The Empire of China collapsed on 12 February 1912. A revolutionary nationalist group called the Tongmenghui, were able to crush the 3.000 year old monarchy. But the nationalists were not able to unite all of China under their banner. Four years after the collapse of the empire, the War Lord Era began. Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his nationalists founded the Chinese Nationalist Party ( Kuomintang ) in 1919. The new nationalist party received support from Soviet-Russia who hoped that the Kuomintang could evolve into a workers party. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai. Henk Sneevliet ( a Dutch revolutionary ) served as representative of the Communist International and Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao were its founding fathers. Mao Zedong was also present as representative of a communist group in the Hunan province!
Sneevliet wanted the CCP to work with the KMT of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his nationalists against the war lords. Not all party members supported this, because the KMT was a bourgeois nationalist party, not a party in favour of the socialist revolution. But Henk Sneevliet used the authority of the Communist International and forced the CCP to enter a united front with the Kuomintang. In 1923, the party adopted a Leninist structure and democratic centralism. Dr. Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 and the Kuomintang entered a crisis. The right-wing of the party was led by Chiang-Kai-Shek, who hated the communists. It is ironic that the western world and the Soviet-Union used to call Shek the ''Red General''. The western world never supported the KMT because of its left-wing anti-imperialism. European imperialists feared the nationalists and supported the war-lords against Dr. Sun Yat-sen. When the KMT-CCP Alliance was created, the Soviet-Union portrayed Chiang-Kai-Shek as a revolutionary hero. His portrait was carried during may day's Moscow along that of Yat-sen, Marx, Lenin and Stalin!
But Chiang-Kai-Shek was no supporter of leftism. He hated the idea of class struggle and opposed the Chinese Communist Party. In the Kuomintang, Wang Jingwei represented the left-wing of the party. He wanted to keep the alliance with the CCP. Jingwei would later become anticommunist and led the puppet government of China, set up by the Japanese. But in 1925, Wang Jingwei was a left-wing member of the KMT and the main rival of Chiang-Kai-Shek. But the right-wing would triumph. Jingwei was defeated and forced to accept Chiang-Kai-Shek as supreme dictator. In April 1927, the Kuomintang started their White Terror against members and sympathisers of the Chinese Communist Party, 70.000 were murdered. In Shanghai more then 500 communists were rounded up and executed. 5.000 sympathisers of the party disappeared and were never seen again, presumably executed by the anticommunist nationalists!
Only 10.000 members of the CCP survived the White Terror of the KMT. The Chinese nationalists then moved to capture the capital of Beijing from the last war lord. After more then 17 years of chaos and war lords, the Republic of China was reunified under the banner of Chiang-Kai-Shek. The capitalist world soon recognized his rule over the nation and established diplomatic relations. Although the Chinese capitalists supported Chiang-Kai-Shek against the communists, they were not too happy with his dictatorial rule. The ruling class of China wanted political power for themselves and opposed the nationalist dictator. But after the purge of the communists, the KMT turned on the capitalists and forced them to accept Chiang-Kai-Shek's rule over China!
In the rural the Chinese Communist Party underwent a transformation. From a typical workers party, it became a peasant based party. Many of its new members belonged to the peasant class, a class not capable of leading a socialist revolution according to classic Marxism. Mao Zedong already made a name for himself. During the period between 1927 and 1931 he led a peasant based communist army and established the Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government in February 1930. Mao's Soviet government was by no way a genuine workers council based democracy as was established in Russia in November 1917. Only members of the Chinese Communist Party were allowed to participate in elections!
Mao faced a personal trauma when his wife and sister were captured and executed by the KMT. Also he was accused of being too moderate and hence ''anti-revolutionary''. Mao Zedong then started with his first Stalinist purge and ordered the arrest of his political communist opponents. They were accused of supporting the fictional Anti-Bolshevik League and being ''Trotskyists''. 120 members of his Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government were arrested and 17 executed. In response to Mao's purges, a battalion of Chinese Red Army soldiers rebelled against his authority and the Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government. The uprising is known as the Futian incident!
The uprising failed and Mao Zedong ordered the killing of 700 Red Army officers. Another 2.500 soldiers were tortured and executed by Mao's supporters. After this purge nobody dared to oppose Mao Zedong, who's power was complete when he was elected chairman of the Chinese Soviet Republic. The Stalinist regime only lasted three years when the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang, attacked the Chinese Soviet Republic. Although the Chinese communists were able to defeat the first and second wave of nationalists, they were forced to retreat when Chiang-Kai-Shek took command personally. The retreat became known as the Long March. Out of 86.000 soldiers only 7.000 survived the one year long march to the north of China!
Mao Zedong was by now the absolute leader of the Chinese Communist Party. He changed its ideology from a workers based party into a peasant based party. Not the workers, but the peasants were the revolutionary class according to chairman Mao Zedong. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, Mao Zedong and Chiang-Kai-Shek halted their conflict in order to fight the invaders. For 8 years the CCP and KMT were in an uneasy alliance. The Nanking Massacre of 1938 gave the Chinese Red Army more recruits, as many Chinese joined the fight against the imperialist Japanese. Soon the army of Mao Zedong grew from 50.000 before the Nanking Massacre to 500.000 after it!
The Japanese surrender in August 1945 was the end for the united front with the KMT. Soon the old hatred grew again. But this time the CCP had one major advantage: The Kuomintang had turned very corrupt and was only supported by the rich and the imperialist world powers. Most Chinese peasants hated Chiang-Kai-Shek and his government. On 31 March 1946 the Chinese Civil War resumed. The Red Army was renamed People's Liberation Army ( PLA ) and grew by each year. By June 1949, more then 5.000.000 soldiers made up the PLA, while the National Revolutionary Army of Chiang-Kai-Shek was down to 1.490.000 soldiers. Many KMT soldiers deserted to the PLA during the last four years of civil war!
Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. The nationalist government fled to Taiwan were it remains until this day. Millions of poor peasants hoped for a genuine socialist society. But Mao Zedong never wanted that. He and his CCP bureaucrats started with terror and destruction that would lead to the restoration of capitalism. In the first 8 years, the CCP made sure that all class enemies were removed from power. Rich capitalists were expropriated and drug trafficking were all wiped out. The economy was nationalized, but instead of democratic planning, the state followed the Stalinist model of top down bureaucratic planning. Mao's dogmatism and totalitarianism also led to mass arrested of workers who criticize the bureaucracy and the errors committed by the party. Criticizing chairman Mao became a taboo!
Mao urged the use of communally organized iron smelters to increase steel production, pulling workers off of agricultural labour to the point that large amounts of crops rotted unharvested. Mao decided to continue to advocate these smelters despite a visit to a factory steel mill which proved to him that high quality steel could only be produced in a factory. He thought that ending the program would dampen peasant enthusiasm for his political mobilization, the Great Leap Forward. This political project would cause a famine that killed at least 20 million Chinese peasants. Almost as much as the death toll of Stalin's regime in the USSR!
But before the Great Leap Forward began, Mao started a project called the Hundred Flowers Campaign. In this very short period of genuine freedom, the Chinese were allowed to criticize the government. Many did and the party elite were shocked by their criticism. Many workers and peasants said things like: "the CCP should give up power," "intellectuals are virtually being tortured while living in a communist society," "there is a total lack of freedom if the CCP is to continue on ruling the country," "the country should separate with each Political Party controlling a zone of its own" and "Each political party in China should rule in transitional governments, each with a 4 year term."
Mao Zedong was shocked and ordered the arrest of all people who had expressed their opposition to the party and himself. Some say that this was the true reason behind the Hundred Flowers Campaign. The government wanted to know who would speak out against the CCP and its chairman. It was clear that many Chinese opposed the totalitarian government, but Mao Zedong did not cared. After the arrests, he started with his Great Leap Forward. Those who opposed the Great Leap Forward or dared to criticize it were called ''counter-revolutionary'' and jailed. Few Chinese peasants dared to speak out, many feared the secret police who would watch everybody!
The Chinese nationalists used the famine and the inefficiency to produce anticommunist propaganda. Chiang-Kai-Shek used the totalitarian rule of Mao, to show that world that he led ''Free China''. This was painted on the airport of Taipei, WELCOME TO FREE CHINA. Although not as totalitarian as Mao Zedong, Chiang-Kai-Shek was an authoritarian leader who did not tolerant opposition to the KMT. The USA had no problems with that, since the Republic of China on Taiwan became very pro-USA and anti-Soviet!
The failure of the Great Leap Forward and the famine did have consequences for Mao Zedong. In the CCP he was criticized and he lost political power because of it. Other party members rose in power and wanted to reform the Chinese government. Mao no longer participated in the economic decision-making process, but behind the scenes he was working on his great comeback. After many years of working on his political comeback, chairman Mao Zedong returned with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the biggest disaster in Chinese history!
8 August 1966, the Central Committee of the CCP ( again under Mao's control ) claimed that: ''Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system''
In order to oppose moderates like Deng Xiaoping, the party launched the Cultural Revolution. Maoist dogmatism was now everywhere, any Chinese with no CCP background was called a ''counter-revolutionary''. Millions of teenage boys and girls were drafted into the Red Guards. A Hitler Youth style organisation who worshiped Mao Zedong like a god. These teenagers were enforced by radical students who went into the cities to ''spread the image of chairman Mao''. Their victims were all who were not in favour of their living god. School teachers, monks, party members and any Chinese who was not a ''good loyal communist''. The Red Guards attacked CCP members who were not dogmatically loyal to Mao. They bullied young children, intimidated the elderly and even murdered those who stood in their way. The Red Guards were created evil!
The People's Republic of China came to a halt in 1966. It would be until 1978 when it could start to recover from the hell that was the Cultural Revolution. The terrorists of the Red Guard could not be opposed by the police, because Mao Zedong protected the Red Guards and told that the Red Guards desire to kill is what any ''genuine revolutionary'' should do. Here we see the true Mao Zedong, a criminal anticommunist that showed no regards for workers, farmers, youth and old people. His terror regime equals that of Stalin and even that of Adolf Hitler. In 1967 the military was attacked. Until then the People's Liberation Army was kept out of the Red Guards line of fire. But now the generals were called ''counter-revolutionary'' and came under attack. Generals like Nie Rongzhen and Xu Xiangqian were purged and many officers faced brutal intimidations!
As the state and society collapsed under Red Guard terrorism, the radicalised youth started to turn against each other. Some Red Guards hated other Red Guards and mostly it was all about ''who was the best revolutionary and the loyalist follower of chairman Mao''. Teens were bullies, intimidated and forced to undergo self-criticism by others teenagers. The rule of the strongest was in place, the weak were called ''enemies of socialism'' by the narcissistic Red Guards who placed Mao's little Red Book before everything!
After two years of terror, chaos, violence and destruction, Mao Zedong realized he lost control over the Red Guard movement. The Chinese Communist Party was a wreck, destroyed by the purges and reduced to a slave of Mao's cult of personality. Red Guards now wanted to destroy the party bureaucrats who were protected by Mao himself for various reasons. In December 1968, Mao ordered the Red Guards out of the cities and into the countryside to ''learn from the peasants''. Young intellectuals were told to live like a farmer and learn from them. This generation became the Lost Generation, because they lost their youth to the dogma's of maoism. Only after 1976 were they allowed to return to the cities and the universities!
During the Cultural Revolution, many ancient buildings of China were destroyed. Old monasteries in Tibet feel victims to the Red Guard terrorists. Many monks were bullied, tortured and murdered by the Red Guards. The death toll of the Cultural Revolution is estimated to be between 20 and 40 million people. Most died because of starvation, forced labour, executions and very bad living conditions. This the legacy of Mao Zedong and this is why we revolutionary socialists not only oppose him, but also hate him. Like Stalin, Mao was able to work his way up. He branded his communist opponents ''Trotskyists'' and ''counter-revolutionaries'' like Stalin. In the end Mao Zedong and his CCP were the most anticommunist force during the Cold War. They may have waved with red flags and claimed to be ''socialist''. By a genuine socialist state does not murder political opponents, destroying ancient buildings or creates a youth terrorist group that bullies, intimidates and murders teachers and elderly people!
Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976. All of China was in mourn, most did not know how to live win out their chairman. Since 1949, Mao was the centre of their lives. Now he was gone and most were scarred of the future. In Cambodia, Pol Pot followed Mao's path to an ''agrarian peasant utopia''. The Red Khmer took power in 1975 and wanted to establish a ''pure socialist Khmer empire''. They would murder 1/3 of the Cambodian population only to be stopped by the Stalinist Vietnamese in 1978!
Hua Guofeng became the chairman of the CCP after Mao's death. He was soon outmatched by the capitalist reformer; Deng Xiaoping. In December 1978, Deng became Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. His supporters dominated the Central Committee of the CCP by 1981. Hua Guofeng tried to keep Mao's legacy alive, but was forced out of the Central Committee. With his departure the Maoist era came to an end. Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the PRC started with capitalist reforms much to the like of the capitalist world. Although Deng provided the theoretical background and the political support to allow economic reform to occur, it is in general consensus amongst historians that few of the economic reforms that Deng introduced were originated by Deng himself. Premier Zhou Enlai, for example, pioneered the Four Modernizations years before Deng. In addition, many reforms would be introduced by local leaders, often not sanctioned by central government directives. If successful and promising, these reforms would be adopted by larger and larger areas and ultimately introduced nationally!
Most Chinese supported the political reforms. Also the government started to move out of the lives of people for the first time since 1949. The reforms also gave workers and students more freedom to think for themselves, which led to the 1989: Tiananmen Square Massacre. Between 15 April and 4 June 1989, many workers and students demonstrated in over 400 cities against the capitalist reforms and the dictatorship of the CCP. The students wanted political freedom, while the workers opposed the privatisations and market reforms. Deng Xiaoping called them ''counter-revolutionaries'' the same thing all CCP leaders said about people who opposed them. From genuine enemies of socialism to communists who only expressed their opinion. The ruling caste of the CCP never wanted to give power to the people and they showed this on 4 June 1989. More then 2.000 workers and students were killed when PLA troops and tanks attacked Tiananmen Square!
After the brutal crackdown, the CCP turned more capitalist every year. In 1990 the Shanghai Stock Market was reopened, after it was closed for 40 years. China's state owned airliner was split into different airliners, each of them operate on the capitalist system. Social security was privatized, hospitals now demand money for treatment, this was unknown in the PRC before the rise of Deng Xiaoping. The CCP calls their capitalist counter-revolution a ''socialist market economy''. We revolutionary socialists call it a state-capitalist system, in which state owned enterprises operate on the market system!
Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. His legacy is positive according to capitalists, western leaders and CCP historians. But we revolutionary socialists have no positive things to say. He was a typical capitalist reformer. Deng never believed in Marxist socialism, he wanted state-capitalism with absolute CCP rule. This is the true legacy of Deng Xiaoping, a small rich minority against a huge poor majority. That is what the reforms created, wealth for a small group and poverty for the rest of China!
Jiang Zemin became general secretary of the Chinese ''Communist'' Party in 1989 and remained that until 2002. In 1993 he became the first President of the People's Republic of China. This office replaced the State Chairman position. It was also decided that the president would also be the general secretary of the CCP. So Jiang Zemin became both party leader and state leader at the same time. In 2003, Hu Jintao replaced Jiang Zemin. He created a new ideology for the CCP called ''Socialist Harmonious Society''. This new ideology calls for a basically well-off middle-class oriented society. By now the CCP had deformed so much it could no longer be called a communist party. Today's CCP has far more in common with the Kuomintang on Taiwan!
Indeed both parties have began to talk to each other, after almost 40 years of hostility. The Kuomintang knows that the CCP will never recognize the Republic of China on Taiwan, but they also know that the CCP has accepted capitalism. So both parties are no longer separated by ideology. This is why the relations with the right-wing KMT are improving. Because the CCP has betrayed both Marxism and their own Maoist creation!
Ten years after Hu Jintao became president, the PRC is still growing. Almost all products used by western world are now produced in China, by cheap workers. This is the crime of and the betrayal of the CCP. Millions of Chinese work in factories for a low salary. Take a 16 year old girl, who earn's 1,75 euro for 35 jeans she creates. While we pay almost 32 euro's for a single jeans in a clothing-store. Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao in 2013 as president and party leader. Xi wants to reduce state ownership of businesses, he wants more power for the capitalist class. His personal ideology is called the ''Chinese Dream''. There is absolutely nothing left in this traitorous party, it has embraced the dictatorship of greed and money. Revolutionary socialists have no illusions in this Xi Jinping. He is the representative of the new bourgeoisie in the PRC. He does not care about workers or the Marxist ideology. Xi Jinping is a typical state-bureaucrat and an enemy of the Chinese proletariat!
In 2012 the top 10 of Chinese billionairs are:
| Rank | Name | Net worth (US) | Sources of wealth | Age | Global Rank 2013 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zong Qinghou | $10 billion | Wahaha | 67 | 86 |
| 2 | Robin Li | $8.1 billion | Baidu | 44 | 172 |
| 3 | Wang Jianlin | $8 billion | Dalian Wanda Group | 58 | 128 |
| 4 | Ma Huateng | $6.4 billion | Tencent | 41 | 173 |
| 5 | Wu Yajun | $6.2 billion | Longfor Properties | 49 | 299 |
| 6 | Liang Wengen | $5.9 billion | Sany | 56 | 158 |
| 7 | Liu Yongxing | $5.8 billion | Hope Group | 65 | 198 |
| 8 | Hui Ka Yan | $4.9 billion | Evergrande Real Estate Group | 54 | 209 |
| 9 | Yang Huiyan | $4.4 billion | Country Garden Holdings | 31 | 211 |
| 10 | Hui Wing Mau | $4 billion | Shimao Property | 63 | 262 |
| 11 | Jack Ma | $3.4 billion | Alibaba Group | 48 | 395 |
| 12 | He Xiangjian | $3.3 billion | Midea Group | 70 | 262 |
| 13 | Zhang Jindong | $3.2 billion | Suning Appliance | 50 | 412 |
| 14 | Sun Guangxin | $3.1 billion | Xinjiang Guanghui Industry | 50 | 329 |
| 15 | William Ding | $2.95 billion | Netease | 41 | 458 |
Billionaires in China are also active in politics. We know that out of 2.987 members of the National People's Congress, 75 are billionaires like these top 15. How many of these members are millionaires of 75 are already billionaires? We don't know, but one this is sure: They are not representatives of the Chinese working class. These 2.987 members of the National People's Congress are in service of the CCP and the ruling bourgeoisie!
Revolutionary socialists call for a workers revolution in China. The CCP must be removed and destroyed. They have betrayed marxism, leninism and socialism in general. Although the party has 70 million members, we know that these members did not join to bring about the rule of the proletariat. No, most have joined for their own needs. In Stalinist states and in the Maoist era, the party members were the elite of society. They could shop in special stores, had nice houses and did not behaved like vanguards of the workers. In the USSR, top-ranking party members were protected by the state and enjoyed a higher standard of living then the Soviet working class!
For genuine revolutionary socialists the CCP is the final proof that Stalinist degeneration leads back to capitalism. Leon Trotsky said this in his 1936 book: ''The Revolution Betrayed''. He knew that stalinism would not survive forever. Sooner or later the ruling caste would either collapse or return to capitalism. This is why the workers of China must rise up. They must own and manage their economy and be able to decide its future. Not the party bureaucrats and not the ruling class should do that. Only workers democracy can lead to a genuine socialist society. Mao Zedong never understood socialism, he wanted to use force and terror. The capitalist restoration was the result of his cruelty.
The Chinese proletariat have nothing to lose, it has a nation to win!
Workers of China Unite!
Down with the CCP!!
Xi Jinping and his supporters wear western-style business suits
