Marxism Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Friends of Socialist China

Inside China: Why they’re opening 1,000 new Schools of Marxism

In this wide-ranging conversation on The Socialist Program, historian and China scholar Professor Ken Hammond discusses recent developments in China following a visit in July 2025. He emphasises both the remarkable economic progress as well as the challenges China faces as it pursues further socialist development and modernisation.

Ken notes the absence of extreme poverty and homelessness in urban China, contrasting it with Western cities. Yet he also highlights discussions that are taking place in China as to how best to restrict the influence of big capital and to maintain the core role of the state in directing the economy.

One significant development mentioned is the establishment of over a thousand Schools of Marxism across Chinese universities, reflecting a reassertion of the importance of Marxist ideology and a renewed public discourse around socialism under Xi Jinping’s leadership.

Ken and host Brian Becker discuss the historical rationale behind China’s use of markets, viewing it as a pragmatic strategy to gain technology, expertise and capital from the advanced capitalist countries. Contrary to US expectations, this has not led to a capitalist counterrevolution. Instead, with a remarkable improvement in their living conditions, Chinese people have considerable confidence in their social system.

Ken and Brian also analyse China’s approach to international relations, based not on exporting its model but promoting multipolarity and cultural respect through initiatives like the Global Civilisation Initiative. As Ken puts it, socialism with Chinese characteristics is still very much a work in progress.

Strengthening ties between Irish and Chinese Marxists

A delegation from the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently visited Ireland as part of a European tour that also took them to Britain and Portugal.

In the following article, Gearóid Ó Machail outlines the delegation’s program in Ireland. Gearóid is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) as well as of the Advisory Group of Friends of Socialist China.

We previously published a report of the delegation’s time in London. While in Britain, they also visited Cambridge and Manchester.

The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) recently welcomed a visiting delegation from the Institute of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) to Dublin for a series of bilateral engagements and discussions.

The Chinese delegation arrived on the afternoon of Friday July 18 and began their program with discussions at their country’s Dublin embassy.

The next day they engaged with a group of Marxist academics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). This dialogue brought together academics from three Dublin universities and was facilitated by Assistant Professor Harun Šiljak of the CPI. The Irish delegation also included Emeritus Professor at Dublin City University Helena Sheehan who has recently returned from a teaching post at Peking University.

The Irish hosts engaged with the Chinese comrades to discuss Irish academia and Marxism, perspectives on Chinese modernisation, ecology, the contradictions of capitalism, ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ and other topics.

The visiting delegation comprised researchers and professors from the Institute of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) – a research institution established by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2005.

Comrade Professor Chen Zhigang, Vice President of the Institute, led the discussion from the Chinese side, offering valuable insights into the workings of the CPC and its role in China’s development. He addressed the challenges facing rural development in China and elaborated on the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the guiding principles of Xi Jinping Thought and its fundamental opposition to the Western model of globalisation and imperialist agendas. Professor Chen advocated for a model of inclusive globalisation that benefits all nations.

Throughout the discussion, he also reiterated China’s commitment to building an ecological civilisation grounded in world peace and inclusive development.

Comrade Han Dongjun translated Professor Chen’s remarks, while comrades Liu Yan, Fang Tao, and Zhuo Mingliang highlighted various achievements of China under the leadership of the CPC.

Following their meeting with the academics on Saturday morning, the CASS representatives had a bilateral meeting with leading representatives from the Communist Party of Ireland at their Party premises in Temple Bar, Dublin.

Former General Secretary of the CPI and member of the National Executive Committee of the party, Comrade Eugene McCartan was accompanied by Comrade Tommy McKearney of the Betty Sinclair Branch and Dublin Branch Secretary Comrade Harun Šiljak. Both delegations exchanged political experiences and views.

The CPI outlined its class-based, anti-imperialist approach to key political questions. Discussions focussed on ending British rule in Ireland, the defence of Irish neutrality and opposition to the growing threat posed by increased EU militarisation.

The CPI comrades highlighted their strategy to break the “Triple Lock of Imperialism” -the financial, diplomatic and military controls and instruments deployed by the USA, the EU and Britain aimed at restricting and undermining the political and economic sovereignty and destiny of the Irish people.

They also outlined to the visiting Chinese delegation how the Irish nation’s interests are currently subordinated to the needs of imperialism as a result of the political and economic subservience arising from the class interests of the comprador Irish ruling class.

Professor Chen Zhigang provided a detailed presentation on the development of Chinese Marxism, stating that it’s because of Marxism that China has been able to achieve remarkable successes. Comrade Chen discussed the meaning and relevance of Xi Jinping Thought, as the latest development of Marxism in China; a Marxism adapted to the conditions prevailing in the 21st century and the array of new challenges that present themselves.

He further pointed to what should be a well-understood and obvious truth: that as society develops, theory must develop along with it. “If Marxism does not evolve, its vitality will be limited.” He also noted that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has developed and thrived by combining Marxist ideas with Chinese culture and traditions, hence Chinese people do not think of Marxism as a foreign phenomenon.

Regarding the global applicability of Xi Jinping Thought, Comrade Chen said that China seeks to offer Chinese wisdom towards the solution of problems of global governance. The concept of a Global Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative and the Global Security Initiative are all based on the principles of mutual learning, exchanges and dialogue, and all seek to promote peace, sustainability, development, cooperation and friendship.

The meeting provided another opportunity to consolidate and strengthen the bonds of friendship between Irish and Chinese communists.

China’s development demonstrates that there is a viable alternative to capitalism and imperialism, and their hegemonic control over people and the planet. Yet, imperialist powers and their capitalist regimes remain determined and are working actively every day to try to undermine China, its people, and their revolutionary achievements.

The comrades from Ireland and China reaffirmed their belief in Marxism’s potential to offer a genuine alternative to capitalism and its warmongering, imperialist hegemony, which undermines peace and disempowers people across the globe. A better world is possible.

High-level delegation of Chinese Marxists visits London

On 15 July 2025, Friends of Socialist China, in collaboration with the International Manifesto Group and the Communist Party of Britain, hosted a round-table discussion with a delegation from the Academy of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) at London’s Marx Memorial Library.

Introducing the discussion, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez noted that the Academy of Marxism is the leading Marxist think tank in China, and that it plays an important role in developing the ideological principles underpinning policymaking in China. He emphasised the importance of engaging with Chinese Marxists, who are making some of the most important contributions to the development of Marxism in the 21st century. Carlos also highlighted the need for people-to-people ties, at a time when Western governments are pursuing policies of containment, encirclement, decoupling and New Cold War.

The five delegates from CASS were led by Professor Chen Zhigang, Vice President of the Academy of Marxism, who gave a detailed presentation on the development of Chinese Marxism, stating that it’s because of Marxism that China has been able to achieve remarkable successes. Chen discussed the meaning and relevance of Xi Jinping Thought, as the latest development of Marxism in China; a Marxism adapted to the conditions prevailing in the 21st century and the array of new challenges that present themselves.

Professor Chen pointed to what should be a well-understood and obvious truth: that as society develops, theory must develop along with it. “If Marxism does not evolve, its vitality will be limited”. He also noted that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has thrived by combining Marxist ideas with Chinese culture and traditions, hence Chinese people do not think of Marxism as a foreign phenomenon.

Regarding the global applicability of Xi Jinping Thought, Chen said that China seeks to offer Chinese wisdom towards the solution of problems of global governance. The concept of a Global Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative and the Global Security Initiative are all based on the principles of mutual learning, exchanges and dialogue, and all seek to promote peace, sustainability, development, cooperation and friendship.

The discussion then opened up to the 20 British participants. There was a rich and lively exchange of ideas, with contributions on topics including how to cultivate a new generation of Marxist thinkers; the need to overcome dollar hegemony; the significance of the concept of Common Prosperity; the relevance of China’s development model for the Global South; China’s foreign policy; the need to develop a more profound understanding of Chinese socialism in the West; and the reasons why socialist revolution has succeeded first in relatively underdeveloped countries rather than the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America.

Following the discussion, the CASS delegation was given a tour of the Marx Memorial Library, after which the delegates joined the British comrades for a dinner at Hiba Palestinian restaurant in London.

The following is a short report by Bhabani Shankar Nayak, who participated in the discussion.

An Evening with Chinese Comrades in London

As dusk settled over the cloudy British sky above London, summer humidity lingered in the air, clinging to the busy streets and concrete jungle of a decadent city shaped by colonial legacies, capitalist wealth and imperialist power. A few drops of rain brought a sense of calm to a mind otherwise clouded by the busyness of the day. Comrades gathered to reflect on developments in China, aiming to demystify the anti-Chinese propaganda that seeks to undermine the revolutionary achievements of the Chinese people and to expose the hypocrisy of Western capitalist development models, which prioritise profit over people.

The media trials and various forms of anti-Chinese propaganda reveal the racist, colonial, capitalist and imperialist character of American, British and European capitalism and their ruling elites. They prefer to see China as merely the world’s factory and the Chinese people as passive workers, incapable of developing revolutionary consciousness for their own emancipation. As a result, Western media and its backers promote fraudulent and illiberal visions of democracy, wrapped in the illusion of individual freedom and the delirium of the American Dream. In contrast, the Chinese system promotes a form of decentralised working-class democracy that guides China’s unique path of democratic, socialist and peaceful development. At the heart of this system—led by the Communist Party of China—is the pursuit of human emancipation from poverty, hunger, homelessness, illiteracy, unemployment, insecurity, and everyday risks.

On 15th of July 2025, Friends of Socialist China in the UK, led by Comrade Carlos Martinez and Comrade Keith Bennett, organised a roundtable at the Marx Memorial Library in London. The event brought together comrades, researchers, and professors from the Institute of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)—a research institution established by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2005. Comrade Professor Chen Zhigang, Vice President of the Institute, led the discussion, offering valuable insights into the workings of the CPC and its role in China’s development. He addressed the challenges facing rural development in China and elaborated on the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the guiding principles of Xi Jinping thoughts, and its fundamental opposition to the Western model of globalisation and imperialist agendas. Professor Chen advocated for a model of inclusive globalisation that benefits all nations.

Throughout the discussion, he reiterated China’s commitment to building an ecological civilisation grounded in world peace and inclusive development. Comrade Han Dongjun translated Professor Chen’s remarks, while comrades Liu Yan, Fang Tao, and Zhuo Mingliang highlighted various achievements of China under the leadership of the CPC.

During the roundtable, comrades from the UK posed a range of ideological questions on various issues, which were thoughtfully addressed by the delegates from CASS. The discussion concluded with a shared commitment to developing and coordinating a new generation of Marxist thinkers, intellectuals, and organisations dedicated to the empowerment and emancipation of working people around the world. It was agreed that more such exchanges should be organised to help the Western left gain a deeper understanding of Chinese socialism and its revolutionary praxis.

The roundtable concluded at the Hiba Restaurant in Holborn, where the Chinese comrades shared their revolutionary praxis in a relaxed social setting over generous portions of Palestinian and Lebanese food, accompanied by Gaza Cola drinks, real ales, and a few bottles of white and red wine. The Chinese comrades represented a range of age groups and held various political and professional positions within their organisational hierarchy. Yet, there was absolutely no observable power distance among them. They interacted with one another as equals—with warmth, confidence, and camaraderie—sharing food and conversation as comrades and friends. This experience laid bare the hollowness of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, which are widely taught in universities around the world. These frameworks are not only flawed but stem from a supercilious, Eurocentric misreading of Chinese society, politics, and culture. The revolutionary praxis of the Communist Party of China has transformed a historically feudal, unequal and poverty ridden society into one that is modern, progressive, prosperous, and fundamentally egalitarian.

This revolutionary praxis has enabled China to emerge as a bankable state for the working poor in both rural and urban areas, while offering emancipatory hope to working people around the world. From toys to supercomputers, from agricultural science to space technology, from needles to iPhones, and from modern medicine to traditional and alternative health practices, China’s development demonstrates that there is a viable alternative to capitalism, imperialism, and their hegemonic control over people and the planet. Yet, imperialist powers and their capitalist regimes remain determined and working actively every day to undermine China, its people, and their revolutionary achievements.

As the evening came to an end and we prepared to leave Hiba Restaurant, Comrade Professor Chen and Comrade Zhuo Mingliang warmly wished, “Goodbye, comrade,” followed by the words, “Long live Indo-China friendship.” This self-reflective, harmonious and memorable evening with Chinese comrades in London renewed the collective commitment to the revolutionary and emancipatory politics of the working class—and to the belief in its potential to offer a genuine alternative to racialised capitalism and its warmongering, imperialist hegemony, which undermine peace and disempower people. In contrast, China stands as a model of peaceful and progressive development, dedicated to the empowerment and emancipation of working people.

Reject Western Marxism, defend the socialist countries, and stand with the peoples of the world against imperialism

On Saturday 5 July 2025, Friends of Socialist China hosted – along with the Morning Star, the International Manifesto Group, Critical Theory Workshop and Iskra books – a discussion of Domenico Losurdo’s crucial book, Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, in which the legendary Italian philosopher charts the long and complex history of Marxism’s bifurcation into ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ – a division based primarily on the national question and the relative prioritisation of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggles.

The meeting was held in-person at Marx Memorial Library in London (and online via Zoom and YouTube), and the packed room was addressed by Gabriel Rockhill (Editor of the English edition), Jennifer Ponce de León (Co-author of the introduction to the English edition), Alex Gordon (Chair, Marx Memorial Library) and Carlos Martinez (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China), and was chaired by Francisco Domínguez (National secretary, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign).

Embedded below is the video of the event, followed by the text of Carlos’s speech. Carlos describes the journey Marxism has taken since its inception around the world – “a journey to the East and South”, transforming it “from being a liberatory framework for the industrial proletariat in Western Europe and North America, to being a liberatory framework for the working and oppressed peoples around the world”.

He goes on to define academic Western Marxism on the basis of its rejection of this globalisation of class struggle, and explores the material and ideological reasons for this trend’s refusal to support the socialist states and to prioritise the struggle against colonialism and imperialism.

The speech concludes with a plan of action:

Reject dogmatism and purism, reject Eurocentrism and chauvinism, and get back to playing our part in a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the oppressed nations, and the working classes and progressive forces in the imperialist countries. That’s what will get us on the path to a socialist future.

I’ve been involved in the Marxist movement in the West in some way or another since I was a teenager, but thankfully have never got particularly close to Western Marxism.

The political tradition I grew up in emphasised the importance of supporting the socialist states, and always prioritised the struggle against imperialism, colonialism and racism. To support China, to support the DPRK, to support Cuba, to support the national liberation struggles of the Irish, Palestinian, Zimbabwean, Vietnamese and other peoples were very much part of that tradition.

So despite being a Marxist in the West, I haven’t had all that much exposure to the Western Marxist academics described by Losurdo, and haven’t had to go through that extremely difficult “unlearning” process that many others have. I’ve read a lot of Lenin; I’ve read very little Adorno, Zizek and Perry Anderson.

Nevertheless, Losurdo’s book was really clarifying for me, and helped me understand the ideological roots of some of the objectively reactionary positions that you come up against all the time. Because although Western Marxism exists mainly in an academic ivory tower, it seeps into the wider movement for revolutionary change, which it seems to find quite fertile soil.

Marxism moves East and South

Marxism is, obviously, Western by birth. The first line of the Communist Manifesto is after all: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism”.

The nascent communist movement was geographically limited to Europe and North America, and focused almost exclusively on the industrial working class.

But from the beginning, it’s been on a journey to the East and South, including in Marx’s own lifetime.

Book discussion: Domenico Losurdo – Western Marxism (5 July)

📆 Saturday 5 July 2025, 6pm Britain, 1pm US Eastern, 10am US Pacific

Join us at the historic Marx Memorial Library (or online) for a discussion of Domenico Losurdo’s crucial book, “Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn”, in which the legendary Italian philosopher charts the long and complex history of Marxism’s bifurcation into ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ – a division based primarily on the national question and the relative prioritisation of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggles.

Only translated into English in 2024, Western Marxism presents a powerful critique of our movement’s historic eurocentrism, and provides a timely challenge to those of us in the West seeking to move forward the struggle for socialism and against imperialism.

Speakers

Gabriel Rockhill (Editor of the English edition)
Jennifer Ponce de León (Co-author of the introduction to the English edition)
Alex Gordon (Chair, Marx Memorial Library)
Carlos Martinez (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China)
Chair: Francisco Domínguez (National secretary, Venezuela Solidarity Campaign)

Organisers

FoSC joins annual Karl Marx commemoration in London

A delegation from Friends of Socialist China joined the annual commemoration of the death of Karl Marx, organised by the Marx Memorial Library and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), at his tomb in north London’s Highgate Cemetery, on Sunday, 16 March 2025.

In her address to the ceremony, which was attended by hundreds of people, Ismara M. Vargas Walter, the Ambassador of Cuba, said that “the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 was not just the fall of a tyrant; it was the birth of a socialist project inspired by Marxism, by the belief that the workers and peasants must be the true owners of their destiny… Marxism is not a relic in Cuba; it is a living practice… Despite the relentless attacks against our right to self-determination, Cuba stands firm, proving that socialism is not only viable but necessary in the face of capitalist crises, growing economic inequality and environmental destruction… When Cuba sends doctors, not bombs; when we develop vaccines, not monopolies; when we educate, not exploit, this is Marxism in action. Marxism is not a dogma; it is a tool for liberation… We must continue to innovate in how we teach and apply Marxist principles, ensuring that they speak to the challenges of our time: digital capitalism, climate change and the need for a multipolar world.

“Cuba’s Marxist Revolution stands with Palestine, demanding an end to genocide. Cuba’s Marxist Revolution stands with Venezuela and Nicaragua against US criminal unilateral coercive measures. Cuba’s Marxist Revolution stands with all nations resisting imperialism because Marx taught us that capitalism’s exploitation is global, and so too must be our solidarity.

“From Havana to Gaza, young people are rediscovering Marxism not as a 19th century doctrine but as a road map for survival and resistance. And they are proving that the fight is not over, that the revolution is not a relic, but a necessity.”

The Cuban Ambassador was followed by Dr. Ashok Dhawale, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) and National President of the All India Kisan Sabha (All India Farmers Union).

He referred to the rightward shift in many countries, “which sometimes takes the form of far-right and neo-fascist attacks on racial, religious and other minorities, including immigrants,” adding that “the political and ideological bankruptcy of social democratic parties and their unprincipled compromises have helped the far-right to advance.

“The opposite trend is the leftward shift in some countries of Latin America, Asia and Europe, where left forces could win over sections of the people.

“On this occasion, we salute the socialist countries like Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the left-led countries of Latin America and Siri Lanka, who are working hard to ensure the rapid and just socio-economic progress of their people.”

Following the speeches, floral tributes were laid by the CPB, the Marx Memorial Library, the Young Communist League and the Morning Star, followed by the diplomatic representatives of China, Vietnam, Laos and Sri Lanka. Flowers from Friends of Socialist China were presented by Professor Radhika Desai, a member of our Britain Committee as well as our Advisory Group. Other tributes were paid by representatives from communist parties of Iran, Chile, Cyprus, Iraq, Spain, Sudan, Greece, Palestine, Malaya and Italy, as well as the New Communist Party (NCP) of Britain and the London District of the CPB.

The ceremony, which was chaired by Professor Mary Davis, the Secretary of the Marx Memorial Library and of the Marx Grave Trust, concluded with the singing of the Internationale.

Communicating the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the young generation

What follows is the text of a speech given by Fiona Sim (co-founder of the Black Liberation Alliance and member of the Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee) at our recent bilateral webinar with Renmin University of China, held on 26 February 2026.

Fiona describes the economic, political and ideological conditions faced by young people in the West in the present era: a brutal neoliberalism, characterised by rising poverty, inequality and alienation; witnessing devastating wars and seemingly inevitable climate collapse; and being fed relentless propaganda fomenting “a culture of nihilism and pessimism”.

In academia, ruling class ideology prevails and seeks to either ignore Marxism or to paint it as some sort of failed experiment. Certainly young people are “protected” from the fact that “there is another world possible and it is being built now – by China, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, and many more entering their own revolutionary processes” that people can take inspiration from. And yet objective reality is increasingly radicalising young people; increasingly they understand that they “can organise, unite, and work together to resolve the contradictions and build a socialist alternative”.

The young generation are rejecting the right-wing and neoliberal ideologies that shamelessly capitulate to the reactionary rhetoric of the far-right. In Venezuela, we have seen how young people formed the biggest demographic that voted for Maduro. In Britain, young people started encampments in support of Palestine and continue to turn out in their tens, if not hundreds of thousands to protest the fascists on the streets as well as the government’s war mongering policies in lieu of the “cost of living crisis” and plummeting employment rates. In China, we see how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has shown the proof is in the proverbial pudding and the young people are drawn to the hope it brings, with 74 million young people as proud members of the Communist Youth League.

Fiona concludes:

Right now the contradictions of imperialism are at their sharpest. Presidents like Donald Trump expose the barefaced brutality of US hegemony and the capitalist system is leaving millions in destitution and despondence. The conditions could not be more ripe for revolution. To get there, the young people must be prepared. The young generation must be encouraged to study the revolutionary histories and ongoing resistance movements of the world because in a world so rife with despair, Marxism-Leninism remains humanity’s hope for the future.

For young people, there is a lot of reason to be nihilistic about the future and the current state of the world. We have inherited a world that is heating up. With the global average temperature rise predicted to climb permanently above 1.5°C, a mass extinction event of thousands of species grows more likely by the day. In recent decades, millions have died in the wars and genocides in Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Ukraine, and so on. Millions more around the world have died from the sanctions regime of the United States government whether by Democrat or Republican. Many young people have been permanently displaced from their homelands as a result.

The young people are the next generation, but will this next generation be the last of humanity? What will be left for the generations to come?

In the West, these are the logical questions for a generation that has been conditioned to believe that the everyday person has no influence on the systems of a society or the governance of the world. The neoliberal philosophy has poisoned the human psyche, presenting Capital as a god and capitalists as its angels. The proletariat make offerings of commodities to the bourgeois gods while driven to fight among themselves for the scraps that fall off the table. Here the idea of “meritocracy” takes root.

In such a system, working class young people become cogs in the capitalist machine–taught to worship brands and TikTok trends while being forced into minimum-wage jobs that keep them trapped in poverty, living at the behest of slum-like landlords and lining the pockets of CEOs of privatised infrastructure (whether that be water, rail, or energy). This form of alienation is a means of crushing revolutionary spirit: separating the individual from the collective, from the community, from the vanguard. At its core, as Mao says in Combat Liberalism, liberalism is “a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.” This is demonstrated in its highest form under neoliberalism.

Promoting and developing Marxism in the 21st century

On Wednesday 26 February, Friends of Socialist China and Renmin University of China’s School of Marxism held a bilateral online seminar on the theme of Promoting and developing Marxism in the 21st century. The event was attended by around 50 people, and featured contributions on topics such as: key developments in Marxist theory in recent decades; communicating the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the young generation; Marxist education in China; Marxist perspectives on the digital economy; and the role of Chinese Marxists in consolidating and translating the complete works of Marx and Engels.

Carlos Martinez, Fiona Sim and Roger McKenzie made contributions on behalf of Friends of Socialist China, while professors Zhao Yulan, Wang Li and Ma Shenxiao spoke on behalf of Renmin University. The presentations were followed by a lively Q&A session, and the event concluded with a discussion of future collaboration between the two organisations.

The following is the text of Carlos Martinez’s contribution to the seminar, taking up the overall theme of promoting and developing Marxism in the 21st century.

The task of promoting and developing Marxism in the 21st century is an urgent one.

From the point of view of addressing the existential threats that humanity faces – most notably climate breakdown, nuclear conflict and pandemics – and meeting the needs of the people of the world for peace and development, the diffusion, application and development of Marxism is of critical importance.

It was 110 years ago that the heroic Polish-German revolutionary and theoretician Rosa Luxemburg popularised the idea that humanity faced a stark choice: between socialism and barbarism. And in fact she was citing Engels from a generation before. So this notion of socialism or barbarism is not new, but today it resonates louder than ever.

The capitalist system is increasingly becoming a hindrance to human progress, and a threat to human survival. The capitalist countries no longer constitute the major driving force in the development of the productive forces, and the capitalist system is beset by intractable problems and insuperable contradictions: economic crisis, rising poverty, declining life expectancy, declining rate of profit, widening inequality, expanding unemployment, breakdown of social cohesion, war, racism, sexism, and environmental destruction.

And yet there is nothing inevitable about capitalism’s collapse being followed by the construction of global socialism. As the Danish Marxist Torkil Lauesen points out in his The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, recently released on Iskra Books: “Capitalism could collapse in a brutal, chaotic endgame of wars and natural disasters. To avoid this is our task; and to accomplish that task, we must fulfil the transition to socialism. To do this, we need to learn from the past and mobilise, organise, and develop a strategy for future struggles.”

In my view, this concisely encapsulates the tasks facing those seeking to develop Marxism in the 21st century.

It’s important to remember that the global socialist movement, in spite of setbacks, has scored remarkable successes, from 1917 onwards, and these should be studied and understood. The global working class must take ownership of its own history.

Reviewing the progress made by the Soviet Union since its formation in 1922, Yuri Andropov, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, said in 1982 that “history perhaps has never known such a spectacular advance from a condition of backwardness, misery and ruin to the grandeur of a modern great power with highly advanced culture and steadily growing welfare of the people.”

This was not simple hyperbole or hubris. Soviet socialism wiped out feudalism; defeated European fascism; built the world’s first comprehensive welfare state; made unprecedented advances in terms of building equality for women and supporting national rights; provided a bedrock of support for anti-colonial liberation movements; and modernised the country. And unlike in the advanced capitalist countries, this modernisation was achieved without recourse to colonialism, imperialism and war.

A major milestone in socialist history – a review of People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red

We are very pleased to republish below a comprehensive review by Gabriel Rockhill of “People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red”, edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, the co-editors of this website, and published by Praxis Press.

Recalling how Lenin rejoiced when the October Revolution outlasted the Paris Commune, Gabriel notes: “Karl Marx, writing on these events at the time, celebrated the unprecedented advances of the workers’ movement while lucidly identifying its principal limitation: it had not crushed the bourgeois state and founded a proletarian state capable of defending its interests. This is a lesson that Vladimir Lenin had taken to heart, and his reputed dance in the snow feted the practical success of a correct theoretical assessment.”

On October 1^st, 2024, for which anniversary this book was published, the People’s Republic of China eclipsed the longevity of the Soviet state.

How should those “who support the struggle for a more egalitarian and ecologically sustainable world” respond?

Gabriel notes that the book “seeks to respond to these questions and others through rigorous materialist analysis and a coherent theoretical framing of the PRC’s place in world history. Comprised of eleven incisive analyses framed by a capacious introduction, the book serves as a useful guide to anyone interested in a crash course on China by some of the world’s leading experts on the question. Given its readability, with concise essays and a total length of just under 150 pages, it is particularly well suited for full-time organisers and a broad readership outside of academic circles. Since it covers so much terrain and tackles many pressing questions head-on, it is, in many ways, a perfect primer on China. At the same time, it is packed with empirical details, extensive references, and insightful analyses that will be of interest to those with a strong working knowledge of the PRC.”

He goes on to argue that every socialist project has had to chart new territory in its own unique circumstances and explore ways of eking out an existence in a hostile, imperialist world intent on destroying it. Implicit in the book’s argument is the rejection of the idealist approach to the question of socialism, which consists in defining it in the abstract and then dismissing anything in the real world that does not live up to this speculative abstraction. Instead, Bennett and Martinez invite us to approach the issue of socialism from a dialectical materialist vantage point. This means recognising that it is a process that takes on specific forms in different material circumstances, and we, therefore need to analyse the complexities of practical reality rather than simply relying on theoretical definitions from the sidelines of history.

Outlining some of China’s achievements, as presented in the book, he writes that:

“Since many of these facts are undeniable and even admitted by the imperialist powers, there has been an attempt to attribute China’s meteoric rise to its supposed embrace of capitalism in the post-Mao era. Many analysts, including self-proclaimed Marxists, embrace a schematic and reductivist version of history that simply juxtaposes a socialist age under Mao to a capitalist epoch begun with Deng Xiaoping. One of the many strengths of this book is its dialectical and materialist approach to the history of the People’s Republic, which provides a fine-grained elucidation of the concrete realities of the PRC’s developmental strategy rather than falling prey to metaphysical ‘all or nothing’ assumptions.”

Echoing the conclusion of Deng Xiaoping’s November 1989 talk with Julius Nyerere, the founding president of Tanzania, Gabriel summates:

“As long as China remains on the socialist path, approximately one sixth of the world’s population will be living under socialism and striving – against great odds – to chart uncharted territory. As one of the longest lasting and largest socialist experiments on planet Earth, there is much to learn from it. This book is an indispensable guide to understanding the PRC and appreciating its impressive accomplishments in only seventy-five years of existence.”

Gabriel Rockhill is the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, USA.

“People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red” can be purchased from the publishers in paperback and digital formats.

This review was originally published by Black Agenda Report. It has also been republished by Popular Resistance and Internationalist 360°. An abbreviated version was published by the Morning Star.

One of the most legendary scenes of revolutionary joy in the history of the world socialist movement is said to have occurred when Vladimir Lenin reportedly went out to dance in the snow in order to celebrate the fact that the recently minted Soviet Republic had outlasted the Paris Commune. The workers who had taken over the French capital in 1871 and launched a collective project of self-governance were able to hold out for seventy-two days before the ruling class trounced this experiment in a more egalitarian world. Karl Marx, writing on these events at the time, celebrated the unprecedented advances of the workers’ movement while lucidly identifying its principal limitation: it had not crushed the bourgeois state and founded a proletarian state capable of defending its interests. This is a lesson that Vladimir Lenin had taken to heart, and his reputed dance in the snow feted the practical success of a correct theoretical assessment.

The Soviet Union lasted for seventy-four years if one includes the five years of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917-1922). The People’s Republic of China (PRC) recently outstripped it by celebrating its seventy-fifth birthday (1949-2024). Measured in years rather than days, the celebration organized in the Great Hall of the People was much more sober than Lenin’s purported frolic in the snow. It included a balanced appraisal of what has been accomplished thus far and what remains to be done. President Xi Jinping delivered a speech that stressed how the Communist Party of China (CPC) “has united and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in working tirelessly to bring about the two miracles of rapid economic growth and enduring social stability.”[1] Reactions in the imperial core, known for its histrionics regarding China’s imminent collapse, were markedly different. The title of one of the Associated Press’s articles directly contradicted Xi Jinping’s claim: “China marks 75 years of Communist Party rule as economic challenges and security threats linger.”[2]

Friends of Socialist China holds roundtable discussion with visiting delegation from Fudan University School of Marxism

On Tuesday 14 January 2025, Friends of Socialist China hosted a roundtable discussion in London with a group of seven academics from the School of Marxism at Shanghai’s Fudan University, one of China’s leading academic institutions. The meeting was attended by ten members and allies of Friends of Socialist China’s Britain committee, and was coordinated by Efe Can Gürcan, an adjunct professor at Shanghai University and visiting professor at the London School of Economics (LSE).

The delegates from Fudan – professors Gao Guoxi, Mei Xian, Zhang Xinning, Wu Haijing, Gao Xiaolin, Zhang Qifeng and Cui Hanbing – described their areas of research, which include moral philosophy, Marxist ethics, political economy, the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and the image of the CPC overseas.

Following introductions, there was a wide-ranging discussion based on a number of questions posed by the Fudan delegates.

A particularly lively discussion took place in response to the question of what European socialists think about China’s development. Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett provided an overview of the British left’s relationship with the Chinese Revolution and the People’s Republic of China, starting with the work of the Communist Party of Great Britain in extending solidarity to the CPC and the Chinese people’s struggle for liberation from the 1920s.

Keith noted that this relationship weakened from the 1960s with the emergence of the Sino-Soviet Split. Meanwhile there were a variety of trends in the British (and Western) left, broadly falling within the parameters of what Domenico Losurdo writes about in his Western Marxism (published for the first time in English last year), that have always tended to display a dismissive, doctrinaire and ultra-left approach to Chinese socialism and actually existing socialism in general. Nevertheless, despite these twin challenges, and although to a lesser extent compared to some other developed countries in Europe, North America and Australasia, many people mobilised by the youth and student upsurge and the emergence of new social movements, were inspired by events in China to varying extents. However, changes in China’s economic strategy and its engagement with the global left from the late 1970s contributed to confusion and disillusionment among significant sectors of the socialist and progressive movements in the West.

Keith added that in recent years however, for a number of reasons, this dynamic is starting to shift in a positive direction, with renewed interest in Chinese socialism and China’s role in the world. Partly this is due to the very clear emphasis placed under the leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the importance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. But it also reflects a deepening economic and political crisis in the West, and the comparison between Western dysfunction and the extraordinary progress being made in China on poverty alleviation, improvement of people’s living standards, environmental protection, and so on. As a result, there is more scope now for building understanding of Chinese socialism than there has been for at least four decades.

Comrades who had recently returned from representing Friends of Socialist China at the inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas commented on how differently China is perceived in Venezuela and other countries outside the Global North. They noted that Britain’s colonial history continues to impact people’s worldviews, and that a decolonial perspective is needed in order to develop a deeper understanding of China’s rise and its role in the struggle against imperialism.

The comrades from Fudan also introduced the issues of the changing nature of the working class as well as to the structure of global capitalism in recent decades. Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez highlighted the importance of continuing to define class in terms of relationship to the means of production, as part of a process of building unity around the shared interests of the working class. This connects to the importance of building understanding of China, since China provides an inspiring example of what the working class and its allies in power can achieve. The fundamental reason that China has had world-historic successes in poverty alleviation, technological development, improvement of living standards and more is that it is led by a Communist Party, guided by the principles of Marxism adapted to Chinese reality and traditions, and with a state system led by the working class and based on an alliance of workers and peasants.

A number of comrades contributed to a discussion of capitalism in its current neoliberal, financialised form, describing how the system’s declining rate of profit and inability to suppress China’s rise are leading the US and its allies to ever more reckless militarism and adventurism.

Concluding the meeting, the delegates from Fudan University and Friends of Socialist China discussed several interesting and inspiring ideas for further cooperation and coordination in the coming period.

Is Marx still relevant today?

The following article by Zhang Wan, a Current Affairs Commentator at CGTN, has been translated by the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and we are publishing it at their request.

It presents the observations and reflections of a number of Chinese and international scholars and political figures, with Xin Xiangyang, head of the Academy of Marxism, noting that, “Although Marx never visited China, his visions and assessments are largely in line with the reality of China.”

Comparing the experiences of China and the former Soviet Union, both Xin and Professor A.V. Lomanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, draw attention to the crucial importance of the ‘second integration’ advanced by President Xi Jinping, namely that of Marxism with traditional Chinese culture.

The following is the text of the article.

Over a century and a half ago, Karl Marx envisioned that China would eventually experience significant social and economic upheaval as it transitioned from feudalism to a socialist society. The internal contradictions of the feudal system, combined with external pressures from capitalist forces, would lead to class struggles, which would ultimately result in a revolution, thus paving the way for a more equitable social order and shaping its specific path to socialism.

How did Marx foresee the development of Chinese society and its continuous progress? According to Xin Xiangyang, head of the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 1939, Mao Zedong stated that China’s national condition was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Following that, the Chinese have spent a hundred years with Marxism to understand this condition. “Although Marx never visited China, his visions and assessments are largely in line with the reality of China,” Xin added.

Professor A.V. Lomanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences explains that Marxism evolved in Russia at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century, where it became known as Leninism. “A new phase began in the 1930s with the Communist Party of China’s adaptation of Marxism, referred to as ‘Marxism with Chinese characteristics’.”

Xin Xiangyang points out that the Communist Party of China has integrated the fundamental principles of Marxism with China’s actual conditions and traditional culture, known as “the two combinations”, achieving the socialist future that Marx envisioned for China’s social development.

Speaking of the weakness of the former Soviet Union, Lomanov believes it was the absence of a “second combination.” “The first combination involved adapting Marxist theory to the specific conditions of the country. However, the second combination, which China pioneered, involved integrating Marxism with traditional culture. In the Soviet context, accepting Marxism often meant rejecting traditional culture, which created a fundamental conflict, akin to mixing fire and water. Soviet culture, particularly shaped by Orthodox Christianity, made it hard to separate the culture of the Soviet Union from its religious roots. Consequently, the Communist Party in the Soviet Union failed to address this area, and this deep cultural foundation – characterised by strong religious elements – remained unresolved until the Soviet Union’s dissolution”, he added.

For thousands of years, Chinese have been striving for the ideals of “Great Harmony” and “The world is for all”. Xin Xiangyang elaborates that these ideals resonate deeply with Marxist concepts of communism and align closely with Marx’s notion of a society where the people are the “protagonists of history.” This emphasis on the people’s role as the foundation of the state parallels the historical Chinese principle of prioritising the well-being of the populace.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has said, “Since the introduction of Marxism to China, scientific socialism has become widely accepted by the Chinese people. It has gone on to take root in this country and delivered impressive results. This is clearly not accidental. It is consistent with the culture and values that our people have taken up and passed on for several thousand years.”

Forum defends anti-imperialist Marxism and People’s China

As we reported on 28 October, Friends of Socialist China recently participated in an event in New York City to celebrate the release of two revolutionary books: People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red, and Western Marxism by Domenico Losurdo, translated into English for the first time.

The article below is a write-up of that event by Sue Harris for Workers World.

Summarising the remarks made by the panelists (Gabriel Rockhill, Danny Haiphong and Carlos Martinez) and the chair (Sara Flounders), Sue notes that “the panelists agreed on the usefulness of Marxist theory in pursuing the struggle of the exploited classes against their exploiters and of oppressed nations against imperialism, which they considered the centre of today’s class struggle”.

Further: “The imperialist ruling class is trying to mobilize the population to consider People’s China their enemy. The speakers eloquently combatted these lies, which are delivered incessantly with the ruling class’s massive propaganda machine.”

Beneath the article you can find a video of the event, which was live-streamed on Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel.

On Oct. 24, 2024, in New York City, Friends of Socialist China celebrated the release of two revolutionary books: “People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red,” edited by Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett, and “Western Marxism,” a collection of essays by the Italian Marxist-Leninist Domenico Losurdo, translated into English for the first time, with an introduction co-written by Jennifer Ponce de León and the editor, Gabriel Rockhill.

The meeting, which united Marxists working in different areas in defense of China against U.S. imperialism, was held at the Workers World Party office in midtown Manhattan in New York. The office, called the Solidarity Center, is used by groups joined in the working-class struggle, including workers at Amazon, Laundry Workers, student encampments for Palestine and the Venceremos Brigade for socialist Cuba.

Broadcast on several different media platforms, the meeting was carried on independent journalist Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel, was on Zoom and was made into a podcast. A link to the meeting’s video will be available at workers.org and iacenter.org.

On the panel at the book launch were Haiphong, Gabriel Rockhill, Martinez and Sara Flounders, all known for their knowledge of developments in the People’s Republic of China and their ability to get this knowledge across in Zoom broadcasts, videos, articles and books.

It was in keeping with the anti-imperialist and struggle orientation of the speakers that Flounders, who chaired the meeting, opened with a salute to the revolutionary Yahya Sinwar, chair of the Political Bureau of the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement. Sinwar was an organizer in Gaza of the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, a martyr in battle against Zionism and U.S. imperialism.

Flounders said, referring to Sinwar, “Resistance does not die with the martyrdom of leaders. Resistance lives on, driven by the hunger of millions for liberation and justice.”

A multipolar world

Haiphong helped found Friends of Socialist China, is co-author of “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence” and a contributor to Black Agenda Report. His well-attended broadcasts cover geopolitics relating to China, West Asia, the Ukraine war and how the development of a multipolar world — as opposed to a unipolar world dominated by U.S. imperialism — can aid the liberation of the bulk of humanity.

Rockhill is Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. He has had many books published, with one set for publication in 2025, “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?” He is editor-in-chief of the World Marxist Review and a co-director of Anti-Imperialist Marxism, a book series with Iskra.

Martinez is a researcher and political activist living in London. His first book, “The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse,” was published in 2019 by LeftWord Books. His recent book, “The East Is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century,” was published in 2023 by Praxis Press and reviewed in Workers World. (workers.org/2023/07/72231/) He is a co-editor of Friends of Socialist China.

The panelists agreed on the usefulness of Marxist theory in pursuing the struggle of the exploited classes against their exploiters and of oppressed nations against imperialism, which they considered the center of today’s class struggle.

The imperialist ruling class is trying to mobilize the population to consider People’s China their enemy. The speakers eloquently combatted these lies, which are delivered incessantly with the ruling class’s massive propaganda machine.

With their exposure of what they call “Western Marxism,” the speakers also refuted those academic Marxists who might have strong critiques of capitalist society but who never side with existing socialist countries, and they also undervalue the role of national liberation struggles.

They discussed how theory must be applied dialectically, taking into account the challenges of building socialism or even building a national economy in a world still dominated by imperialism. As Martinez put it, “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels didn’t have the opportunity to view a socialist country over a long period of time.”

Flounders took up the same question, saying it is our responsibility to combat the ideas of the “housebroken, tamed Marxists in the predatory, capitalist centers, those who strip Marxism of its revolutionary character, the academic Marxists who find ways to support their own imperialist governments against the rising anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles of the Global South.”

In the presentations and in a lively Q&A, the panelists had an opportunity to develop their ideas and introduce their works.

People’s China and Western Marxism

On Thursday 24 October, Friends of Socialist China participated in an event in New York City to celebrate the release of two revolutionary books: People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red, and Western Marxism by Domenico Losurdo, translated into English for the first time.

The event, which was held at the International Action Center HQ, featured a panel discussion with Carlos Martinez (co-editor of People’s China at 75), Gabriel Rockhill (editor of Western Marxism), and Danny Haiphong (independent journalist and broadcaster). The panel was chaired by Sara Flounders of the International Action Center.

Embedded below is a video of the event, which was live-streamed on Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel, followed by the approximate text of Carlos’s remarks connecting the two books.

What was the reason for putting People’s China at 75 together?

The main motivation was that this milestone, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, when Mao Zedong famously proclaimed in Tiananmen Square that “the Chinese people have stood up”, provided an opportunity to reflect on the significance of that event.

And it’s an evolving significance. The Chinese people are still living that history; indeed the world is living that history. The Chinese Revolution changed the world forever, and the processes of building socialism and struggling against imperialism are ongoing processes that modern China is very much a part of.

So we wanted to examine China’s trajectory since 1949 and to help people get to grips with China’s socialist project in all its different phases. Certainly this is a topic that’s very little understood in the Western world, including among many on the left.

And that’s perhaps where the overlap lies between the two books we’re discussing this evening.

The Western Marxism described by Losurdo is essentially dogmatic; it considers socialism from an abstract, purely theoretical viewpoint.

For these Western Marxists, it’s a handful of academics spending their time in conferences and writing vast impenetrable volumes that are at the cutting edge of knowledge production.

For the Eastern Marxists on the other hand – the people that are oriented to the actually existing struggle against imperialism and for socialism – it’s precisely those states, movements and parties that are engaged in the process of building socialism and struggling against hegemony that are making the major contribution to moving humanity’s collective understanding forward.

The dialectical relationship between theory and practice is at the core of Marxism. As Mao famously put it in his essay ‘On Practice’, “if you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.”

Abstract theory won’t help us much when it comes to understanding modern China.

Where in Marx’s Capital or Theories of Surplus Value can you find a reference point for China’s reform and opening up process, which was launched in 1978? Nowhere.

Apart from anything else, Marx and Engels didn’t live to see the emergence of socialist states – beyond the early experiment of the Paris Commune – and couldn’t be expected to predict what problems might face a socialist state, recently emerged from semi-colonial semi-feudal status, thirty years after its founding, faced with imperialist encirclement and nuclear blackmail, and dealing with the responsibility of feeding a fifth of the world’s population with 6 percent of the world’s arable land.

Just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no revolutionary process proceeds along straight and predictable lines. Or as Lenin put it when discussing the heroic 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland: “Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.”

People see huge inequality in China, people see private capital in China, people see billionaires in China, people see McDonalds and KFC in China, and they pronounce: this isn’t socialism.

But what about the elimination of absolute poverty? What about the extraordinary improvements in people’s living standards? What about the fact that in this vast Asian country of 1.4 billion people, nobody suffers malnutrition, everybody has sufficient food, everybody has a roof over their head, everyone has clothing, everyone has access to education, healthcare, running water and modern energy.

Here we are in New York, in the heart of global capitalism. Do people here have those basic rights? How far would I have to walk from this building to find someone that doesn’t have a roof over their head, or who doesn’t have healthcare? I suspect not very far.

Why is it that China’s been able to solve these problems? Why is it that China is so focused on living standards and meeting people’s most fundamental human rights? Why is it that China is so far out in front when it comes to renewable energy, electric vehicles, forestation and biodiversity protection? Why is it that China made so much effort to prevent loss of life during the Covid-19 pandemic, whereas in the US over a million people died?

Clearly, the answer relates to China’s economic, political and social project. That China remains on the path to socialism, that has a mixed economy in which the commanding heights are publicly owned, that is run by a Marxist-Leninist party, and where the capitalist class is denied the right to organise in its own political interests.

So in terms of the line Losurdo draws in Western Marxism, I think it’s reasonable to say that on one side of that line you have people who only criticise and condemn China, who label it as capitalist or imperialist, who push the slogan ‘Neither Washington Nor Beijing’; and on the other side you have people who stand in solidarity with China, who seek to learn from China, who showcase China as an example of what can be achieved under socialism, and who resolutely oppose the US’s plans to contain and encircle China.

Engaging with the People’s Republic

A high-level delegation from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, headed by its Chair, Dr. Heinz Bierbaum, visited China in March. The foundation is closely associated with Germany’s Die Linke (Left Party).

The following article, which we reproduce from the foundation’s website, details the background to the delegation, reports its visits and meetings in Beijing, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and outlines the key themes for its future work with China. Giving an overall context, the article notes:

“Over the span of two generations, the People’s Republic of China has gone from one of the poorest countries in the world to its second-largest economy and a rising global power, and did so while maintaining its own, distinct developmental model. Its state-directed market economy has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, and garnered the attention of other developing countries looking to extract themselves from the middle-income trap.”

It adds that the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is working to reinvigorate ties between China and progressive parties and movements in Germany, in the spirit of fostering a global debate on the nature of socialism in the twenty-first century.

Moving forward, the work of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Beijing Office will focus on exchanges between European and Chinese Marxists, translating Chinese debates into Western contexts and vice-versa.

Dr. Jan Turowski, office director since 2017, argues that different historical contexts must always be taken into account when evaluating debates on Marxism and socialism:

“In China, and particularly in the Communist Party, socialism is treated less as a state of affairs than a goal-oriented strategic process… As a theoretical debate in constant interplay with practical developments, conflicts of interest, and policy demands, it changes, experiments, conforms, and yet continues to structure the political process, giving it direction over the longer term… In contrast, the debate in the West as to whether China is socialist or not often focuses — rather unproductively — on a state of affairs and set of binary categories: either a society is socialist or it is not. Many Western leftists discuss China’s contradictions as good or bad, right or wrong, rather than confronting them as an integral part of the socialist experiment. Nevertheless, bringing Chinese and Western debates on socialism together in an open-minded and interested way, without denying the many differences, might well spark some creative ideas.”

The observation is as banal as it is true: China’s economic and geopolitical rise over the past four decades has transformed both the country and the world around it, and will continue to do so for decades to come. Over the span of two generations, the People’s Republic of China has gone from one of the poorest countries in the world to its second-largest economy and a rising global power, and did so while maintaining its own, distinct developmental model. Its state-directed market economy has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, and garnered the attention of other developing countries looking to extract themselves from the middle-income trap.

It was thus only natural for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation to begin supporting projects in China in 2002, and open one of its first international offices there in 2008. Since then, our Beijing branch has grown from a modest outpost to a fully-fledged regional office, organizing high-level exchanges and joint conferences and publications with a number of universities, research institutions, and even the Communist Party of China. Against a backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions, the foundation’s work seeks to maintain and expand corridors for debate and exchange, and learn from each other’s experiences in the interest of mutual understanding. The many differences between China, Germany, and Europe notwithstanding, we are convinced that only through dialogue can conflicts be resolved in a constructive manner.

As the COVID pandemic draws to a close and travel restrictions ease, the office has intensified its activity by hosting several international delegations and organizing a series of seminars and workshops in China and Germany. Together with the launch of a new bilingual website, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is working to reinvigorate ties between China and progressive parties and movements in Germany, in the spirit of fostering a global debate on the nature of socialism in the twenty-first century. Chinese scholars often emphasize that their experience is unique and cannot be seen as a blueprint for movements and parties in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, any discussion of socialism’s prospects today cannot afford to ignore the experience of 1.4 billion people living under a system that describes itself as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

Friends from Afar

A recent sign of the office’s renewed activity was a high-level delegation to China in late March, hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and led by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s chair, Dr. Heinz Bierbaum. Together with representatives from the foundation’s Executive and Academic Advisory Board, Bierbaum visited Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, and met with representatives of municipal administrations, cultural institutions, and the Communist Party.

The delegation began its trip with a visit to the Central Party School in Beijing, where Vice President Li Yi discussed China’s socialist modernization with participants and emphasized the need for mutual cooperation in international relations. Later in the day, delegates were received by CPAFFC President Yang Wanming, who emphasized the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s longstanding role in strengthening person-to-person exchanges between China and Germany, and expressed optimism that relations between the two countries would continue to develop positively. Further meetings with representatives of the International Department of the Central Committee and the National People’s Congress underlined the depth of cooperation the foundation has developed in China over the past two decades.

The country’s high-speed rail network has helped to transform China’s transportation system, and demonstrates what kind of green infrastructural development is possible under the right conditions.

After taking in the sights of Beijing, the delegation travelled south to Hangzhou, capital of the eastern coastal province Zhejiang. Here, participants visited the nearby model village of Xiaogucheng, where the local Party leadership has instituted a number of effective anti-poverty strategies and pioneered new structures of community governance. Hangzhou has also broken ground in its attempts to integrate high-tech development with environmentally sustainable urban planning, as the delegation learned in Dream Town, a major tech hub along the city’s historic waterfront that seeks to integrate, rather than replace, the existing ecological and urban space.

The delegation’s visit concluded in Shanghai, China’s largest and wealthiest city, where participants met with Chen Jing, President of the Shanghai People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and learned about the city’s unprecedented growth within the framework of the state-led market economy. The Shanghai Master Plan, which runs from 2017 to 2035, seeks to turn Shanghai into a “modern socialist international metropolis” seamlessly integrating life, work, and the surrounding environment. It stands as an exemplary case of China’s approach to development, whereby the fundamental parameters of economic growth are laid out in a series of five-year plans, leaving ample room for experimentation and creativity at the local and regional levels.

Perhaps most remarkable for delegation participants was the substantial progress the People’s Republic has made in terms of what in China is referred to as “ecological civilization”. Electric vehicles were to be seen in every city the delegation visited, marked by their silent engines and green license plates that set them apart from the rest of the fleet. Indeed, in Shanghai, over half of new vehicle registrations are electric. The country’s high-speed rail network, which consists of 45,000 kilometres of track and encompasses two-thirds of all high-speed rail in the world, has helped to transform China’s transportation system, and demonstrates what kind of green infrastructural development is possible under the right conditions. Summing up his impressions, Dr. Bierbaum remarked that he was “deeply impressed by the level of economic and technical development achieved, above all by the fact that a high degree of qualitative and, in particular, ecological aspects have been taken into account.”

Keith Bennett: Understanding Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

The Brighton Morning Star Readers and Supporters organised a meeting on the theme, China and the Struggle for Peace on March 24.

The invited speakers were our co-editors Carlos Martinez and Keith Bennett.

In his presentation, Carlos explained the thinking behind China’s foreign policy, showing how it is based on the principles of peace, development and win-win cooperation, and explained how this approach is rooted in China’s history and ideology, and is consistent with the country’s overall strategic goals.

The text of Carlos’s presentation can be read here.

Following this, Keith presented a broad overview of China’s socialist development, contextualising it in the overall history of the exercise of state power by the working class and its allies and the original road taken by the Chinese communists led by Mao Zedong, which represents a major contribution to the theory and practice of revolution.

He prefaced his contribution by noting that the Morning Star carries the words, “For Peace and Socialism” on its masthead every day, highlighting the fact that the struggles for peace and for socialism are inextricably intertwined.

A lively discussion and Q&A followed the presentations, which was continued informally in one of Brighton’s excellent local pubs.

We reprint below the text of Keith’s remarks.

The Communist Manifesto, the foundational text of scientific socialism, is still considerably short of 200 years old.

The working class and its allies have now held state power, and engaged in a serious project of socialist nation building, somewhere continuously for just under 107 years.

The Chinese working class, together with the peasantry and representatives of all patriotic sections of Chinese society, have held state power for just coming up to 75 years, with some two decades of running revolutionary base areas before that.

Since the October Revolution of 1917, serious attempts, with varying degrees of success, have been made to establish and build socialism in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, South America and Africa.

Therefore, on the one hand we can say that humanity has acquired a certain degree of experience and lessons, both positive and negative, regarding the struggle to establish and build socialism.

But more fundamentally, we can say that, in the long course of human history, socialism remains a very new and fledgling system.

This is not to say that there is nothing to learn and draw from. Xi Jinping’s point that socialism with Chinese characteristics offers a new reference point and option for those countries that wish to rapidly develop their economies while maintaining their independence acquires ever greater validity practically with each passing day.

And communists everywhere still draw on the historical experience of the USSR, its monumental achievements, as well as its mistakes, that contributed to its ultimate demise, as well as the experience of every historical and contemporary attempt to build socialism.

But despite the fact that we do not start from a completely blank page, the most fundamental lesson we can draw so far from the historical and ongoing attempts to build socialism, I would argue, is that there is no ready-made blueprint or master plan, no straight road, and certainly no ‘one size fits all’ formula that can be downloaded and implemented at any time and in any place.

Moreover, for most of their political lives (arguably less so towards the end) Marx and Engels envisaged socialism replacing highly developed and advanced capitalism.

So far, this has not happened anywhere.

One could of course argue, like some ultra leftists and dogmatists, that this somehow invalidates the whole experience of actually existing socialism.

Or one can appreciate that this conditions the context in which countries and peoples move towards socialism, that every country will approach socialism in its own way, and that, not least, the character and duration of the transition period may vary enormously.

What’s highly relevant to those countries in which socialism has actually triumphed, theorised by Lenin as ‘breaking the chain at its weakest link’, is the fact that attempts to build socialism have all occurred in a world that is still largely dominated by capitalism and imperialism.

Moreover, every preceding class that rose to political power did so in the wake of and in the context of their rising economic power. In the case of the proletariat, it is almost the exact opposite.

All this helps explain why Stalin, in his Foundations of Leninism, explains that, even after it has taken power, for a time, the proletariat remains weaker than the bourgeoisie.

This is some of the context in which we must start to look at the trajectory of the Chinese revolution.

Although China has the world’s longest continuous civilisation and was the world’s biggest economy for most of the last two millennia, since the British launched the first Opium War in 1839, the country was reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society. Not for nothing is the ensuing period known by the Chinese as the ‘century of humiliation’, marked by unequal treaties, foreign aggression, most devastatingly that by Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, and by wars of aggression and resistance, civil wars and ultimately a victorious revolution.

Whether when the Communist Party of China was founded in 1921, or the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949, China was one of the poorest and most wretched societies on earth. Illiteracy was as high as life expectancy was low.

So, how did the Chinese revolution succeed?

Delegates from Britain, Ireland and the US learn about the past, present and future of Socialist China

The first exclusive Friends of Socialist China delegation to the People’s Republic of China took place from 14 to 24 April 2024.

Invited by the China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE), which works under the direction of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC), 14 comrades (11 from Britain, two from the United States and one from Ireland) visited Beijing, Hangzhou and Jiaxing (Zhejiang province), and Changchun and Siping (Jilin province). The packed program featured visits to public service and community facilities, historic revolutionary sites and museums, political, scientific, cultural, industrial, and agricultural organisations, exhibition centres and cooperatives, and famous scenic spots among others.

Serving the people

Our first site visit, on 15 April, was to the Beijing headquarters of the ‘12345’ government service hotline, where 1,500 employees (mostly CPC members) work in shifts to provide a single point of access for any and all problems and queries – for example, rubbish being left on the street, heating not working, or older people not receiving food deliveries. The service aims to provide “a bridge connecting people, party and government”, and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, free of charge. We were told that the Beijing HQ typically receives 60,000 calls a day, and 90 percent of these are resolved to the user’s satisfaction. The service in some form has been operating for 30 years, with substantial improvements over that period, including most recently support for more languages allowing visiting tourists and international residents to utilise the hotline.

Thanking our hosts at the 12345 hotline HQ, head of delegation Keith Bennett observed that the service embodies three important characteristics of the Chinese Revolution. Firstly, it represents a modern implementation of the slogan ‘serve the people’. Secondly, it is consistent with the mass line: “take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action”. Lastly, the 12345 service is an example of using modern technology in order to carry out social investigation, “investigating the conditions of each social class in real life”. The use of big data allows the local government to notice trends in residents’ enquiries and proactively solve problems and improve services.

At the Beijing headquarters of the ‘12345’ government service hotline

The spirit of serving the people was also evident at the Party-masses Service Centre of Jiaxing, Zhejiang, which we visited on 19 April. Opened in 2021, it’s a hub for training, exhibitions, volunteer services, social organisation incubation, and provision of mental health services. Delegates were amazed to learn that people can register for counselling and get an appointment booked for the next day – free of charge. Also impressive were the meeting spaces and lecture halls that could be hired free of charge for use by the local community. The therapy is framed within a context of public health, and is based on the principle that “only with peace of mind can the people and the country be safe.”

Friends of Socialist China participates in Karl Marx commemoration

Friends of Socialist China joined hundreds of comrades at the grave of Karl Marx in north London’s Highgate Cemetery on Sunday March 17 to mark the 141^st anniversary of the death of the founder of scientific socialism.

In 2018, marking the 200^th anniversary of his birth, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said that Marx is the “teacher of revolution for the proletariat and working people all over the world, the main founder of Marxism, creator of Marxist parties, a pathfinder for international communism and the greatest thinker of modern times.”

With noble ideals and no fear of difficulty or adversity, throughout his life, Marx devoted himself to perseveringly striving for the liberation of humanity, scaling the peak of thought in his pursuit of truth, and the unremitting fight to overturn the old world and establish a new one, Xi added.

This year’s Highgate commemoration, the largest for many years, was jointly organised by the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and the Marx Memorial Library (MML) and chaired by Mary Davis, Secretary of the Library and Executive Committee (EC) member of the CPB.

It heard orations from Lord (John) Hendy KC, a prominent labour movement lawyer on behalf of the MML, and from Alex Gordon, Chair of the Library, President of the railworkers’ union RMT and CPB EC member.

In his address, Alex noted that: “What Marx could not foresee, because no socialist planned economy arose in his lifetime, is that the world capitalist economy in 2024 would depend for its economic growth, technological and scientific innovation, and new developments in world trade on the rise of the economies of the global South, and the leading role of socialist China.”

Alex’s full speech may be read here. And Lord Hendy’s may be read here.

Following the speeches, floral tributes were paid by the CPB and MML, the Embassy of socialist Vietnam, the communist parties of Kenya, Cyprus, Spain, Malaya, India (Marxist), Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Greece, the Communist Front (Italy), Friends of Socialist China, the Young Communist League, the UK branch of the Student Federation of India, the Morning Star, the London District of the CPB, and a delegation of Chinese students in the UK.

Representatives of the Cuban Embassy and the Irish party Sinn Féin also attended the ceremony, which closed with the singing of the Internationale. The Friends of Socialist China comrades accompanied Booker Ngesa Omole (National Vice-Chairperson and National Organising Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya), who addressed our event Africa, China and the Rise of the Global South the previous evening.

To be a socialist one must be an anti-imperialist

In the following article, which was originally published by Fight Back! News, the US Marxist-Leninist, J. Sykes argues forcefully that to be a socialist one must be an anti-imperialist.

He develops his argument not least on the basis of comparing and contrasting the global roles played respectively by the United States and other imperialist powers on the one hand and socialist China on the other as well as by drawing on the theoretical contributions of Mao Zedong to the Marxist understanding of the anti-imperialist struggle.

According to Sykes:

“For the US, this [necessity of imperialism to resort to military force] includes a network of military bases, spanning the world, and its military alliances, like NATO, which it dominates. It will not hesitate to intervene militarily, or to arm and fund its proxies, such as Ukraine and Israel. It will stage coups and assassinate leaders. There is no price in human bloodshed and suffering that is too high to protect US hegemony and imperialist super-profits.

“China’s foreign policy in the developing world is nothing like this. It is neither exploitative nor extractive and is based on equal and mutually beneficial trade agreements. It is also fundamentally peaceful. The countries that benefit from trade and development from China are not locked into underdevelopment by China. Nor are they targeted for Chinese military intervention, or coups. On the contrary, China provides an alternative to imperialist underdevelopment that many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are glad to take.

“China doesn’t do this because the Chinese are nice and the imperialists aren’t. The imperialists are violent, exploitative and extractive because they must be. The imperialist system is governed by laws, laws inherent to capitalism. China behaves differently because these are laws from which the working class has freed itself in the socialist countries. Socialism, and China in particular, is thus a counterbalance to imperialism in the world. This counterbalance causes the contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems to sharpen, leading to a constant barrage of anti-China propaganda and increasing aggression from the US towards China.”

Sykes further draws on Mao Zedong’s famous article On Protracted War to explain the difference between just and unjust wars, and on Mao’s The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War for its specific application of this understanding to World War II, where Chairman Mao made his famous observation that, “in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism.”

Since the writing of The Communist Manifesto and the founding of the First International, proletarian internationalism has been a cornerstone of scientific socialism, and is a pillar of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in the era of imperialism, putting genuine proletarian internationalism into practice demands that we be consistent anti-imperialists.

Beyond any moral questions, there are two obvious, material reasons for this proletarian internationalist, anti-imperialist unity. On the one hand every dollar that goes to imperialist war is a dollar that could have been spent on people’s needs at home. But even more importantly, every blow struck against imperialism weakens the monopoly capitalist class here.

What imperialism is and what it is not

First, let’s be clear on what imperialism means. Understanding the link between imperialism and monopoly capitalism is essential. Indeed, imperialism and monopoly capitalism aren’t just linked, they’re synonymous. Failing to understand this, some people think any kind of big country is an empire and that any empire is imperialist, from ancient Rome to socialist China. But this is an idealist and metaphysical view. In other words, this view fails to look at how imperialism develops historically, according to definite material processes. It should be obvious that the Roman Empire and the U.S. empire are qualitatively different.

If we look at imperialism historically, we have to understand its relationship to the dominant socio-economic system. V.I. Lenin developed the scientific analysis of imperialism in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, to help the working-class movement understand the demands that this new historical stage of capitalism placed on the socialist movement. In “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Lenin writes, “Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism.”

Lenin, China, Palestine, and the global struggle against imperialism

Below is the text and video of a short speech given by Carlos Martinez on behalf of Friends of Socialist China at the International Assembly Against Imperialism in Solidarity with Palestinian Resistance, held at the Malcolm X & Dr Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center in New York City on January 21, 2024.

The event was organised by Workers World Party, and the date was chosen to honour the centennial of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who died that day in 1924.

Carlos asks “what ties together these seemingly disparate themes of Palestine, China and Leninism”, suggesting that the answer lies in the global struggle against imperialism. He explains the effect of Lenin’s analysis of imperialism in expanding the scope and applicability of Marxism to cover the entire world; how this informed Soviet support for socialist and national liberation projects in the Global South; and how People’s China carried forward this tradition. “China has been and remains a bulwark against imperialism, standing in solidarity with the Global South.”

The speech discusses China’s long history of solidarity with Palestine, and its current positive diplomatic role in opposition to the genocide in Gaza, and concludes:

“The brave Palestinian people, with the solidarity and support of freedom-loving people around the world, will surely win their liberation.”

Dear comrades and friends,

It’s a great honour for Friends of Socialist China to be invited to contribute to this International Assembly Against Imperialism, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

What ties together these seemingly disparate themes of Palestine, China and Leninism?

The answer lies in the struggle against imperialism.

The original slogan of the communist movement, ‘Workers of the world unite’ – the rallying cry and final phrase from the Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels in 1848 – was put forward at a time when the nascent communist movement was geographically limited to Europe and North America, and focused almost exclusively on the industrial working class.

Lenin’s study of global political economy, and particularly of the dynamics of monopoly capitalism and the emergence of modern imperialism, led him to an acute understanding of the expanded – global – applicability of Marxist thought. He understood that, as a result of imperialist domination, the capitalist class of the metropolis had become an enemy not just to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries but to the broad masses of the oppressed in all countries.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks thus proposed the development of a worldwide united front of the working class and all peoples oppressed by imperialism. Such a united front would be capable – indeed still is capable – of taking the fight to the oppressors, of defeating imperialism, of establishing national independence and sovereignty for the peoples of the Global South, and thereby opening the possibility for a global advance to socialism.

Hence at the second congress of the Comintern in 1920, ‘Workers of the world unite’ was updated to ‘Workers and oppressed peoples of all countries, unite’.

In his letter titled Better Fewer, But Better, the last document he wrote, Lenin observed that “in the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that Russia, India, China etc account for the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe. And during the past few years it is this majority that has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely assured.”

The Chinese communists of course played a crucial role in developing this ideology and applying it in practice. The overthrow of imperialist domination and the construction of socialism in China, Korea and Vietnam represented a profound shift of the revolutionary centre of gravity in the world towards the East and the South.

The Chinese benefited enormously from the solidarity of the Soviet peoples.

Mao Zedong stated in 1949, just two months before the proclamation of the People’s Republic, that “it was through the Russians that the Chinese found Marxism. The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped progressives in China, as throughout the world, to adopt the proletarian world outlook as the instrument for studying a nation’s destiny and considering anew their own problems.”

In turn, China has been and remains a bulwark against imperialism, standing in solidarity with the Global South.

China’s history of support for the Palestinian national struggle in particular goes back to the 1950s. As Xi Jinping has put it, no matter how the international and regional situation changes, China always firmly supports the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore the legitimate rights and interests of their nation, and always stands with the Palestinian people.

China sent its first aid to the Palestinian people in 1960, and when the PLO was founded in 1964, China became the first non-Arab country to recognise it. The first Palestinian fighters were sent for military training in China in 1965. It was also one of the first countries to recognise the State of Palestine – on 20 November 1988. Indeed Yasser Arafat – Chairman of the PLO from 1969 to 2004 – stated in 1970 that “China is the biggest influence in supporting our revolution and strengthening its perseverance.”

Premier Zhou Enlai wrote in 1967; “Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance; wherever there is aggression, there is struggle against aggression. I believe that having taken up arms, the revolutionary Arab people of Palestine and the entire Arab people will not lay down their arms and, like the heroic Vietnamese people, will fight on unflinchingly, resolutely and stubbornly until final victory.”

Today, China is among the loudest voices calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and insistently calling for the restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine, and for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital and with the right of return.

The heroic Palestinian resistance has put the issue of Palestine back at the centre of global politics. Meanwhile the shift towards a multipolar world and away from US hegemony is creating favourable conditions for finding a lasting and just solution.

Even as we witness the horrors of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, we remember the words of the great Paul Robeson, that the people’s will for freedom is stronger than atom bombs. The brave Palestinian people, with the solidarity and support of freedom-loving people around the world, will surely win their liberation.

Lenin walks around the world

The following article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez, was originally published on 20 January 2024 in the Morning Star, to coincide with the centenary of Lenin’s death.

Carlos highlights Lenin’s contribution to the understanding of imperialism; how this understanding fed into the expansion of Marxism to the Global South; and how this in turn created a material basis for a worldwide united front of the working class and all peoples oppressed by imperialism.

The article explores some of the historic achievements of this united socialist and anti-imperialist struggle, citing Mao Zedong in 1949: “It was through the Russians that the Chinese found Marxism. The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped progressives in China, as throughout the world, to adopt the proletarian world outlook as the instrument for studying a nation’s destiny and considering anew their own problems.”

Also mentioned is the rejection of Lenin’s anti-imperialism by the forces of social democracy in the West, where, Lenin wrote, “high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries” opens up “the economic possibility of corrupting the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives form to, and strengthens opportunism”.

Carlos concludes:

To be Marxist-Leninists in the 21st century means to return to a strategy of a worldwide united front between the socialist countries, the oppressed nations, and the working class in the imperialist countries. It means standing up for Palestine. It means continuing the fight for a united Ireland. It means opposing the campaign of containing and encircling China. It means opposing NATO. It means supporting the emerging multipolar trend. It means standing with Cuba, with Vietnam, with the DPRK, with Laos, with Venezuela, with Nicaragua, with Syria, with all countries defiantly standing up against imperialist hegemony. It means opposing racism, sexism and all forms of exploitation and oppression, rejecting collaborationism and social chauvinism, going “lower and deeper” and fighting resolutely for a socialist future.

Study of imperialism

Marx had already outlined the economic dynamics of an emerging international capitalism in Volume 1 of Capital, first published in 1867: “A new and international division of labour springs up, one suited to the requirements of the main industrial countries, and it converts one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production for supplying the other part, which remains a pre-eminently industrial field.”

By the end of the 19th century, the extraordinary concentration of capital and the supremacy of finance capital had brought the era of ‘free market’ capitalism to an end and ushered in an era of monopoly capitalism – in which phase capitalism remains.

Having dominated and saturated the home market, monopolies were increasingly driven abroad in pursuit of profit. Lenin wrote in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that “the export of capital greatly affects and accelerates the development of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported.” Export of capital stimulated the incorporation of the “chiefly agricultural” economies of the Global South into the world capitalist system, introducing industrial production and creating a social class that had no option but to sell its labour power – the working class.

With the internationalisation of capital and the subjugation of the greater part of the planet by a handful of wealthy nations, capitalism became more and more militarised. Extreme force was needed to keep colonies and “spheres of influence” under control, and furthermore was a key feature of the rising competition between the imperialist countries for control of the world’s land, labour, natural resources and markets. Such competition was the basis for World War 1.

Lenin understood that, with capitalism having “grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world by a handful of ‘advanced’ countries”, the capitalist class of the metropolis had become an enemy not just to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries but to the broad masses of the oppressed in all countries. “Imperialism is leading to annexation, to increased national oppression, and, consequently, also to increasing resistance.”

This analysis provided the theoretical basis for a strategic unity of the socialist and national liberation movements, on which basis Lenin and the Bolsheviks proposed the development of a worldwide united front of the working class and all peoples oppressed by imperialism. Such a united front would be capable – indeed still is capable – of taking the fight to the oppressors, of defeating imperialism, of establishing national independence and sovereignty for the peoples of the Global South, and thereby opening the possibility for a global advance to socialism.

Hence at the second congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1920, ‘Workers of the world unite’ was updated to ‘Workers and oppressed peoples of all countries, unite’.