The Workers International League FAQ
China/MaoismTo fully understand the situation in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and other Stalinist states, it is important to study the ideas of the Permanent Revolution, the Marxist theory of the State, and the phenomenon of Proletarian Bonapartism. It was precisely the impasse of capitalism in these countries and the pressing need of the masses for a way forward which gave rise of Stalinist states in the image of the USSR. This was due to a number of different factors. In the first place, the complete impasse of society in the backward countries and the inability of the colonial bourgeoisie to show a way forward. Secondly, the inability of imperialism to maintain its control by the old means of direct military-bureaucratic rule. Thirdly, the delay of the proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries and the weakness of the subjective factor. And lastly, the existence of a powerful regime of proletarian bonapartism in the Soviet Union. The victory of the USSR in the Second World War, and the strengthening of Stalinism after the War with its extension to Eastern Europe and the victory of the Chinese revolution were all factors that combined to condition the development of proletarian bonapartism as a peculiar variant of the permanent revolution which was only understood by our tendency. This was an entirely unprecedented and unexpected phenomenon. Nowhere in the classics of Marxism was it even considered as a theoretical possibility that a peasant war could lead to the establishment of even a deformed workers' state. Yet this is precisely what occurred in China, and later in Cuba and Vietnam. We characterize the Chinese revolution as the second greatest event in world history, after the Russian revolution of 1917. It had an enormous effect in the subsequent development of the colonial revolution. But this revolution did not take place on the classical lines of the Russian revolution in 1917 or the Chinese revolution of 1925-27. The working class played no important role. Mao came to power on the basis of a mighty peasant war, in the traditions of China. The only way Mao was able to win the civil war of 1944-49 was by offering a programme of social liberation to the peasant armies of Chiang Kai-shek, who was armed and backed by American imperialism. But the Stalinist leaders of the peasant Red Army had no perspective of leading the workers to power as did Lenin and Trotsky in 1917. When Mao's peasant armies arrived at the cities, and the workers spontaneously occupied the factories and greeted Mao's armies with red flags, Mao gave the order that these demonstrations should be suppressed and the workers were shot. Initially, Mao did not intend to expropriate the Chinese capitalists. His perspectives for the Chinese revolution were outlined in a pamphlet called "New Democracy" in which he wrote that the socialist revolution was not on the order of the day in China, and that the only development that could take place was a mixed economy, i.e. capitalism. This was the classical "two stage" Menshevik theory which had been adopted by the Stalinist bureaucracy and had led to the defeat of the Chinese revolution in 1925-27. But under the concrete conditions that had developed, Mao was forced to expropriate capitalism. The fact that the peasantry was used to carry through a social revolution was a completely new development in the history of China. China was the classical country of peasant wars, which took place at regular intervals. But even when these wars were victorious this merely resulted in the fusion of the leading elements of the peasant armies with the elite in the towns, resulting in the formation of a new dynasty. It was a vicious circle which characterized Chinese history for over 2,000 years. But here we had a fundamental departure. The peasant army under Mao was able to smash capitalism and create a society on the image of Stalin's Moscow. Of course, there could be no question of a healthy workers' state as in Russia in October 1917 being established by such means. For that, the active participation and leadership of the working class would be required. But a peasant army, without the leadership of the working class, is the classical instrument of Bonapartism, not workers' power. The Chinese Revolution of 1949 began where the Russian Revolution had ended. There was no question of soviets [democratically elected committees of the workers, peasants, and soldiers] or workers' democracy. From the very beginning it was a monstrously deformed workers' state. Once Mao took power and created a state apparatus on the basis of the hierarchy of the Red Army he did not have any need to ally himself with the bourgeoisie. In a typical bonapartist fashion, Mao balanced between the different classes. He leaned on the peasantry and to a certain extent on the working class to expropriate the capitalists, but once these had been defeated he then proceeded to eliminate any elements of workers democracy that might have existed. This phenomena was possible precisely because of the delay of the world revolution and the impasse of society. He had the powerful example of Stalinism in Russia, where a strong bureaucracy was parasiting the planned economy and benefiting from it, so he decided to follow the same model. Despite its monstrously deformed character, the Chinese Revolution nevertheless represented a gigantic step forward for hundreds of millions of people who had been the beasts of burden of imperialism. But the Stalinist bureaucracy does not have the interests of the Chinese working class in mind. They are out for their own gain. They are now moving towards the liquidation of the gains of the Chinese Revolution, namely the nationalized, planned economy. They are moving cautiously towards the privatization giant swathes of state-owned industry, with a handful of bureaucrats hoping to become wealthy capitalists. They want to re-introduce capitalism and dismantle the economic basis for socialism - the planned economy. But this process is far from over. The majority of the economy is still in state hands, and the moves towards capitalist restoration have resulted in mass unemployment and discontent. What is needed is a political revolution which will keep the nationalized, planned economy, but remove the unelected and unaccoutable bureaucracy, replacing it with genuine workers' political and economic democracy.
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