57
I don't get Maoists at all
(lemmygrad.ml)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
57 points (100.0% liked)
Comradeship // Freechat
2395 readers
63 users here now
Talk about whatever, respecting the rules established by Lemmygrad. Failing to comply with the rules will grant you a few warnings, insisting on breaking them will grant you a beautiful shiny banwall.
A community for comrades to chat and talk about whatever doesn't fit other communities
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
China began its period of peaceful development and opened up to Western markets while the US was bombing Vietnam and Laos, while there were coups in Indonesia and Congo and Chile and throughout the third world, and while the US was pulling farther and farther ahead in the Cold War. It implemented sweeping reforms that rolled back collectivization and opened up its people to Western exploitation.
In hindsight it's clear this was a strategic choice to buy time to peacefully develop their productive capacity and geopolitical strength, and it worked, but for fourty years it looked like a betrayal of the revolution and liberal revisionism and capitulation to capital etc etc
Even now, it seems China would be fully willing to go back to collaboration with the US to continue peaceful development. China will let allies fall and let genocide wipe out other potential allies without taking action, won't support revolutionary guerilla movements or risk international peace to engage in international militant struggle, and will let their own people be used as cheap disposable labor 48+ hours a week making US toys.
The extreme caution is definitely frustrating, even as China keeps being proven right and their caution keeps paying off. I think Maoists will have to confront the fact that there's a new Cold War eventually, and I'm interested in seeing how they respond politically.
This hasn't been happening for years, it's come to a point where factories have trouble finding workers and have to offer more and more incentives, and most people pick it up as a summer job to save some money. Of course, development is unequal and this is true across generations too; there are people in China who have been factory workers all of their adult life (and maybe even their teenage life), but this is rarely the case with the newer generations.
Retirement age for them is something like 55 for women and 58 for men.
In general it's safe to say China plays the long game. It's not unique to the CPC; even imperial dynasties planned ahead like that. Deng, Xi etc plan ahead for centuries after their death. We can see that with Hong Kong for example, the lease was 100 years. After 100 years (and the fall of the original government that signed the lease) , China came knocking and said time's up, give it back now. They understand that there are short(ish) terms sacrifices to make for long term prosperity.
I remember the astonished vibes of articles coming out in Polish press for 2008 Olyimpic in Beijing, they were absolutely unable to believe a country can plan 30 years ahead and deliver. Sinophobic ones then shat bricks in fear. Truly a Napoleon quote moment.