Over the past few months, nationwide mass protest broke out in China against the government policy of near-total lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID. These protests have forced some concessions from the government. 

In the course of these protests, the media in the U.S. continually promoted the lie that Xi Jinping, the current ruler of China, was “bringing back the days of Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-tung),” the great revolutionary who led the Chinese revolution to victory in 1949 and then led the building of socialism for 27 years. They claimed that Mao had brutally tyrannized the people of China, and now Xi was doing the same. And then these media would draw a contrast between the “dictatorial and autocratic China” and the “democratic U.S.” 

But what’s the truth? On this panel on the home page of revcom.us, we’re featuring four pieces that go into this. And here’s three big truths.

One: Xi and Mao Are Polar Opposites, Representing Completely Different and Antagonistic Aims, Methods and Classes.

Mao established a socialist state in China, one that represented the interests of the working class in fighting to overcome the backwardness and scars left by the centuries of rule first by feudal landlords and then by imperialists from the U.S., Japan, Britain and other capitalist countries. He fought to narrow and eventually eliminate the differences between the different classes, to support revolution around the world and develop organs of power that could enable the masses to revolutionize China, and to bring into being new values of cooperation and serving the people up against the dog-eat-dog values of exploiting class society. 

Xi is just the latest butcher to run the capitalist-imperialist system that was violently (re-)established in a coup after Mao’s death in 1976. This state represents the interests of a new capitalist-imperialist class that finds it useful to maintain the labels of “socialist” and “communist” while it exploits the masses and dominates countries abroad and enforces these policies through its state—as does the U.S. capitalist-imperialist class—without the phony “socialist” packaging, of course. Right now the U.S. and China face each other in an increasingly bitter and militaristic rivalry.

Two: The Rivalry and Struggle Between the U.S. and China Is a Fight Between Two Imperialist Powers, Each of Which Is a Bourgeois-Capitalist Dictatorship—NOT a Struggle Between "Democracy and Autocracy"

The U.S. media talks endlessly about the supposed contrasts between the “democratic” U.S. and “autocratic” China. But let’s note that the “free and democratic” U.S. has a far greater proportion of its population in prison than any other country in the world. Let’s note that 20 protesters were murdered in the “democratic” U.S., and countless more beaten or jailed, during the “George Floyd-Breonna Taylor” uprisings against police murder and repression in 2020, either by police, military or fascists. And if you listened or read closely, one bit of truth that came out during this upsurge is that the “autocratic” Chinese government does allow certain kinds of protests to take place within a narrowly constricted and “manageable” range—as does the U.S.¹

If you view this at all scientifically, the only conclusion is that both current-day China and the U.S. are forms of capitalist-imperialist dictatorship that also contain some democratic institutions both as safety valves and ways to make modifications within the existing system and coopt those who are rebellious. 

Three: Under Mao’s Leadership, the Role of the Masses In Uprooting Oppression and Reshaping Society—and Vigorously Struggling Over How to Do That—Went Further Than Any Time in History. The New Communism Brought Forward by Bob Avakian Builds on That, but Goes Far Beyond It

Under Mao’s leadership, China was a socialist dictatorship over those who attempted to bring back exploitation. At the same time, democratic forms with much broader mass participation than anything ever before brought forward enabled the masses to struggle over, criticize, and transform nearly every sphere of life toward eliminating all relations of exploitation, all the institutions that backed those up, and all the values that reinforced that. The interviews on this panel with Bob Avakian and Raymond Lotta not only let you know “what that looked like,” but dig into the reasons for and significance of it, as well as shortcomings and errors, even serious errors, in the execution and conception of those policies. 

But history didn’t just stop with Mao. Even more important, we point you to the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, BA, which builds on but goes further than the Cultural Revolution led by Mao in China—and in certain key respects ruptures beyond it. Particularly in the sphere of mass debate over the direction of society, BA breaks with constraints on debate to an official ideology that people were expected to believe in—something that worked against the vibrancy socialist society needs and narrowed the search for truth and the ability of masses of people to distinguish the true and false, right and wrong.

In describing the advance represented by the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, Bob Avakian has written:

It is a fact that, nowhere else, in any actual or proposed founding or guiding document of any government, is there anything like not only the protection but the provision for dissent and intellectual and cultural ferment that is embodied in this Constitution, while this has, as its solid core, a grounding in the socialist transformation of the economy, with the goal of abolishing all exploitation, and the corresponding transformation of the social relations and political institutions, to uproot all oppression, and the promotion, through the educational system and in society as a whole, of an approach that will “enable people to pursue the truth wherever it leads, with a spirit of critical thinking and scientific curiosity, and in this way to continually learn about the world and be better able to contribute to changing it in accordance with the fundamental interests of humanity.” All this will unchain and unleash a tremendous productive and social force of human beings enabled and inspired to work and struggle together to meet the fundamental needs of the people—transforming society in a fundamental way and supporting and aiding revolutionary struggle throughout the world—aiming for the final goal of a communist world, free from all exploitation and oppression, while at the same time addressing the truly existential environmental and ecological crisis, in a meaningful and comprehensive way, which is impossible under the system of capitalism-imperialism.

—From NEW YEAR’S STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN