MIM Notes No. 198, November 15, 1999

Letters

Reader wants more on Restoration on Capitalism

Dear Comrades:  In MIM Notes number 187, the article entitled 
"U.$. and its NATO cronies attack Chinese Embassy," the writer 
states "even though China is a state-capitalist country and has 
some self-interest in criticizing the u.s., most of China's 
criticisms have been correct."

I do not dispute that China is in fact a state-capitalist 
country. That is to say the state and not the people exercise 
absolute control over production, in agriculture as well as in 
industry. My problem is finding a category that explains 
dialectically the transition from socialism under Mao to state-
capitalism under the Communist Party after Mao passed away. I 
would hate to assume a category, which first of all, has to be 
proved. The failure to create a category showing the peaceful, or 
relatively peaceful, transition from socialism to state-capitalism 
-- Russian and Chinese state-capitalism in this case -- is a 
serious flaw of revolutionaries and falls into eclecticism.

A basic proposition of Marxist-Leninism is that the working-
class must seize state power through armed struggle by destroying 
the existing capitalist state machinery, and establishing the 
dictatorship of the proletariat. In other words, the peaceful road 
to socialism is not only a defeatist, reactionary idea, but 
totally bankrupt. Reversing this process, how is it possible in a 
socialist country like China under Mao once the working class was 
in power and exercised control over production, distribution 
financing, etc., to suffer defeat at the hands of the capitalist 
roaders in a relatively peaceful way? It would appear that the 
working class in China would have resorted to armed struggle 
rather than endure passive defeat as the situation seemingly 
appears.

In any case, I would like to see more articles in MIM Notes 
that dialectically explain the phenomenon of the transition from 
socialism to state capitalism in a relatively peaceful way.

In struggle,

 -- a Federal prisoner in Colorado, 21 July, 1999.

MIM responds: The question of how the capitalist roaders 
seized state power is an important one that gets to the heart of 
MIM's cardinal principles. First, however, as a point of 
clarification, Deng Xiaoping and his cronies did use armed force 
to seize state power. They arrested the so-called "Gang of Four," 
with backing and support among military leaders, and executed Gang 
of Four supporters and others who resisted the coup.

According to The Political Economy of the Counterrevolution in 
China , following the coup, "the Chinese spoke of a 'civil war' in 
some provinces, but so as not to encourage opposition, did not 
report too many details." (p. 100) While the organized armed 
resistance may have been relatively weak, the capitalist roaders 
did not arrive peacefully, but with violent coercion and 
bloodshed.

The Maoist line on the restoration of capitalism under 
socialism is that a new bourgeoisie can arise within the socialist 
state and the Communist Party itself. Once the Chinese Communists 
seized state power, Mao stressed combating careerism and avoiding 
"sugar bullets." That is, people who had formerly opposed 
Communism would opportunistically sing its praises and seek to 
gain entrance to the Party, because that was a means to access 
control over the means of production. Conversely, old comrades 
might be corrupted by using their positions in the proletarian 
state to further individual or non-proletarian class interests.

So why would the broad masses allow these charlatans to take 
control of their Communist Party? Basically, even after forty 
years of revolution, not everybody had mastered the difference 
between the socialist path and the capitalist road -- and, of 
course, the capitalist roaders made it hard for them by cloaking 
their counter-revolutionary essence in the red flag. We do 
believe, however, that the best hope for defeating capitalist 
restoration lies in mobilizing the broad masses to understand the 
essence of communist revolution and combat those in authority 
taking the capitalist road. This is the main lesson of the Great 
Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR).

We often hear two objections to Maoist line on the restoration 
of capitalism. The first objection is that this is just impossible 
or simply the result of foolishness on behalf of the party. People 
who argue like this believe that after a revolution there can be 
no going backwards, or that clever leaders can keep the Party pure 
by constantly purging bad elements, without "messy" mass struggle 
like the GPCR. This is the "left" objection. The problem with this 
objection is that it has nothing to do with reality. Obviously 
capitalist restoration is a possibility -- it has happened! As far 
as the Party keeping itself pure: Albania's Enver Hoxha argued 
that strong leadership was all that was necessary to keep the 
Party on the revolutionary path -- and his chosen successor 
restored capitalism.

The second objection is that socialism was doomed to begin 
with, that communists are just a bunch of thugs, etc. This is the 
"rightist" objection. It is nothing more than slander aimed at 
protecting the rule of the bourgeoisie by tarnishing the name of 
socialism, which is still the best solution to the pressing 
problems of the world's masses.

A dialectical analysis of history reveals that it advances in 
stages and the defeat of an old mode of production does not happen 
in one fell swoop. We can expect many more revolutions before the 
proletariat gets it right and establishes global communism. While 
the Cultural Revolution in China led to many advances, it was not 
able to stop the capitalist roaders from seizing power. The 
question of how we can improve on this model and take the 
revolution even further is one for serious study by Maoists and we 
encourage our readers to start by ordering a copy of MIM Theory #4 
"The Failure and Success of Communist Development", available for 
$6 from MIM.