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
I don’t see what you mean by “Dengism” as a deviation, or Maoism (in the context of China itself, not Marxism-Leninism-Maoism) as counterposed to it. Both Mao and Deng were Marxist-Leninists applying Marxism-Leninism to China’s conditions as they were contemporary to. China remains socialist, and course-corrected from the error of ultraleftism under the Gang of Four, returning to more traditionally Marxist understandings of economics in doing so.
Thanks for your comment. What I mean with dengism is the introduction of capitalist incentive on party level. It rose out of the 80s, luckily it was still backed up by enough of the correct line that it didn’t completely collapse in light of the neoliberal tiananmen protest. But the seed is there, in the party.
I believe ultraleftism was an error. I also believe that errors are conducted with the liberalization of the economy, particularily with regards to monetary policy and foreign policy. Some, like introduction of money circulation, were done out of need. But out of those sprout contradictions that I see are not in the process of vigilant enough resolution, in my view.
I don’t see why, for example, private investment should accompany SOE in BRI. It literally serves no purpose other than to lead to inefficient deals that lead to costly renegotiations and extractive arrangements. It is a concession to the interests of capital. It erodes the strongest aspects of infrastuctural deals.
Similiar things can be said about the liberalization of the Yuan. If trends that steer it towards floating exchange persist, China’s qualitative differences with regards to investment when compared to the west will falter.
That is my concern. Those contradictions were ushered in by dengism. That in itself is not an error as contradictions always occur. But what will negate them? Where is the negation?___
I don’t believe your analysis is that of a dialectical materialist.
Corruption and market forces existed pre-Deng. Deng did not introduce them. Class struggle continues under socialism, and you cannot instantly go from an underdeveloped, agrarian focused economy to a publicly owned and planned economy overnight.
How was the economy “liberalized?” I understand that private sector expansion occured, but this isn’t against Marxist analysis, which focuses on the large firms and key industries. It does not make sense to nationalize the small proprietors outright. Money circulation existed pre-Deng as well. I also do not share your opinion that the CPC is not vigilant enough, the presence of contradictions and anti-corruption campaigns does not mean that the anti-corruption campaigns are insufficient or failing.
Private investment accompanies SOEs because private ownership and market forces govern small, medium, secondary industries in China, with strong CPC presence within these firms. Markets are useful for centralizing production and distribution, and the CPC keeps them in control through controlling what they rely on. Competition with the state forces the state into better efficiency without relying on the profit motive. BRI is not extractive, it’s a form of mutual development.
This remains to be seen.
These contradictions were not ushered in by “Dengism.” In almost all cases, they existed pre-Deng. The CPC’s focus internally is on developing the productive forces, which Reform and Opening Up stablized and slightly accelerated, while maintaining proletarian control of the state, large firms, and key industries. The CPC’s focus internationally is bringing about a multi-polar world and undermining US imperialism. Both are proceeding steadily. This gradual transformation is one that proceeds dialectically, and contains contradictions, yes, but these contradictions do not mean China is at odds with Marxism-Leninism.
“Dengism” is just Marxism-Leninism applied by Deng Xiaoping to conditions contemporary to China at the time of Deng, called Deng Xiaoping Theory. China follows Xi Jinping Thought, an advancement on Deng Xiaoping Theory and Mao Zedong Thought, which is also Marxism-Leninism applied to current conditions. China isn’t “dengist,” nor is it deviating from Marxism-Leninism.
My initial reply was too hastily written, and I made crucial errors due to the urgency with which I was writing. You have rightfully pointed out some inconsistencies. I will attempt to resolve them with my reply. However, a crucial one - your claim that China isn’t deviating from Marxism-Leninism: I will try to resolve this one through a continous line of argument. I think that deviation is essential for China’s development, but correction is crucial for its future.
I didn’t argue that they didn’t exist before. I argued that the influx of money ushered in by Deng and his economic advisors was meant to stabilize growth, where growth of the economy was and is inherently pinned to China’s position in the global production and value chains. The policies suceeded by moving China from a steadily peripheral to a semi-peripheral country in terms of world production. However, I think that expansionist strategy itself failed to successfully understand the logic of contradictory capitalist expanse with the falling rate of profit co-existing with rising organic composition of capital.
That is, Chinese expansion is understandable when we look at it in terms of “development”. Of course, Maoist china couldn’t catch up to Deng’s reforms in terms of the rate of development of the productive forces. What I argue is that the Reform and Opening up ushered in capitalist ownership to accelerate the rate of development - with a crucial blindspot with regards to China’s position itself: a position where expansion itself is contradictory, as the limits to growth are dictated by the Imperialist forces of the global north. China cannot become the core. China cannot become the imperialist. China will, as long as capitalism persists, never seriously challenge the global North. [Good source on the topic: https://vuir.vu.edu.au/37770/]
But, Dengist policies were an attempt to do exactly that. Therefore, the capitalist road was taken, where expansion has to come through exploitative, extractivist relations with some portions of the global south. That in itself is the price of capitalist development of a peripheral state.
China has been systematically overinvesting to avoid the same modulation of this “developmental path” that led to US’s balooned national debt (which in itself is only sustainable by having an imperialist position). So, the answers were: overinvestment, a trade surplus, etc.: all but bandages to this problem. Do you believe they are sustainable? I believe that the only solution is the acceleration of full nationalisation of not only key, but also investment portions; and the full abandonment of profit incentive. [Good source on the topic: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/surplus-absorption-secular-stagnation-and-the-transition-to-socialism-contradictions-of-the-u-s-and-the-chinese-economies-since-2000/].
Minqi Li writes:
I think this claim is indicative of the party’s contradiction:
BRI in itself is not set up as an extractive policy. That is correct. The schema infrastructure-for-minerals, for example, is in theory exactly that - mutual development. But it is exactly due to the fact that private investment is an integral part of BRI, that the schema leads to unsatisfactory arrangements. In practice, infrastructural agreements aren’t materialized, projects are underfunded or done slopply - to maximize profit for the private investment front. For example, the 2024 Sicomines renegotiation was a huge concession to China, as now, royalties have to be paid and further investment is pegged to the prices of copper. This renegotiation was inevitable becuase the infrastructural projects were not on time, on target, and were underfunded. Thus, private sections of investment strategies lead to balooning of costs for China’s crucial mineral and rare-earth processing value chain. In my view, that is a fundamental error - let alone for how the DRC feels. On the other hand, the SOE elements of BRI have consistently displayed desire for mutual development by writing off debts and reinvesting, and that is a positive countertendency in terms of that policy - but again, indicative of a strategic overinvestment.
China is deviating from Marxism Leninism by following an unsustainable development path that is hitting the limits of the capitalist world system. This is indicative of secular stagnation. Capitalism generates more surplus than it can profitably reinvest. This is not a conjunctural crisis but a systemic overaccumulation problem. Maoist China did not have the same issue - because capital was not the dominant form of production. Here, about the role of money: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/renminbi-a-century-of-change/
The US will not go peacefully, and China will not “carry out socialism” in the existing configuration of the global economy by remaining passive and reactive. Its role is not predetermined, It can still turn to socialism, but it will not be a passive process because the tendencies of capital are too strong. It has to be combated. Socialism has to be the path of active political decision.
This article goes into detail. https://monthlyreview.org/articles/on-the-nature-of-the-chinese-economic-system/
It is essentially correct with regards that cadres with capitalist investment at stake have strong roles in the party. That doesn’t mean that the bourgeoisie holds political control - it doesn’t. The PRC is esentially handling it, as you point out with the anti-corruption campaigns. But internal dynamics of the Party are not as linear as we would hope. A lighthearted joke would be that this is Mao’s ontological error - not all contradiction is infinite. It is capital that displays this, with its active negation.
I believe they are not proceeding steadily. I think that essentially multipolarity was always present under a veener of “peaceful hegemony” of the US. The US is sliding into fascism, but that doesn’t mean that its power is steadily diminishing, or that its imperialist grip is lessening. It is precisely here that the transition from Deng to Xi must be situated: an effort to reassert state control over capital after marketization had fulfilled its developmental function. The presence of private capital itself under these conditions does not by itself indicate its political dominance - however, it points to the limits imposed by China’s continued integration into the global capitalist economy. It can only proceed by shifting away from capital.
Comrade, I appreciate you taking the time to write this out, but you are deviating heavily from dialectical materialism, towards metaphysics. Allow me to explain, as I don’t want this accusation to hang un-backed and un-correctable.
The underlying principles of Marxism-Leninism were applied by Deng. The shift towards Reform and Opening Up was made with Marxist-Leninist analysis, and is not to be “corrected,” but to continue to be followed through. You’re treating the presence of private capital in China as something created by Deng, rather than by the material conditions of the underdeveloped industries in China. As a consequence, you erase the centralization of markets as a key observation of Marx, and miss the connecting line between the private sector being gradually subsumed by the public. This mistake of yours is highlighted in your statement here:
The CPC knows that markets trend towards socialization and that the rate of profit tends to fall. As this happens, industries are gradually folded more into the public sector of the economy. Markets are useful in preparing the ground for socialized production.
There are a few key errors here.
Private capital existed pre-Deng, and its expansion in secondary industries and via foreign investment did not impact the large and key industries, which remained public, nor the sole proprietorships and cooperatives, which remained as such from before.
China is not trying to become the core, the empire, to become imperialist. China is not capitalist to begin with, because public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. You confuse the presence of private capital for the dominance of capitalism, but private ownership is not principle, nor does it govern the financial sector.
China is already undermining the global north. Through win-win economic development, the global south is becoming less captured by the imperialist global north. An alternative to the IMF and austerity is rising, which is what is propelling the death of the US Empire, forcing the west’s sharp rightward turn as austerity is turned inward.
The CPC is already pivoting towards domestic consumption over trade surplus. “Full nationalization” is a long, protracted process, where it is critical for the large firms and key industries to be nationalized, and gradual appropriation of the small and medium firms as they themselves are socialized by market forces is the CPC’s strategy. The world is not static, but your analysis that nationalization is not a priority for the CPC because the small and medium firms are largely private treats it as such, metaphysically. The CPC already agrees that full nationalization is necessary, and abandoning the profit motive. See Cheng Enfu’s diagram of the “Stages of Socialism:”
Private capital is involved not because it is superior to SOEs, but because they fill in gaps left by SOEs. SOEs are superior, and deliver superior results, but collectivization of production and distribution is a gradual process that takes time to build.
You’re confusing China’s present proportions of private/public capital as a static ratio, and are ignoring that private capital is relegated to small and medium firms, where markets facilitate growth, and the large firms that dominate the economy are public. You’re asking China to shift towards a plan they are already on, that being one of gradual nationalization. The level of development of the productive forces determines what can be effectively nationalized, not sheer willpower, and so this process is gradual and proceeds dialectically.
Private ownership isn’t the dominant form of production in the PRC today either, public ownership is. China’s development under Mao was positive, but uneven, introducing foreign capital in strategic areas made growth more even and more positive:
Again, the PRC is already socialist, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. The economy is socialized gradually with respect to the level of development of the productive forces. The “tendencies of capital” are subjugated to the public sector. The rubber factory has control over the rubber ball factory, so to speak. By maintaining control of the large firms and key industries, socialism is maintained, and socialization continues.
Contradictions do exist, and ideologically impure cadre with class interests in favor of capitalist restoration do exist within a party of 100 million. These, as you say, do not hold power.
The US Empire is sliding to the right because its power is diminishing. Austerity is necessary domestically to cover for the weakening of the empire, and it is using its current millitary advantage to try to solidify control in its hemisphere to try to buy time as it loses in Africa. Europe is being demoted to periphery as we speak.
The PRC is already gradually shifting towards further socialization with respect to development, state control already dominates the economy. Markets are still fulfilling their role, as are the firms that grow to more entrenched state control, as are the large firms and key industries. The PRC is actively shifting away from export-focused to consumption-focused. China must remain integrated within the international system to continue undermining imperialism.
Essentially, in short, your analysis is metaphysical because you see the composition of production and distribution as fixed, not as a moving and transformative process where socialization increases with respect to development of the productive forces. Dialectical materialism shows its true nature.
What an incredible comment, Cowbee! Thanks for taking the time to write this down!
Thank you for the kind words, comrade!
Thank you for your time, your in-depth reply and your contribution to the debate. Some of my key ideas were addressed, and I will take time to study this issue further.
Please, by all means. A dialctical approach to education and self-education strengthens all of us.