So I recently joined a socialist org (Eur*pe), been participating in some cool anti-imperialist protests and anti-fascist local struggle.
The topic of China's socialism came up in conversation, and I naturally said that China is socialist. They looked at me as if I were nuts, and a discussion ensued about China not being socialist.
Their points are that it's not expanding worldwide socialism, that it's engaging in imperialism in Africa, that it's only shifting to renewables because it's profitable for them, and the classic "but they have rich capitalist owners and the Chinese workers are exploited".
Doesn't matter that their capitalists don't control the media and state apparatus (which they somehow disagree with), that they're the only country capable of fighting the fossil fuel lobby, that they've uplifted 800mn people from poverty in 30 years, that they deindustrialized NATO, that they support Iran and are creating the possibility of a multipolar world, that most investments in Africa are in electric infrastructure, that Chinese people overwhelmingly say that they live in a democracy and support their socialist government, that housing is not only not prohibitively expensive but actually prices are going down, that food is incredibly affordable, that they don't engage in imperialist war... Nothing is good enough, they're capitalists because they conform to capitalist mode of production (which isn't even true because like half their economy is state-owned). And they have the guts to tell ME I'm being dogmatic and only seeing black and white, because I dare speak about a model of socialism that doesn't conform to their narrow views.
I swear it's impossible to find socialists in Eur*pe who aren't patronizing, condescending, and honestly fucking racist to global south socialist movements. They literally told me that Cuba "should have industrialized". Like, god fucking damn it, do you SERIOUSLY believe you know better about the possibilities of the economy of Cuba than the people devoting their entire lives to it in the country, supporting and maintaining the revolution throughout the 70 years of murderous embargo? Like, how do you believe you can thoroughly industrialize a 10mn inhabitant island entirely cut from trade with the rest of the world? The Eastern Block could only do this because it had like a fucking third the landmass of Earth and some 400mn inhabitants, and even then they suffered limitations such as lack of access to critical semiconductor technology due to embargo. But no, Cuba is not socialist because it has private hotels for tourists, as if they had any other way to get foreign currency to purchase high-tech medical diagnosis machines and critical energy resources. Fucking bunch of idealist, anti-materialist, condescending pieces of shit!
Your first rec is on the internet archive without even having to borrow: https://archive.org/details/socialism-with-chinese-characteristics/page/n5/mode/2up
The preface is fire
Let me begin with a quotation from Mao Zedong:
Mao was speaking to Chinese students studying in Moscow in 1957, but his words are still resonant today. For me at least, the in-depth study of Chinese Marxism, of socialism with Chinese characteristics, has required a washing of my brain, a washing that has taken a dozen years or more. Why? When I first came to China, I thought I was open-minded, thought that I did not assume the frameworks and assumptions with which I had been brought up and educated. How wrong I was. Like other foreigners, I had developed an opinion about China that was quite erroneous. This is particularly so for those from the small number of countries that make up the ‘West’ (containing about 14% of the global population). I have found that those who have grown up in socialist countries—past and present—find it much easier to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics. This is also the case for the many who come from developing countries, for there too is a living memory of the experience of colonial depredation at the hands of the ‘West’. So if you are like me, having been brought up and educated in one of the few Western countries, then you may well need to engage in a process of washing your brain so as to be able to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics, or sinified Marxism.
Thanks for linking to it! Like a much-needed wash, I found relief I didn't entirely know my brain needed in reading Boer's straightforward synthesis of the history and theory of Dialectical and Historical Materialism as it applies to the particular experience of China.