From Engels to Lenin to Mao, all have expressed their sheer repulsion towards dogmatism. Mao has even written one text after another and spoken in multiple meetings about battling this problem in the party. He, along with other materialists, has made it clear that the Markets are a historical category that have existed since before capitalism. Capitalism =/= Commerce.
Then how is it some Marxists who claim to have read theory call China capitalist and label its supporters as ‘Dengists’? Socialists created the fastest growing economy ever observed in human history that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty. And now these dogmatists wanna give its credit to capitalism!?
Their entire prejudice is based on the misconception that Deng Xioping did not follow on Mao’s thoughts. Deng literally heeded Maoist ideas such as “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend” and “The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant”. He built the productive forces for the Chinese people based on—not in spite of—the continuing influence of Mao Zedong’s ideology. Now Xi Jingping is continuing both of their legacies.
So people who make such non-materialist and often times liberal critique of the Chinese economy have either not read theory or did not develop any dialectical and historical materialism to understand the theory!
As Marxists and materialists, it is our responsibility to confront these reductionist elements in our movement and bring back the pendulum at its correct course when it swings too much to either sides; right-wing revisionism or left-wing dogmatism.
“No investigation, no right to speak.” - Mao Zedong
Do you have a successful socialist project?
I think China is as close as we can get in its context.
Edit: I also don’t appreciate the way you just responded with a bait level answer. I think this space lacks analytical debate on China. The fact you think you “got me” is funny to me, as I have studied chinese development for the past few years and have found no contemporary equivalent to its successful policies in practice. Therefore, it is the closest to socialism I personally can envision in the current real-political situation. But I argue that this is a result of the limits of both this context and of chinese errors. Do I think things could be done better? Yes. Do I think supporting the PRC is essentialy correct? Yes.
No no no, I am not trying to bait. I seriously want you to do better! I want more socialist projects to pop off that are closer to Marxist principles. Because if we don’t build better and more successful AES projects, we have no right to tell people of one nation on how they should ‘pursue socialism’. Especially a country that had the largest illiterate and the poorest population on earth at the start of its socialist state.
I understand your angle. I think, however, that you persistently mistakenly believe that I am “telling” anyone on “how to pursue socialism”. I believe that you have me for a reactionary, and that what you are basically telling me is: abandon marxist analysis for the sake of critical support.
I already “support” the PRC, as far as anyone that isn’t a Chinese national and lives thousands of km away can. It is an abstract, fetishistic support, and I recognize it as such. I still offer it, because I recognize the mobilization power of “debunking”.
But, my attempt is to do marxist analysis. Whether I support the PRC or whether I would hate them, it means nothing. Not to the chinese, not to the party. What I am trying to abstract are the lessons of governance we can take from china’s development. It is, afterall, each nation’s problematic that takes the forefront when pursuing a revolution. Each nation has their fundamental contradiction, their secondary contradictions. Studying China helps us, by analysing their contradictions, to navigate our own.
We cannot abandon criticism. Do you believe Mao had no right to criticize Stalin’s writings on the economic problems of the USSR? If yoh see this through a prism of debatelordism, yes, it can appear as detraction. In practice, this is the essence of marxist analysis.
So, the fact you still approach me as if I were a detractor is confusing to me. Particularily in light of your readings of Mao’s essays, which you mention in the post.
What you call ‘Dengism’ is just MLM. You’re more focused on the 2nd part of “Unity -> Criticism -> Unity” than the 1st one.