Rare to be found analysis of what happened in China. Now It's time to do my dumping!
"Fanatical orthodoxy is sometimes the first step toward more radical self-expression. Islamic fundamentalists may be extremely reactionary, but by getting used to taking events in their own hands they complicate any return to “order” and may even, if disillusioned, become genuinely radical — as happened with some of the similarly fanatical Red Guards during the Chinese “Cultural Revolution,” when what was originally a mere ploy by Mao to lever out some of his bureaucratic rivals eventually led to uncontrolled insurgency by millions of young people who took his antibureaucratic rhetoric seriously."
This event is detailed thoroughly in this analysis done by the S.I. at the time:
"Soon, however, the workers, exasperated by the excesses of the Red Guards, began to intervene on their own. When the Maoists spoke of “extending the Cultural Revolution” to the factories and then to the countryside, they gave themselves the air of having decided on a movement which had in fact come about in spite of their plans and which throughout autumn 1966 was totally out of their control."
Shanzhai!
You were right but a bit neutral when you talked about the "opening up" of China by Deng. When this happened it was basically when Joe Margarac in the States' lost his vril, the working class of the West became redundant.. during the 'computer revolution' or counter-revolution, shall I add, when blue collar jobs diminished, more automation, the weakening of the unions struggles, and thus its consciousness, the increasing atomization and retreat to consumerism, and then the mass of surplus chinese became the slaves in factories they are known for.
But in the last years they did "develop", they did "improve" their situations, materially, although with the cost of some state surveillance, and some primitive accumulation with chinese characteristics. Xi has and had a populist appeal. That's why he came to power, he was needed to 'calm down' the situation that was already chaotic at the time..
And yes, they fully applied cybernetics to their policies, that was what partly influenced the one-child policy (which, honestly, wasn't that bad, it's straining them now --economically-- but the Earth thanks alot). And is still very influential, more than ever with their mania for surveillance and everything virtual (WeChat, Weibo etc). It was some Qian Xuesens and Song Jians... rocket/missile scientists technocrats invited to meddle with politics.
Other places to find good analysis related with China and elsewhere or something else are the sites of (now deceased, RIP) Loren Goldner and World Systems Theory Journal (WSTJ).
One thing that really resonates with me here is the genealogy of classes and class formation as a key to understanding the concrete development of capitalist society.
The proletariat were (and are still, some places) a new class in the same way. Proletarians in countries where Marxism-Leninism succeeded were not just proletarians but peasants-becoming-proletarians, proletarians who maintained many beliefs, behaviors, &c. of the peasantry from whom they sprang. Beliefs and behaviors that predisposed them to think and act in certain ways and assert their subjectivity in a distinctive way. This distinctive subjectivity is mostly lost for working classes in W. Europe or N. America for whom proletarianization had become a distant memory a little after the apogee of those classes' social power.
I think this is also clearly true for the bourgeois formations of Europe going farther back, maintaining certain features of 'merchant consciousness' even as they take the levers of state, this is often explained with 'the Protestant ethic's but the explanation is insufficient; you see it even more intensely in Italian social history.
Rare to be found analysis of what happened in China. Now It's time to do my dumping!
"Fanatical orthodoxy is sometimes the first step toward more radical self-expression. Islamic fundamentalists may be extremely reactionary, but by getting used to taking events in their own hands they complicate any return to “order” and may even, if disillusioned, become genuinely radical — as happened with some of the similarly fanatical Red Guards during the Chinese “Cultural Revolution,” when what was originally a mere ploy by Mao to lever out some of his bureaucratic rivals eventually led to uncontrolled insurgency by millions of young people who took his antibureaucratic rhetoric seriously."
This event is detailed thoroughly in this analysis done by the S.I. at the time:
https://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/11.China.htm
"Soon, however, the workers, exasperated by the excesses of the Red Guards, began to intervene on their own. When the Maoists spoke of “extending the Cultural Revolution” to the factories and then to the countryside, they gave themselves the air of having decided on a movement which had in fact come about in spite of their plans and which throughout autumn 1966 was totally out of their control."
Shanzhai!
You were right but a bit neutral when you talked about the "opening up" of China by Deng. When this happened it was basically when Joe Margarac in the States' lost his vril, the working class of the West became redundant.. during the 'computer revolution' or counter-revolution, shall I add, when blue collar jobs diminished, more automation, the weakening of the unions struggles, and thus its consciousness, the increasing atomization and retreat to consumerism, and then the mass of surplus chinese became the slaves in factories they are known for.
But in the last years they did "develop", they did "improve" their situations, materially, although with the cost of some state surveillance, and some primitive accumulation with chinese characteristics. Xi has and had a populist appeal. That's why he came to power, he was needed to 'calm down' the situation that was already chaotic at the time..
And yes, they fully applied cybernetics to their policies, that was what partly influenced the one-child policy (which, honestly, wasn't that bad, it's straining them now --economically-- but the Earth thanks alot). And is still very influential, more than ever with their mania for surveillance and everything virtual (WeChat, Weibo etc). It was some Qian Xuesens and Song Jians... rocket/missile scientists technocrats invited to meddle with politics.
Have you also seen the conversations between Kissinger and Mao? Here: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v18/d12
This site is also good, unique perspective from the not so known chinese left
https://chuangcn.org/blog/
Does it have some CIA backing? I wonder, hehe.
Other places to find good analysis related with China and elsewhere or something else are the sites of (now deceased, RIP) Loren Goldner and World Systems Theory Journal (WSTJ).
You should write a novel Ed. Great Eye and Voice
Where is the quote about philosophy in the face of despair from?
Also thank for the kind words about my budding literary aspirations :)
It’s actually from Minima Moralia!
One thing that really resonates with me here is the genealogy of classes and class formation as a key to understanding the concrete development of capitalist society.
The proletariat were (and are still, some places) a new class in the same way. Proletarians in countries where Marxism-Leninism succeeded were not just proletarians but peasants-becoming-proletarians, proletarians who maintained many beliefs, behaviors, &c. of the peasantry from whom they sprang. Beliefs and behaviors that predisposed them to think and act in certain ways and assert their subjectivity in a distinctive way. This distinctive subjectivity is mostly lost for working classes in W. Europe or N. America for whom proletarianization had become a distant memory a little after the apogee of those classes' social power.
I think this is also clearly true for the bourgeois formations of Europe going farther back, maintaining certain features of 'merchant consciousness' even as they take the levers of state, this is often explained with 'the Protestant ethic's but the explanation is insufficient; you see it even more intensely in Italian social history.
Amazing theory. I’ve never seen such a convincing materialist explanation for the Sino-Soviet split
Thank you Caleb! If time allows for it I might try and put a post like that together for the 22nd, fingers crossed