Socialism Worked In A Village In China In 1979

By socialism, I mean 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. An emphasis on developing and liberating the forces of production is one aspect of socialism. Trying to seek truth from facts is one way that you might phrase one of those Chinese characteristics. Another characteristic is a matter of seeking democratic initiatives from below, especially from rural areas. The principle of household responsibility is in tension with the principle of collectively 'eating from one big pot'. But Mao's 'On contradiction' shows that such tensions will continue in socialism. Household responsibility is not in tension with a community collectively owning the land.

This inadequate preamble suggests why socialists could embrace these events:

"On the 24th of November, 1978, representatives from the 18 families of Xiaogang Village, of Fengyang County in Anhui Province, met and signed what was then a secret document. In 79 characters, the document stated that each family would subdivide their collective land, work their allocated plots to meet government quotas, and then sell any surplus for their own benefit. The reason: back in 1958 the village population was 120, but 67 died from hunger during 1958–1960 (in the midst of the 'Great Leap Forward'). Starvation had haunted them once again in 1978 and they feared for the future. The result of the secret agreement: in the following year, the farmers of Xiaogang village produced six times the amount of grain compared to the previous year, and the per capita income of the farmers increased from 22 to 400 RMB. Why was the document a secret? With the fully collectivised system in force, any form of buying and selling was regarded as a 'capitalist' exercise and thus punishable. The farmers knew they were taking a risk, but they were fortunate that the local and provincial CPC officials were sympathetic to their endeavour. So also was the new leadership of the country, with Deng Xiaoping at the head. By the next spring, the word of Xiaogang's move was out. While some accused them of undermining socialism, the country's leadership saw it very differently: this would be the beginning of the household responsibility system and thus of the rural reform that drove the first period of the Reform and Opening-Up. By 1984, the household responsibility system had been implemented across the country." – Roland Boer. 2021. Socialism with Chinese Charateristics: A Guide for Foreigners. Springer. p. 85

I certainly do not think of socialism as a blueprint to be fashioned beforehand and imposed from above. Any feasible development of socialism will include the development and modification of institutions and policies at different times and places. The Reform and Opening-Up initiative seems to have been a good idea at the time, although maybe, like the French Revolution, it is too soon to tell. Later developments showed the need for a tack more towards port.

Boer's book is in definite contrast with David Harvey's 2005 A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Harvey is one of those foreigners who Boer says do not understand China. I think of the events recounted above as not too far from how I understand the German mark community or Russian mir village assembly worked. After these events, the land remained collectively owned. Neither absentee owners nor wage laborers existed. The existence of markets is not sufficient for capitalism, as can be seen by millennia of pre-capitalist experience with simple commodity production.

Boer depicts the cultural revolution, starting in 1966, and the gang of four, as deviations from Mao Zedong Thought. He depicts the inequality growing in the 'wild 90s' as a deviation, as well. Boer ties some ideas in the Confucian tradition to some Marxist ideas. The time of xiaokang (moderate or acceptable time of well-being) precedes datong (great unity). Likewise socialism precedes Communism. Boer writes about the four moderizations, in agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology, which China has been bringing about in the last few decades. According to Boer on Mao, contradictions will still exist in socialism, but they will not necessarily be antangonistic. Boer has a schematic approach to contradiction analysis. You should identify the principal contradiction and pay attention to the particularity of the contradiction.

When Boer writes about two systems in one one country, he writes about the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (SAR), the Macau SAR, and Taiwan, as if Taiwan was not a different country. He says nothing about 1989 events in Tienanmen Square. In writing about human rights, he emphasizes that China is an example of anti-colonialism, while claims that human rights are individual and innate is a claim that came from the western peninsula of Europe. I had not thought of China in this context. I am more likely to think of Stephen Biko and Frantz Fanon like this. I know very little about China.

Boer, in his discussion of Xi Jiping thought, emphasizes this 2018 speech on Marx. It is confusing to think how a country can be run by communists who introduce institutions that are widely perceived as capitalist, and yet the ruling party still perceives themselves as building communism.