I grazed through this article today. She was a Marxist professor and is now a dissident. I'm so conflicted toward my feelings of the CCP so I was hoping some Chapos could give their impressions of the article.

  • HarryLime [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Sounds like standard dissident stuff.

    Most of their questions revolved around puzzling contradictions within the official ideology, which had been crafted to justify the real-world policies implemented by the CCP. Amendments added in 2004 to China’s constitution said that the government protects human rights and private property. But what about Marx’s view that a communist system should abolish private property? Deng wanted to “let a part of the population get rich first” to motivate people and stimulate productivity. How did that square with Marx’s promise that communism would provide to each according to his needs?

    I remained loyal to the CCP, yet I was constantly questioning my own beliefs. In the 1980s, Chinese academic circles had engaged in a lively discussion of “Marxist humanism,” a strain of Marxist thinking that emphasized the full development of the human personality. A few academics continued that discussion into the 1990s, even as the scope of acceptable discourse narrowed. I studied Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which said that the purpose of socialism was to liberate the individual. I identified with the Marxist philosophers who stressed freedom—above all, Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse.

    Already in my master’s thesis, I had criticized the idea that people should always sacrifice their individual interests in order to serve the party. In my Ph.D. dissertation, I had challenged the ancient Chinese slogan “rich country, strong army” by contending that China would be strong only if the party allowed its citizens to prosper. Now, I took this argument a step further. In papers and talks, I suggested that state enterprises were still too dominant in the Chinese economy and that further reform was needed to allow private companies to compete. Corruption, I stressed, should be seen not as a moral failing of individual cadres but as a systemic problem resulting from the government’s grip on the economy.

    So...she was deeply uncomfortable with how the government's liberalization of the economy conflicted with Marxist doctrine, but also thought that the government should liberalize the economy more?

    • CommieElon [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      I came to realize that the theories Marx advanced in the nineteenth century were limited by his own intellect and the historical circumstances of his time. Moreover, I saw that the highly centralized, oppressive version of Marxism promoted by the CCP owed more to Stalin than to Marx himself. I increasingly recognized it as an ideology formed to serve a self-interested dictatorship. Marxism, I began to hint in publications and lectures, should not be worshiped as an absolute truth, and China had to start the journey to democracy.

      I think she also had a fundamental misunderstanding that Marxism is flexible depending on the time, place, and material conditions which is where her personal contradictions originated.

      • mazdak
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    My newly acquired understanding of the democratic transition in Spain, along with what I already knew about those in the former Soviet bloc, led me to fundamentally reject the Marxist ideology in which I once had unshakable faith. I came to realize that the theories Marx advanced in the nineteenth century were limited by his own intellect and the historical circumstances of his time. Moreover, I saw that the highly centralized, oppressive version of Marxism promoted by the CCP owed more to Stalin than to Marx himself. I increasingly recognized it as an ideology formed to serve a self-interested dictatorship. Marxism, I began to hint in publications and lectures, should not be worshiped as an absolute truth, and China had to start the journey to democracy. In 2010, when some liberal scholars published an edited volume called Toward Constitutionalism, I contributed an article that discussed the Spanish experience.

    My vision—shared with other liberal scholars—was that China would start by implementing democracy within the party, which, over the long run, would lead to a constitutional democracy. China would have a parliament, even a real opposition party. In my heart, I worried that the CCP might violently resist such a transition, but I kept that thought to myself. Instead, when speaking with colleagues and students, I argued that such a transition would be good for China and even for the party itself, which could consolidate its legitimacy by making itself more accountable to the people. Many of the officials I taught acknowledged that the party faced problems, but they could not say so themselves. Instead, they cautiously urged me to persuade their superiors.

    Yet Xi was launching the biggest ideological campaign since Mao’s death to revive Maoist rule.

    So basically this professor lost faith in Marxism, chronicled how the party itself was becoming a stale machine that should be swept away for bourgeois democracy, and then was disappointed that Xi went the other way and reinvigorated the party with its Marxist ideals. The CPC (notice that this professor is calling it the CCP, not the CPC) has a lot of corrupt elements, as all ruling parties do, and has and will continue to fuck things up from time to time, like the Lei Yang debacle or initially suppressing Li Wenliang's report about covid-19. But this author's main contention seems to be that the party is expelling otherwise "good" party members who happen to be "dissident real estate tycoons" or, like herself, former communists that have since renounced Marxism and want China to "open up to democracy" and the West.

    China, and the CPC, are not perfect. And you should never "trust" a state, especially one with billionaires and an immense surveillance state. But make no mistake, Xi Jinping is pulling the CPC back to the left and building socialism in China, and people like the author of this article (by her own admission!) want to turn China into a neoliberal hellhole like the United States. I know where I stand between the two.

    EDIT: Also love the title. What, exactly, did the CPC fail at? Keeping this capitalist roadster in the party? Fail to make the West look good with their handling of the pandemic? Also, satisfaction with the government within China has skyrocked since the days of Jiang Zemin. While the ideas of the author may line up with Jiang Zemin more than Xi Jinping, it seems the vast majority of Chinese people like the leadership of Xi Jinping far better.

    • HarryLime [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The CPC (notice that this professor is calling it the CCP, not the CPC)

      The note at the bottom says that it was translated from Chinese, so we can assume that's not her decision.

    • CommieElon [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      This is a good write up. I'm sure there are some truths about the party being bloated and aspects of corruption but she never mentioned how the standard of living has improved and reduction of poverty has dropped.

      • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Absolutely. I am sure that a lot of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign was about consolidating power and eliminating rivals, but it's becoming increasingly clear that much of it was, as the name implies, an actual anti-corruption campaign that has rooted out a lot of the bloat in the party. This is clearly reflected in the CPC's approval ratings—not a coincidence they begin to rise a lot once Xi starts tackling internal corruption!

  • SSJBlueStalin [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    "Marxist belief that capitalists were an exploitative social group. Instead, Jiang was opening the party to their ranks—a decision I welcomed."

    Boomers gonna boomer.

    Dengism is playing with fire and it seems like he got addicted to it.

    They did have a real corruption problem back in the 80-90s. And watching the USSR fail is gonna break you heat. Combine that with western corrultion being out of sight to a person like the auther that wouldn't know how to see it and it makes sense how a lerson could end up like this

  • cum_drinker69 [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I can't take anyone seriously who calls themselves a Marxist and then moves to america voluntarily.

  • comi [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Three things:

    A) bureaucracy and corruption are likely close to truth, seems consistent at least with some stuff

    B) cute concern for poor dissident (real estate tycoon), amazing really

    C) always cute idea how private firms will stop corruption: they won’t stop, the law will just stop applying to them.

    • SSJBlueStalin [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      For C it makes sense. Being a language away from the west it coudl be hard for the author to see tbe corruption in the west and might underestimate it.

      Since so much of our corruption is jist normalized doing business over here its offen hard for us to see it.

      • comi [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        I somewhat doubt that if you have even basic understanding of private property and “freedom”. (Edit: which marxist should have)

        Like for example, government official hiring (or helping get hired through his administrative resources) his failson is theoretically bad and nepotism (unless your name is joe apparently?); private ceo hiring his failson - good and proper (he is free to do so), and then leaving him his position through death. Like these are close things, in one case it’s taxpayer’s money, in another - it’s worker’s money