Are Chinese Communist Rulers Really Communists? You Bet Your Life!
I cite the Wikipedia's entry for the Communist Party of China. The article has lots of live links, and lots of footnotes.
The Chinese leaders are adamant about their commitment to Communism. I think we should take them seriously. Taiwan does.
Power is based on legitimacy. When power is continuous, the government rules in terms of this traditional legitimacy. The legitimacy of the Communist Party of China rests on its continuity with Mao's Party. This is Tiananmen Square.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The CPC is the sole governing party of China, although it coexists alongside 8 other legal parties that make up the United Front. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. The party grew quickly, and by 1949 the CPC had driven the Kuomintang (KMT) government from mainland China after a 10-year civil war, thus leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The CPC is currently the world's second largest political party with a membership of 87.79 million as of 2015.
The CPC is organized on the basis of democratic centralism, a principle conceived by Russian Marxist theoretician Vladimir Lenin which entails democratic and open discussion on policy on the condition of unity in upholding the agreed upon policies. The highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. When the National Congress is not in session, the Central Committee is the highest body, but since the body meets normally only once a year, most duties and responsibilities are vested in the Politburo and its Standing Committee. The party's leader holds the offices of General Secretary (responsible for civilian party duties), Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) (responsible for military affairs) and state president (a largely ceremonial position). Through these posts the party leader is the country's paramount leader. The current party leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress (held in 2012).
The CPC is still committed to communist thought. According to the party constitution the CPC adheres to Marxism--Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, socialism with Chinese characteristics, Deng Xiaoping Theory, Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. The official explanation for China's economic reforms is that the country is in the primary stage of socialism, a developmental stage similar to the capitalist mode of production. The planned economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the current economic system, on the basis that "Practice is the Sole Criterion for the Truth" (i.e. the planned economy was deemed inefficient). . . .
The CPC continues to have relations with non-ruling communist and workers' parties and attends international communist conferences, most notably the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Delegates of foreign communist parties still visit China; in 2013, for instance, the General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Jeronimo de Sousa, personally met with Liu Qibao, a member of the Central Politburo. In another instance, Pierre Laurent, the National Secretary of the French Communist Party (FCP), met with Liu Yunshan, a Politburo Standing Committee member. In 2014 Xi Jinping, the CPC General Secretary, personally met with Gennady Zyuganov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), to discuss party-to-party relations. While the CPC retains contact with major parties such as the PCP, FCP, the CPRF, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the Communist Party of Brazil, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Spain, the party retains relations with minor communist and workers' parties, such as the Communist Party of Australia, the Workers Party of Bangladesh, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist--Leninist) (Barua), the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, the Workers' Party of Belgium, the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Dominican Workers' Party and the Party for the Transformation of Honduras, for instance. In recent years, noting the self-reform of the European social democratic movement in the 1980s and 1990s, the CPC "has noted the increased marginalization of West European communist parties."
Since the collapse of Eastern European communist regimes in 1989--1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CPC has emphasized its party-to-party relations with the ruling parties of the remaining socialist states. While the CPC still maintains party-to-party relations with non-ruling communist parties around the world, it has since the 1980s established relations with several non-communist parties, most notably with ruling parties of one-party states (whatever their ideology), dominant parties in democratic systems (whatever their ideology), and social democratic parties. . . .
The CPC has retained close relations with the remaining socialist states still espousing communism: Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam and their respective ruling parties. It spends a fair amount of time analyzing the situation in the remaining socialist states, trying to reach conclusions as to why these states survived when so many did not, following the collapse of the Eastern European socialist states in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In general, the analyses of the remaining socialist states and their chances of survival have been positive, and the CPC believes that the socialist movement will be revitalized sometime in the future.
The ruling party which the CPC is most interested in is the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). In general the CPV is considered a model example of socialist development in the post-Soviet era. Chinese analysts on Vietnam believe that the introduction of the Doi Moi reform policy at the 6th CPV National Congress is the key reason for Vietnam's current success.
While the CPC is probably the organization with most access to North Korea, writing about North Korea is tightly circumscribed. The few reports accessible to the general public are those about North Korean economic reforms. While Chinese analysts of North Korea tend to speak positively of North Korea in public, in official discussions they show much disdain for North Korea's economic system, the cult of personality which pervades society, the Kim family, the idea of hereditary succession in a socialist state, the security state, the use of scarce resources on the Korean People's Army and the general impoverishment of the North Korean people. There are those analysts who compare the current situation of North Korea with that of China during the Cultural Revolution. Over the years, the CPC has tried to persuade the Workers' Party of Korea (or WPK, North Korea's ruling party) to introduce economic reforms by showing them key economic infrastructure in China. For instance, in 2006 the CPC invited the WPK General Secretary Kim Jong-il to Guandong province to showcase the success economic reforms have brought China. In general, the CPC considers the WPK and North Korea to be negative examples of a communist ruling party and socialist state.
There is a considerable degree of interest in Cuba within the CPC. Fidel Castro, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), is greatly admired, and books have been written focusing on the successes of the Cuban Revolution. Communication between the CPC and the PCC has increased considerably since the 1990s, hardly a month going by without a diplomatic exchange. At the 4th Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee, which discussed the possibility of the CPC learning from other ruling parties, praise was heaped on the PCC. When Wu Guanzheng, a Central Politburo member, met with Fidel Castro in 2007, he gave him a personal letter written by Hu Jintao: "Facts have shown that China and Cuba are trustworthy good friends, good comrades, and good brothers who treat each other with sincerity. The two countries' friendship has withstood the test of a changeable international situation, and the friendship has been further strengthened and consolidated."
Here is the Wikpedia article on the Ideology of the Communist Party of China.
It has been argued in recent years, mainly by foreign commentators, that the Communist Party of China (CPC) does not have an ideology, and that the party organization is pragmatic and interested only in what works. This simplistic view is wrong in many ways, since official statements make it very clear the party does have a coherent worldview. For instance, Hu Jintao stated in 2012 that the Western world is "threatening to divide us" and that "the international culture of the West is strong while we are weak ... Ideological and cultural fields are our main targets". The CPC puts a great deal of effort into the party schools and into crafting its ideological message. Before the "Practice Is the Sole Criterion for the Truth" campaign, the relationship between ideology and decision-making was a deductive one, meaning that policy-making was derived from ideological knowledge. Under Deng this relationship was turned upside down, with decision-making justifying ideology and not the other way around. Lastly, Chinese policy-makers believe that one of the reasons for the dissolution of the Soviet Union was its stagnant state ideology. They therefore believe that their party ideology must be dynamic to safeguard the party's rule, unlike the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, whose ideology became "rigid, unimaginative, ossified, and disconnected from reality."
Ideals and convictions
In the article "Revolutionary Ideals are Higher than Heaven-Studying" (published in 2013), a person writing under the pen name "Autumn Stone", supports Xi Jinping's policy of strengthening the ideological conviction of party cadres, since (as the Leninist mantra goes) ideological unity leads to party unity. The writer claims "Ideals and convictions are the spiritual banners for the united struggle of a country, nation and party, wavering ideals and convictions are the most harmful form of wavering."Adhering to the ideals and convictions of the party creates a link between the party and the masses, and will let the party "gain victories wherever" it goes. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the core spiritual values of members have become more important than ever, considering the restrengthened position of world capitalism. Xi Jinping believes that wavering conviction in the party's ideals lead to increased corruption and unwanted behaviour. Exemplary members have existed before, such as Xia Minghan who said "Don't fear being beheaded, as long as one's ism is true", Yang Chao's "The heaven's are full of rain, wind and worry, for the Revolution, it is unnecessary to fear losing one's head" and Fang Zhimin's statement that "The enemy can only cut off our heads, but cannot shake our beliefs!" The author suggest that these men were incorruptible because they carried the party's ideals and convictions. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, the writer suggests, was in key parts due to the ideological wavering of officials; claiming that even Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, had acknowledged in private that communist ideals had become obsolete to him. Disintegration in the ideological arena can lead to breaches in other areas of the party's edifice, paving the way for party collapse, the author states. . . .
The CPC don't believe that they have abandoned Marxism. The party views the world as organized into two opposing camps; socialist and capitalist. They insist that socialism, on the basis of historical materialism, will eventually triumph over capitalism. In recent years, when the party has been asked to explain the capitalist globalization occurring, the party has returned to the writings of Karl Marx. Marx wrote that capitalists, in their search for profit, would travel the world in a bid to establish new international markets -- hence, its generally assumed that Marx forecasted globalization. His writings on the subject is used to justify the CPC's market reforms, since nations, according to Marx, have little choice in the matter of joining or not. Opting not to take part in capitalist globalization means losing out in the fields of economic development, technological development, foreign investment and world trade. This view is strengthened by the economic failures of the Soviet Union and of China under Mao.
Despite admitting that globalization developed through the capitalist system, the party's leaders and theorist argue that globalization is not intrinsically capitalist. The reason being that if globalization was purely capitalist, it would exclude an alternate socialist form of modernity. Globalization, as with the market economy, therefore does not have one specific class character (either socialist or capitalist) according to the party. The instance that globalization is not fixed in nature, comes from Deng's insistence that China can pursue socialist modernization by incorporating elements of capitalism.Because of this there is considerable optimism within the CPC that despite the current capitalist dominance of globalization, globalization can be turned into a vehicle supporting socialism. This event will occur through capitalism's own contradictions. These contradictions are, according to party theorist Yue Yi from the Academy of Social Sciences, "that between private ownership of the means of production and socialised production. This contradiction has manifested itself globally as the following contradictions; the contradiction between planned and regulated national economies and the unplanned and unregulated world economy; the contradiction between well-organized and scientifically managed Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and a blindly expanding and chaotic world market; the contradiction between the unlimited increase of productive capacity and the limited world market; and the contradiction between sovereign states and TNCs." It was these contradictions, argue Yue Yi, that led to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, that has caused unbalanced development and polarization, and widened the gap between rich and poor. These contradictions will lead to the inevitable demise of capitalism and the resultant dominance of socialism.
In 2006, at the 16th Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee, the CPC leadership under Hu Jintao expressed the need to create a new value system, referred to as the socialist core value system. In his speech, entitled "Resolution on Major Issues Concerning the Building of a Socialist Harmonious Society", to the 16th Plenary Session Hu Jintao stated;
"The guiding ideology of Marxism, the common ideal of the socialism with Chinese characteristics, the national spirit with patriotism as the core, the spirit of the times with reform and innovation as the core, and the socialist concept of honour and disgrace constitute the basic contents of the socialist core values system. We should persist in integrating the socialist core values system into the entire process of national education and the building of a spiritual civilization and having it run through the various aspect of the modernization drive."
Stance on religion
The CPC, as an officially atheist institution, prohibits party members from belonging to a religion. Although religion is banned for party members, personal beliefs are not held accountable. During Mao's rule, religious movements were oppressed, and religious organizations were forbidden to have contact with foreigners. All religious organizations were state-owned and not independent. Relations with foreign religious institutions were worsened when in 1947, and again in 1949, the Vatican forbade any Catholic to support a communist party. On questions of religion, Deng was more open than Mao, but the issue was left unresolved during his leadership. According to Ye Xiaowen, the former Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, "In its infancy, the socialist movement was critical of religion. In Marx's eyes, theology had become a bastion protecting the feudal ruling class in Germany. Therefore the political revolution had to start by criticizing religion. It was from this perspective that Marx said 'religion is the opium of the people'." It was because of Marx's writings that the CPC initiated anti-religious policies under Mao and Deng. The Marxist view that religion would decline as modern society emerged was proven false with the rise of Falun Gong.
The popularity of Falun Gong, and its subsequent banning by state authorities, led to the convening of a three-day National Work Conference for Religious Affairs in 1999, the highest-level gathering on religious affairs in the party's history. Jiang Zemin, who had subscribed to the classical Marxist view that religion would wither away, was forced to change his mind when he learnt that religion in China was in fact growing, not decreasing. In his concluding speech to the National Work Conference, Jiang asked the participants to find a way to make "socialism and religion adapt to each other". He added that "asking religions to adapt to socialism doesn't mean we want religious believers to give up their faith". Jiang ordered Ye Xiaowen to study the classical Marxist works in depth to find an excuse to liberalize the CPC's policy towards religion. It was discovered that Friedrich Engels had written that religion would survive as long as problems existed. With this rationale, religious organizations were given more autonomy.