Case Studies

Contemporary Chinese Marxism & the Marxist Tradition: Globalisation, Socialism & the Search for Ideological Coherence

05.05.2008

Asserts the significance of the socialist project to understand the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both historically and in its contemporary form. Archeology of Marxism undertaken by contemporary Chinese Marxists; Significance of Marxism to the ideology of the CCP and its construction of the modern world; Distinction between capitalist and socialist globalization.

Article excerpts:
Since the concept of globalisation first appeared in the discourse of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the mid-1990s, there has been amongst Party theorists and Chinese scholars growing interest in and debate about globalisation’s conceptual precursors in the Marxist
tradition.1 By the early years of the twenty-first century, globalisation had become a major theme in the Party’s ideological soul-searching, as it attempted to identify and elaborate a perspective that not only had roots in the Marxist tradition but was also consonant with the
general thrust of the Party’s acceptance of globalisation and its engagement with global capital. What is particularly interesting about this discourse is the extent to which Party theorists have accepted the insights of Marx and Engels that foresaw a world increasingly
integrated on the basis of capitalism’s global expansion; indeed, there is a rather self-congratulatory tone to their identification with Marxism, a theoretical tradition that so clearly foretold the emergence of globalisation.

However, having laid claim to this tradition and momentarily basked in its evident prescience, Party theorists are then confronted with a dilemma: to disentangle the prescient character of Marx and Engels’ observations on the expansionary and inherently globalising character of capitalism from their anti-capitalist prescriptions that placed class struggle at the centre of capitalism’s revolutionary de´nouement.
For the latter is not something with which the CCP – its leaders and most of its theorists – can identify given its explicit rejection of class struggle as the essential medium through which political and economic change in the direction of socialism can be achieved. Party theorists have thus retained Marx and Engels’ predictions of a globalising world in constructing their own explanations of globalisation; but they have, for the most part, excised the class implications that flow from those predictions. However, their abandonment of class struggle as the catalyst for the achievement of socialism has not led to a parallel abandonment of a Marxist teleology that perceives communism as the final goal of historical development. They regard, somewhat perversely, the current phase of globalisation, not as signalling socialism’s death-knell, but as creating the conditions through which the historical march towards socialism and communism can be resumed. It is this most recent phase in the history of the ideology of the CCP that is of interest here. Analysis of Party theorists’ constructions of globalisation reveals much of the conceptual structure of contemporary Chinese Marxism. This is a significant exercise for two reasons. First, there has been a pronounced tendency in recent Western commentaries to assert either the death or very serious debilitation of Marxism in China (Wang, 2002, pp. 11–13; Friedman, 2000, p. 235). The consequence of Marxism’s demise has supposedly been an ideological vacuum into which has flowed a plethora of competing ideas ranging from neo-liberalism to post-modernism, but dominated by nationalism (Zhao,
2004; Liu Kang, 2004). While the appeal of Marxism amongst the Chinese population has undoubtedly declined dramatically, it remains the case that amongst many CCP theorists its status remains high and its influence considerable. Confronted by the need to explain globalisation, which has posed a very serious challenge to the socialist project at the core of the Party’s ideology, it has been to the texts of the Marxist tradition that they immediately turned. Examination of the documents generated by the CCP’s attempt to explain globalisation from a Marxist perspective can thus do much to dispel rumours of Marxism’s untimely end in China. Second, the very extensive discourse on
globalisation in China, which extends well beyond inquiries into its theoretical origins in Marxism, reveals much about contemporary Chinese constructions of the world and the position of the Chinese nation-state within it. As we will observe, capitalism and socialism remain potent signifiers of a globalised world still riven by fundamental ideological distinctions. In this bifurcated world, China remains, many Chinese theorists and Party leaders insist, a socialist nation; and the ideology it advocates will eventually prevail in its historical contest with capitalism. China’s persistence as a socialist nation constitutes the guarantee that globalisation will not forever be capitalist globalisation,
but will be transformed into a socialist globalisation that will pave the way for the eventual realisation of Marxism’s historical promise – communism. The paper thus asserts the significance of the project to understand the ideology of the CCP, both historically and in its contemporary form. It engages with the ideology of the CCP not because it accepts its views as necessarily true; nor does it make any judgment about how deeply the leaders and theorists of the CCP believe in them (indeed how would one know?). It is based rather on the assumption that an organisation of the size, power and political significance of the CCP must provide a reasonably coherent belief

system that explains and justifies its current policies in terms recognisably derivative of earlier renditions of its ideology. The blunt fact is that the CCP continues to refer to itself as a Marxist party, or more strictly a party whose ideology combines Marxism- Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Jiang Zemin’s doctrine of the “Three Represents”. This complex ideological brew draws on and incorporates the various lessons learnt through its more than eighty years of existence, which have traversed very different stages with very different objectives and experiences. From one perspective, the ideology of the CCP resembles a layer-cake, with each successive layer building on and supported by the layer below. Yet, this metaphor is only partially accurate, for it implies that each new layer has been added to merely supplement and expand the Party’s ideological repertoire in light of changed conditions. In fact, the function of each additional layer of ideology has been to selectively subvert the layer or layers below, through identifying how changed conditions have now rendered at least some of their conclusions and principles irrelevant; it has also been to rebuke those Party leaders and members unable to recognise that the passage of time and circumstance has rendered their views not only obsolete but harmful to the Party’s revised view of its present purpose and longer-term objectives. This process of ideological accretion has thus involved a complex process involving both retention and rejection of earlier renditions of CCP ideology. The establishment of the legitimacy of each new generation of Party leaders has necessitated a selective endorsement and reinterpretation of certain of the Party’s core ideological principles, and their
deployment to explain and justify the Party’s current raft of policies. Ideological continuity is thus (supposedly) established. Thus, when its current leaders insist that the CCP is a Marxist-Leninist Party, at an ideological level the claim is not an idle one. The CCP’s explanation of its turn to capitalism from 1978 and recent embrace of globalisation continues to draw on Marxist categories and forms of discourse; so too its rejection of its earlier revolutionary discourse and practice. The implication to be drawn from this observation is that, in the quest for understanding the contemporary ideology of the CCP, Marxism remains an indispensable explanatory medium. This is not just the case in the
quest to understand the ideological justification provided for the policies implemented since the Party’s economic sea change of 1978; it is equally the case for the Party’s embrace of globalisation, with its attendant acceptance of China’s deepening integration with the global capitalist economy. But how could this latter strategy, one so seemingly antipathetic to the revolutionary and anti-capitalist impulses of Marxism, be explained in a manner consonant with the theoretical premises of that doctrine? The answer lies in the privileging of one particular theme in the writings of Marx and certain subsequent Marxists: the productive forces as the determining factor in history. On this supposedly touchstone premise has been constructed an ideological edifice of considerable complexity, with implications for other dimensions of the CCP’s view of history and the contemporary world. The CCP has thus found in Marxism an ideology that can justify its turn to capitalism and embrace of globalisation, but which also encompasses a vision of a socialist world very different from the world in which it now operates. The first section of the paper focuses on the archaeology of Marxism undertaken by contemporary Chinese Marxists. Their efforts at retrospection – seeking the historical roots of globalisation in Marxist texts 150 years and more old – will be scrutinised, and their interpretive shift from “world history” to globalisation noted. The second section focuses on a significant theme in the contemporary Chinese discourse on globalisation that asserts, while the origins and current dominance of globalisation are to be explained by capitalism, that it is its socialist potentialities that assure globalisation a socialist future. The paper proceeds to critique contemporary Chinese Marxism’s continuing insistence on a Marxist teleology characterised by an unswerving emphasis on the development of the
productive forces, and by exclusion of class struggle. It nevertheless concludes by highlighting the continuing significance of Marxism to the ideology of the CCP and its construction of the modern world, but queries its longer-term validity in a policy context focused on deepening China’s engagement with global capital. Globalisation, Capitalism and Socialism in Contemporary Chinese Marxism It is clear that a considerable number of Chinese scholars and Party theorists regard the current phase of economic globalisation as being well and truly dominated by capitalism. But they also believe that the contradictions inherent in capitalism – between rich and poor, humans and nature, developed and developing countries – are being extended globally through the agency of economic globalisation. In this respect, they accept that Marx’s depiction – of the contradictions of capitalism leading to its demise as an economic system – remains relevant. The factor that these scholars and theorists are struggling to explain is how, given the ability of capital to extend its reach into all corners of the globe, the contradictions of capitalism will lead to its collapse and replacement by a socialist form of globalisation. Given the very obvious and rapid rise of a capitalist economic globalisation with its marked impact on economic, political and social life in China, what is so striking about these predictions of the demise of capitalism is the frequency and confidence with which they are made. One could suggest that such predictions are merely an unreflexive echo of the CCP leaders’ rather disingenuous predictions of China’s eventual achievement of socialism. However, this would not be an accurate interpretation of the motivation and substance of these relatively widely held views on
the nature and prospects of globalisation; for there is a certain logic here that goes beyond bland and comforting assertions in conformity with the Party’s time-worn but still extant prediction of a socialist future.

Central to this logic is the belief that globalisation is not inherently capitalist. While Chinese scholars and Party theorists accept that the economic globalisation of the current era grew out of and is dominated by capitalism, they do not accept that this signifies that globalisation cannot serve the interests of socialism, in the long term. Capitalism’s triumph may not be short-lived, but neither will it be permanent. For the mechanisms that globalisation disseminates – particularly in relation to the development of the forces of production – can be utilised as much by socialist as by capitalist nations. The crucial assumption here is that socialist nations continue to exist, and that China continues to be a socialist nation.4 Socialist nations, through exploiting the opportunities presented them by globalisation, will eventually be able to prevail in their economic contest with the developed capitalist nations. The struggle is thus frequently portrayed as an economic struggle between nations of different ideological and political persuasions, a struggle that will result in the economic decline of the capitalist nations and the rise and eventual victory of the socialist nations. However, this economic contest between socialism and capitalism Contemporary Chinese Marxism and the Marxist Tradition

is portrayed in rather anodyne terms: the economic rise and rise of socialism, thus demonstrating the superiority of socialism over capitalism, and the economic decline of capitalism, thus indicating the inherent weakness of capitalism as an economic system. The
struggle will be primarily an economic struggle between nations; the outcome will be decided economically, rather than militarily or through revolutionary armed struggle. There is a very pervasive sense in the Chinese literature that globalisation has ushered in an era in which peace is the dominant international theme. In this regard, Chinese theorists are echoing the assertions of leaders such as Jiang Zemin who argued that “economic globalisation will . . . promote peace and stability in the world” (Beijing Review, 2000); while the contradictions of capitalism may have been spread and intensified by globalisation, these can be managed through international cooperation and need not necessarily lead to armed conflict (China Daily, 1998). What is absent here, from a Marxist perspective, is a sense that the resolution of capitalism’s contradictions – between rich and poor, developing and developed countries, and particularly between socialist and capitalist
countries – may not be amenable to a peaceful competition in which the rules of the game are decided through international negotiation and cooperation, but may occur through a process of violent conflict and armed struggle (cf. Cai Zhongde, 2002). The problems of globalisation, Party theorists seem to be saying, will virtually correct themselves as the process unfolds (Zhang Shibao, 2004, pp. 222–24).

Another significant lacuna in Chinese depictions of the eventual demise of capitalism and victory of socialism is how contradictions established and intensified by globalisation within particular social formations can be resolved in favour of socialism in its contest
with capitalism. This, one would think, would be a particularly pressing concern in those social formations, such as China, in which socialism is supposedly the dominant mode of production. There is, amongst most Party theorists, acceptance that economic reform has allowed the introduction of significant elements of capitalism to China; and they realise that this capitalist presence and influence will increase given the Chinese state’s determination to reform itself and the economy to create an environment conducive to greater foreign investment in China by global capital (Wen Jiabao, 2001; Lu Zheng, 1998). Indeed, many Party theorists welcome greater participation by global capital in the Chinese economy (Wang Luolin and Jiang Xiaojuan, 1999). But this perspective does not appear to have generated a concomitant recognition that an increased presence of capitalism in China represents a growing challenge to the dominance of socialism
within the Chinese social formation; and that a future transition to socialism, of the sort depicted above, will require not just an economic contest between socialist and capitalist nations, but one between the forces of socialism and capitalism within China itself. There are a number of reasons for their disinclination to consider this possibility. First, the fundamental postulate of post-Mao Chinese Marxism has been that it is the forces of production that generate historical change, particularly changes of the magnitude of the transition from capitalism to socialism; changes to the relations of production and within the superstructure are second order phenomena, and generated by changes within the forces of production. Jiang Zemin (2001) stated the official position as follows: “Productive forces are the most dynamic and the most revolutionary factor. It is also the ultimate decisive force of social development . . . All relations of production and
superstructures, irrespective of their natures, develop with the development of productive forces”. From this perspective, it is technological progress, the spread of advanced productive techniques, and the general growth of the economy and its increased industrialisation and modernisation that lead to social and economic transformations of such historic proportions; it is not class struggle, and it is not political struggle in the superstructure (Ren Zhongping, 2003). These latter may play a role at the margins, but are not, as Mao Zedong supposedly thought, central to historical change.5 In fact, if allowed to escalate, they can actually impede the evolution of history towards its predetermined goal. Second, and related to this point, post-Mao Chinese leadership has and continues to operate within an ideological framework constructed in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution, and very fearful of its social and political instability and economic losses
(Resolution on CPC History, 1981, pp. 1–86). This has led to apprehension about any significant manifestation of resentment by workers, peasants and intellectuals to the policies of the Chinese state as it has moved to embrace economic globalisation (see Chan, 2001). The possibility of resistance to globalisation, organised without the state’s imprimatur, is anathema to China’s leadership, for it is determined to keep a very tight leash on political and social activity that could threaten stability and with it the attractiveness of China as a destination for global capital.6 Those Chinese theorists who accept this perspective, and many do (Li Junru, 2003; Li Junru, 2004), are thus unable to adequately address the theoretical paradox of how the increasing presence and effect of global capital within China can reinforce China’s status as a socialist nation; they are unable to contemplate or adequately theorise economic globalisation’s impact on class structure and struggle within the Chinese social formation (cf. Zheng Gongchen and Zheng Yushuo, 2002). Locked in a perspective that, by definition, holds China to be now and into the future a socialist state, Chinese theorists are compelled to accept the state-based explanation of the
outcome of the economic competition between capitalism and socialism during the era of capitalist economic globalisation. The possibility that capitalism will prevail within China, that China’s embrace of global capital will result in China losing its status as a socialist nation, cannot be contemplated, for such an eventuality falls outside the acceptable range of possibilities incorporated within mainstream theoretical and ideological debate within the CCP.

It is here that the bounds of coherence are tested within the ideology of contemporary Chinese Marxism. For while Party theorists and to a lesser extent Party leaders cling to Marxism to explain the origins, nature and future of globalisation, they have by and large abandoned the core theoretical dimension of Marxism that can provide a coherent explanation of what it is that actually instigates and carries through the transition from capitalism to socialism: class struggle (cf. An Qinian, 2001). Marx made it abundantly clear that it is not just the development of the productive forces that generates major historical change; and that historical change is not just about economic development or technological progress (Marx, 2001). History, as Marx pointed out, is made by humans operating within and responding to definite historical circumstances, one of the most important of which is the economic condition (Marx, 1973, p. 146). The interaction of the classes generated by specific economic circumstances, and in particular the struggle between the owning and producing classes, functions as the human-driven motor that can lead to the resolution of the contradictions and manifest the potentialities inherent in that historical context, and lead to historical change. By leaving aside this dimension of Marxism, contemporary Chinese Marxism’s interpretation of globalisation is compelled to rely on a state-based explanation of the economic contest between capitalism and socialism; and it relies for its assertion that socialism will ultimately prevail in this contest on the rather complacent assertion that China is and will remain a socialist nation, regardless of its enthusiastic and deepening embrace of global capital (Hu Jintao, 2005). At a policy level, China’s leaders have made it abundantly clear that China will continue to restructure its state policies and institutions to accommodate the interests of global capital within China. Yet China’s socialist credentials, its status as a socialist nation, will supposedly remain untarnished throughout this process. This increasing dissonance between ideology and policy – between belief in the ultimate victory of socialism on the one hand and active encouragement of global capitalism’s involvement in China on the other – will undoubtedly be resolved in the longer term by the triumph of policy over ideology. In the meantime, however, Marxism will persist as a major ideological force within the CCP, as the Party struggles to fashion an image of itself that reconciles the increasing tensions between its revolutionary past and its present pragmatic engagement with global capitalism.
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