[Marxism] China Confronts Contradictions Between Marxism and Markets

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China Confronts Contradictions Between Marxism and Markets
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 5, 2005

BEIJING, Dec. 4 -- The Communist Party has launched a campaign among
political leaders and senior academics to modernize Chinese Marxism,
seeking to reconcile increasingly obvious contradictions between the
government's founding ideology and its broad free-market reforms.

The campaign involves the allocation of millions of dollars to
produce new translations of Marxist literature and to update texts
for secondary school and university students obliged to study the
official philosophy, officials said. In addition, the campaign will
promote more research on how Marxism can be redefined to inform
China's policies even as private enterprise increasingly becomes the
basis of its economy, they explained.

The undertaking, which coincides with an 18-month campaign to
reinvigorate the party rank and file, seems designed as a response to
frequent complaints about the chasm between official discourse in
Beijing -- emphasizing "socialism with Chinese characteristics" --
and the growing reality of often unbridled capitalism in which party
officials are eager partners.

Unease over this gap has become particularly apparent among
university students, who often chafe at their required classes on
Marxist theory. A prominent university's party secretary recently
told a visitor that his school had resolved the problem by simply
teaching traditional Chinese philosophy during the time set aside for
the study of Marxism.

...

Despite the complaints, Hu stuck to economic reform in the plan. But
his emphasis on renewing Marxist thought could be seen as a bow in
the direction of those who feel China has lost its way.

In any case, a senior diplomat suggested, most of the argument within
the party arises in the context of factions competing for power and
patronage, rather than genuine doctrinal differences. In particular,
followers of former president Jiang have maneuvered to retain their
positions while followers of Hu are jockeying to get in, he
explained, and the arguments over reforms are mainly weapons in that
battle for influence.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005
/12/04/AR2005120400982_pf.html>


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