A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.

CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”

According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.

  • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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    2 个月前

    From Wikipedia article on Mensheviks: (you’ve been talking to someone else in the comments)

    Mensheviks came to be associated with the position that a bourgeois-democratic revolution and period of capitalism would need to occur before the conditions for a socialist revolution emerged.

    So yes, mate, there are literal historical figures of communism debating this exact same issue that you find so laughable, it’s literally the raison d’etre of the word Bolshevism. There is no specific “Marx passage” as if it was the bible, where it says “in case some fella called Mao organizes a socialist revolution in a peasant agrarian society, pls pull it back to capitalism first, and then go to socialism once it’s capitalist, ok?” If you generally read Marx, you can see how he puts socialism as the necessary and logical end of capitalism, as something inevitable that will happen because capitalism will bring forward the material conditions for the revolution. But despite that, Marx also was a highly politically involved individual, who pushed forward momentously the socialist movement in Europe together with Engels.

    Marx isn’t a gospel that you’re supposed to be able to chant and have undying faith for, it’s an analysis of reality that you can agree or disagree with, which explains the existence of different flavours of communism such as menshevism and bolshevism or such as Maoism and Dengism, which can be explained by the material and historical conditions leading up to those moments. Marx himself said that Marxism has to be constantly interpreting the reality of the moment and critically adapting everything. So if you’re looking for a direct quote from Marx about Dengism or Menshevism, I’m not here to provide that, I’m here to tell you that the definition you consider stupid has been hotly debated for a hundred fucking years, so maybe it’s not so stupid.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      2 个月前

      Mensheviks came to be associated with the position that a bourgeois-democratic revolution and period of capitalism would need to occur before the conditions for a socialist revolution emerged.

      And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.

      Because that makes no sense.

      And you and everyone else arguing for this are ignoring that.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        2 个月前

        And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.

        Socialism with Chinese characteristics is just taking cues from the popular sport of ping-pong.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          2 个月前

          I’m honestly waiting for something like that. It’s so fucking weird to think that dawn has to keep getting darker for the sun to rise.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            2 个月前

            A few more rounds of Great Leaps Forward followed by ultracapitalism will definitely result in our dictatorship of the proletariat almost being ready to dissolve. We just need to run the cycle a few times until our noble and selfless elites decide it’s time to surrender power.

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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        2 个月前

        My brother in Christ, Mensheviks and Dengists were against the consolidation of centralised socialist economy before the historical consolidation of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the difference being that Menshevism died off and Dengism ended up taking the lead after Maoism. The restoration of capital is simply a consequence of Dengism taking over AFTER Maoism, not because Dengists believed there should be first Maoism and then Dengism.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          2 个月前

          Cool. How many billionaires does China get to have before they get rid of them and go to communism? Because it currently stands at over 800 according to my searching. When will their billions be distributed to the masses rather than to their children?

          • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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            2 个月前

            For the last time, I’m not the ultimate supporter of themselves Chinese model of Communism, now that I’ve shown you that your position stems from being uneducated about socialism, its meaning, and its history, you resort to “how many gazillionaires” because you’re not trying to have a civilised discussion. You have a preconceived notion that “China isn’t communism”, which is fine, so do I, but when confronted with the discrepancies within the communist movement and how there are legitimate arguments to call it socialist and on the way to communism, you just spout your initial position again with stronger words. I’ll tell you what I said at the beginning: I don’t care whether it’s communist or not, but you saying “hurr durr no socialism if billionaires” is a shitty argument from ignorance.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              2 个月前

              Accuse me of whatever you like. The fact is that China is becoming ever-more capitalist and suggesting that is the path to communism is silly unless you can explain things like how to distribute a severely unequal amount of wealth.