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
    1•2 years ago

    “It is the peasants who are the source of China’s industrial workers. In the future, additional tens of millions of peasants will go to the cities and enter factories. If China is to build up powerful national industries and many large modern cities, there will have to be a long process of transformation of rural into urban inhabitants. It is the peasants who constitute the main market for China’s industry. Only they can supply foodstuffs and raw materials in great abundance and absorb manufactured goods in great quantities. It is the peasants who are the source of the Chinese army. The soldiers are peasants in military uniform, the mortal enemies of the Japanese aggressors. It is the peasants who are the main political force for democracy in China at the present stage. Chinese democrats will achieve nothing unless they rely on the support of the 360 million peasants. It is the peasants who are the chief concern of China’s cultural movement at the present stage. If the 360 million peasants are left out, do not the ‘elimination of illiteracy’, ‘popularisation of education’, ‘literature and art for the masses’ and ‘public health’ become largely empty talk? In saying this, I am of course not ignoring the political, economomic and cultural importance of the rest of the people numbering about 90 million, and in particular am not ignoring the working class, which is politically the most conscious and therefore qualified to lead the whole revolutionary movement. Let there be no misunderstanding. It is absolutely necessary not only for Communists but for every democrat in China to grasp these points” - Mao Zedong

    “There are two lines. Either stubbornly oppose the Chinese peasants’ endeavour to settle the problem of democracy and the people’s livelihood, and become corrupt, ineffectual and utterly incapable of fighting Japan; or firmly support the Chinese peasants in their endeavour, and gain the great of allies, constituting 80 percent of the population, thereby forging tremendous fighting strength. The former is the line of the Kuomintang government, the latter is the line of China’s Liberated Areas. The line of the opportunists is to vacillate between the two, to profess support for the peasants and yet lack to resolve to reduce rent and interest, arm the peasants or establish democratic political power in the rural areas” - Mao Zedong

    “Yet another form (of idealism) is to wave a ‘red flag’ to oppose the Red Flag; while peddling idealist apriorism and the idealist historical viewpoint. In the face of the class enemies constantly applying idealism to carry out anti-Party conspiratorial activities, a matter of major importance for the fate of the Party and the state, each and every revolutionary should rise up to voice his condemnation of idealism and must by no means think that it has nothing to do with him…” - Mao Zedong

    “What then do we propose? We propose the establishment, after the thorough defeat of the Japanese aggressors, of a state system which we call New Democracy, namely, a united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the people, under the leadership of the working class. It is this kind of state system that truly meets the demands of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population, because it can win and indeed has been winning the approval, first, of millions of industrial workers and tens of milions of handicraftsmen and farm labourers, second, of the peasantry, which constitutes 80 percent of China’s population, i.e., 360 million out of a population of 450 million, and third, of the large numbers of the urban petty bourgeoisie as well as the national bourgeoisie, the englightened gentry and other patriots. Of course, there are still contradictions among those classes, notably the contradiction between labour and capital, and consequently each has its own particular demands. It would be hypocritical and wrong to deny the existence of these contradictions and differing demands. But throughout the stage of New Democracy, these contradictions, these differing demands, will not grow and transcend the demands which we all have in common and should not be allowed to do so; they can be adjusted. Given such adjustment, these classes can together accomplish the political, economic and cultural tasks of the new-democratic state” - Mao Zedong

    “Absorbing foreign capital and technology and even allowing foreigners to construct plants in China can only play a complementary role to our effort to develop the productive forces in a socialist society. Of course, this will bring some decadent capitalist influences into China. We are aware of this possibility; it’s nothing to be afraid of” - Deng Xiaoping

    “We mustn’t fear to adopt the advanced management methods applied in capitalist countries. The very essence of socialism is the liberation and development of the productive systems. Socialism and market economy are not incompatible. We should be concerned about right-wing deviations, but most of all, we must be concerned about left-wing deviations” - Deng Xiaoping

    “No matter to what degree China opens up to the outside world and admits foreign capital, its relative magnitude will be small and it can’t affect our system of socialist public ownership of the means of production” - Deng Xiaoping

    “We cannot say that everything developed in capitalist countries is of a capitalist nature. For instance, technology, science - even advanced production management is also a sort of science - will be useful in any society or country” - Deng Xiaoping

    “At the higher stage of Communism, when the productive forces will be greatly developed and the principle ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ will be practised, personal interests will be acknowledged still more and more personal needs will be satisfied” - Deng Xiaoping

    “The People’s Republic of China originates from the biggest anti-colonial revolution of our history, and an anti-colonial revolution can only be said to truly succeed if it can add a successful economic independence to its political independence. In this respect, there is a continuity between Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The latter introduced his new plan on the basis of two main considerations. Firstly, he believed that a call to the revolutionary spirit of sacrifice can only succeed in moments of particular political enthusiasm; in the long term it is impossible to develop the productive forces (and so combat misery) without economic incentives, and therefore without competition and without markets. On top of this, during times of crises and following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the west held the monopoly over high technology, and as such it was impossible for China to access this high technology without opening itself up to international markets. Thanks also to the achievements orchestrated by the Maoist era (with its massive promotion of education, eradication of infectious diseases, etc.), the new plan, despite its blatant contradictions can boast an incredible success: 600 million people or 660 million people (according to other estimates) liberated from misery, infrastructures worthy of a first world economy, growth in the process of industrialisation from its coast areas to its inland areas, rapid incrementation of salaries for several years and a growing concern for environmental issues. By focusing on the key role of the achievement in the safekeeping of independence and of national sovereignty, and by encouraging the old colonies to pursue their own economic independence, China can today be seen as the centre of the anti-colonial revolution - which began in the 20th Century and is still in process under its different guises to this day. And by reminding ourselves of the pivotal role the public sphere should play in any economy, China constitutes an alternative in opposition to the economic liberalism and to the consensus dictated by Washington” - Domenico Losurdo

    “The founding of the CPC and creation of the new China were major events in human history. Since then, China, a great nation representing progressive and left revolutionary forces, has made important theoretical and practical contributions to Marxism-Leninism by holding high the banner of socialism. Comrade Mao Zedong, one of the founding delegates, as party leader made major contributions to revolutionary struggle and the national liberation of China, which was large and impoverished. Today after more than four decades of reform and opening up, China is recognised throughout the world with a strong economic base, which is supported by a huge domestic market and experience gained in exploration of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We see in China a united, industrious people, with a historic memory, millennial culture, and highly trained capable and committed cadres. Above all, we see a party that has firmly and wisely addressed the greatest adversities and has been able to place integrated development, institutions, rule of law, and the people at the center of its work. The CPC’s effective battle against Covid-19 and the visible results in eradicating poverty are recent and admirable examples of its response to the people’s demands” - Miguel Díaz-Canel