-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>It is quite possible to say
>that the Chinese regime is vile and noncapitalist. I would say this myself.
>I don't know whether Lou would agree, since he didn't say, and I am not
>familiar enough with the WWP line to guess, assuming, what further thing I
>also do not know, that he would feel obliged to defend the official line in
>public.
Well, taking it in reverse, I would indeed feel obliged to defend the "official line" in public, if and where we have one. But if I were doing that, I wouldn't feel obliged to volunteer false statements to the effect that I personally endorsed that line, or that it was my personal opinion, and so on. As it happens, I honestly don't feel any tension between my party's line and what I think personally. But in fact we in WWP generally have pretty simple lines, for example: we don't think capitalist rule has been restored in China, which implies that we defend the PRC against imperialism and capitalist restoration, but we don't believe in market socialism or uncalled-for class collaboration either, and we would favor much more trust in and empowerment of and reliance upon the working class. There, that's our China line. Or position, really.
(Actually, I suppose you could look at that as pretty much a restatement of the 'workers' state with bureaucratic deformations' position. On the other hand, it's not too dissimilar from the original Chinese criticism of revisionism in the USSR, and I wouldn't want to convey the impression that everyone in WWP is taught to recite the words 'deformed workers' state'. Really the substance is the important thing.)
Then, there is sort of a supplemental line on how to deal with flawed socialist states, in the context of anti-communist public opinion in the United States. And that is to work very hard not to give any inadvertent support to vulgar anti-communism. We are well aware that in the current climate, any left formation can 'gain points' with the 'public', and even gain credibility with the elements of the working class it is trying to reach, by denouncing China and thus looking like "regular guys" if you will. And we are determined not to gain points that way. [That's not a slam at you, Justin, btw.] Our job, after all, is among other things to convince our class that socialist revolution is not a waste of time.
>From that it follows that I don't think anyone in WWP would characterize the
Chinese government as a 'vile regime', which in any case is not terribly
informative as to what you don't like about the regime. Our whole style in
dealing with any formation that is at least in part progressive is to at
least try to understand what they think they are up to. Personally, I don't
believe the Chinese leadership is particularly selfish or corrupt, certainly
not by US standards. They are desperately trying to modernize, which is a
mammoth and necessary task, and they think they have the ability to
successfully conduct this huge maneuver whereby they can get international
capitalism to do the work and then turn it all back into a socialist society
afterwards. That's essentially how they spelled out Deng Xiaoping thought
in their treatises on the subject. Of course there are going to be some
people in government and in the party who are dreaming of becoming rich
Berezovskies someday, but it's not necessary to suppose that they are the
majority.
On the other hand, they really do not trust the masses at all, and want to run the whole process from the top in a technocratic way, and that means that when they try to manage the inequality and displacement and exploitation and mass anger which necessarily flow from the operations of capitalism, they tend to use bureaucratic methods of control. And this is bad per se, and also very dangerous for the party's own prospects of rule and ultimately for the survival of the gains of the revolution in any form.
It's very much different from how Lenin acted when they were granting concessions to capitalists. Lenin would speak at workers' meetings and say, "We are going to let the capitalist pirates run this railroad or operate this oil field. They will exploit us, but we need the railroad/oil, and we will learn how it's done. But it's dangerous for us. It's a form of the struggle. We have to make sure we don't get subverted by them." But you never hear anything like that from the CCP's top leadership: yes, we are using capitalist methods now, this is a wonderful plan, etc. etc. It politically disarms all the workers, and disarms themselves for that matter, and creates a situation where all the entirely reasonable anger which workers feel at the capitalists' exploitation is stored up and is likely to be directed at the government or even at the remaining elements of socialism. This is all very different from what we would like to see.
I don't think that exhausts the subject. Of course there actually is debate and struggle in China on these matters, although we don't consider ourselves terribly well-informed on it. Through the Internet, it's possible for leftists in China to actually read what we have to say. So we try to say what is helpful. It wouldn't be terribly helpful, in our view, for us to write about the problems of China in an insensitive and insulting tone, with unwarranted arrogance. After all, have we made a revolution? Are we the ones who are facing the task of modernizing China, which more or less comes down to building the technical/industrial infrastructure of the United States four times? So we don't use insults. But we make our opinions clear.
I hope that was responsive,
Lou Paulsen member, WWP (www.workers.org) Chicago