Marxists, please explain China.

[orange]

Yeah, but most of them hewed closer to at least the theory theory of Marxism than China.

Of course, but I would say that the vast majority of "Marxist States" were barely in the ballpark of understanding and implementing Marxism...China included (though certainly China is one of the worst examples of true Marxism, both then and now)

[chequita guevara]

I'll come back to deal with this thread later.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boshko
2. After getting thumped badly in the cities in the Nationalists the CCP went rural in a big way and based itself on the peasantry for well over a decade.

That's not correct. Mao himself led an uprising in Nanchang in 1928 IIRC, but he led the army to a nearby mountain range to establish the first "liberated area."

Originally posted by Boshko
The CCP didn't get its hand on any real cities again until it started making gains in Manchuria in the Civil War which took place after WWII.

That's not correct, either. In fact the CCP was controlling most of the NW, but they got booted out of the major cities in the NE (Manchuria).

Originally posted by Boshko
This squared well with Maoist in which "proletariat" was translated to mean "person without property" rather than industrial worker, which allowed the masses of the poor peasantry to be counted as the proletariat (which would make Marx, or Lenin for that matter, roll over in their graves since for them urban industrial workers were the only group a proper communist revolution could be based on).

Not exactly. Mao was adapting the Marxist theory to China, as he knew that there's no way workers alone could overthrow the KMT regime. He recruited the peasants to be the basis of the revolution even though he held that only workers had enough class awareness to lead.

Originally posted by Boshko
3. The CCP was always intensely nationalistic from the beginning, it was pretty much founded on nationalistic resistance to the Japanese.

Nope. The CCP was founded in 1921 in Shanghai.

Originally posted by Boshko
This continued with intense zenophobia during the years in which Mao was in power and lots of silly attempts at "self-sufficiency" that were completely un-Marxist.

I am not aware that Marx was advocating free trade.

Originally posted by Boshko
Also in Maoist theory there is the idea of proletarianized nations (ie that by having imperialistic nations exploiting third world nations whole nations become bourgeoise and proletariat respectively) which is completely at odds with traditional Marxism.

What?

Originally posted by Boshko
4. Mao never had as much use for the Communist Party apparatus as Marx or (especially) Lenin. He generally preferred emtpy-headed mouthings about the masses. The Cultural Revolution is the best example of this, in which Mao tried to shake up a party that he viewed as having grown ossified and too narrowly involved in material conditions and launched the Red Guards at them (although the Cultural Revolution is a lot more complicated than that, largely due to Mao not being completely control of the events and very indecisive).

The Cultural Revolution is a bad example because there are more theories about it than you can shake a stick at. Okay, maybe not that many, but the thing is there does not seem to be a dominant explanation for the whole mess.

Originally posted by Boshko
6. Mao was a damn good organizer of guerilla war but his attempts at theorizing outside that realm are really pretty juvenile, I doubt very much that he understud a lot of the nuances of Marxist theory all that well.

You sure? Last I checked his writings consisted of many volumes.

[Whoha]

Marx does infact advocate free trade:

"Karl Marx 1848: 'The Protective system...is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.'"

http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/classwar.html

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'll come back to deal with this thread later.

That means there is some serious clarification in order.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Whoha
Marx does infact advocate free trade:

"Karl Marx 1848: 'The Protective system...is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.'"

http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/classwar.html

Free Trade creates a world system and facilitates the union of workers.

[Bosh]

That's not correct. Mao himself led an uprising in Nanchang in 1928 IIRC, but he led the army to a nearby mountain range to establish the first "liberated area."

Right, that was before "getting thumped badly in the cities."

In fact the CCP was controlling most of the NW

There wasn't much of anything in the way of cities in the Yan'an region (or in the southern Soviets from which the Long March was launched). And the commies didn't hold onto any real cities in the early bit of the civil war for long enough for it to matter until they got their hands on Harbin, IIRC. The simple fact that is when the PRC was established the fast majority of the communist cadres were from rural backgrounds.

Mao was adapting the Marxist theory to China, as he knew that there's no way workers alone could overthrow the KMT regime.

If he was an orthodox Marxist he would have known that China had no business having a communist revolution (ie the Menshevik line). Hell even in Russia were the proletariat were a distinct minority there were enough of them to provide the backbone of the communist strength, while they were nothing of the sort in China.

he held that only workers had enough class awareness to lead

Which didn't happen.

Nope. The CCP was founded in 1921 in Shanghai.

In a girl's school in the International Concession, I know. But even then the Japanese weren't too popular (1895) and the communists only started gathering real strength when anti-Japanese ideas became really central and this remained a central thing right on through (Second United Front etc.).

I am not aware that Marx was advocating free trade.

I was not aware that Marx ever advocated anything other than internationalism.

What?

Basic Maoist idea. The colonial nations exploit the colonized nations en masse making it a sort of bourgeoise/proletariat relationship on a national scale. However, from what I've seen non-Chinese Maoist movements concentrate on these sorts of ideas more, specifically the Maoist International Movement whose newspaper I recommended above as a good source of humor. But this sort of thinking was definately present in Mao's own thinking, I can dig up some quotes if you want.

but the thing is there does not seem to be a dominant explanation for the whole mess

Right, but Mao never trusted the party to nearly the extent that, say, Lenin did. Too much meglomania and primitive populism in Mao's makeup.

Last I checked his writings consisted of many volumes.

Quantity =! quality. I've read a collection of his works, the stuff that had anything to do with guerilla warfare were excellent and very insightful the rest weren't of much use and didn't display any really deep thinking.

And keep in mind that I don't have that much more use for orthodox Marxism than I do for Maoism.

Oh and:


7. All that ridiculousness about proper class backgrounds in which people were discriminated against according to the class of their parents (although China didn't take this to anywhere near the extent that North Korea took it, where its become almost a quasi-caste system).

[orange]

Quantity =! quantity

it's a paradox!

[Whoha]

Thats not the case though, worker bargaining power is pretty much gone here in the US.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'll come back to deal with this thread later.

Go deal with your Pizza Pop, instead.

Nobody wants to hear your selective babble on why China kinda sorta barely resembles Communism via five whole bold header paragraphs.

[Sandman]

China's successful transition to capitalism was, in part, helped by the socialist aspects of the country. The literacy and healthcare rates were far in advance of India (the nearest comparable country), and these helped China to be competitive on the world market. The Chinese revolution also saw the end of tenant farming, and when collectivisation was finally ended in the early eighties, every peasant was given a small plot of land, helping to increase the average wealth.

Although we can't ignore the twin examples of supreme misgovernment, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Ironically, the CCP is both the greatest villain and the greatest hero of the twentieth century.

[Sava]

No, China was/is not Marxism or true Communism.

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Sandman
China's successful transition to capitalism was, in part, helped by the socialist aspects of the country. [...]and when collectivisation was finally ended in the early eighties, every peasant was given a small plot of land, helping to increase the average wealth.

And here, a good example on how one can make people seem quite stupid and self-contradictional with the help of more or less arbitrary cutting and pasting.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Sandman
China's successful transition to capitalism was, in part, helped by the socialist aspects of the country. The literacy and healthcare rates were far in advance of India (the nearest comparable country), and these helped China to be competitive on the world market. The Chinese revolution also saw the end of tenant farming, and when collectivisation was finally ended in the early eighties, every peasant was given a small plot of land, helping to increase the average wealth.

Although we can't ignore the twin examples of supreme misgovernment, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Ironically, the CCP is both the greatest villain and the greatest hero of the twentieth century.

Sandman, even though you and I rarely, if ever, agree, I do agree with this post. Post Mao China is a wonder to behold.

[Ned]

Che, we are still wait to hear your views on this issue.