Organize Farmers’ Movement in Every State with Common Demands!

Launch Defeat BJP, Defeat Fascism Campaign in UP- Uttarakhand Elections!

Following the webinar on the subject “ Significance of organizing Farmers’ Movement at state level raising demands like forming APMCs everywhere and minimum support price for all major agricultural products in each state etc and launching Defeat BJP campaign in UP-Uttarakhand elections joining hamds with all like minded forces in which representing Red Star, comrades KNR and state secretary com. Baburam Sharma presented the appeal by the party, comrades Shivaji Rao, O P Sinha, Sanjeev Mathur and Chathuranan Ojha representing different organizations participated and explained their position supporting the proposal from the Red Star, an appeal is issued to all like-minded forces to join a joint meeting at Lucknow to chalk out the program of the campaign. The SKM has already announced a ’No vote to BJP’ campaign in these two states with all farmers’ leaders participating in it

Khori Busti Demolition: Resistance against Demolition demands statewide and countrywide Slum Dwellers’ Housing Right Movement!

At Khori Busti in Faridabad, Haryana, as the demolition of the nearly 8,000 houses is reaching the final phase, three activists of IMK, DSU, Bigul and two residents of the Busti (Munni and Kavita) have been detained from Khori Gaon around 9 am on 15^th July and taken to Surajkund-PS. After the demolition drive on previous day was stopped due to heavy rain, residents occupied the entry roads of bulldozers in Khori on 15^th morning to resist further demolition to save their village. Following this, police arrived and lathi-charged the gathered people, detaining these comrades.

What is happening at Khori Busti is barbarous, as we have already explained in our previous statement. The Modi government at centre and Khatter in Haryana are very concerned about satisfying the Brahmanical elites lording over the Supreme Court by demolishing thousands of houses throwing out people staying there for 3-4 decades before 19^th July. It is done in the name of removing encroachers from forest land, when in the very same municipality there are hundreds of pucca houses and a five star hotel built close to Khori, but not touched. The SC is concerned only when the poor migrant workers from UP, Bihar and many other states have built temporary structures and living there. It is not concerned with bringing back Modi’s friends who have cheated huge sums from Banks and fled to international havens. SC is ordering demolition of the houses of the poor without providing any alternative, in the name of ‘protecting forest land from encroachers’, when every day tens of thousands of acres of jungles are destroyed for mining and other projects of the corporates. While the SC order without mentioning providing alternative shelters before demolition is a travesty of law, the way the BJP govt in the state is going ahead with it is most heinous. All democratic forces should severely condemn it.

Along with other struggling forces who are opposing demolition of the slums, CPI(ML) Red Star has appealed to all democratic and justice-loving citizens and forces to oppose the brutal acts of the Khattar govt in Haryana and to demand the release of the detained comrades, and provide urgent temporary shelters to the nearly one lakh residents of the Busti, free ration and compensation to their loses and to provide time bound rehabilitation.

As soon as the news of lathi charge, arrest of comrades and how the demolition is carried forward brutally to hand over the land to the corporates, comrade Tuhin, PB member of the Party and comrades Sidhant of IFTU (Sarvahara) went to the site to get the arrested comrades released and to express solidarity with the people dastardly thrown out to the streets by the Khattar govt with the blessings of Modi.

What is happening now at Khori Busti once again underlines the importance of bringing all slum dwellers at least in one city and nearby areas together in order to fight demolition. The Supreme Court Judge who ordered the demolition in the name of removing encroachers from 1700 acres of forest land was told that this was a huge quarry area developed by powerful mafias during 1980s with the connivance of revenue officers in the Haryana and then sold as small plots to migrant workers; in this so-called forest land close to Khori Busti there are housing complexes and even a five star hotel; that this land is expressly wanted by the Municipal authorities to transfer to many more five star hotels and housing complexes.

In this situation, only a powerful united movement of the slum dwellers could challenge the demolition. Such a faint hope the people had when one of the farmers’ movement leaders Gurnam Singh Chironi addressed a meeting of thousands of slum dwellers on 30^th June and assured his support, and later when the Congres spokesperson Udit Raj led repeated marches of slum dwellers to Jantar Mantar and assured to stand with them. But both abandoned them. Soon the splinter left sectarian micro groups who had contacts there startd vying with each other for their hegemony, which further alienated from the masses and weakened the anti-demolition movement. So, when the demolition started in full swing the resistance was very weak. On 15^th July the police lathi charged and forcibly dispersed a few hundreds of protesters and continued the demolition with 9 JCDs. Nine people including three activists of these groups were arrested, taken to Faridabad district court and sent to jail charging with many criminal offenses.

More than one lakh people staying in houses and business establishments in the area for more than three decades are made homeless and thrown to the streets, forced to put up some tarpaulin covers over the remnants of their houses and pass days and nights with their children till they find out an alternative, or till they are thrown out of the area by the administration. This is happening just outside Delhi, in Faridabad municipality under BJP government!

Com. Sivaram, even while he built up the powerful Basti Suraksha Manch in Bhubaneswar, was always pointing out the importance of a statewide and countrywide housing right movement of the slum dwellers as under neoliberal, corporate rule, millions of families are getting thrown out/ or forced to migrate to cities. So, as decided by the Red Star he had worked hard and succeeded to unite the slum dwellers in Odisha, which has led to acceptance of housing right of these millions of people. Though an All India Housing Right Movement of the slum dwellers was launched it is still in its initial stage. Painful incidents like the demolition of Khori Busti is going on under a criminal state, and we are forced to remain helpless to do anything against it, the only way out is to build the all India movement led by cadres whose party which is always asserting that “people’s interests is the party’s interest”. We have to work hard to build such a party and cadres as com Sivaram was always talking about.

Cuba is not a socialist country; it is reduced to a dependent country.

How do we evaluate the present Cuba where demonstrations by large number of people are protesting in Havana and other centers against food shortage and other problems, many friends ask. They have read in the media that against price rise and other problems aggravated under continuing US blockade intensified by Trump, and the Covid 19 pandemic, which have led to simmering discontentment and frustration, forcing large number of youth to come out on the streets to protest. The revisionist parties’ leaders everywhere are trying to condemn these demonstrations as something entirely instigated and propagated by the US imperialists and their lackeys, similar to what they said about the Tien Anmen Square unrest in Beijing two decades ago.

We are of the view that such simplistic, mechanical answers will not satisfy anyone. We should definitely condemn the US imperialism for calling Cuba a failed state and use it to unleash anti-communist offensive, shamelessly covering up its own important role in aggravating the crisis taking place in Cuba through its five decades old sanctions. Though it is a fact, such mechanical justifications, will only alienate more people from the Marxist path. It is a fact that Cuba, which is played/ and is still playing to some extent a great role in turning Latin America from the condition of the backyard of US imperialism to an important area of struggle against US imperialism. But just because of it we cannot close our eyes towards the capitalist restoration taking place under prevalent state capitalism. The problem with these revisionists who themselves have degenerated to apologists, or executioners of ruling class policies where they come to power, is that they uphold those in power in these countries presently whether in China or Cuba as communists without analyzing the inner dynamics taking place there!

It is a fact that communists once led the revolution in these countries successfully and initiated socialist transition. But the pertinent question is, can we still call them socialist countries? CPI(M) like revisionist parties refuse to see their own degeneration to capitalist path, and attack TMC like parties responsible to the massive defeats in W. Bengal where they had an opportunity for 34 years to put forward an alternative to capitalist path. They refuse to see the degeneration of these countries to state capitalism, and later became bureaucratic bourgeois dictatorships, since they abandoned the socialist transition halfway and degenerated to capitalist path. As a result, the policy of “iron rice bowl” which ensured food, housing, healthcare, education and employment for all as in China and in all the countries where revolution took place, was abandoned. People are forced to face the capitalist rules of motion, its plunder and suppression, while the communist banner and red flag still used to cover up their degeneration. By the time, the Cuban revolution took place in 1959, already the revisionists had usurped power through a military coup and started deviating Soviet Union in to the capitalist path. Soon, the great Debate between Soviet revisionists and the CPC led by Mao had come out in the open. Since the Cuban leadership thought that only Soviet support can save them from the economic blockade and threats of aggression from the US imperialism, they took the pragmatic step of compromising to Soviet revisionists who had already embraced the “capitalist path in the name of peaceful transition to socialism.” As a result, though the Cuban leadership took a strong stand against US imperialism and supported all the forces struggling against it, its approach to neoliberal policies, taking loans and investments from Soviet social imperialists and other imperialist countries was reformist and compromising.

It was this policy which alienated Che Guevera from Fidel Castro, forcing him to move to Bolivia for an alternative path. As Cuban leadership supported the Bolivarian revolutionaries of Venezuela and Bolivia against US threats, it could continue to maintain an anti-imperialist image. But under its state capitalism under bureaucratic leadership, the economic crisis started intensifying. Naturally, the burden of this crisis was shifted to the backs of the people. Along with this, suppressive policies were continued against any form of dissent under the garb of ‘saving the revolution from US blockade’. It does not mean belittling the danger of imperialist subterfuges and sabotages taking place against Cuba. Always, we firmly stand for solidarity with the people of Cuba, and demand the US imperialists to stop their blockade. But, so long as imperialism continues to remain as a world force its interventions and blockades shall always continue; All former socialist countries have degenerated to capitalist path not due to imperialist aggression from outside, but because of the sabotage by the capitalist roaders from within.

Experience of the state capitalist system followed by the socialist countries shows that they could not transcend the limits of bourgeois democracy and advance in the direction of “all power to the people”, to building appropriate revolutionary democratic structures and linking it with building alternative path of development against the capitalist system. That is, hitherto experience shows that the communists could not handle the problems of building a democratic post- revolutionary set up corresponding to socialist transition. This is possible only when communist parties persist in the Marxist path and develop its theory and practice according to concrete conditions of today. Along with this they should strengthen proletarian internationalism and unity of the Marxist-Leninist forces internationally. Only by pursuing this path, the ideological attacks from all shades of imperialism and its lackeys can be resisted, and the revolutionary masses can be mobilized in the path of revolution. Instead of finding out our own mistakes, blaming the imperialists and their lackeys alone for this degeneration will only further alienate the masses from the path of Marxism and revolution.

CPI(ML) Red Star’s Call: Expose the capitalist roaders in power in China

‘The capitalist roaders in power’ in China led by Xi Jinpiang has launched a widespread campaign to advocate the virtues of their social imperialist rule as “socialism with Chinese characteristics” utilizing the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on 1^st July 1921. Not only the revisionist stream of CPI, CPI(M) and their likes who upheld the Krushchovite brand of revisionism and degenerated to social democratic path, those who have abandoned the path of Marxism-Leninism- Mao Thought in practice have unleashed an arch revisionist campaign justifying the Xi’s line. All of them are upholding present China as socialist in some form or other, like they upheld Soviet Union under the capitalist roaders from 1956 when the revisionists came out with their class-collaborationist line openly, to 1991 when this SU was disintegrated in to pieces under open capitalist forces, as socialist.

As we have explained repeatedly, present China is a social imperialist super power contending for world hegemony with US imperialism and its allies. It is getting substantiated by facts. It is in this context an article by com KN was published in Red Star June issue on how to evaluate Mao’s contributions to the communist movement and how he fought against the capitalist roaders in China from the time . A statement on behalf of the party was issued explaining party’s stand on this question. Com. PJ James has written an article “China’s Celebration of its own Brand of Imperialism in the guise of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” to be published in August issue of Red Star.

As part of this campaign we are starting an online offensive with a central webinar in English and Hindi on 13^th July from 6 pm to 8.30pm on the subject, “Expose China's observation of centenary of CPC to propagate its social imperialism as "socialism with Chinese characteristics"”in which presentation of the subject will be done by com KN Ramachandran, and the speakers will be comrades Alik, and PJ James. The state committees are called upon to take up this campaign by organizing webinars in different languages and through whichever other possible methods as early as possible.

China’s Celebration of its own Brand of Imperialism in the guise of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”

by P J James

Introduction

The most significant component of Chinese Communist Party’s (CPC) Centenary Celebration held on July 1 2021 was the hour-long speech of Xi Jinping, the “core leader”, delivered to the crowd of thousands assembled in Tiananmen Square in a celebratory atmosphere. In his address Xi, as General Secretary of CPC standing ahead of its 25-member Politburo, President of China (the term-limit of which was removed through the 2018 Constitutional Amendment by NPC) and supreme leader of the Armed Forces, called on the members of the CPC to draw strength from the party’s history and strive for “China’s modernisation and national rejuvenation”. Among other things, the crucial highlights of Xi’s speech were an unequivocal praise of the model of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (so assiduously brought up by CPC since the time of Deng Xiaoping in the post-Mao period) which according to him enabled “China to transform itself from a highly centralised planned economy to a socialist market economy brimming with vitality, and from a country that was largely isolated to one that is open to the outside world across the board”, “national rejuvenation” (a theme consistently upheld by Xi since his ascension in 2012) based on a “strong military” to “guarantee the security of the nation” as a “historical inevitability”, accomplishment of “the first centenary goal in 2021” of eliminating poverty, a task undertaken since the 2012 Congress (an already achieved goal during his tenure), a firm resolve to mobilise towards “the second centenary goal in 2049” (centenary of People’s Republic of China) by transforming it “into a great modern socialist country in all respects” based on a further “acceleration of the modernisation of national defence and the armed forces so as to achieve the target of “complete military modernisation” by 2035, and above all a warning to the rival powers that “no one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Exactly one week before (i.e., on June 25) when rehearsals of the upcoming formal celebration were taking place in Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square which was barricaded and closed to the public, China’s State Council Information Office had issued a white paper entitled “China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and Consultation,” elaborating on the distinctive characteristics and strengths of the country’s political system, including a highlight on the advantages of the CPC’s path in terms of confidence and governance ability. The white paper claimed the political system as the product of a combination of Marxist political party theory and China’s reality, which is able to realize the universality of interest representation and guarantee the effectiveness of national governance. On the same day, at a press briefing on the white paper, vice minister of the United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee Xu Yousheng said that China’s achievements prove that China’s political party system is the “best cat to catch mice” (revealingly echoing the famous quote from Deng Xiaoping when he initiated the process of “four modernisations”: “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” Further, while mentioning China’s party system as a “great contribution of political civilization of mankind”), i.e., the most effective tool capable of accomplishing neoliberal development. Xu also stressed that “the world’s political party system is diverse, and there is not and cannot be a universal model”. Meanwhile, global corporate media continue with their hate-campaigns on what they call the “disastrous political campaigns” in the early years of Communist rule on the one hand and, showering eulogy on China’s rise to “market reforms” during the neoliberal period that have created the world’s second-largest economy, with a superpower status rivalled only by the United States, on the other. At the same time, many self-professed communist parties which still uphold China as their role model, have extended their wholehearted greetings to CPC on this auspicious occasion. A typical example is that of the CPI (M), which has fully appreciated China’s success in dealing with the current political-economic issues counterpoising it to “International finance capital-led imperialist neoliberal globalisation showing its total bankruptcy in providing any solution”, as if China is resisting neoliberal-corporatisation.

A Brief History

The Communist Party of China (CPC) founded mainly by the initiatives of two revolutionaries, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, with the help of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International in July 1921 has turned 100 during the month of July 2021. Mao Zedong was among the 12 delegates who attended the founding meet held in Shanghai. During both the first phase of CPC from the 1920s to 1949 when Chinese Revolution was successfully completed liberating the country from feudalism and imperialism, and the second phase from 1949 to the 1970s during which the fulfilment of revolutionary and democratic tasks was proceeding, Mao Zedong was at the helm ideologically and politically guiding the Communist Party. Thus, during this long period spanning 1920s to 1970s, in spite of shifting trends of rightist obstruction and leftist deviation, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought remained as the guiding ideology of CPC.

Chinese Revolution of 1949 that broke the imperialist hierarchy inherited from the colonial world order on the one hand, and demolished internal feudal bastion on the other, was an exceptional world historic event having no parallels. After 1949, China traversed a unique path of social, economic and cultural transformation that brought about unparalleled changes in people’s lives. Collectivisation of agriculture, ensuring people’s needs, raising production through appropriate scientific and technological intervention, overcoming malnutrition and illiteracy, integration of manual and mental work, construction of factories and workplaces near farms and schools, comprehensive expansion of health and education, etc., all under proper integration with the commune system, state-led advances in scientific research and higher-professional education, development of heavy industry and provision of a whole set of social and economic services, and in similar other fields, Chinese experience was unparalleled during the quarter century of socialist transformation that abruptly ended in the seventies. Committees of peasants and workers controlled their workplaces while peoples’ movements together with intellectuals undertook social and cultural requirements. One of the major roles of the army was aiding the people in their dwelling and workplaces. To be precise, the self-reliant commune system, ‘the iron rice bowl of socialism’ that China built up during the quarter century of socialist transformation ensured food, housing, health education and employment to all.

During this period of socialist construction, the CPC undertook many political interventions through social and cultural revolutions with a view to transform the relations of production, revolutionise the superstructure and expand democracy for the people exposing and dealing with bureaucratic tendencies in the Party. Revolutionary committees of party cadres at appropriate levels, technical experts and peoples’ communes were involved in this process. For instance, taking in to account the glaring issues involved in the accepted ‘mainstream development paradigm’ that came to be as conceptualised in the idea of “catching up with the West” that got recognition in Soviet Union, Mao brought out his revealing proposal on “On The Ten Major Relationships” in the 1950s such as: 1. The Relationship between heavy industry on the one hand and light industry and agriculture on the other; 2. The relationship between industry in the coastal regions and industry in the interior; 3. The relationship between economic construction and defence construction; 4. The relationship between the state, the units of production and the producers; 5. The relationship between central and local authorities; 6. The relationship between the Han nationality and the minority nationalities; 7. The relationship between party and non-party; 8. The relationship between revolution and counter-revolution; 9. The relationship between right and wrong; and 10. The relationship between China and other countries. Though rudimentary, the conceptualisation on “The Ten Major Relationships” put forward by Mao was capable of challenging the mainstream capitalist development paradigm and to deduce effective strategies for advancing along the road of transition to socialism.

And much before this, in 1950, to avoid a repetition of the mistakes in Soviet Union, Mao had raised the question of streamlining state apparatus and reducing military and administrative expenditures as fundamental prerequisites for achieving a “better financial and economic situation”. Mao was very critical of the manner in which peasants were “squeezed” in Soviet Union in the guise of industrialisation and development. At a time when peasant agriculture at a global level is confronting the biggest existential threat today as a result of the onslaught from corporate capital, the observation made by Mao 70 years ago on sustaining agriculture is relevant even now. And regarding the building up of people’s political power at the local level, Mao said: “ We must not follow the example of the Soviet Union in concentrating everything in the hands of the central authorities shackling the local authorities and denying them the right to independent action.” While appealing to the people to firmly reject the decadent bourgeois systems and ideologies of foreign countries, Mao pursued a dialectical approach of “learning the advanced sciences and technologies” and adopting whatever scientific from foreign countries. He opined: “Neither the indiscriminate rejection of everything foreign, whether scientific, technological or cultural, nor the indiscriminate imitation of everything foreign…has anything in common with the Marxist attitude…” – a perspective that Mao upheld even in CPC’s relation with the Comintern from the very beginning. However, though aware of the deviations in Soviet Union, the CPC led by Mao was always in the forefront of acknowledging the great achievements made by the first socialist country under Lenin and Stalin and was quick to defend Soviet Union against anti-communist propaganda by imperialist centres.

But with the ascendancy of Khrushchevian revisionism that, along with a vicious campaign against Stalin, put forward many prognoses such as “weakened imperialism”, “civilized imperialism”, “disappearance of colonialism” and theorised on “peaceful transition” from capitalism to socialism along with the apolitical prognosis of economic development as the principal task of national liberation movements abandoning class struggle against imperialism, etc., the socialist camp faced a grave setback. In this context, through its polemics against the Soviet leadership called Great Debate of the 1960s that laid down the General Line of the International Communist Movement, the CPC led by Mao Tsetung systematically exposed capitalist restoration in Soviet Union and put forward the general approach towards the neocolonial phase of imperialism. Situating neocolonialism as the new phase of imperialism which is a “more pernicious and sinister form of colonialism” led by US imperialism in the postwar period, the CPC went on characterising the revisionist Soviet leadership as “apologists of neocolonialism”, and explained how social imperialism (socialism in words and imperialism in deeds) converges with bourgeois ideology and practice. Meanwhile from 1956 onward, led by Liu Shao Chi, rightist trends with unilateral emphasis on “productive forces” came to the fore within CPC too, and in the inner-party struggle that followed often saw Mao holding a position of a minority within the Party even as he continued his effort for “an integration of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution”.

It was in this context, and in view of the emerging internal and external threats, that Mao upholding mass line launched the Cultural Revolution to unleash the revolutionary democratic power of the politicised masses for carrying forward socialist advancement and thus to ward off a repetition of the capitalist restoration in China. Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, in brief, was a vigorous political struggle against the capitalist tendencies and bureaucratic corruption by raising the class consciousness of the people and revolutionalise the superstructure along with increase in production through transforming production relations. However, as already noted by Marxist-Leninists, struggle against rightist deviation led to the emergence of left sectarian tendencies including even intolerances committed on scholars and cultural activists. Taking advantage of the fierce inner-party struggle, rightist forces even penetrated into the armed forces curtailing people’s initiatives and mass movements. Meanwhile, Lin Biao, who was keeping a low profile after his military initiatives in the 1940s, came forward and took on a leading role in the late 1960s with his adventurist positions.

These domestic repercussions had their international ramifications too. The CPC’s formulation on neocolonialism and analysis of the the postwar phase of imperialism that unravelled the neocolonial strategy and tactics employed by both US imperialism and Soviet social imperialism which were inspiring to proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world, could not be carried forward in the proper perspective. The ascendancy of left sectarian line led by Lin Biao that interpreted “imperialism heading for total collapse and socialism advancing towards world-wide victory,” was a camouflaged acknowledgement of the prognosis of “weakened imperialism” already put forward by Khrushchevian revisionism in the 1950s. And the erroneous conceptualization of “Soviet social imperialism” as a bigger evil than American imperialism also got acceptance among the left adventurists at a global level. This approach including a host of retrograde moves had its concrete manifestation in July 1971 when Henry Kissinger made his secret visit to Beijing to prepare Richard Nixon’s head-of-state visit to China in February 1972. The “theory of three worlds” which Deng Xiaoping put forward at his UN General Assembly Speech on April 10, 1974 that suggested “Soviet social imperialism” as more dangerous than US imperialism that altogether disoriented both the task of the international proletariat and national liberation movements was the logical corollary of this rightist deviation garbed in sectarianism. With this, the whole understanding on neocolonialism evolved by CPC as part of its erstwhile critique of Soviet revisionism was also thrown into the dustbin. It was also helpful to US-led imperialism that was facing one of the biggest postwar crises during the early seventies to reorient the neocolonial accumulation process altogether throwing away the welfare mask and resorting to naked global plunder through embracing neoliberalism.

In the meanwhile, with the 10^th Congress of CPC in 1973, the sectarian trend led by Lin Biao who “waved the red flag to defeat the red flag” being already fallen in 1971, the stage was set for the rehabilitation of the rightist Deng and his cohorts who had to face severe setbacks during the Cultural Revolution and against whom (the Liu-Deng team) Mao had been consistently carrying his ideological struggle since the 1940s. Taking advantage of the weaknesses of Cultural Revolution, Deng emerged powerful, and colluding with the centrist forces many of whom were elected to the 1973 Central Committee, it was relatively easy for him to mount a counterrevolutionary coup following the death of Mao in 1976, leading to the rehabilitation of all revisionist guards and ushering capitalist restoration in China. After consolidating the reins of power in his hands, from 1978 onward, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” was added to the core ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought fundamentally altering the political-ideological line that CPC was pursuing since 1949.

China’s Capitalist Road

Much has already been written on China’s capitalist transformation during the post-Mao period and hence a detailed analysis is not intended here. Restoration of capitalism meant transformation of the People’s Republic into a state capitalist one led by a Party which transformed itself as bureaucratic bourgeois in character. Revolutionary literature of yester years including writings on Cultural Revolution as well as ideological thinking with a revolutionary orientation were censored and suppressed and many supporters of Mao were persecuted. Workers’ strike and critique of economic policies were dealt with based on the official diktat of “development as an absolute principle”. People’s communes that worked in harmony with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across China were dismantled and all erstwhile guarantees to food, shelter, health, education and other basic needs were systematically taken away. Along with the catchword “it is glorious to get rich”, Deng’s, already noted oft-quoted dictum, “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice,” was widely popularised on accounted of its implicit depoliticising mission. As a corollary of this, at the international level, since the 1980s, China altogether abandoned the support and solidarity that PRC had been extending to revolutionary movements and national liberation struggles.

The Chinese political-economic developments since the adoption of the slogan “it is glorious to get rich” and announcement of the so called “four modernisations” have been dramatic. Throughout the 1980s the major focus of CPC and the Chinese regime was to lay the badly needed essential foundations for sustained expansion of capitalism. An effective initial move was the merger/integration of the bureaucratic state with private businesses and orienting state-owned banks toward liberally supporting private businesses. Along with this, from the very beginning, unlike neocolonially dependent countries like India, with its own capability to take independent political-economic decisions, the bureaucratic state of China could enter into various joint ventures between state-owned enterprises and foreign corporate capital and adapt itself to the most modern and state-of-the-art technologies on its own terms. Efforts were also initiated to transform the country as a low-cost export platform making use of China’s inexhaustible source of cheap labour and a number of special economic zones came in to being in many coastal regions of the country. The privatisation strategy got a relative shift since the 1990s, with more focus on FDI inflows. Taking advantage of the cheapest labour, liberal tax and environmental regulations, corporate MNCs and global consultancies quickly made China their favourite destination. This enabled China to become one of the major partners in the neoliberal international division of labour and integrate itself with global finance capital. In conformity with the inherent speculative character of corporate accumulation, real estate, financial markets and other money spinning businesses also flourished in China. To put in brief, thus, from the 1980s, Party-led bureaucratic state of China was transformed into an apparatus committed to safeguard the interests of corporate capital at the expense of workers, peasants and toiling people.

Thus by the turn of the 21^st century, China’s bureaucratic state monopoly capitalists had succeeded in building up a number of Chinese monopolies exporting capital to almost a hundred countries (and to more than 125 countries as of 2021). As world’s low-cost production base, China has become successful in capturing proportionately greater share of commodity markets not only in Afro-Asian-Latin American dependent countries, but even in the US itself. At the same time, this Chinese integration with global market has coincided with the emergence of fast moving ‘frontier’ or new generation technologies including digitisation that were practically insignificant in the 20^th century. And closely integrated with the bureaucratic state, many MNCs from China have become pioneers in economic innovation and technological application of these technologies to production at a maddening speed. Many Chinese conglomerations like “BAT” (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) have reportedly eclipsed or are at par with their US-based counterparts called “Silicon Six” (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft) both at economic and technological levels. In close integration with these digital giants China has become the leading country in pioneering digital currency initiatives that is capable of challenging the hegemony of US dollar as the international currency.

As a manifestation of the capitalist transformation and growth in the share of private sector in country’s GDP which now hovers around 70 percent, wealth concentration and inequality (and the concomitant corruption too) in China have risen to horrific levels often greater than that of the US. According to 2021 Hurun Global Rich List, during the last five years, China has added 490 billionaires (compared to 160 in the US) to be the first country in the world to have 1058 billionaires, more than the combined total of US, India and Germany. In view of this emerging trend, to achieve close integration of the bureaucratic state and corporate capital or the merger between political power and economy, the 16^th Party Congress of CPC held in 2002 had resolved to formally extend party membership to corporate CEOs too (the process of inducting wealthy people into the party was initiated by Deng in 1978 itself). Consequently, within two decades, around half of the Chinese billionaires have become members of the higher committees and the proportion of millionaires and billionaires holding membership in the 92 million-member party today is very high compared to the general population.

No doubt, the socio-economic repercussions of the more than four decades of capitalist development are of unparalleled dimensions. One of its conspicuous outcomes has been the prevalence of what is called ‘uneven development’ on account of the abandonment of the principle of ‘walking on two legs’, an aspect highlighted by Mao in his speech on The Ten Major Relationships. Amidst the spectacular GDP over the last four decades, as is obvious, the self-sufficient and self-reliant communes were almost destroyed leading to horrific displacement of the people from agriculture and country-side and being forced to migrate to urban centres and special economic zones to be subjected to extreme forms of slave labour and super-exploitation. Despite the spectacular economic growth, unlike the western imperialist countries where only 2 percent of the working people is employed in agriculture, around 35 percent of the Chinese working people is still subsisting on agriculture whose contribution to GDP has dwindled to around 10 percent. On the other hand, in spite of the lowest wage rate which is the major attraction on the part of both foreign and domestic capital, the Chinese labour absorption rate in industry, similar to other countries, is relatively low. And the tertiary sector, though growing, is not capable enough to absorb the vast ‘reserve army’ of the unemployed. At the same time, speculation, real estate, financial swindles, etc. are flourishing in China and it is also not immune to the intensifying neoliberal crises as its economy is also interwoven with the global commodity and financial markets. All these are accentuating the contradiction between Chinese state monopoly capitalism on the one hand, and working class and broad masses of people on the other.

Imperialism with Chinese Characteristics

Obviously, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is a convenient camouflage used by the “capitalist roaders” to cover-up the capitalist trajectory of China since the 1980s and its eventual transformation as a leading imperialist power, thereby claiming political legitimacy for hoodwinking not only the people of China but the working class and oppressed peoples of the world too. The same rhetoric of ‘socialism’ was effectively used to deal with the Tiananmen flare-up of the late eighties mainly led by liberal intellectuals, students and dissenting sections within the party who aspired political freedom commensurate with ‘market reforms’ and encouragement given to private capital. And for the western imperialists as well as for imperialist think-tanks and neoliberal ideologues the world over, China’s claim on socialism has become an ideological weapon in their anti-communist propaganda. Meanwhile, based on the laws of motion of capital in the imperialist era as elucidated by Lenin, bureaucratic state monopoly capitalism of Chinas strengthening itself from its growing integration with global market was transforming itself into imperialism. During the late 1990s, the reunification of Hong Kong (1997) and Macao (1999), both being nerve centres of global finance capital, gave further impetus to this process. China’s formal entry in 2001 into WTO, often characterised as the third neo-colonial pillar together with IMF and World Bank, extended it more manoeuvrability in imperialist market and finance capital. By the time of the world economic crisis of 2008, China had become the biggest commodity exporter and was on its way to become the largest capital exporter at par with the US. Along with its active participation in US-led neocolonial political-economic institutions, today, imperialist China is leading several institutions, groupings and initiatives such as Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), BRICS including New Development Bank (NDB), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), etc., Despite its rhetoric on “socialism”, completely repudiating Marx’s perspective on military spending as “non-productive waste of part of the social product”, in tandem with its growing imperialist status, during 2000 and 2020 Chinese military spending galloped by 20 times reaching around $260 billion second to US. In the fields of war and space technologies including missiles, bombers, aircraft carriers, etc., Chinese advancement is at par with that of US.

Today, China’s capital export, transforming many countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, etc., as heavily dependent on Chinese capital investment, crossing the borders of Asia, has penetrated to the entire African continent and parts of Europe, is now spreading even to Latin America. While Italy has become part of BRI, disregarding US diktats in NATO, both Germany and France have come forward for broad-based EU-China economic and trade relations. Relegating both US and EU imperialists to the background, Chinese imperialism with its advanced technologies have already become the biggest capital exporter to Africa including the establishment of military bases in countries like Djibouti. The decade since the 2008 World Economic and Financial Crisis followed by the Pandemic saw massive Chinese corporate capital penetration under the camouflage of “development aid” to ports, railroads, roads, pipelines and telecommunications. Quite logically, together with intense plunder of Africa’s precious natural resources and raw materials and super-exploitation of labour, this Chinese neocolonial penetration is also resulting in ruination of the peasantry, unemployment and mass poverty. CPC‘s “Made in China 2025” initiative that envisages a relative alteration from China’s role as a cheap-labour economy to a technology intensive producer and capital exporter also aims at grabbing a greater share in global capital market from its imperialist rivals, especially the US.

Western Notions of Capitalist/Imperialism versus China

A striking aspect to be noted here is that mechanical/western notions of class/property relations and corporate governance do not fit in with the privatisation/corporatisation process in China. The most crucial point is that China being an erstwhile socialist country was delinked from the postwar laws of motion or logic of finance capital during the quarter century from 1949 to mid-1970s. Hence it had the opportunity to evolve a fundamentally different and independent political-economic trajectory till its capitalist restoration in the post-Mao period. As such, rather than a stereo-typed or mechanical analysis that is incapable of unravelling China’s capitalist path and eventual transformation to imperialism, what requires is an analysis of Chinese capitalism/imperialism according to concrete conditions. Moreover, Chinese capitalist roaders and bureaucratic bourgeoisie have learned lessons from the altogether disintegration of the Party itself in Soviet Union. Therefore, since the beginning of its capitalist transformation effectively utilising the industrial and technological base already laid down during the socialist period, the party bureaucracy’s strict supervision was strictly enforced for unleashing the privatisation process, at all levels. Its handling of the Tiananmen unrest was also possible due to this. As such, to ensure constant and strict surveillance, party units or party cells are functioning in almost all business enterprises irrespective of domestic or foreign. Presence of appropriate party representative in the board meetings of companies is the accepted norm, and the decision to give party membership to corporate CEOs is connected with this. Even Walmart, world’s biggest US-based MNC which a few years back was having more than 70 percent of its procurement from China, and which never allowed even unions in its US stores, had to allow party cells in its Chinese stores. Thus there is no compromise on enforcing the bureaucratic-bourgeois state dictatorship on the unhindered corporatisation flourishing in China.

Under Xi Jinping this trend of bureaucratic streamlining of private corporate sector has strengthened further. For instance the high profile Jack Ma of Alibaba (whose e-commerce empire at one time was estimated as bigger than that of the US and EU combined) who until recently was the acclaimed “global face” of corporate China, has suddenly fallen from grace, and being dropped from public view, for the last eight months there is no information on him. Meanwhile, according to reports, the Chinese “regulators” have embarked on “rectification” on account of his outspokenness and public criticism of the bureaucratic financial regulations and reluctance to follow them. This has resulted in a sudden downturn in the fortunes of Ma and as reported shares of Alibaba have slumped around 30 percent since November 2020. Reports also mention on the warnings issued to more than a dozen technology companies to comply with financial regulations now supervised by the People’s Bank of China.

However, this does not in any way construe to mean any reversal of the corporate wealth accumulation process in China that is proceeding at a fast pace. What took place has been a removal of the hurdles that stand in the way of an appropriate blending of China’s powerful bureaucratic state regime and private corporate capital that is successfully fulfilling the “success story” of Chinese imperialism. The latest addition of Xi Jinping Thought to the core ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought is intended to accomplish this task. In fact, this new formulation is the antithesis of the ideological-political line pursued under Mao during 1949-76. In the meanwhile, presidential term-limit and so called ‘collective leadership’ that have been there were being taken away by Xi, which liberal analysts are interpreting as a move away from “Deng era” to “Mao era”. This makes little sense in the socialist direction since its aim is to promote an image of ‘socialism’ by appeasing the degenerated and depoliticised ‘left’ even as an all-out agenda of bureaucratisation, corporatisation and militarisation and, above all, an assertive role of Chinese imperialism at the global level are in store, which is evident from Xi’s speech, as noted in the Introduction of this article.

Unity of Communist Revolutionaries:

In Telengana CPI (ML)Red Star State Committee and UCCRI(ML)- (Kishan) forms Coordination Committee for Merger, Single Committee with SC members of both organizations. The unity discussion was initiated with UCCRI(ML) –Kishan by the CPI(ML) Red Star right from the time when it had become part of the revolutionary Left core formed in 2019 end. The UCCRI(ML) –Kishan and the Telangana committee of Red Star were working together on many issues in the state. In continuation to these, though the merger discussions were taking place for last two years, it was hindered by Covid19 Pandemic intervention. Still, as a result of online discussions, followed by actual discussion on 22^nd July held by comrades KN Ramachandran, GS, Soura and R Manasayya, PB members, and Saidulu, the Telangana Committee secretary of CPI(ML) Red Star with com. G. Sadanandam, secretary of the UCCRI(ML) –Kishan, both sides agreed on the importance of uniting the Communist Revolutionary organizations who have basic agreement on all main issues. So, both decided to unite the two state level committees in to a single committee, the Coordination Committee for Merger, Telangana, with a single executive committee, organ and office, as part of the process to complete the merger. The class/ mass organizations also shall be the same. The Coordination Committee for Merger, in its first meeting on 23^rd evening decided to observe the martyrdom of com Doddi Kamaresh, the first martyr of the great Telangana struggle who became martyr on 4th July 1946, Charu Majumdar, the first GS of the CPI(ML) who became martyr in Lal Bazar police headquarters in Kolkata on 28^th July, 1972 , T. Nagi Reddy who passed away on 28^th July 1976, D V Rao who passed away on 12^th July, 1984, U Sambasiva Rao, who was the joint convener of the Caste Annihilation Movement for the South Indian states who was taken from us by the Covid19 pandemic on 25^th July, 2020. Similarly martyrdom of all other revolutionary leaders who fought against the revisionist CPI and neo-revisionist CPI(M) uncompromisingly, comrades Kolla Venkaiah who passed away on 17^th September, Chandrapulla Reddy and others who fought against revisionism and neo-revisionism and upheld the Naxalbari Uprising. This decision has great significance. It exposes the degeneration of some of the CR forces to the stand that the Farmers’ Movement at state level in Telangana can be taken up only if the CPI and CPI(M) decides for it. Though both of these revisionist parties who have, degenerated to social democratic positions, in spite of getting decimated in Bengal and Tripura due to their revisionist line, are working against the call of the Samyuktha Kisan Morcha (SKM); and creating obstacles to organize it! But these CR forces in AP, Telangana and other states are not prepared to take stand against these forces, and to make any efforts to support the initiative taken by the revolutionary sections to launch farmers’ movement at state level on this line. So the committee has called for launching the farmers’ movement in Telangana for APMC, MSP etc. joining hands with all the organizations who accept this line. For taking such an initiative, the Committee decided to send a letter to all these organizations and to convene a meeting of the representatives of those organizations who agree for a statewide movement on 23^rd August. This meeting of the like- minded organizations/parties will discuss and decide how to launch the movement for APMC and MSP in the state.

Climate Change/ Global Warming Consequences:

Unprecedented Rainfalls, Floods, Heatwave, Wild fires, Cyclones intensify;

Starting with Denghu, HIV Tomorrow More Dangerous Viruses Threaten Humanity;

Is it the Beginning of Ecological Catastrophe?

What is now happening around the world in the environmental sector is unprecedented. What the Marxist teachers had pointed out, and in the recent times, after studying the impact of uncontrolled incrase in carbon gas emission, the scientists and environmentalists had predicted about what will happen if we allow the capitalists to re-create the world in their own image is happening around us now in more horrific form than expected. When the imperialist powers and their junior partners in power in the neocolonial dependent countries were pointing out repeatedly, especially after the imperialist exploitation of human labor and nature increased by leaps and bounds, the latest developments around the world shows that the humanity has entered the predicted phase of ecological catastrophe. It is not difficult to understand it if we make an over-view of what was happening at world level during last two decades, and if we go through this week’s reports from different parts of the world. What are these developments? Global warming has pushed temperature to shoot up even by 50 degree centigrade in North America and Western Europe forcing the people for any form of shelters. Wild fires started, destroying what is left of from old forests. Now it is followed by torrential rain fall drowning many parts of US, Canada and western Europe. In China, cloud bursts led to flooding and then breaking of a high rise dam, leading to two more dams in the downstream also collapsing. In Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka many areas are under hug floods. Oman with most its desert region under under heavy rain and huge floods is creating new records of rainfall in this region. It was preceded by the wild fires of Amazon and Australian forests, mega cyclones causing havoc around the world. And when the US imperialists and their friends are trying to put the blame for producing Covid 19 on China in a Wuhan laboratory, they are trying to conceal the fact that the spread of Denghu, HIV like viruses, and the SARS followed by MERS, and now Covid19 is due to reasons linked to ecological destruction. Scientists predict, the possibility of more dangerous viruses emerging. Already, many cores of people, overwhelmingly from the downtrodden classes and sections are becoming its victims. All these developments shows that the dangerous phase of ecological catastrophe has started, with the danger of more crores of people surrendering to it every year. Still the corporate forces lording over the whole world are unconcerned. They are intensifying neoliberal corporate loot in all fields, including plundering the natural resources, intensifying this catastrophe. The burden imperialist systemof this also is pushed to the back of the increasing number of below poverty line masses of people. To cover up this barbarous situation created by them, destroying what is left from the bourgeois democratic system are also destroyed under increasing number of neo-fascist rulers promoted all over the world, using religious fundamentalism and other most reactionary ideological offensives, using the decadent culture still prevalent. The working class, the peasantry and all oppressed masses alone can save the humanity form the devastation, and possible devastation of humanity by overthrowing the imperialist system and its neo-fascist junior partners like Modi. The students and youth should be made conscious of the impact going to be created by the catastrophe in their lives. A worldwide uprising of the oppressed masses alone can create the humanity form this danger.