Library:Deng Xiaoping interview with Mike Wallace
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Mike Wallace: Mr. Chairman, what do you make of Mikhail Gorbachev’s recent speech in Vladivostok? Deng Xiaoping: There is something new in Gorbachev’s speech in...

There can be no communism with pauperism, or socialism with pauperism. So to get rich is no sin. However, what we mean by getting rich is different from what you mean. Wealth in a socialist society belongs to the people. To get rich in a socialist society means prosperity for the entire people. The principles of socialism are: first, development of production and second, common prosperity. We permit some people and some regions to become prosperous first, for the purpose of achieving common prosperity faster. That is why our policy will not lead to polarization, to a situation where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. To be frank, we shall not permit the emergence of a new bourgeoisie.

Though it can be argued that in China there is no bourgeoisie because the bourgeois elements are not organized as a class, there is no doubt about the polarization and inequality. The rich have indeed gotten richer, while the poor have not gotten much poorer, but compared to the rich, they are still very poor. The consequences of this inequality can be seen in the increasing number of “mass incidents” from 2010s forward. Class struggle still exists in China, and it’s getting increasingly intense.

The latest Congress in China, establishing full employment as a goal, will definitely be an improvement in the direction of socialism. China will finally overcome the Deng Xiaoping era, and enter into a new era of socialism.

  • @whoami
    19•1 year ago

    Wallace: So far, I have never seen a picture of you in a public place in China; why?

    Deng: We do not encourage that. Any individual is a member of the collective. Nothing can be accomplished by an individual in isolation from others. Personally, I have all along rejected offers to write my biography. Over the years, I have done quite a few good things, but I have done some wrong things, too. Before the “cultural revolution”, we made such mistakes as the Great Leap Forward. Of course, I was not the principal advocate of that policy, but I did not oppose it either. That means I had a share in that mistake. If a biography is written, it should include both good and bad things, even the mistakes one has made.

    • @Beat_da_Rich
      9•1 year ago

      It always baffles me when Westerners complain about the transparency of the Chinese government. The CPC criticizes itself all the time and at least admits its mistakes.

      Meanwhile US politicians are always blaming each other and moving goalposts. And while the CPC actually responded to a week of protests with a change in policy, the American government gave more money and weapons to police after months of BLM protests.

      It’s becoming clearer and clearer every day that people in the US are just operating on racism because most of whatever they claim to know about China is inconsistent with actual reality. The arrogance.