MIM Notes 187 June 1 1999

Hinton's birthday celebration sparks debate on 
China, Maoism

by an Honorary Comrade

On April 3, a conference was held at Columbia 
University in New York City to celebrate the 
80th birthday of William Hinton. Hinton authored 
some of MIM's favorite books about China, such 
as Fanshen, Shenfan, Turning Point in China, and 
Hundred Day War. William Hinton has lived for 
periods of several years at a time over the 
course of the last half century in a village in 
China called Long Bow. MIM has unity with Hinton 
on some questions of great importance:  MIM and 
Hinton both defend China's new democratic, 
socialist and cultural revolutions while 
opposing the comprador-capitalist regime which 
currently rules China.

Hinton's work inspires revolutionaries

Among the speakers was an author of a book about 
the restoration of capitalism in China who spoke 
generally about Hinton's admirable qualities and 
achievements. Hinton has provided himself to the 
peasants and proletarians of China as their 
voice to the outside world, reporting to the 
rest of the world their experiences collectively 
and as individuals, objectively but with 
emotional involvement. He has maintained 
strategic confidence in the ability of the 
peasants and proletarians of the world to make 
revolution and build communism. He has remained 
dedicated to the goals of revolution and 
communism himself for most of his life. And he 
has always brought a critical spirit and avoided 
dogmatism.

A highlight of the conference was a presentation 
by William Hinton himself. Hinton spoke about 
his personal participation in the mechanization 
of agriculture in China in the late 1970s. In 
Long Bow he helped double crop yields and 
increase productivity 20 times while freeing 
labor to build local industries.

Hinton also spoke of the effect of the "reforms" 
which came with capitalist restoration: in 1982 
the Chinese Communist Party ordered de-
collectivization, and the communal land was 
partitioned into individual plots which were too 
small for the techniques which had been 
developed since mechanization. All the new 
machinery just sat around and crop yields 
decreased as a result. Hinton reported that due 
to mass pressure, communal farms around Beijing 
had never been de-collectivized, and some 
villages recently have been allowed to form 
communal fields and remechanize to produce 
enough grain to meet state quotas.

On the panel addressing Hinton's contribution to 
understanding China's revolution, one speaker 
described how feminists of the 1960s were 
inspired by the Chinese revolution. In one 
example, she explained that early wimmin's 
liberation groups were influenced by study of 
the Chinese "speak bitterness" campaigns to 
organize their own consciousness-raising. 
Through these campaigns, the Chinese Communist 
Party organized peasants to criticize their 
landlords in public mass meetings.

This speaker correctly criticized feminists of 
today for turning consciousness-raising into a 
form of group psychotherapy, but she claimed 
that this was not always the case. The same 
speaker made some statements MIM disagrees with, 
claiming that class was the principal 
contradiction within US borders, with 
imperialism merely a complication. She also took 
an unscientific subjectivist position on class 
analysis when describing her current practice of 
holding sessions of consciousness-raising around 
the issue of class rather than gender.

The failure of capitalism in China

One reactionary professor form Columbia 
University criticized Mao for promoting social 
"instability" during the Cultural Revolution. 
His goal in collecting the information he was 
presenting was to promote social "stability" -- 
which means to suppress the just resistance of 
the masses to their oppression. He praised the 
current regime in China for allowing more 
freedom of the press and personal freedom and 
mobility. He argued that the answer to China's 
current problems is more bourgeois democracy in 
the form of village and township elections.

MIM believes the answer to the problems of the 
Chinese people is the overthrow the bourgeoisie 
dictatorship and construct socialism.

One of the most inspiring talks of the 
conference was entitled "China's Legitimacy 
Crisis" given by a Chinese academic. He stated 
that during the socialist period, the Communist 
Party had been able to keep hold of the reigns 
of society by representing the interests of the 
peasants and workers, and not by repressing 
them, and that this all changed when capitalism 
was restored. [Capitalism was restored in China 
in 1976 after the death of Mao and the overthrow 
of the "Gang of Four". --ed] From then the 
government policy was to make workers and 
peasants less secure to scare them into working 
harder. Now the workers are at the mercy of the 
managers. And the socialist relationship between 
the government and the people is undermined.

During the question and answer period, when the 
reactionary Columbia professor attempted to 
obfuscate the distinction between capitalism and 
socialism by claiming that land was not a 
commodity in China and therefore there are 
socialist aspects to China today, the Chinese 
academic quickly leapt to the podium to rebut by 
correctly pointing out that these aspects are 
residue from the socialist period. He also 
pinpointed the arrest of the Gang of Four as the 
moment of transition from the socialist road to 
the capitalist road, saying "They arrested the 
Gang of Four. Why? Then, everything changed."

Another speaker presented the results of 
research he has done comparing economic 
inequality in various countries. He argued that 
the time since the restoration of capitalism 
should be divided into two periods:  one, from 
1978 to 1991, during which all social groups 
benefited from the "reforms", and another, from 
1991 until now, during which groups that 
benefited did so at the expense of other groups. 
MIM disagrees that benefits during the first 
period were the result of capitalist 
restoration. Certainly the bourgeoisie and 
possibly some other classes benefited from this, 
but all classes were still reaping delayed 
benefits from the transformation of the economy 
during the socialist period. In fact already in 
the 1980s the detrimental effects of capitalist 
restoration were seen for the peasantry and 
wimmin. (See "The Political Economy of Counter-
revolution in China." Available for $10 from MIM 
for more information on this.)

However, the speaker's research clearly 
demonstrates his thesis about increasing 
inequality during the second period. He found 
that regional inequality, gender inequality and 
urban/rural inequality in China had become among 
the largest in the world. He concluded by saying 
that the Chinese people would rise up to 
overthrow their oppressors as they have before 
if things continue as they have been.

MIM has a lot of unity with a professor from 
SUNY-Binghamton who correctly criticized the 
unscientific concepts employed by academics 
today. He argued against talking about 
globalization, saying a theory of imperialism is 
what is necessary. He presented convincing 
evidence that the U$ is the principal 
imperialist power today. He correctly criticized 
the use of the term "market" to refer to 
capitalism, pointing out that markets exist 
under other social systems, such as feudalism. 
And he predicted that if China didn't get back 
on the socialist road, it would soon be 
dominated by imperialism. He concluded by 
calling for New Democratic revolution in China.

During the question and answer period this 
professor criticized people who refer to a 
global crisis of capitalism, correctly pointing 
out that Amerikan workers benefit from crises in 
third world countries through lower prices. He 
was criticized severely for saying this. While 
this is an unpopular position among the left in 
the u.s., MIM thinks it is a crucial question 
for Maoists to tackle scientifically a we were 
pleased to hear it raised at this conference.

Upsurge in resistance

The reactionary professor from Columbia 
presented some interesting information about the 
current situation in China:  the Chinese people 
have not been taking the restoration of 
capitalism lying down. Massive and increasing 
unemployment, pervasive corruption and abuse of 
power, and "peasant burdens" in the form of 
excessive taxes, fees and fines levied on 
peasants by corrupt and parasitic local 
governments have driven more and more workers, 
peasants and intellectuals to civil 
disobedience, riots and protest.

The protest has thus far remained dispersed, but 
the regime fears what the consequences would be 
if it were to become coordinated, and has 
cracked down ruthlessly to avoid any link-up 
between intellectuals and workers and peasants.

One Chinese speaker who was active in the 
student protest movement in China spoke about 
the regrouping of the socialist forces in China. 
He reported that as the Chinese Communist Party 
becomes more blatantly capitalist, the youth who 
oppose the Chinese regime are taking up 
socialism. He pointed out that today only 33% of 
China's GNP is publicly owned, and there are a 
million capitalists in China, so it is difficult 
to deny any longer that China is capitalist. The 
socialist forces in China today consist of a 
vocal opposition in the party, which has little 
access to media and must therefore use informal 
channels to communicate its position, and a non-
party socialist movement-in-formation referred 
to as the "New Left." He claimed that the party 
left was not attractive to the workers, peasants 
and youth of China, so the New Left has the most 
potential. The New Left is a collection of young 
intellectuals with a variety of different 
positions and lines.

This activist also presented his view of the 
different class forces in China. He reported 
that the Chinese workers are restless and 
potentially explosive due to mass layoffs and 
unemployment, and that in some cities they hold 
demonstrations on a daily basis, but that 
currently they agitate mostly around economic 
demands. He said that the peasantry is the most 
repressed group in China and that their 
conditions have been worsening since the mid-
80's, with most becoming migrant workers.

He reported that while most students remain 
concerned with petty individual matters, a 
significant minority has emerged to build a new 
progressive movement, forming groups to study 
Mao, Marxism, socialism, and to carry out social 
research, and that they are beginning to be 
critical of capitalism and take up socialism, 
siding with the proletariat against the 
bourgeoisie.

MIM is pleased to see the people in this country 
taking up important debates about Maoism 
although we consider the inclusion of the 
reactionary pro-capitalist speakers to be an 
insult to William Hinton's legacy. We call on 
all activists in this country serious about 
learning the lessons of Maoism in China and 
applying those lessons to our revolutionary 
organizing in this country to struggle with and 
work with MIM.

Article edited by MC17.