōngguó tèsè shèhuì zhǔyì sīxiǎng) is a further socio-political formulation of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It is the successor of Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping theory, The 3 Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development.

The 14 Point Program

The concepts behind Xi Jinping Thought were elaborated in Xi's The Governance of China book series, published by the Foreign Languages Press for an international audience. Volume one was published in September 2014, followed by volume two in November 2017, followed by volume three in June 2020.

1. Ensuring Communist Party of China leadership over all forms of work in China.
2. The Communist Party of China should take a people-centric approach for the public interest.
3. The continuation of "comprehensive deepening of reforms".
4. Adopting new science-based ideas for "innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development".
5. Following "socialism with Chinese characteristics" with "people as the masters of the country".
6. Governing China with the Rule of Law.
7. "Practise socialist core values", including Marxism-Leninism and socialism with Chinese characteristics.
8. "Improving people's livelihood and well-being is the primary goal of development".
9. Coexist well with nature with "energy conservation and environmental protection" policies and "contribute to global ecological safety".
10. Strengthen the national security of China.
11. The Communist Party of China should have "absolute leadership over" China's People's Liberation Army.
12. Promoting the one country, two systems system for Hong Kong and Macau with a future of "complete national reunification" and to follow the One-China principle and 1992 Consensus for Taiwan.
13. Establish a common destiny between the Chinese people and other peoples around the world with a "peaceful international environment".
14. Improve party discipline in the Communist Party of China.

The Four Comprehensives

The Four Comprehensives, or the Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy (Chinese: 四个全面战略布局) is a list of political goals for China, put forward by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2014. They are:

1. Comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society
2. Comprehensively deepen reform
3. Comprehensively govern the nation according to law
4. Comprehensively strictly govern the Party.

The Two Establishes and the Two Safeguards

Two Establishes (Chinese: 两个确立; Pinyin: Liǎng gè quèlì ) and Two Safeguards (Chinese: 两个维护; Pinyin: Liǎng gè wéihù) are two political slogans promoted by the CPC to reinforce Comrade Xi Jinping's tenure. According to the CPC historical resolution, the Two Establishes are:

1. "To establish the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Party’s Central Committee and of the whole Party"
2. "To establish the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era"

According to the Sixth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, the Two Safeguards are:

1. "Safeguard the 'core' status of General Secretary Xi Jinping within the CPC"
2. "To safeguard the centralized authority of the Party"

During the 20th National Congress of the CPC, the Two Safeguards was added to the CPC Constitution.

Chinese Dream

The Chinese Dream (simplified Chinese: 中国梦; traditional Chinese: 中國夢; pinyin: Zhōngguó Mèng) is a term closely associated with Xi Jinping which conveys the aspirations of China to rejuvenate itself and become a moderately prosperous society. Xi began promoting the phrase as a slogan during a high-profile tour of an exhibit at the National Museum of China in November 2012, shortly after he became leader of the CPC.

Socialist market economy

Socialist market economy (Chinese: 社会主义市场经济; Pinyin: Shèhuìzhǔyì Shìchǎng Jīngjì) is the official term of the government of the People's Republic of China for the economic system implemented in the country. It was first proposed by Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , in the report of the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1992. It is an important policy of reform and opening up, being a core part of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

The system is a market economy with the predominance of public ownership and state-owned enterprises. Originating in the Chinese economic reforms initiated in 1978 that integrated China into the global market economy, the socialist market economy represents a preliminary or "primary stage" of developing socialism.

Ideological justification

The ideological justification behind China's economic reforms is that China's primary contradiction was not proletariat vs bourgeoisie. Instead it was how to build socialism with underdeveloped productive forces. The answer was inspired by Lenin's NEP: where the markets are controlled by the Communist Party of China. The goal is to modernize the productive forces, to enable the building of higher stage Socialism. This is not a "betrayal" of Socialism or Mao. Far from it, in fact. The economic progress in China has been hailed as "miraculous" around the globe, as it is the fastest growing economy in the history of human civilization.

The Socialist Market Economy is a method of resolving the primary contradiction of China during its implementation

The Chinese revolution in 1949 was a tremendous achievement for the international communist movement. Led by Mao Zedong, the Communist Party of China (CPC) immediately charted a course of socialist reconstruction in an economy ravaged by centuries of dynastic feudalism and imperial subjugation from both Europe and Japan. The CPC launched incredible campaigns designed at engaging the masses in constructing socialism and building an economy that could meet the needs of China’s giant population. One can never overstate the incredible achievements of the Chinese masses during this period, in which the average life expectancy in China rose from 35 years in 1949 to 63 years by Mao’s death in 1976.

Despite the vast social benefits brought about by the revolution, China’s productive forces remained grossly underdeveloped and left the country vulnerable to famines and other natural disasters. Uneven development persisted between the countryside and the cities, and the Sino-Soviet split cut China off from the rest of the socialist bloc. These serious obstacles led the CPC, with Deng Xiaoping at the helm, to identify China’s underdeveloped productive forces as the primary contradiction facing socialist construction. In a March 1979 speech at a CPC forum entitled “Uphold the Four Cardinal Principles,” Deng outlines the two features of this contradiction:

"First, we are starting from a weak base. The damage inflicted over a long period by the forces of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism reduced China to a state of poverty and backwardness."

While he grants that “since the founding of the People’s Republic we have achieved signal successes in economic construction, established a fairly comprehensive industrial system,” Deng reiterates that China is nevertheless “one of the world’s poor countries.” The second feature of this contradiction is that China has “a large population but not enough arable land.” Deng explains the severity of this contradiction:

"When production is insufficiently developed, it poses serious problems with regard to food, education and employment. We must greatly increase our efforts in family planning; but even if the population does not grow for a number of years, we will still have a population problem for a certain period. Our vast territory and rich natural resources are big assets. But many of these resources have not yet been surveyed and exploited, so they do not constitute actual means of production. Despite China’s vast territory, the amount of arable land is limited, and neither this fact nor the fact that we have a large, mostly peasant population can be easily changed."

Unlike in industrialized Western countries, the primary contradiction facing China was not between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie–the proletariat and its party had already overthrown the bourgeoisie in the 1949 revolution–but rather between China’s enormous population and its underdeveloped productive forces. While well-intended and ambitious, campaigns like the Great Leap Forward would continue to fall short of raising the Chinese masses out of poverty without revolutionizing the country’s productive forces.

From this contradiction, Deng proposed a policy of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” with the reintroduction of markets which would be later known as the Socialist Market Economy

After Mao’s death in 1976 and the end of the Cultural Revolution a year later, the CPC ,under the leadership of Chairman Deng Xiaoping, launched an aggressive campaign of modernizing the underdeveloped productive forces in China. Known as the four modernizations–economic, agricultural, scientific & technological, and defensive–the CPC began experimenting with models for achieving these revolutionary changes.

Modernization wasn’t something extraneous to socialist construction in China. In the wake of the Great Leap Forward and the turbulent unrest of the Cultural Revolution, the CPC understood that building lasting socialism required a modernized industrial base. Without such a base, the Chinese masses would continue to live at the mercy of natural disasters and imperialist manipulation. Deng outlined this goal in an October 1978 speech before the Ninth National Congress of Chinese Trade Unions:

The Central Committee points out that this is a great revolution in which China’s economic and technological backwardness will be overcome and the dictatorship of the proletariat further consolidated.

Deng continues by describing the necessity of re-examining China’s method of economic organization:

"Since its goal is to transform the present backward state of our productive forces, it inevitably entails many changes in the relations of production, the superstructure and the forms of management in industrial and agricultural enterprises, as well as changes in the state administration over these enterprises so as to meet the needs of modern large-scale production. To accelerate economic growth it is essential to increase the degree of specialization of enterprises, to raise the technical level of all personnel significantly and train and evaluate them carefully, to greatly improve economic accounting in the enterprises, and to raise labour productivity and rates of profit to much higher levels. Therefore, it is essential to carry out major reforms in the various branches of the economy with respect to their structure and organization as well as to their technology. The long-term interests of the whole nation hinge on these reforms, without which we cannot overcome the present backwardness of our production technology and management."

These proposed reforms launched the socialist market economy in China. Beginning with the division of the Great Leap Forward-era People’s Communes into smaller private plots of land, the socialist market economy was first applied to China’s agricultural sector to boost food production. From the 1980s to around 1992, the Chinese state delegated greater authority to local governments and converted some small and medium sized industries into businesses, who were subject to regulations and direction from the CPC.

Since the implementation of the socialist market economy, China has experienced unprecedented economic expansion, growing faster than every other economy in the world. Deng’s socialist market economy decisively lifted the Chinese masses out of systemic poverty and established the country as an economic giant whose power arguably exceeds the largest imperialist economies of the West.

The Socialist Market Economy in China is a Marxist-Leninist tool that is crucial to socialist construction.

While Deng’s concept and implementation of market socialism is a significant contribution to Marxism-Leninism, it’s not without precedent. Proletarian revolution has historically broken out in the countries where the chains of imperialism are the weakest. One of the uniting characteristics of these countries is backwards productive forces; underdeveloped because of decades of colonial and imperial subjugation. Far from the first instance of communists using markets to lay an industrial foundation for socialism, China’s socialist market economy has its roots in the New Economic Policy (NEP) of the Bolsheviks.

Facing similar levels of underdevelopment and social unrest, the Bolsheviks implemented the NEP, which allowed small business owners and peasants to sell commodities on a limited market. Designed and implemented by Lenin in 1921, the NEP was the successor to Trotsky’s policy of war communism, which prioritized militarizing agricultural and industrial production to combat the reactionary White forces. Because of their economically backward material conditions, peasants overwhelmingly resisted war communism, which resulted in food shortages for the Red Army. Correctly perceiving the importance of forging a strong alliance between the peasantry and the urban working class, Lenin crafted the NEP as a means of modernizing Russia’s rural countryside through market mechanisms.

In a piece explaining the role of trade unions in the NEP, Lenin succinctly describes the essence of the concept that would later inspire the socialist market economy:

The New Economic Policy introduces a number of important changes in the position of the proletariat and, consequently, in that of the trade unions. The great bulk of the means of production in industry and the transport system remains in the hands of the proletarian state. This, together with the nationalisation of the land, shows that the New Economic Policy does not change the nature of the workers’ state, although it does substantially alter the methods and forms of socialist development for it permits of economic rivalry between socialism, which is now being built, and capitalism, which is trying to revive by supplying the needs of the vast masses of the peasantry through the medium of the market.

Lenin acknowledges that the introduction of markets into the Soviet economy does nothing to fundamentally alter the proletarian character of the state. More provocatively, however, is his characterization of the Soviet economy as an “economic rivalry between socialism, which is now being built, and capitalism.” According to Lenin, capitalist relations of production can exist within and compete with socialism without changing the class orientation of a proletarian state. Recall that Deng argued that implementing market reforms was essential to modernizing China’s productive forces and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin would have agreed wholeheartedly with Deng’s assessment, as articulated in an April 1921 article entitled “The Tax in Kind.” Lenin writes:

"Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution. We Marxists have always spoken of this, and it is not worth while wasting two seconds talking to people who do not understand even this (anarchists and a good half of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries)."

The ideological roots of Deng’s market socialism go back farther than Lenin, however. In an August 1980 interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, she asks Deng if market reforms in rural areas “put in discussion communism itself?” Deng responds:

"According to Marx, socialism is the first stage of communism and it covers a very long historical period in which we must practise the principle “to each according to his work” and combine the interests of the state, the collective and the individual, for only thus can we arouse people’s enthusiasm for labour and develop socialist production. At the higher stage of communism, when the productive forces will be greatly developed and the principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” will be practised, personal interests will be acknowledged still more and more personal needs will be satisfied."

Deng’s answer is a reference to Marx’s 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. Marx describes the process of socialist construction in terms of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ stages:

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it... But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."

Public and non-public ownership

It is a common issue of debate regarding Socialism with Chinese Characteristics that China has allowed for private ownership to resurge within China. The so-called ‘privatization’ of small and medium-sized state industries in the mid-1990s and early 2000’s provoked an outcry from Western communists, claiming that this represented the final victory of capitalism in China. Here will be a few key arguments deconstructing that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has not abandoned Socialism.

The Communist Party of China's continued leadership and control of China’s market economy is central to Chinese socialism.

In a May 2009, Derrick Scissors of the Heritage Foundation lays the issue to rest in an article called “Liberalization in Reverse.” He writes:

"Examining what companies are truly private is important because privatization is often confused with the spreading out of shareholding and the sale of minority stakes. In China, 100 percent state ownership is often diluted by the division of ownership into shares, some of which are made available to nonstate actors, such as foreign companies or other private investors. Nearly two-thirds of the state-owned enterprises and subsidiaries in China have undertaken such changes, leading some foreign observers to relabel these firms as “nonstate” or even “private.” But this reclassification is incorrect. The sale of stock does nothing by itself to alter state control: dozens of enterprises are no less state controlled simply because they are listed on foreign stock exchanges. As a practical matter, three-quarters of the roughly 1,500 companies listed as domestic stocks are still state owned. "

While the so-called ‘privatization’ process of allows some private ownership, whether domestic or foreign, Scissors makes clear that this is a far cry from real privatization, as occurs in the United States and other capitalist countries. The state, headed by the CPC, retains a majority stake in the company and guides the company’s path. More striking are the industries that remain firmly under state control, which are those industries most essential to the welfare of the Chinese masses. Scissors continues:

"No matter their shareholding structure, all national corporations in the sectors that make up the core of the Chinese economy are required by law to be owned or controlled by the state. These sectors include power generation and distribution; oil, coal, petrochemicals, and natural gas; telecommunications; armaments; Aviation and shipping; machinery and automobile production; information technologies; construction; and the production of iron, steel, and nonferrous metals. The railroads, grain distribution, and insurance are also dominated by the state, even if no official edict says so."

No capitalist country in the history of the world has ever had state control over all of these industries. In countries like the United States or France, certain industries like railroads and health insurance may have state ownership, but it falls drastically short of dominating the industry. The importance of this widespread state ownership is that the essential aspects of the Chinese economy are run by the state headed by a party whose orientation is towards the working class and peasantry. Particularly damaging to the China-as-state-capitalist argument is the status of banks and the Chinese financial system. Scissors elaborates:

"the state exercises control over most of the rest of the economy through the financial system, especially the banks. By the end of 2008, outstanding loans amounted to almost $5 trillion, and annual loan growth was almost 19 percent and accelerating; lending, in other words, is probably China’s principal economic force. The Chinese state owns all the large financial institutions, the People’s Bank of China assigns them loan quotas every year, and lending is directed according to the state’s priorities."

The People’s Bank of China (PBC) highlights one of the most important ways in which the CPC uses the market system to control private capital and subordinate it to socialism. Far from functioning as a capitalist national bank, which prioritizes facilitating the accumulation of capital by the bourgeoisie, “this system frustrates private borrowers.” The CPC floods the market with public bonds, which has a crowding-out effect on private corporate bonds that firms use to raise independent capital. By harnessing supply and demand in the bond market, the PBC prevents private firms, domestic or foreign, from accumulating capital independently of socialist management. Although modern China has an expansive market system, the CPC uses the market to both secure and advance socialism. Rather than privatizing major industries, as is often alleged by detractors, the state maintains a vibrant system of socialist public ownership that prevents the rise of an independent bourgeoisie. Deng talked specifically about this very deliberate system in the same interview with Fallaci:

"No matter to what degree we open up to the outside world and admit foreign capital, its relative magnitude will be small and it can’t affect our system of socialist public ownership of the means of production. Absorbing foreign capital and technology and even allowing foreigners to construct plants in China can only play a complementary role to our effort to develop the productive forces in a socialist society."

Western analysts seem to believe that the CPC has accomplished this goal. The capitalist Australia-based Center for Independent Studies (CIS) published a July 2008 article that says that those who think that China is becoming a capitalist country “misunderstand the structure of the Chinese economy, which largely remains a state-dominated system rather than a free-market one.” The article elaborates:

"By strategically controlling economic resources and remaining the primary dispenser of economic opportunity and success in Chinese society, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building institutions and supporters that seem to be entrenching the Party’s monopoly on power. Indeed, in many ways, reforms and the country’s economic growth have actually enhanced the CCP’s ability to remain in power. Rather than being swept away by change, the CCP is in many ways its agent and beneficiary."

While the CIS goes on to discuss about the lack of economic and political freedoms in China, Marxist-Leninists should read between the lines and know the truth: China isn’t capitalist, the CPC isn’t pursuing capitalist development, and the Socialist Market Economy has succeeded in laying the material foundation for ‘higher socialism’.

The Socialist Market Economy and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has allowed China to rise to unprecedented economic heights

While the Great Leap Forward was an ambitious attempt at laying the industrial foundation necessary to build socialism, the facts are in: China’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 1960, after the GLF, was $59.72 billion. In 2009, China’s GDP sits at 5,101 billion, making it the second largest economy in the world. In other words, the modern Chinese economy is about 89 times the size of its economy following the Great Leap Forward, which was previously the largest socialist economic overhaul in Chinese history.

Ironically, Capitalists admire yet despise the success of the Socialist Market Economy. They hate China's commitment to socialism but cannot deny its success. Scissors admits in the same Heritage foundation article that "between June 2002 and June 2008, China's GDP more than tripled and it's exports more than quadrupled" He also states

"This rapid GDP growth has created jobs: by the end of June 2008, the unemployment rate among registered urban voters was a mere four percent — even lower than the government’s ambitious target of 4.5 percent. That figure may understate true joblessness by ignoring rural and unregistered urban employment, but it accurately reflects trends in the broader job situation. So many migrant workers from rural areas were absorbed into the urban labor force that the 20 million such workers reported to have lost their jobs in late 2008 still left well over 100 million rural migrants with jobs in cities."

That China can essentially guarantee full employment for workers highlights another way in which the CPC uses markets to advance socialism. In addition to achieving de facto full employment, “Urban wages have climbed significantly, by 18 percent between 2007 and 2008,” representing serious material gains for the Chinese working class.

The successful elevation of China as a modern industrial economy has laid the basis for ‘higher’ forms of socialist economic organization.

The market is not a mode of production; rather, the market is a form of economic organization. Deng explains this distinction well in a lecture series he gave in 1992. He states:

"The proportion of planning to market forces is not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not equivalent to socialism, because there is planning under capitalism too; a market economy is not capitalism, because there are markets under socialism too. Planning and market forces are both means of controlling economic activity."

Markets are neither capitalist nor socialist, just as economic planning is neither capitalist nor socialist. Both of these forms of economic organization are just tools in the toolbox, and in some situations, markets are a useful tool for socialist construction. For 30 years, the CPC has successfully used markets as a tool for revolutionizing the country’s productive forces. Precisely because of this success, the state is rapidly moving towards more advanced forms of socialist industrial organization to replace the market mechanism. Markets under socialism was first implemented in the agricultural industry with the same aim as Lenin’s NEP: to aggressively expand and modernize food production. However, the CPC introduced markets as a tool to build socialism, rather than as a permanent functioning mode of economic organization. This is a very important distinction because it means that Deng and the CPC viewed market reforms as a transient form of ‘lower socialism’, to borrow a term from Marx, that they would replace with collectivized agriculture after the material conditions changed. Deng explains this in a talk delivered to the Central Committee in May 1980. Entitled “On Questions of Rural Policy,” Deng addresses concerns about contemporary market reforms to the agricultural sector:

"It is certain that as long as production expands, division of labour increases and the commodity economy develops, lower forms of collectivization in the countryside will develop into higher forms and the collective economy will acquire a firmer basis. The key task is to expand the productive forces and thereby create conditions for the further development of collectivization."

Deng understood that building a socialist agricultural economy capable of meeting the needs of China’s enormous population required developing the productive forces in the countryside, which markets could accomplish. Only after revolutionizing the productive forces of the entire country could the material basis for a full-scale collective economy–‘higher socialism’–exist.

Mao said that “Practice is the criterion of truth,” and after 30 years of practice, Deng’s statements have come true. In 2006, the CPC announced a revolutionary overhaul of the Chinese countryside and pledged to use China’s newly acquired wealth to transform rural areas into what President Hu Jintao calls a “new socialist countryside.”

Even today, most of China’s population remains in rural sections of the country, but the application of modern farming techniques and mechanized agricultural practices have generated a net surplus of grain production in China. Among this new policy’s many provisions, China’s new rural policy promises “sustained increases in farmers’ incomes, more industrial support for agriculture and faster development of public services.” Additional provisions allow peasant students to “receive free textbooks and boarding subsidies,” and the state will “increase subsidies for rural health cooperatives.”

Massive state investment in agricultural infrastructure is “a significant shift away from the previous focus on economic development.” Because of the success of modernization, “greater weight will be given to the redistribution of resources and a rebalancing of income.” Instead of viewing market socialism as an end in itself, the CPC has harnessed the market as a means to generating an industrial base sufficient to build ‘higher socialism’. China’s extraordinary GDP growth and technological development via market socialism makes it possible to implement these sweeping revolutionary changes.

On health care, Austin Ramzy of TIME Magazine reported in April 2009 that “China is laying out plans to dramatically reform its health care system by expanding coverage for hundreds of millions of farmers, migrant workers and city residents.” These plans consist of spending “$125 billion over the next three years building thousands of clinics and hospitals and expanding basic health care coverage to 90% of the population.” Rather than a reversal of the Deng-era reforms, China’s move back towards public health care is the logical progression of the more modernized and expansive health care system achieved through 30 years of market socialism.

As foreign capital entered China, the corporations of imperialist countries–attracted by China’s vast labor pool–exploited some Chinese workers through capitalist relations of production. The exploitative behavior of foreign corporations constitutes a major contradiction in the Chinese economy that the CPC has taken concerted steps towards resolving. While all people in China retain access to essential goods and services like food and health care, the CPC places restrictions on foreign corporations’ ability to operate in China that severely curtail their politico-economic power in China.

Far from abandoning Chinese workers in the pursuit of modernization, the CPC announced the Draft Labor Contract Law in 2006 to protect the rights of workers employed by foreign corporations by ensuring severance pay and outlawing the non-contract labor that makes sweatshops possible. Viciously opposed by Wal-Mart and other Western companies, “foreign corporations are attacking the legislation not because it provides workers too little protection but because it provides them too much.” Nevertheless, the Draft Labor Contract Law, which “required employers to contribute to their employees’ social security accounts and set wage standards for workers on probation and overtime,” was enacted in January 2008.

The recent series of labor disputes between Chinese workers and foreign corporations testify to the working class orientation of the Chinese state. In response to widespread strikes at Western factories and manufacturing plants, the CPC undertook an aggressive policy of empowering Chinese workers and backing their demands for higher wages. Beijing’s regional government raised the minimum wage twice in six months, including a 21% increase in late 2010. In April of 2011, the CPC announced annualized 15% wage increases with “promises to double workers’ wages during the 12th five-year plan that lasts from 2011 to 2015.”

Dramatic increases in wages and benefits for Chinese workers, particularly migrant workers, is a serious blow to foreign corporations and makes China a decisively less attractive hub of cheap labor for foreign investors. Contrary to the actions of a capitalist state in the face of labor unrest, which generally consists of petty reforms or brutal repression, China’s response is to launch an offensive against the hoarding of wealth by foreign corporations by forcing them to pay substantially higher wages.

The state is an instrument of class oppression. Bourgeois states reluctantly give the working class reforms, like minimum wage, when no other course of action is possible. Their orientation is towards improving conditions for the bourgeoisie and subordinating labor to capital. Proletarian states boldly support and immediately respond to the collective demands of the workers because they constitute the ruling class in the society. Greater willingness by the CPC to confront and attack foreign capital in the interests of the working class is the deliberate product of market socialism’s success in developing China’s productive forces. Having resolved the primary contradiction–backwards productive forces–the CPC is breaking ground on the contradiction between foreign capital and labor.

Turning to the macroeconomic situation, China’s application of market socialism has led to serious disparities in income. While undoubtedly a defect of ‘lower socialism’, the Chinese state takes this contradiction very seriously and announced an unprecedented government spending campaign in March 2011 aimed at closing the income gap. By increasing public spending by 12.5% in 2012, the CPC will allocate enormous government resources “for education, job creation, low-income housing, health care, and pensions and other social insurance.” Far from a move designed to placate any social unrest, this monumental boost in social spending demonstrates the Chinese state’s continued proletarian and peasant class orientation.

A correct position on China requires above all else a holistic examination of the country’s economy placed within the context of the CPC’s path towards modernization. Focusing too narrowly on China’s market economy and its defects clouds the most important facts, which is that the working class and peasantry still rule China through the CCP and the success of modernization via the market economy has paved the way for ‘higher socialism’.

See also

Reform and Opening Up