Capitalist China?

Post by srd
http://redrave.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-restoration-of-capitalism-in-china_9310.html
srd

Why?

This article is full of bullshit and polemics with the Sparts and other no hoper US sects. What serious worker or thinking person cares about them. To say they are part of the problem is to give them a higher status than they warrant. if this outfit was serious it would have produced a brief, well-researched article on the substantive matters. It hasn't.

srd

2016-02-03 01:31:36 UTC

Post by srd
http://redrave.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-restoration-of-capitalism-in-china_9310.html
srd

Why?

Mainly the timetable showing the dismantling of the planned economy. Nothing wrong with arguing against the Sparts. They are the most sophisticated exponents of the deformed workers state theory of China.

srd

Vngelis

2016-02-03 10:35:42 UTC

Post by srd
http://redrave.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-restoration-of-capitalism-in-china_9310.html
srd

Why?

The Sparts support China and through them US based multinationals that import goods into the USA and demand no taxation and hate all US workers who protest. They also support the export of Chinese labour the world over to ensure each countries labour force is as neutered as the US one.

'Multiculturalism' to them is support of the foreign wing of transnationals as opposed to the domestic one, although their role is being blurred as the Military Industrial Complex is also going to China.

VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-03 10:47:16 UTC

Post by srd
http://redrave.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-restoration-of-capitalism-in-china_9310.html
srd

Why?

The Sparts support China and through them US based multinationals that import goods into the USA and demand no taxation and hate all US workers who protest. They also support the export of Chinese labour the world over to ensure each countries labour force is as neutered as the US one.
'Multiculturalism' to them is support of the foreign wing of transnationals as opposed to the domestic one, although their role is being blurred as the Military Industrial Complex is also going to China.
VN

Agreed.

See my assessment of the article in the other thread:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/ZZEvVA0Fz58

srd

2016-02-03 20:01:02 UTC

Post by srd
http://redrave.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-restoration-of-capitalism-in-china_9310.html
srd

Why?

One can't consistently reject their conclusions without rejecting their premise, which is that China is a workers state. (With due respect, I think Dusty's "social imperialism" formula is a syncretic mess.)

It isn't only the U.S. multinationals that benefit from cheap Chinese goods at the expense of U.S. workers. There are more billionaires in China than in the U.S! (http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/investing/china-us-billionaires/)The foundation of the Chinese economy is neither the nationalized sector nor transnational corporations but a burgeoning capitalist economy.

srd

srd

Vngelis

2016-02-08 15:41:38 UTC

Why China is Capitalist...

http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist/

The Revolution in China like in E Europe was imported from Russia.
China could actually be more capitalist than Russia...

VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-09 01:31:14 UTC

Post by Vngelis
Why China is Capitalist...
http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist/
The Revolution in China like in E Europe was imported from Russia.
China could actually be more capitalist than Russia...
VN

The Communist Party still runs the Chinese State, still controls the guns, the courts, the police, the military power, though its base in the State owned economy has - proportionately - greatly decreased, though with some effort to restrain this by retaining a foothold in the innovative sectors so as to restrain the imbalance. But the growing imbalance means that it is easy to interpret the Chinese reality as being a case of the privately owned tail wagging the dog - the State, and thus that the Communist Party's mission has been changed to using the state to secure its transformation into Capitalist-Imperialism.

Whether THIS is true or not, the transformation of China into a full blown Capitalist-Imperialist nation will only occur when the old state falls.

Till then China has a dual character, with the balance falling on the side of it essentially retaining its former superstructural essence, but with an enormous burgeoning in the direction of Capitalist-Imperialism in its economic, base.

The strangeness, uniqueness*, in the Chinese development arises from the intensity of the growth in the Capitalist direction - the huge expansion in the Chinese economy over a couple of decades, with the base making the essential character of the superstructure LOOK highly problematic. As hybrid a term as it might appear Social-Imperialist still best describes this reality.

*But in all historical cases, for all Bourgeois and "Workers'" revolutions, from the English Revolution through to the Russian, where in all cases the economic base made a VERY SLOW departure in character (even sometimes temporarily reversing), and size from the previous level, every materialist historian took as the criterion of the character of the state, who had the guns, who controlled the state apparatus.

srd

2016-02-09 03:26:36 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
The Communist Party still runs the Chinese State, still controls the guns, the courts, the police, the military power,

So what? The bourgeoisie controls the Communist Party. Do you think that's it's name determines its class character? The ruling congress of China is composed almost entirely of multi-millionaires and billionaires. It is more of a plutocracy than the U.S.

srd

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-09 04:10:42 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
The Communist Party still runs the Chinese State, still controls the guns, the courts, the police, the military power,

That you assert with infinite respect for the shadows of power. The truth is that, though it has changed in its composition, it is still totally subordinate to the real power, as it always was, the power sorted out within the organs of the Chinese CP. The NPC is a mix of classes over which the CPC rules in Bonapartist fashion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People%27s_Congress

"In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China, and all four PRC constitutions have vested it with great lawmaking powers. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society. However, it is still reckoned as a rubber-stamp for decisions already made by the state's executive organs and the Communist Party of China.[3]

One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents. She was quoted as saying, "As a parliamentary representative, I don't have any real power."[4]"

"Powers and duties[edit]
The NPC has a collection of functions and powers, including electing the President of the People's Republic of China and approving the appointment of the Premier of the State Council as well as approving the work reports of top officials. The constitution of the National People's Congress provides for most of its power to be exercised on a day-to-day basis by its Standing Committee.
The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC (1982) and the NPC Procedural Rules (1989). It begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, with an attempt made to maintain consensus at each step of the process. By the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage. The process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session.

The NPC mainly exists to give legal sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government.

However, it is not completely without influence.

It functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts.

However, there are a wide range of issues for which there is no consensus within the Party and over which different parts of the party or government have different opinions. Over these issues the NPC has often become a forum for debating ideas and for achieving consensus.

In practice, although the final votes on laws of the NPC often return a high affirmative vote, a great deal of legislative activity occurs in determining the content of the legislation to be voted on."

Just think about it - in the unlikely - impossible - event that the NPC tried to privatise state owned industrial enterprises or disband, interfere with, the state power possessed by the CPC, they would be seriously purged and become even more like a schoolboy council than they are already. e.g.

"A major bill often takes years to draft, and a bill sometimes will not be put before a final vote if there is significant opposition to the measure.

An example of this is the Property Law of the People's Republic of China which was withdrawn from the 2006 legislative agenda after objections that the law did not do enough to protect state property.

China's laws are usually submitted for approval after at most three reviews at the NPC Standing Committee. However, the debate of the Property Law has spanned nine years, receiving a record seven reviews at the NPC Standing Committee and stirring hot debates across the country. The long-awaited and highly contested Property Law was finally approved at the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) on March 16. Among the 2,889 deputies attending the closing session, 2,799 voted for it, 52 against it, 37 abstained and one didn't vote."

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-09 06:22:55 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
The Communist Party still runs the Chinese State, still controls the guns, the courts, the police, the military power,

That you assert with infinite respect for the shadows of power. The truth is that, though it has changed in its composition, it is still totally subordinate to the real power, as it always was, the power sorted out within the organs of the Chinese CP. The NPC is a mix of classes over which the CPC rules in Bonapartist fashion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People%27s_Congress
"In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China, and all four PRC constitutions have vested it with great lawmaking powers. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society. However, it is still reckoned as a rubber-stamp for decisions already made by the state's executive organs and the Communist Party of China.[3]
One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents. She was quoted as saying, "As a parliamentary representative, I don't have any real power."[4]"
"Powers and duties[edit]
The NPC has a collection of functions and powers, including electing the President of the People's Republic of China and approving the appointment of the Premier of the State Council as well as approving the work reports of top officials. The constitution of the National People's Congress provides for most of its power to be exercised on a day-to-day basis by its Standing Committee.
The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC (1982) and the NPC Procedural Rules (1989). It begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, with an attempt made to maintain consensus at each step of the process. By the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage. The process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session.
The NPC mainly exists to give legal sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government.
However, it is not completely without influence.
It functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts.
However, there are a wide range of issues for which there is no consensus within the Party and over which different parts of the party or government have different opinions. Over these issues the NPC has often become a forum for debating ideas and for achieving consensus.
In practice, although the final votes on laws of the NPC often return a high affirmative vote, a great deal of legislative activity occurs in determining the content of the legislation to be voted on."
Just think about it - in the unlikely - impossible - event that the NPC tried to privatise state owned industrial enterprises or disband, interfere with, the state power possessed by the CPC, they would be seriously purged and become even more like a schoolboy council than they are already. e.g.
"A major bill often takes years to draft, and a bill sometimes will not be put before a final vote if there is significant opposition to the measure.
An example of this is the Property Law of the People's Republic of China which was withdrawn from the 2006 legislative agenda after objections that the law did not do enough to protect state property.
China's laws are usually submitted for approval after at most three reviews at the NPC Standing Committee. However, the debate of the Property Law has spanned nine years, receiving a record seven reviews at the NPC Standing Committee and stirring hot debates across the country. The long-awaited and highly contested Property Law was finally approved at the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) on March 16. Among the 2,889 deputies attending the closing session, 2,799 voted for it, 52 against it, 37 abstained and one didn't vote."

The other outstanding source of confusion/difficulty in defining the current social character of China lies in its origin as essentially the fruit of the physical conquest of China by a Communist led - peasant army, a reality that caused the SWP to take 5 years to define it as a Workers' State. This coincided with definite sub-structural "shortcomings" - called the New Democracy phase. That was the same kind of methodological error that is being made by much of today's "Left".

The CPC arose as a transplant from the "Soviet" Workers' State and in that sense was an extension of that social form. But it expressed much of the primitive character of China's pre-capitalist, Oriental, history ("Red Mandarins") and this was compounded by its original peasant base and very 'unorthodox' mode of gaining power (the history of which was also largely a product of "Soviet" influence).

This led to the Party always having a quality alien to any emerging working class, a quality particularly marked today. It is just as well at home with the successful home (or periphery) grown Capitalist as with the cheap labour force teaming in from the countryside.

Though they are by origin alien to much of the modern China their policies have in part produced, this doesn't alter the fact that they want to hold on to power and have been successful at it so far.

And it is their peculiar brand of 'Chinese' - Han - nationalism, rather than any concept of socialist transformation of the new (Chinese) advanced productive forces that seems to be their central driving force. This again is a product of their origins.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-09 09:36:23 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
The Communist Party still runs the Chinese State, still controls the guns, the courts, the police, the military power,

That you assert with infinite respect for the shadows of power. The truth is that, though it has changed in its composition, it is still totally subordinate to the real power, as it always was, the power sorted out within the organs of the Chinese CP. The NPC is a mix of classes over which the CPC rules in Bonapartist fashion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People%27s_Congress
"In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China, and all four PRC constitutions have vested it with great lawmaking powers. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society. However, it is still reckoned as a rubber-stamp for decisions already made by the state's executive organs and the Communist Party of China.[3]
One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents. She was quoted as saying, "As a parliamentary representative, I don't have any real power."[4]"
"Powers and duties[edit]
The NPC has a collection of functions and powers, including electing the President of the People's Republic of China and approving the appointment of the Premier of the State Council as well as approving the work reports of top officials. The constitution of the National People's Congress provides for most of its power to be exercised on a day-to-day basis by its Standing Committee.
The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC (1982) and the NPC Procedural Rules (1989). It begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, with an attempt made to maintain consensus at each step of the process. By the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage. The process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session.
The NPC mainly exists to give legal sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government.
However, it is not completely without influence.
It functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts.
However, there are a wide range of issues for which there is no consensus within the Party and over which different parts of the party or government have different opinions. Over these issues the NPC has often become a forum for debating ideas and for achieving consensus.
In practice, although the final votes on laws of the NPC often return a high affirmative vote, a great deal of legislative activity occurs in determining the content of the legislation to be voted on."
Just think about it - in the unlikely - impossible - event that the NPC tried to privatise state owned industrial enterprises or disband, interfere with, the state power possessed by the CPC, they would be seriously purged and become even more like a schoolboy council than they are already. e.g.
"A major bill often takes years to draft, and a bill sometimes will not be put before a final vote if there is significant opposition to the measure.
An example of this is the Property Law of the People's Republic of China which was withdrawn from the 2006 legislative agenda after objections that the law did not do enough to protect state property.
China's laws are usually submitted for approval after at most three reviews at the NPC Standing Committee. However, the debate of the Property Law has spanned nine years, receiving a record seven reviews at the NPC Standing Committee and stirring hot debates across the country. The long-awaited and highly contested Property Law was finally approved at the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) on March 16. Among the 2,889 deputies attending the closing session, 2,799 voted for it, 52 against it, 37 abstained and one didn't vote."

The other outstanding source of confusion/difficulty in defining the current social character of China lies in its origin as essentially the fruit of the physical conquest of China by a Communist led - peasant army, a reality that caused the SWP to take 5 years to define it as a Workers' State. This coincided with definite sub-structural "shortcomings" - called the New Democracy phase. That was the same kind of methodological error that is being made by much of today's "Left".
The CPC arose as a transplant from the "Soviet" Workers' State and in that sense was an extension of that social form. But it expressed much of the primitive character of China's pre-capitalist, Oriental, history ("Red Mandarins") and this was compounded by its original peasant base and very 'unorthodox' mode of gaining power (the history of which was also largely a product of "Soviet" influence).
This led to the Party always having a quality alien to any emerging working class, a quality particularly marked today. It is just as well at home with the successful home (or periphery) grown Capitalist as with the cheap labour force teaming in from the countryside.
Though they are by origin alien to much of the modern China their policies have in part produced, this doesn't alter the fact that they want to hold on to power and have been successful at it so far.
And it is their peculiar brand of 'Chinese' - Han - nationalism, rather than any concept of socialist transformation of the new (Chinese) advanced productive forces that seems to be their central driving force. This again is a product of their origins.

Another important point: even though large numbers of Chinese Party bureaucrats INDIVIDUALLY own directly, or by proxy, large wealth in private productive assets, the bureaucracy as such, COLLECTIVELY, doesn't do so. So we aren't dealing with some kind of "Bureaucratic Collectivism".

And of course the creaming off of large amounts of state profits by bureaucrats for personal consumption is a long term practice, as it was in the "Soviet" Union and doesn't define anything except the existence of a parasitic bureaucracy in a "Deformed Workers' State".

Though there are very different features of modern China (in a very dynamic phase) and Russia when this was written, the method still has relevance in defining both:

Leon Trotsky: The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going? (1936), Chapter 9, Social Relations in the Soviet Union

3. The Question of the Character of the Soviet Union Not Yet Decided by History

"The Soviet Union is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism and socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from adequate to give the state property a socialist character; (b) the tendency toward primitive accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores of the planned economy; (c) norms of distribution preserving a bourgeois character lie at the basis of a new differentiation of society; (d) the economic growth, while slowly bettering the situation of the toilers, promotes a swift formation of privileged strata; (e) exploiting the social antagonisms, a bureaucracy has converted itself into an uncontrolled caste alien to socialism; (f) the social revolution, betrayed by the ruling party, still exists in property relations and in the consciousness of the toiling masses; (g) a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i) on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a struggle of living social forces, both on the national and the world arena.

Doctrinaires will doubtless not be satisfied with this hypothetical definition. They would like categorical formulae: yes - yes, and no - no. Sociological problems would certainly be simpler, if social phenomena had always a finished character. There is nothing more dangerous, however, than to throw out of reality, for the sake of logical completeness, elements which today violate your scheme and tomorrow may wholly overturn it. In our analysis, we have above all avoided doing violence to dynamic social formations which have had no precedent and have no analogies. The scientific task, as well as the political, is not to give a finished definition to an unfinished process, but to follow all its stages, separate its progressive from its reactionary tendencies, expose their mutual relations, foresee possible variants of development, and find in this foresight a basis for action."

Vngelis

2016-02-22 22:02:25 UTC

I think they were Hoxhaites...

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/workers-advocate/9-1.html

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-22 22:15:47 UTC

Post by Vngelis
I think they were Hoxhaites...
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/workers-advocate/9-1.html

If this very relevant quote from Trotsky isn't enough to induce you to take the matter seriously, how about this even more relevant, earlier, one?

"Against the assertion that the workers' state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, "gradual," bourgeois counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counterrevolutions have never taken place "organically," but they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to the periods of counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism."

Vngelis

2016-02-22 22:21:56 UTC

Post by Vngelis
I think they were Hoxhaites...
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/workers-advocate/9-1.html

If this very relevant quote from Trotsky isn't enough to induce you to take the matter seriously, how about this even more relevant, earlier, one?
"Against the assertion that the workers' state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, "gradual," bourgeois counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counterrevolutions have never taken place "organically," but they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to the periods of counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism."

I agree with the quote as applied to Russia. China and E Europe were capitalist and became assimilated to ex USSR. The existence of Hong Kong implied the relationship was different.

VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-22 22:30:45 UTC

Post by Vngelis
I think they were Hoxhaites...
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/workers-advocate/9-1.html

If this very relevant quote from Trotsky isn't enough to induce you to take the matter seriously, how about this even more relevant, earlier, one?
"Against the assertion that the workers' state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, "gradual," bourgeois counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counterrevolutions have never taken place "organically," but they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to the periods of counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism."

I agree with the quote as applied to Russia. China and E Europe were capitalist and became assimilated to ex USSR. The existence of Hong Kong implied the relationship was different.
VN

It's the METHOD. That is TOTALLY applicable to the characterisation of the supposed or genuine transition ANY social entity once characterised as a "Workers' State".

Does this METHOD allow one to say that China has departed from being a "Workers' State" or not. I think NOT. If YES why?

By the way, unlike the majority of the kindergarten "Marxists" of the Left, this characterisation of "Workers' State" doesn't mean they are then endowed with some find of halo.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-22 22:45:45 UTC

Post by Vngelis
I think they were Hoxhaites...
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/workers-advocate/9-1.html

If this very relevant quote from Trotsky isn't enough to induce you to take the matter seriously, how about this even more relevant, earlier, one?
"Against the assertion that the workers' state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, "gradual," bourgeois counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counterrevolutions have never taken place "organically," but they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to the periods of counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism."

I agree with the quote as applied to Russia. China and E Europe were capitalist and became assimilated to ex USSR. The existence of Hong Kong implied the relationship was different.
VN

It's the METHOD. That is TOTALLY applicable to the characterisation of the supposed or genuine transition ANY social entity once characterised as a "Workers' State".
Does this METHOD allow one to say that China has departed from being a "Workers' State" or not. I think NOT. If YES why?
By the way, unlike the majority of the kindergarten "Marxists" of the Left, this characterisation of "Workers' State" doesn't mean they are then endowed with some find of halo.

The supposed "Counterrevolution" that defeated the "China Deformed Workers' State" cannot be the crushing of the Tian Min Square events, for these would have to be interpreted - at 'best' - as a crushing of a liberal Left Wing of "Socialism" or, more likely to my mind, of a tendency - blindly - seeking the liberal liquidation of the China Deformed Workers' State.

Vngelis

2016-02-22 23:52:05 UTC

I think its when Hong Kong rejoined the mainland...
VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-23 00:38:53 UTC

Post by Vngelis
I think its when Hong Kong rejoined the mainland...
VN

But that didn't change the Communist Chinese STATE, the change has gone the other way (despite Mainland propaganda about "Two Systems").

And the economy? They were taken over by Communist China when Britain left Hong Kong.

It would not be possible for HK to structurally assimilate Mainland China.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-24 08:17:59 UTC

China cut deals with Nixon in 1972 way before E Europe. The area around Hong Kong in China was a fishing village. It is now the main industrial hub for most of China. The existence of Hong Kong with its banking and trading links enabled this process to occur smoothly. We did argue during Hong Kong turnover that if it didnt become part of state owned system then rest of China would become part of Hong Kong...
VN

I remember the Nixon deals well.

HK was always an important manufacturing centre under the British, from the 50's and also was used by ML China as a kind of British mediated financial and political outlet to the West. The British Banks were long established there and invested into Asia Pacific from it. That was the origins of HSBC (probably by now jointly owned by the City of London Jews - Rothschild - and the Chinese. In that sense HK was an early Globalist "Platform". After Nixon, it did grow, but NEVER as "the main industrial hub of China". I think the KDE's sense of proportion on this was way out.

But tell me more about the Communist Party controlled STATE and how it was eroded, destroyed. If the KDE ignored that then you were indeed "running the film of reformism backwards."

Vngelis

2016-02-24 08:19:43 UTC

The article quoted by SRD does detail legislative changes that were processed solidifying capitalist restoration.
China is more integrated into World Market than Russia.

Nothing much is produced for world market by Russia apart from energy and guns. It isnt a serious economic competitor but can provide the muscle for US competitors.
China is different.
VN

Vngelis

2016-02-24 08:33:16 UTC

https://www.quora.com/How-did-China-become-the-manufacturing-hub-of-the-world-What-are-some-of-the-things-that-other-developing-countries-can-learn-from-China-to-improve-manufacturing

Clear cut connection to Hong Kong.
Same with E Europe.

Existence of W Europe.
Russia is exception to the rule.

VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-24 08:48:06 UTC

Post by Vngelis
https://www.quora.com/How-did-China-become-the-manufacturing-hub-of-the-world-What-are-some-of-the-things-that-other-developing-countries-can-learn-from-China-to-improve-manufacturing
Clear cut connection to Hong Kong.
Same with E Europe.
Existence of W Europe.
Russia is exception to the rule.
VN

I mean Vn, they can write all these long tracts full of a mixture of interesting and uninteresting, truthful and untruthful, balanced and unbalanced, facts, but they rarely get down to core, scientifically definitive, questions like Trotsky did in those two pieces I quoted - as well as In Defence of Marxism.

I'll read it nevertheless.

Vngelis

2016-02-24 12:10:43 UTC

HG joined in 1997.
20 years have gone by roughly.
More western companies have gone to China not less.
Restoration aint occurred but its moved to 2nd place in world exports to capitalist West?
Dont sound logical.
Name of party irrelevant.
Castro became a Comnunist when he wasnt.

VN

srd

2016-02-24 22:42:39 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
I mean Vn, they can write all these long tracts full of a mixture of interesting and uninteresting, truthful and untruthful, balanced and unbalanced, facts, but they rarely get down to core, scientifically definitive, questions like Trotsky did in those two pieces I quoted - as well as In Defence of Marxism.

I don't think you've answered vngelis's argument that Trotsky's strictures don't apply to China, where there was no proletarian revolution.

My distinct answer is that there was a decisive turning point with the defeat of the Chinese "great proletarian cultural revolution."

But let me raise a different angle. If Trotsky's strictures apply to every deformed workers state, how do you explain the counter-revolutions in E. Europe? Surely E Germany is now capitalist, unless unbenownst to anyone, there was a socialist revolution in W. Germany. You had the bloodless Soros sponsored counter-revolutions. To take another example out of the hat, where was the violent counter-revolution in Albania?

Notice also that in the article I cited, Trotsky is quoted, and some of his analyses seem to contradict the (standard) quotes you offer. Trotsky writes of the possibility of the bureaucracy turning itself into a ruling class with a "cold" restoration of capitalism.

Here's a reconciliation of Trotsky's writings on the subject: Trotsky with his winding the tape of reformism backwards was arguing against the Shactman/Burnham theory according to which capitalism was restored in the late twenties, at no particular date. This is untenable because there is always a point of qualitative change. Moreover, a restoration circe 1928 surely *would* have encountered armed resistance from the masses because this was before the entire leadership of the revolution had been massacred.

srd

srd

2016-02-09 03:28:56 UTC

Post by t***@yahoo.com.au
As hybrid a term as it might appear Social-Imperialist still best describes this reality.

Hybrid term? It's not just the term that's contradictory. (You seem to have a penchant for contradictory terms, like "cultural Marxism.") You have never explained how a workers state can be imperialist.

srd

srd

2016-02-09 03:30:05 UTC

If I can make an impudent suggestion:

Your penchant for "hybrid terms" expresses your hybrid politics.

srd

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-25 05:22:44 UTC

Post by srd
Your penchant for "hybrid terms" expresses your hybrid politics.
srd

Get fucked Cosmopolitan.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-25 05:45:32 UTC

In one way I don't think the characterisation of China as "Capitalist" (led by a Communist Party and with no successful revolution overthrowing it, all suugesting that the proponents of this didn't think China was ever a Workers' State)...or a "Deformed Workers' State with an Imperialist Character"..."Social Imperialist".
It's just the theoretical denial displayed in the "choice". I raised the issue of the peasant base of the China CP and the revolution but said it was negated (nad it was, at least in part) by the the international connections and origins of the CPC, and for a long time after 1948 there was a variant form of structural assimilation into "Soviet" Russia).

But what is implied in this is of greater concern and weight:

Vngelis (so true!):
"The Sparts support China and through them US based multinationals that import goods into the USA and demand no taxation and hate all US workers who protest. They also support the export of Chinese labour the world over to ensure each countries labour force is as neutered as the US one.

srd:
One can't consistently reject their conclusions without rejecting their premise, which is that China is a workers state. (With due respect, I think Dusty's "social imperialism" formula is a syncretic mess.)

I have answered - or rather I have left Trotsky the task to answer it for me the "point" in parenthesis.

But the first sentence, if it has the meaning I think it intends, I consider infantile for reasons I have explained many times. It's the Halo around the Workers' State syndrome, rather than seeing the inevitable hybrid character (on a simple scale: "progressive/reactionary), and thus the inability to do much more than support everything a Workers' State does, rather than Trotsky's following of the precise nature of the Workers' State at each particular stage of its development. The Sparts are the arch practitioners of this and srd is following their logic.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-02-25 10:15:27 UTC

srd:

"But let me raise a different angle. If Trotsky's strictures apply to every deformed workers state,

Of course they apply (here you have the appearance, more importantly, the Method od a Shachtmanite) "to every deformed workers state" AND in fact to EVERY kind of State. This is the ABC of Materialist Dialectics.

Dontcha know?

"how do you explain the counter-revolutions in E. Europe? Surely E Germany is now capitalist, unless unbenownst to anyone, there was a socialist revolution in W. Germany."

Brrrrilliant. It's called Structural Assimilation into Capitalism (can you reverse?) with the nod of the permitter - the Gorbachov led "Soviet" Degenerated Workers' State.

You had the bloodless Soros sponsored counter-revolutions. To take another example out of the hat, where was the violent counter-revolution in Albania?

Now was THAT primitive excrescence EVER a workers' state???? If "YES" then a sign of the political decadence of the "Far Left".

Notice also that in the article I cited, Trotsky is quoted, and some of his analyses seem to contradict the (standard) quotes you offer. Trotsky writes of the possibility of the bureaucracy turning itself into a ruling class with a "cold" restoration of capitalism.

I have never seen the use of "cold" in Trotsky. If so he is as confused on this as he was on the Resistance in the War.

"Here's a reconciliation of Trotsky's writings on the subject: Trotsky with his winding the tape of reformism backwards was arguing against the Shactman/Burnham theory according to which capitalism was restored in the late twenties, at no particular date. This is untenable because there is always a point of qualitative change. Moreover, a restoration circe 1928 surely *would* have encountered armed resistance from the masses because this was before the entire leadership of the revolution had been massacred."

So you assert. But Trotsky defended "Soviet" Russia a Workers' State till his death. Get it?

You for long asserted that the Russian Revolution was destroyed circa 1920. Did you ever withdraw it? I can post the numerous threads if you wish.

By the way, as now, the Shachtman/Burnham "theory" was full of disguised Tribalist noise, International Jewry having declared war against Germany in 1934 (one of the main reasons for the backlash against Jews in Germany, something the Zionists predicted and wanted), something (the former) Trotsky was well aware of.

Vngelis

2016-03-02 13:28:24 UTC

According to this the percentage of state ownership is down to 15%-20%

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665065-chinas-plan-reform-its-troubled-state-firms-fails-impress-whimper-not-bang

If we argue the state banks are printing money and propping up ALL firms then the same is happening in the West with QE.

Therefore capitalism having become unrestrained since the collapse of the ex-USSR has collapsed and is involved in hyperinflationary money printing to stay afloat. By implication money soon will become worthless as if the more you print and you still end up with deflation, then it implies that we are at a global impasse.

If America couldnt secure ME oil to save the Dollar reserve currency it wont be able to control China to save its flagging fortunes.

VN

Vngelis

2016-03-07 08:23:25 UTC

http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialism/

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-03-07 09:33:02 UTC

Post by Vngelis
http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialism/

What happened to Pablo's Ultra-Imperialism?

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-03-07 10:00:33 UTC

Post by Vngelis
http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialism/

What happened to Pablo's Ultra-Imperialism?

He makes it up as he goes.

What evidence is there that there was ANY "socialism" in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989? I'd postulate that it was more for "opening up to - 'freedom' - capitalist development - than the bureaucracy which suppressed them.

He's such a smug, facile, cunt.

Vngelis

2016-03-07 10:34:36 UTC

Aint seen it yet.
SRDs anti China tirade dovetails neatly with split between wings of US establishment Hillary Wall St bomb the planet into submission and Trump retreat into our shell...

Workers Power satellite group. Brits liquidated into Labour Party behind globalist Corbyn...

VN

srd

2016-03-08 00:53:15 UTC

Post by Vngelis
SRDs anti China tirade dovetails neatly with split between wings of US establishment Hillary Wall St bomb the planet into submission and Trump retreat into our shell...

It doesn't "dovetail" with the split, asshole. It explains it. Of course, it sounds more rrrrevolutionary to say they're making China up. I know. Just like they made up the moon landing.

You're somebody who just can't face reality.

srd

srd

2016-03-08 01:03:41 UTC

Post by Vngelis
Trump retreat into our shell...

You'll say anything. Protectionism is YOUR program. That's why Dusty is enamored with Trump!

srd

Vngelis

2016-03-08 02:33:00 UTC

Workers control was always protectionism...

VN

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-03-08 08:34:30 UTC

Post by Vngelis
Trump retreat into our shell...

You'll say anything. Protectionism is YOUR program. That's why Dusty is enamored with Trump!
srd

Essentially what you are saying, srd, is that you support the Globalist Order which delivered the current state of "anti-protectionism". This has a striking resemblance - at this point - and maybe earlier - to that of the Globalist Left. It is the foundation of your denial, or passive acceptance, that "China" and the rest of the Third World platforms were set up primarily by US-London based Finance Capital and it Transnational Corporations.

To suggest that there is any room in America or Europe (with one or maybe two exceptions) for a socialist alternative in the next maybe 20 years (or who knows when, maybe longer) seems like fantasy. The Left are totally discredited, unworthy, and there isn't the core working class power of the kind that was the basis of the negation of the betrayals of the Second International any longer.

So we are left with other - less orthodox - political possibilities. I don't shy at them. Essentially it involves entry work among genuinely patriotic anti NWO forces.

t***@yahoo.com.au

2016-03-07 10:37:52 UTC