China: re-emerging as a modern exemplar of statecraft.

Posted on January 11, 2022 by malpagaia

Voltaire and Leibnitz believed that China had perfected ‘moral science’, and that Chinese statecraft was a model for the West to emulate if it wanted to develop into an enlightened civilization. Unfortunately at the time, the ruling elites of Japan and the West saw Chinese civilisation differently; from their imperialist, profit driven perspective. Hence over the past 200 years China and its people having made huge sacrifices to overcome great adversity is once again becoming a valuable exemplar of statecraft. My storying of contemporary China is that of a place and people morphing into what I refer to as a ‘Middle Kin-dom on Earth’; a re-emerging more down to earth ‘motherland’, a stronger, more unified, smarter, safer and thereby happier people than they ever were during a ‘Middle Kingdom under heaven’; albeit much admired by great European philosophers, a relatively advanced and less aggressive 18th century Chinese civilisation was always vulnerable to being invaded and plundered by foreign imperialist rulers. The Chinese system of meritocratic government was and still is deeply troubling to a ruling elite built on stratified class privilege. A civilization without hereditary aristocrats was unfathomable and terrifying to the 18th century Western ruling class.

An important tradition underlying the governance of modern China is that of ‘seeking truth from facts’. The fact that the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has overcome centuries of adversity to now be consistently improving the livelihood of about 20% of the world population reveals a pertinent truth about ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’; namely that it works. Knowing how to make socialism work for a population of 1.4 billion> people over decades is no mean feat, knowing if it could work just as well indefinitely for 7 billion> people is well worth considering. Why? Because –

The beautiful planet on which all humans live is experiencing a tremendous crisis, one caused by humanity itself. Confronted by this level of change, and other difficulties and problems hindering development and governance, there is an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable. The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future, with the goal of creating an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity’.

(The CPC – ‘Mission and Contributions’ 2021)

The – ‘global community’ – should take serious note of the CPC’s proposal, especially where it refers to – ‘an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable’. – The existing dominant philosophy and world order is designed first and foremost to maintain the privately owned wealth, power and influence of a minority ruling elite, which it does by exploiting the vast majority of – ‘human society’ – using an inherently unfair and unreasonable – ‘international system’ – driven by capitalism.

A minority ruling elite dominates human society and will stop at nothing to defend their privately owned wealth, power and influence over world affairs and the rest of human society. Imperialism, conquest, colonisation and the exploitation of nature and human labour is how todays ruling elite came into being and it is how this ruling elite will do its utmost to maintain its domination over human society.

The above CPC proposal is a profound summary of what is now at stake and what is required if human society as a whole is ever going to achieve – ‘a global community of shared future, with the goal of creating an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity’. – The CPC and the PRC is in the early stages of its own brand of socialism, a brand that could in theory at least help other nation states aspiring to participate in – ‘a global community of shared future’. The CPC/PRC has deliberately chosen to enter into trading partnerships with other nation states, particularly the so called developing nation states. In this regard relatively user friendly trading partnerships such as those within the CPC/PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes a lot more sense than the military alliances being entered into by the US and its allies such as NATO, the Quad, the Five Eyes and the more recently formed AUKUS treaty.

When considering imperialism as an almost inevitable advanced stage of capitalism in decline, the forming of military alliances among the so called advanced, wealthier nation states is understandable and predictable. Nevertheless, military alliances by definition are not a pathway toward – ‘lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity’. – On the other hand, user friendly, so called win win trading partnerships such as those signing up to China’s BRI at least has the potential for nation states to work toward the outcomes expressed in the above CPC proposal.

The facts revealing the truth that Socialism with Chinese characteristics is working for the PRC, are a timely exemplar for all nation states that socialism with national characteristics can enable socio-economic forms of governance and productivity that place the social and cultural needs of people first and foremost, that demonstrates respect for ethnic and cultural diversity while striving to develop a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Lenin put it this way –

‘All nations will arrive at socialism—this is inevitable, but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life. There is nothing more primitive from the viewpoint of theory, or more ridiculous from that of practice, than to paint, ‘in the name of historical materialism’, this aspect of the future in a monotonous grey.’

The contemporary Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is certainly not ‘a monotonous grey’, on the contrary it is a newly emerging dynamic ‘Middle Kin-dom’ a place and people with a brand of socialism that has its own unique Chinese characteristics, a modern exemplar of statecraft at its best.

From the Tjukurpa to the Ecozoic

Posted on January 1, 2022 by malpagaia

via my PaGaian pathway:

From the Tjukurpa – indigenous Lore of the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru – Central Australia, to the Ecozoic – a hoped for future during which all the living and non living components of the Earth community are activated by human conscious choice. This is my way of storying human consciousness at the individual and species levels and how the emergence of human conscious choice as a major geological and biological shaping power is now determining the future of our Biosphere and life as we know it.

Thanks to four decades of the NASA Hubble telescope and more recently the European Gaia camera both providing valuable information about our galaxy and beyond, we now know that our human race participates in an amazing cosmic event, an event that was billions of years in the making before the Sun and planet Earth came into being, an event that will probably continue for billions of years after our Sun and planet no longer exist. While our human participation in this event will only last for a relatively short period within it, we are nonetheless an amazing creative manifestation of it, particularly the manifestation of our human consciousness.

Consider the possibility of how our evolving human consciousness is the result of a Universe throughout which every single atom migrates in the direction of maximising manifestation and how thereby the emergence of human consciousness has enabled the Universe to reflect on and celebrate itself through a storytelling species, possibly for the first and maybe only time during this whole amazing one off cosmic event.

‘The role of civilised humanity from this standpoint is far more important than that of any other invertebrate form..

A consideration of the laws regulating evolution leads us into a domain hitherto reserved for religious and philosophical speculation. We are confronted with a new form of biogenic migration resulting from the activity of the human reason. Human thought has changed in a brisk and radical manner the trend of natural processes and has even modified what we call natural laws. Consciousness and thought, despite the efforts of generations of thinkers, have never been given physical basis, in terms of matter and energy. How can processes which seem purely physical be affected by consciousness?

This is a question to which we are trying to find a reply.

(Vladimir I. Vernadsky – ‘The Biosphere’ p81-82 – an abridged version based on the French edition of 1929.)

Vernadsky’s question encourages us to further consider how consciousness in general and human conscious choice in particular is now determining the future wellbeing of our biosphere.

Such conscious awareness cum choice can and does put our human storytelling journey into a more valuable perspective, one that should at least help us as individuals to make sense of our place in the world and our social circumstances. At the species level, it has the potential to help us overcome the geopolitical antagonism which now poses the threat of wars between nuclear armed so-called ‘major powers’. Moreover, understanding the significance of human conscious choice might yet enable us to at least mitigate if not avoid the immanent threat of catastrophic climate change, thereby enabling us to survive as a species and continue striving toward achieving our full creative human potential.

Consider Vernadsky’s question ‘How can processes which seem purely physical be affected by consciousness’? From a scientific perspective this question is complex; for me Elisabet Sahtouris and Willis W. Harman in their ‘Biology Revisioned’ (Sahtouris & Harman 1998), present a strong argument for why we need to adopt a more wholistic scientific approach when trying to better understand consciousness. Under the heading ‘Towards A Holistic Biology’ Sahtouris begins chapter 4 with –

‘Scientific distinctions between mechanics and organics have been blurred because we ignore the fact that mechanisms are, by definition, the purposive constructions of their inventors, and therefore cannot exist as natural entities evolving in purposeless (non-teleological) nature. Our whole scientific concept of nature as mechanism was derived from a Cartesian scheme that was logically complete because it included God as inventor. But to maintain that nature is mechanism after repudiating God and purpose constitutes a severe logical flaw at the heart of Western science’.

Then under the heading ‘Intelligence and Consciousness’ they begin chapter 5 first by quoting Owen Barfield (1982) then Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan (1995) –

‘Sooner or later a certain truth is brought home to you (namely, that consciousness) is the inner side of the whole, just as human consciousness is the inside of one human being.. Although it makes sense to enquire how and when consciousness developed into what we now experience as such, it makes no sense at all to enquire how and when mind emerged from matter… Once you have realised that there is indeed only one world, though with both an inside and an outside to it, only one world experienced by our senses from without, and by our consciousness from within, it is no longer plausible to fantasise an immemorial single track evolution of the outside world alone. It is no longer possible to seperate evolution from evolution of consciousness’.

then –

‘Not just animals are conscious, but every organic being, every auto-poetic cell is conscious. In the simplest sense, consciousness is an awareness of the outside world… To live every organic being must sense and respond to its surrounds… Life is more impressive and less predictable than any thing whose nature can be accounted for solely by forces acting deterministically’.

With this more wholistic scientific perspective in mind, I have decided to focus my brief storying of human consciousness on my relatedness with self, other and all-that-is, starting with a place and people of my own choosing and life experience – the indigenous Anangu traditional owners of Central Australia, whose Lore – the Tjukurpa, expresses for me a particularly valuable example of human consciousness, best described by Professor T.G.H. Strehlow, whose extensive anthropological work among the nearby Aranda people of Central Australia informs a booklet entitled – ‘Central Australian Religion’ (1964),in which he writes, referring to the Indigenous Australian people :-

‘The eternity motif may indeed be regarded as perhaps the most vital single element of the many that are blended together in any human religious system… Throughout his (sic) life he regarded himself as being in perpetual union with the world of eternity and hence he felt no need of waiting for a future union with a supernatural being in a life after death. Somewhat paradoxically to our European way of thinking, but perfectly naturally in the Central Australian world view, it was in the present, in the limitations of evanescent time, that man lived in union with eternity’.

From a relatively casual study cum practically informed perception of an evolving human consciousness – especially my own, I perceive evolving human consciousness as having over time become less connected ‘with eternity’, with place and with each other;before eventually arriving with the benefit of much hindsight and millennia of hard won wisdom, at a hoped for future of re-integrated consciousness. This phase of re-integrated consciousness seems appropriately defined by author and teacher Thomas Berry in his 12th principle for a ‘Functional Cosmology’ as:-

The Ecozoic era of Earth development’, an era during which we ‘activate the inter communion of all the living and non living components of the Earth community’.

Over the past few decades my chosen pathway for journeying from the Tjukurpa to the Ecozoic is well expressed as that of ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ (2005), an Earth based spiritual practice – authored by my partner Glenys Livingstone Ph.D, and informed by my own life experience of living and working among the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru in Central Australia (1990-98). Glenys begins the Preface of her book with an explanation of the term ‘PaGaian’: –

‘It expresses a reclaiming of the term Pagan as meaning a person who dwells in country, yet with Gaian spliced in, it expresses a renewed and contemporary understanding of that country. Gaia is a name for humanity’s habitat, an ancient yet new name which I understand to include whole Earth and Cosmos – there is no seam separating Earth from her context. And Pagan religious tradition offers a spiritual practice of celebrating Earth-Sun creativity manifest in this habitat. The cosmology described in this book makes a start on bringing all of this together..’

This resonates with my experience with the traditional Anangu owners of Uluru their Tjukurpa and the place itself.Since their ancestors migrated to inhabit the great southern land now known as Australia, the indigenous Anangu people of Central Australia cultivated their Tjukurpa – a unique Lore abiding and place oriented way of knowing and being. The Ananguku economy was based on a world of organic abundance and relatedness with self, other and all-that-is; they were a people who had never been at war, were never ruled over nor exploited, hence they didn’t need weapons, nor did they need liberating – materially or spiritually, and they certainly didn’t need to be colonised by 18th century European imperialist invaders.

Some millennia after the arrival of the ancestors of these first Indigenous people to this land, Europeans invaded the great Southern Land. The Europeans came from a very different world to that being cultivated by the Anangu, they came from a world of scarcity – a deliberate gravitational force on society, violence, forced labour, slavery and mass exploitation, a world in which an elite ruling class had long since established centralised control and standing armies for the purpose of conquering and exploiting Indigenous peoples the world over. In contrast, the Indigenous Anangu people of Central Australia having cultivated their Tjukurpa – their traditional Lore, over millennia, had no concept nor vocabulary within their Pitjantjatjara speaking world that could so much as give rise to thoughts of having power and control over each other, let alone the more extreme thoughts of forming a centralised group especially for such a purpose.

While there were no doubt many stages and levels of human development between that of so called primitive indigenous hunter gatherers and their European imperialist invaders, over such time centralised groups such as fiefdoms and dynasties formed the world over for the purpose of having control over places, peoples and resources. While such human development almost certainly originated for the purpose of protecting places, people and their resources, it was only a matter of time before such centralised groups determined to increase their control over the place and people that were needed to produce, increase and protect their privately owned wealth and property, thereby the origins and need/desire for imperialist conquest and colonisation of foreign lands.

Such is the difference between an indigenous world consciousness in which an economy of abundance populated by a people that did not require liberation with that of an imperialist world consciousness influenced by an economy of privately owned wealth which became increasingly dependant on the exploitation of peoples the world over. Where then do we now find ourselves in the context of an evolving human consciousness and how might we yet arrive at Thomas Berry’s Ecozoic era; or something like it.

Jean Gebser’s ‘Ever Present Origin’ (1985 English translation) makes a major contribution to the history and our understanding of the ‘awakening of consciousness’ through what he describes as ‘Mutations of Consciousness’, Gebser’s extensive research provides as good a guide as any as to where we might now find ourselves on our journey of conscious/self awareness: –

‘a consciousness of the whole, an integral consciousness encompassing all time and embracing both man’s (sic) distant past and his approaching future as a living present..’

What Gebser is saying here about a future ‘integral consciousness’ has something in common with what Strehlow observed among the Aranda people ie – ‘that man lived in union with eternity’. It is as if Gebser is trying to take us full circle, albeit that he does so through several major mutations of human consciousness over millennia, each of which Gebser defines and describes in great detail under the headings – ‘Origin – or the Archaic Structure’, followed by ‘The Magic Structure’, then ‘The Mythical Structure’ and our present ‘The Mental Structure’. Although Gebser doesn’t refer to Strehlow’s Aranda as such, I am reasonably certain that their Indigenous pre-colonised consciousness would fit into the era of Gebser’s so called ‘Magical and Mythical Structures’.

The 18th Century European invaders of Australia and most if not all Northern Hemisphere (and Western influenced) peoples were and still are working our way through Gebser’s ‘Mental Structure’ of consciousness and it could well be our final structure given that our recent invention/use of fossil fuels and nuclear weapons, which could bring about a premature end to our human journey. So, while it is well argued that our human consciousness has advanced throughout the ages, it can also be argued that such advancement has simultaneously diminished our human relationship with self, other and all-that-is, and hence has diminished our capacity for manifesting the integral structure of consciousness necessary for a future Ecozoic era.

While looking at it from a somewhat inflated European perspective the pre-colonised consciousness of Indigenous Australians was and probably still is seen as being less advanced than that of their European colonisers, it was certainly more integral and thereby – potentially at least, more sustainable. Moreover, there is no guarantee that our presumed-to-be ‘more advanced’ Mental Structure of consciousness is going to survive long enough to mutate into Gebser’s final and fifth dimensional ‘Integral Structure’. On the contrary, our diminished relationship with self, other and all-that-is now poses a real threat to our very existence. How can this be, given the steady advancement of human consciousness over millennia, all the while morphing into being creative, artistic, curious, spiritual, religious, scientific, reasonable, economic and eventually political? How come people like Strehlow, Berry, Sahtouris, Gebser and Livingstone- all quoted above, can express in advance an understanding and desire for a future more integral consciousness, while at the same time – at the species level, we appear to be working against such an advancement?

It is not as though the human does not yet know how to manifest a more integral consciousness, especially when we consider what Strehlow had to say about the indigenous Aranda of Central Australia, their Lore and their capacity for ‘personal monototemism in a polytotemic community’ as a way of being – ‘in union with eternity’. Strehlow also had something very pertinent to say about the 18th Century European invaders of the Great Southern land: –

‘Unfortunately for the Central Australians the white man first invaded their territory when the rising flood of European colonialism was drowning the resistance of non-Europeans everywhere, and when the over preening pride of the white man had reached the summit of its arrogance. Many present day observers of the world scene feel that nineteenth century European hubris has brought upon itself its own retribution in the twentieth century; and doubts about many aspects of their own traditional civilisation are invading the minds of progressive thinkers everywhere in the new atomic age.’ (Ibid p 50)

Evidently it is possible for some humans at the individual level to have further evolved their consciousness by deliberately cultivating their relatedness to self, other and all-that-is; by practicing a similar concept to that of the Aranda’s ‘personal monototemism’ or by celebrating one’s place and planet Earth’s seasonal moments as expressed by Livingstone’s ‘PaGaian Cosmology’. This is all very well and good for individuals and small groups or communities who are able to do so, but that doesn’t mean that we will further evolve our human consciousness at the most critical species level, a similar practice to that of the Aranda’s ‘polytotemic community’ – albeit on a much larger scale? The hope is that we will advance our collective human consciousness to a more ‘integrated structure’ in time to eliminate or at least mitigate the threats of war between nuclear armed states, and or catastrophic climate change, because that is what is at stake and that is what is now most likely required, a radical mutation of human consciousness at the species level.

In the meantime, it is vitally important that as individuals we find our own pathway for cultivating conscious awareness and conscious choice, thereby we can deliberately participate in and contribute to the migration of all atoms toward maximising manifestation and by imagining a more integrated future Ecozoic era for all our fellow beings and Earth-Gaia.

The storying and importance of relatedness in general and relationship with family or kin in particular was literally brought home to me when a group of maple tjilpi – friendly senior Anangu men, realised I had not been home to visit my kin for about 26 years – since leaving Wales in 1967; they thought I must be a bit sick in the head. Not long after this friendly shame job-cum-wake up call, I returned home to Wales where I enjoyed relating to my family members – including young ones whom I had never met, in what for me, was a new and healthier way of relating. At the time I was in effect being reminded about and grown up by Anangu to the importance of my own Welsh place, heritage and kin: –

‘Bob’s admiration for Anangu takes a somewhat different direction from that of the other Piranpa I spoke to.. He continues: “..I’m pretty sure that my upbringing had something to do with it. My mother was a very nice and gentle person who was close to nature, and she influenced me.” (Stanley Breeden – Uluru – Looking after Uluru-Kata Tjuta~The Anangu Way 1994: p183)

I am rapidly approaching my eighth decade and having chosen ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ later in life I have been able to draw on and benefit from a rich life experience thereby finding an Earth based spiritual practice that celebrates relatedness to self, to other and to all-that-is (which as I understand it, is all Self). PaGaian Cosmology celebrates the interaction between us humans and our planetary Gaian environment; it is simultaneously a personal, cosmic, seamless relationship poetically expressed, particularly during Earth Gaia’s seasonal moments, the annual cycle of Earth around Sun, a cycle expressed in eight transitions of solstice, equinox and quarter moments. They are moments in space time that can be trusted, even worshipped: Hence the splicing of the words Pagan and Gaian to form PaGaian… it connects and celebrates the dialectical wisdom of our ancestors – the stories of old, with a contemporary scientific understanding of our place in space time – stories that are new and still unfolding.

Thomas Berry’s Ecozoic is hopefully a time and place of the future when the human race has returned to a more wholistic relationship with self, other and all that is, a time when all the living and non living components of the Earth community are activated as one again: as it was for Anangu during the Tjukurpa… only next time around it will need to have learned from millennia of trial and error and thereby the gaining of hard won wisdom.

For the whole human race to have cultivated a suitably integrated structure of consciousness capable of manifesting anything like Berry’sEcozoic era, socio-economic forms of governance and productivity would have to undergo either an instantaneous worldwide revolutionary change – which now seems unlikely, or a more gradual yet equally radical political morphing – which now seems more likely; out of global capitalism into a form of world socialism whereby the social and cultural needs of all peoples throughout the entire planet are given greater priority than that of the accumulation of privately owned wealth – as is now the case. Globalised capitalism is what has the vast majority of the human race bogged down in Jean Gebser’s so called ‘mental structure’ of human consciousness. Such global political and social change is unpredictable with no guarantee that it will ever happen, but for those of us who have been fortunate enough to be able to deliberately cultivate a more integrated consciousness at the personal level, we know from our own life experience that it is also possible at the species level.

My political consciousness has been much influenced by two revolutionary thinkers, both of whom come at the subject of politics through very different cosmologies, but both of whom remained true to their respective cosmologies and personal values: –

“Once he (sic) has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..” (Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932).

‘The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realise itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.” (Barbara Mor – ‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ 1987).

Trotsky and Mor both, knew all too well what was and what has yet to be done. Berry’s journey toward a future Ecozoic era like Gebser give us hope by suggesting that we progress by returning to an earlier more integrated indigenous consciousness –

What must be sought for in the new hermeneutics is the recovery, through critical processes, of a second naivete, an earlier experience of a harmonious and luminous universe, associated by the Chinese with the ‘lost mind of the child’. (Thomas Berry – ‘The Sacred Universe’ 2009).

Another interpretation of the Chinese ‘lost mind of the child’ is my own ‘childhood Cynefin’, my Welsh understanding and storying of the same cultural and social dynamic of having to learn the dirty devices of this world and the subsequent unlearning and loss of one’s earlier childhood consciousness of habitat, heritage and kinship, then (if one is fortunate enough) later in life the relearning, or in my case eventually being re-minded of such relatedness to self other and all-that-is, by my Central Austrlaian Indigenous Anangu teachers.

I want to end my storying of personal and human consciousness on a promising note. Over the past few decades I have been much inspired by the emerging collective consciousness of an ethnically diverse People’s Republic of China (PRC), which as it happens is a place and people that also much inspired Thomas Berry and Jean Gebser during their earlier years of research. The contemporary PRC is a promising example to the whole human race of what can be achieved when a relatively massive and diverse population of 1.4> billion, is united and governed by a political party that gives their social and cultural needs an appropriately high priority. The following quote is indicative of why I now confidently story China as having morphed from being a much troubled Middle Kingdom into being a much less troubled Middle Kin-dom, a more integrated, safer and happier people, a nation state that is deliberately rejuvenating itself and thereby well advanced along the road toward a future Ecozoic era; or at least something like it: –

‘The world has once again reached a crossroads, and humanity faces a choice between two paths. One advances into brightness; the other retreats into darkness. The profound changes we face, on a scale unseen in a century, and the raging Covid-19 pandemic are interlinked. Cold War thinking and the zero-sum game mindset are resurgent. Unilateralism, hegemony and power politics are on the rise. Economic globalization is battling against headwinds. The global arms race is escalating. Conventional and non-conventional security issues, such as climate change, terrorism, cyber-attacks, biosecurity challenges, and major infectious diseases, together pose a severe threat to global and regional security. The beautiful planet on which all humans live is experiencing a tremendous crisis, one caused by humanity itself. Confronted by this level of change, and other difficulties and problems hindering development and governance, there is an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable. The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future, with the goal of creating an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity‘. (The Communist Party of China ‘Mission and Contributions’ 2021)

malpaTaffy,

Summer 2022.

Is a contemporary Chinese working-class setting a good example for the international working class as a whole?

Posted on November 7, 2021 by malpagaia

The Communist Party of China’s Constitution stipulates that –

“All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power.”

In the context of uniting and preparing the international working class for a world socialist revolution and the subsequent overthrow and replacement of capitalist ruling class state powers with united socialist state powers – throughout the entire planet, if for no other reason than the Chinese working class numbering 1> billion, the above CPC statement deserves careful examination cum evaluation by the ICFI/SEP cadre.

There has never been a larger identifiable unit of the international working class than that within contemporary People’s Republic of China (PRC) with an increasing population of 1.4 billion> including a rapidly increasing middle class of 400> million. It is reasonably safe to assume the vast majority of China’s middle class accept and support the above CPC statement. Be that as it probably is, it is the extent to which the above CPC statement is verified, trusted and supported by the 1> billion Chinese working class that should determine if it has any potential as an example of revolutionary development in the context of uniting and preparing the international working class as a whole.

This is an extract from ‘The CPC Its Mission and Contributions’ statement – Aug 2021, on how the CPC expresses its relationship with the Chinese working class in particular and its thoughts on human society and the international system in general –

Following is an extract from the writings of Leon Trotsky – 1939-40, Trotsky was evidently expecting or at least hoping for at least one or more ‘country, colonial or imperialist’ to be further developed in revolutionary struggle and thereby able to set an example for the international working class as a whole.

‘Workers must develop the revolutionary struggle in every country, colonial or imperialist, where favorable conditions have been established, and through this set an example for the workers of other countries. Only initiative and activity, resoluteness and boldness can really materialize the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!”

This too from the leader and mentor of world socialist revolution, strongly suggests that a close examination of whether or not the CPC/PRC in general and the Chinese working class in particular has developed the revolutionary struggle sufficient to set a good example of why and how the ‘Workers of the world’ should unite.

Recent measures of trust and confidence in governments the world over, indicate that the relevant level of trust and confidence the Chinese population has in the CPC is consistently high, hence the formation of ICFI/SEP-IWA-RFCs in China on the basis of industrial disputes are unlikely – at least in the near future. The formation of such IWA-RFCs on the basis of preventing Covid in China is even less likely for reasons that are obvious to the world. The only threat likely to motivate the formation of IWA-RFC’s in China is that of war, a threat that is becoming more serious by the day thanks to an increasingly desperate and aggressive US ruling class.

The ICFI would do well to not only examine the possible relevance of the above CPC Constitutional statement to its program of world socialist revolution, it could also examine what if any common ground and aims might already exist between these two Marxist cum anti war Communist Parties. For example

malpataffy.com/2021/11/06/

Finding common ground for the ICFI and CPC.

Posted on November 6, 2021 by malpagaia

For the purpose and time being of this exercise let us just set aside for the time being, the fact that our human race is under the influence of a fundamentally flawed global economy, throughout which capitalism will continue to dominate our socio-economic world until such time as we replace it with a more sophisticated form of property relations, governance and productivity.

Consider instead the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) program of World Socialist Revolution and the Communist Party of China (CPC) having at least five important ism’s in common, namely – Communism, Democratic Centralism, Socialism, Marxism and Capitalism. While their revolutionary origins and hence their interpretation cum application of the above ism’s differ, their main aims are very similar, this is some of what their respective leaders have to say about their aims –

Leon Trotsky, during the founding of the ICFI – 1938

‘We are not a party like other parties.. Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.’

The CPC ‘Its Mission and Contributions’ – 2021

‘The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of China’s working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. Serving the people wholeheartedly is its abiding mission.. there is an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable. The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future, with the goal of creating an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.’

What the respective aims of the ICFI and the CPC have in common is – ‘the full material and spiritual liberation’ of the people, particularly working class people, by lifting them out of poverty and enabling them to enjoy a ‘lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.’ The common ism’s and similar aims of these two Communist parties are far more important than the fact that they have different origins and objective history. While the ICFI can claim to have stayed true to a superior Trotskyist theory of permenant world revolution and economy since its origin, the CPC can claim to have ruled over a century of revolution, reconstruction and reform during which it has learned from its mistakes, including the mistake of believing that socialism can be confined to one state, to the point where in 2021, – ‘The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future’.

While the ICFI has applied a superior world revolutionary theory, it is not a ruling state power and is thereby unable to put its theory into practice in the way nor on anything like the scale that the CPC can and does. In 2021 the CPC Constitution stipulates that – “All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power.” Even if the ICFI program and party of World Socialist Revolution had 10 million active members and or supporters – which I suspect is a significant overestimate, this would represent a mere 0.128% of the world population, whereas the CPC has 95 million> Party members and at least 1.4> billion constituent supporters representing about 18% of the world population. The CPC is clearly the most successful and influential ruling Communist Party throughout history and should be carefully considered as such.

No doubt there are other political programs that talk about liberating ‘the people’ but not many with the long term political integrity, discipline and rigour as the ICFI and the CPC. My hope is that the above numbers and suggested common ground could inspire some serious democratic discussion among the cadre of the ICFI about the possibility of the PRC working class being a good example for the international working class as a whole.

For example – malpataffy.com/2021/11/07/

malpaTaffy,

Spring 2021.

Socialism or Barbarism, we the people must chose.

Posted on October 24, 2021 by malpagaia

In her 1916 anti war pamphlet ‘The Crisis of German Democracy‘, Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg writes ‘Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism’. More than a century of objective history, and the present day increasing level of geopolitical tension between nuclear armed states, demonstrates how most of the human race continues to regress into barbarism, hence the contemporary relevance and urgency of Luxemburg’s prophecy cum advice.

As if the contemporary threats of potentially catastrophic climate change and a raging COVID-19 pandemic with its rapidly increasing death toll approaching 5> million as of late 2021 were not compelling enough, for the third time since the first and second world wars of 1914 and 1939, the human race is once again confronted with a similar level of geopolitical antagonisms and tension that gave rise to Luxemburg’s ‘socialism or barbarism’.

This time around could be ‘third time lucky’ – so to speak, there are several good reasons for being optimistic about us finally taking Luxemburg’s advice and choosing socialism. Unlike the previous two critical historical periods preceding the barbarism of world wars, this time the human race has the distinct technological advantage of a World Wide Web (WWW) capable of providing relevant up to date information throughout the entire planet on a daily basis. Moreover, this time around we have the contemporary example of how and why a Marxist inspired socialism is working and making good progress. The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) represent almost 20% of the human race, and is now well advanced along its chosen pathway of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. It can now be clearly demonstrated as indicated above via the WWW what exactly the CPC/PRC combination has achieved by way of progressing socialism and liberating the Chinese people. This is how the CPC expresses such progress via its Jan/Feb 2020 edition of the bi-monthly Website of CPC Central Committee – Quishi.

‘For the proletariat and the people to liberate themselves from under the capitalist mode of production, they must have their own scientific theories to guide their actions. Marxism was the first theory to reveal the general trend of development in human society that capitalism is bound to fail and socialism will inevitably triumph. It provided the proletariat and the rest of the general public with rational concepts for understanding and changing the world, and pointed out the path for them to liberate themselves and all humanity. It has already been more than 170 years since the Communist Manifesto was published, but the truth of Marxism’s basic tenets is still being proven and becoming more evident.‘ (emphasis mine)

http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-03/20/c_495077.htm

By way of putting the above statement into its Marxist context, consider the following sentence from The Communist Manifesto –

‘The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoise, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, ie; of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible’. (emphasis mine)

Over the past 110 years of revolutionary struggle China has applied Marxist theory and economy as advised – ‘by degrees’, to the point where in 2021 the CPC Constitution can confidently stipulate that,

– “All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power.”

http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-03/20/c_495076.htm

During 2021, the CPC celebrated its first centenary of revolution, reconstruction and reform, during which it has enabled the Chinese people to recover from being a conquered, impoverished, backward colony, to becoming the largest and most influential productive force in modern history. Following the defeat of the KMT and the formation of the PRC in 1949, the CPC has ‘by degrees’ also wrested capital from the bourgeoise and centralised all of the more essential instruments of production into the ownership/hands of the state. By having a centralised state ownership of the more essential elements of the Chinese economy, the CPC is able to control the extent to which capitalists and capital-ism can continue to play a role in developing productivity mostly from within the less essential periphery of a unique Chinese socialist market economy. Ref; ‘The theory on the socialist market economy’ –

http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-03/20/c_495078.htm

While the eleven decades of revolutionary struggle in China may be described as being a form of ‘socialism in one state’, as a result of applying Marxist theory, the CPC knows better than most if not all other political parties that their chosen pathway to the liberation of the Chinese people in general and the Chinese working class in particular cannot – by any Marxist definition, be confined to a particular nation state. As the CPC said about its decision to be guided by Marxist theory – ‘It provided the proletariat and the rest of the general public with rational concepts for understanding and changing the world, and pointed out the path for them to liberate themselves and all humanity.’

By the time the USSR collapsed in 1991, the CPC had long since distanced itself from an isolated and flawed Stalinist Russia. Having formed the PRC in 1949 the CPC adapted to a rapidly globalising capitalist economy and within a few decades became a major productive force within it. The complexity of this struggle is well expressed by the CPC in its Jan/Feb 2020 edition of Quishi –

‘Marx and Engels believed that socialist revolution would occur in multiple developed capitalist countries simultaneously, resulting in a shared victory. According to their hypothesis, socialism would largely replace capitalism and dominate the international landscape in the future. However, looking at the history of international socialism over the past century, we can see that although the forces of capitalism and socialism have waxed and waned to a certain extent, there has been no fundamental change to the relative advantage of capitalism over socialism in the international arena. Socialist China has thus existed in a hostile environment since its founding, and faced enormous pressure in seeking survival and development. In the face of capitalist containment and suppression, China has upheld its independent foreign policy of peace and maintained unswerving commitment to its own path. Whether closed off by capitalist countries or embroiled in discord between other socialist countries, and whether facing competition between two opposing blocs or unprecedented changes on the global landscape, China has always stuck to its own path. Through this long period of contest and competition between two social systems, China has not only survived, but also kept growing stronger and holding high the banner of socialism, enabling scientific socialism to consistently shine with great vigor in China.’

http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-03/20/c_495078.htm

What then might China’s ongoing progress in liberating the Chinese people including its working class mean for the liberation of ‘all humanity’, for the international working class as a whole? Consider the following extract from ‘The Writings of Leon Trotsky’ 1939-40 – ‘The perspective of the permanent revolution in no case signifies that the backward countries must await the signal from the advanced ones, or that the colonial peoples should patiently wait for the proletariat of the metropolitan centers to free them. Help comes to him who helps himself. Workers must develop the revolutionary struggle in every country, colonial or imperialist, where favourable conditions have been established, and through this set an example for the workers of other countries. Only initiative and activity, resoluteness and boldness can really materialize the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” (emphasis mine)

Clearly a contemporary CPC/PRC is setting an ‘example for the workers of other countries’ as Trotsky suggests. Not only by virtue of China having fully developed its productive force, but more importantly its ongoing ‘transition to Socialism’, and the liberation of the 1> billion Chinese working class. As of 2021, it can be assumed that a Chinese middle class of 400> million with their increasing wealth are likely to be overwhelmingly supportive of the CPC. Moreover, that the Chinese working class – many of whom must surely be aspiring to become wealthier middle class, have over recent decades consistently demonstrated a relatively high level of trust and confidence in the CPC. As for a Chinese billionaire class of 300>, at this point in time they are being well enough regulated by the CPC to ensure that they do not have an undue influence on political power in China, their role in the context of the CPC deliberately ‘allowing some people to get rich first’ is confined mainly to that of providing sustainable competition, commercial advice and inspiring a so called upper middle class of Chinese millionaires to also become billionaires – its a bit like using obscenely expensive fishing bait. Keeping their billionaire class, monopoly capital-ism and its subsequent social inequality under control, while striving to achieve the goal of a moderately prosperous socialist state that provides the material and cultural needs of the Chinese people as a whole, will be the greatest challenge that the CPC faces in the decades ahead.

Be this as it hopefully may, the CPC/PRC relationship is in stark contrast to that of the lumpen, deformed relationship between the US Congress and the American people, a capitalist socio-economic form of governance and productivity that is already collapsing under the pressure of monopoly capitalism and a US billionaire class that dominates political power throughout the US. The US centre of globalised capital-ism is unwilling and hence unable to cope with COVID-19, having already lost more than 750,000> lives to the virus. This too is in stark contrast with the way that China – with more than four times the population of the US, has been able to restrict its death toll to less than 5,000 over the same period.

The lesson for the whole human race is the stark contrast between two very different ideologies cum socio-economic systems of governance and productivity, one that has resulted in a profit driven imperialist US that is now so desperate to retain its global economic hegemony that is has resorted to goading its main competitors China and Russia into war. Given that such a war between major state powers would almost inevitably be fought for the first time using nuclear weapons, the outcome is impossible to fathom, the human race has not been here before. Suffice to say, the wrong decision this time around could well be our deepest and final ‘regression into Barbarism’. The people who have already made their choice to ‘transition to Socialism’ are our best source of advice.

‘According to a more traditional perspective, socialism and capitalism are two opposing systems that are incompatible with each other and locked in an antagonistic relationship. In 1952, Stalin introduced the theory of “two parallel world markets,” which argued that the formation of a socialist bloc would cause the single world market dominated by capitalism to disintegrate, and lead to the emergence of two parallel world markets that would exist in isolation from and opposition to each other. He therefore proposed that all countries in the socialist bloc should work together to resist the capitalist market that was moving toward its doom. The socialist and capitalist blocs remained in a tense standoff for quite some time, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union and dramatic changes in Eastern Europe brought the world socialist movement to a low point. The CPC’s major proposal to build a global community with a shared future is one that transcends disagreement and opposition between different systems. It reflects the Chinese nation’s open-minded outlook of striving to build a just and peaceful world, and serves as a banner under which China will seek to guide global trends and the progress of human civilization‘.

http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-03/20/c_495078.htm

malpaTaffy,

Summer 2021 SH.

The right stuff but without the numbers.

Posted on October 14, 2021 by malpagaia

While those of us who are members of the SEP and who daily rely on the WSWS for information thereby have access to the right stuff so to speak, ie the political integrity, courage, discipline and rigour, capable of convincing us that if we as a species are to become fully liberated, global capitalism must be replaced with an ongoing process of world socialism. However, at present we don’t yet have the numbers, far from it, what we do have is the best revolutionary theory – ie Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, and a blue print for achieving world socialism. Even if the ICFI/SEP had 1 million active members – which it doesn’t, as a percentage of the total international working class it would still be so small that the possibility of the ICFI/SEP uniting the international working class in time to avoid war between nuclear armed states is minuscule. This percentage number could of course increase rapidly in the event of war breaking out between nuclear armed states, especially if people are being killed in their millions. However, by then it might be too late and in any event under such unimaginably horrendous circumstances it would still be a massive and daunting task to unite and prepare the international working class for the overthrow of state power anywhere, let alone throughout the entire planet.

Lets be honest, given the present increasing threat of war between nuclear armed state powers, the best chance we have of avoiding such war and maybe eventually achieving world socialism and peace, is if China continues to develop its capacity to perform sufficiently effective sabre rattling to deter a relatively aggressive US led offensive against China. This on the proviso stated by Xi Jinping during the recent 110 year celebration of China’s first revolution in 1911, – “China will remain a champion of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order, and we will do our very best to make even greater contributions to humanity,” Even if China doesn’t subscribe to the best of revolutionary theories, the CPC/PRC is the only revolutionary communist party and nation state with any intent, the numbers, the political power and the economy sufficient to replace a global capitalism with a more sophisticated and sustainable world socialism. The CPC has more than 95 million members and the Chinese working class population is at least 1 billion, at present both classes have a relatively good working relationship and compared to most other nation states, China is moving in the right direction ie; away from capitalism and toward socialism. For the ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution, the CPC should not be regarded as a counter-revolutionary force, rather by virtue of its sheer size and the positive influence it is having on at least 18% of the international working class, the CPC/PRC and the Chinese working class in particular could be seen as the strongest contemporary example of how and why every nation state should be is working its way toward a world socialism.

I highly recommend reading ‘The CPC Its Mission and Contributions’ – dated Aug 2021, in which you can read statements like – ‘there is an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable’. This is the kind of statement we are not likely to hear from Western imperialist leaders, on the contrary it is statements like this that the US ruling class is most concerned about and preparing to go to war over. An honest critique of the above document could pave the way for encouraging the establishment of the ICFI/IWA-RFC strategy among the Chinese working class, ie; on the basis of them forming an anti war movement and needing to keep the CPC true to its somewhat altruistic objectives such as – ‘achieving a modestly prosperous socialist state in all respects’ (ibid).

A Chinese ruling class, working class relationship.

Posted on September 26, 2021 by malpagaia

What would it mean in the context of preparing for world socialist revolution if the government of a particular nation state is already meeting the social and cultural needs of its working class to the satisfaction of that class?

The ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution should carefully examine the contemporary relationship between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese working class, if for no other reason than the sheer size of the relationship. The number of CPC party members is at least >90 million, the number of Chinese working class is well over >1 billion or about 18% of the total international working class. Even though this relationship between a Chinese ruling class and its working class population is confined within a single nation state that has long since decided to participate in the globalised capitalist market place, the relationship is nevertheless worthy of careful examination if for no other reason than the CPC claiming that – ‘The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of China’s working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. Serving the people wholeheartedly is its abiding mission. The country is the people and the people are the country. The Party’s struggle to found a new China and develop it is for the people. Of the people, by the people, for the people – this is what has guided the CPC from victory to victory over the past century’. (CPC Mission and Contributions Statement Aug 2021).

An honest and careful examination of the relationship between the CPC and the Chinese working class to determine to what extent the social and cultural needs of not only the Chinese working class but the whole population of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) might now be meeting their satisfaction and if so, for how long? This then could also be a reliable indicator as to what level of trust and confidence exists between the CPC and the Chinese working class and possibly thereby the mood of the Chinese population in general.

When considering the relationship between the CPC and the Chinese population in general, it should be noted that the form of governance is different to that adopted by most if not all other nation states. Formally being identified as a communist party the CPC applies the political principle of ‘democratic centralism’ to its governance of the PRC, which in theory at least enables democracy from the bottom (the people) up, resulting in a form of ‘centralism’ at the top (the central committee, the politburo and its standing committee) that depends on a relatively strict level of discipline throughout (up and down) Chinese society eg; – ‘Since its 18th National Congress, the CPC has set Eight Criteria to ensure that China’s political system is a democratic one that delivers, and these criteria underpin the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.. Instituted by the CPC, the system of people’s congresses is China’s fundamental political system. The Party fully solicits the views of the people and heeds their voices, and formulates its policies accordingly.’ (CPC Mission and Contributions Statement Aug 2021).

NB: This is the same political principle that is applied by the ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution and presumably would also be applied to the governance of any future Federation of United Socialist States..

When considering the contemporary relationship between the CPC and the Chinese working class in particular, special attention should also be paid to how the CPC is managing the Chinese economy, particularly how it manages what is proving to be its greatest challenge and possibly its weakest link, capital-ism. For example, to what extent is the CPC able to retain state ownership of what it regards as the ‘more essential’ components of the Chinese economy (eg; The People’s Bank of China) and to what extent is it able to mitigate or at least contain the inevitable social inequality and political pressure that comes with allowing private ownership, capital-ism, and the emergence of billionaires, even if such private ownership is restricted to ‘less essential’ components at a so called periphery of the economy?

Even if such an examination of the contemporary relationship between the CPC and the Chinese working class reveals that a gradual improvement has taken place over several decades and that it currently enjoys a relatively high level of satisfaction, trust and confidence, it will be how well the CPC can manage what it refers to as China’s ‘Socialist Market Economy’ and the almost inevitable domestic social inequality that comes with it, that will determine whether or not such a relatively high level of satisfaction will continue.

Be this as it may, the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy of world socialist revolution should not just sit back and wait for any crises to occur in China before initiating the formation of rank and file committees in the Chinese workplace and on campus. The information gained from a careful examination of the relationship between the CPC and the Chinese working class could also provide good reason why the Chinese working class should form such independent rank and file committees eg; to ensure that the CPC remains true to its altruistic claims, to be an example to the whole international working class of how and why a globalised capital-ism must be replaced by a world socialism sooner rather than later, because later will probably be too late.

malpaTaffy

Spring Equinox 2021

The Historical task ahead.

Posted on September 19, 2021 by malpagaia

The historical task ahead of the international working class is probably bigger than we think. Neoliberalism – albeit dead and almost buried, has over the past three decades divided and seriously weakened the international working class while simultaneously transforming the union movement into the equivalent of a corrupt corporate policeman. How can the only political programmed party advocating world socialist revolution the ICFI/SEP increase the momentum of its recent initiative the IWA-RFC to the point where it is uniting a large enough percentage of the international working class to start making a difference?

The task ahead is big, very big, for example using the number 6 billion – probably a very conservative minimum, to represent the international working class as a whole and using the number 1 million – probably an overestimate, to represent the number of active members implementing the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy, means that the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy would be having an influence on about <0.017% of the international working class. Let’s be honest, this is a minuscule percentage of the international working class.

Maybe we should consider further what our leader and mentor Trotsky was advising us in his 1939-40 writings when he wrote that – ‘Only initiative and activity, resoluteness and boldness can really materialize the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!”. Clearly the ICFI/SEP has the first parts ie; the ‘initiative and activity resoluteness’ in hand having launched the IWA-RFC strategy, but where is the ‘boldness’ in this strategy? The principle of world socialism and the theory of permenant revolution underpin the IWA-RFC strategy, but how can it gather enough momentum to start making an impression on the international working class as a whole?

While capitalism and neoliberalism are obviously sick and dying, nationalism and fascism are alive and growing. The influence of nationalism and fascism on the international working class is massive, especially when compared to the relatively minuscule influence of the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy. The task ahead must be even more bold and clever than our leader and mentor Trotsky could have known back in 1939-40. In 2021 the international working class is confronted by the combined threats of nationalism, fascism and artificial intelligence. There is little to be gained and possibly everything to be lost by confronting the vastly superior size and influence of these threats head on, as enemies to be fought against. The ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy does not have nor need the physical resources to fight against such a strong force, what the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy does have is the blue print and the political nous to use the strength of its opponent to its advantage.

Who or what is the strongest opponent to be taken advantage of – as distinct from an enemy to be fought against? Clearly it is not the people of any nation state, nor is it the government of any nation state, nor is it the capital within capital-ism of any nation state, the strongest opponent to be taken advantage of is nationalism, which can and is rapidly morphing into fascism, this is the combined and greatest threat to the international working class and this is the task ahead.

For example, when considering the sheer size and direct influence that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) is having on at least <18% of the international working class there is no contemporary nationalist state equal. Deliberately denigrating the PRC/CPC by referring to it as Stalinist and or capitalist is being unnecessarily cynical about todays PRC/CPC. Treating the PRC/CPC more like an enemy to be fought against rather than the strength of an opponent to take advantage of requires a level of misleading political spin that is beneath the usual high standard of the ICFI/WSWS journalism and political information.

Given the massive difference in active membership and direct influence (ie; 18% – CPC as opposed to 0.017% – ICFI) that each of these two communist programs are now having on the international working class, it must be worth considering the common ground that these two programs have, for example they both claim to be communist, they both claim to be socialist, they both claim to be influenced by Marxist theory, most importantly they both claim to represent ‘the people’. For the ICFI/SEP – IWA-RFC program and strategy of world socialist revolution to make an impression on the 1> billion Chinese working class will require a less cynical and more bold approach in dealing with the PRC/CPC.

malpaTaffy

Spring SH.

Watch this space called China.

Posted on September 13, 2021 by malpagaia

Quote:

We are not a party like other parties.. Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves. Leon Trotsky– 1938.

The above ‘aim’ delivered by Leon Trotsky during the launch of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in 1938, is by definition a profound and difficult aim to achieve, not least because of it being underpinned by Trotsky’s even more profound ‘theory of permenant revolution’ and hence only achievable on an international scale, throughout the entire planet.

The ICFI and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) as a programme and party of ‘world socialist revolution’ has take upon itself the task of preparing the international working class for the overthrow of state power and the replacement of global capitalism with a global socialism. Eight decades later, it has become painfully obvious why ‘the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited’ is having to be achieved as Marx and Engels suggested it would in The Communist Manifesto – ‘by degrees’.

Quote:

‘The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoise, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, ie; of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible..’

The Communist Manifesto including its ‘by degrees’ advice would have almost certainly influenced Trotsky when he later gave us his own revolutionary advice through his writings of 1939-40, not long before he was murdered by a Stalinist thug in Mexico –

Quote:

‘The perspective of the permanent revolution in no case signifies that the backward countries must await the signal from the advanced ones, or that the colonial peoples should patiently wait for the proletariat of the metropolitan centers to free them. Help comes to him who helps himself. Workers must develop the revolutionary struggle in every country, colonial or imperialist, where favorable conditions have been established, and through this set an example for the workers of other countries. Only initiative and activity, resoluteness and boldness can really materialize the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!”

Trotsky was evidently expecting or at least hoping for at least one or more ‘country, colonial or imperialist’ to be further developed in revolutionary struggle and thereby able to set an example for ‘the workers of other countries’. This begs the question which country or countries have developed the revolutionary struggle sufficient to set such an example for the workers of other countries? Or better still, the ‘Workers of the world..’

I put it to my fellow SEP comrades that there is really only one such country that has over the past seven decades become a suitable example of having developed such revolutionary struggle, namely the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The PRC and its Communist Party of China (CPC) cadre have – albeit unwittingly, taken Trotsky’s advice and helped themselves rather than ‘await the signal from the advanced ones’ and in doing so China is now setting ‘an example for the workers of other countries’ to follow. This year 2021, the CPC celebrated its first centenary of revolution, reconstruction and reform, during which it has enabled the people of China to recover from being a conquered, impoverished, backward colony, to becoming the largest state productive force ever. The CPC is now the second largest – 95> million members, political party in the world and for the past three decades has been having a direct and positive influence on the lives of at least 18%> of the total world population including and especially the Chinese working class. As of 2021 the PRC has consistently registered relatively higher levels of trust and confidence in their government than most other advanced state populations measured by the same international trust barometer.

Between 2021 and 2049 (the next 28 years), providing the CPC/PRC can avoid going to war against other so called major powers, avoid or at least mitigate the negative impact of a collapsing global capitalism and above all, continue earning the trust and support of its 1.4> billion population, it is most likely to be celebrating the first 100 years of the PRC (1949-2049) having reached their well planned objective of becoming a ‘modern socialist state that is moderately prosperous in all respects’.

This is how the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee expresses it in their August 2021 ‘Mission and Contributions Statement’ –

Quote:

‘The salvoes of Russia’s October Revolution in 1917 sent Marxism-Leninism to China, and the CPC came into being. The Chinese people were awakened, and a torch was lit for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation..

The CPC is dedicated to the people and forever puts their interests first. It follows the underlying trends of social development and respects the people’s principal role in making history. It pursues the lofty goal of working for the wellbeing of the Chinese people; and does everything in the interests of the people.

The CPC is rooted in the people. It was born in 1921 in the great struggle against feudal rule and foreign aggression, at a time when Marxism-Leninism became integrated with China’s workers movement. From the very day of its creation, the CPC has represented China’s working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. It has no special interests of its own, nor does it represent any interest group, establishment group, or privileged social group. Its only goals are to deliver happiness for the people and achieve national rejuvenation..

Over the past hundred years, the CPC has grown from a small party with just over 50 members into the largest governing party in the world, with more than 95 million members in a country of more than 1.4 billion people. It is a party of major international standing.

It has governed the world’s largest socialist country for more than seven decades. It has led the Chinese people onto the path towards national rejuvenation and modernization, and it enjoys extensive support from the Chinese people..

By carrying out the socialist revolution in China, they brought to an end several thousand years of feudalism – a system exploitative and repressive by its very nature and established socialism as China’s fundamental political system. In the course of building socialism, they overcame subversion, sabotage, and armed provocation by imperialist and hegemonic powers, and brought about the most extensive and profound social changes in the history of the Chinese nation. This great transformation of a poor, backward and populous country in the East into a modern socialist China created the fundamental political conditions and laid down the institutional foundations necessary for realizing national rejuvenation.’

If the working class of China are deemed by the ICFI/SEP not to be a worthy example for the international working class as a whole of a country and people who have developed revolutionary struggle to the point where they can now be a positive example of how we might yet achieve world socialism, then there has never been such a country, nor government, nor people since Trotsky gave us his revolutionary instruction eight decades ago and Trotskyists might have to receive The Communist Manifesto’s ‘by degrees’ as being more like ‘by centuries’.

If the working class of China were deemed to be an example befitting Trotsky’s 1939-40 instruction, then this could provide a whole new incentive to the formation and development of the ICFI/SEP strategy of International Workers Alliance of Rank and File Committees (IWA-RFC). Rather than just reacting to social crises before forming such RFCs, the ICFI/SEP/WSWS could start to encourage the forming of RFCs among the 1> billion Chinese workers and students on the basis of them being empowered to make sure that their CPC stays on track to keep its promise to the Chinese people of them being able to share a ‘common prosperity’ within a ‘modern, moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2049′. Moreover, to make sure the CPC reduces the gap between China’s highest and lowest income quintiles to a minimum that is acceptable to the Chinese working-class and that the private ownership of production is gradually reduced to being strictly limited to non essential (luxury type) goods and services on the periphery of China’s centralised socialist market economy.

IWA-RFCs throughout the rest of the world could be encouraged on the basis of – watch this space called China.

malpaTaffy,

Spring 2021

Could Trotsky’s crisis of revolutionary political leadership be healed by taking some Chinese medicine?

Posted on August 26, 2021 by malpagaia

The ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution either refuses or at least is reluctant to accept that the governance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is communist and or socialist, usually referring to China as being Stalinist and or capitalist. This ICFI/SEP categorisation of China is not in keeping with how the vast majority of Chinese people and the world in general identify and name the governance of the PRC.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly identifies itself as being a communist party. More importantly, the people of China not only accept their ruling party as being communist, they evidently have a relatively high level of trust and confidence in their rulership. During recent years a reputable international barometer has ranked China among the top two or three populations in the world when measured for levels of trust and confidence in their respective governments. In 2020, around 604,000 people were disciplined by China’s top anti-graft body, the resolute fight against corruption has resulted in surging public support. According to a survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, 97.3 percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the improvement of Party conduct, the working practices of government officials, and social morality.

This relatively high level of trust and confidence among the general population of China for the CPC is consistent with a country that for the past 7 decades has enjoyed an average annual growth of disposable income of 6%>. Besides income increases, during the last three decades Chinese people have also enjoyed other benefits, such as access to better education, medical care, improved living conditions and a safer environment. China now has the largest social security system globally, with basic medical insurance covering over 1.3 billion people and basic old-age insurance covering about 1 billion. The average life expectancy of the Chinese has risen to 77.3 years. As of 25/08/2021 China has all but defeated an outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID-19, that began one month earlier. China’s relatively proficient management of the pandemic from its earliest months in 2020 is not only providing better protection for its people, it will also increase an already high level of trust and confidence among them for their government.

As China embarks on the next stage of its journey toward a 2049 centennial celebration of what the CPC refers to as becoming a – ‘moderately prosperous socialist state’,

their leader Xi Jinping will be sharing his thoughts on how China intends to get there through what he calls ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’, this by way of having Xi’s thoughts included in China’s formal educational curriculum. Given the success of China’s program of ‘national rejuvenation’ over the past seven decades and providing it can continue making similar progress over the next three decades using Xi’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics, there is little or no reason to doubt that the concept and use of the word ‘socialism’ will be just as readily accepted and related to by the people of China as is the concept and use of the word ‘communism’.

In addition to the 1.4 billion Chinese population, most of the world population recognise the PRC as being governed by a communist party – the CPC, this for better or for worse depending on one’s political perspective and preference. When informing and preparing the international working class for world socialist revolution, there is little or no merit in the ICFI/SEP reporting via the pages of WSWS – a daily online source of political information that is second to none, that the CPC is not communist or socialist and worse still by referring to China as ‘Stalinist’ and or essentially ‘capitalist’. Trotskyists should keep in mind that the PRC includes about 20% of the total international working class, for those Chinese working class who do get around to reading ICFI/SEP/WSWS reports on China, they are more than likely to be offended by such unnecessary political spin.

Deliberately denigrating the one and only nation state that publicly claims to be influenced by a Marxist inspired communism, that also happens to now be the largest and most successful communist party throughout modern history, could well be a counter-revolutionary act.

Most of the other than Chinese international working class – about 80%, are constantly being fed anti communist, anti socialist, propaganda by their respective capitalist cum imperialist governments. For decades the real crisis in revolutionary political leadership has been the struggle against such propaganda in an effort to win over the international working class.

Trotskyists know better than most why a world perspective is superior to a nationalist perspective and why Trotsky’s theory of permenant revolution should have prevailed over Stalin’s socialism in one country. The fact that it didn’t is a historical no brainer, more appropriately described as a ‘crisis of revolutionary political leadership’. The cost of such weak political decision making and leadership over the past century in terms of lives lost, property destroyed, human expertise, skills and money wasted on wars defending antagonistic nation states and failed revolutions, is almost unfathomable. These two critical political concepts while coming from very different perspectives and being so politically opposed to each other, nevertheless had at least one thing in common – ‘Socialism’.

For the international working class to achieve world socialism, the revolutionary political leadership of the ICFI/SEP will need to gain the approval of and thereby be able to prepare the international working class for world socialist revolution. As things stand in 2021 the size and political influence of the ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution is minuscule when compared with the size and political influence of the CPC. The program and party of world socialist revolution cannot afford to alienate 20%> of the international working class because it is being unnecessarily cynical toward a political party that has clearly already gained the trust of its working class.

The ICFI/SEP cannot afford to depend on responding to catastrophic events to pave the way for establishing rank and file committees within China and internationally. Maybe us Trotskyists can start healing our crisis of revolutionary political leadership by learning from a country and people that has enjoyed many an epoch as the world’s most advanced culture, without needing to be an imperialist coloniser. In terms of world status the past two centuries has been an aberration for China, a nation state that has literally ‘been there, done that, got the teeshirt’ several times over. The ICFI/SEP should seriously consider taking some Chinese medicine, even if it is a bitter pill to swallow.

malpaTaffy,

Spring 2021

Southern hemisphere.

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	imaduwa on Why a new normal must be a bet…
	Jasondet on Deeper Down Under
	Howardnaimi on Deeper Down Under
	Charles on The Productive Force – f…
	Mora1979 on Lest We Forget, to question th…