‘In the early hours of 4 June, (1989), soldiers of the Chinese army moved against the demonstrators who had been encamped since the end of April in Tiananmen Square in the centre of Peking. It had been widely expected that there would be a final confrontation between government forces and the students and others who had repulsed previous army attempts to uproot them. But few had anticipated that the army’s action would be so brutal, with tanks and flamethrowers being used on unarmed civilians. Onlookers were cut down indiscriminately with those who attempted to resist. Thousands perished; nobody will ever know how many, as charred and disfigured corpses were hurriedly disposed of and hospitals were overwhelmed by the injured and dying. In the annals of capitalist bloodletting, this day in Peking will hold a place of its own…’
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2009/06/from-july-1989-issue-of-socialist.html
If you were in your late teens or mid twenties thirty seven years ago you would now be only in your fifties or sixties. What do those who participated in the protests in China, in many places not just Beijing, from mid April to early June 1989 remember or feel on the 4th June when the Chinese state finally used the repressive powers at its disposal and squashed the dissent? The figures relating to the number of fatal casualties vary considerably. The goals of the protesters were: democratic and economic reforms; freedom of press, speech, association and ending of corruption in Communist party.
‘The very first line of the Chinese Communist Party’s constitution declares it is “the vanguard of the Chinese working class”. In reality, the last ruling Communist party of a major country has morphed into a conservative reactionary party bent on preserving the power of state capitalist elites and advancing a distinctly 19th century form of ethno-nationalist imperialism. None of this will be allowed to spoil the festivities as the CCP celebrates the centennial of its founding next month’ (ft.com, 16 June). Above from the Financial Times, quoted in Socialist Standard, August 2021
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/04/rear-view.html
Professor Richard D Wolff, an American economist educated at Harvard, Stanford and Yale, is a fan of the Chinese approach to capitalism. He demonstrates that an ‘elite education’ doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve learned anything. Any member of the SPGB could quickly properly educate Professor Wolff as to why China is neither communist nor socialist.
Extracted from an interview Wolff gave to Beijing Review: ‘Today, there is a sense of anxiety in the U.S. that the Chinese, over the last 30 years, have figured out a way to outcompete Western capitalism…In China, major private corporations and government sectors exist side by side, but all governed by the CPC. (Communist Party of China) The Party formulates plans with a set of goals that enable private and public resources to synergise. That’s what the West could never achieve…For example, real wages, as in “what an average worker gets adjusted for the prices that have to be paid,” in the U.S. have been stagnant and have not changed much over the last four decades. Yet in China, they have gone up more than four times. Subsequently, the average living standards of the Chinese working class, too, are on the rise…The above accomplishments have resulted in a sense of jealousy and anxiety in the U.S. that the Chinese may have unlocked the secret to the ultimate combination of private and public capital under the leadership of one powerful political party that can achieve socially attractive outcomes—which are not available in the U.S…China has achieved extraordinary growth, growing up from one of the poorest countries in the world to a global superpower second only to the U.S… It seems to me that among all the underlying forces at work, much of the credit for that has to go to the CPC. They made the final decisions about this mixture of private and state-owned enterprises, about how to coordinate them, about how to guarantee they complement one another rather than destroy the other. I don’t see any logic in denying this remarkable deed, or in granting it anything other than admiration…There have been various movements in practising socialism, yet the impact of the Chinese model will prove prominent in the future. The Soviet Union used to be the first successful example as they survived, surrounded by enemies. China is different. What China has achieved as an engine of economic growth is now being studied by every other socialist country trying to seek out the lessons that can be applied to their own national framework.’
https://socialistchina.org/2021/07/21/richard-wolff-on-chinas-rise-to-global-prominence/