Re: Marxist analysis of the PRC

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Taylor Ian Christopher wrote:

> My question is this: can anyone recommend any books/articles that look at
> the PRC through a Marxian lens i.e explain post-Mao (or even during Mao)
> China using class as an analytical tool? Bettelheim's letter of
> resignation from the Franco-China Friendship Society is one of the few
> class-based critiques of post-Mao China. I would therefore be
> grateful for any suggestions (and where to find such books if possible).
>

Louis: I have a paper on China's "neo-NEP" written by a Joseph Medley, an
economics professor from Maine. I will post it. You might also check out an
article that appeared in the Monthly Review a few months ago by Bob Somebody,
from New Paltz. He spent a year in China and claims that resistance to
the neo-NEP takes shape in nostalgia for Mao.

But I think you've touched on a real problem. I asked an old friend, a
Maoist who was in the Revolutionary Union in 1969 and who has not evolved
one inch forward, if he could think of a Marxist analysis of China. I
think he recommended Edgar Snow.

The problem is that China studies on the left have for too long been the
province of Maoists. China is just too important an area of the world to
be left to thinkers who lack nuance and sophistication.

When you've accumulated a list of such books and articles, it would be
most helpful to post them to the list.




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