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Colorful Classics #11
Rethinking Socialism: What is Socialist Transition?
This short essay gives a succinct and thorough answer to the "Is China still socialist today?" by giving an objective analysis of policies and projects during China's socialist transition. The essay lays out a framework by which we can understand how and why socialism was ultimately defeated in China. This revised edition includes a new introduction by one of its original authors, Pao-Yu Ching.
30 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 20, 2021
This was a slim but indispensable book for understanding the PRC's capitalist reversal. This book has two main things going for it:
1. A concise but thorough outline of the economic organization of the PRC during the Mao period, including conceptualizations that clarify the differences between aspects that on the surface may appear the same as, but actually differ from, aspects of other attempts at socialist construction elsewhere, and finally, a look at the dismantlement of this system and the reinstitution of capitalism following the ascent of the capitalist roaders.
2. While there are several other books to choose from vis-a-vis post-1978 capitalist reforms in China (see From Victory to Defeat by this book's co-author Pao Yu-Ching or the recent From Commune to Capitalism: How China's Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty by Zhun Xu), this book also presents a novel and very useful way of conceptualizing socialism which can be applied more broadly to great effect. Namely, the authors suggest a dialectical understanding of socialism as opposed to the prescriptivism which many 21st-century communists lean on, especially in the imperial core. That is to say, they argue against a checklist of so-called socialist characteristics in favor of assessing the motion of revolutionary society towards communism or towards capitalism as the yardstick for declaring a country socialist.
This immediately brought to my mind the example of the NEP, which they indeed touched on. Using this metric, we can comfortably call the NEP socialist, because even though many reforms were bourgeois in nature, such as land reform (also seen in New Democratic Revolution China), they were instituted in such a way as to lay the foundations of socialism, and in fact, carried within them seeds of communism. While this comparison is not brought up in the book, we could compare this to Tito-era Yugoslavia, in which NEP-style policies and state ownership of productive forces were deemed adequately socialist in and of themselves and were where socialist construction stopped, like the Lius and Dengs would have had China do if it were up to them. This would therefore not be socialist, even though an idealistic reading would draw numerous parallels between the NEP-era USSR and Yugoslavia.
This book has many other gems which make it a worthwhile read, I will definitely be referring back to it in the future.
1. A concise but thorough outline of the economic organization of the PRC during the Mao period, including conceptualizations that clarify the differences between aspects that on the surface may appear the same as, but actually differ from, aspects of other attempts at socialist construction elsewhere, and finally, a look at the dismantlement of this system and the reinstitution of capitalism following the ascent of the capitalist roaders.
2. While there are several other books to choose from vis-a-vis post-1978 capitalist reforms in China (see From Victory to Defeat by this book's co-author Pao Yu-Ching or the recent From Commune to Capitalism: How China's Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty by Zhun Xu), this book also presents a novel and very useful way of conceptualizing socialism which can be applied more broadly to great effect. Namely, the authors suggest a dialectical understanding of socialism as opposed to the prescriptivism which many 21st-century communists lean on, especially in the imperial core. That is to say, they argue against a checklist of so-called socialist characteristics in favor of assessing the motion of revolutionary society towards communism or towards capitalism as the yardstick for declaring a country socialist.
This immediately brought to my mind the example of the NEP, which they indeed touched on. Using this metric, we can comfortably call the NEP socialist, because even though many reforms were bourgeois in nature, such as land reform (also seen in New Democratic Revolution China), they were instituted in such a way as to lay the foundations of socialism, and in fact, carried within them seeds of communism. While this comparison is not brought up in the book, we could compare this to Tito-era Yugoslavia, in which NEP-style policies and state ownership of productive forces were deemed adequately socialist in and of themselves and were where socialist construction stopped, like the Lius and Dengs would have had China do if it were up to them. This would therefore not be socialist, even though an idealistic reading would draw numerous parallels between the NEP-era USSR and Yugoslavia.
This book has many other gems which make it a worthwhile read, I will definitely be referring back to it in the future.
December 22, 2022
Maoists will frequently quote Mao to make their points while seemingly fundamentally misunderstanding core Marxist concepts. This isn’t a fault of Mao’s but of Maoists. This book is very light on concrete materialist analysis of China post-Mao; but even Marxist polemics should and typically do provide some level of the right material to support their arguments. Here, once again*, I find myself thinking that the quotes from Mao they pull could just as easily make an argument in favor of the CPC currently. And that’s not because Mao was a bad Marxist, but rather that MZT is among other things a beautiful clarification of dialectical materialism, what the Chinese Marxists refer to as “contradiction analysis”, and that Maoists seem to not understand this fundamental aspect of Mao’s thought.
*Once again because I found myself thinking the same things while reading Araling Aktibista, the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines’ activist instruction manual, another book like this one printed in English by the French Maoist publishing house Foreign Languages Press.
*Once again because I found myself thinking the same things while reading Araling Aktibista, the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines’ activist instruction manual, another book like this one printed in English by the French Maoist publishing house Foreign Languages Press.
December 7, 2024
Clear and concise analysis of the conflicting forces and tendencies that shaped the development of socialism in China up to the Deng era
April 2, 2023
an essential book for anyone who wants to understand how the capitalist reversal happnened in china, through the decollectivization of agriculture and giving managers more powers till they were no different than capitalist bosses, and i like how in the beginning it explains different types of ownerships (state and collective) , and how an entreprise owned by the state doesn't equal socialism .
January 6, 2023
Dialectical materialist analysis of China's socialist transition and capitalist defeat.
Espouses a dialectical viewpoint - paraphrased: 'We cannot look at one event in time and determine if the whole (country) is socialist or capitalist. Capitalism and socialism, in the 'transition', are always fighting against each other, and many events can be capitalist, even if the road is ultimately towards socialism'
Espouses a materialist viewpoint - looks at many, many events that happened in China, explains them, analyzes them, and concludes with a loud NO that China is not socialist (at least in 2000, when this book was created.)
This book is five stars. I would be happy to read it if it was 20 years ago. I wish the book had been updated for the 2020's, considering Xi Jinping is talking a lot about the rebirth of socialism. I would appreciate the authors viewpoint on this a lot.
Espouses a dialectical viewpoint - paraphrased: 'We cannot look at one event in time and determine if the whole (country) is socialist or capitalist. Capitalism and socialism, in the 'transition', are always fighting against each other, and many events can be capitalist, even if the road is ultimately towards socialism'
Espouses a materialist viewpoint - looks at many, many events that happened in China, explains them, analyzes them, and concludes with a loud NO that China is not socialist (at least in 2000, when this book was created.)
This book is five stars. I would be happy to read it if it was 20 years ago. I wish the book had been updated for the 2020's, considering Xi Jinping is talking a lot about the rebirth of socialism. I would appreciate the authors viewpoint on this a lot.
November 1, 2022
Hsu and Ching set out with a promising definition of the concepts of planned and market economy by showing how they are not directly related to the concepts of state ownership of the means of production or state participation in planning.
Apart from this first chapter, the paper is rather sobering. The idea of separating the political undertakings of different communist party actors from 1949 to 1978 in "capitalist" and "socialist projects" appears shallow and incapable of grasping the dialectical character of socialist construction in an underdeveloped country. Their sole focus on agriculture parallels in a certain sense the quite superficial focus of current-day Marxist-Leninists defending China on its sheer development of productive forces and combating poverty. That is to say, it lacks theoretical depth.
This is worsened by the fairly uncritical reception of Mao's cultural revolution and the great leap forward. Though the polemic wording of capitalist roaders is not repeated here, critique concerning Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi for their intended advancements in creating more material incentives for workers seems absurd when concerning the harsh and bitter reality of so many hardworking peasants in that time being left with little to none apart from moral praises and ideational accolades.
I, by no means, want to hold an ill will against anyone who is criticizing the economic development of the People's Republic of China in the context of Deng's reforms, pointing out obvious mistakes and hypothesizing about the dwindling revolutionary character of the Communist Party of China. Defending or hoping for a Maoist rollback in the 1990s, when this paper was written, seems like an understandable, though nonetheless incorrect, wish. Still doing so in current times seems unreasonable.
Apart from this first chapter, the paper is rather sobering. The idea of separating the political undertakings of different communist party actors from 1949 to 1978 in "capitalist" and "socialist projects" appears shallow and incapable of grasping the dialectical character of socialist construction in an underdeveloped country. Their sole focus on agriculture parallels in a certain sense the quite superficial focus of current-day Marxist-Leninists defending China on its sheer development of productive forces and combating poverty. That is to say, it lacks theoretical depth.
This is worsened by the fairly uncritical reception of Mao's cultural revolution and the great leap forward. Though the polemic wording of capitalist roaders is not repeated here, critique concerning Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi for their intended advancements in creating more material incentives for workers seems absurd when concerning the harsh and bitter reality of so many hardworking peasants in that time being left with little to none apart from moral praises and ideational accolades.
I, by no means, want to hold an ill will against anyone who is criticizing the economic development of the People's Republic of China in the context of Deng's reforms, pointing out obvious mistakes and hypothesizing about the dwindling revolutionary character of the Communist Party of China. Defending or hoping for a Maoist rollback in the 1990s, when this paper was written, seems like an understandable, though nonetheless incorrect, wish. Still doing so in current times seems unreasonable.
February 12, 2022
Honestly, great read. It's a well-made and concisely written essay that's suitable for both people new to or well-versed in Marxism and Socialist history because it's easy to read but also robust background knowledge would fill in some gaps. Those gaps are probably the only things I'd critique. Some things are left unexplained but can probably be found through some simple research but it would be nice if they included it. Mostly though, it answered so many questions I had about China even now and gave a good preface of actual things Mao did for the progression of socialism. Otherwise, there's a noticable amount of typos but that's fine cause the material is good and well-cited.
January 12, 2022
Short and to the point, a bit to many repetitions of the same phrases and doesn´t go in to much on the period after 76 but I can forgive that given the length.
March 21, 2022
Brief but interesting look at China's socialist transition.
January 2, 2025
Not a Maoist and therefore don’t agree with its central thesis as I’m against falling into Utopianism.
July 9, 2025
concise and thorough analysis of chinas socialist transition and eventual capitalist reform. gets me thinking about how we can do better next time hehe
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews