We are pleased to reprint below the speech delivered by Andrew Murray to our September 28 conference celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In his remarks, Andrew refers to Xi Jinping’s observation that without China socialism might have become marginal to world development.
He notes that China has been central to two major reconceptualisations of socialism – on the role of the peasantry in the revolution and regarding the close association of socialism with national liberation and the struggle against imperialism.
He explains that two key aspects of socialist development are the transformation of social relations and the development of the productive forces and explains how the PRC has adjusted the relative weight given to each in the periods before and after 1978.
He also stresses the continuity in the Chinese position regarding the protracted nature of the transition to socialism.
Andrew Murray is the political correspondent of the Morning Star. He has served as the Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, Chief of Staff at Unite the union, and as an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn MP when he was Leader of the Labour Party. He has written many books including ‘The Fall and Rise of the British Left’ and ‘Is Socialism Possible in Britain?’
First let me congratulate the Chinese comrades on the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). It is an event which reveals new layers of significance today, when other landmarks of the twentieth century have faded.
It is significant of course for world politics and for the Chinese people themselves. But here I want to discuss its significance for socialism. As Xi Jinping has said, without China socialism might have become marginal to world development. There are of course other socialist countries, but none have the size and international importance of the PRC.
Some deny the socialist character of China. I recall discussing with the eminent Marxist political economist David Harvey his views. He said that when he visited a location in China – he has been many times – he might see a landscape of paddy fields and then come back a few years later and see a city with factories, a high-speed railway and so on in the same spot. I asked him how this could be done, when such a pace of development would be quite impossible in Britain. He replied, “no private property rights to get in the way”. That might not be a scientific definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but it is certainly an aspect!
Socialism is not an invariant concept. It was developed in nineteenth century Europe and could not possibly remain the same as it spreads across the world and new experience from various countries accumulates. Socialism has already been reconceptualised, and China has been at the centre of two major such developments. First, it recentred socialism upon the peasantry in the Chinese revolution, and to a certain extent decentred its reliance on the industrial working class of developed capitalist countries. And secondly, it associated socialism closely with national liberation and the struggle against imperialism, building on the analysis of Lenin and the Communist International. This has relocated the nexus of socialism to what we now call the Global South.
Of course, socialism cannot be reduced to simply being whatever one chooses to call it. It has real content. Two aspects of the development of socialism are the transformation of social relations and the development of the productive forces. Both are essential, and China has laid the emphasis first on one and then the other since 1949. Until 1978 transforming social relations took pride of place, although there was of course significant advance in the productive forces through that period. But the focus was on class struggle, sometimes practised in counter-productive ways. Since 1978 the emphasis has been on the development of the economy and the productive forces. This has been accompanied by a concern to maintain social stability, but it is certain that the class struggle, which the Communist Party of China (CPC) acknowledges may be decisive in some circumstances, will need to be reasserted if the full achievement of socialism is to be reached. The two aims are linked dialectically.
The elimination of commodity production, and its supersession by the planned distribution of products, is the goal of socialism. But experience has shown that to abolish or unduly circumscribe commodity production without a high level of production and material well-being simply leads to huge long-term, and sometimes short-term, difficulties. The abolition of poverty in China and the longer life expectancy of Chinese citizens are not just achievements, they are socialist achievements. The Vulcan greeting from Star Trek – “live long and prosper” have been made a reality in China.
The CPC has introduced new ideas into socialism, drawing on China’s own philosophical heritage. Two of those ideas are “common prosperity” and a “harmonious society”. Those may not be phrased in the terms of classical Marxism, but they are definitely a presentation of socialism that ordinary working people could identify with. In Britain today we have neither common prosperity nor a harmonious society.
And the CPC has long argued that the transition to socialism is a long-term project, particularly for a country like China. At the height of the polemic with the Soviet Communist Party, in 1963, it said: “Socialist society covers a very long historical period…a very long period of time is needed to decide ‘who will win’ in the struggle between socialism and capitalism. Several decades won’t do it; success requires anywhere from one to several centuries […] it is better to prepare for a longer rather than a shorter period of time.” So, when the CPC now talks of achieving a medium level of socialist development by 2050 it is not saying anything new, it is merely reformulating what it argued when Mao Zedong was leading it.
So, to conclude we should defend the PRC, but without any “flunkeyism”, pretending that the CPC has said the last word on everything, or claiming more for the PRC than it claims for itself. We should extend our solidarity to the Chinese people, not least because that is in the interests of the British working class itself.
This is an excellent article with which I agree.
The issue, however, for China will become how it acknowledges its past mistakes and errors.
It’s alliance with the United States against the former Soviet Union made it ally with a number of unsavoury regimes such as Cambodia/ Kampuchea, Jonas Savimbi in Angola, the Peoples’ Mujahadins in Afghanistan and many more. This undermined many attempts at building Third World unity against imperialism.
Revolutionary Cuba’s greatest strength has been in facing up to its past errors and attempting to rectify them.
The transition to socialism is a long-term project so I’m not looking for quick fixes. But facing the past honestly will be necessary.