Theses on the Chinese Question (“Marseilles Theses”, Introduction)

Introduction

The Theses on the Chinese Question was written in 1964 and became known as the Marseilles Theses, after the place in which they were presented. The purpose of these theses is self-explanatory, to counter the Maoist theory of “peasant socialism”.

Stalin’s Moscow never had a strategy for a Chinese revolution. In fact Moscow wanted what other capitalist countries wanted – a slice of China. Russia’s involvement in the war against Japan in 1945 was not the freeing of China, but to pillage Manchuria. The victory of Mao’s armies in 1949 was against the express orders and interests of Moscow.

The ideological breach between Russia and China was, to put it concisely, a conflict between national interests, expressed through early border skirmishes through to vying for influence in the so-called Third World. The competing support for the “colonial revolutions”was little more than the marketing of weapons, sold at exorbitant prices.

Conflict between Russia and China was not limited to an economic one, and was soon transferred to the political plane. Stalinist parties were soon wracked with splits, whether to support Moscow or Beijing. Soon there was a plethora of Maoist parties all competing for the support of Beijing, raising the banners of people’s struggles. Moscow wanted its official parties but Beijing distained from conferring its official recognition on any of the various competing Maoist parties.

Today the Moscow International is dead, the Russian party having abandoned the false name of Communist. The various Maoist parties have largely disappeared, but the Chinese state party still falsely calls itself communist, and parades under a red flag. That is why these theses are still relevant.

China has been converted from a backward country into a major player on the world stage. The conflict between China and the old capitalist countries is not against imperialism, but an imperialist one for trade, sources of raw materials and spheres of influence. The expansion of Chinese industry has been through the regimentation of the growing working class, often through the discipline of the “People’s Army”. Chinese industry has been able to compete against the older capitalist countries by the ruthless exploitation of its own working class.

The false use of name Communist by the Chinese capitalist state has the added use for capitalists throughout the world – it makes the term communism stink in the nostrils of many workers throughout the world. It has the same function as that of the cold war between Russian and the Western Allies – to denigrate communism, and deny a future for the emancipation of the working class.

Although Maoism is mostly dead, it still has its influence of those who had been through the various Maoist parties. The choice is that between Maoism and Marxism – exploitation of the workers (in China and throughout the world) or its emancipation internationally.