In Manitoba Canada consider a vote for the Communist Party -- A clear anti-capitalist alternative , by Michael Laxer

In Manitoba consider a vote for the Communist Party -- A clear anti-capitalist alternative

The election in Manitoba is less than a week away. On September 10 the people of the province might be forgiven for thinking they didn't really have any palatable options. 

The vicious austerity government of Conservative Premier Brian Pallister has done tremendous damage with its relentless attacks on working people and its slash-and-burn cutbacks. 

As the People's Voice newspaper noted:

The Pallister government has spent the last 3 years slashing social programs and public services under cover of reducing deficits. But the cuts to hospitals and healthcare – including the decision to nix the regional hospital in Portage La Prairie – show that the Tories’ real goal was privatization – not deficit reduction. And now the people of Manitoba are suffering the consequences of reduced access to hospitals and healthcare that will cost lives.
Working people will die from these cuts, while the rich will buy front-of-the-line access to healthcare in the US.

Beyond healthcare is the harm to fighting climate change, to the rights of organized labour, housing, education and more. This is all laid out in an extensive article by James Wilt in Canadian Dimension "The devastation of Manitoba: An autopsy of Pallister’s austerity regime". It makes for pretty disturbing reading.

But it is hard to forget the 17 squandered years of the pseudo-progressive NDP in "power" in the province prior to 2016. They left office with a higher child poverty rate than when they came in and a minimum wage that was lower than that of neighbouring Liberal Ontario!

As Communist activist Jay Watts and the Communist Party noted on twitter, why would anyone think that handing the NDP another 4 year mandate will lead to meaningful change?

So what is to be done?

Happily, if you live in one of five ridings there is an unabashedly anti-capitalist alternative committed to fighting for a program of truly transformative change.

Under new provincial leader Frank Komarniski, the Communist Party of Canada Manitoba is calling for a $20 an hour minimum wage, a 32 hour work week with 40 hours pay, the building of 25,000 units of affordable social housing for rent and for sale, bringing in strict rent control, sharply reducing fossil fuel use and carbon emissions with the goal of eliminating them by 2050, building a province wide public transit network, putting police under public control, ending public-private partnerships, eliminating tuition fees, real action on Indigenous land claims and treaty rights and much, much more.

Their demands for "Immediate action to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" and to "Stop the seizure of Indigenous children into ‘care’ and enable Indigenous Nations to independently administer Indigenous child and family services" are essential and a key component of their platform to "Recognize the Right to National Self-Determination".

You can read their full platform here.

Their candidates are:

Voting Communist sends a clear message to the status quo, mainstream bourgeois politicians and parties -- reactionary or "progressive" -- outright rejecting neo-liberalism, austerity and capitalism. There are few ways to that these days.

Wallerstein, Always to the Point, By Atilio Boron on September 2, 2019

Wallerstein, Always to the Point

By Atilio Boron on September 2, 2019

Karl Marx

Immanuel Wallerstein passed away and we are deprived of an outstanding mind and a refined critic of the capitalist society. What makes this loss more lamentable is that it comes at such a critical moment as todays, when the international system is cracking from the combined pressures of the tension caused by the decline of the United State’s imperialism and the systemic crisis of capitalism.

Wallerstein was an academician with a trajectory that extended along more than half a century. He started researching about postcolonial African countries to then starting to build a great theory about capitalism as a historic system. This began during the eighties and finished with the production of a large amount of books, essays for specialized magazines, and articles addressed to international public opinion.

Wallerstein not only fulfilled the ethical principle that demands an intellectual to make his ideas public so as to nourish the debate that any society should have about itself and its future, but he also continued a path rarely common in the university field. His initial theoretical stance inscribed within the controlling paradigm of social science in his country, he then approached Marxism and finished his latest years with an essential agreement with theorists such as Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, Beverly Silver, and Elmar Altvater, among many others, about the nature of the capitalist system and its unsolvable contradictions.

His career path is the opposite to so many colleagues who, despite criticizing capitalism when they were young or in their early college years, ended up as publicists for the right: Daniel Bell and Seymour Lipset, prophets of Ronald Reagan’s neoconservative reaction during the eighties; or Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who completed their intellectual and political decline that had started in the Frankfurt School by abstaining from condemning the Vietnam War. Or writers and intellectuals who started on the left —such as Octavio Paz, Mario Vargas Llosa and Regis Debray— and became the spokespeople of the empire and reactionary sectors.

Wallerstein was different to all of them not only regarding social and political theory but also in matters of epistemological discussion, as it is revealed in his excellent work “Unthinking Social Science” written in 1998. This text invites the reader to make a radical review of the social science’s dominant methodological paradigm, whose positivist core condemns them to an incurable inability to understand the tangled dialectics and actuality of the social life. Following this approach, he could not have had a more accurate prediction about the course of imperialist domination. In one of his essays in 2011, he warned that “the view that the United States has seriously declined, is a banality. Everyone is saying it, except for a few U.S. politicians who fear they will be blamed for the bad news of the decline if they discuss it.” And he added that although “there are many, many positive aspects for many countries because of U.S. decline, it is not certain that, in the wild rocking of the world boat, other countries will in fact be able to draw the profit they hoped for from this new situation.” The path followed by the Trump Administration and the irreversible decline of the postwar world order with the U.S. at its axis confirms each of these words.

In conclusion, where can we find theoretical nourishment to understand and change the current world, finally overcoming capitalism and leave those painful and savage prehistoric times of humanity behind? He left a transparent message to the youth of today: Read Marx instead of those who write about Marx. “One must read interesting people,” Wallerstein said, “and Marx is the most interesting scholar of the 19th and 20th centuries. There is no question about that. No one is equal to him in terms of the number of things he wrote about, nor for the quality of his analysis.  So, my message to the new generation is that Marx is eminently worth discovering but you must read, and read him. Read Karl Marx!” This was one of his latest bits of advice, to understand the nature and dynamics of a system, capitalism, which in 2009 he already predicted a survival rate of two or three decades at most. Thanks Immanuel for being an enlightenment for so many years!

Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau

Manifesto of the new FARC-EP: armed struggle to continue in Colombia

A new stage of struggle for the awakening of consciences Manifesto of the new FARC-EP

FARC-EP
Translated by  Greg Butterfield

We officially communicate, as a newly constituted Directorate, that between August 22 and 25, in an extraordinary meeting of commanders, it was decided to continue the armed struggle of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP), formalizing the relaunching and reconstruction of our organization and its militias, the Clandestine Communist Party and the Bolivarian Movement for a New Colombia, and to launch the Bolivarian Campaign Strategic Plan for New Colombia, whose guidelines follow the Political Manifesto of the aforementioned structures.  As long as there is a will to fight, there is hope of winning From the Inírida that caresses the Amazon rainforest and the Orinoco with the tenderness of its fresh waters, surrounded by the fragrance of Vaupés, with its ripe pineapple, we announce to the world that the Second Marquetalia has begun under the protection of the universal right of all the peoples of the world to rise up in arms against oppression. It is the continuation of the guerrilla struggle in response to the state's betrayal of the Havana Peace Agreement. It is the march of the humble, ignored and despised of Colombia towards justice on the horizon of the future. It will be for true peace, not betrayed, spreading its wings of popular yearnings over the perfidy of the establishment. Rebellion is not a vanquished or defeated flag; that is why we continue the legacy of Manuel [Marulanda, founder of the FARC-EP] and Bolívar, working from below and with those below for political and social change. We will seek to coordinate efforts with the ELN [National Liberation Army] guerrillas and with those comrades who have not folded their flags to demand a homeland for all. This insurgency does not rise from the ashes like the phoenix to continue operating in the depths of the remote jungle. No. It will fly through those misty distances to embrace, with the strength of love, the dreams of dignified life and good governance that the common people breathe. The target is not the soldier or police officer, the officer or the non-commissioned officer respectful of popular interests; it is the oligarchy, that exclusive and corrupt, mafia-like and violent oligarchy that believes it can continue to block the gateway of a country's future. The State will learn a New Operational Mode. We will only respond to the offensive. We will not continue killing each other so that a shameless oligarchy can continue to manipulate our destiny and enrich themselves, increasingly, at the cost of public poverty and the dividends of war. During the final stretch of the peace process in Havana, and in the short space of a year post-agreement, we were able to verify that there are military and police who long for peace for Colombia, as much as the common people. They -- who are uniformed people -- were touched by the benefits of the Agreement and would now like to devote more time to their families, to study a career, to better prepare for the defense of sovereignty and to devote their weapons to the service of the people. We know that they would like to have enough power to tear out the epaulets from the corrupt high command... They do not want to continue being used by insane politicians as a trigger for false positives, for the murder of social leaders and ex-combatants. They do not want to remain complicit in the paramilitarism, forced displacement, inhuman dispossession of land and economic policies that victimize millions of Colombians. They are outraged that only they now have to sit on the defendants' bench while the political elite that issued the orders indifferently contemplates the spectacle behind a mockery of impunity. After the Havana Peace Agreement, the vast majority distanced themselves from the absurd idea of ​​being Washington's puppets in an unfair war against Venezuela. Compatriots and citizens of the world, our currency is: peace to Colombians, peace to neighboring countries, peace to the barracks that do not direct their sights and their cannons against communities. Unity, unity, unity... Mobilization of resistance against bad rulers, and for the construction of a new, just social order. We announce our total renunciation of taxation for financial purposes. We will prioritize dialogue with businessmen, ranchers, merchants and the wealthy people of the country, to look in this way for their contribution to the progress of rural and urban communities. The only valid taxation will be -- always based on the financing of the rebellion -- that which applies to illegal economies and multinationals that plunder our wealth. We will join forcefully with you in the fight against corruption, impunity, against the thieves of the State who, like leeches, are sucking the blood and even the soul of the people. We will continue to be the same guerrilla protectors of the environment, of the jungle, of the rivers, of the fauna, which Colombians know, and we will continue to encourage the worldwide effort of reason to stop climate change. Count on our fierce opposition to fracking that pollutes our groundwater. We want to work with all strata of humanist thought to build the homeland of the future. We Colombians have the navigation chart of the Liberator to march towards “… an eminently popular government, eminently fair, eminently moral, that chains oppression, anarchy and guilt. A government that reigns in innocence, humanity and peace.” With this we will be committed wholeheartedly and relentlessly -- as Marulanda said -- to a constant struggle for change, motivated in the great cause of peace with social justice and sovereignty, for a New Alternative Government that will save the country from the general crisis. Yes; our strategic objective is a peaceful Colombia with social justice, democracy, sovereignty and decorum. That is our flag, the flag of the right to peace that guarantees life. Life is the supreme right. None of the fundamental rights are applicable if there is no life. That is why we want peace for all with food, employment, water, shelter, health, education, roads, resources, connectivity, recreation and the broadest democracy. Only then will we make sense of life. Together we will be the torch of hope, the transformative social power that can make the deepest feeling that nests in the human heart a reality.  Peace betrayed The history of Colombia is a story dotted with betrayals of agreements and hopes for peace. In 1782, after signing an Agreement with the Spanish crown that promised the end of oppression, the communal guerrilla, José Antonio Galán, ended up betrayed, arrested and quartered alive. Parts of his dismembered body were exhibited at the entrances of some villages as a lesson and brutal recourse to deter rebellion. After the battle of Boyacá -- dawn of the independence of Our America -- betrayal spread like wild fog, stirred by an unbridled ambition for wealth and power. And [General Francisco de Paula] Santander was the ringleader of betrayal. He tried by all means, in concert with the Washington government, to kill the liberator Simón Bolívar and destroy his legacy; he decorated with the Cruz de Boyacá the murderers of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, who had defeated with his internationalist soldiers the colonial oppression in the pampas of Ayacucho. Santander is the hero of the Colombian oligarchy and is its paradigm; he is not the hero of the people. That Santanderist oligarchy cut short the life of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the leader loved by the people and who was for them, their hope of redemption. In their intransigence they did not forgive Guadalupe Salcedo, head of the liberal guerrillas of the Llano, who ended up shot down in the pacification of the 1950s. Nor was it lessened for Jacobo Prías Alape, spokesman for the communist guerrillas in peace talks with the Government of the National Front. In 1960 he was killed from behind in the town of Gaitania. The Patriotic Union political movement, emerging from the first government-FARC peace dialogue, was shot dead. More than 5,000 activists and leaders of the UP were killed. A whole generation of revolutionaries and progressives were massacred. After signing the peace agreement with the M-19 guerrillas in the 1980s, the State killed off, one by one, its main commanders, comrades Iván Marino Ospina, Álvaro Fayad and Carlos Pizarro Leongómez. And already in the year 2011, a president of the Republic ordered the premeditated assassination of FARC-EP Commander Alfonso Cano, with whom he had been making exploratory contacts for months to open peace talks. This betrayal occurred, after a bombing by the Air Force, with the aggravating fact that the insurgent commander was captured and totally defenseless. Since the signing of the Peace Agreement in Havana, and the naive disarmament of the guerrillas in exchange for nothing, the killing has not ceased. In two years, more than 500 leaders of the social movement have been killed, and 150 guerrillas have already been killed amid the indifference and indolence of a State. When we signed the Havana Agreement we did it with the conviction that it was possible to change the lives of the humble and the dispossessed. But the State has not fulfilled even the most important of its obligations, which is to guarantee the lives of its citizens, and particularly to prevent murder for political reasons. All this: the trap, the betrayal and the perfidy, the unilateral modification of the text of the Agreement, the non-compliance with the commitments of the State, the judicial assemblies and the legal uncertainty, forced us to return to the mountain. We were never defeated militarily or ideologically. That's why the struggle continues. History will record in its pages that we were forced to return to arms. We are heirs of the legacy of Manuel Marulanda Vélez. We are the continuation of that deed that began in Marquetalia in 1964. Former President Santos swore in the imposing voice of the Nobel Peace Prize that he would not change a single comma of what was agreed, that he would fulfill what was signed in good faith and that he was not going to give us a rabbit. But he did not even dare to give land to the peasants who have lived there for decades, being something as simple as water. The land fund, the voluntary substitution of illicit crops accompanied by alternative projects and the improvement of living conditions in the countryside have remained, until now, lost in the labyrinth of oblivion. Santos did nothing to prevent the collapse of Political Reform in the Congress, knowing, like all Colombians, that no guerrillas disarm unless there are full guarantees of political participation for all. And to top it off, they sabotaged the Special Electoral Circumscriptions of Peace designed so that the victims of the regions most affected by the conflict could have a voice in the Congress of the Republic. These are essential matters of peace. Now his successor in the Presidency of the Republic, Iván Duque, assures that what he did not sign, he is not obliged to honor, thus ignoring that the agreement was signed with the State, not with a government. Who are Duque and the Democratic Center to ignore a State obligation elevated to constitutional norm, which today is an Official Document of the United Nations Security Council and Special Agreement of Art. 3 of the Geneva Conventions? The State that does not respect its commitments does not deserve the respect of the International Community, nor of its own people. We were close to ending the dialogue to the longest conflict in the hemisphere, but we failed because the establishment did not want to respect the principles governing the negotiations, the pact sunt servanda [“agreements must be kept”] and good faith. After they achieved what they wanted, which was the surrender of arms by the guerrillas, they consciously shattered the Peace Agreement, tearing apart -- as the Uribistas say -- "that damn paper." Looking back, the first step of betrayal was the convening of an improper plebiscite. It seems that, rather than shielding peace, what Santos wanted was to defeat Uribe, exposing Colombia's most important achievement in recent decades to the lies, politicking and media manipulation of Uribism. Legislative Act 002 of 2017, which obliges the State institutions to comply with the peace agreement, was weakened incoherently even by the Constitutional Court that approved it. If some contents of the Agreement were not consistent with the constitutional regulations, the way forward was to modify it so that it did not collide with the provisions of the Final Agreement, always respecting international conventions on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. The amendments of this Court damaged the Victims and Justice for Peace Agreement, ended the autonomy of the JEP [Special Jurisdiction for Peace] as a closed jurisdiction, modified the conditionality regime to entrap only the guerrillas, excluded third parties involved in the conflict by protecting them with impunity, and extended the special jurisdiction for presidents of the Republic to all constitutional capacities. The Court also amended the Amnesty Law by ignoring clear provisions of the Rome Statute regarding the recruitment of minors. That Court that had ruled that the Agreement could not be modified by the next three governments ended up tossing the reins to right-wing legislators who quickly shattered the fast track and destroyed it under the pretext of its normative implementation. We ask where on the planet a peace agreement solemnly signed by a guerrilla army and a State, applauded by the world, has been unilaterally destroyed in this infamous way by people who were never plenipotentiaries of the parties? The Attorney General, right-wing congressmen of the Uribe and Duque political faction, and the United States Embassy ​​commanded the inexcusable defeat of peace. The prayer of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, which we remember from the beginning of the peace dialogues in Oslo, still holds today, before this reality, the most overwhelming force: “Blessed are those who understand that words of concord and peace should not serve to hide feelings of resentment and extermination. Cursed are those in government who hide impiety for the men of the people behind beautiful words, for the finger of ignominy will be pointed at them in the pages of history! ” For the children of Santander it is still "first the law -- in this case criminal law against the enemy -- and devil take the Republic." That fundamentalist vision was what killed peace. How to build peace on these taciturn ruins? You have to start with something. And it has to be with the installation of a New Government in the Nariño Palace, placed there by a great coalition of the forces of life, social justice and democracy, to convene a new peace dialogue. A new dialogue that corrects and chains perfidy and bad faith, involving guerrilla forces and all armed actors so that we can found a definitive, stable and lasting peace, sealed with the collective commitment of Never Again. Peace without further assassinations of social leaders and former guerrilla fighters, in which weapons are truly removed from politics and placed far from it.     No more santanderismo If we do not free ourselves from the curse of santanderismo, we Colombians will never have peace, nor a dignified homeland. With that ballast it will be impossible to take flight. Santander was a false national hero and "the archetype of simulation: he had no face but a mask." "It was not the paradigm of Colombia but of its destruction." Santanderismo is "the triumph of the rogue over the honest man." A "sordid rabula that sharpened its claws on the backs of the lawful treaties," that was Francisco de Paula Santander. He stole the loan of 1824. He was invincible in the field of pettiness, that is, in elections, clientelisms, libels, suspicions, intrigues, in organizing majorities in Congress; controlled the judiciary and the legislature; manipulated the press of Bogotá. He planned with the United States to divide and demoralize the liberating army; sabotage the Afictionic Congress of Panama; dismember Colombia; impose racism, assassinate Bolivar and Sucre, and abolish Bolivarian political and legislative work. And he promoted Peru's invasion of Gran Colombia. The Liberator rightly said: “As for Santander, this wicked man has nothing left to do, he touches all the springs of intrigue, of evil, and that evil is to damage me and form his party ... The existence of that monster of iniquity and perfidy is a perpetual burden to the government, myself and Colombia.” A new way of doing politics Viewed from the vantage of duty and purity, politics is a lofty manifestation of altruism, which drives -- far from any individualistic material interest -- to serve citizens and the homeland, not for gold or for fame or dominance, but for love and pure feelings of humanity; for the dignity of life and for the greatness of the homeland. But politics in Colombia -- with honorable exceptions -- ceased to be a laudable practice and became the art of stealing and tricking accompanied by a loud and demagogic eloquence. Most politicians and their bishops embedded in the executive, legislative and judicial branches do not think of serving, but of enriching themselves. They invent laws and more laws every day to benefit big business, capital and themselves, while keeping the people far away from their heart. Venal magistrates interpret the law as the law of the funnel: “lo ancho pa’ ellos y lo angosto pa’ uno” ["the wide pa'for them and the narrow pa' for me"]. The vast majority of our ills come from their absurd laws. Control of the Public Treasury, signing of contracts, juicy bribes, are the only things that sate their ambition. And to achieve this they buy everything: seats, mayors, governorates, and famished consciences to vote for them. The State has been kidnapped by outlaws and the mafia of corruption and impunity. Its rescue and release is in the hands of the mobilization of consciences, of the nation en masse, of the united people. That is the force that can do it. The sovereign has the last word Yes. We must lift this republic from the ruins. And that can only be done by the people, who are the true sovereign. The Colombian social and political movement has the floor. In the introduction of the Final Agreement of Havana, there is a compromise that was suspended in the firmament and that it is necessary to revive; this is the call for all parties, political and social movements, and all living forces in the country to conclude a great NATIONAL POLITICAL AGREEMENT aimed at defining the institutional reforms and adjustments necessary to meet the challenges that peace demands, implementing a new framework of political and social coexistence. The prevailing regime, of neoliberal policies, of corruption and war, of the current class in power, has placed before us two paths: either a recomposition is opened as a result of a political dialogue, and the institutionalization of changes resulting from a Constituent Process Open; or those changes, sooner or later, will be conquered by the outbreak of the dissatisfaction of an entire people in rebellion. Let's keep trying the most unified exit; let's open all paths of approach; let us analyze and collect the multiple proposals and platforms developed by the popular field and the critical intellectuals of the country and embroider with them a single flag, to march as an open constituent process towards overcoming exclusion, misery and immense inequalities; towards the in-depth democratization of the State, social life, restoring sovereignty and seeking to influence the processes of change in Our America, and guarantee the well-being and good living of our people. It is also about strengthening our aspirations and taking them to a new level where a Constituent Assembly, sufficiently representative and with full guarantees of action, can give a definitive impetus to the structural transformations that Colombia needs. Young people, women, peasants, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples, unions, political parties, the workers' centrals, the unemployed, Christians and members of other religious creeds, environmentalists, sportsmen, the communal movement , the LGBTI rainbow, those who dream of peace, all of us, must join forces to conquer the goal of a new country, of a new social order, with an economy at the service of the nation, which is governed by the principles of humanity to stimulate domestic production and employment. To provide free, quality education at all levels, as the first need of the Republic. An international peace policy that takes up the idea of ​​Bolívar, of forming in this hemisphere a Great Nation of sister Republics that guarantees our independence and freedom. A new order that in proclaiming national sovereignty outlaws the extradition of nationals, the free will of multinationals and the presence of foreign military bases in its territory. Transformative power The unity of the social and political movement of the country with its flags of dignified life deployed in the wind is the transformative power, the power of social change that we must strive to build. The strength of the people is in UNITY, in national collective work for the dignity of Colombia and its people. Transformative power conforms to the unity and strength of all the consciousnesses that converge from all the cardinal points where the longing for a new homeland throbs. We must not let ourselves be cornered by warriors and tyrants. Let's be a single fist held aloft, for a new government, a transitional government. Not more of the same. Let us take the helm of Colombia and direct it, without wasting time, towards the shores of human dignity. We are more. Let us apply the strength of union and reason to bring to the Nariño Palace a government that is loving of its citizens, respectful of its neighbors, the enemy of war, sovereign and in solidarity with the peoples; with new institutions integrated with virtuous, honest people, of human merits and feelings. A government that creates the happiness of the people. The struggle continues. With Bolívar, with Manuel, with the people in power!  FARC - People's Army

Uphold and Develop Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Xi Jinping

Uphold and Develop Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

Xi Jinping

First of all: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is socialism. It is not any other sort of “ism.” The foundational, scientific principles of socialism cannot be abandoned; only if they are abandoned would our system no longer be socialist. From first to the last our Party has emphasized that “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” adheres to the basic principles of scientific socialism and is imbued with characteristically Chinese features bestowed by the conditions of the times. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism, not any other ‘ism.’

Which ideological system a country implements depends on one crucial issue: can this ideology resolve the historical problems facing the country? In the days when the Chinese people were poor, weak, and at the mercy of others, all sorts of ideologies and theories were attempted. The capitalist road was tried and found wanting. Reformism, liberalism, social Darwinism, anarchism, pragmatism, populism, syndicalism—they all were given their moment on the stage. They all failed to solve the problems of China’s future destiny. It is Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought that guided the Chinese people out of the darkness of that long night and established a New China;[i] it is through socialism with Chinese characteristics that China has developed so quickly.

Now from the moment China’s opening up and reform began—and especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the tremendous changes in Eastern Europe—international public opinion has continuously railed against China. There has been no end to the different flavors of “China collapse” theory. Yet China has not collapsed. To the contrary, our comprehensive national strength increases day by day. The living standards of the people are constantly improving. “The scene before us is unique in its beauty.”[ii]

Both history and our present reality tell us that only socialism can save China—and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China.[iii] This is the conclusion of history, the choice of our people.

In recent years there have been a few commentators—both at home and abroad—that have asked if what modern China is doing can really be called socialism. Some have said we have engaged in a sort of “capital socialism;” others have been more straightforward, calling it “state capitalism” or “bureaucratic capitalism.”  These labels are completely wrong. We say that socialism with Chinese characteristics is socialism. No matter how we reform and open up, we should always adhere to the socialist road with Chinese characteristics, the theoretical systems of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the structure of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the basic requirements put forward by the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China for a new victory of socialism.[iv]

These include: the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China, grounding policy in national conditions, putting economic construction at the center, adhering to the “Four Cardinal Principles”[v] and to the program of reform and opening up, liberating and developing productive social forces, building a socialist market economy, socialist democratic politics, an advanced socialist culture, a harmonious socialist society, and an ecological socialist civilization.[vi] It includes promoting the comprehensive development of the people, gradually realizing the common prosperity of all the people, and building a modern, prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist country—including adhering to the fundamental political system of the National People’s Congress, a Communist Party led system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation, a system of regional ethnic autonomy, a system of grassroots self-government, a legal system with Chinese characteristics, and an economic system in which publicly owned enterprises are the principle part, which develop side by side with diverse forms of ownership.[vii] These features embody the basic principles of scientific socialism under our new historical conditions. If we lose these, we lose socialism.

Comrade Deng Xiaoping once made a profound observation: “Our modernization must flow from Chinese realities. No matter if it is revolution or construction, we should pay attention to, learn from, and borrow from foreign experience. However, copying other countries’ experiences and models has never been successful. We have learned a lot in this respect.”[viii]

In the past it was impossible to import the Soviet system full-scale; today it is just as impossible for us to import the Western system full-scale. After the conclusion of the Cold War many developing countries were forced to adopt the Western model. The consequence of this has been party feuds, social unrest, and peoples left homeless and wandering—all of which have, to this day, been difficult to stabilize.

I recall the story written in Zhuangzi’s ‘Autumn Floods:’

“Perhaps you’ve never heard about the young boy of Shouling who went to learn the Handan Walk? He hadn’t mastered what the Handan people had to teach him when he forgot his old way of walking, so he had to crawl all the way back home.”[ix]

We must not ever “go to Handan to learn to walk and forget our native stride.” Instead, we have taken Marxism and Sinicized it. That is socialism with Chinese characteristics.

In recent years, with the rise of China’s comprehensive national strength and international status, there has been much international discussion and study of the “Beijing Consensus,” “China Model,” and the “China Road.” Among these studies there is no shortage of praise. Some foreign academics believe that the rapid pace of China’s development has called Western theories into question. A new form of Marxist theory is overturning the traditional theories of the West!

Yet from beginning to end, we have maintained that every country’s road to development should be decided by the people of that country. The so-called “China model,” the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, was created through the Chinese people’s own struggles. We firmly believe that as socialism with Chinese characteristics develops further, our system will inevitably mature; it is likewise inevitable that the superiority of our socialist system will be increasingly apparent. Inevitably, our road will become wider; inevitably, our country’s road of development will have increasingly greater influence on the world. We need just this sort of confidence—confidence in our theories, confidence in our system, and confidence in our road. We will truly be what the poets called “like cliffside bamboo, standing strong despite countless hardships, beaten about by gales on every side.”[x]

Secondly: Our party has led the people two historical periods of building socialism: before the “reform and opening-up” and afterwards. These are two periods are interrelated. They also had significant differences, but in essence they were both practical explorations made by our Party in leading the people in socialist construction. Socialism with Chinese characteristics was first initiated in the period of reform and opening up. However, it was during the New China era that the basic socialist system was built, and socialism with Chinese characteristics could only have been initiated on this twenty-year foundation of socialist construction.

To correctly understand this issue, we must grasp three points. First, if our party did not decisively decide to implement reform and opening up in 1978, unswervingly promote reform and opening up, and staunchly grasp the correct direction of reform and opening up, socialist China might not be in the favorable situation it is today. It may be facing serious crises—perhaps even the sort of crises faced by the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, crises which brought about the death of their parties and their states. Yet if New China was never established in 1949 and we did not pursue socialist revolution and construction at that time, then the prerequisite ideological, material, and institutional wherewithal needed to smoothly implement reform and opening up would never have accumulated. We needed those experiences—both the positive and the negative ones.

Second, even though the guidance, policy, and actual work of building socialism in these two historical eras had large differences, they are by no means cut off from each other, much less inherently antithetical to each other. In the midst of building practical socialism, our Party put forward many correct propositions. But at that time these propositions were not implemented. Only after the reform and opening up were they fully carried out. In the future these concepts will need to be both adhered to and further developed. Like Marx said long ago: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”[xi]

Third, we must correctly evaluate the historical period that came before reform and opening up. We cannot use the post-reform period to repudiate the pre-reform period. Nor can we repudiate the post-reform period with the history of the pre-reform era. The exploration of socialist practice before reform and opening-up created the necessary conditions for the exploration of socialist practice after reform and opening-up. Our explorations of socialist practice in the post-reform era are a continuation and development of what came before. Thus, in regard to the exploration of socialist practice before reform and opening up, we should adhere to the ideological line of seeking truth from facts, clearly distinguish the essential from the nonessential, adhere to truth, correct errors, develop our experience and draw lessons from it. On this foundation we can continue to push forward the cause of the Party and the people.

The reason why I emphasize this problem is because it is a major political issue. If it is not handled well, it will have serious political consequences. As one ancient said: “To destroy a people, you must first destroy their history.”[xii] Hostile forces at home and abroad often write essays on the history of the Chinese revolution or of New China, doing all in their power to smear and vilify that era. Their fundamental purpose is to confuse the hearts of the people. They aim to incite them into overthrowing both the Communist Party of China’s leadership and the socialist system of our country.

Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall to pieces? An important reason is that in the ideological domain, competition is fierce! To completely repudiate the historical experience of the Soviet Union, to repudiate the history of the CPSU, to repudiate Lenin, to repudiate Stalin was to wreck chaos in Soviet ideology and engage in historical nihilism. It caused Party organizations at all levels to have barely any function whatsoever. It robbed the Party of its leadership of the military. In the end the CPSU—as great a Party as it was—scattered like a flock of frightened beasts! The Soviet Union—as great a country as it was—shattered into a dozen pieces. This is a lesson from the past!

Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out: “The banner of Mao Zedong Thought cannot be discarded. Throwing this banner out negates the glorious history of our Party. Generally speaking, our Party’s history is still a glorious one. Although our Party has made some large mistakes in its history, including in the 30 years since the founding of the People’s Republic, even mistakes as large as the Cultural Revolution, in the end it was our Party that made the revolution successful. China’s status in the world was significantly improved after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Only the founding of the People’s Republic of China enabled us, a big country with a population of nearly one fourth of the Earth’s total, to stand up and stand strong in the world.”[xiii]

He also emphasized, “The appraisal of Comrade Mao and the exegesis of Mao Zedong Thought does not solely touch upon the personal issues of Comrade Mao. These things cannot be cut away from the entire history of our Party and our country. To grasp this is to grasp everything. This is not just an intellectual issue—it is a political issue. It is a great political issue, both here and at home.”[xiv]

This is the vision of a great Marxist politician. Just think: if at the time of reform Comrade Mao had been completely repudiated, would our Party still be standing? Would our country’s system of socialism still be standing? And if it was not still standing, what would we have? A world of chaos.

Therefore, correctly handling the relationship between socialist practice and exploration both before reform and opening-up and after cannot be seen as a mere historical issue. It is a political one. To better understand this, I recommend you all take the time to read the “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China.”[xv]

My third point: Marxism always develops along with the social realities and technology of the times. Marxism cannot stagnate. After the start of opening-up, socialism has only continued to advance. Upholding the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics is much like a great book. To establish foundational principles and ideas, Comrade Deng Xiaoping etched his part in. The Party Central Committee’s third generation, with Comrade Jiang Zemin as its core and Comrade Hu Jintao as general secretary, added their own brilliant chapters to this book. The responsibility of this generation of Communist Party members is to write the next chapter of this great work.

More than 30 years have passed since socialism with Chinese characteristics began; in that time, it has succeeded in many a grand endeavor. This is besides the accomplishments made in the founding of New China, a foundation that has allowed China to stand tall and stride far. Our understanding of socialism, and our grasp of the laws that govern socialism with Chinese characteristics, have reached unprecedented heights. This is unquestionably true. Yet at the same time, we should also recognize that the socialism of our country is still in its infancy. We still face many problems that we have not grasped clearly and dilemmas that have not been resolved. It is also unquestionably true that our understanding and handling of many significant issues is still deepening. Understanding anything requires a process. We have only engaged in socialism for a few decades. Our grasp on these things is still very limited; in practice, we must constantly develop further.

To uphold Marxism and socialism, we must take the perspective of development. We must take the practical problems of China’s modernization and reform and put these things we are doing at the center of our vision. Then we must focus our view of them through the perspective of Marxist theory, the sort of theoretical thinking that addresses practical problems, and through the new practices and forms of development that result from this. We have said that there is no one-size-fits-all path of development for the entire world. There also is no path of development that does not require change. Our past achievements in theory and practice will help us better face the problems of our forward march. However, we cannot let them become an excuse for arrogance and complacency, or even worse, a weight that drags this march down. As our cause advances and develops, the situations we encounter will be less familiar, the challenges and risks we face will grow greater, and we will meet with a growing number of events that cannot now be foreseen. We must become more alert to potential misfortune. We must prepare for danger in a time of peace.

Liberate your mind. Seek truth from facts. Keep pace with the times. This is the living soul of Marxism. These are the fundamental ideological weapons for adapting to new terrain, understanding new things, and accomplishing new tasks. Yet first and foremost, all Party cadres at all levels must adhere to the Marxist viewpoint of development, insist that practice is the only criterion for testing truth, bring into play historical initiative and creativity, and clearly perceive both continuity and change in the Party, the country, and the broader world. We must always have the spirit of “opening roads where we find mountains and building bridges where we meet rivers.” We should be enterprising, bold, and daring as we analyze and answer the pressing questions of real life and issues of mass ideology. We will continue to deepen reform and opening up, continue to discover, create, and advance, and continue to promote institutional, theoretical, and practical innovations.

Fourth: From beginning to end our Party has always adhered to the lofty ideals of communism. Party members, especially leading cadres, should be firm believers and faithful practitioners of the lofty ideal of communism and the common ideals of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Faith in Marxism, a socialist and communist conviction, is the political soul of the Communist Party member. They are the spiritual pillar that give him the strength to undergo any test.  The Party Constitution clearly stipulates that the Party’s highest ideal and ultimate goal is to achieve communism. At the same time, the Party Constitution also clearly stipulates that the high ideal of communism can only be realized by a highly developed socialist society.[xvi] To pause for a moment or two and then suddenly enter communism—that isn’t realistic.

Comrade Deng Xiaoping said that the consolidation and development of the socialist system will require its own long period of history. He said it will require the tireless struggle of generations, up to ten generations, or perhaps even tens of generations of communists. Tens of generations—that is a long time! From the time of Confucius to the present day we have not seen more than seventy generations. Looking at the problem in this way is a real demonstration of the soberness of the Communist Party of China.

We must recognize that our labors today and the unceasing work of so many generations in the future are paired together, all moving towards the ultimate goal of achieving communism. If we throw away our Communist Party’s lofty ideals, we will lose our direction and become coldly utilitarian.  At the same time, we must recognize that the realization of communism is a very long historical process. We must ground ourselves in the struggles of the present moment and keep our work down to earth.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics is our Party’s most fundamental, unifying program. The program of socialism with Chinese characteristics is, in a nutshell, to build a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, modernized and harmonious socialist country. Not only is this program based on the basic national conditions in which our country is now in, and the primary stage of socialism in which it must remain in for a long time—it also does not depart from the highest ideals of the Party.

Thus we must tread the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics with resolve. We must keep the sublime ideals of Communism in our hearts, and with unswerving conviction implement the Party’s basic line and program for the primary stage of socialism. Every job we do must be done well.

Revolutionary ideals reach higher than the heavens. Without lofty ideals, you do not reach the standards of a Communist Party member. Yet those who abandon their work in the real world to vainly preach such ideals also do not reach this standard.  In our Party’s ninety years of history, one generation of Communists after another did not hesitate to shed their blood and lay down their lives for the independence and liberation of the people. They did this by relying on their faith and ideals. Even though they knew that their ideals would not be realized by their own hands, they firmly believed that as long as the generations to come continued laboring, as long as the generations to come sacrificed for this goal, then their sublime ideals would be realized.

Today, there are objective criteria to measure whether a Communist Party member or a leading cadre aspires to the lofty ideals of communism. Will he devote his whole heart and purpose to the service of the people? Will he suffer hardship first and postpone enjoyment until later? Will he work diligently and perform his duties honestly? Is he willing to dash ahead regardless of danger, fight, and consecrate his entire spirit, his entire life, for these ideals? Every hesitant, undecided conviction, every hedonistic way of thinking, every self-interested behavior, and every style of inaction is incompatible with these ideals.

There are people who believe that communism is an unattainable hope, or even that it is beyond hoping for—that communism is an illusion. This touches upon whether historical materialism or historical idealism is the proper frame through which to view world affairs.[xvii] The fundamental reason why some of our comrades have weak ideals and faltering beliefs is that their views lack a firm grounding in historical materialism. We should educate and guide cadres and the broader mass of Party members so that we can unite our the common ideal of practicing socialism with Chinese characteristics together with our lofty ideal of securing Communism. Our actions must be devout, determined, profound, and sincere.  With firm ideals and convictions, we will stand taller, our vision will grow wider, and our mind will grow broader. We will be able to adhere to the correct political orientation, stand without arrogance in victory, without despair in adversity, enduring all sorts of risk and adversity, consciously resisting the corrosion of decedent philosophies, forever fostering the political essence of a Communist.

Facts have repeatedly told us that Marx and Engels’ analysis of the basic contradictions in capitalist society is not outdated, nor is the historical materialist view that capitalism is bound to die out and socialism is bound to win. This is an inevitable trend in social and historical development. But the road is tortuous. The eventual demise of capitalism and the ultimate victory of socialism will require a long historical process to reach completion.  In the meantime, we must have a deep appreciation for capitalism’s ability to self-correct, and a full, objective assessment of the real long-term advantages that the developed Western nations have in the economic, technological, and military spheres. Then we must diligently prepare for a long period of cooperation and of conflict between these two social systems in each of these domains.

For a fairly long time yet, socialism in its primary stage will exist alongside a more productive and developed capitalist system. In this long period of cooperation and conflict, socialism must learn from the boons that capitalism has brought to civilization. We must face the reality that people will use the strengths of developed, Western countries to denounce our country’s socialist development. Here we must have a great strategic determination, resolutely rejecting all false arguments that we should abandon socialism. We must consciously correct the various ideas that do not accord with our current stage. Most importantly, we must concentrate our efforts on bettering our own affairs, continually broadening our comprehensive national power, improving the lives of our people, building a socialism that is superior to capitalism, and laying the foundation for a future where we will win the initiative and have the dominant position.

From this analysis, we gain a deeper appreciation of the fact that the ideological road we choose to follow is the central problem that will determine the victory or defeat of our Party’s work, the very fate of the Party itself. As Comrade Mao Zedong once said: “A revolutionary party is the guide of the masses. In revolutions, there has never been a revolutionary party that led its people onto the wrong road whose revolution did not fail.”

Our Party, in the time of revolution, construction, and reform, has adhered to the national conditions of our country, explored and formed a new democratic revolutionary road, a road of socialist transformation and construction. This is the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This spirit of exploration, this resolution to stick to our own road, is the true reason this Party has always been able to reawaken itself after set-backs and spring from triumph to triumph.

The great writer Lu Xun coined a famous saying: “Even if there is no road, when enough people walk through, a road will be made.” Socialism with Chinese characteristics is the dialectical unity of the theoretical logic of scientific socialism and the historical logic of China’s social development. It is a scientific socialism rooted in China’s soil, one that reflects the aspirations of the Chinese people, and one that is adapted to the conditions of progress in our times. It is the only way to comprehensively build a prosperous society, accelerate socialist modernization and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As long as we stick to our own path and unswervingly adhere to and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, we will surely be able to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society by the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and a prosperous, democratic, civilized, modernized, and harmonious socialist country by the centennial anniversary of the founding of New China.

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Notes:

[i] “New China” is a rhetorical term for the People’s Republic of China, designed originally to highlight the revolutionary nature of the new regime. It has a strong Maoist flavor, and the phrase “New China Era” is often used as a shorthand for the era Westerners would label “Maoist China.”

[ii] The quotation is from a 1937 poem written by Mao Zedong (“Huichang”) often played to orchestral accompaniment.

[iii] Variations of the phrase “Only socialism can save China” have been used since Maoist times; the “develop” clause was added in the Dengist era. Xi first used it as General Secretary just a few days after his new role as Genera Secretary had been announced (see Xi Jinping, Governance of China, vol I, p. 7).

[iv] The 18th National Congress was convened in 2012. The various work reports produced by the conference can be accessed here.

[v] The Four Cardinal Principles are: 1) Adhering to the socialist path, 2) the people’s democratic dictatorship, 3) The supreme leadership of the Communist Party of China, and 4) Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

[vi] Each of these terms are enshrined in the Chinese constitution’s “basic line”. The five categories listed—economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological—have become standard frames through which policy, political campaigns, and even threats to the regime are understood. On that last one, see  Samantha Hoffman, “Programming China: the Communist Party’s autonomic approach to managing state security,” PhD diss, University of Nottingham (2017), chapter 2

[vii] No clause in this sentence is of Xi Jinping’s invention; each and every part is a sloganized summary of a policy platform or institutional arrangement of the China’s party-state. Timothy Heath explains why Party leaders communicate through staid slogans like these:

[In the Chinese theory system there are many] specialized concepts designed specifically to drive policy on very specific issues. For example, “socialist harmonious society.” There’s a major strategic concept. It is a very important term that the Chinese identified as an ideal that had the Marxist vetting and was grounded in Marxist theory needed to­­­­­ allow their bureaucrats to develop policy to address social welfare issues: healthcare, retirement, education. That’s all wrapped up in this word ‘socialist harmonious society.’ It is designed primarily for bureaucrats, officials and decision makers. It is not really designed to mobilize the people. In fact most people ridicule, deride, and make fun of these archaic sounding Marxist concepts. But here is the thing: the Communist Party does not really care all that much. What they really care about is that their officials get it. That they understand what to do with these concepts, how to develop them into policies, and how to implement them. That is really where a lot of the CPC’s energy is focused on today. Informing the bureaucratic elite instead of mobilizing the entire people.

From Timothy Heath, “China’s New Governing Party Paradigm,” speech at the USC U.S.-China Institute, Feb 19, 2015. This speech can be seen on youtube here.

[viii] Deng Xiaoping, Address to the 13th National Congress, 1987.

[ix] The Zhuangzi was a work of Daoist philosophy from the Warring States Era. This translation of the passage is taken from Burton Watson, trans., Zhuangzi: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 111.

[x] The line comes from Zheng Xie’s (1693-1765) poem, “Bamboo Amid Rocks.”

[xi] Karl Marx, “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” (1852)https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.html. It is not surprising that Xi does not quote the sentence that follows: “And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.”

[xii] A line taken from Gong Zichen’s (1792-1841), Ding An Collection, “Discussing History and the Present.”

[xiii] Deng Xiaoping, Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, vol II, p. 298.

[xiv] Deng Xiaoping, “My Opinion of the ‘Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of our Party,’” address given on October 25th 1980, accessed athttp://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64184/64186/66692/4494734.html

[xv] This resolution was formally adopted by at the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on June 27, 1981. It was a decisive landmark in the Party’s decision to shift away from Maoist political economy and towards “reform and opening up.” Among other things, this resolution condemned the Cultural Revolution for “conform[ing] neither to Marxism, Leninism nor to Chinese reality,” blaming Mao personally for the disaster. The resolution honors both Mao and the Party for its earlier revolutionary achievements, but concedes that the Party now recognizes that “[China] was not fully prepared, either ideologically or in terms of scientific study, for the swift advent of the new-born socialist society and for socialist construction on a national scale.” It contains explicit guidance on what elements of Mao Zedong thought were to be retained by the Party moving forward, and which were to be discarded.

The full text of the resolution can be found at:https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/history/01.htm

[xvi] The relevant text of the Party constitution (18th Congress version) reads:

The Communist Party of China is the vanguard both of the Chinese working class and of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It is the core of leadership for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and represents the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. The realization of communism is the highest ideal and ultimate goal of the Party.

The Communist Party of China takes Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development as its guide to action.

Marxism-Leninism brings to light the laws governing the development of the history of human society. Its basic tenets are correct and have tremendous vitality. The highest ideal of communism pursued by the Chinese Communists can be realized only when the socialist society is fully developed and highly advanced. The development and improvement of the socialist system is a long historical process. So long as the Chinese Communists uphold the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism and follow the road suited to China’s specific conditions and chosen by the Chinese people of their own accord, the socialist cause in China will be crowned with final victory.

“Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” English Edition of Qiushi Journal, Vol.4 (2012), No.4.

[xvii] Timothy Heath’s short primer on the way these terms are used in Party discourse is useful:

Materialist conception of history. The CCP retains the Marxist notion that history operates according to certain inherent natural laws, and that the most essential of these laws concern economic production. As one theorist explained, the most essential “driving force for social development is the production of material and material productive forces” (Wang H. 2004). One implication of this view is that the CCP prioritizes the development of economic production as the greatest enabler of the development of the social, cultural, and political life of all people.

Dialectical view of history. CCP theorists also emphasize the idea that history moves through the resolution of contradictions. Theorists define the dialectical view of history as the repeated, progressive manifestation of contradictions between forces of production and between the economic base and superstructure. The dialectical view directs CCP theorists to discern evidence that economic development has begun to outpace developments in the political and social life of a people, since it is the resolution of these contradictions which brings progress (Wang H. 2004).