The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, by Lin Chun ...



The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, by Lin Chun, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Paper, $23.95. Pp. ix, 370.

The Chinese Revolution was one of the greatest historical events in the 20th century. The Maoist attempt to resist bureaucratization and reinvigorate socialism through mass mobilization, though failed, was a major component of the global revolutionary upsurge in the mid-20th century. China has since then undergone major political and economic changes and have evolved into a leading driving force of the global capitalist economy. How to understand China’s modern history from a left-socialist perspective and what is the possibility for China to develop an alternative model of development despite its integration into the global capitalist market? These are the questions Lin Chun tries to address in her book.

According to Lin, the existing literature on modern China has been permeated with a number of myths. It is widely believed that there was little socioeconomic progress in the Maoist period and China’s economic success since the 1980s can be exclusively attributed to the opening up of the Chinese markets to foreign capital, export-oriented industrialization, privatization, and liberalization. According to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese reform is characterized by incrementalism and gradualism, and economic changes have taken place without corresponding political changes.

Lin emphasizes continuities as well as discontinuities between the Maoist socialism and the post-Maoist reform. Lin points out the Maoist successes in economic modernization and argues that the physical and human capital accumulated in the Maoist era had contributed to the post-Maoist economic success. Lin praises Deng Xiaoping for the ideological and political changes he introduced, which Lin believes had laid down the foundation for the subsequent economic reform. Lin argues that the Chinese Communist Party is best seen as a massive social organization that responds to various public demands and the Party remains the only institution that is powerful enough to secure national unity and to lead desirable political changes.

Lin sees the modern Chinese history as a continuous effort to search for its own unique model of alternative modernity. Mao Zedong strived for the construction of a genuine socialist society distinguished from the Soviet-style bureaucratic socialism. Under Deng Xiaoping, China attempted to appropriate the market tools without embracing capitalism. Despite changes in the neoliberal direction in the 1990s, Lin believes that all was not lost and the pledge of attaining “social harmony” by the current Party leadership and the emergence of the “Beijing Consensus” (the Chinese way of market reform as opposed to the “Washington Consensus” of neoliberal market reform) are signs of a resumption of reform socialism.

Against various interpretations of the nature of the current Chinese society, Lin contends that it is too hasty to pass judgment on a still unfolding development. China’s transformation is bound to be open-ended and we must not underestimate the political innovativeness of a Chinese alternative to the capitalist homogenization of the world. The Chinese Communist Party’s manifestos continue to state the Party’s commitment to the socialist cause. Lin maintains that these should be taken seriously because “ideology (de)legitimizes and creates reality” (p. 6).

It is not that Lin does not recognize China’s various social problems. Lin discusses the rising inequality, the degradation of rural conditions, decline of public health care and education, sweatshops, urban unemployment, reverse of previous gains in gender equality, the rise of “quasi-capitalist” groups and interests, and environmental disasters. Lin talks about the “crisis of reform.” But Lin seems to believe that the initiatives remain in the hands of the state which is yet to take the decisive steps to determine China’s future (p. 252).

Lin is hopeful that “the fourth-generation leadership” (referring to the current Chinese leadership) will tackle the social and environmental problems and solve the crisis of governability. Lin concludes the book by outlining a model of Xiaokang (or moderate prosperity) socialism that “will prize direct producers as participants in socialized production as well as locally organized activities both within and outside of the market” (p. 277).

As desirable as Xiaokang socialism may be, one cannot escape the question what social forces one can count on in today’s China to accomplish this desired social model. This in turn raises the question how one would characterize China’s current social relations in general and class relations in particular. These are important questions. For instance, one would not propose Xiaokang socialism (no matter how many attractive features it has) to the Bush Administration and realistically hope that it will have even a slim chance of being implemented.

Social realities are complex and fluid, it is natural for people to disagree and different people may very well have different emphases as well as biases. While ideologies can certainly disguise reality and sometimes can even “create” reality, the real experience of life of the workers and peasants remain real. There must be some people who control China’s means of production. There must be some people who appropriate and dispose the social surplus product. The workers and peasants must enter into some types of social relations as they make a living. How the surplus product has been used and what have been its social consequences are there for everyone to see and experience. It has been three decades since China started its “reform.” Is it really so difficult to address these questions in a straightforward manner?

Will the current Chinese leadership correct the past “mistakes” and take China back on to a socialist path? To answer this question, the most important issue is not what the current leadership thinks (and certainly not what they say they think), but what is the social force that is in control of the state and to the interest of which class the state is committed. True, the Chinese state responds to demands from all social groups. But is this not true for every state? Even the pre-revolutionary emperors were supposed to take care of all “under the heaven.” The pervasive financial and social connections between foreign and domestic business interests on the one hand, and the various levels of Party and government officials from the top to the bottom on the other hand, are not a secret for any average Chinese. And one would be naïve to the extreme to believe that more than a few Party members continue to be idealist communists? Is it not legitimate for one to question what motivations are there for the Party and government officials to care about the interest of workers and peasants, if it is not in their private interests?

These are not only intellectual questions, but also political ones. Lin is quite aware of this and realizes that a “revolutionary rupture” may not be avoided if the reform attempt fails. Lin might feel discouraged as “socialism is presently so out of fashion that even socialists themselves now tend to consider the term anachronistic” (p. 284). But fashion, of course is short-lived and will change from time to time.

Minqi Li

Department of Economics, University of Utah

1645 E. Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

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