Is today the hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party of China or the Capitalist Party of China?

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Global Times reported that companies in East China were being investigated for using the 100th anniversary logo to sell chopsticks, spoons, stickers, medals, gift cards and banners -- in short, to make a quick capitalist buck. The logo, said the report, is not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.

That is the dilemma of the CPC. It must maintain the façade of being communist, while opening up more and more parts of the economy to capitalism. China is red only in so far as it has capitalism red in tooth and claw. It is no working class paradise. Indeed, a legitimate question is whether the CPC can more accurately be called the Capitalist Party of China.

An article from the World Economic Forum explains: ‘The combination of numbers 60/70/80/90 are frequently used to describe the private sector's contribution to the Chinese economy: they contribute 60% of China’s GDP, and are responsible for 70% of innovation, 80% of urban employment and provide 90% of new jobs.’ The state-owned sector is still important, but the Chinese authorities have plans to at least partially privatise it, to make it more efficient.

Communism, really?

What kind of communism allows the means of production to be privately owned? What communist government will tolerate such a huge rise in inequality? And the Third Plenum of the CPC in 2013 had said that market forces would play ‘a decisive role’ going forward.

The standard response of CPC leaders is to say that all this is ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ and, at this stage of development, there is no contradiction between allowing market forces to function and the development of socialism. They point to the vast benefits which such a policy has achieved. It has lifted millions from poverty, enabled China to become the world’s factory and helped it leap ahead in technology and to become a world power.

As the chart shows, it has allowed China, in the last thirty years, to catch up with the US. China’s economy was 6.7 per cent of the US economy, in current dollars, in 1990. In 2020, it was 70 per cent of the US economy. These achievements have led to some Marxists jumping through multiple dialectical hoops to desperately prove that China is socialist.

But what do the Chinese regime’s unquestionable economic successes have to do with Communism? Much is being made of President Xi Jinping’s so-called turn toward Marxism, but all that he’s doing is making sure the CPC, and he himself, remains firmly in control. Xi outlined his vision clearly in his speech to the National Congress in 2017, where he said that China has progressed through the phases of standing up to becoming rich and is now becoming strong. It’s more nationalist than communist. Critics say China has replaced Marxism by Marketism.

So which view is correct? Is China socialist or has Mao’s legacy been turned on his head by the CPC and the capitalist-roaders so derided by the Great Helmsman have won?

To answer that question, let us turn to the little-known Amadeo Bordiga, one of the founders of the Italian communist party in 1921. He was one of the few who had the guts to tell Stalin that he was destroying the revolution and lived to tell the tale. His critical analysis of the Soviet state was novel, as well as prescient—he said that Russia’s communist revolution prepared the way for the adoption of capitalism in the country.

Bordiga died in 1970, decades before Russia threw off its state capitalist system to become truly capitalist. For Bordiga, the Soviet Union--he detested the term, because the soviets, or worker councils, had long lost their power under Stalin--was a society in transition to capitalism.

The same goes for the communist revolutions in the Third World. Loren Goldner wrote, ‘In Bordiga’s conception, Stalin, and later Mao, Ho, etc. were “great romantic revolutionaries” in the 19th century sense, i.e. bourgeois revolutionaries. He felt that the Stalinist regimes that came into existence after 1945 were just extending the bourgeois revolution.’

As to the CPC’s self-serving contention that they are building the productive forces of the economy to prepare the ground for a socialist society, Goldner wrote, ‘Bordiga said: “One does not build communism”. The task of the “development of the productive forces” is not the task of communists.’

In more recent times, Branko Milanovic, economist and expert on inequality, has espoused a remarkably similar view. In his book, ‘Capitalism, Alone’ he described communism as ‘a social system that enabled backward and colonized societies to abolish feudalism, regain economic and political independence, and build indigenous capitalism. Or to put it another way, it was a system of transition from feudalism to capitalism used in less-developed and colonized societies. Communism is the functional equivalent of the rise of the bourgeoisie in the West.’

But the development of capitalism in these underdeveloped societies and that too at an accelerated pace needed the presence of a strong state. Force was needed to destroy the old feudal power structures. This is seen not just in the so-called communist countries, but also in other late developers like Germany (under Bismarck), Japan (in the Meiji era), South Korea or Taiwan. That is why development in these countries was done, at least initially, under authoritarian auspices. This authoritarianism is one of the key factors that distinguishes the Chinese variety of capitalism from the liberal one.

So, to get back to the original question of what kind of economic and social system China has, the answer is: it’s a system that is transitioning to capitalism, a capitalism different from the classical western variety. That goes for the CPC too—it was communist when it was required for China to ‘stand up’ and is capitalist in the ‘getting rich’ and ‘getting strong’ phases.

As the CPC celebrates its 100th anniversary, it can justifiably be proud of how it has beaten the capitalists at their own game.