Revisionism, the bourgoisie inside the communist movement.(2)

In the first article (you can read it here) I tried to prove how actual revisionism uses excisting forms of opportunism as: eclecticism, dogmatism, idealism (ideas are seen as facts) and metafysica (history repeats itself in the form of analogies). I will go on with an example of revisionism"Contribution to the International Symposium held in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, 13 - 15 October - Friedrich Engels and scientific socialism in contemporary China", by Peter Franssen, a leading cadre of the Workers Party of Belgium. (you can read this text here)
In an eclecticistic way and with the conception as if there are analogies in history, as if history repeats itself or as if it is a cycle-movement instead of an spiralic movement, Peter Frannssen "creates"his own reality:

All that teaches us that socialism is a transition system containing characteristics of the feudal and capitalist past and of the communist future. Socialism is no static situation but a movement from low to high, from primary to developed. Socialism will itself come to an end and pass into communism, as soon as all the economic, political, social, religious, moral and cultural vestiges of feudal and capitalist production relations in social structures are a thing of the past, and as soon as the members of society have left these vestiges in their behaviour and thought behind. Socialist transition society will necessarily last for a very long historical period and will, like all previous societies, constantly change its structure.

Here he denies the existing of the continuing of class-struggle under socialism. That class-struggle is reflected in the communist party, for example, in the struggle between revolutionairy line and revisionism. Under socialism the struggle against imperialism is reflected in the struggle against the remains of capitalism that have alliances with the still existing imperialist worldsystem. That is one of the reasons that the "dictature of the proletariat" is necessary under socialism. As we will see, is the idea of Peter Franssen ( an also that of Deng Xiaoping, as I will prove later) that the commodity-production, and with it the law of value has to be allowed to develop unhindered under socialism. They also claim that there has to be a long "primary stade of socialism". They mean in fact (as I will prove also) with this, that the situation of democratic national revolution has to be maintained "to develop to its ultimate the production-forces" BEFORE that the "productionrelations can be changed". So the socialist planeconomy, the expropriating of the capitalists, the installation of state-enterprises under control of the "dictature of the proletariat" has to wait until then. That is the reason of the demanteling of the communes, the privatisation of state-enterprises, the replacment of planeconomy by marketeconomy: a RETURN to the situation of (bourgeois) national democratic revolution.
Everybody who said otherwise (so ALSO Mao Zedong in the fifties and sixties in the eyes of Deng Xiaoping) is an "utopist"… "because Engels says so in 1844", claimed Peter Franssen:

Some observers, Marxists or not, have not understood this basic idea of Engels and Marx and get very upset when they hear the words « socialist construction in China ».
One of the texts circulating in Western Europe and the United States is the book « China and Socialism » by two American professors, Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett. There one can read the following: « Beginning in 1978, the Chinese Communist Party embarked on a market-based reform process that, while allegedly designed to reinvigorate the effort to build socialism, has actually led in the opposite direction and at great cost to the Chinese people. »[1] A few pages further is this: « Despite the hopes of many on the left, it is our argument that China's market reform process has led the country not toward a new form of socialism, but rather an increasingly hierarchical and brutal form of capitalism. »[2] The objective reader will be flummoxed by this bold conclusion: what we’re talking about is “a brutal form of capitalism” with a ”great cost to the Chinese people”. Professor Minqi Li from York University comments as follows: “Hart-Landsberg and Burkett present an insightful analysis of the internal and external contradictions of Chinese capitalism. They convincingly argue that the Chinese experiment of market socialism has led to nothing less than full-fledged capitalism. China and Socialism will prove to be one of the most important contributions to the Marxist literature on contemporary China”.
We can point to another piece of writing that is being diligently studied: From Situational Dialectics to Pseudo-Dialectics: Mao, Jiang and Capitalist Transition by the American professor Barbara Foley. Ms Foley writes: “There are a number of indications that the People's Republic of China has become for all practical purposes a capitalist country, and that even the residual features of the socialist iron bowl are rapidly being eroded. ”[3]

The reasons and arguments for the concusions of Martin Hart-Landsberg, Paul Burkett and Barbara Foley are quoted by Peter Franssen but nowhere denied by him… so he agrees with the following facts:

Martin Hart-Landsberg, Paul Burkett and Barbara Foley give identical reasons to prove that the Chinese Communist Party has exchanged socialism for capitalism. These reasons are: income disparities have widened at one of the most rapid paces in the world; the official unemployment rate is nearly 5 percent but many investigators in the West think that unemployment is at a much higher rate; corruption is the rule of the day; the economic transformation with its option of everything through the market, of privatisation and increasing foreign domination has created an economy that has little to do with socialism; forced overtime, illegal working hours, unpaid wages, and dreadful health and safety conditions are commonplace.

So Peter Franssen agrees with the facts, that led Martin Hart-Landsberg, Paul Burkett and Barbara Foley to a certain conclusion. But he fulminate against that specific conclusion. He is nowhere analysing the eventual mistakes in reasonnement that Martin Hart-Landsberg, Paul Burkett and Barbara Foley could have made.

What is their conclusion? Barbara Foley formulates it as follows: “Supporters of Chinese socialism who believe that the die has not yet been cast - that leftist forces within the CCP can eventually win out, and that workers and peasants can once again travel the road to communist egalitarianism - are, I believe, fooling themselves if they think that these things will happen without another revolution. ”[4]
A revolution is necessary to overthrow this monstrous regime, according to these “left-wing” critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

When Peter Franssen will now give a "marxist" answe, he "creates" in fact his own "reality" out wich he "deduct" the proof of correctness of HIS analyse. But he nowhere proves the "non-marxist" mistakes that Martin Hart-Landsberg, Paul Burkett and Barbara Foley could have made. Read the "answer" that Peter Franssen gives:

So it is time to take a look at the horrors the Chinese Communist Party has brought about throughout the country.
In the first phase of the construction of socialism, from 1950 to 1978, the growth rate of the Chinese economy was 6,2 % a year. This first phase was characterised by the organisation of the state and the building of industry, both as good as non-existent. China was a backward agricultural country. In such circumstances, there is no better method than centralised planning. Primitive accumulation of capital has still to begin and industry must go from its embryonic stage to a fully-fledged apparatus. The capital gained must be reinvested straightaway in order to realise this objective. In spite of which the consumption of the average Chinese rose by 2,2 % a year.[5] Between 1950 and 1978 the Chinese population doubled, but the number of poor people nonetheless dropped from 300 to 250 millions.[6]

What does he says: Primitive accumulation of capital has still to begin and industry must go from its embryonic stage to a fully-fledged apparatus.? Has there to be "primitive accumulation" in a backward country where the socialist revolution has taken place? So slavery, colonialisation, the robbing and taking in private property of the capital-goods (for example agricultural land)? And has there to be a free development of enterprises in private ownership to monopolies in private ownership (by big private stakeholders, for example), under socialism?

In the sixties, the industrial infrastructure had outgrown its infant clothes. However, the state subsidies received by firms went on rising, year after year. The bank credits of many firms reached record heights. In the middle of the sixties 60 % of firms were running at a loss. State subsidies to industry accounted for a third of total government spending.[7] Industrial reform was the key to the following phase in the construction of socialism in China.

As you can see in the note, Peter Franssen is speaking of State subsidies to private ("nongovernmental")enterprises. Private enterprises create surplus-value with exploitiation of the workers. That surplus-value is the base of profit. When a private enterprise make "a loss" than:
Or the surplus-value is realised by the more modern competitor
Or there is a sort of construction of no registration of "profit" because than no taxes must be paid and de state-subsidies are continuing.
Or there are state-regulations that a part of the realised surplus-value has to be given back to the workers in the form of social security, housing, health-service, education… And when te base of "profit" for a private enterprises is "undermined" by such "regulations"it is possible that the owners has not the possibillity to accumulate capital (private owned) out of "profits".
In fact in the elimmination of al kinds of exploitation of workers by the socialist state, the private ownership becomes an anomaly. In stead of forced expropriation the capitalist will be given up "freely" the ownership of his enterprise.
The "reform" of Deng Xiaoping has to counter a further socialisation of the economy. By changing the sistem of remuneration of the workers (argued with quotes of Marx in his "Critics of the Gotha program", as you can read here) the workforce become again a commodity, and the possibility to created surplus-value (and private-owned "profits") out of exploitation of workers. By the "reform" of Deng Xiaoping commodity-production developed quasi- unhindered… And capitalism is the ultimate form of commodity-production…..!
The Gross National Product raises enormously. So it was possible of slightly raise the part of that GNP that goes to the workers (to cool down possible unrest among the workers) and and at the same time have each year a bigger part of GNP that goes to the capitalists (like as it happened in Western Europe in the sixties):

In this phase, which began in 1978, the economy grew on average by 9.5 % a year. That is eight times the figure for Germany and three times more than in the United States. Consumption and thus the standard of living of the average Chinese rose by 7.5 % a year.
Chinese society as a whole at present enjoys moderate welfare. Between 1978 and 2004, the number of people living in dire poverty dropped from 250 million to 26 million. In 1949 a Chinese could hope to live on average until he was 40. Today, life expectancy is 71 years and in Beijing even 80. In 1949 90 % of the population could neither read nor write. The figure is now less that 10 %.

So where "the utopians" are claiming that the socialism in China has weakened under the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, Peter Franssen is fulminating against those "utopists". But nowhere he gives a "scientific-socialist" proof of the contrary.I will continue in a next article to show how a revisionist, while claiming he is a communist and a marxist and a cadre in a communist party, can mislead people that begins to be interested in marxism and socialism.

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[1] Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett, China & Socialism, Market Reforms and Class Struggle, Monthly Review, New York, July-August 2004, p. 8.

[2] Ibidem, blz. 26.

[3] Barbara Foley, From Situational Dialectics to Pseudo-Dialectics: Mao, Jiang and Capitalist Transition, Cultural Logic, Volume 5, 2002. Foley’s text can be found on: http://eserver.org/clogic/2002/foley.html.

[4] Ibidem, point 5.

[5] Justin Yifu Lin, Fang Cai and Zhou Li, The Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform, University Press, Hong Kong, 1995.

[6] Liu Wenpu, Poverty and the Poverty Policy in China, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing, 1999.

[7] Zhu Huayou and Liu Changhui, The Development of China's Nongovernmentally and Privately Operated Economy, in: Gao Shangquan and Chi Fulin, Studies on the Chinese Market Economy, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1996, pp. 1-38.