Socialism
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Here are a collection of quotes which defend Chinese Socialism.

Part 3 of This Series:

Explanation:

“Nor will we explain to them that it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity” - Karl Marx

“The so-called ‘socialist society’ is not anything immutable. Like all other social formations, it should be conceived in a state of constant flux and change. Its crucial difference from the present order consists naturally in production organised on the basis of common ownership by the nature of all means of production” - Friedrich Engels

“Get down to business, all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them. Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running the economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build a Communist republic. Since we must necessarily learn quickly, any slackness in this respect is a serious crime. And we must undergo this training, because we have no other way out. You must remember that our land is impoverished after man years of trial and suffering, and has no socialist France or socialist England as neighbours which could help us with their highly developed technology and their highly developed industry. Bear that in mind! We must remember that at present all their highly developed technology and highly developed industry belong to the capitalists, who are fighting us” - V.I. Lenin

“The masses are the source of our strength and the mass viewpoint and the mass line are our cherished traditions. The Party’s organisations, its rank and file members and cadres must be one with the masses and never stand against them. Any party organisation that deplorably loses tough with the masses and does not mend its ways is forfeiting the source of its strength and will invariably fail and be rejected by the people” - Deng Xiaoping

“It is their direction to continuously self-improve and develop socialism. It means that China is constantly changing and as it changes, they need to constantly reform the system in order to improve” - Deng Xiaoping

“The essence of Marxism is seeking truth from facts. That’s what we should advocate, not book worship. The reform and open policy have been successful not because we relied on books, but because we relied on practice and sought truth from facts” - Deng Xiaoping

“I haven’t read too many books, but there is one thing I believe in: Chairman Mao’s principle of seeking truth from facts. That is the principle we relied on when we were fighting wars and we continue to rely on it in construction and reform” - Deng Xiaoping

“Whether it promotes the growth of the productive forces in a socialist society, increases the overall strength of the socialist state, and raises living standards” - Deng Xiaoping

“‘Those who suffer from it dare not say a word or take a step that isn’t mentioned in books, documents or the speeches of leaders: everything has to be copied.’ And a little over a decade later, he returned to this thought. ‘The world changes every day and modern science and technology in particular develop rapidly. A year today is the equivalent of several decades, a century or even a longer period of in ancient times. Anyone who fails to carry Marxism forward with new thinking and a new viewpoint is not a true Marxist; When everything has to be done by the book, when thinking turns rigid and blind faith is the fashion, it is impossible for a party or a nation to progress. Its life will cease and that party or nation will perish.’ He encouraged, ‘We should be bolder than before in conducting reform and opening up to the outside and have the courage to experiment’” - Deng Xiaoping

“‘Reform and Opening up’ comes from. The experimentation and reform can then be tied directly to Mao’s own work ‘Oppose Book Worship!’” - Deng Xiaoping

“[Capitalism is a system of] profits in command” - Mao Zedong

“The present world is open… Reviewing our history, we have concluded that one of the most important reasons for China’s long years of stagnation and backwardness was its policy of closing the country to outside contact. Our experiences show that China cannot rebuild itself behind closed doors and that it cannot develop in isolation from the rest of the world” - Xi Jinping

“To build China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious and achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by the middle of the century” - Xi Jinping

“We should promote open, innovative and inclusive development that benefits all. The 2008 global financial crisis has taught us that allowing capital to blindly pursue profit will result in chaos, and that global prosperity cannot be built on the shaky foundations of a market without moral constraints. The growing gap between rich and poor is both unfair and unsustainable. It is important for us to use both the invisible hand and the visible hands to form synergy between market forces and government functions and strive to achieve both efficiency and fairness” - Xi Jinping

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” - Xi Jinping

“In America you can change the party but not the policy, in China you can’t change the party but the policy can change” - Eric Li

“If we do not take into consideration the objective dialectical law of the new superseding the old but look for a “pure” socialism free from both vestiges of the old and rudiments of the new, we are likely to fall victim to a metaphysical point of view” - Xue Muqiao

“I hadn’t met Western ‘revolutionaries’ before… What astonished us the most about this group was that they were opposed to nationalism, a doctrine we hold dearly as a colonised and dissipated people” - Leila Khaled

“Zhou said he hoped that a coalition government would come into being if Chiang admitted the CPC as an equal partner. ‘The United States will find us more cooperative than the Guomindang. China must industrialise. This can only be done by free enterprise and with the aid of foreign capital. Chinese and American interests are correlated. The two countries fit well together.’ Mao went further, hinting that, although dedicated to socialism, the CPC would delay drastic social reforms for ‘twenty years or more… should American help be forthcoming.’ He and Zhou envisaged for China something akin to the Marshall Plan that later put Western Europe back on its feet. ‘The U.S.S.R has suffered greatly from the war… It will be far too busy with its own reconstruction. We are quite willing to make concessions.’ ‘Revolution is a very gradual process, and we shall have to go through a comparatively long new-democratic stage,’ asserted Zhou Enlai. This long-term policy, advocating a mixed economy, would be the one that Zhou would endeavor to pursue through the following decades. And even though at times contrary winds blew, and schemes utterly different took hold for a while, the ‘opening of China,’ attributed to Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, goes right back to those concepts forged by Zhou Enlai and Mao in 1944 in Yenan” - (Biography of Zhou Enlai)

Part 4:

  • enigmaOP
    2•2 years ago

    “It is necessary that our cadres have a thorough knowledge of Marxist economic theory. The first, old generation of Bolsheviks were very solid theoretically. We learnt Capital by heart, made conspectuses, held discussions and tested each others’ understanding. This was our strength and it helped us a lot. The second generation was less prepared. They were busy with practical matters and construction. They studied Marxism from booklets. The third generation is being brought up on satirical and newspaper articles. They do not have any deep understanding . They need to be provided with food that is easily digestible. The majority has been brought up not by studying Marx and Lenin but on quotations. If matters continue further in this way people would soon degenerate. In America people argue: We need dollars, why do we need theory? Why do we need science? With us people may think similarly: ‘when we are building socialism why do we need Capital?’ This is a threat for us - it is degradation, it is death. In order not to have such a situation even partially we have to improve the level of economic understanding” - J.V. Stalin

    “‘Firmly establish the new-democratic social order.’ That’s a harmful formulation. In the transition period changes are taking place all the time and socialist factors are emerging every day. How can this ‘new-democratic social order’ be ‘firmly established’? It would be very difficult indeed to ‘establish’ it ‘firmly’! For instance, private industry and commerce are being transformed, and if an order is ‘established’ in the second half of the year, it will no longer hold ‘firm’ next year. And changes are taking place in mutual aid and co-operation in agriculture from year to year too. The period of transition is full of contradictions and struggles. Our present revolutionary struggle is even more profound than the revolutionary armed struggle of the past. It is a revolution that will bury the capitalist system and all other systems of exploitation once and for all. The idea, ‘Firmly establish the new-democratic social order’, goes against the realities of our struggle and hinders the progress of the socialist cause” - Mao Zedong

    “‘Don’t you want to abolish state power?’ Yes, we do, but not right now. We cannot do it yet. Why? Because imperialism still exists, because domestic reaction still exists, because classes still exist in our country; Our present task is to strengthen the people’s state apparatus - mainly the people’s army, the people’s police and the people’s courts - in order to consolidate national defence and protect the people’s interests; The foreign reactionaries who accuse us of practicing ‘dictatorship’ or ‘totalitarianism’ are the very persons who practice it. They practice the dictatorship or totalitarianism of one class, the bourgeoisie, over the proletariat and the rest of the people. They are the very persons Sun Yat-sen spoke of as the bourgeoisie of modern states who oppress the common people; The state apparatus, including the army, the police and the courts, is the instrument by which one class oppresses another. It is an instrument for the oppression of antagonistic classes, it is violence and not ‘benevolence.’ We definitely do not apply a policy of benevolence to the reactionaries and towards the reactionary activities of the reactionary classes” - Mao Zedong

    “The behaviour of the police in China was a revelation to me. They are there to protect and help the people, not to oppress them. Their courtesy was genuine; no division or suspicion exists between them and the citizens. This impressed me so much that when I returned to the United States and was met by the Tactical Squad at San Francisco airport (they had been called out because nearly a thousand people came to the airport to welcome us back), it was brought home to me all over again that the police in our country are an occupying, repressive force. I pointed this out to a customs officer in San Francisco, a Black man, who was armed, explaining to him that I felt intimidated seeing all the guns around. I had just left a country, I told him, where the army and police are not in opposition to the people but are their servants” - Huey P. Newton

    “We shall not forget that the idea [of socialism] is not dead, but rather in a few countries the socialist society actually exists. Here, I am thinking of the People’s Republic of China, which especially in current days has reinforced its determination to continue the successful development of socialism. After all, this is a country of 1.2 billion people. As you know, I’ve been to China [in 1986], and I can say with deep conviction that the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao Zedong will keep getting realised with success. We have the valiant Vietnam, which fares the socialist path, and refused to be brought to its knees by the U.S. imperialists. And we have the beacon in Latin America: the brave Cuba under Fidel Castro. So socialism as such still actually exists; however the idea of course is in existence since Marx and Engels, founded on the basis of science, and it cannot be shaken by temporary setbacks” - Erich Honecker

    “The course of China’s successful revolution and national construction is inextricably linked to Mao Zedong Thought. Mao Zedong, throughout the course of his life, sacrificed greatly and has made profound contributions and achievements that would, fundamentally, remain eternal for the hearts of the Chinese people. But, Mao Zedong just like any other human being, had his weaknesses and has made mistakes. When we analyse and explore Mao Zedong’s mistakes, it is obvious that we should recognise who and which individual is responsible, but at the same time we should always recognise the sheer complexity of historical background and the conditions of which these very mistakes were made. It is only through this that we can objectively, scientifically, and which is ultimately the correct Marxist method of handling history, approach important historical figures like Chairman Mao; The traits, character and essence of Mao Zedong’s errors and the issues of Lin Biao and the ‘Gang of Four’ are not the same. Chairman Mao throughout the majority of his life has done innumerable great things. He has, in multiple occasions, lead, guided and ultimately saved our party and our country during dire conditions and times of crises. Without Chairman Mao, to the very least, we, the Chinese people, would be still left astray in a far darker state of chaos for a far more longer time. Chairman Mao’s greatest contribution is his efforts to blend, link and unite Marxist theory with the conditions of China, which ultimately led to the successful path of China’s revolution; The Communist Party of China’s ‘left’ errors can be traced back to the late 1950s. But these errors are not solely Chairman Mao’s responsibility or fault” - Deng Xiaoping

    “The aim of Socialism is to make all our people prosperous, not create polarisation. If our policies lead to polarisation, it would mean that we had failed; if a new bourgeoisie emerged, it would mean we had strayed from the right path” - Deng Xiaoping

    “China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one. If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it” - Deng Xiaoping

    “Ours is an economically backwards country with a population of one billion. If we took the capitalist road, a small number of people in certain areas would quickly grow rich, while the overwhelming majority of the people would remain in poverty, scarcely able to feed and clothe themselves. Only the socialist system can eradicate poverty” - Deng Xiaoping

    “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership” - Deng Xiaoping

    “China is no longer the China of the feudal lords, nor the constant victim of the aggressions of colonial and imperial powers. Henceforth, no one will be able to scorn and humiliate China. This is the new China that emerges with the victorious national liberation struggles and the socialist revolution. Everything was forged through feats of heroism and long marches, which were exploits unsurpassable in human history. Everything was carried out under the immortal ideas of Marxism-Leninism and their wise application [words indistinct] of China. Eternal glory to the Communist Party, to its founders and leaders, and to the heroic population capable of such a feat. Glory and honor, too, and most rightfully so, to the great revolutionary strategist, Mao Zedong. The path China has had to travel following liberation has been long, difficult, and risky in a world where imperialism exercised and still exercises power and hegemonic influence. The Chinese Communists, as they themselves admit, also had to struggle against their own mistakes. It is up to them, not us, to judge that. What is an unquestionable and certain fact is that the Chinese people are indissolubly united around their revolutionary vanguard today. Colossal successes have been attained. The era of disasters and famines has been left behind. Only socialism could have been capable of the miracle of feeding; clothing; providing with footwear, jobs, education, and healthcare; raising life expectancy to 70; and providing decorous shelter for more than 1 billion human beings in a minute portion of the planet’s arable land. Thanks to such a feat at this difficult and critical time for the world’s peoples, in China over one-fifth of humanity remains under the banner of socialism” - Fidel Castro