u/About60Platypi - originally from r/GenZhou
The title is pretty self-explanatory. I don’t know much about socialism with Chinese characteristics, or the USSR post-Stalin, but my question is pretty simple.
Kruschev, Brezhnev, etc etc did market liberalization and its universally condemned by Marxists, whereas when figures like Deng or Xi embrace market liberalization its socialism with Chinese characteristics. Why wasn’t post-Stalin USSR socialism with “USSR characteristics” or something?
I’m sorry if this sounds ignorant, but I don’t understand why liberalization is good for one but not the other. Anybody have a good answer for this? Any videos or articles would be helpful along with your all’s explanations!
u/kittyabbygirl - originally from r/GenZhou
Two things, one is about success and the other is about workers’ governance.The first and simplest one- the USSR’s liberalization was done in a way that collapsed the country and thus left the working people vulnerable to the capitalistic and reactionary attitudes of the nations that followed after it. Contrast with Deng, where, for lack of a fancier way of saying it, that didn’t happen. We haven’t seen the country become more unstable post-Deng, in fact, as a matter of opinion, I would say instability peaked with Deng and has been on the down swing. This is the pragmatic answer- whatever you have to do to help workers is in the working people’s class interest, and collapse of the worker’s socialist governance, no matter the theoretical reasons used to justify it, by definition has ostracized them from the political system and thus left them vulnerable.
The second is the more theoretical answer, and it’s the usage of SEZs. China’s Special Economic Zones were designed such that capitalists would invest in areas where state enterprise did not exist, while leaving the state to handle what it wished to. This served to heavily reduce the role of black markets, since privately manufactured goods could be bought entirely legally. This dynamic combined with China’s intellectual property laws is key, and is rather fundamental to their rapid progress. When a different country innovates, to save money, it is easier to operate manufacturing out of China. When they do so, China gains access to new technologies and can use their own R&D to improve upon these. This is how, despite only beginning the industrial revolution in the late 50s, China is leading the world in high tech fields even with national companies. While in the USSR private companies entered into the niches occupied by state industry and supplanted it, in China, private companies enter into niches occupied by black market trade, and are eventually themselves replaced by Chinese companies. Capitalists never occupy power held by the working class, instead, they replace crime and create research and build infrastructure that will later be used by the working class itself. Foundationally, Marxist theories of history have them build upon each other, and this dynamic is successful in a country that sort of shortcut into a workers’ state before the means of production required were fully developed.
u/Dimitra1 - originally from r/GenZhou
To add to this, Deng criticized Mao’s “excesses” and “mistakes” but never issued a “de-maoization”. To denounce him entirely, to take his picture down from the Forbidden City would have meant the end of the Communist Party, and Deng knew that. Instead he mandated that the party followed the principles of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
[deleted]u/kittyabbygirl - originally from r/GenZhou
I’ll make a note that I’m using the more clinical definition for black markets, not in that they deal especially sketchy things, but simply that they are markets that operate outside of the law, whether to avoid taxes, workplace regulations, restrictions on controlled substances, etc… While I’m aware of the opium trade continuing epistolary Maoist China, the more relevant black markets here would be historically considered part of resistance to collectivization, where farmers, instead of growing state planned crops, would often grow other things and sell and exchange them in rejection of the planned economy. This is to my point that legalizations under Deng reduced the black market simply through legalization- now, small farms can operate and sell without being criminal. However, from a material analysis, these farms resemble/resembled early capitalism, as it was primarily small and did not have advanced technologies brought by mass production under capitalism.I think pork is a textbook example. It has some cringe anti communism stuff in it, but in a lecture Chinese historian Frank Dikötter singled out pork as one of the examples of the failures of collectivization, in that rather than grow corn, farmers were raising pigs. Say what you will of planned economies, but it’s non controversial that Mao made some mistakes in planning, and a lot of these areas were just straight out infertile land that could not support corn (bonus points to Xi whose agriculture plan included soil tests to figure out what can grow where before building farms). Fast forward a bit, and these became smaller independent pork farms. Fast forward more, and Smithfield Foods based in Virginia is the biggest pork producer in the world, operating out of numerous subsidiaries and selling internationally as well. Fast forward to the end of the story 2013, and the Chinese pork manufacturer WH Group buys out Smithfield, unifying production. As a critical Chinese company, they receive significant subsidies to do things small operations never could, such as improved biohazard defense, AI integration, and biotechnology to make the process more efficient and thus cheap for the people of China and the world. Aside from full nationalization, this is the life cycle- crime, small operation, foreign operation, national operation, state-guided innovation.
u/Bilbo8888 - originally from r/GenZhou
Gorbachev is what helped end the soviet union who wouldn’t hate himu/TheEconomyYouFools - originally from r/GenZhou
To build upon the points noted by Kittyabbygirl, if you’re looking for a good primer on understanding SWCC from a Marxist perspective, BayArea415 posted a pretty comprehensive breakdown on it that I would recommend.u/scpony - originally from r/GenZhou
I won’t be so sure about the “like deng” part. While young people starting to like mao more and more, they also begun to hate deng more and more, seeing him as a traitor to the revolution, and blame every bad thing corporations did on him.[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
[removed][deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
Genzedong seems pretty against “strategic slurs” but go off[deleted] - originally from r/GenZhou
I’m talking about the context of my tone vis-a-vis education, not the frankfurtified sensibilities of some tweeners and their feels. But go off.u/withthatfugazishit - originally from r/GenZhou
Still don’t get what that has to do with using a slur but go offu/GoulashArchipelago68 - originally from r/GenZhoufrankfurtified
Muh cultural Marxism moment
u/Elohim_the_2nd - originally from r/GenZhou
Imagine having your brain fried this badly
u/_HP_Lovecats - originally from r/GenZhou
I’ve never heard any evidence that Mao was insane, care to provide a source?