NationStates Jolt Archive

Despite the name of the ruling party and the country, is China really a communist country? They seem to be moving to more of a capitalistic society as they include free market reforms and the like, but are they still communists?

no they are not.

They weren't socialist even in Mao's time, even Mao admitted the People's Republic was 'state-capitalist' and 'social-capitalist', he said that China was a joint dictatorship of workers, peasants and national 'patriotic' bourgeois.

“Just as everyone should share what food there is…there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group, or class”.

The words of Mao Zedong show the fact that he did not believe in the building of socialism by the proletariat but indeed by a coalition of both reactionary and revolutionary forces, that is the bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the proletariat. Such betrayal of true scientific socialism is reminiscent of the Khrushchev-Brezhnevite revisionists of the 1960s and the Eurocommunists of Italy, Spain, and France in the 1970s who sought to serve the bourgeoisie and the Social-imperialists. The Jucheists in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea similarly seek to reconcile and smother the class struggle by adopting a ‘’People’s state” where the bourgeoisie and proletariat supposedly can ‘’build’’ socialism together; the Maoist People’s Republic of China did and still continues to do the exact same thing today; indeed the four stars of the flag of the People’s Republic of China represent this ‘’coalition’’ namely the proletariat, the petty-bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the ‘’patriotic’’ bourgeoisie. Stalin in his work, The Foundations of Leninism, emphasizes that:

“The revolution can defeat the bourgeoisie, can overthrow its power, even without the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its victory of socialism….”

Stalin continues on

“…The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be ‘’complete’’ democracy for all, for the rich as well as the poor; the dictatorship of the proletariat ‘must be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletarians and non-propertied in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie).”

Hard to say what they are now, there's some wild-west cowboy entrepreneurship coupled with a creaking state system.

I'd say its defining feature is a crap legal system, laws are simply an inconvenience half the time, this means anything pretty much goes unless someone decides not to like you.

China reminds me of the cartoon where a small fish is being eating by a bigger fish, which in turn...

...and so on.

China has embraced capitalism with both hands and is currently strangling it into submission.

i believe they are now practicing socialism with even more chinese characteristics

i believe they are now practicing socialism with even more chinese characteristics

Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, something which even Mao never claimed China was. The Chinese Revolution was a broadly-based anti-imperialist, anti-feudal struggle, in which the alliance of the workers and peasants prevailed, it wasn't until later that the national-bourgeois joined the alliance.

The so called epitome of Chinese 'socialism', the People's Communes, were actually run by the previous private owners of these enterprises, and they were allowed to keep their capital if they engaged in 'self-criticism'. It was the collaborative tone and opposition to class struggles which inevitably took China to where it is today.

Hell no. They're definitely not a true market economy but they're somewhere well away from anything approaching socialism, let alone communism. Combine that with a brutally, quite morally dubious realist approach to acquiring natural resources and you've got a pretty potent economic power on you hands. China knows what it wants and where it wants to be, and the autocracy in power has the means to achieve it...unlike other "communist" states in the past with their dreams of spreading socialism around the world, China wants little more than to be a power in its own right. At times, it seems like they want power for the sake of power.

Realistically speaking, they're pretty much mercantilist. Over time, they'll probably shed ever increasing amounts of mercantilist policies as economic reality requires it, but they're definitely never going back to the pre-Xiaopeng era.

Realistically, they're pretty much mercantilist.

Good call, and as FS notes, you have to add the 'with Chinese characteristics'.

Good call, and as FS notes, you have to add the 'with Chinese characteristics'.

I've taken that to mean the kind of brutal international political realism that Bismarck or Kissinger would admire.

No, they are a fascist capitalism.

Do the people who think China is a communist country in more than name want to say why they think so?

No, the communist government is like a rampant capitalistic kleptocracy on crack.

They still claim communism. I suppose the aren't ready to give up Chairman Mao...

You can't have Wal-Mart and still be communist. Or can you? Wal-Mart is pretty communist when you think about it (and ignore the fact that they are a corporation).

But other than that, they do too much capitalist stuff because they want to be a rich nation.

They're communist when portrayed in bad light and capitalist when portrayed in good light. :p

Yep, communist in name only sounds like a very accurate description.

The Chinese economic policy is actually a very sensible Realpolitik. They keep national those industries that are best kept national, and widely allow free enterprise otherwise.
China isn't communist, it isn't capitalist, it just takes what works best for every situation.

Yep, communist in name only sounds like a very accurate description.

It's not even that. It doesn't claim to be comunist. It just makes a vague claim that it's preparing communism (in the distant future) by embracing capitalism in order to prepare for socialism which should lead to communism.

They're communist when portrayed in bad light and capitalist when portrayed in good light. :p

And sometimes, the other way around too. ,)