5 Maoism, the Ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and Fascism

Place in the Sun A Place in the Sun
Marxism and Fascism in China's Long Revolution
A. James Gregor [pic]
Westview Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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Copyright © 2000 by Westview Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group Published in 2000 in the United States of America by Westview Press, 5500
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Westview Press, 12 1 lid's Copse Road, Cumnor 1 fill, Oxford OX2 9Jj Find us on the World Wide Web at www.westviewpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieatkm Data Gregor, A. James (Anthony
James), 1929-
A place in the sun : Marxism and Fascism in China's long revolution / A.
James Gregor. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8133-3782-8(hc)
1. China-Politics and government-20th century. 2. Revolutions-China. 3.
Communism-China. 4. Fascism-China. I. Title: Marxism and Fascism in
China's long revolution. 11. Title. DS775.7.G74 2000
320.951 '09'04-dc21 994189499 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials
Z39.48-1984. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Maria- -For all the years. Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments 1 On Understanding the Twentieth Century
The Origins of Imperialism, 4
Marxism, 5
Classical Marxism and the Peripheral,
Less-Developed Regions, 8
Imperialism in the Twentieth Century, 10
Marxism, Fascism, and Revolution in the Twentieth Century, 13
Revolution in Our Time, 16
Notes, 18 2 Marxist Theory and Fascism in Republican China
Revolutionary China and V. I. Lenin's Comintern, 25
The Theoretical Background, 31
J. V. Stalin and the Comintern's Oriental Policy, 33
M. N. Roy, Sun Yat-sen, and Fascism in Republican China, 38
Notes, 43 3 Fascism and Sun Yat-sen
Marxist Theory and Comparative Politics, 50
Reactive Developmental Nationalism, 52
Nazionalfascismo, 58
Reactive and Developmental Nationalism in
Comparative Perspective, 63
Notes, 69
viii
Contents 4 Marxism, Maoism, Fascism, and the Kuomintang 75
The Chinese Blue Shirt Society, 77
Sun Yat-sen, Marxism, and Imperialism, 82
Sun Yat-sen, Imperialism, and the Doctrines of Friedrich List, 88
Karl Marx and Friedrich List, 91
Notes, 95 5 Maoism, the Ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and Fascism 101
The Characterization of Mao's Revolution, 104
The Soviet Interpretation of Maoism, 106
The Chinese Communist Critique of Maoism, 107
Maoism, Anti-Maoism, and "Social-Fascism", 113
The Soviet and Anti-Maoist Interpretation of Fascism, 114
The Chinese Communist Party Critique of Mao Zedong Thought, 117
Notes, 121 6 Post-Maoist China, Sun Yat-sen, and Fascism 125
Marxism and the Reforms of Deng Xiaoping, 125
Deng Xiaoping and the "Theory of the Productive Forces", 133
Sun Yat-sen and "Protofascism", 137
Deng Xiaoping, Sun Yat-sen, and Fascism, 140
Notes, 144 7 The New Nationalism of Post-Maoist China 151
The New Nationalism of Deng Xiaoping, 155
Patterns of Reactive and Developmental Nationalism, 156
Biology and China's Post-Maoist Reactive Nationalism, 161
Classifying the New Nationalism of Post-Maoist China, 163
Notes, 167 8 Fascism, Post-Maoist China, and Irredentism 173
Nationalist and Fascist Irredentism, 173
Fascist Geopolitics, 180
The Irredentism of Post-Maoist China, 184
Post-Maoist China's Claims in the East and South China Seas, 185
"Vital Living Space" and the Geostrategy of Post-Maoist China, 187
Notes, 194
9 Conclusions 201
Marxism and Reactive Nationalism, 204
Fascist Theory, 205
Elements of a Taxonomy, 208
Post-Maoist China As Fascist, 215
Notes, 219 Index
224 Preface This work attempts an alternative interpretation of the respective roles
played by Marxism and fascism in the complex sequence of events that
characterizes the long history of China's revolution. The standard
treatment of these subjects involves, at times, loose judgments concerning
the "fascist" and "reactionary" character of republican China and the
subsequent "Marxist" and "progressive" character of the Maoist regime. At
times, such notions, often implicit, provide background for detailed
histories. They serve as unacknowledged sorting criteria for the material
that enters into historical narrative. The purpose of the present treatment
is to review such explicit and implicit judgments-since they do color some
China studies.
In general, the discussion that follows remains true to the conviction I
have held for most of a lifetime-that there was very little Marxism in the
Chinese revolution and that whatever fascism there was, was misunderstood.
Time, I think, has demonstrated the merit of those convictions. That so
many students of China, for so long, imagined that Marxism had something
substantial to do with the long Chinese revolution is the proper object of
neither acrimony nor dismay. It could easily have been anticipated. There
had been talk of Marxism in China since the turn of the twentieth century,
introduced in the waves of European literature that inundated Asia after
the incursions of Western imperialism.
Chinese intellectuals did toy with Marxist ideas early in the twentieth
century, and after the Bolshevik revolution its themes were common fare in
political circles. For a variety of reasons "Marxist theory" became a fad
among radical students and university revolutionaries. As a consequence,
many imagined it actually had something to do with events.
Whatever the case, very little of classical Marxism could demonstrate any
relevance to the critical issues that beset the China of the period. Sun
Yat-sen rejected Marxism in its entirety because he saw it as having little
of any significance to say about the problems with which the revolution was
compelled to contend. At the close of the twentieth century all the
evidence indicates that he was right.
xii
Preface
Sun Yat-sen probably understood Marxist theory better than any of the
founders of the Chinese Communist party-and realized that it could hardly
serve any constructive purpose as a guide for China through its long
transition to modernity. As though to confirm the correctness of Sun's
judgment, the "Marxism" that animated the Chinese Communist party
throughout its protracted struggle with the Kuomintang was not a Marxism at
all. Mao's "New Democracy" was, in fact, a variant of Sun's program for the
development and democratization of China, and it was so recognized by most
of Mao's immediate following.
Unhappily, the regime that came to dominate the mainland with Mao's advent
had very little to do with the program that the Chinese Communist party
advertised for a generation. Abandoning all its solemn commitments to civil
and property rights, and the market governance of economic activities, the
regime's policies after the seizure of power became an ad hoc patchwork of
adaptations of Stalinist tactics and Maoist improvisations that left the
people of China helpless in a torrent of events completely beyond their
control. The regime's political structures were ramshackle, held together
by personal loyalties, illusions, and fears. After all, power was
understood to grow out of the barrel of a gun, and the Chinese people
constituted a "blank slate" upon which Mao sought to paint the "most
beautiful pictures."
Until Mao was swept away by illness and death, "new China" remained
perched at the edge of an abyss. For more than a quarter century the
leaders of the People's Republic lived in a kind of dream state, in a fog
of words that created a universe of illusions in and through which they
operated. Only after Mao's death, after the devastation of the "Great Leap
Forward"-and the horrors of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"-did
the leadership of the People's Republic publicly acknowledge that Mao,
however great a revolutionary, as the ruler of China had made errors so
profound that the nation faced catastrophe.
With the passing of Mao, a cohort of "capitalist readers" arose to
transform the bankrupt system he left behind into a form of authoritarian,
single-party state capitalism familiar to many developing nations in the
twentieth century-and not unfamiliar to the followers of Sun Yat-sen. It
will be argued here that with the full emergence of the post-Maoist state,
China's "Communism" followed that of the Soviet Union into history. It
leaves very little of itself behind. For all the thunder of its coming,
Chinese Communism has passed almost silently into oblivion. All of its
tattered banners have been folded away-and all the millions who were
sacrificed in its name have been buried.
Always more attractive to Western intellectuals at a distance than to any
intellectuals at home, Chinese Communism reveals itself to be more shallow
than that of the Soviet Union. Those Western academics who
Preface
xiii
counseled us to learn pe