Why China celebrated the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx with a bang
Marx was Right is the rather improbable name of the newest television show to air in China. Debuting this week, the show on state broadcaster CCTV was part of a week-long Marxist festival in China, all to remember the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx, who was born on May 5, 1818.
China’s ruling Communist Party (CPC) has a strange relationship with Marx and Marxism. China has for the past four decades embraced capitalism and pioneered its unique authoritarian-capitalist model. In many ways, India is a far more socialist country than China is, if you consider, for instance, China’s tolerance for labour unions or workers’ rights.
Yet, outwardly, the CPC still describes itself as a Marxist-Leninist party. This was largely only in name, even as China’s society embraced Western ideas. But this is not how President Xi Jinping sees it.
Since taking over in 2012, Xi has led an effort to strengthen the party’s ideological control, from the media to university campuses. He has warned against Western ideas weakening the party’s grip and legitimacy.
This is not to say he is going to take China back to Mao’s communes: this is more of a device to strengthen political control. “Scholars who study Marxism would have some understanding of the manifesto, but for sure the majority of party members would not even have read it,” Deng Yuwen, commentator and a former editor of a CPC newspaper, told the South China Morning Post.
The 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth was the latest platform to push the party line, as Xi visited the elite Peking University, telling its students to remember Marx, chaired a Politburo study session where the top leaders pored over the ideas of Marx and Engels, and then addressed a massive gathering at the Great Hall of the People that was broadcast live on every major television channel.
Speaking against the backdrop of a towering portrait of Marx, Xi said: “Marxism has not only profoundly changed the world, but also China.” Addressing the obvious contradiction of a country with all the trappings of capitalism extolling Marxist ideals, Xi said, “It is perfectly right for history and the people to choose Marxism, as well as for the CPC to write Marxism on its own flag, to adhere to the principle of combining the fundamental principles of Marxism with China’s reality, and continuously adapt Marxism to the Chinese context and the times.”
In the weeks ahead, insiders say they expect to see a campaign at all levels to push with renewed emphasis to study long-forgotten Communist ideals. Study sessions of the Communist Manifesto will, as a start, be introduced, from universities to Party units in companies.
Xi said all of the country’s 80 million-plus party members needed to study its guiding philosophies, which are listed in the party constitution as “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, invoking Marx, Lenin and five generations of Chinese leaders, the last being Xi himself.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)