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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Fwd: [** MAOIST_REVOLUTION **] China: Class Struggle, the Nobel Prize–Struggle for Socialism or Capitalist Reform?



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From: john reed <reed2link@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:29 PM
Subject: [** MAOIST_REVOLUTION **] China: Class Struggle, the Nobel Prize–Struggle for Socialism or Capitalist Reform?
To: maoist_revolution <MAOIST_REVOLUTION@yahoogroups.com>


http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/china-class-struggle-the-nobel-prize-struggle-for-socialism-vs-capitalist-reform/

[This article describing the views and experience of contemporary
Maoist activists in China was received recently by a friend of
Frontlines, who forwarded it to us.  Since most of the information
given has not been available outside China, we post it in the interest
of enabling people to see and understand how the struggles of
revolutionaries have continued after the reversal of socialism in
China.--Frontlines ed.]

The Trial of Zhao Dong-min and China's Political Reform

by Liu Bai

The legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party has been challenged from
both the Right and the Left. These challenges have become more open
and vocal. The Right has been pushing for political reform that will
change China's Constitution to allow a multi-party Western style
democracy. This is the movement behind the 08 Charter. Liu Xiao Bo,
who was recently given the Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the leaders of
this movement.

The Left has rallied to support Mao Zedong Thought. The growing number
of memorials held in September in many parts of the country on the
34th anniversary of Mao's death demonstrated their strength. In these
memorials the masses and their leaders demanded that Yuan Teng-fei be
stripped of his Party membership. Yuan has been openly denouncing the
Chinese Communist Party, socialism, and viciously attaching Chairman
Mao. The Communist Party is trying to find a way out through some kind
of political reform. The arrest and recent trial of Zhao Dong-min has
led to support from the Left and has further intensified the crisis
faced by the Communist Party.

Zhao Dong-min is a Communist Party member and has a law degree from a
corresponding school (of the Party School) in Shaanxi. Before his
arrest in August 2009 he worked for many years providing legal
services to many workers to resolve issues such as unpaid pensions and
loss of other benefits. He did this as a volunteer without any
compensation. Zhao also served as the temporary coordinator of the Mao
Zedong Thought Study Group in Xian, Shaanxi until his arrest.

Zhao's work was to protect workers' fundamental rights according to
China's Constitution, the Party Charter and the union's laws and
regulations. He investigated cases where enterprises were sold
illegally and deprived workers of benefits due to them. Zhao Dong-min
believes that the unions in factories should play a more active role
in protecting workers' rights and should make sure that management
does not take advantage of the workers illegally.

On June 15 and then on June 25 of 2009 Zhao took some workers to visit
the Shaanxi Federation of Trade Unions and submitted an open letter
drafted by Zhao on behalf of more than 160 workers from more than 10
enterprises. The open letter – from Shaanxi retired and laid-off
workers– to the Shaanxi Federation of Trade Unions reported on the
sale of three State owned restaurants. The Shaanxi Tourist Group
Corporation sold assets totaling 680 million RMB of these restaurants
cheaply. According to Zhao it violated the interests of the State as
well as workers who worked in these restaurants. When Zhao and the
workers brought the open letter to the Shaanxi Federation of Trade
Unions and asked for support they were at first well received by the
Federation.

Then on August 19, 2009 Zhao Dong-min was illegally and secretly
arrested by the local authority in Shaanxi and has been detained until
now. On September 25, 2010 the Shaanxi Federation of Trade Unions sued
Zhao Dong-min for "disturbing the public order." On the opening day of
the trial several people from Henan and other provinces held a
demonstration outside of the courthouse. They were quickly taken away.
There were more than 120 police cars and 1000 policemen stationed
outside of the courthouse. Zhao's father and older brother were among
the few people that were allowed into the courthouse.

Zhao's father wrote a long letter afterwards saying  that during the
trial the Federation grossly distorted the facts. Zhao's father is 76
years old and has been a Communist Party member for nearly 60 years.
In his letter Zhao's father also told the sad story of his son's
family since the arrest. Zhao Dong-min's wife fell ill from worrying
about him and later died. The Shaanxi authority repeatedly refused
requests from the family for Zhao's temporary release to see his dying
wife. Zhao Dong-min's two sons are now without parents. The older son
has suffered chronic headaches and the younger son is only three years
old.

While waiting for the outcome of the trial to be announced on October
25th many articles appeared online supporting Zhao. The authors of
these articles asked many legitimate questions. They said that Zhao
Dong-min was doing the work that should have been done by the unions.
Instead of showing its gratitude to Zhao, the union took him to court.
Such injustice has angered many people, especially the workers.

Some people in the legal profession have also spoken openly against
the Shaanxi Federation of Trade Unions and the local authority in
Xian, Shaanxi. A support group was first formed in Beijing including
several old Party members and the heads of two well-known Leftist
websites (the Utopia Website and the Worker's Study Website[1]).

Then a group named Yu-Tai initiated mass support for Zhao.  Within a
short time support groups from different parts of the country were
formed and sent in support letters. Many of these letters were signed
by the workers, the unemployed as well as people in other occupations.

By October 10 support letters have come from groups in Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangdong, Shandong, Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi, Ningxia, Hebei,
Shaanxi, cities of Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Shenzhen, Jilin,
Harbin, Luoyang, Changzhou and others.

The letters listed their demands. The demands stated in the letter
from the Hunan support group are quite representative. They are as
follows:

  1. We ask that comrade Zhao Dong-min be released immediately and
the financial loss he has suffered be compensated.
  2. We ask the local authority in Shaanxi to apologize to Zhao
Dong-min and to the people of our nation as a whole. The local
authority needs to admit the mistakes it made and guarantee that no
such unreasonable incident will ever occur again.
  3. We ask the central government to launch an investigation into
the departments and those in charge in the Shaanxi provincial
government and to identify and discharge those officials that were
responsible.
  4. We ask the Shaanxi Federation of Trade Unions will use this
opportunity to start its reform. It could serve as an experiment for
the national "political reform." The reform could help unions reach a
breakthrough ending its financial dependence on government. When
unions receive their financial support from the workers' dues, then
they will be clear who they should be serving.
  5. In the spirit of "free association" guaranteed by the
Constitution, workers should have the right to organize their own
unions and elect their own union representatives.

Among the demands (requests) of different groups, the demand for the
Party to take away Yuan Teng-fei's membership was also included.

On October 12th Bai Young wrote an article entitled, "Zhao Dong-min's
Incident and the Unity of the Masses." In this article Bai Young
quoted a well-know author, Tien Zhong-guo, and said that the arrest
and trial of Zhao Dong-min reflected the current struggle between the
two classes, between the two lines, and between the two roads. Bai
Young then said that Zhao Dong-min's case is the focal point in the
struggle between those who believe in revisionism and capitalism and
those who believe in Marxism and socialism. It is an important
political struggle that clearly divides people along the two lines.

Bai Young also quoted Zhao Dong-min and said the Zhao wants to be the
match that will light the dry wood to burn the dark, corrupted,
selfish, and greedy capitalist reformers of the past 30 some years.
These reformers have led China to extreme political corruption, gross
social injustice, and the collapse of our beliefs. Some of those in
control of the political power have become reactionaries in opposition
to the broad masses of the Chinese people. Bai Young quoted the title
of Mao's article  "A Single Spark Can Cause a Prairie Fire," and said
that Zhao has served the people and is now willing to become the spark
to light the dry wood that will burn darkness and corruption. He said
that the responses all over the country in support of Zhao show that
the Chinese people who have suffered so much in the past 30 years
after the revisionists restored capitalism have awakened and have
begun to revolt. From now on the reactionaries will have no peace! Bai
Young said that all the people who support Zhao have done so according
to China's Constitution, and Party members who support Zhao are
obeying the Communist Party Charter and upholding the flag of Mao
Zedong.

The Chinese Communist Party, therefore, must reconcile the
contradiction it faces. On the one hand, the Constitution continues to
claim that China is a socialist country, and the Party Charter
continues to claim that the Party upholds the principles of Marxism,
Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought. However, these claims do not reflect
reality. The Right sees that the capitalist economic reform is now
complete and there needs to be a corresponding capitalist political
structure. They are calling for a political reform that will eliminate
Marxism and socialism from the Constitution and make the political
structure more in line with China's reality. Such a reform will free
them from the remaining political restrictions.

On the other hand the Left wants the Party to get rid off those in the
Party who support capitalist reform. The Left, of course, knows that
would be practically everybody in power. However, the case of Zhao
Dong-min is forcing the authorities to either support a real communist
who serves the interests of the workers or support those who arrested
Zhao and put him on trial. In the letters sent from different
organized groups we can see that this is a head-on confrontation. Many
people have said that this is a test to see who are the real
communists and who are the fake communists.

Then another article entitled "The Political Reform of the Capitalist
Reformers, even if it Succeeds, is a Dead End Street" by Lao Feng
appeared. According to Lao Feng the political reform of the
capitalists is near complete. He wants people to pay attention to the
reform and the direction in which it is headed. He says that the
reformers propose changes in the Constitution to enlarge the power of
the People's Congress. Some people regard this change as positive, but
Lao Feng says that the People's Congress has already been
fundamentally changed. Delegates to the People's Congress now are all
elites, business owners, and bureaucrats. He asks, "How can any of
them represent the interests of ordinary people?" Therefore, what is
the use of enlarging the number of delegates to the People's Congress?

On a positive note Lao Feng says that the political reform advocated
by the Right will eventually fail. The reason is that the capitalist
economic reform has already failed, but the Right is blaming the
failure on the outdated political system. If the Right succeeds in
their political reform, the capitalist system will continue to falter
and by then they will have nothing else to blame.

The Left in China is using the Constitution, the Party Charter and the
rules and regulations of the union to challenge the authority of the
Party. They want to protect Zhao Dong-min, a real communist who serves
the people and use it as a test case to show the difference between
real communists and fake communists. The dichotomy between the
Constitution, the Party Charter and the union's laws and regulations
and China's reality will provide a lot of room for the Left to carry
on legal struggles.

Online readers have left many comments and they are most interesting.
Some of them are really long. Here are a few short examples.

   * Unions are the running dogs of the government and the traitors of workers.
   * Zhao Dong-min is a people's lawyer.
   * Firmly support Zhao Dong-min. We want justice for Zhao Dong-min.
Firmly defeat modern revisionism. Firmly defeat the capitalists in
power.
   * When the bourgeoisie have their democracy and freedom, the
workers and the peasants lose our democracy and freedom. This is the
truth.
   * The economic base determines the superstructure. The new
bourgeoisie have established their economic power and they must demand
a corresponding political power. A new struggle has begun.
   * The delegates to the People's Congress from our village are all
business owners. I have heard that if you have money, you can buy a
delegate seat.
   * The reform is hanging a sheep head but selling dog meat. After
the political reform there is no need to hang a sheep head anymore. We
are told to be harmonious and not to struggle.  The rich are getting
richer and the poor poorer. The oppressed people must unite and fight
back.
   * We have reached a point that we can endure no more.
   * I support the movement of protecting our Constitution. All
people who oppose the oppression of the bourgeoisie should come and
join the movement. For all China's proletariat and those truly believe
in Mao Zedong Thought it is time to stand up and urgently demand Yuan
Teng-fei's Party membership be taken away and Zhao Dong-min's rights
be protected.

Among the reader's comments there was a report of an extreme case of
abuse of power by a contracting company in Sichuan that caused the
death of a migrant worker and another worker to be wounded. This is a
government construction project contracted to a private company to
rebuild houses damaged during the earthquake. This happened in Chengdu
around 6:00 in the afternoon of October 11. A group of workers came to
the site of the construction project to ask the contracting company to
pay the wages due to them. As a rule this kind of construction project
withholds 80% of workers' wages until the project is completed.
However, the workers usually receive some cash to cover their living
expenses. This company promised workers a weekly cash payment of 200
RMB, but they only paid the workers 100 RMB in ten or 15 days. The
workers who were at the construction site asked that their living
expenses be paid but the management sent out 4-5 goons and started to
stab workers with their knives. A worker named Lei was stabbed many
times, and when he arrived in the hospital he was declared dead.
Another worker was wounded and is currently out of danger.

Workers went to the hospital to retrieve Lei's body and then brought
his body to where he was stabbed and held a memorial. Lei's sister was
also there. Workers circled around Lei's body to prevent it from being
taken away. Then at 3:00 in the morning 100 policemen came in their
protective gear, grabbed Lei's body and drove away. The workers and
Lei's sister tried to block the police but were overwhelmed by the
their large numbers. The next morning a large number of workers and
some city residents gathered at the intersections of some key roads
and blocked  traffic until noon.

Cases of grossly injustice like this one occur every day at many
locations in China. Indeed people are standing up and the
reactionaries will have no peace!

[1] This website was closed down by the government in the summer for
its role in supporting the Honda strike workers.


------------------------------------

Red Star - Nepal
http://krishnasenonline.org/epaper.php?pub=87

Unified Communist Party Of Nepal(Maoist)
http://www.cpnmintl.org/

Unified Communist Party Of Nepal (Maoist)
http://www.ucpnm.org/english/index.php

Nepalese Solidarity Forum, Switzerland
http://www.insofswiss.info/

Lal Salaam Canada Nepal Solidarity Group
http://lalsalaamcanada.blogspot.com/

Philippine Revolution
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/

Revolution in South Asia - US based solidarity with Maoist Revolutionary forces
http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/

REVOLUTION http://www.rwor.org

Indian Revolution
http://www.bannedthought.net/
* Communist Party of India (MAOIST)

World People's Resistance Movement (Britain)
E-mail: wprm_britain@yahoo.co.uk
Web: http://www.wprmbritain.org

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY (CANADA)
http://www.pcr-rcp.ca ENGLISH
http://www.pcr-rcp.ca/fr/ FRENCH (Français)

http://www.lionesto.net/

Italian section:
Maoist Communist Party Of Italy
http://www.prolcom.altervista.org

Guerre Popolari (People's War)
http://www.prolcom.altervista.org/guerre%20popolari.htm

Maoist Communist Party of Italy led - Red Block Youth blog
http://www.redblock-it.blogspot.com

Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/index.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/index.htm

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRAN(MARXIST_LENINIST_MAOIST)
http://www.sarbedaran.org/ Farsi
http://www.sarbedaran.org/language/index.htm  English

Communist(Maoist)Party of Afghanistan (English)
http://www.sholajawid.org/

A World To Win AND R.I.M.
http://www.aworldtowin.org

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

No comments:

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