Review of Prashad’s Red Star over the Third World

Red Star over the Third World

Vijay Prashad

London: Pluto Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-7453-3966-5

131 pp.

“This is a little book to explain the power of the October Revolution for the Third World. It is not a comprehensive study, but a small book with a large hope – that a new generation will come to see the importance of this revolution for the working class and peasantry in that part of the world that suffered under the hand of colonial domination (pp.10-1).”

Many things happened during the course of 2020, most of them dispiriting if now downright terrible. However, one bright spark was the renewed realisation of the continued influence of slavery, colonialism and imperialism in shaping the contemporary world. This was evident not just in the upending of statues of slavers and symbols of hatred during the flowering of the Black Lives Matter protests but the parallel increases in the awareness of the role of scientific colonization in shaping the understanding of the past and of the relationship of observers and observed. Readers of accounts of the past and of people in others societies are challenged to consider how such knowledge was collected and created, where the knowledge is stored and how it is maintained and buttressed. Fresh emphasis will be given to attempts to approach the histories of people from, as far as can be achieved, their own perspective and without the mediating blinkers of colonialism and its pseudo-intellectual trappings. This has not been a universal movement of course, since the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and nationalist populism has provided new opportunities for ill-intentioned or ill-informed people to generate hatred of the other and reinvent new fears of having to interact with people with different skin colours on an equal basis. It is timely, then, for Vijay Prashad’s book, first published in New Delhi in 2017, to have the opportunity to spread its message of the universalism of the events of the October Revolution. Around the world, people in countries suffering colonisation took heart at the thought that freedom might be possible as a result of the actions taken and the ideology that inspired it. In 12 chapters, mostly quite short and illustrated with photos and some formatting issues, Prashad provides an overview of the reception to October from Latin America to Southeast Asia, including little-known events (little-known to me, anyway) from Mongolia and South Africa to the role of arts and literature and, fundamentally, gender relations.

The relationship between Communist ideology and freedom from colonialism was not, of course, a straightforward one and the contradictions between them that emerged between them helped explain the failure of the Revolution to spread around the world. Prashad explains the issue in this way:

“Lenin warned that if the communists did build the confidence of the people, then they would only weaken any popular unity against imperialist intervention In the anti-colonial struggles, the communists had to be with the people. That was paramount. But to be with the people did not mean to adopt a populist politics – to be the ventriloquist’s dummy that says whatever social views the people hold (p.81).”

When revolutions did occur, of course, it was communism that most often provided the means of uniting disparate groups of people in the absence of a widespread sense of nationalism and when their religions did not support such actions (this was different in the cases of some Islamic revolutions). Yet the poison of nationalism, when it was present, could bring about the end of any revolutionary movement, as it did when the anti-Vietnamese paranoia of the Khmers Rouges prevented proper self-examination and the ending of the movement by invasion (this is not to justify what happened in Cambodia). Nevertheless, it is the idea of the Red Flag as a symbol, perhaps shorn of some or all of its ideological ballast, that continues to inspire people around the world. “Who carries this red flag? Brave women and men who believe in a cause that is greater than their own self-interest, who believe that whatever the errors made over the course of the past century, the dream of socialism remains alive and well (p.131).” Even these words will inspire fury in millions, as the extraordinary political discourse of the contemporary USA demonstrates. As people rail against the force that brought them the weekend, freedom of association and the minimum wage, perhaps (to be kind) because they do not know their own history, others will seek to look above the yoke and dream of a better world – and, after dreaming, organize.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, February 2021

Review of Brown’s The World According to Xi

The World According to Xi

Kerry Brown

London and New York, NY: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2018.

ISBN: 978-1-718831-328-5

IX + 147 pp.

One thing that does seem to be clear about the rise to prominence of Xi Jinping – who is now part of the Chinese constitution, so spectacular has been his rise – is the extent to which he has worked enduringly and at length to establish the legitimacy that he now enjoys. He was born into Communist aristocracy, with his father Xi Zhongxun having been a military colleague of Mao Zedong since the 1930s and vice premier with special responsibility for culture up to 1961, when he fell from grace as a result of a dispute over the appropriate interpretation of a novel that year. Xi Jinping was separated almost completely from his father over the next couple of decades during his term of house arrest and, instead, ploughed his own furrow during the Cultural Revolution period. Xi was obliged to live the life of a peasant for much of this time, including a spell living in a cave in Shaanxi province’s remote Yan’an region, which represented another potent parallel with the life of Mao. Xi apparently recognised the importance of eradicating poverty among the poor rural people of China and he has returned to these rural roots several times in the years since.

This early part of his life, before he began the bureaucratic duties that ensured he qualified for promotion up through the Communist Party, enabled Xi to become known officially or unofficially, as a ‘peasant emperor,’ as a humble ‘pig farmer’ and even, extraordinarily, to be labelled by Lee Kuan Yew as ‘Asia’s Nelson Mandela.’ Consequently, despite the myth-making that tends to accompany the rise of any leader of one of the world’s great powers, Xi Jinping has put in the hours and the hard work to provide a genuine kernel of truth to be surmounted by the carapace of myth. It is difficult to imagine that he could have secured his position and his power leading into the foreseeable future without such a basis of genuine groundedness in the contemporary history of China. This matters, brown argues in this insight-filled book, not so much because it is of interest to Chinese people themselves (whose attitude is “… as long as they get the strong, rich country and the material prosperity that flows from this, then they tolerate the Party’s eccentric belief system (p.45)”) so much as it matters to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, who judge each other’s legitimacy in a way “… much as medieval Latin created a common language across a fragmented Europe for members of an elite who would have otherwise been unable to speak to each other easily (ibid.).”

One of the principal results of this demonstration of legitimacy is that it has enabled Xi Jinping Thought to be recognised as part of the Chinee Communist ideology which, together, is a somewhat syncretic approach to the human condition:

“At the end of 2017, on paper at least, the Communist Party of China believes in Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Three Represents, Scientific Development and Xi Jinping Thought. This is a complex menu to carry around in one’s head. Mao Zedong Thought is relatively easy to describe – the ‘Sinification’ of Marxism so that it accords to Chinese national characteristics. Deng Xiaoping Theory is the adoption of market socialism, basically the acceptance of a more pragmatic form of Marxism-Leninism. The Three Represents and Scientific Development are simple developments from Deng’s time. The first allowed entrepreneurs from the non-state sector to enter the Party, while the second aimed for a more balanced, people-centred growth rate. Xi Jinping Thought occupies a space somewhere in the great Chinese communist ideological tradition that is based on these core thoughts (pp.47-8).”

The nature of this thought is based on four main pillars relating to progress in the country: comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society; deepening reform; governing the nation according to law and governing the party (pp.53-62). These pillars, as they have been further explicated in other documents, indicate both the continuing central role of the state in Chinese society and, at the same time, acknowledge its limit in achieving the first priority of achieving a moderately prosperous country. That is why the third and fourth priorities are present when they would not have been seen to be necessary in a western state: the country is to be ruled by the CCP and its laws and the leadership will govern the CCP appropriately.

The success of Xi Jinping and his administration has coincided with and to some extent caused the growth of China as a global power. Brown observes that, should any international or global crisis arise, it is not now possible to imagine that it could be tackled without any involvement from Xi and China, whether it is North Korea, the Middle East or Africa, since China now has interests around the world. He further notes that it is China’s right finally to be recognised on the world scene after having suffered such humiliations at the hands of foreign powers from the beginning of the modern age:

“No one outside China has any right, moral or otherwise, to deny the nation Xi leads its moment of fulfilment. It should also be a cause of global celebration that a country once riddled with and crippled by poverty, disease and discord is now stable, wealthy, healthy and a contributor rather than a taker (p.138).”

Although a comparatively short book in a field in which most authors see the need to incorporate several hundred pages more of additional material. Nevertheless, he has identified the principal issues and provided a convincing explanation for when explanations are necessary and justifications when those are necessary. If, as is probably the case for most readers, you only have one book on Xi Jinping and contemporary Chinese politics, then this could well be the one.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, November 2019

Review of Joseph Y.S. Cheng (ed.)’s The Use of Mao and the Chongqing Model

Cheng, Joseph Y.S., ed., The Use of Mao and the Chongqing Model, The Journal of Shinawatra University, Vol.3, No.1 (Jan-Apr, 2016), pp.53-5.

The Use of Mao and the Chongqing Model
Joseph Y.S. Cheng, editor
Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2015
ISBN: 978-962-937-240-8
XIX + 331 pp.

Chongqing is one of China’s largest cities and, since most of China’s dramatic industrialization and poverty reduction has taken place in cities, it is one of the sites of rapid modernization and economic development. That development has featured a variant of the Factory Asia paradigm, which is based on export-oriented, import substituting, intensive manufacturing with competitiveness based on low labour costs. Those low labour costs are achieved by drawing people from agriculture into industry through better wages and, after the Lewisian point of equalization of supply and demand for labour is passed, through repression of workers’ rights and exploitation through permitting a parallel workforce of illegal or unregistered migrant workers. This paradigm is often successful in achieving its goals but it is likely to be time-limited in effect as it triggers the Middle Income Trap. It is also inimical to the desire for equality of treatment promised by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology which many millions of Chinese people still hold to be important. Consequently, there is scope for differences in approach from the application of the Factory Asia paradigm by enacting policies within a city that tackle the corruption that inevitably attends rapid capitalist development while reducing market failures by providing good quality low cost housing and promotion of microenterprise start-ups to help provide employment to rural migrants and university graduates who might otherwise have had to leave. One result of this was to attract 200,000 of the half a million Foxconn jobs that had been located in Shenzhen. The concept was: “Chongqing provided cheap public rental housing to Foxconn workers. This allowed it to break away from the ‘global labor arbitrage’ pattern and re-embed transnational capital in society (Zhao, 2012).”

This was always likely to be a problematic approach because of the forces lined up against just such an idea: “ … a powerful hegemonic bloc transnational capital, domestic coastal export industries, and pro-capitalist state officials – as well as neoliberal media, intellectual leaders, and their middle class followers – [which] continues to block any substantial efforts at re-orienting the Chinese development path (ibid.).” Bo Xilai, mayor of Chongqing, attempted to enlist the support of the people of the city by the changhong campaign of singing red songs. Songs, that is, that are associated either historically or ideologically with the person of Mao Zedong, who is described as both the Lenin and Stalin of China. It is quite clear that the relationship between the CCP and Mao and his legacy is both complicated and evolving. Mao has never been repudiated but he has been found culpable of some mistakes. As Sebastian Veg writes in this volume (237-75): “… the 1981 ‘Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party,’ … distinguished among five periods: the pre-1949 and 1949-56 periods, during which the line of the Party and Mao’s leadership are deemed ‘correct,’ the 1956-66 decade, marked by some errors, the responsibility for which is shared by Mao and the collective leadership, and the ‘Cultural revolution decade’ of 1966-76, which is entirely condemned, including Mao’s role. Finally, the post-Mao era was, unsurprisingly, endorsed (Veg, 2015).”

The figure of Mao remains quite capable of stirring controversy and the use of his personality through the changhong campaign to challenge policies endorsed by the CCP might well have provoked an official response. Bo Xilai’s campaign brought him considerable levels of political success (he would scarcely have become mayor of Chongqing if he had not had some measure of personal ambition and determination) and undoubtedly caused him to attract a number of enemies, especially as the result of the Strike the Black anti-corruption campaign. In the central paper of this volume, editor Joseph Y.S. Cheng (pp.181-211) describes Bo’s success in terms of living environment and housing, transport network, afforestation, safety as well as law and order and health services. However, it is evident that other authors take a different view, perhaps cynically assuming that the whole campaign was just a smoke and mirrors attempt to propel Bo to his political goals. In any case, Bo’s world began to unravel after falling out with key Strike the Black ally Wen Qiang. Just before Chinese New Year in January, 2012, Bo had his Politburo membership suspended while his wife, the celebrity lawyer Gu Kailai, was indicted for the ‘intentional homicide’ of the British businessperson Neil Heywood. Heywood had lived an unusual life cultivating contacts in numerous agencies of the Chinese government in his successful attempt to move from being a teacher of English to a consultant to companies with non-specific contacts with Britain’s MI6 spy service. Heywood was found dead and his corpse cremated without a proper examination having taken place (Watts & Branigan, 2012). A special investigator subsequently announced numerous charges against Bo Xilai and tried to obtain political asylum with the Americans in Chengdu while Chinese security forces surrounded the building. There had been rumours of torture employed during the Strike the Black campaign and son Gua Gua seemed to be enjoying an exceptionally affluent lifestyle while studying at the University of Oxford (ibid.). It was enough and Bo was finished.
What then, does the study of the confluence of the image of Mao and the Chongqing model teach us about contemporary China? One thing that is clear is that the CCP maintains a pretty strong grip on the levers of state power. Émilie Tran (pp.213-35) writes that pro-Maoist websites were swiftly closed down and “… the authorities removed actual signs (posters and inscriptions on walls) and online testimonies, practically overnight. The next day, the residents of Chongqing woke up from their ‘Red’ fever in a freshly harmonized Chongqing. In that heavy atmosphere of suspicion, they behaved as if nothing had happened, being cautious not to mention anything related to Bo Xilai and his ‘Red culture movement’ to anyone (Tran, 2015).” An informant observes that it would not have been so easy to silence the Red Guards and this is symptomatic of contemporary China, according to a consensus of papers in this collection.
Mao has become inextricably linked with the Cultural Revolution and the continued silence about that period remains an obstacle to genuine rather than inflicted harmony – Bo Xilai himself was once a Read Guard and was subsequently imprisoned for five years for no properly explained reason.

Indeed, the CCP has provided some guidance as to how Mao should be considered in the future through sanctioned feature films which, as Veg (2015) observes, portray him in more humanistic terms dealing with a wide range of the great women and men of modern Chinese history in a vista from which the masses appear to have been deleted. This is both an expression of the neoliberalism of the political elite and, also, an attempt to sever the link between Mao and the people for the purpose of further legitimizing the present regime in its current manifestation. By doing so, it is presumably the case that it will become less possible for populist leaders to obtain broad support through the use of Mao imagery and ideology.

As is common with collections of academic papers of this sort, the extent to which authors actually address both parts of the title varies from case to case. As mentioned previously, the central paper is by Cheng himself and it is this one that most closely outlines the various themes explored. However, many of the other papers do make interesting contributions in their own right and it is noteworthy that most of them appear to have been published by academic journals since the time of the original conference of 2012. The production standards are good and the quality of editing more than acceptable. It is unlikely that the book will be of widespread interest but for scholars of contemporary Chinese society and economy it has a great deal to offer.

References

Cheng, J.Y.S. (2015). The ‘Chongqing model’ – what it means to China today, in Cheng, J.Y.S., ed. The use of Mao and the Chongqing model (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press), 181-211.

Tran, E. (2015). In the red 2.0 – online reactivation of Maoist mobilization methods and propaganda, in Cheng, J.Y.S., ed. The use of Mao and the Chongqing model (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press), 213-35.

Veg, S. (2015). Propaganda and pastiche – visions of Mao in The founding of the republic, Beginning of the great revival and Let the bullets fly, in Cheng, J.Y.S., ed. The use of Mao and the Chongqing model (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press), 237-75.

Watts, J. and Branigan, T. (2012). Neil Heywood case: death, corruption, intrigue … the story so far. The Guardian (April 20th), available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/21/neil-heywood-murder-gu-kailai.

Zhao, Y. (2012). The struggle for socialism in China: the Bo Xilai saga and beyond, Monthly Review, 64(5), 1-17.

John Walsh, Shinawatra University

Review of Douzinas and Zizek: The Idea of Communism

After the revelations of the outrages of the Cultural Revolution and the Gulag system, together with the 1989 collapse of the Soviet system, it seemed that Communism as a political force was ended. Even those who had proclaimed themselves Communists deserted what must surely be a sinking ship. The proclamation of the end of history was, fundamentally, the proclamation that Communism had finally been dispatched and the liberal or neoliberal consensus established around the world.

Read the full review here.

Review of Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants

Chinese society has traditionally depended to a considerable extent upon the work of the philosopher Confucius (Gong-Zu to the Chinese). In something of a simplification of his work, Confucianism is presented as a series of relationships which govern every action an individual can perform within society and which regulate every aspect of life because Chinese, living in a heavily populated state, are constantly in interaction with other people. There are five such relationships and they cover spousal relationships, parents and children, ruler and subjects and so forth.

Read the full review here.

Review of Zizek Presents Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism

Written and published in 1920 in the midst of the threat of invasion by dozens of counter-revolutionary powers and with the dislocation and desperation of the October Revolution scarcely having settled, Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism was a direct retort to the work of Karl Kautsky. Kautsky, though little known today, was then a figure of some power and authority who was the leading German social democrat of the day: Kautsky’s arguments were that a revolution could be effected within the existing parliamentary democracy, that there would be no need to pre-empt revolutionary action before it spontaneously erupted and that no violence or terror should be used against the counter-revolutionaries.

Read the full review here.

Review of Mackay’s The Domino That Stood

Participants in the acts of history can have a unique perspective on events and provide details that would pass by outsiders. However, it is important when evaluating the accounts that they provide to take into account the biases that might have influenced those accounts and to analyse their relationship with objective assessments (if such things are possible) of the past.

Read the full review here.

Review of Chynoweth’s Hunting Terrorists in the Jungle

I will preface this review by observing that I have always been grateful that no government of my country has ever forced (or even asked) me to hold a gun for them and, also, that no one has directly shot at me (although I have been in a few places where guns have been fired in anger). I am aware that one of the reasons for this is the sacrifices made by those who went before me, not least those who were obliged like my father to undergo national service in the years following the Second World War.

Read the full review here.

Review of Past Continuous by Nguyen Khai

The achievements of the revolutionary war in Vietnam include not just self-determination after a century of oppression by foreign colonialists but the freeing of people to fulfil their potential and the provision of state support for education, health, childcare, and care for the elderly. In other words, just as is the case for most modern household technology, it freed women from the tyranny of domestic servitude.

Read the full review here.

What Is Post-Colonialism?

Post-colonialism is a period of time occurring after colonization of a country by a foreign power has ended. Depending in part on the nature of the decolonization process, the immediate post-colonial period may be more or less traumatic for the people involved.

Read the full article here.