It is but proper for the Party and the revolutionary movement in the Philippines to remember and commemorate the forthcoming 70th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1.

The establishment of the democratic republic is a victory of the Chinese democratic revolution which is a source of inspiration and strategic lessons to the Philippine democratic revolution. The socialist construction in China in 1949-1977 is one of the greatest victory of the international proletariat. This paved the way for the second series of democratic and socialist revolutions across the world and marked the second general crisis of imperialism.

During its founding, one-third of the entire world, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, currently Russia), has been under the the advanced and progressive socialist system.

Mao Zedong, then chairman of the Communist Party of China, declared the founding of the PRC at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This marked the beginning of the socialist revolution and construction which lasted for three decades. In the succeeding years, it completed the democratization of China. It established the people’s democratic government, wherein all democratic sectors—workers, peasants, petibourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie—were united and mobilized to forge a free society.

People’s congresses and consultative conferences were established in China at all levels to pave the way for the emergence and flow of an active and genuine democracy. Through these, the toiling masses fully realized their freedom and enjoyed benefits under the new system, wherein their power superseded that of the oppressive and exploitative big compradors and landlords.

Under the Communist Party, land reform was completed in ten years only, liberating hundreds of millions of peasants from feudal and semifeudal exploitation. This enhanced land productivity and that of the the agricultural sector and paved the way for the development of basic industries. It gave rise to the establishment of heavy industries, based on the productivity of agriculture and the development of light industries.

This transformed agriculture through collectivization, mechanization of production and the establishment of factories for the production of food and other consumption goods. Production has drastically improved and sufficed for the Chinese people’s basic needs including food, clothing, housing, and others. Millions reaped the benefits of the betterment of living conditions which further enhanced their general wellbeing.

The economy was gradually developed through a systematic and a general manner using five-year plans. Roads and bridges were constructed, through the labor of millions of workers, to transform China from being a feudal and backward country into becoming a modern and democratic society.

Amid this, Chairman Mao called on the Chinese proletariat to carry on with the revolutionary struggle against elements of the bourgeoisie within the Communist Party who were then relentlessly attempting to derail the progress of socialism in China and place it on the road of capitalist restoration. From 1966 to 1976, it mobilized the people, especially the Chinese youth, in a cultural revolution against these plots. This practice produced the theory of the continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat to consolidate socialism and prevent capitalist restoration. This is one of Mao’s most significationt contributions in developing the proletarian theory and practice.

For ten years, the Chinese proletariat was able to prevent the restoration of bourgeois domination. However, the proletarians were defeated when state power and the Communist Party leadership were seized by Deng Xiaoping and his clique in 1977. The democratic power of workers and peasants was dismantled, while officials, managers and capitalists were given authority to decide over production, trade and investment, employment, and other economic matters.

The victory of the Chinese people was gradually reversed with the implementation of “pro-market” reforms in 1978, only a few years after the death of Chairman Mao. Deng aligned the Chinese economy with the global capitalist system through the establishment of economic zones in four coastal towns, and eventually in adjacent towns. He used the low wages of Chinese workers to encourage the entry of foreign capital even into interior towns. This resulted in the dismantling of the communal production system, and massive conversion of agricultural lands into export-oriented industrial enclaves. Chinese capitalists utilized the roads, sea and airports, factories and the community of workers, established during the socialist construction, to serve their private accumulation of profit.

China followed the capitalist road, which Deng dubbed “socialism with Chinese characteristics, and beset the Chinese society and economy in the crises that are inherent in this system. Monopoly bureaucrat capitalists and their local and foreign counterparts dominated. Decades of unsurpassed capitalist expansion—due to the liberalization of capital, services and trade, massive land conversion, unmatched profiteering through low workers’ wages, financial and real estate speculation—has ended.

The Chinese economy is now considered the second biggest in the world and is expected to surpass that of the US in coming years. However, it is currently beset in the crisis of overproduction, especially that of steel, cement, semiconductors and others. Since 2018, its local production slowed down after more than a decade of achieving high growth rates.

China is now a big imperialist power. It is the biggest exporter of surplus products and capital in the world. In 2007, it founded the China Investment Corporation (the biggest investment company in the world) with a $200-billion capital. It also founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China at South Africa) investment bank to facilitate its export of capital.

One of the biggest programs funded by China is the Belt and Road Initiative (or One Belt, One Road), an infrastructure project that will connect countries in Asia, Europe and Africa to China. Upon completion, it will change the conduct of trade and production in the said countries and place China at the center.

In the face of the global capitalist crisis, China is pushing for a new imperialist division of the world. It is challenging US domination and is aspiring to become one of, if not the sole, power in the new international order that it seeks to create. It is pushing for “reforms in global governance” which has been formerly and solely set and dictated by the US.

To be continued on the next issue…