Hu Jingtao: Taking China Beyond Marx

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Marxist "breakthroughs" have come with every major leader since Mao asserted China could avoid a capitalist stage. Deng Xiao-ping and Jiang Zemin reversed, revised, and refined that assertion. Now, Hu Jingtao is leading an anti-corruption and reform movement. But the Communist Party appears no closer to providing democratic processes for change.

Hu’s Breakthrough

Peter Kwong

Agence Global
February 8, 2006

Copyright © 2007 Peter Kwong
[Republished at GRBlog with AG permission]

China, being the longest surviving Communist nation in the world, its Communist Party has taken the prerogative of making continuous theoretical “breakthroughs” in Marxism. Mao Zedong challenged the orthodox Marxist doctrine of proletarian revolution by asserting that an agrarian nation could reach the stage of communism without going through capitalism. Mao did not stop at differing from Marx. He amended Lenin, too, by insisting that this could be done even without a working-class party leadership. In its day, the Mao Zedong Thought was considered audacious enough.


Then came the so-called Deng Xiao-ping Theory. Deng departed from Mao by declaring communism impossible to achieve if the country did not become rich first. The party’s role was thus, in his view, to guide the nation through a stage of capitalist development, creating something that he labeled “socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” This stretched the official tag the CCP used to signal its nominal adherence to theoretical Marxism to “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.” No one in the leadership acknowledged being troubled by the contradictions contained in this concoction.


Indeed, the acquiescence with false advertising only prepared the ground for further theoretical “breakthroughs.” The next Party Chairman, Jiang Zemin, gutted the fundamental Marxist concept of class struggle by asserting that capitalists are also part of “productive forces” and should be allowed to become members of the Communist Party, better to play their vanguard role in modernization. Not many Chinese understood Jiang’s convoluted “Theory of the Three Representatives,” but the party members were ordered to study it diligently as a new development in Marxist theory and as an ideological weapon of the Chinese Communist Party style of work, which was then to be disseminated throughout the society. The public received it with a yawn.


Needless to say, the current Party Chairman Hu Jingtao is making his own contribution to this by now habitual cutting-edge theorizing. However, his “Theory of the Three Harmonies,” essential in building a harmonious socialist society, is an abrupt departure from all theoretical “breakthroughs” since Deng’s “get rich first” policy. In Hu’s view, their favoring of business people, party and military officials, of urban over rural areas, and of coastal regions over the interior of China has resulted in a widening gap between the rich and the poor, as well as in rampant official corruption that fans public anger and has often led to violent unrest across the country.


Hu’s prescript for the building of a harmonious socialist society is designed to cool off mass disaffection by shifting the nation’s priorities from helping a few “get rich first” to stressing “common prosperity.” His formula de-emphasizes urban construction and foreign investment, focusing instead on rural advancement, stimulation of domestic demand, sustainable growth, and protection of the environment. Hu’s is a decided shift from Jiang’s “theory” and Deng Xiaoping Thought; it is, ironically, a return to Mao’s theme of even development between city and countryside. However, Hu is making the U-turn at a critical juncture and preaching “harmony” when the Party‘s legitimacy and very survival are at stake.


Most resistance to Hu’s maneuvering has come from party officials who have profited handsomely from unchecked economic growth, but first and foremost from the inner circle of Jiang Zemin’s followers, better known as the “Shanghai gang.” It is expected that Hu will use the upcoming 17th Communist Party Congress, which will convene later this year, to consolidate his power by getting rid of his opponents and installing a new generation of like-minded leaders into top party positions. So far, he has been able to employ the “anti-corruption campaign” tactic to purge the leadership of the nation’s fastest developed regions, including Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjian, and Fujian. The most prominent among his victims is the powerful Shanghai City Party Secretary Chen Liangyu, a member of CCP’s supreme Political Bureau, who has been accused of misappropriating Shanghai’s pension funds and netting a total of US$35 million for himself and his family, that was deposited in 53 separate bank accounts. Actions against official corruption are always popular in China, especially if they don’t just “swat” low ranking official “flies,” but “catch” high-ranking “tigers.” In this case, the public has been treated to a feast of salacious details from Chen’s decadent lifestyle, such as keeping at least 10 mistresses in different mansions, including Ma Yanli, considered China’s first super model.


But while the public may be enjoying the downfall of such unsavory leaders, the problem with Hu’s reform is that it is being carried out without public participation, as an exclusive inner party struggle campaign. And, considering how far the party has fallen, it is naïve to expect that it could correct itself. During a recent investigation session against him, Chen Liangyu retorted: “If the Central Government wants to investigate my personal life style, I think at least one third if not one half of the members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau would have to be investigated first!”


With a party so thoroughly corrupted and lacking any coherent ideology, Hu’s reform is like turning a giant oil tanker around in a narrow canal. One has to think that his navigation towards a harmonious society would be smoother if he took his ship to open sea—namely, if its goals were achieved democratically, with a full participation of the entire society. Ultimately, bringing the people into the political process of the People’s Republic of China would be a real breakthrough -- a Chinese contribution to theoretical Marxism worth its name.




Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian American studies at Hunter College, is co-author of Chinese America: The Untold Story of America's Oldest New Community.


Copyright © 2007 Peter Kwong


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Released: 08 February 2007
Word Count: 913
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Advisory Release: 08 February 2007
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