This article is the latest in a series written by a comrade who grew up in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the fledgling Progressive Labor Party were fraternal parties at the time. The GPCR marked a turning point in China, as more than 40 million workers, peasants, soldiers and youth fought to defeat the “capitalist roaders” and protect the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The GPCR and socialism were ultimately defeated, in part out of a failure to break with the CCP, as PLP ultimately did, and form a new communist party. But mainly socialism was defeated because it maintained too many aspects of capitalism. In particular, the use of money and wages helped sow a division between workers and peasants on the one hand, and professionals and intellectuals on the other. After the defeat of the GPCR, China went full speed ahead down the capitalist road. Today it has emerged as the main imperialist challenger to U.S. imperialism.
This article reflects the tremendous gains made by the Chinese revolution, as well as a glimpse of the material incentives and wage differences that ultimately undid those historic advances.
 
In its quest for maximum profits, global capitalism has long been destroying the environment. This wholesale damage has sparked a movement for “sustainable development.” The term was coined by the United Nations’ 1987 Brundtland Report, which defined it as development that meets the needs of the current generation without undermining future generations’ ability to meet their needs. Five years later, the UN called on every nation to develop new plans for 21st-century development.
But since all capitalists must grow or die, the last two decades have proven that this system has no room for sustainable development.
The rich and powerful are always after more wealth, while the poor often struggle to get three meals a day. If we are serious about sustainable development, the world must look for a solution outside the capitalist system.
I grew up on a collective farm in rural Shandong, China. The thousand people in my village were divided into eight production teams of about 30 households and 120 people. Each team collectively owned about 13 acres of land, where we grew everything we needed to survive.  During idle times, the children went to school and adults tended the land. In busy times of harvesting and planting, school would close on Wednesday, Friday afternoon and Sunday, and children worked alongside adults. Like every other child in my village, I started in the fields when I was nine years old, getting paid in work points. My first year, I was paid 5.7 points, whereas adults made 10. Adults carried water on their shoulders from the river, and children would water the plants with ladles; adults dug field ditches, and we would plant and cover seeds inside them. In socialist China, everyone worked together to get things done — male and female, old and young.
Waste Not, Want Not
Most of what we grew, 70 percent of the grains and vegetables — were divided among the families in the production team — based on need. Bigger families received more than smaller ones. Regardless of whether people worked in the fields, everybody received their share. The remaining 30 percent was distributed according to work points or wages. People who worked more would earn more points and receive more foodstuffs. Families could earn additional points by collecting ashes and human and animal waste, and fermenting them into fertilizer. Nutrients were efficiently recycled to the soil. We wasted nothing.
The production team paid taxes to the state collectively, about ten pounds of grain per mu [.16 acres], or about 800 pounds each year. If we had any surplus, we were encouraged to sell it to the state first.  When we had a poor harvest, we could buy grain in the spring from the state-run granary for one or two cents more than our selling price. The state also guaranteed farmers at least 16 square feet of cotton cloth at a few cents a square foot to ensure they could have new clothes each year. Well-off farmers could buy more cloth at a higher price.
We produced about forty varieties of grain and vegetables, mostly for our own consumption. We bought cooking oils, farming tools, matches, liquor, vinegar, wine, soap, rope, clothes, and shoes from the state-owned shops and free markets. Under socialism, state-owned enterprises didn’t need lavish packaging to compete. We bought vinegar, liquor and wine to go into our own bottles. We bought matches in bulk. Everything was recycled. People would pick up pieces of glass, metal, paper, rubber and plastic, and sell them to the recycling stations. Our village, like all of China, lived a waste-free lifestyle.
Socialist Health Care: Rx for Equality
The village built its own school and hired its own teachers. Tuition was free for all children, who learned a curriculum relevant to their lives. Teachers earned work points, much as farmers did.
 Farmers had free medical care, though we had no well-trained doctors in the rural areas and no sophisticated pharmaceuticals. Each village sent a high-school graduate off for six months’ training in an army hospital. They came back to the villages as “barefoot” doctors, people who lived and worked like village farmers. After the first barefoot doctor returned, a second high school graduate was sent off. By the time I left my village for college, in 1978, we had four barefoot doctors serving about 1,500 people. They were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When barefoot doctors could not handle a medical problem, they referred patients to the commune or county people’s hospital, where the cooperative medical system paid their expenses.
 Many dismiss the barefoot doctors, but I disagree. Despite their minimal training, they constantly bettered themselves on and off duty. They knew their patients and families well and cared deeply for them, which made a big difference. For example: my father worked for the government at the time and enjoyed free, state-provided medical care in a large hospital. Even so, he preferred to see our barefoot doctors.
Chinese Communists Made Historic Advances for Workers
At the time, many uprooted farmers in India, Brazil and Mexico ended up in the slums, where living conditions were horrible and crime rampant. But under socialism, collective farms provided free medical care and free education to farmers. China was the only major country to avoid large-scale urban migration in the 1950’s and 1960’s — and the high environmental costs that come with it. With urbanization, supplies must be shipped and heavily packaged, creating lots of waste. Chinese farmers who grew their own food generated very little waste, and what there was could be disposed of locally with minimal environmental impact.
Different people can make different judgments about China under socialism.  But it is undeniable that the Chinese made huge progress during the socialist experiments. Chinese life expectancy soared from 35 years in 1952 to 69 years in 1976, an advance unmatched in human history. By contrast, India had the same life expectancy, 35 years, in 1952. By 1976, it had increased only to 50 years.
Though a very poor country, China was able to provide all its people — rich or poor, urban or rural, mental or manual laborers — with free education and medical care. In terms of living standards, the gaps between these groups were small.
In light of the environmental degradation in capitalist countries in the West, development experts at the UN had good reason to call China the hope of the human race. We must remember that recent history contains a model of sustainable development — under socialism.

 

The so-called Great Powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole number of small and weak nations. And the imperialist war is a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty.
—Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917

The escalating crisis in Iraq signals the sharpest threat yet to U.S. control over Middle East oil — to the point where the U.S. ruling class is more openly acknowledging the prospect of the next world war.
The last two weeks have seen the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, sustain its advance toward Baghdad from northern Iraq. ISIS forces now occupy one-third of the country and are laying siege to Baquba, just 30 miles from the capital. They have obliterated the border between Iraq and Syria and overrun a crossing between Iraq and Jordan, one of the very few reliable U.S. allies in the region. The region’s national boundaries, drawn to divide the spoils between imperialist powers Britain and France after World War I, are being erased before our eyes.
“Having taken Mosul and Tikrit,” The Guardian reported, “ISIS is now near striking distance of some of Iraq’s most strategic sites. It continues to menace the Baiji oil refinery and the Haditha dam and has encircled Iraq’s largest airbase north of Taji” (6/28/14). Reuters observed that both ExxonMobil and British Petroleum “are pulling foreign staff from Iraq, fearing Sunni militants from the north could strike at major oilfields concentrated in the Shiite south despite moves by the Baghdad government to tighten security” (6/17/14).
Even more alarming to the U.S. ruling class is the growing threat to the vulnerable slave state of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and the linchpin to today’s inter-imperialist rivalries. According to Fahad Nazer, a former analyst at the Saudi embassy in Washington, ISIS “has vowed to ‘conquer’ Saudi Arabia after it has ‘vanquished’ the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad” (Al-Monitor, 6/25/14). The Saudis designated the group as a terrorist organization in March. They recently issued a statement calling for “the defeat and destruction” of ISIS and all al-Qaeda networks in Iraq. Ten days later, the ISIS offensive had “brought it within a few dozen miles of Baghdad and a couple of hours’ drive from the Saudi border” (Wall Street Journal, 6/27/14).
Motley Fool, a savvy financial services company, warned in veiled terms of an oil shock if ISIS gets its fingers on Saudi treasure: “The spread of extremist ideology and the mobilization of groups like ISIS to neighboring countries is an even bigger threat ... of supply disruptions in key OPEC-producing countries.”
Rulers Can’t Back Down
By contrast, Russian gas giant “Gazprom....is experiencing ‘no problems’ in Iraq,” boasted Moscow’s RT website (6/19/14). It’s not a coincidence that Russia is bolstering the pro-Iran administration of Iraq’s sectarian Shiite president, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. As the New York Times (6/29/14) reported:
Iraqi government officials said Sunday that Russian experts had arrived in Iraq to help the army get 12 new Russian warplanes into the fight against Sunni extremists. The move was at least an implicit rebuke to the United States, where concerns in Congress about the political viability of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government have stalled sales of advanced jet and helicopter combat planes to Iraq.
For the international working class, the stakes in this growing conflict could not be higher. In their determination to control the world’s oil production and distribution, U.S. rulers killed more than three million Iraqis in two wars and an intervening decade of child-starving sanctions. But their divide-and-conquer strategy — to fuel murderous divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims — has apparently backfired. The prospect of losing Iraq yet again, not to mention the energy reserves of Saudi Arabia, would likely prompt a third, even more lethal Gulf War.
From a global perspective, Iraq is a flashpoint for the intensifying competition among the world’s most dangerous, nuclear-armed, capitalist powers: the U.S., China, and Russia. All three are vying for oil and gas supremacy from the Persian Gulf to Crimea to the South China Sea. All three have demonstrated their willingness to slaughter countless workers in pursuit of maximum profit. None of them can afford to back down. In particular, the U.S. bosses — still on top, but in relative decline — will not passively stand by and watch their adversaries overtake them.
Forecasting WW III
Of late, U.S. ruling-class organs have begun to address the inevitable upshot of this inter-imperialist antagonism in more candid terms. In line with Lenin’s century-old analysis, they are predicting a third world war in so many words. Consider “World War Next,” an essay in Asia Times (6/27/14) written by Michael Vatikiotis, director of the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Among the organization’s funders are George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, two leading financiers for the dominant finance capital wing of U.S. capitalism.
Vatikiotis compares ISIS and al-Qaeda to early 20th-century anarchist groups and the Serbian nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the trigger to what is now known as World War I. “[T]he Sunni insurgents of western Iraq,” he writes, “are connected to the sprawling civil war in Syria …  which in turn has allowed the Kurds to carve out with alacrity their proto-state. This risks opening a path for new age Persian adventurism, bringing the counter-threat of Israel’s use of nuclear weapons one step closer to reality.”
In Asia, Vatikiotis points to China’s “wide-reaching territorial claims in the South China Sea” and the resulting tension with Japan, which “may soon shed the constitutional constraints on its armed forces in place since the end of World War II.” (On July 1, the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced plans to “reinterpret” the constitution to ease the use of military force.)
With the U.S. and the European Union preoccupied by the Middle East and East Asia, the writer sees “almost nothing stopping Russia’s slow annexation of East Ukraine, which will inevitably embolden Vladimir Putin to roll out his grand design for a greater Russia.” Throw in the imploding states of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it is “no surprise … that the number of refugees globally has now exceeded 50 million people, the first time the figure has been higher than [in] the immediate aftermath of World War Two.”
Stating the obvious, Vatikiotis believes the United Nations is worthless in dealing with this latest “revival of great power rivalry and interstate conflict.” Then he goes one step further: “In this, the 100th anniversary of the start of the war to end all wars, we could be once again on a slippery slope towards what looks like old-fashioned world war.”
From War to Revolution
The working class has no control over how or when the bosses wage their next worldwide clash. We hold a different kind of power: the power to transform inter-imperialist war into the fight for communism. The two “great wars” of the 20th century gave rise to the two great communist revolutions. But this sequence of events was neither spontaneous nor inevitable. In both the Soviet Union and China, a dedicated communist party organized masses of workers for many years before hostilities broke out. Communist leadership — and patient preparation — were essential.
Today we are faced with a similar challenge. Progressive Labor Party has taken on the historical task of organizing the working class to be ready to turn the guns against the rulers. Our aim is to create a world free of racism and sexism, of exploitation and unemployment, of poverty and war. Join us!

Brooklyn, June 18 — Hundreds of angry healthcare workers, mainly women from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 East, picketed on their lunch hour outside Methodist Hospital. They were protesting against a proposal by the racist hospital bosses for massive cuts in benefits. Their union contract is due to expire on July 15. Workers came from every department.
They marched around the hospital block blowing whistles and chanting, “Strike! strike! strike!” and “Bosses say cutback, we say fight back!” Patients and workers inside the hospital waved from windows and cheered the marchers. One hundred and fifty CHALLENGEs were distributed by PL’ers supporting the picket line.
The bosses have been renovating this hospital with the huge profits made off the workers’ and patients’ backs. They have spent millions on new technology to compete with other capitalist-run hospitals in the drive for profits for themselves, their stockholders and the banks that finance them. Meanwhile, the emergency room is packed with patients waiting hours for treatment. Increasingly, patients are being discharged before treatment is completed. Many workers are completely worn out by shift’s end. This capitalist system surely ruins our lives!
Workers at this hospital have a history of fighting back against write-ups and for better working conditions. PLP has been organizing here for many years. There are many CHALLENGE readers and PL supporters among the workers. We are fighting for political leadership. With communist understanding, workers can cut through the lies of hospital bosses and union misleaders alike. Building a study-action group here can help meet the obstacles we face day-to-day and lead to new recruits to our Party.
The SEIU leadership has consistently refused to lead any fights for contracts or day-to-day struggles. Their outlook is to accommodate the bosses’ needs and those of their system. Over the years, they have sacrificed workers’ raises to preserve benefits, saving millions for the bosses. Meanwhile, last year, the top five healthcare systems took in over $20 billion in revenues. Using our pension funds to pay for our raises in past contracts has weakened the fight against the bosses’ capitalist healthcare system and has led workers even further down the road to capitalist hell.
Surely, any system based on profit and exploitation cannot produce any security for workers or provide decent healthcare. Workers should join the fight for a system run by workers, the only guarantee of a secure life. That system, without bosses and profits, is communism.

Trenton, NJ, June 26 — Over 100 people traveled here today for a Day of Action to demand that any state budget deficit be paid for by the bankers and billionaires, whose capitalist system caused the 2008 crash. The aftermath of that crash has seen permanent racist budget cuts for the working class worldwide, even as capitalists have received trillions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.
At the initiative of local legal services workers, a War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC) was formed earlier this year to spread the struggle against the budget cuts to more workplaces, schools and communities. Workers began organizing for the Day of Action right after May Day. WAPC intensified its efforts to gain more support from several community and union-based organizations, including a caucus in a local teachers’ union. There were debates inside the coalition about relying on the masses of employed and unemployed workers instead of on politicians and media coverage.
Two months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration announced that projected revenue for his proposed 2014-15 budget was supposedly $807 million short. Christie immediately reneged on the 2011 deal he made with Democratic Party leaders to have the state put over $3.85 billion into the underfunded state workers’ pension system. Instead, he slashed the contribution to $1.37 billion. When angry state workers demanded action by their unions, their leaders chose instead to merely sue the governor. Christie threatened to make further cuts in funding for schools, hospitals and social programs if he lost the lawsuit. The court supported Christie.
Union Leaders Sell Out
When we arrived in Trenton, our multi-racial group marched about a mile from the parking lot to the Statehouse building rally site. Our spirited chants of “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”; “Politicians say cut back, we say fight back!”; and “The workers united will never be defeated!” echoed through the streets. As we approached the Statehouse, scores of surprised teachers and other workers already there began loudly applauding us.
At the rally, several speakers (including a teachers’ union vice-president) supported the Democratic Party budget, which included a short-term “millionaires’ tax” and a slightly higher tax on corporations, and also made the promised pension payment. This is the same Democratic Party whose leadership collaborated with Christie in 2011 to impose huge increases on workers’ contributions to pension and health care payments in return for supposedly guaranteed state pension contributions. Senate leader Steve Sweeney, who engineered the deal, hypocritically asked the Republicans, “What about damn fairness?” Any union leader who leads workers to rely on these tools of the bosses is leading our class over a cliff.
One earlier speaker told the crowd that only “revolution” could solve the problems of the working class. While PLP agrees with that assessment, there is more that must be said. As we see it, no set of reforms can meet the needs of our class. Any reform can be taken away by the bosses. For example, all of the past gains by state workers in pension and healthcare benefits are rapidly being eroded. But even reforms that last longer will not lead to a system where racism, inequality and exploitation are abolished. Only communist revolution can do that.
Legal System Shuts Out Workers
Another speaker told a moving story about a legal services client who had to be turned away because the local office has suffered a 60 percent cut in staff attorneys and is now working a four-day week. This client had worked her whole life. When her unemployment benefits ran out, and she needed help, she was callously told that her niece’s payment of her rent made her ineligible for assistance. The speaker attacked a “criminal system” where the bankers have all the best lawyers money can buy, while we have to turn away our mainly black and Latin jobless brothers and sisters who face destitution and homelessness.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from the struggles workers here have undertaken in the past nine months. One is that it is important to have a long-term outlook. Many workers who had been quiet and unassuming have stepped forward in the course of the fight. The collective struggle in our meetings has resulted in several workers rising to the challenge of these hard times.
Another lesson is that communist leadership is crucial in this period. That leadership extends far beyond the day-to-day organization of the class struggle. More important to our efforts is the confidence PLP has in the working class. Many workers are disheartened by the constant cutbacks faced by our class. They see no alternative to the capitalist system of profit for the few. The small pockets of struggle led by our Party can encourage those workers to join the fight back and expand the number of workers open to revolutionary solutions to attacks by the bosses. As we head into the next phase of the struggle, we plan to increase the circulation of CHALLENGE and to spread communist ideas in our workplaces.