Chinese Rulers’ Mao Paranoia Gets Intense With Revival of Red-Dissent

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There is a new wind of dissent blowing within China, which is seriously causing gargantuan trouble to the ruling elites of the Chinese Communist Party, as this time it’s not merely western-influenced liberal ‘democracy-seekers’, rather, a new bunch of Marxist Peking University students, who are called ‘troublemakers’ in the official parlance, carrying the banner of dissent ahead. More than nine left-wing student activists, inspired by the revolutionary ideology of late Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, have been arrested for organising and politically educating the workers. The majority of the students belong to the Peking University from where the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong against the capitalist-roader Chinese communist leadership started in 1966. The intensification of a Mao-inspired communist youth movement against the country’s ruling elite, who wear a shabby Marxist outfit to dupe the Chinese people, especially the working class and peasantry, by singing paeans to ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, which can be deciphered as unbridled capitalist exploitation under an one-party-rule, are now visibly panic-stricken as they employ their state power and press to suppress the beginning of a Cultural Revolution 2.0 about which the CPC leadership has been paranoid since 1976.

“China is ready to stay in close touch and coordination with major international economic institutions including IMF on promoting international economic cooperation and free trade, so as to inject stabilizing forces into the global economic recovery and financial markets”, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was quoted by Global Times when he met the IMF head Christine Lagarde in Beijing a few weeks ago. The pledge of the Chinese premier to promote ‘international cooperation and free trade’, despite a severe trade battle with the Donald Trump-led US, exemplifies the loyalty of the Chinese leaders towards the imperialist world order. Globally, the Chinese are increasing their capital penetration and the social-fascist leaders of China led by Xi Jinping are now increasingly turning China towards a social-imperialist country. With the building of large-scale economic corridors like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), for which China is deploying military abroad, to China’s illicit relationships with the dreaded dictators of Myanmar, Gulf monarchies and African nations exemplify what kind of opportunist, exploitative and greedy machinery that the Deng Xiaoping followers have built over time under the garb of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’.

The Chinese communists under Mao Zedong fought to establish a socialist, egalitarian and free society, which was subverted by insiders of the CPC ever since the party seized power in 1949. In the 1960s, Mao Zedong and his followers were virtually sidelined by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, when the duo usurped the power of the state and also a majority in the party’s leadership. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping wanted to establish capitalism in China under the one-party rule of the CPC and Mao Zedong and his leftwing followers, including the then defence minister and military strategist Lin Biao, opposed the move vehemently and a new revolutionary struggle for power was started by the ‘great helmsman’ of the Chinese revolution. Mao Zedong found his allies in the working class, the peasantry, the soldiers and the student-youth section. Primarily, Mao wrote posters and asked the students to take the message of the revolution to the villages and arouse the farmers to fight against the capitalist-roader, bureaucratic party leaders who wanted to replicate a Khrushchev-era capitalism-restoration exercise in China.

This movement for restoring socialism, establishing the rule of the working class and peasantry, supported by the army, and the overall Marxist education and remoulding of the whole society was called ‘Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’, which became a major revolutionary movement of the 20th century and a unique one because it was the first time that the founder of a state was leading a massive revolutionary struggle against the chieftains of the state machinery and his own party’s leadership to restore the values of the revolution. Peking University students played a crucial role in the first phase of the Cultural Revolution and supported the working class as ‘red guards’ to overthrow the rule of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the condensed form of class rule in a society transiting towards classless communism.

When Deng Xiaoping usurped power, reversed the gains of the Cultural Revolution, killed and jailed revolutionaries, cracked down on dissent and destroyed communes, collective farms, state-owned factories and political education centres, he ensured that discussion on Mao Zedong’s Thought and practising his ideology is banned in China. The CPC started launching an all-out offensive against the ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ and the individual Mao, which led to the promotion of right-wing, fascist and capitalist ideology by the CPC. Deng thought it important to promote a culture of capitalism and corrupt the youth with capitalist greed to quell the nightmare of another Cultural Revolution. Despite their attempt, amidst the students’ movement for democracy during 1989, a large-scale pro-Mao movement started in China and a large number of students and youth who participated in the Tiananmen Square protest were Mao followers. Using the pretext of suppressing the rise of ‘anti-communists’, Deng ordered the massacre of students to ensure that no scope of another Cultural Revolution exists.

Since the late 1990s, as the monstrous capitalist system in China began to manifest the worst economic disparity, social tension and intensified class struggle between the ruling capitalists, bureaucrats, party leaders and usurers on one hand, and the broad masses of workers, peasants and youth on another, the CPC revisited its core policies and tried to preach some words on social harmony, ‘inclusive development’, etc. to dupe the people. Though the Chinese capitalists under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao gained immense wealth and became filthy rich by expanding their global business and exploiting the Chinese working class, resources and the ecosystem, the rise of Xi Jinping, who is fond of developing his own cult to counter the popularity of Mao Zedong throughout the country that refuse to wither even after 42 years of the late leader’s death, was marked with the beginning of a new era, an era when the CPC leadership would take a new approach to hoodwink the Chinese poor that despite taking the route of capitalism and globalisation, the poor aren’t completely alienated by the party. It was in this context and to stop the rise of the Mao Thought-inspired new generation Marxists, that Xi Jinping started a controlled revivalist movement stressing the need to find the ‘roots’ and ‘understand socialism with Chinese characteristics’. This new wave of controlled Marxist learning that the Xi regime started to hoodwink the masses, actually created a vast army of anti-revisionist, staunch Marxist youth, especially in the campuses of China. The Marxist movement, the allegiance of the Marxists to the ideals that Mao upheld and their focus on reliving the socialist experience that was lost in 1976 made them popular among the people of the country.

While visiting the Peking University in May this year, Xi Jinping asked the university, which was the cradle of the Chinese communist movement, to take ‘Marxism as its surname’ and play a crucial role in educating the youth with Marxism. While he said this, his government already launched the largest crackdown on student activists of different universities who have been organising the working class in different areas and educating them with Mao’s thought. In November 2017, the police arrested Zhang Yunfan, a 24-year-old philosophy graduate of Peking University, for ‘disrupting peace’ and ‘assembling unlawfully’, when he organised a study circle. In August this year, the Chinese government attacked the university students and youth who were organising the working class with the revolutionary theory of Marxism in Huizhou. The workers were charged with working for foreign-influenced organisations and many were threatened by the Chinese state with dire consequences. The detaining of student activist Yue Xin, who used to work at the grassroots to organise workers and also started China’s #MeToo campaign, is vehemently opposed by the workers, students and youth all over China. People are sending letters asking the government to release her and her comrades and calling their arrest an unlawful act altogether.

This rise of the neo-left movement in China that wants to change the socio-economic condition and restore the rights of the working class and the peasantry, including the rule of the workers, is going to affect the ambitions of Xi Jinping and his coterie. Despite paying lip service to the ‘Marxist’ shell of the communist party, Xi Jinping and his sycophants will not stop cracking down on the peaceful protesters demanding greater rights for the working class and a real socialist system. Globat Times already tried to show that Chinese students are busy building a career and not socialist revolution in China, in a calculated move to do away with the speculations of a Mao-inspired movement in the country. Xi Jinping and his coterie are growing nervous as the discontent against the unbridled capitalist exploitation will not leave them unhurt. They know well that they will face the wrath of the working class in case a 1966-model is replicated at this moment. To prevent their own fall and to stop the working class from seizing the resources, means of production and the super profit accumulated by the Chinese capitalists in the last 40 years, the Chinese rulers under Xi Jinping will unleash incessant waves of violence targeting the Mao Zedong followers in modern capitalist China.

There have been reports recently saying the Chinese government is suppressing student-led movements. However, China’s university students are more concerned about their own development. There is no revolutionary atmosphere in Chinese society, or in its universities: @HuXijin_GT pic.twitter.com/d2lg0pMtTX

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) 13 November 2018

The late chairman once said – “Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance”, which translates into the eternal Marxist theory of having a thesis and an anti-thesis countering each other and thereby culminating in synthesis. The more the oppression, the more will be the resistance, which is why the Chinese leaders will not be in peace in their capitalist havens. The poor, the oppressed, the exploited have known about Mao Zedong and the society that he built where the working class had their rights, security and ownership, and after knowing about the socialist paradise they’ve lost to the capitalist roaders, they are showing determination to fight against the capitalist system and the social-fascist regime of Xi Jinping. This phenomenon of students, aroused with Mao’s thought, will not wither away or end abruptly as per Xi Jinping’s wish, rather it’s showing signs of becoming a strong lethal force that will certainly “unhorse the emperor” and return the kingdom to the working people who own it.