this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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China began its period of peaceful development and opened up to Western markets while the US was bombing Vietnam and Laos, while there were coups in Indonesia and Congo and Chile and throughout the third world, and while the US was pulling farther and farther ahead in the Cold War. It implemented sweeping reforms that rolled back collectivization and opened up its people to Western exploitation.
In hindsight it's clear this was a strategic choice to buy time to peacefully develop their productive capacity and geopolitical strength, and it worked, but for fourty years it looked like a betrayal of the revolution and liberal revisionism and capitulation to capital etc etc
Even now, it seems China would be fully willing to go back to collaboration with the US to continue peaceful development. China will let allies fall and let genocide wipe out other potential allies without taking action, won't support revolutionary guerilla movements or risk international peace to engage in international militant struggle, and will let their own people be used as cheap disposable labor 48+ hours a week making US toys.
The extreme caution is definitely frustrating, even as China keeps being proven right and their caution keeps paying off. I think Maoists will have to confront the fact that there's a new Cold War eventually, and I'm interested in seeing how they respond politically.
This hasn't been happening for years, it's come to a point where factories have trouble finding workers and have to offer more and more incentives, and most people pick it up as a summer job to save some money. Of course, development is unequal and this is true across generations too; there are people in China who have been factory workers all of their adult life (and maybe even their teenage life), but this is rarely the case with the newer generations.
Retirement age for them is something like 55 for women and 58 for men.
In general it's safe to say China plays the long game. It's not unique to the CPC; even imperial dynasties planned ahead like that. Deng, Xi etc plan ahead for centuries after their death. We can see that with Hong Kong for example, the lease was 100 years. After 100 years (and the fall of the original government that signed the lease) , China came knocking and said time's up, give it back now. They understand that there are short(ish) terms sacrifices to make for long term prosperity.
I remember the astonished vibes of articles coming out in Polish press for 2008 Olyimpic in Beijing, they were absolutely unable to believe a country can plan 30 years ahead and deliver. Sinophobic ones then shat bricks in fear. Truly a Napoleon quote moment.
I think I want to point out that for every guerrilla movement not supported by china, there's probably two countries being lifted out of poverty and indentured servitude to thr imperialist powers.
Ive been reading wretched of the Earth lately and this quote on pg. 105 really struck me. "The Cold War must be ended, for it leads nowhere. The plans for nuclearizing the world must stop, and large-scale investments and technical aid must be given to underdeveloped regions. The fate of the world depends on the answer that is given to this question." Is this not exactly what China has done?
Absolutely correct, I didn't mean to imply China is isolationist. They are just extremely cautious, but the Belt and Road initiative and the Developmental Bank are still revolutionary projects.
But while China peacefully fights underdevelopment, the US spreads underdevelopment violently and without mercy. Their dedication to peace is in contradiction with the realities of US-backed dirty wars and expansionism.
But I'm prepared to be proven wrong. China has done it before, after all!
When considering the difference between how Ultras see things and we do; I think it comes down to something extremely simple. A question.
What is the goal of the socialist movement?
For some reason a lot of people, in the west especially, get very intellectual about this. They think the goal should be strict adherance to a political philosphy. To the teachings and writings of whatever hodgeposh of socialist thinkers they've put together as "the good ones".
When any "real" socialist- that is a socialist actually furthering the cause of socialism/participating in an active communist party -will probably tell you its something along the lines of improving the lives of the greatest number of people by preventing their oppression and exploitation. Its to unite the working class and use that solidarity to push for our own best interests.
So when China does very pragmatic things in order to do the 2nd thing, and protect themselves for the long term it enrages the people who think the first way. They've spent all this time studying theory and learning its ins, and outs. Mostly because their own country is devoid of a real party apparatus to put them to work, and they end up doing that as an outlet for their frustrations instead.
"How dare China come out here, and be super successful while not doing things the way they're supposed to. It can't be "real socialism" because it doesn't look like what i pictured in my head."
That's basically the mindset i think they are stuck in.
It is a very human thing to do. To latch on to something specific and get upset when things don't work out how you wanted exactly. People just need to get over it.
The Chinese are trailblazing for socialism in an era with new technologies no other socialist figures of the past knew about, and with new geopolitical situations nobody 50 years ago could have imagined. They have no choice, but to just make it up as they go. To be pragmatic, and cautious, and do the best they can. Because the stakes are quite literally humanities future.
If China fails there is a pretty good chance we just go extinct sometime in the next few centuries. Even if we don't life won't be good for most people. The entire species fate is literally riding on the Chinese's shoulders. Luckily everything I've seen suggests that the people running the CPC are some of the greatest tactical minds in history.
I think the materialist explanation is two fold.
Western Marxists are completely divorced from the real material struggle for socialism. Whether we read theory or not (and a lot don't) we don't have the actual lived experience of revolution or running socialist experiments.
And of course, imperial superprofits are redistributed to the labor aristocracy and bourgeoisified labor force in the imperial core. Anything which threatens this, like China, is in material contradiction to maintaining lavish first world lifestyles.
Both of these things are lessening. While the struggle for socialism in the West is still theoretical, we are connected with our comrades around the world and their struggle is ours.
And as the empire declines the limits to growth and superprofits mean a state of permanent austerity for the imperial core. That means the collapse of the labor aristocracy and debourgeoisification/proletarianisation of workers.
There's hope for them yet!
Very well put. Though i don't know that i entirely agree with your last paragraph. It seems a bit too fatalistic. China is definitely the biggest cause for hope but it is not the only one. When i see things like what is happening in Burkina Faso at the moment, it gives me hope for the Global South as a whole, hope that the revolutionary spirit will never be permanently crushed and will emerge time and time again from the ashes. The most that the enemies of the working class can do is delay it, yes they can cause more suffering, but they can't stop the progression of history. Perhaps my optimistic faith in humanity is misguided, but this is the way i see it at the moment.
I don't disagree with your view on those movements i just think that time runs too short. Like they'd need far too much time to get off the ground to be able to actually prevent the massive ecological and humanitarian disasters that are coming. Which need a lot of productive capacity to combat. And as climate change gets worse, and the west gets more overtly violent building those sorts of things just gets more difficult.
Its just a right time right place situation. China got a lot of the work done already and even places like Vietnam still need more time to get to the point they are at. Time which we really don't have anymore sadly imo.
I think that China has more or less single-handedly saved the world, and just in-time.
Obviously, history is made by people and productive forces, and it's an hyperbole to say that China by itself saved the world. And nothing is locked in stone.
But China has done an extremely fucking excellent job over the past several decades, and managed to get it's hands and tentacles into every orifice of the capitalist's, to prevent socialism from being destroyed. China's policies have been lifting hundreds of millions of people, likely even billions, as the BRI advances, out of poverty, and fights back some of the worst excesses of capitalism.
And crucially, it's China's socialist model that is leading the charge in renewable energy/green technology, at massive goddamn scales, and is exporting and selling all of this to countries all over the world, especially the global south, allowing them to further develop and wrestle off the chains of capital.
While there is still a really long road ahead, and we shouldn't be complacent, I think/hope that the toughest part of this socialist/vs capitalist war is already over. It would take multiple acts of god to even slightly slow China down, and I doubt that even they would make a dent in China's heroic leadership and resolve.
And while climate change, pollution, environmental damage and ecocide will unfortunately likely remain a problem for a long time to come, China's initiatives have severely reduced the potential warming of the Earth, and just in the nick of time, to prevent the worst of the worst of the worst from happening.
If the CPC had waited even just a decade longer to begin it's process of revolutionizing green energy/renewable technology, A.I., microchips, I would be even more suicidal than I currently am.
It fucking horrifies me how easily China could have been successfully sabotaged/invaded/destroyed, and humanity likely being doomed, and global runaway climate change failing to be mitigated by China, and the green revolution/4th industrial revolution never kicking off or being delayed by just a few years, if Xi Jinping hadn't come into power and further mobilized the proletariat, or if Deng's gamble didn't pay off.
I hope to move with my family and I to China and be granted asylum/refugee status, and we're exploring our options.
But even if it doesn't pan out, I have an extremely small amount of solace, in the fact that China has likely already won and outmaneuvered the imperialists, before the war could turn hot. Socialism is the inescapable future.
When you look deeply into it you realize how its socialism in general that made it possible too. Like China wouldn't exist as it does today without the early support of the USSR. Also Cuba, the DPRK and Vietnam taking the punishment they did at the hands of the US and WINNING. If Vietnam lost its war China would have been next. That much is a certainty imo. All these socialist nations did what they could, and China's one big advantage was its massive pool of labor. So it became the industrial hub of the world. All those little puzzle pieces laid the groundwork for this. Every socialist movement contributed in its own way. Every strike, every protest, slightly weakened the empire giving China the room it needed to grow. If Unions in the US hadn't been such a big threat, forcing them to make concessions and raise wages, then companies wouldn't have wanted to produce goods overseas instead for example. China has become the vehicle through which the wrath of generations of the global working class will finally slam down upon the capitalist world order. Will finally turn the tables against them.
I think most imagined a more direct conflict, and each nation being turned one at a time. But for the Chinese to have done what they did; Convincing the capitalists to GIVE them the means of production freely. Is mind boggling.
The Sprectre of Communism is an apt phrase. Many of the people who laid the groundwork for this are no longer with us. The seeds they planted though are. Perhaps the Americans were right in fearing communism would spread like dominos falling. Except instead of dominos its a dam finally breaking, and a tidal wave rushing forth the blanket the earth.
This is a very reasonable take.