In the next article in the series discussing the character of the Chinese state and its economy, launched in the previous edition of Socialism Today, we carry an edited version of a speech by TONY SAUNOIS, the general secretary of the Committee for a Workers’ International, at the CWI summer school, held in Berlin from 30 July to 3 August. A fuller version is available at socialistworld.net
China has emerged as a world power challenging the dominance of US imperialism. It now plays a central role in the world economy and in geo-political world relations, not least in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is impossible to analyse world events today or grasp possible future events without considering developments in China. US imperialism has been in a drawn-out decline for decades. Its decline is relative. It remains the largest and most powerful imperial power with economic growth better than many other capitalist countries. Yet the historic trend is clear. It will develop further in the future albeit in quite a protracted manner.
However, US imperialism is no longer the unchallenged power that it was. Its humiliation at the hands of the Iranian regime in the recent war has starkly revealed its limitations. European capitalism, from a global standpoint, has suffered an even sharper and more rapid retreat. A bleaker future lies before it as tensions and divisions mount within the EU.
The decline of Western imperialist powers has been mirrored by the unprecedented rise of China. The economic centre of gravity of the world economy has shifted to Asia – especially China. This does not mean that China will replace the US as the global power acting as the ‘policeman of the world’. We are now in a multi-polar world. The major clash is between the US and China with significant others also taking place. The age of a unipolar world dominated by US imperialism has, like the snows of yester-year melted away. Yet how and why has China managed such a development? What is China economically, politically, and as a state?
These questions are the subject of a widespread discussion and debate amongst capitalist commentators, academics and the socialist left. Is China socialist? Is it capitalist? Or is it something else? These are important questions to understand what has happened and how this new world power is likely to develop in the age of modern capitalism – a social system that is in a protracted death agony, but which will not leave the stage voluntarily and will need to be overthrown through a socialist revolution. Protracted mainly due to a combination of objective and subjective factors which inter-relate – the weakness of the leadership of the working class, ideologically, politically, organisationally is crucial.
China in the last four decades has been transformed, progressing from a mainly agriculturally based society into a mainly highly developed urbanised society combined with a continued rural backwardness in some provinces.
Eight hundred million have been lifted out of poverty in just four decades. Urbanisation has exploded from roughly 18% in 1978 to approximately 67% in 2024. Between 1978 and 2022 China’s annual compound economic growth averaged 8.1% with a population of 1.2 billion. That has never been replicated by any of the imperialist powers.
Japan between 1952 and 1991 averaged an annual compound economic growth of 7.1% with a population of 105 million. This was mainly a consequence of US imperialist intervention following the second world war to stabilise the situation and strengthen its own position and that of capitalism in the region. This was a special situation. US imperialism in its period of take-off (1865-1914) managed an annual economic growth of a mere 1.3% with a population of 63 million.
Yet how and why was China’s economic growth possible? What did China have that the Western powers lacked? To understand what took place it is necessary to view the various phases of China’s development as an interconnected process following the revolution in 1949 which led to the overthrew of landlordism and capitalism. Like all processes, it is not yet completed, and within which sharp quantitative and qualitative changes can occur.
A unique form of state capitalism?
Approximately twenty years ago the CWI went through a debate and discussion on the class character of China. This was centred on disagreements primarily with the then leaders of the Swedish section and some others and the International Secretariat (IS). The former contended in a rigid, mechanical analysis that China was capitalist; pure and simple, end of story. The IS argued that this was inadequate, too rigid, not nuanced, and failed to consider the complexities of the situation. China was in a process of transition and the process of capitalist restoration had not then been fully completed. Moreover, it could take many twists and turns including a reassertion of greater state control of the economy given that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had retained state power. As work was being conducted in China at the time, to try and break a circular repetition of the argument, a compromise was agreed – that China had a “unique form of state capitalism”.
This formula, although serving at the time, was inadequate. It did not fully address the processes that were underway. Above all it addressed only one factor – the economic. This was crucially important, but it was and is not the whole story. The formula we used did not address sufficiently the character of the state machine, the CCP, and the character of the ruling Bonapartist authoritarian state.
What is meant by ‘state capitalism’? What has developed in China is fundamentally different from state capitalist enterprises which exist or have existed in countries with a bourgeois state. Even these involved a certain element of state planning. In Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Friedrich Engels argued that as capitalism develops it transitions into trusts and state ownership. This still left the proletariat as wage earners in a capitalist economy and in a bourgeois capitalist state. Nevertheless it was a harbinger of the encroaching socialist revolution. The term ‘state capitalism’ appears to have been originated by Wilhelm Liebknecht, a German socialist leader, in 1896. He used it to differentiate between enterprises nationalised by the bourgeois state such as railways, utilities etc, in a capitalist economy, and those nationalised in a centrally planned economy moving towards socialism.
To explain the Chinese phenomena, it is necessary to grasp the complex, contradictory nature of the state which exists. We cannot limit ourselves only to economic and class relations, which though crucial, are not the totality of the situation. A full analysis requires returning to the Chinese revolution in 1949 and subsequent developments.
The 1949 Chinese revolution
The Chinese revolution in 1949 was from the standpoint of the CWI the second most significant revolutionary development internationally after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Capitalism and landlordism were overthrown and China was transformed on an incredible scale, involving millions in a revolutionary struggle conquering enormous obstacles. Yet the revolution was based on a peasant army. A herculean war was fought for 22 years from 1927 following the crushing of the revolution that year. It involved in 1934-35 a 6,000 mile ‘Long March’ which solidified Mao Zedung’s leadership within the CCP. The revolution that triumphed, and the declaration of the People’s Republic of China, had sympathy and support from the working class. Yet it was not led by the proletariat, unlike the Russian revolution in October 1917.
This crucial difference meant the state formed was of a different character. A workers’ state based on soviets, the working class and workers’ democracy was not established. A bureaucratic, authoritarian, Bonapartist regime of a Stalinist form emerged. Yet despite this, landlordism and capitalism were overthrown, and the introduction of a centralised planned economy laid the basis for the transformation of China. It became more industrialised and urbanised with transformative benefits for big sections of the population. Life expectancy increased to 57 in 1953-57 from 35 in 1949. Urbanisation doubled from 10% approximately to 20% in roughly the same period.
Yet the bureaucratic nature of the state regime and absence of democratic workers’ management and control led to economic zig-zags, corruption and at various stages economic stagnation. The ‘Hundred Flowers Campaign’ launched in 1956, was both a struggle within the bureaucracy and an attempt to create a ‘safety valve’ to allow some open criticism and debate at the time of the uprising in Hungary and the movement in Poland. The ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-1967), intended as an unrealistic, utopian rapid industrialisation, was a catastrophic disaster. ‘Life expectancy by 1961 fell back to 40-44. The stagnation and crisis which followed was one factor that gave way to an inter-bureaucratic struggle, in which a section of the bureaucracy was looking towards capitalist restoration in a movement with many contradictory elements, which unleashed the horrors of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966-76).
The overthrow of capitalism and landlordism and the introduction of a centrally planned economy in China allowed it to skip over some crucial aspects of the bourgeois democratic revolution. However, this was done not with the working class at its head leading a workers’ democracy with the perspective of a developing international socialist revolution. It was under the auspices of an authoritarian, bureaucratic, Bonapartist regime which came to power based on a peasant army. Yet the developments which followed would not have been possible without the 1949 revolution and the subsequent overthrow of landlordism and capitalism. Socialism was not established but a development of the productive forces and society, which was not automatic, did take place. Big advances for large sections of the working class materially and in culture were made. Other layers, especially in the countryside gained less and suffered terribly.
‘It does not matter if the cat is black or white’
Emerging from the crisis of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ and following the death of Mao Zedong a section of the bureaucracy took control of the party and the state and took the initiative to defend their position and to break out of the economic impasse which had developed. In 1978 a crucial turning point was reached. Deng Xiaoping, who had been purged during the cultural revolution, was by then installed as CCP leader and introduced the ‘Reform and Opening Up’ programme. It was introduced incrementally beginning in agriculture and ending collective farming. This was followed by the establishment of SEZs (Special Economic Zones) allowing foreign companies in and other measures of market ‘reform’. The Iron Rice Bowl – guaranteeing job security for life, fixed wages and welfare benefits – was abolished.
This was a crucial turn. Yet the Chinese bureaucracy did not go for ‘shock therapy’ as was later applied in the former USSR and Eastern and Central Europe with catastrophic consequences. The Chinese bureaucracy avoided the turmoil this could have unleashed, threatening its existence and rule. They opted for a more measured, step-by-step approach to the introduction of market reforms. The SEZs started in 1980, initially in four areas
The abolition of the Iron Rice Bowl was largely aimed at attracting foreign investment by reducing workers’ rights. Western imperialism saw this as an opportunity to access cheap labour. This, together with the capitalist class emerging in China and the critical role of the state, transformed China into the manufacturing hub of the world economy. In the last thirty years some twenty million private firms have sprung up – some small, others large. The private sector accounts now for around 60% of national output. The ‘rapprochement’ between the Chinese regime and Western capitalism eventually led to China being accepted into the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
However, Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese regime did not totally abandon some aspects of the planned economy. The state maintained the capacity to intervene, direct and manage the capitalist sector which emerged. These measures were presented as ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Back in 1962 Deng had quipped, “it does not matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice”.
This was not socialism but the maintenance of the rule of the party, its elite and the Bonapartist bureaucratic state. The party and the state maintained strict control and direction of the economy. The banks continued to be state owned. The dual price policy and other mechanisms were there to control and direct the new market forces that were introduced.
However, this opened the way for the emergence of a new and increasingly powerful Chinese capitalist class. A class whose interests potentially could be pitted against the interests of the party and the state in one form or another, including possibly taking control of the party, or plunging it into turmoil and ruptures. The potential clash of interests between the new bourgeois class and the party was reflected by modifications to the CCP and state constitutions in 2002 and 2004 respectively. The then leader Jiang Zemin in 2000 introduced the ‘Three Represents’ policy. Amongst other things it admitted private business owners and capitalists into the party for the first time. The layer of new capitalists in leading positions in the party grew, a trend reversed later under Xi Jinping.
Who is controlling whom?
In doing so a central question was posed. Who would control whom? Could the state and the party elite control this new bourgeoisie or would it, or sections of it, ultimately control or take over the party/state to defend its own interests? The outcome of this process, like all others, was not predetermined.
The explosive development of the market opened the doors to massive corruption and a surge of inequality. This threatened to undermine the cohesion, credibility and base the party and state rested on. The mass uprising that took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989 reflected the contradictions that were emerging. Mainly student based, although mixed, the demands raised during this movement centred on democracy and ending corruption amongst others. The outline of the political revolution was seen in the searching for a democratic alternative to bureaucracy but not, at that point, demanding capitalist restoration. This was confirmed by the intervention made during these events by the CWI. The movement tragically was crushed in blood.
The particular Bonapartist character of the state in China is crucial to correctly analyse what has and is unfolding. Marx, Engels and Lenin had analysed the role of the state as ultimately acting as the executive of the ruling class. Ultimately reduced to ‘armed bodies of men’ it would act to defend the interests of the ruling class. However, under certain conditions the state can rise above and balance between the classes, ruling as an arbiter. In doing so it can acquire its own power, prestige, privilege and position to defend.
The CCP currently has an estimated 100 million members and 5.1 million local organisational branches embedded in urban communities, rural villages, government offices, public institutions, work-places and businesses. Of the party membership an estimated 32% are either workers or farmers (workers and skilled workers number approximately 6.6 million), Added to this is of course the Peoples Liberation Army with roughly two million active-duty personnel. This social force is not totally homogeneous, including numerous trends and factions. However, the role of this gargantuan Bonapartist state is crucial to an understanding of the unique, unprecedented processes unfolding in China.
The financial and economic crisis in the world economy in 2007-08 had consequences in China. On a world scale China played a significant role in preventing a collapse of the world financial markets. In November 2008 the Chinese regime launched a stimulus package of US$586 billion. Massive investment in infrastructure construction took place along with a sharp rise in bank lending by the state-owned banks. The Western capitalist powers also launched stimulus packages but China by boosting its economic growth gave a lifeline especially to countries dependent on commodity exports. By early 2009 the Chinese economy grew by 6.9% and by mid-2009 by 10%. The World Bank accepted the measures adopted by China were a critical factor in preventing a major crisis developing into a global catastrophe for capitalism. Domestically the crucial state intervention made possible by the unique form of the state ensured that it was not driven into recession as other countries would be.
Yet it also led to a reassertion of the state and party to check and control the Chinese capitalist class. A class which is also divided into what in China are known as the ‘private capitalists’ and the ‘bureaucratic capitalists’ – ie those linked to the state/party. The consequences of 2007-08 also seem to have re-enforced the faction of the party which emerged with Xi Jinping’s accession to power in 2012. The CWI’s characterisation of the Chinese state also stressed that the process was unfinished and could result in a change of direction both ways. That has been confirmed by recent developments.
Back to Lenin 1921
The previous characterisation of China as a ‘unique form of state capitalism’ addressed fundamentally economic relations. It did not address the question of the state and the party. For that it is worth revisiting what took place in post- revolutionary Russia under Lenin with the introduction of the ‘New Economic Policy’ in 1921. This allowed the introduction of market mechanisms in forced grain requisitioning and private trade, and businesses to operate at a profit. It allowed temporary concessions to the capitalists, including foreign investors. It was a temporary retreat to buy time, to alleviate suffering and allow the working class to rise above the terrible conditions of famine and poverty which had resulted from civil war and economic collapse following imperialist intervention to crush the revolution. This was somewhat different to the situation which existed in China when the ‘Reform and Opening’ programme was introduced in 1978.
The NEP provoked a big debate within the Russian Communist Party and a section opposed it. Lenin drew a sharp distinction between state capitalism in a bourgeois state and that introduced by a soviet or workers’ state. He addressed the threat that a strengthening capitalist class could pose to the existence of the workers’ state. He argued that if this was posed the workers’ state could take action to prevent this and if necessary, snuff out the capitalist enterprises.
In essence the Chinese regime, especially under Xi Jinping, has argued that it is doing the same – introducing the market in a controlled manner, directed by the state, as a necessary step to develop the productive forces to eventually build ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. The Chinese regime has partly borrowed from the NEP but on a different scale and intensity.
The Chinese state is however fundamentally different from the Soviet state that existed in 1921. That was a regime of workers’ democracy, with some bureaucratic distortions and weaknesses deriving from the conditions that existed following the civil war. Then in the Soviet state there was still a Communist party with a perspective of striving for the international socialist revolution.
The regime of Xi Jinping derives from, inherits and rests on that which took power in 1949, but after the 1949 revolution China was never a workers’ democracy. The CCP had long ceased to be the real Bolshevik party it had tried to be in the 1920s. This is seen in the top-down way it is run with no real debate, unanimous decisions and, fundamentally, the complete absence of a Leninist approach to workers’ democracy and international revolution. China today is a unique situation with no clear historic parallels.
Xi and ideology
The regime Xi Jinping currently heads is driven pragmatically by economic and political interests. Yet it also includes a strong ideological element rooted to a great degree in the history of the CCP and its adherence to ‘Marxism-Leninism’. CCP members are not simply admitted to the party. Courses in ideology are necessary. Years and decades are spent studying ‘Marxism’, ‘Leninism’ and dialectical materialism. This is done through the prism of a crude Stalinistic distorted interpretation of Marxism and Leninism and is not how genuine Marxists study and apply the Marxist method. However, it is the analytical organism of the CCP and shapes the language, logic and outlook of the regime at this stage. This has been re-enforced under Xi Jinping. His writings are permeated with this approach. The regime has a world view and a long-term vision of China’s role in it. The ‘Thoughts of Xi Jinping’ are now of course added to the curriculum.
It is also infused with very powerful strains of Chinese nationalism. The regime stresses that the development of China has finally allowed it to escape the ‘hundred years of humiliation’ following Western and later Japanese imperialist intervention. Add a dose of ‘Confucius’ and it is all presented as the regime following the rich tradition of Chinese culture. Stamping his authority on the party, Xi Jinping has concentrated more power in his hands than any other leader since Mao Zedung, thus re-enforcing the Bonapartist character of the current regime. After Mao Zedung it had a more collegiate element.
The importance of ‘ideology’ for Xi Jinping and his faction in the party was emphasised by a speech he made in January 2013 to the Central Committee of the CCP on why the USSR collapsed: “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall to pieces? An important reason is that in the ideological domain, competition is fierce! To completely repudiate the historical experience of the Soviet Union, to repudiate the history of the CPSU, to repudiate Lenin, to repudiate Stalin, was to wreak chaos in Soviet ideology and engage in historical nihilism. It caused party organisations at all levels to have barely any function whatsoever. It robbed the Party of its leadership of the military. In the end the CPSU – a great party as it was – scattered like a flock of frightened beasts. The Soviet Union – as great a socialist state as it was – shattered into pieces”.
This clearly reveals the Stalinistic bureaucratic outlook Xi Jinping has of what the CPSU and USSR were at the time of its collapse. He inevitably misses crucial factors reflecting the character of the regime he heads. Ideology alone could not have prevented the collapse of the USSR. It did not, for example, in the German Democratic Republic. Short of a political revolution by the working class to overthrow the bureaucracy in the USSR there was no way out of the economic impasse and collapse that had taken place. The bureaucracy could not have overthrown itself and established a workers’ democracy. It therefore disintegrated, key sections morphed into a gangster capitalism and the party and state ended as they had been given the absence of any political alternative.
The Chinese regime avoided economic stagnation and collapse in part by taking the road it took in 1978. This allowed its ideological continuance and approach as its economy was going forward and progressing. Despite the slowdown that has taken place in recent years there is still development taking place.
Does this mean the Chinese regime is advancing towards socialism? No, clearly not. It is adopting the features it has thus far to maintain the authoritarian, bureaucratic, Bonapartist regime in power within which it sees a road to develop China and strengthen its position globally. Is its terminology merely rhetoric? Undoubtedly in part – yes. However, it is not only rhetoric. If it is, the question is why use it? The ideological components espoused by the regime at this stage shape the outlook and actions taken by this unique state form. It is a necessary means through which it maintains control of the party and through the party the state and society.
Corruption is an inevitable part of such a Bonapartist regime compounded by the emergence of a capitalist class. Only a system of democratic workers’ control and management could eliminate it. Yet excessive corruption can undermine the regime socially and economically. At this stage this is not at the level of decay which corroded the former USSR in its last period when the bureaucracy had become an absolute fetter on the development of the productive forces. In China, the regime is still developing the productive forces. It is a relative fetter compared to what would be possible under a regime of real workers’ democracy, democratic control, management and planning.
Xi Jinping has made combating corruption one of the corner stones of his legacy. The regime by its nature is corrupt but under Xi Jinping blows have been struck for both political and economic reasons. It is both a means of the state/party pushing back against the capitalist class and can also assist him and the party to maintain a level of social base and support.
Between 2012 and 2021 four million party members were investigated for corruption, including powerful capitalists. Of those, 3.7 million have been found guilty, 87% of whom joined the party before 1992 and only a few of them since Xi became party leader. The number of capitalists in leading party position has also been reduced in direct contradiction to the policy of his two predecessors. Purges within the party have centred on those at more senior or middle-ranking positions, popular with rank-and-file party members and amongst sections of the wider population.
It walks and quacks like a duck, but what is it?
The essence of the situation is that despite the emergence of a capitalist class the former state remains. It has direct influence, direction and in some cases ownership and control of the economy. A key point in the former USSR was the dissolving of the CPSU branches in the workplaces. That has not happened in China. They continue to function, passing on general directions and guidance. The CCP has a clear policy of testing out functionaries in various areas and provinces to measure their capacity, as well as policies.
The conclusion from this analysis is that China is currently unique historically from the point of view of the class character of the state. Economically a unique form of state capitalism exists. One which is heavily directed by a powerful Bonapartist state machine. The origins of the state machine lie in the bureaucratic, authoritarian deformed workers’ state that was established following the revolution in 1949. Despite modifications and important changes in it, the essence of the old state largely remains. It is neither fully capitalist, but neither is it fully a deformed workers’ state. A hybrid, a mix of elements of both exist. Such a social characterisation is not alien to the natural world. In the past debates in the CWI some comrades accurately pointed to the evolutionary rarity of the duck-billed platypus. It is now considered to be a mammal. Yet it is a mammal with no stomach or teeth and has features of a beaver, a shark, a duck and a reptile. It is an evolutionary aberration. Those who superficially declared China capitalist pure and simple, followed the undialectical maxim that, “if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is therefore a duck”. Except it is not!
Yet a hybrid cannot continue indefinitely, although it can last for a lengthy period. The turn by Xi Jinping since he came to power could be, and may be reversed, if the capitalist class, or powerful sections of it, come into a full confrontation with the party and state, both of which could split at a certain stage. The transition to a totally capitalist state will however also pose the question of the form it will take. A carbon copy of Western imperialism is unlikely to unfold given the current unique situation and the features of Chinese culture and society.
What is clear is that the development of China, since the revolution, and especially over the last four decades, has only been possible because of the revolution and the particular and exceptional character of the state which emerged from it. To simply stick a mechanical, superficial label on it as ‘capitalist’ end of story, begs a question. Why cannot and has not such a development been repeated in other countries like India or Brazil? Something that a cursory examination of such countries would rule out. Or do the proponents of a pure capitalist China think such a prospect is possible?
Who will copy who?
As China opened up it was transformed into the manufacturing hub of the world. The importation of technology and foreign investment for a period led the Chinese to copy what had been achieved in the Western capitalist economies. Now it has surpassed that phase and is developing key sectors itself which in many areas are now ahead of the West. It leads the way in green manufacturing and clean technology production producing 80% of solar panels and lithium battery cells. Robotics, EV cars, investment in AI, quantum computing, all point in that direction. Such developments would not have taken place without the current unique state regime. Who will copy who now is the question?
China has expanded globally through the ‘Belt and Road’ project and vast investments including in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Does this mean that China is imperialist? Foreign policy is an extension of domestic. It undoubtedly has an imperialistic element. However, like the domestic unique form of state capitalism, its imperialism is not classic imperialism. It is an extension of its domestic hybrid form. The state can scrap old rules and make new ones as it judges necessary, influencing when, how, and in what firms can invest overseas, granting or denying specific approvals or licenses, or leveraging the financial system to serve a national goal. For its own geo-political reasons, it has now floated the possibility of selective, conditional cancellation of the foreign debt in some neo-colonial countries.
At the same time the domestic Chinese economy is rife with problems and potential crisis. The development which has taken place has its limits. Although there is a large domestic market, they are compelled to look to exports to try and mitigate the problem of overproduction and weaknesses of the domestic market flowing from relatively low wages etc. There is a chronic crisis of youth unemployment which stands at 15.6% of 16-24 year-olds. This is being re-enforced by the problem of job losses arising from AI. The scale of debt in the provinces is potentially explosive. An estimated 50-90 million vacant housing units exist, although this is not generalised throughout China.
The prospect of massive movements by what is now the largest working class in the world is inherent is the situation. Marx explained that capitalist society creates its own grave digger in the formation of the proletariat. The workforce in China is currently approximately 700 million. The industrial working class is approximately 260 million. Exploitation and conditions are brutal. Strikes, protests and other actions have repeatedly broken out and are a pointer to future upheavals. Local protests and small uprisings have also broken out on issues like corruption. Other social problems are also surfacing. The aging population has led the regime to reassert ‘family’ values.
How workers organise during an upsurge of struggle is one of the many open questions that Marxists in China and internationally will need to be attentive to. Would workers struggles in part be channelled through the official state trade unions which are controlled by the CCP? Or could new independent unions or other organisations of struggle be formed or some combination of the two?
So what alternative is needed?
It is significant that there has been the development of mainly student youth looking back to ‘Maoism’ in opposition to the capitalist features that are present in Chinese society. Others have begun looking to writings by Leon Trotsky which are available to some extent in China. Both have suffered waves of repression by the regime. When workers move into struggle it is possible that their anger will be expressed in opposition to the ‘capitalists’. The party, or more likely sections of it, may try to balance in typical Bonapartist fashion between the classes involved in such battles.
It will be necessary for Marxists to be attentive to the demands and programme necessary for the Chinese revolution as it develops. At this stage, reflecting the hybrid features of the state, there are aspects of the programme needed to overthrow capitalism and also some features of the programme for the political revolution that were necessary in the former degenerated and deformed workers’ states in the USSR, Eastern Europe, and China under Mao.
These would include demands for the election of officials subject to immediate recall, the right to organise, free trade unions, free media, democratic workers’ control and management in the nationalised state sector, the renationalisation of the privatised sector and the nationalisation of key private sector companies as part of opposition to capitalism. The demand for the right to form political parties that support the planned economy and oppose capitalism is also relevant. Democratic demands will be crucial in the struggle against the regime especially to combat sections of the capitalists who may hypocritically take up democratic demands and rights in opposition to the regime.
These are all important issues that Marxists will need to be open to explore as events develop in China, which is destined to be central in the struggle for a world socialist revolution. An understanding of the special character of the current Chinese state is essential to prepare for the stormy events to come in which Marxists must intervene without preconceived ideas of exactly how the revolutionary process will unfold. It is an unprecedented situation. Crude, rigid characterisations simply do not apply.