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What came first, in actuality, was the inability of capitalism in China to develop "organically." Capitalism did not take hold and flourish, or develop haltingly, to the point were it, capitalism significantly changed the arrangements of land tenure and production. That's what came first. Agricultural involution, the successive fragmenting of landed property into smaller parcels, capable of meeting subsistence only through increasing applications of labor is what came first, comrade. The impact of imperialism, by the British, and then as practiced in and around the concessions was also unable to transform those relations of land and labor on the large, national scale. And indeed, the revolution itself, for all it did accomplish after 1949 did not transform and remedy this historical involution. Even today, 700 million people, half the population, is tethered to agricultural production and the average plot size is what? about .5 hectares? About an acre. What happened second was the growth of enclave capitalism in the cities, in the mining areas-- the growth of a modern proletariat. What happened after that was a true revolutionary upsurge in the 1920s, a revolutionary moment where the only chance of success was in the independent action, program, and power of that modern working class against advanced and stunted bourgeois property. That independent action, program, and power of the working class was not "mistakenly" ordered to surbordinate itself to the KMT, to the incompetent, obsolete, militaristic representatives of the bourgeoisie, it was consciously, deliberately ordered to do that based ideologically on "theories" of "development" very much like yours. The material base for those directives ....well that's a discussion for the moderator's other list. But just as importantly-- you yourself identify the distinction between the "back of the curve," and, "the front of the curve" of development as completely artificial as the determinant for independent class action when you state that the national front, or the bloc of 4 classes, or whatever you want to call it, is essentially the same configuration as the Popular Front. You did make that identification, and I agree with that. The "national front" and the Popular Front are indeed the same thing. Each requires subordination of the working class to the bourgeoisie; each requires the working class to abandon its program, its development, its creation of organs of class power and adopt the program of "democracy," of alliance with the "liberal" "anti-fascist," or "national" "anti-imperialist bourgeoisie. No matter where we are on your curve-- China 1925, Germany 1933, Spain 1936, Vietnam 1945, Java 1945, Chile 1973, there is never a point on the curve for independent class action opposing the class of capitalists. Your curve has a single, consistent radius, and that is its rigid identification of the tasks of development with a "national" "democratic" "popular" bourgeois organization of property. And so your curve forms a perfect circle, at every point equidistant from the center of revolution. What you have created in this identification, this formalism is not a theory of the abstract that capitulates before the world of the concrete, but a theory that demands destruction of the concrete moment of revolution in order to maintain a charade of formal adherence to a distorted theory of Marxism. ----- Original Message ----- From: <waistli...@aol.com> To: "David Schanoes" <sartes...@earthlink.net> Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:12 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Chinese Revolution (90 years ago) > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > Comment > > > > >>> It is not a question of which comes first? The overthrow of imperialism > or the establishment of socialism? It is the question of which class has > the power, the cohesiveness, the essential relations to the means of > production to overthrow imperialism, and in doing that, establish itself > as the > ruling class, with a social organization of property and labor unique to > itself? << > > Comment > > > It is precisely what comes first that defines the actual Chinese > Revolution that happened on this planet. The issue of the Chinese > revolution, since > 1811, was posed as the overthrow of the rule of foreigners. These > foreigners were “Western imperialist” and later Japanese imperialist. In > order to > overthrow the imperialist various political grouping advocating on behalf > of > various classes formed armies to fight in the 20 th century. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
