Reform in China, Indochina and the former USSR

by Al L. Sargis


The article by Sidney J. Gluck in Dialogue & Initiative, 
Spring 1993, contributes to correcting a general 
misperception on the U.S. left about China, its goals and 
path of development. The fact is that China, Vietnam and 
Laos began taking Ranother lookS at Marxism in the late 
1970s-early 1980s, well before changes began to be 
discussed publicly in Soviet Marxist circles in 1985. 
However, with some exceptions, youUd never know it if you 
were active in the RmainstreamS left. 

The U.S. left tends either to distort what is going on (cf. RCP 
Maoists) or to ignore it (e.g., CPUSA). ItUs not surprising the 
CPUSA dismissed China until recently, given Chinese-
Soviet relations, but that it did not give a public inkling of 
the changing self-analysis and application of Marxism-
Leninism (M-L) in Vietnam and Laos that seems to be an 
attempt to hide the differences between those two countries 
and the USSR. 

In the early-to-mid 1980s, because the CPUSA supported 
the Indochinese countries, it could not exactly cry 
Rrevisionists in command,S although some of the same 
RrevisionistS and Rright-opportunistS views and policies they 
condemned in Eastern Europe were in state power in 
Indochina! This contributed to the ideological tunnel vision 
evident in large segments of the US left.

China, Vietnam and Laos P poor, economically and 
socially underdeveloped countries, steeped in patriarchal, 
semi-feudal semi-capitalist, semicolonial or colonial 
backgrounds P concluded that the standard RmodelS of 
socialist development that originated under Stalin in the 
USSR (including MaoUs variation) was inapplicable to their 
circumstances. This was not because of some ideological 
heresy, but arose with the emergence of concrete 
economic, social. political and administrative problems that 
were endemic to that model and could not be resolved 
within its framework. Hence, the self-examination of Rreal, 
existing socialismS and its M-L foundations. 

What resulted was an emphasis (in all three countries) on 
M-L as a methodological tool, rather than a set of 
RprinciplesS of social organization that must be rigidly 
applied no-matter-what. Using this tool as a guide to 
examining the society as it existed (rather than how it ought 
to exist, as the Soviets continued to do, up through the mid-
1980s), they came to the conclusion that they were in 
conditions of either the earliest phase of transition to 
socialism (Vietnam, Laos) or in the preliminary stage of 
socialism (China). This, in turn, necessitated tasks and 
measures different from countries already developing on a 
socialist basis, including anti-feudal, anti-colonial and 
some anti-capitalist measures (RsomeS because capitalism 
was only marginally developed in their rural, scattered 
small producer economy). On the other hand. they had to 
create socioeconomic material-technical and political 
prerequisites for socialism P including making up for the 
social productive forces capitalism should have already 
created P in a predominantly capitalist world advancing 
along the path of a scientific-technological revolution.

This is not exactly the situation which the classical Marxists 
anticipated or for which they laid out firm guidelines. 
However, Marx, Engels, Lenin and their more astute 
successors did formulate and apply a method to analyze 
concrete conditions in a way designed to lead to the 
liberation of the working class and other oppressed strata 
and groups. Furthermore, Lenin, using this method, 
devised a program to deal with conditions similar to that of 
third world countries. ItUs not surprising, therefore, that 
intensive study of the New Economic Policy (NEP) was 
undertaken in China and Vietnam, not the temporary retreat 
orientation of some, but NEP as a strategy for transition to 
socialism in third world conditions. 

If NEP was a retreat, it was from RWar CommunismS and its 
idea of a direct RleapS via formalistic administrative fiat into 
socialism, and for some, even into full communism. China 
and Indochina came out of war conditions where early 
policies bore some similarity to Rwar communism,S in spirit if 
not always in practice. This, coupled with the 
administrative-command model of socialist development, 
led to persistent, decades-old problems and, hence, to 
their re-evaluation. Chinese reform Marxists saw NEP-type 
strategy as a return to the RnormalS Leninist road to 
socialism, as proclaimed in 1956 at the 8th CCP Congress, 
while the Vietnamese opted for the command-administrative 
model with limited discussions of alternatives in the late 
1950s and 1974, before more intensive analysis in the 
early 1980s led to RrenovationS (doi moi) in 1986.

Of course. there was a downside to NEP, plus negative 
features of reforms now being implemented. How these are 
successfully or unsuccessfully dealt with are very 
important, but I want to stick with the situation that led to 
socialist reform and its ideological aspect.

In the USSR, where restructuring was announced in 1985, 
but only started a couple of years later, the ideological and 
economic trajectory was different, even though many of the 
proposed economic measures had also been applied in 
China and Indochina. Soviet theorists also began to look at 
the Lenin of NEP, as they attributed economic problems to 
StalinTs administrative-command mechanism. Whether this 
was entirely appropriate, given the level of development of 
productive forces and relations, was not as important at the 
time as was the recognition that they were not as advanced 
along the socialist road as officially proclaimed. It was a 
signal that something radically different had to be done.

Where they failed on the ideological front is exactly at the 
point where China and Vietnam succeeded P in 
developing a Marxist analysis of where exactly they were, 
and how then to proceed in the development of socialism. 
Instead P and this may significantly be an element of Soviet 
culture P they began an abstract search for a Rnew image 
of socialismS. In other words, the Soviets proceeded on two 
disconnected tracks: one concerned with specific 
economic and political reforms; the other, with conceptual 
principles for a formal, normative definition of what a new 
socialism should be. The Rnew imageS abstraction replaced 
the then current Rdeveloped socialismS abstraction P both 
to be soon replaced with the RcapitalismS abstraction.

The duration of this quest for a Rnew imageS or concept of 
socialism was relatively limited. Shortly after it had begun in 
1988, under the direction of CPSU ideology chief and 
economist, Vadim Medvedev, there was a collapse of the 
attempt as those in charge ended up rationalizing each 
new economic and political twist and turn. Furthermore, the 
analysis was premised on another Rmodel P that of social 
democracy in Western Europe. This is well documented in 
Joan Barth UrbanUs book. Moscow and the Global Left in 
the Gorbachev Era (Cornell University Press. 1992) on the 
new relations between the CPSU and SPs/SDPs, initiated 
by Gorbachev as early as 1985.

Between 1985 and the 28th CPSU Congress in 1990, the 
CPSU had gone from Marxism-Leninism to social-
democratic socialism, as evidenced in the party platform 
and program. With the August 1991 coup and subsequent 
demise of the CPSU many, if not most, former party activists 
took the next step to the capitalist model either through 
gradual reforms (the current majority of parliament) or 
Rshock therapyS (the presidential faction). In 
Soviet/Russian lingo they Rreversed the plus and minus 
signs P another abstract operation.

Several factors might account for this relatively abrupt 
transformation. For one, the inability of their political culture 
to make compromises P the either/or thinking Lenin 
bemoaned regarding the Brest Peace Treaty and NEP P led 
to identifying RsocialismS with the opposite of any individual 
traits existing in Rcapitalism. If the RMarketS regulates 
everything in capitalism, then the RPlanS has to regulate 
everything in socialism. Hence, to reject any RelementS of 
RsocialismS means to replace the entire fabric of traits with 
its opposite, no other viable option exists in their political 
universe. The late non-Marxist Georgian philosopher, 
Merab Mamardashvili traced this Reverything-nothingS 
view to the Russian Orthodox religious cultureUs obsession 
with an ideal of the perfect human, that turns into its 
opposite when not realized:


Either everything or absolutely nothing. Since it is 
impossible to get everything, they are left with nothing.I 
EverythingI they achieve remains forever imperfect, finite 
and concrete. Yet everything concrete and formalized 
have (sic) no meaning when confronted with the ideal. 
(Social Sciences, 1993:1, Russian Academy of Sciences) 


A consequence would be to fill the void by jumping from 
one abstract ideal system to another, rather than, as 
Mamardashvili observes, an ability to be RrebornS by 
altering and compromising with circumstances in a flexible 
way to improve on Rimperfect things that mirror the perfect.S

Educator-historian, Judith Woodruff, attributes the turn to 
capitalism or social democracy to a comparatively recent 
trend: since Peter the Great the Rprogressive intelligentsiaS 
have looked to the West for solutions rather than looking to 
the possibilities inherent in their own societyUs context 
(personal communication). The RKhrushchev generationS 
(including Gorbachev) of RliberalS Communists either 
formed the circle around which the CPSU RcenterS 
developed its Western social democratic orientation, or 
became the mainstay of the CPSUUs RDemocratic PlatformS 
faction of bourgeois democrats. Western Europe was the 
reference point, often Sweden for the former and ThatcherUs 
England for the latter. Again, the significance for both lay in 
dismissing any potentials inherent in their own historical 
circumstances. They sought RmodelsS developed from quite 
different premises.

But whatever the reasons, this bifurcation of socialist 
ideology and unrelated practice launched theory in search 
of an abstract definition of Rfeel goodS socialism 
(Rdemocratic and humaneS) that had ominous effects: 
theory was ousted as a tool for analyzing the current 
situation in order to guide practice and, at best, relegated 
to justifying current policies. It left the Rship of socialismS 
drifting without a rudder, thereby surrendering ideology to 
conservatives whose dogmatic views of socialism justified 
putting up obstacles to change (socialism, after all, was 
what already existed).It sowed confusion and doubt among 
the general population, as to where society was headed 
and, thus, opened up space for a myriad of pro-capitalist 
interpretations.

The Chinese and Vietnamese, on the other hand, did not 
start their reforms with normative prescriptions of what 
socialism should be. Instead, they began by seeking the 
empirical (i.e.. scientific) reality of their situation and seeing 
what guidelines historical and dialectical materialism 
offered to cope with it in a way that would bring 
emancipation of the masses. For instance, the 1978 
Rseeking truth from factsS ideological debate in China, 
which heralded the beginning of reform, was over the 
precise question of socialism as a model of set principles 
that could be applied to any situation vs. socialism as a 
process of development P a movement P based on existing 
conditions.

From this and related discussions, they concluded that 
rapidly pursuing state and collective ownership, large-
scale heavy industrialization, and centralized 
microplanning in a situation of economic and cultural 
backwardness with low levels of productive forces, 
socialization, infrastructure, etc., put the cart before the 
horse. To expect that changing the forms of the production 
relations that define RsocialismS would bring about a 
continuous rise in productive forces and modernization, 
flew in the face of the experiences that had resulted in 
stagnation. 

The task, then, was to discover through practice, measures 
producing the desired socioeconomic development while 
limiting such derivatives as intolerable income gaps. labor 
exploitation, corruption. etc. This led China (as well as 
Vietnam and Laos) to institute a multisectoral economy with 
public ownership (state and collective) taking the leading 
role, supplemented by state-capitalist and private 
ownership and a party-state committed to simultaneously 
implanting the undeveloped foundations for socialism and 
building up the elements of socialism partially in existence.

Once the Chinese and Vietnamese determined their 
specific socioeconomic, political and administrative status, 
and delineated the factors that accounted for this 
predicament, they were able to pinpoint their stage of 
development and initiate ameliorative policies perceived 
as appropriate. Insofar as possible, they formulated 
minimum and maximum criteria for socialism and 
benchmarks indicating certain intermediate steps and 
goals. Hence the Vietnamese, concluding they are in a 
pre-socialist stage of transition, are more sensitive to the 
Rwho will win?S aspect of a multisectoral economy than the 
Chinese who believe that socialism, although only in its 
earliest form, has already Rwon.S

They were able, in other words, to devise a reform strategy 
geared to achieving socialism over the long haul, given 
their particular socioeconomic location, linking theory with 
practice, and prepared to make modifications in both as 
necessitated by experiment and experience. To achieve 
their immediate goals (i.e., raising the level of social 
productive forces to enhance peopleUs material and 
cultural living standards sufficiently to bring them out of 
poverty and begin organizing a socialist democracy), they 
were open to learning from any source, including socialist 
and capitalist countries. 

For instance, Vietnam, from the Soviet UnionUs experience, 
concluded that political reform without economic reform 
would lead to destruction of the party and the socialist 
orientation of the state, and, from the Chinese, that 
economic reform without political reform would lead to a 
Tiananmen-type showdown. Therefore, they have 
attempted simultaneous political and economic reforms 
(though not at the same pace and scope). Noteworthy is the 
authority under which the Chinese and Vietnamese 
amended their constitutions. In both, it was the politburo 
and behind-the-scenes elders. In China they directed the 
legislature; and in Vietnam through extensive, open 
legislative debate and democratic public discussions.

In short. unlike the Soviets, their Marxist analysis and 
reform measures grew out of the dialectics of their social 
development and its socialist goals. 


Since this is an overview of a complex and contradictory 
process, I have omitted crucial aspects such as: conflicts 
between different ideological, economic, political, and 
regional interest groups; unanticipated reforms initiated 
from below which forced the leadership to factor them into 
the official reform program; setbacks and bungling 
resistance at various levels by vested interests in the status 
quo; missed opportunities to move forward on certain 
measures; pure pragmatism, imperialist threats and 
obstacles, etc. 

It is not to be denied that leadershipUs fixing the boundaries 
of Marxist discussion, curtailing the civil liberties of 
dissident Marxists, and other infringements of lawful views 
and activities have occurred to the detriment of Marxism 
and socialism. However, it is apparent that the positive 
advances in each country, at least in the ideological 
aspect, owed their success to Marxist Rconcrete analysis 
of concrete conditionsS based on socialist aspirations. 
They were not encumbered by dogmatic views of Marxist 
RprinciplesS and did not confuse socialism with the 
mechanisms to achieve it.	o

Al. Sargis is a CoC member in Boston.