"The speeches you cite from Deng are mostly from 40 years ago. Deng is trying to reconcile a contradiction in China's political economy, which seeks to introduce market capitalism and maintain Mao's socialist thought. Such a feat is impossible. China is not a socialist economy anymore. Mao's thinking about economics has been tossed into the waste bin by Deng and his successors. China's political economy is based on the model of state capitalism, which is inherently at odds with Maoism. Gorbachev did something similar in the USSR in the 1980s, saying that perestroika was consistent with Leninism. Nonsense. Politically, however, Xi is a Maoist in so far as the Communist party is the only legitimate political force in the country."

oh COME ON

  • WhyEssEff [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Dear Professor [REDACTED],

    It is an interesting perspective. I have more recent works, but Deng ceased being China’s paramount leader in 1989. Furthermore, a socialist nation that is behind in productive force tends to do so by introducing markets and slowly encroaching on them as they develop. (See: Lenin’s New Economic Policy). Perestroika was a death knell of the USSR, yes, but I’m of the belief that the undemocratic dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin’s crackdown on dissension was the reason that communism was utterly stamped out in the USSR. The CPSU, the vessel for which soviet democracy was conducted, was flattened, destroying any remnants of the command economy that the USSR once boasted. Compare this to the CPC. The CPC, while loosening its grip on power, was never dissolved. If the four modernizations is to Mao Zedong Thought as perestroika is to Marxism-Leninism, then why does the command economy in China still exist? To maintain itself with enough influence and economic power to reclaim itself over the course of the period of 35 years (Four Modernizations-Xi Jinping Election), and catapult China from the original definition of the third-world power to the bipolar position it shares with the US currently whilst encroaching on capital… it has shown that Deng, whether or not he truly believed in his words, lived up to them. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, from a current point of view and looking at Deng’s works, is an objective success as of yet to accomplishing its goals. It has maintained its command economy and one-party democracy, and has masqueraded itself in the shadows of cheap labor long enough for a Marxist thought leader to emerge and slowly reclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat.

    If the plan has worked as they foretold, any speculation on the true meaning of Deng’s intentions is mere conjecture. Therefore, it’s only logical to view them through the lens of current China. The end-stage of state-capitalism within the bounds of SwCC that Deng outlined. If we cannot trust rhetoric, and we cannot trust outcome, it is folly to put any meaning in it at all. If rhetoric and outcome align, it is logical to trust the rhetoric.