Chinese coming back to Marx amid crisis
Wednesday, April 08,

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/04/08/1885418.aspx


BEIJING – Just 126 years after his death, Karl Marx’s moment may finally have arrived.

The People’s Press – the biggest publishing house for China’s orthodox revolutionary books – reports that Marx’s anti-capitalism opus "Das Kapital" has been selling about 4,000-5,000 copies nationwide a month since last November. That’s a big jump from before the economic crisis, when the book sold well under 1,000 copies per month on average.

The "Selected Works by Mao Zedong," a book owned by almost every Chinese citizen a few decades ago, is also witnessing a big jump in sales since late last year, according to Mr. Pan from the People’s Press circulation department.

Han Deqiang, a university professor, believes these sales trends reflect the fact that many Chinese are starting to question their new economic orthodoxy.

"For so many years we’ve been wading across the stream by feeling the way, trying to reach the other side of the stream in capitalism. Now the building on the bank has collapsed, and we realize maybe we had a wrong goal?" said Han.

With China’s economy characterized by widespread privatization and double-digit growth rates over the past 30 years, Marx’s critique of capitalism had fallen out of favor. But his "bible" of communism – first published in 1867 and worshipped by the Chinese people decades ago – seems to have found a new audience in China amid the global economic crisis, as evidenced by book sales.

Late last year, news organizations reported a similar trend in Germany, Marx’s birthplace.

"It's definitely in vogue right now," Joern Schuetrumpf, director of "Das Kapital’s" Berlin publisher, told The Associated Press. "The financial crisis brought us a huge bump."

Leftist shop’s sales up
At "Utopia," a tiny bookshop in the academic center of Beijing’s Haidian district, sales of "Das Kapital" are on the rise, according to Fan Jinggang, the bookshop’s manager. He said his store has sold about five copies a month over the last six months compared to just two copies a year previously.

"Some scholars on our Web site had already predicted the economic crisis as early as in 2007, but the mainstream opinions were too optimistic. Now our Web site is receiving 100,000 hits every day and both ‘Das Kapital’ and ‘Selected Works of Mao Zedong’ are selling better," said Fan.

Fan’s Beijing bookstore and Web site don’t sell the usual fare of popular novels or business texts you might find in other shops – instead it caters to a more leftist clientele.

Shelves are lined with titles like the "Biography of Hugo Chavez" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History." Pictures of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong are the only decorations on the wall other than a clock above the counter.

Han, the university professor, is one of the writers on Utopia’s site.

"We thought the market economy was the only way out, it’s so widely accepted," he said. "But it’s natural to come back to Karl Marx and Mao when we find what we believed earlier isn’t always correct."

I was there when they were just transitioning between systems, and there were already severe distortions in the economy, such as the cab driver who took us around on our free day making more for that single day than the professors at the university where we were staying made in a month.

A coupe of years after that, we heard about probably some of the widest gaps between rich and poor anywhere: the new capitalists living in luxurious condos and driving luxury cars while the construction workers who built the condos were so poor that they survived by camping out in unfinished construction projects.

There's no doubt that some changes were needed. Disbanding the agricultural communes and encouraging small business was the right idea. After all, if workers should own the means of production, isn't the family farmer or small family business owner the epitome of that ideal? Living standards began to rise with those innovations, and the famines that accompanied the command agricultural economy of the Maoist era are past.

However, the Chinese people lost their social safety net. The work unit used to provide all the necessities of life, including housing, medical care, and retirement pensions, in exchange for a great deal of interference in people's personal lives, such as deciding whether a person could get married or have a child.

Now the social safety net is gone. You don't get anything, not even schooling, unless you pay for it. There are few protections for workers. In economic terms, it's the Libertarian paradise.

They've truly gone from one extreme to the other.

Interesting take, it's funny in the MSM, these changes to formerly communist/socialist societies are always seen as universally good. I don't know if it's still the case, but as recent as the late 90's, a majority of Russians were polling in favor of having the old Soviet Union back. I'm not a Marxist or a capitalist, I'm for whatever works, and the best way is a mix of both I think.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/mold-a13.shtml

Moldova: Violent protests in aftermath
of elections
By Markus Salzmann
13 April 2009

Bloody street fighting in the wake of parliamentary elections in Moldova held on April 5 has focused international attention on the former Soviet republic situated between Romania and Ukraine.

The ruling Communist Party (PCRM), led by President Vladimir Voronin, which has governed alone for the last eight years, initially was reported to have polled 50 percent of the votes cast to take 61 of the 101 seats in parliament. The result was later corrected to 60 seats.

Having won a total of 41 seats, the three parliamentary opposition parties—the Liberal Party (PL), the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM) and the Alliance for Our Moldova—will now wield considerable influence in the forthcoming election of a new head of state, who will need to win at least 61 votes in the new parliament. The new president will be elected in June, after Voronin is forced to stand down, having already served two terms in office.

The day after the elections, some 4,000 opposition supporters gathered in the capital, Chisinau, to protest alleged voting fraud. The next day, clashes broke out between the police and a crowd of mostly young people that had swelled to about 10,000.

The demonstrators threw stones and incendiary bombs at the police. The police used tear gas and water-cannons.

The demonstrators managed to occupy the parliamentary buildings for a short time, setting fire to parts of them. In the evening, they threw computers and furniture from the upper floors of the burning parliament building onto the street and briefly hoisted Romanian and European Union (EU) flags. When security forces tried to clear the buildings, hundreds of people on both sides were wounded. One young woman was killed.
According to media reports, about 1,000 people came together again in Chisinau last Wednesday afternoon. Another 10,000 demonstrated on Sunday.

note: this 'spontaneous' protest was hailed in western media as the first major 'twitter organized' protest. you could follow it real-time with a twitter search. of course, if you are familiar with twitter it is obvious that it is difficult to organize a freaking bake sale when you can only post 140 characters or less and the service is constantly going out...!

It quickly became clear that the demand for a vote recount was only a pretext for the opposition forces. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) election observers had certified that the ballot was in line with Western European standards. Petros Efthymiou, the Greek observer, declared on Election Day, “These elections were very good and they have given me great confidence in the future of this country.” The German election observer, Manfred Grund from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), also described the election as “all-in-all fair.”

The Communist Party regime upholds capitalist relations and is corrupt and largely discredited, especially among young people. Nevertheless, the opposition parties are less concerned with democracy in Moldova than with the interests of the narrow, better-off social layer of company managers and business people who both distance themselves from the Communist Party and its pro-Russian orientation and demand stronger links with Romania and the European Union.

Extreme right-wing tendencies back this demand. The anti-communist organisations Remember Moldova and Hyde Park used the Internet and SMS messaging to build the protests. Gabriel Stati, son of multi-millionaire Anatol Stati, was arrested in Kiev last Wednesday. He is alleged to have paid off right-wing provocateurs in the rioting.

Many of the demonstrators waved Romanian flags and chanted, “Long Live Greater Romania!” The extreme right-wing Noua Dreapta (New Right) assembled at the front of the rally on April 7, brandishing their symbol of the Celtic Cross. Right-wing forces in the Republic of Moldova have long demanded integration with Romania.

Some 1,000 right-wing youths gathered in the Romanian capital of Bucharest waving placards with slogans such as “Into the Garbage with Communism.”

Although Romania’s prime minister, Emil Boc, officially condemned the violent protests, he called for the Moldovan government to uphold the democratic rights of the opposition. The Romanian Adevarul newspaper compared the demonstrations to the bloodily suppressed workers' revolts in East Germany and Hungary in the 1950s.

Moldovan President and CP leader Voronin blamed Romania for the disturbances, expelled its ambassador and ordered Romanian citizens visiting Moldova to obtain visas.

Both Russia, on one side, and the United States and the EU, on the other, took pains to play down the significance of the rioting and dampen the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov merely accused the demonstrators of “vandalism,” suggesting that in Moscow’s view the disturbances were not of a political nature and were not to be compared to the so-called “rainbow revolutions” that toppled pro-Russian governments in Georgia and Ukraine.

Robert Wood, spokesman for the US State Department, said that Washington’s attitude to the Moldovan elections was “generally positive.” He said that now “it’s a matter of the people refraining from acts of violence. That won’t help at all.” The EU also condemned the violent protests.

Following last August’s confrontation between the US and Russia over the attempt by the US-backed government of Georgia to forcibly integrate South Ossetia into the Georgian state, neither side wants to see a similar escalation of tensions at the present time. The Republic of Transnistria (or Trans-Dniester), which is not recognized internationally, is in a similar situation to South Ossetia. Having broken away from Moldova, Transnistria is now under the protection of Russian troops. A pro-Western coup d'état in Moldova would have incalculable consequences for relations with Moscow.

Moldova came into existence at the beginning of the 1940s, following the Hitler-Stalin pact, which resulted in the detachment of parts of Bessarabia from Romania and their annexation by the Soviet Union. Stalin decided to leave the region of Transnistria, with its predominantly Russian population, within the new Soviet Republic. Moldova remained one of the most prosperous Soviet republics until the end of the 1980s. While industrial centres in the east, bordering Ukraine, were developing, most of the peasant population in the west was able to profit from internal Soviet trade.

When the Stalinist regimes disintegrated in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Moldova became embroiled in civil war. The so-called “People’s Front”—a motley movement dominated by extreme right-wing organisations striving for the separation of Moldova from the Soviet Union—was formed in 1989. Invoking anti-Russian chauvinism and promising freedom and prosperity, the People’s Front succeeded in bringing together a half a million people in Chisinau in August 1989.

.......

.
Nothing is left of what was once known as the granary of the Soviet Union. A great proportion of the agricultural land lies fallow because farmers lack money to work the fields. Rural areas present a picture of what the country was like a hundred years ago. In many places there is no running water and electricity for only a few hours a day. Farmers labour with horse ploughs instead of modern machines.

Industry has almost come to a standstill. Production in Transnistria can be maintained only with the help of Russian finance. Money transferred to their homeland by the approximately 600,000 Moldovans working abroad now amounts to more than the country’s entire annual budget.

Voronin and his Communist Party assumed power in 2001, after the right-wing liberals of the previous government had become so discredited that strikes and protests were continually breaking out. Voronin promised to reinstate Russian as the country’s second language, to improve transport links to Russia and White Russia, to curb privatisation of state enterprises and to raise the standard of living.
After the elections, however, these promises were soon forgotten and Voronin continued with the old course. In elections held in 2005, the Communist Party suffered a major loss of votes and Voronin was reelected as head of state only with the help of the Christian Democratic Party.

In order keep his corrupt government in power, he attempted to effect a split between Russia and the European Union. After 2005, he turned more resolutely towards Western Europe in an effort to attract investment. The Republic of Moldova is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, but has foregone seeking membership in NATO itself for fear of provoking Moscow.

Even if the Communist Party in Moldova succeeds in holding onto power, political, economic and social tensions, compounded by the world economic crisis, will increase. Moldova will remain a political minefield that can explode at any moment.

China at a crossroad: Right or left?
By Jian Junbo

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KD24Ad01.html


SHANGHAI - As China feels the pinch of the economic downturn, its government is under increased pressure from the "neo-leftist" and "rightist" camps. The rightists want Beijing to speed up democratization, while neo-leftists demand the restoration of some sort of socialism. The two camps have recently intensified their criticism of each other to compete for public influence.

The conflict shows the crossroads China is at after 30 years of economic
reform and opening up. If it has learned from the past, then the Chinese Communist Party will reject both extremes and seek a middle path.

The neo-leftists first became active a few years ago, but their influence remained limited until recently. Amid the economic downturn, social injustice issues such as official corruption and the widening wealth gap have risen in importance, and this offered them a golden political opportunity. Recent surveys have showed that social injustice is the public's top source of discontent.

The neo-leftists are made up of young or middle-aged intellectuals such as Zuo Dapei from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Wang Hui and Cui Zhiyuan from Tsinghua University, Wang Shaoguang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Gan Yang at the Hong Kong University, and Wen Tiejun from Renmin University of China.

They are called neo-leftists to separate them from the old leftists from the 1980s, who staunchly opposed late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms of the time. The neo-leftists do not oppose a market economy but do advocate a stronger role for the government in the economy and wealth distribution.

The rightists are a much larger group, mostly made up of liberal intellectuals, party veterans and economists. This group supports capitalist-style economic reforms and China's "opening up". It is often regarded as pro-West.

The global financial crisis has been seen in China as the failure of a laissez-faire economy, and neo-leftists have seized on this opportunity to intensify their attacks on the somewhat crestfallen rightists. Through such attacks they can press the government for fundamental changes in economic policy, and by highlighting social issue the group has attracted public attention.

Several days ago, at Wu You Hometown Bookshop, a well-know neo-leftist center in Beijing, a lecture session on social problems was so full that latecomers had to stand in its passageways. This was not a one-off, as the bookshop regularly attracts neo-leftist crowds to lectures and seminars. The name of the bookshop, Wu You Hometown, is symbolic of neo-leftist idealism, as in Chinese literature it refers to a visionary world similar to utopia.

Generally speaking, neo-leftists believe they represent the interests of the grassroots, especially in rural areas. Pointing to the widening gaps between the rich and the poor, and between cities and the countryside, neo-leftists have questioned the Chinese road toward modernization. They claim this road has been based on the Western values that rightists advocate, such as a free market economy and "small government".

The rightists have pinned the blame for the downturn on political reform lagging behind economic reform, and not on the free market economy. They advocate political reforms that would implement what they call "universal values", such as democracy, human rights and liberty.

For a long time, the rightists were in favor as their views were in line with the government's policy of reform and opening up, which many say has led to China's economic rise. This has led many rightists to think they are on the "right" side of history, and that China's rise occurred due to its integration into the "civilized" world dominated by Western countries, especially the United States.

Because of this, the rightists sneer at the neo-leftists claiming they know nothing about economic realities. They criticize them for their lack of "moral sense", as they do not believe in the rightists' "universal values" of liberty and democracy.

Both camps have made false accusations against each other. The rightists have said neo-leftists want to restore Maoist-style authoritarianism, but neo-leftists are different from the traditional leftists that advocated this.

Neo-leftists on the other hand have said that rightist's proposals for integration with the West will damage China's sovereignty. Yet not all rightists think Western values should be adopted by China. Common ground has been found in the groups' criticism of the government. The neo-leftists are not satisfied with the fast development of the capitalist economy, as they claim it has caused social injustice. While the rightists have criticized the government for the slow place of political reform leading to democratization.

It is hard to predict how long the dispute will last. But it is certain that China's success cannot be based solely on only one of the groups, as neither wants to attain a balance between social justice and national development.

The social justice advocated by neo-leftists cannot automatically lead to national growth, while the rightists' support for a free market economy will affect inevitably affect equality levels.

Neo-leftists' emotional criticism of the rightists often stimulates nationalistic sentiments like those expressed in the new best-selling book China Is Unhappy. (See The Chinese are not happy, Asia Times Online, Apr 22] Meanwhile, the rightists' claim to the moral high ground is a myth. If they consider themselves to be universalists, they should ask why they are considered by neo-leftists to be the accomplices of "villainous" capitalists from China and abroad.

The dispute between neo-leftist and rightists reflects contradictions facing Chinese society. When more and more issues arise, deeper or even more radical reforms will be needed to resolve them. Both of the groups claim to be on the right side of history and truth, but especially in this time of global economic crisis, they should be thinking more about China's future.

The balance between these economic success and social justice is important both for Chinese people's lives and for the government's legitimacy. From this perspective, the current leadership is most likely to follow Deng's wisdom and take a middle road between the left and the right. No doubt, this task will be easier said than done.