I mean, Mao being a left-deviationist as he obviously was doesn’t make Deng not a right-deviationist, as one would hope to be similarly obvious. Deng talked a big game about the Chinese becoming rich but, by his own standards of a new bourgeoisie forming, capitalism was reinstated, and on top of it he caused a massive increase in extreme poverty for decades by breaking up collective ownership.
Yes, this is also true, hence why the CPC is moving more towards the left, as they reverted too far to the right. You test, readjust, and test again, and readjust again. This is the path of dialectical materialist knowledge.
Deng gave China what it needed at the time, which the Gang of Four did not. Undeniably, there is a bourgeois class, but the CPC appears to be retaining control, and metrics are improving. We can’t erase Deng’s achievements for miscalculating, just like we can’t erase Mao’s achievements for miscalculating.
Overall, though, it’s important to recognize that this was in response to an absurd claim that China is “Communist in name only” and that the presence of a stock market and billionaires means the system is Capitalist. By that same logic, the US is Socialist, because it has a Post Office.
It seems perverse to me to say that Deng “gave China what it needed” by depriving countless millions of people of their needs.
I have no interest in the broader conversational context, mostly because I think it’s hopeless to try to talk about, at least for me.
It seems perverse to me to say that Deng “gave China what it needed” by depriving countless millions of people of their needs.
It seems bad-faith to interpret my comment as such. What would you have had the PRC do? Poverty has been dramatically decreased to outright eliminated in the PRC in no small part thanks to Deng’s strategy of inviting foreign Capital. The productive forces developed dramatically, pruned and managed by the CPC. It is not a reach to say that had the PRC continued with the Gang of Four’s line that “it is better to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism,” the PRC may not have been able to reach its current standards, metrics, and level of influence, or would have risked outright war with the West had the West not been so thoroughly captured industrially.
I have no interest in the broader conversational context, mostly because I think it’s hopeless to try to talk about, at least for me.
Then disengage, comrade. Don’t smear my comments with bad-faith interpretations. The CPC has openly stated numerous times that Dengism was Marxism-Leninism applied to the time of Deng, and has served its purpose, so that now Xi Jinping Thought can represent Marxism-Leninism applied to modern conditions. Deng served a vital role, and while he made miscalculations and errors, he did so in reaction to the miscalculations and errors of Mao and the Gang of Four. Just as we know that Mao and the Gang of Four served their purposes as well, and applied Marxism-Leninism to their conditions, liberating China and achieving mass equality and a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and a doubling in life expectancy and an end to famine.
No Marxist in history has been perfect, all have made errors in judgement, we must learn and appreciate what worked and analyze how they fit into the broader Socialist trend.
