The following is the text of a speech given by Eben Dombay Williams, YCL Education Officer, at our second annual Socialist China Conference, held on Saturday, September 27.
Eben’s speech is based primarily on a text he has been translating, written by an academic at a Chinese Marxist Institute in Shanghai, analysing the theoretical aspects of what is known in China as the primary stage of socialism. The article observes that socialism in China did not emerge from fully developed capitalism, as envisioned by Marx and Engels, but from a revolutionary leap over the “Caudine Forks” of capitalism. Because of China’s relatively undeveloped productive forces at the time of revolution, it must spend an extended historical period completing the modernisation tasks that capitalism would otherwise have accomplished.
The “primary stage” theory, formally defined at the CPC’s 13th National Congress, recognises that class struggle persists but does not constitute the principal contradiction in society. Currently, “the primary task is to energetically expand the commodity economy, raise labour productivity and gradually achieve modernisation of industry, agriculture, national defence, science and technology”.
The text notes that, in the first decades of Reform and opening up, a level of ideological confusion crept in. “Some of the differences between socialism and capitalism were to a certain extent concealed under the banner of ‘modernisation,’ and a series of problems and phenomena that were clearly contrary to socialist principles emerged in society. But since the new era, the Central Committee of the CPC with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has always emphasised the socialist nature of the Chinese road, continuing to follow the basic principles and core values of socialism in drawing up the strategy for China’s modernisation drive and always inserting socialist elements into this modernisation, leading the way to building a great modern socialist country in all respects and striving to promote an organic unity between socialism and modernisation.”
As it moves towards basic completion of the task of socialist modernisation by the middle of this century, China is breaking new ground in the development of Marxism. “The implications … are not only to provide another option for the path to modernisation for the vast number of developing countries, including other socialist countries, but also to present a new solution to the problems of modernity for the developed capitalist countries, that is, the socialist road out.”
The video of the speech is embedded below the text.
I’d first like to give a massive thank-you to Carlos, Keith and the whole team at Friends of Socialist China. It’s so encouraging to see that following on from the successful 75th anniversary celebrations last year, this has now become an annual conference. It’s no small feat to bring multiple socialist and communist organisations on the left together under one roof, but it’s so important that we reject petty sectarianism and unite to build an anti-imperialist united front in the face of attacks on socialist China and the multipolar world. Of course, solidarity with George Galloway and his wife Gayatri on their shameful detention.
In my day job, I work as a Chinese to English translator and it just so happened that when I was invited to speak on the subject of socialist construction in China, I was in the middle of translating an important text written by an academic at a Chinese Marxist Institute in Shanghai. This text focuses on the theoretical aspects of what the CPC has termed the “primary stage of socialism” and will hopefully be appearing in a future edition of Iskra Books’ theoretical journal, Peace, Land, and Bread next year. I wanted to share a small extract of the text because I found it very interesting and relevant:
Theoretically speaking, socialism is not being constructed in China on the exact same basis envisioned by Marx and Engels and fully expanded upon in Capital. Instead, it has been reached directly under conditions where capitalism has not fully developed, where political power was seized through revolution at the appropriate historical moment, and where the “Caudine Forks” of the capitalist system was leaped across,” with “Caudine Forks” being the term Marx used in his prophetic wisdom to describe the problem of a potential, future socialist society attempting to skip over the capitalist stage after a successful proletarian revolution.
At first, this form of socialism could not have even qualified as the lower stage of communism, and this determined the relatively long period of time which China would have to spend under a socialist system in order to complete its historical mission and achieve the modernisation which should have already been completed during a capitalist stage, during which it would gradually close the gap in development with the advanced nations of the world. This stage is the so-called ‘primary stage of socialism.’
Facts have repeatedly shown that for a relatively economically and culturally backward country like China, there is still a long way to go from first establishing the socialist system to building socialism itself. Likewise, it has been a relatively long process for successive generations of Chinese Communist Party leaders to develop their own understanding toward this question.
After the establishment of the “new China” and particularly around the 8th CPC National Congress, Communist Party members had a sober awareness of the historical position which they found themselves in and made a deliberate attempt to shatter any superstitions around the need to follow the Soviet model of socialism dogmatically.
But faced with a harsh and complex external situation, the CPC made the mistake of being too eager for results, and was unable to successfully maintain the correct path going forwards, leading to serious setbacks to the construction of socialism in China despite some major achievements at the same time.
Faced with the convoluted road to socialist construction in China, as well as lessons from the international communist movement of those who had tried to surpass their current stage of development too early, the CPC gradually put forward its theory of the primary stage of socialism.
On the basis of analysing the concrete national conditions of China, the 13th National Congress clarified its basic theoretical understanding of this stage, stating that the primary stage of socialism does not refer to an initial stage that every country will go through upon entering socialism generally, but refers to the particular stage that China must go through when constructing socialism under the conditions of backward productive forces and an underdeveloped commodity economy.
The primary stage of socialism will stretch at least 100 years dating back to the 1950s when the socialist transformation of private ownership of the means of production was basically completed to the time around the mid-21st century when socialist modernization will have been in the main accomplished, with its deadline for this now set at the year 2049.
The wording around the principal contradiction in society during this stage has developed over time, reflecting the evolving understanding of the CPC towards their national conditions, but it was first phrased as the contradiction between the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production. Class struggle will continue to exist to a certain degree for a long period of time, but it is no longer the principal contradiction.
To resolve the principal contradiction of the current stage, the primary task is to energetically expand the commodity economy, raise labour productivity and gradually achieve modernization of industry, agriculture, national defence, science and technology. To this end, reform must be conducted where the links of production and superstructures are incompatible with the growth of the productive forces.
Modernisation is a necessary trend of human social development, as well as the shared aspiration of multiple generations of Chinese Communist Party members, except that the modernisation pursued by the CPC is socialist modernisation. And the reason for emphasising that it is a socialism “with Chinese characteristics” is that the primary stage of socialism which China currently finds itself in is not a stage of socialism in the traditional sense as understood by Marx.
According to Marx and Engels, socialism should naturally develop as a new social formation when the capitalist relations of production can no longer accommodate their own productive forces after capitalism is fully developed and modernisation has been achieved. And yet, all existing socialist countries, including China, have been established under conditions where capitalism has not been fully developed and modernisation has not been achieved, where political power has been seized through violent revolution, and then, under the guarantee of the socialist regime, the socialist transformation of the private ownership of the means of production has been realised, thereby establishing the socialist system by leaping across the ‘Caudine Forks’ of capitalism.
Prior to Reform and Opening up, the CPC put undue emphasis on the degree of public ownership of the means of production, and ended up taking a wrong course and committing the error of attempting to skip over China’s current stage of social development too early. But since Reform and Opening up, the CPC has liberated its thinking and sought truth from facts, upholding reform internally, opening up to the outside world, eliminating institutions and mechanisms which hinder the development of the productive forces of society, and thereby achieving the great leap of the Chinese nation from ‘standing up’ to ‘growing rich.’
However, at the same time, some of the differences between socialism and capitalism were to a certain extent concealed under the banner of ‘modernisation,’ and a series of problems and phenomena that were clearly contrary to socialist principles emerged in society. But since the new era, the Central Committee of the CPC with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has always emphasised the socialist nature of the Chinese road, continuing to follow the basic principles and core values of socialism in drawing up the strategy for China’s modernisation drive and always inserting socialist elements into this modernisation, leading the way to building a great modern socialist country in all respects and striving to promote an organic unity between socialism and modernisation.
At the point during the new era and the new stage of development when the strategic goals of the Two-Step Strategy for Development have been completed and a great modern socialist country has been built, this will signify the completion of the primary stage of socialism, thereby starting the advance to a higher stage of socialism.
By then, China will not only have achieved unity between socialism and modernisation, solving the problems that Marx, Engels and even Lenin failed to systematically answer and that no subsequent socialist countries have provided scientific answers to, but will also have unified the two major tasks of socialist modernisation and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, solving the problem of the relationship between the international and the national in the socialist movement.
The implications of this are not only to provide another option for the path to modernisation for the vast number of developing countries, including other socialist countries, but also to present a new solution to the problems of modernity for the developed capitalist countries, that is, the socialist road out.
I hope you enjoyed that extract. If you were interested in this article, it should be released in a new edition of Peace, Land, and Bread next year, so please keep an eye out for it, support Iskra Books, and continue supporting Friends of Socialist China. Thank you.
This is excellent. Deng Xiaoping studied in Russia during the time of the New Economic Plan. He realised that the market had to be used in order to develop infrastructure. This takes it further. Who is the author?