Marxist film theory - Definition

Marxist film theory is one of the oldest forms of film theory.

Sergei Eisenstein and many other Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s used Marxism as justification for film. In fact, the Hegelian dialectic was considered best displayed in film editing through the Kuleshov Experiment and the development of montage.

While this structuralist approach to Marxism and filmmaking was used, the more vociferous complaint that the Russian filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of Hollywood filmmaking. They believed, as many Marxists since have believed, that Hollywood cinema is designed to draw you into believing in the capitalist propaganda. Shot reverse shot is nothing more than a device to make you align yourself with this unhealthy ideology.

Eisenstein's solution was to shun narrative structure by eliminating the individual protagonist and tell stories where the action is moved by the group and the story is told through a clash of one image against the next (whether in composition, motion, or idea) so that the audience is never lulled into believing that they are watching something that has not been worked over.

Eisenstein himself, however, was accused by the Soviet authorities of "formalist error," of highlighting form as a thing of beauty instead of portraying the worker nobly.

German Marxist film makers had, however, been behind the development of subjective point of view camera angles, and they believed that it was possible to discomfit bourgeoise audiences with the very tools of bourgeoise illusionism. Hence, F. W. Murnau, among others, would use Expressionist techniques to force viewers into seeing through the eyes of working class figures ("The Last Laugh"). Fritz Lang, though not a Marxist, would tell a sympathetic tale of a child murderer in "M."

French Marxist film makers, such as Jean-Luc Godard, would employ radical editing and choice of subject matter, as well as subversive parody, to heighten class consciousness and promote Marxist ideas.

Situationist film maker Guy Debord, author of The society of the spectacle, began his film In girimus imus nocte et consimuur igitur [Wandering around in the night we are consumed by fire] with a radical critique of the spectator who goes to the cinema to forget about his dispossesed dayly life.

Some later Marxist critics saw the very cinematic apparatus to be infused in the capitalistic ideology which no film can escape.

Marxist - Example Usage

SOCIALIST REALISM

The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was the period when capitalism, as Lenin demonstrated, entered ‘the last and highest phase of its development’, the stage of ‘moribund capitalism’, the stage of imperialism. In the various capitalist countries of Europe the further concentration of capital took place. As a result, the proletariat also became concentrated and grew ever larger, its struggle became more organized, more conscious, more on a mass scale. The antagonistic contradictions between capital and labour, between the exploiting and the exploited classes, became ever sharper and deeper. The proletariat came finally on to the arena of history as the most powerful class, the vanguard class, of society, the class which would deprive the bourgeoisie not only of its economic rights, but also of its political rights.

At this time Marxism, the philosophical thought of the working class, elaborated by Marx and Engels, was spreading rapidly. It overran Europe, America, Asia, and penetrated Russia. In the working class movement of several countries it became the guiding banner. The struggle of the working class, illuminated by Marxist science, by the theory of class struggle, demonstrated that the antagonistic contradictions within the capitalist system could only accentuate and could only be resolved in revolution. Russia, which at the beginning of the 20th century found itself in the stage of capitalist industrialization, also felt the strength of the working class movement. At this time Russia was one of the most backward countries of Europe, contradictions were acute, where exploitation of the new capitalist type intertwined with the most savage forms of feudal exploitation. In such conditions, the struggle of the working class found in Russia the favourable terrain to develop and to deliver powerful revolutionary blows. Thus, the new economic and political conditions which were created, together with the spread of Marxism, brought about within a short time (between 1905 and 1917) three revolutions in Russia. Their aim was the overthrow of the reactionary exploiting classes: the feudal aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. The centre of the world revolutionary movement had now passed to Russia. In the first and second decades of the 20th century, Russia was the country where the struggle for the destruction of the feudal-bourgeois system of exploitation gained important successes. This revolutionary movement was not spontaneous; at its core stood the working class, led by the Bolshevik Party founded and directed by Lenin. The epoch of imperialism determined clearly who would be the gravedigger of the old oppression and exploitation; it brought into the open the historic role of the working class, its great destructive and constructive role. This new class, now equipped with a new political way of thinking, and this powerful revolutionary movement, could not but exert an influence also in the field of literature. In various countries of the world works began to appear which attempted to reflect the life and historic role of the working class. But at the same time the degeneration of the capitalist system found expression in literature through a series of decadent currents.

The best writers and artists tried not to fall prey to these currents, while there were also talented writers and artists in whose creativity the influence of these decadent currents appeared, but who, under the influence of the revolutionary movement of the working class and of Marxist-Leninist ideas, threw themselves unreservedly in their creations into the reflection of the life of the working class, of its revolutionary movement. The well-known American writer Jack London attempted to portray in art the strength of the working class in his work ‘The Iron Heel’. But, while reflecting in a realist manner the ‘iron heel’ of capital upon the working class, Jack London did not manage to present correctly the social revolution of the future; he drew this revolution in anarcho-individualist colours, because he could not break away from the influence of the bourgeois philosophy of the time, which oversimplified human life into a biological struggle for existence and raised a hymn to individualism, to the ‘superman’ detached from society. Later, the French writers Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse, Bertolt Brecht in Germany, etc., made the great events of the time and the working class the subject of their works. Among those who particularly embraced, and orientated themselves upon, the fundamental principles of socialist realism was Brecht. But despite these successes, the majority of them did not manage to analyse in depth the strength and vitality of the working class. Nevertheless, these authors advanced the reflection of the antagonistic contradictions between the working class and capitalism further than their predecessors, the other writers of critical realism.

In Russia the writer who succeeded in reflecting truthfully the historic role of the working class, of the Marxist-Leninist party, in their struggle for liberation from the class yoke, was Maxim Gorky. He, unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, managed to analyse the antagonistic class contradictions, basing himself upon Marxist-Leninist theory, and showed the road of victory for the revolution by means of the struggle of the working class in alliance with the peasantry, led by the Marxist-Leninist party. In his novel ‘The Mother’, which appeared in 1906, he laid the foundations of the new proletarian literature, the literature of socialist realism. The formation of Gorky as proletarian writer, as founder of the literature of socialist realism was linked with — apart from the above factors, the struggle of the proletariat and the spread of Marxism—the earlier literary heritage and contemporary literary experience. But in the first place, as the favourable literary terrain on which the creativity of Gorky was nourished, was the Russian literature of critical realism: the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Nekrasov and many other writers.

In his works, and in a special way in the novel ‘The Mother’, Gorky reflected the first assaults of the Russian proletariat, the rising struggle led by Lenin and by the Party founded by him.

With the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the economico-political conditions changed completely. Now power passed into the hands of the working class and the peasantry. The literature of socialist realism now developed further. Many works reflected the Great October Revolution and its victories. The literature of socialist realism was transformed, after the October Revolution, into a world current, the influence of which now became inescapable.

After the death of Lenin, Stalin led the country along the road of the further construction of socialism. The development of industry, the elevation of cultural life, this whole important historic revolutionary period, were reflected also in literature. Mayakovsky, Furmanov, Ostrovsky, Fadeyev, developed socialist realism further. They portrayed in their works the struggle of the Soviet peoples for the triumph of the October Revolution and for the defence of its victories from external and internal enemies, the heroic work for industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. The works ‘Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’, ‘All Right!’ ‘Chapayev’, ‘How the Steel Was Tempered’, ‘The Rout’, ‘The Last of the Udegs’, etc., became the conductors of the ideas and policy of the Party.

Meanwhile, the leap forward taken after the October Revolution by the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples gave an impetus to the birth of the new literature in other countries. In Europe, America, Asia, revolutionary writers, closely linked with the struggle of the workers and peasants, absorbing the Marxist-Leninist world outlook, set out on the road of socialist realism. But, in a special way, the strength of socialist realism was felt after the Second World War; when in many countries of Europe and Asia the revolution was victorious and people’s power was established, the literature of socialist realism took a great leap forward. This literature was inspired by the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, by the great economico-political changes which occurred in the socialist countries. Now the influence of socialist realism and its authority grew markedly.

During this time, socialist realism in the Soviet Union was characterized by communist partisanship, by Marxist-Leninist ideology, by dialectical reflection of socialist reality. All this caused this literature to occupy an important place in world culture. But when the revisionist clique came to head the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, everything changed. Deviation from the principles of Marxism-Leninism brought about changes also in literature. Soviet literature changed direction. It drew away from the principles of revolutionary communist partisanship, from class analysis of the phenomena of life.

The first signs of revisionist ideas in Soviet art appeared soon after the Second World War. Their social base was that bourgeoisified, bureaucratized stratum which had turned its back on the ideas of socialism. The Central Committee of the CPSU, headed by Stalin, took a series of decisions. It sharply condemned the decadent creativity of the writers Zoshchenko and Akhmatova; similarly erroneous manifestations in music, in the repertory of the theatre, were denounced. But this struggle was not carried through to the end. After Stalin’s death, the road to revisionism opened up also in art. At the 20th Congress this was openly demonstrated. Under the pretext of struggling against the ‘cult of the individual’, the revisionists set Soviet art on the road of degeneration. They repudiated the Soviet art of Stalin’s time and all the successes of that time. They rehabilitated decadent Russian poets, whiteguard émigrés who had placed themselves at the service of imperialist intelligence services, enemies of the Soviet state and of Stalin. They opened the doors to the penetration of the most decadent bourgeois culture and art. Betraying the proletarian revolution and Marxism-Leninism, the modern revisionists abandoned the principles on which the literature of socialist realism was based. They repudiated party spirit in literature, the truthful reflection in revolutionary development of life itself; they repudiated its humanism. The modern revisionists expunged from literature healthy content, optimism, belief in socialism. They abandoned the valuable principles of socialist realism of the epoch of Lenin and Stalin. In their works Ehrenburg, Pasternak, Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, etc., blackened the glorious past of the epoch of Lenin and Stalin and raised on high the revisionist theories to make way for the penetration of bourgeois art. The revisionists work persistently today to turn literature on the anti-socialist and bourgeois path. In the countries where the revisionists rule, the theories of the independence of art from social life, of the ‘freedom of art’, are widely spread. The revisionist writers deny the educational and social character of art, and raise on high in their works bourgeois individualism and egoism, preach the abandonment of the class struggle, repudiate the contradictions which exist between capital and socialism. In their works they eulogize the idea of abstract humanism, praise the revisionist theory of ‘peaceful co-existence’, incite fear of war and spread the spirit of submission before imperialism. Indeed, the revisionist aestheticians have spread those old theories which Lenin denounced long ago in his article ‘Party Organisation and Party Literature’.

The literature of socialist realism is developing today in close relation with the struggle for the construction of socialist society and for the triumph of the world proletarian revolution; it is in irreconcilable struggle with the apoliticism and moral and social degeneration which revisionist literature seeks to spread.

The Method of Socialist Realism

Socialist realism is the newest and most powerful artistic method, But it was not born out of nothing, without a basis of earlier literature. Socialist realism inherited and developed further the main principle of the realism of the 19th century, that of presenting true, faithful reflection of life. But this reflection was now made in different economic and political conditions, in new relations, in the midst of a new ideology, unknown to or unassimilated by the writers and artists of critical realism. But what do we understand by the term ‘artistic method’? It is the attitude of the writer towards reality, the fundamental principles by which a writer is led into reflecting this reality in literary works, which comprise his artistic method. Every artistic method has its own special features. The question then arises: What are the special features of socialist realism? In what ways does it resemble, and in what ways does it differ from, earlier methods of realism?

Socialist realism differs from all earlier literary currents, even from the most progressive such as revolutionary romanticism and critical realism, because, unlike these currents which reflect life either in a subjective or in an incomplete manner, it sets out from scientific, dialectical criteria in its reflection of life.

Socialist realism is based on the Marxist-Leninist world outlook, which gives writers and artists the possibility of understanding in depth and clarity the laws of the development of society, of penetrating to the core of events and of people’s characters, which arms them with a correct, scientific political and ideological outlook. As a result, it marks from the standpoint of quality a new, higher stage of realism.

Socialist realism inherits and develops further the main principle of 19th century realism: true, faithful reflection of life. Socialist realism transcends many of the boundaries of critical realism. Alongside criticism of everything old and reactionary which holds back the advance of society, socialist realism also puts forward a true and clear programme of activity for the radical transformation of society, for the liberation of the working masses from exploitation, for the construction of a new socialist society.

‘Socialist realism’, Enver Hoxha has said in speaking of our literature, ‘is the faithful reflection in all its aspects of the socialist life we are building, of the colossal material transformations which our country, our society, our people, are undertaking at revolutionary speed on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory and on the basis of the measures and decisions elaborated by our Party’

What therefore, is the essence of socialist realism?

Socialist realism reflects life with truthfulness and in its revolutionary development.

The true reflection of life in its revolutionary development seeks not only to reveal the principal processes of life, but to express what is new and revolutionary, to show its birth in struggle with the old, with the reactionary, which resists it with the utmost fury and desperation. The best works of world socialist literature show the birth of new socialist elements in social life and in the consciousness of people, the bitter struggle between the new and the old.

Thus, for example, Gorky in the novel ‘The Mother’, alongside the continuous putrefaction of the old and the vain efforts of the oppressors and exploiters of the people (the factory director, the officials of the Tsarist police and courts, who represent feudal-bourgeois society) to block its path, reflects also the birth of the new in life, the formation of new people — the representatives of the proletariat, of the working masses, to whom the future belongs (Pavel, the mother, Andrei, Rybin, etc.), and of new relations (the creation of the Party led by Lenin, the strengthening of the class consciousness of the Russian proletariat, the creation of an alliance of struggle between the proletariat and the peasantry, etc.).

Socialist realism seeks to link true reflection of life with the tasks of educating the workers. Stalin has called Marxist-Leninist writers ‘engineers of the human soul’. This means that in their works these writers accomplish a most important task. They not only communicate much knowledge about social life, they also attack the remnants of the past in the consciousness of masses of the people and educate the workers to become warriors for construction of socialist and communist society.

The revisionists furiously assail the method of socialist realism. They allege that this method was created in an ‘artificial, bureaucratic’ manner; they strive to replace it by decadent, bourgeois literary currents. However the method of socialist realism is omnipotent, because it was born in a legitimate way, was forged on the terrain of the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the people led by Marxist-Leninist parties, was nourished on the most progressive ideals in the world, on shining communist ideals. It has demonstrated its strength and superiority in an indisputable manner, has become embodied in the literature of various countries, in literary works of great ideo-artistic value. Life has proved that socialist literature can develop, advance forcefully and play its great role in the communist education of the masses only on the sure road shown by the method of socialist realism. Like every literary method, the method of socialist realism too has its own distinct features.

Communist Partisanship:

the Fundamental Principle of the Literature of Socialist Realism

The fundamental principle of the literature of socialist realism is the principle of communist partisanship. The writer, as a member of society, cannot be neutral towards events he observes in the environment which surrounds him, towards the various problems of society, towards classes and the class struggle. ‘To live in society and to be free of society is an impossibility’, Lenin has said. Marxism-Leninism has established that in a class-divided society, the various political, social, moral, artistic, etc., viewpoints of all people (and so also of writers) have a class character; in them are reflected the interests, needs, demands of this or that class. So the literary creations of writers too bear a definite class stamp; in the artistic images of literary works are embodied the ideals, the demands of this class. The phenomena, problems and characters of the people they depict are shown and evaluated by the writer from the class position which he represents. The appraisal, in literary works, of events and human actions from the viewpoint of the interests of a certain social class, is called partisanship in literature. There is bourgeois partisanship and communist partisanship, depending upon the interests of which class the writer defends.

The principle of communist partisanship demands that the writer should reflect life in his works from the standpoint of Marxist-Leninist ideology, of the revolutionary interests of the struggle carried on by the proletariat under the leadership of its Marxist-Leninist party.

This fundamental principle was elaborated by Lenin in 1905 in the article ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’. ‘Literature’, wrote Lenin in this article, ‘must become party literature. In contradistinction to bourgeois customs, to the profit-making, commercialized bourgeois press, to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, ‘aristocratic anarchism’ and drive for profit, the socialist proletariat must put forward the principle of party literature, must develop this principle and put it into practice as fully and completely as possible’.

‘The continuous strengthening of proletarian partisanship’, Enver Hoxha stressed at the 7th Congress of the Party, ‘must always remain a basic task for the development of our culture and arts, for their advance on the road of socialism’.

In vain do the enemies of socialism, the bourgeois ideologists and modern revisionists, charge that the principle of partisanship in literature restricts the freedom of the writer in his creativity. In fact, party spirit is for the writers of every country a powerful weapon to understand and to reflect more deeply social life and the soul of man; it creates the conditions for the full flowering of their talents. Lenin has said: ‘There is no doubt that in this direction alone can full liberty of personal initiative of individual aptitudes, be secured, can free rein be given to thought and fantasy, to form and content’. And he adds: ‘Literary work must become a component part of the social-democratic(1) work of the Party, closely linked with other parts of its work’.

The bourgeois ideologists and modern revisionists, enemies of socialism and of the people, attack the principle of partisanship in general, as well as that of communist partisanship. They deny the class character of literature. Art and literature, for them, stand outside classes. They say that literature should have nothing to do with political ideas, since these, they allege, harm literature. Without any doubt, the repudiation by the bourgeois and revisionist aestheticians of class character, of partisanship, has its motives. With their theory they attempt to distance the writer from the struggle of the working class, to disorganize the working class and disarm it of its theoretical and ideo-aesthetic weapons. On occasion, some of the revisionist aestheticians have affirmed partisanship in literature. But in this case they have not had in mind communist partisanship. For them, literature must be made the enthusiastic spokesman of the revisionist theories, as occurs today in the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries. But the efforts of the revisionists to bring about the degeneration of art, to turn it into a weapon against the masses, are being disrupted by life itself, by the development of literature itself, which rejects the baseless dicta of the revisionists. The more profoundly the writer with communist partisanship understands his time, the more profoundly he interprets this time in art from the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, the greater, the more powerful, the more real his work becomes. The more, therefore, the talented writer bases himself on the most progressive ideas of his time, on the ideals of the Communist Party, the more partisan he is in defence of the interests of the working masses, the more the inner content of his works is enriched, the higher their artistic value is raised.

Another important characteristic of the literature of socialist realism is its national form and socialist content. Every people has its language, its traditions, its cultural and psychic distinctions. ‘Every nation, whether great or small, has its qualitative distinctions, its specific features, which pertain only to it and which no other nation possesses’, Stalin has said; ‘these distinctions are the contribution which every nation puts into the general treasury of world culture and which adds to it, enriches it’. As a result, true literature, rooted deeply in a people, will bear in an inescapable manner the stamp of these distinctions in the mental and spiritual world of the people, will be born on the terrain of the best cultural traditions of the people, will express the demands, the struggle, the efforts, the dreams of the people. Such is the literature of socialist realism, which stands close to the efforts and aspirations of the people. By ‘national form,’ in literature we mean that this literature is created in the national language, that it reflects the best national traditions, the distinct psychic character of the nation, and is intelligible to the people.

The Subject Matter of the Literature of Socialist Realism

The principal source of the subject matter of works of socialist realism is made up of problems linked with life, the work, thoughts and actions of the people who are constructing socialism or who are struggling for their rights in the capitalist and revisionist countries.

The writers, in their works, show how the people, under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party, prepare for and carry through the revolution, how they defend the socialist homeland and the gains of the revolution from internal and external enemies, how they struggle to turn the homeland into a powerful and advanced socialist state, how they support the world revolutionary movement.

In the literature of socialist realism, the depiction of the people is made not from the positions of critical realism, but from quite another angle of view. Critical realism puts at the centre of its works oppressed and exploited people, people for whom we must have pity, people who rebel only as individuals, people who are incapable of changing their life, of building a new society. The literature of socialist realism, on the other hand, portrays the people as a great, organized force, as the creative and moving force of history. This literature shows, therefore, that the broad masses are those who play the decisive role in historical events. Thus, current themes, the artistic treatment of the principal current problems of socialist construction, occupy the central place in the literature of socialist realism. Speaking of the development of art in our country, Enver Hoxha stressed at the 7th Congress: ‘A better reflection of some of the major themes in our artistic creativity, such as that of the hegemonic role of the working class in our society, the revolutionary transformation of our socialist countryside, the revolutionizing force of the communists, the treatment of cardinal themes and key moments in the history of our people and particularly of the National Liberation War and the socialist revolution, are an essential requirement to make our literature and art even more revolutionary!’. Certainly, the presen

Reforms and Revolution

Hi this article from sanhati.com, I redirect for all of you, I think this may useful for u.

Details on this painting have been provided by a reader: “This artwork was done around 2005 by an artist who prefers to stay unidentified….Notice the portraits hanging on the wall; the center piece is Jiang Zemin who opened the floodgate to allowing super-rich big bourgeois elements to join the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the early 1990s. On the left is Deng Xiaoping who is hailed by CPC capitalist roaders as the grand architect of their great reform and opening up of China for world capitalist super exploitation. On the right is Zhao Ziyang who was the first to openly embrace Western bourgeois lifestyle by popularizing suits and ties among CPC party members and playing golf. After the Tiananmen uprising in June 1989, his flashy bourgeois walk and talk earned him the boot from Deng and older CPC capitalist roaders who prefered hiding behind “socialism with Chinese characteristics”…. The priest is GW Bush who seems to have just closed a secret deal with three persons who are popularly known in China as the corrupt “Iron Trio” — Chen Liangyu (seated far right) represents the incumbent comprador bureacrats and was also the former Shanghai party secretary who was convicted of massive fraud several years ago; Zhang Weiying (seated next to Chen) representing the intellectual elite; Ren Zhiqiang (seated nearest the door) representing the big-time capitalist enterprenuer…. Mao is portrayed in the prime of his Yenan-era revolutionary demeanor accompanied by the two leading protagonists — Li Yuhe and his daughter Li Tiemei — from one of the famous revolutionary opera, “Hongdeng Ji/The Red Lantern Saga”. The father and daughter represent the vast majority of workers and peasants in China who have suddenly decided to invite their late Chairman Mao back to the present-day era to help them settle historical accounts with US imperialism and its comprador-bureaucrat puppets who have been oppressing and super expoiting the working masses not long after he died in 1976. Regarding the URL for the source of the painting, it is http://www.wyzxsx.com; it is “wu you zi xiang” in Chinese. It’s one of the two foremost pro-Mao websites in China and is very popular among newly awakened leftist intellectuals and students.”

The Post-Mao Chinese Left: Navigating the Recent Debates

July 16, 2011

By Zhun Xu. Guest contributor, Sanhati. The author is a member of the Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

This year saw an unprecedented rise in political fights among the Chinese leftists. An outside observer might surprisingly discover such big differences on the “left” when all of the major leftist online forums began publishing harsh political polemics from opposing camps. Various issues are discussed, but the practical political stake is whether the left should be a political ally of the current CCP leadership or not, i.e. political program of a united leftist camp. One group, which mostly posts on one of the largest online leftist forum in China (Utopia, or wu you zhi xiang), has been a long supporter of the government and tries to consolidate the leftists under its pro-CCP flag and advocate reforms under current regime to “restore socialism”; while other groups, mostly publishing on relatively smaller online forums, take a different stance and argue that socialism cannot be built under the current capitalist state. The pro-CCP people accused other groups as “extremists”, and their opponents also called them “reactionary and opportunist”.

Who are our friends and who are our enemies? This is the most fundamental question for any political program. There has always been huge difference in the answers to this question among the Chinese left.

Some people argue that although China became largely a capitalist society and the class conflict between the workers and the new rich people including the CCP cadres and compradors, the major contradiction is between the Chinese as a people and “imperialist power” like the US.

Zhang Hongliang, a famous political writer on the internet and professor at Minzu University of China, is often times regarded as the spiritual leader of this camp. In Zhang’s articles, class conflict is always important, but racial conflict is more vital for him. It is unpleasant to find many reactionary ideas in Zhang’s writings, for example, Zhang repeatedly claimed that the Anglo-Saxon people (that is their preferred word to describe imperialists) have the huge genocide plan of killing Chinese people. In his own words: “racial conflict has changed class conflict fundamentally, nowadays class struggle is not about who controls the state anymore, rather it is on whether China is going to be destroyed (by Anglo-Saxon people and its allies). The solution to the danger of “genocide”, according to Zhang Hongliang, is to wholeheartedly embrace the government and defeat both the “imperialists and its allies” and the “left extremists”.

Other people presented the same perspective as Zhang’s. Kong Qingdong, professor at Beijing University, made the claim that those who want to overthrow the current regime by revolution are crazy “fundamentalist Marxists”, and there is no difference between them and imperialists together with their Chinese allies.

Zhang and others’ writings are popular among younger readers, including left-leaning students and nationalists. Although most of them repeatedly claim that they are Maoist communists, they do not really use Marxist analysis. They would like to throw out concepts like “class struggle”, “imperialist” etc, but as we have seen, their real message is a nationalist one, even with some Nazi flavors.

Others in this camp do not necessarily have the same ideas as Zhang or Kong, but they all seem to agree that given the existence of imperialists and their compradors, “save the Party” is more or less identical to “defend our country”. Therefore, they tend to believe that the ruling class in China is ultimately their friend while anyone opposing to the ruling class must be their enemy. In order to reconcile this view with the clear neo-liberal turn in the last three decades, they argue that while it is true that China has been going down a capitalist path, this is only because the anti-Mao faction held power and chose the way of capitalism, as long as the true “socialists” in the Party got power, China could be taking a totally different route!

The other camp had quite different perspectives on the nature of the Chinese society and the major enemy of the left. Although it is still difficult to generalize their politics, they view class conflict between workers and capitalists as the most important issue. Instead of dividing the Party leaders into the pro-socialism faction and pro-capitalism faction, they tend to treat them both as political representatives of the bourgeoisie and they just have different attitudes on how to build capitalism (and their family wealth) safely. Therefore, it does not make sense for Marxists to become allies of the government to fight against “imperialism”. In fact, both the domestic bourgeoisie and the imperialists should be our enemies.

Clearly, the two camps have opposite views on China from the very beginning, but why did they stay at relative peace previously and suddenly began to fight each other? Some historical background and current context should be discussed to help us answer this question.

It would be unimaginable for such a debate to take place in China for most of the recent 30 years. After Mao died in 1976, the communist party leadership quickly cleaned out all the leftists from the central committee and began taking a long but steady transition to capitalism as we can see now. Why the CCP changed its mission is another question which has been discussed elsewhere.

To accompany this transition, the previous revolutionary period was demonized as much as possible and “to be rich is glorious” became the official ideology. The “old” revolution doctrines were considered to become outdated or extremist or even “reactionary” for China’s enlightenment/development.

Plus, in a short period, the unleashed market brought some positive changes to the life of Chinese people while some key elements of socialism were maintained, like nearly full employment. Therefore, the intellectuals as well as many working class people believed the “reform” was the way to go. The major contradiction of China, at that time, was believed to be the pure conflict of the old regime and reform.

Of course, everything changed when the economic reform reached much difficulty in the late 1980s. Huge inflation unprecedented to Socialist China greatly affected people’s life, no need to mention that the increasing income polarization and huge corruption always came hand in hand with marketization. People became more and more suspicious about the ongoing reform and the CCP itself, which, combined with other political factors, led to the nationwide political demonstrations in 1989 which also happened in other Soviet countries. The difference was that in China the movement was soon defeated by the military force. This brought an end to the chaotic 1980s.

Although the 1989 movement itself was due to many negative outcomes of the neo-liberal turn of the CCP, there were no real self-conscious leftists by that time and no Marxist solution was provided. Instead, the vision from the petty bourgeois leaders of the movement was neo-liberal capitalism, not much different from the CCP itself in essence. Indeed, after a short 3-year break, in 1992 CCP began to officially embrace “market economy”, and the shift to capitalism was accelerated greatly. It was from here that political oppositions to the current neo-liberal model began to emerge.

Many Chinese intellectuals referred to the 1980s as their good old time since that was the only decade when most Chinese intellectuals seemed to have a consensus, clearly a right wing one. It was not the case anymore since the 1990s, when some people began to re-evaluate the transition to capitalism and re-appreciate the importance of the socialist period from 1949 to 1979. These people were not alone. The whole society was going through a thorough structural adjustment and workers and peasants bore all the costs. In the urban sector, millions lost their lifetime jobs because of the privatization and the working class began their nationwide struggles since then. These depressed, extremely exploited people still remembered clearly their good days under a socialist society, so they had nothing but socialism as their goal. In the countryside, the tension between peasants and state was palpable because of the stagnant revenue in face of increasing expenses and corrupted, sometimes violent local bureaucracy. The long process of fighting the neo-liberal turn to capitalism gave birth to the post-Mao Chinese left inside workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie (including intelligentsia). The late goodbye to the “golden” 1980s actually announced a new era of modern China’s political history.

There are, broadly speaking, three most important sources of leftists in today’s China. They share some of their politics, but still differ on a number of ones.

The first group was the veteran of the Chinese Revolution in the last century. Many of them experienced civil war, Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution and maybe once supported the neo-liberal transition, but gradually began to stand against it. Although they are not part of the ruling class because of their politics, they still have relatively closer relationship with the CCP than others.

The veterans share socialism as their goal although their interpretations might be very different (from Soviet model to more radical versions). They also have complicated attitudes towards the CCP, on the one hand, they dislike the political program of the current regime, on the other hand, it was once a revolutionary party that they joined for the good of the people. So within the group there are divergent opinions, some try to believe that CCP can be steered towards socialism again (if the top leaders change minds, for example), and the rest gradually lean towards the idea that a thorough reform or revolution is needed to build socialism.

The second group came from the intellectual/petty bourgeoisie. They were part of the privileged people in the 1980s when the CCP tried to build a political coalition with them in order to isolate workers and peasants. However, with the good 1980s gone, petty bourgeoisie’s political weight decreased gradually because the CCP has already defeated the workers and peasants. The deepening of marketization and privatization has made them the new victims.

The intellectual/petty bourgeoisie group does not have a general political goal; often times their politics is a combination of several distinct elements, including the “new left” tradition from the west, nationalist sentiment and some parts of the Chinese revolutionary tradition from the Mao era. Radicalized ones tend to work with workers and other leftists to build future revolutionary path to socialism, while more liberal people prefer some sort of social democracy/regulated capitalism and put their hope in the peaceful changes from above.

The last group has its roots in workers, including the ones who had experiences under socialist period and the ones who became workers in more recent time. Workers have a natural tendency to be hostile to capitalism, in particular, the Chinese workers suffered greatly during the transition to capitalism; but they as a class did not become conscious until the nationwide layoff in the 1990s. The older generation saw the huge contrast between the Mao era and the current era, so they had very strong will to rebuild socialism in China; the younger generation only has experiences under capitalism, and generally they were not as politically sophisticated and organized as the older ones, but the severe exploitation by the new capitalist class make them resent the current regime.

In general, the workers, especially the old generation, are the most revolutionary ones in that they have nothing to lose in abolishing the current regime. Unlike the other two groups, they do not have any more hope in the ruling class as they have been hopelessly waiting for a “left turn” in recent two decades.

Therefore, the post-Mao left gradually formed two major camps as we have introduced at the beginning, differing on the nature of the CCP and means to achieve a better society. The radicalized parts of veterans and petty bourgeoisie joined the workers on overthrowing the current regime and constructing socialism (but not rejecting possible progressive reforms), while the more conservative parts of them gather around the goal of progressive reform (and exclusively reforms) under the current regime. The conflict has been there for a long while, but since the post-Mao left is relatively young and weak in various aspects and the dominant right-wing has been always very hostile towards any dissent, the two camps mostly worked together on the issues they share the same opinions, for example, they both oppose neo-liberalism and imperialism. Moreover, Mao is the flag held by all camps. As a side-note, although Mao has been demonized for so many years, his reputation remains extremely high among people, and increasingly so. In my experience, it is very rare nowadays to find an active Chinese leftist who is not a self-claimed Maoist, although the term “Maoist” might refer to different meanings.

This harmony between the “reform” camp and “revolution” camp could be maintained solely on the basis that the power of the left wing remains weak and the ruling class kept playing hardball with working class people. However, in recent years, the situation dramatically changed. First, a new wave of labor movement together with the world economic crisis greatly terrified the capitalists and the cadres, who are forced to begin changing their strategies to maintain order. The growing mass actions against the local government also manifest Chinese people’s huge resentment towards the current capitalist regime.

Second, as the contradiction of neo-liberalism unravels, lots of former middle or right-wing white collar/petty bourgeoisie people began joining the left wing. This significantly increases the impact of the left.

Not surprisingly, there arise politicians who deliberately behave more “left” than others. The most notable example is Bo Xilai, son of one of the former leaders of the CCP and currently the party leader of Chongqing Municipality, who started the huge campaign called “Praise Red & Destroy Black (chang hong da hei)” in recent years. The essence of the campaign is to destroy the gangs and maintain a good social order (destroy black) and educate people with so-called “red songs/books” which includes both revolutionary legacies and other purely old songs (praise red).

Bo, a charismatic cadre, likes to quote from Mao in his speeches and talk with passion and candidness like a revolutionary leader in those good old days. His programs and talks are well received among people and it is not very unrealistic to assume that he could easily win a national election if there is one. As a matter of fact, Bo’s program is a clearly capitalist one; there is nothing changed in the economic model, they embrace sweatshops and big capital just like other places do. The improvements like providing low-rent public housing and a safer society are pretty limited. Bo is definitely not building socialism (besides his lip service), although a good number of leftists try to convince themselves that he is the one (or one of the ones).

All these new factors contribute to the end of the harmony. Lots of signs suggest that left wing now has more say in the politics and even some of the high level cadres began to send a “leftist” message to people. This inevitably reinforces the confidence of “reform” camp in restoring socialism via the CCP as if the party is a neutral vehicle which can be turning left or right depending on the leaders. They began praising Bo Xilai and others as true socialist leaders who inherit the legacy of Mao and follow the revolutionary tradition. However, the other camp points out that the “left turn” is both very limited in its scope and opportunistic in its practice, and they find it unacceptable to be a political instrument of the ruling class. Thus it is only a matter of time for the fights between the two camps to start.

Based on this context, the internal struggles among the Chinese left are nothing but the natural results of the development of the left and the decline of the neo-liberalism. Its implications are twofold. First, it implies the leftist impact in China has reached a new high level due to the people’s continuing struggles against capitalism, and even part of the ruling class begin to “turn left” on purpose. Second, the left wing is now facing a historical moment; if the “reform” camp wins, the Chinese left wing will become a political partner of the CCP and cease to be a revolutionary force; but if the “revolution” camp successfully radicalizes the left wing, then the Chinese left should be able to play an important role in binging an end to neo-liberalism and capitalism in general in China and the world.

Some factors are likely to have significant impacts on the “choice”. First, is a Chinese version of welfare state possible in the near future? In other words, is the Chinese bourgeoisie willing and able to give up some of their privileges and redistribute part of their profits and rents to the working class? Second, is the Chinese left able to figure out new ways to mobilize and organize the mass as the early CCP cadres successfully did 80 years ago? My answers to these two questions are no and yes, but of course only time and practice can tell the results.

http://sanhati.com/excerpted/3894/