Analyzing China’s Shift to Capitalism: A Marxist Perspective

Lecture

Short lecture based on Fred Weston’s article:

https://marxist.com/new-chinese-translation-of-china-from-permanent-revolution-to-counter-revolution-available-now.htm

Lecture Overview

Today’s lecture explores Fred Weston’s Marxist analysis of China’s political and economic transformation from a revolutionary workers’ state to a capitalist imperialist power. This text serves as a preface to the Chinese translation of China: From Permanent Revolution to Counter-Revolution, and offers a panoramic view of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), covering over a century of revolutionary upheaval, bureaucratic degeneration, capitalist restoration, and emerging imperialism.

We will break the discussion into four core thematic sections:

I. Historical Foundations: The Trotskyist Framework and the 1949 Revolution

1. Permanent Revolution Realized—And Distorted

Weston asserts that the 1949 Chinese Revolution initially validated Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution: a bourgeois democratic revolution in a backward country can only be completed by the working class, abolishing capitalism and transitioning to socialism. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was forced to break with landlordism and capitalism, the revolution did not establish workers’ democracy. Instead, it replicated Stalin’s bureaucratic model.

2. Planned Economy’s Gains and Contradictions

The nationalized economy liberated China from imperialism and backwardness, ushering in industrialization, literacy, and improved living conditions. However, due to the absence of workers’ control, the bureaucratic caste developed into a self-preserving force, sowing the seeds of future capitalist restoration.

3. Trotsky’s Prognosis Applied to China

Trotsky foresaw three possible futures for bureaucratically deformed workers’ states: workers’ political revolution, capitalist restoration, or a hybrid form of restoration from within the bureaucracy. Weston situates China under Deng Xiaoping in the third path, where the bureaucracy consciously reintroduced capitalism to preserve its privileges.

II. Capitalist Restoration and “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”

1. The Dengist Turn: From Planning to Market Logic

Beginning in the 1980s, the PRC shifted toward market reforms under Deng, dismantling the planned economy without dissolving the CCP’s political monopoly. The capitalist sector grew within a nominally “socialist” structure—private ownership expanded, profit became the driver, and integration into global capitalism accelerated.

2. The Role of Western Capital

Weston emphasizes that China’s rapid growth post-1990s was driven not by “Chinese socialism” but by its symbiotic relationship with Western capital. Foreign direct investment (FDI), offshoring, and access to cheap labor fueled growth—while reproducing the contradictions of capitalism: inequality, overproduction, unemployment, and debt.

3. Rise of the Chinese Bourgeoisie

A new capitalist class, often originating from the bureaucracy itself, emerged. Companies like Alibaba and Tencent embodied this transformation. But their power became a double-edged sword—profitable yet potentially destabilizing. Hence, Xi Jinping’s paradoxical strategy: strengthen the state’s grip while upholding capitalist accumulation.

III. Imperialist Maturation and Global Contradictions

1. Belt and Road and the Export of Capital

In classical Leninist terms, Weston defines modern China as an imperialist power. Through projects like the Belt and Road Initiative, China is exporting capital, controlling infrastructure abroad, and integrating peripheral states into its economic sphere. This shift marks China’s graduation from dependency to global contender.

2. Conflict with U.S. Imperialism

The intensifying rivalry with the United States is presented not as an ideological battle between capitalism and socialism, but as inter-imperialist competition. Trump’s trade war, continued under Biden, marks the decline of U.S. hegemony and the ascent of China as a peer rival, further destabilizing global capitalism.

3. Taiwan and Militarism

China’s growing assertiveness over Taiwan reflects both geopolitical ambition and an internal need to manufacture nationalist legitimacy amid rising domestic unrest. Militarization, sanctions preparedness, and foreign currency reserve strategies all indicate anticipation of escalated confrontation.

IV. The Xi Jinping Era: Bonapartism and Crisis Management

1. Xi as Bonapartist Leader

Weston describes Xi as a Bonaparte—a centralizing figure attempting to balance contradictory class interests while repressing both unruly capitalists and the working class. His anti-corruption campaign is not anti-capitalist, but a means of preserving regime legitimacy.

2. Debt, Unemployment, and Overproduction

As growth slows, especially after COVID-19 and global supply shocks, the Chinese economy faces structural crises. Public debt exceeds 90% of GDP, youth unemployment tops 20%, and wage suppression intensifies. Weston warns that China can no longer deliver the rising standards it once promised.

3. The Return of Class Struggle

The COVID protests and ongoing labor unrest are early indicators of mass discontent. Weston argues that the future of Chinese capitalism is increasingly untenable without repression, and the probability of large-scale class struggle is rising.

Conclusion: Revolutionary Perspectives and the Working Class

Weston ends with a revolutionary optimism. China now possesses one of the largest and most technically advanced proletariats in history. Despite the bureaucratic betrayal of the revolution, the material preconditions for socialism—urban concentration, industrial development, and proletarian mass—are all in place. The task, then, is the reconstitution of a revolutionary Marxist leadership capable of leading China’s working class to a genuine socialist revolution.

Seminar Discussion Questions

1. In what ways does Weston’s Trotskyist interpretation differ from both neoliberal and Stalinist accounts of China’s development?

2. How does the Belt and Road Initiative exemplify Lenin’s theory of imperialism?

3. Can capitalist restoration occur incrementally, as Weston argues, or must it involve political counter-revolution?

4. What are the implications of the current U.S.-China rivalry for the global working class?

5. To what extent does Xi Jinping’s centralization of power represent stability versus vulnerability?

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