Upstream - [TEASER] China Pt. 2: Socialist Democracy and Democratic Centralism w/ Ken Hammond

Starting point is 00:00:00 A quick note before we jump into this Patreon episode. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this and provide most of our content for free so we can continue to offer political education media to the public and help to build our movement. education media to the public and help to build our movement. Thank you comrades. We hope you enjoy this conversation. A few years ago, two or three years ago now, China reached a point where they had lifted literally everybody above the United Nations line of absolute poverty. And that involved a tremendous allocation of resources and

Starting point is 00:01:05 human investment, people going out and doing the work and getting people into better circumstances. We have hundreds of thousands of people in our cities that sleep in cardboard boxes. I mean, it's pathetic. China has started from such a low point in the late 1940s and has come so far, so fast, you know, more so than almost any experience in history. And a lot of that is driven by the fact that people express their needs to the government and people express their needs to the party. And those organizations, we don't want to look at them entirely through rose-colored glasses,

Starting point is 00:01:46 but you know, they apply their energies to meeting those needs. That's a great contrast to what we see here, especially in the present moment. But you know, in the basic nature of Western capitalist society, it's oriented towards very, very different objectives. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you

Starting point is 00:02:12 thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Della Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond. China is an authoritarian dystopia. That's probably the totality of your understanding when it comes to Chinese society and the political system it's governed by if all you know about China is what you hear on MSNBC or Fox News. But is that really accurate? Is China a dystopian, authoritarian police state? Or is that just propaganda force-fed to the mass of Americans because it serves the interests of Western capital? While the answer isn't obvious and emphatic, no.

Starting point is 00:02:51 China is not authoritarian. In fact, the opposite is true. Their system of democracy is arguably and demonstrably much, much deeper and more effective than ours here in bourgeois society. Don't believe us? We've brought on an expert on China to help explain why. Ken Hammond is professor of history at New Mexico State University, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or PSL, and the author of several books including China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future and most recently China and the World. In this conversation we dispel the myth that China is not a democratically run society. We take a deep dive into the mechanisms of

Starting point is 00:03:41 democracy in China, exploring how democratic centralism and the mass lines shape how the Communist Party of China and Chinese society practice and participate in democracy. We look at the history of Chinese democracy, get into the nuts and bolts of how democratic decision-making and policy proposals take place there, and end with an analysis of current geopolitical events when viewed within a historical materialist context. This episode is part two of our Patreon series on China. Part one, A Socialist Introduction with Jason Hickle, was published two weeks ago. Part three, if all goes as planned, will feature Vijay Prashad

Starting point is 00:04:26 and will build on today's conversation to really focus in on the differences between bourgeois democracy and socialist democracy. So stay tuned. We've got a lot of great material on China planned for the coming months. And now, here's Robert in conversation with Ken Hammond. Ken, it is a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm delighted to be here.

Starting point is 00:05:08 I'm wondering if, you know, just to start, if you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you came to do the work that you're doing. Sure. It's a long and winding road, but I'll keep it as concise as possible. Yeah, I'm Ken Hammond. I'm a professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. I'm a specialist in the history of China, both in various aspects of its traditional history and more recently been working more on contemporary China as well. I have been involved with radical left politics for well over 50 years. Since I was an undergraduate at Kent State University in the late 60s and early 70s,

Starting point is 00:06:00 I was there of course during the turmoil in 1970. I was in Students for a Democratic Society in those days, a revolutionary left organization opposing the war and a lot of other things as well. And over the following years, I've just tried to remain engaged politically as much as possible. These days, I'm a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I work with the organization Pivot to Peace a lot. And I'm involved in various community kind of organizing activities here in southern New Mexico. I went to China for the first time in 1982 and stayed in Beijing pretty much for the next five years. And I've gone back on a fairly regular basis

Starting point is 00:06:47 over the years since then, although I haven't been back since November of 19 because of the pandemic and everything. But I'm going this summer and I'm very excited about that. So yeah, I've just, you know, it's, as I say, it's a path that I've followed since I was, you know, it's, as I say, it's a, it's a path that I followed since, since I was, you know, just a college kid. And it's been a quite rewarding set of experiences. And I've learned a lot along the way, I hope, and try to use that information and material

Starting point is 00:07:16 as part of the organizing work that we do through the party and through other, other groups to try to, you know, support China, support the anti-imperialist project in general. And yeah, that's what's kind of brought me to where I am today. Very, very cool. Thank you so much for that. And we have had so many PSL organizers on the show now, and I'm just thinking back,

Starting point is 00:07:42 we've had Jody Dean as part of PSL and I'm spacing right now on everybody. But like, we have a lot of respect here for the great work that PSL does. And I was actually, when I first picked up one of your more recent books, China's Revolution and the quest for socialist future, I was delighted to see that the introduction was by Brian Becker. Yes, who of course is with PSL So a lot of great work that you're doing personally and also PSL is a great org. So really cool to see that connection All right. Well, I'm gonna start with a question that I think you might have a lot of fun with It's one that we hear all the time and so we are talking about China's democracy today So it would probably be a good place to start with It's one that we hear all the time and so we are talking about China's democracy today. So

Starting point is 00:08:33 it would probably be a good place to start with what we hear mostly about China's democracy in the West, which is that China doesn't actually have a democracy, that China is an authoritarian state and that it is undemocratic. And so, you know, I'm just wondering as someone who is so deeply knowledgeable, both with your personal experience there and also with all of the research that you've done, what would you respond to that? If somebody were to tell you that actually China is an authoritarian state and that it is undemocratic, what would your response be? Well, I don't accept that proposition, of course. You know, I think that this term autocratic gets thrown around a lot and it's really a way, especially for American politicians, to dismiss

Starting point is 00:09:15 the government of any country which happens to disagree with American foreign policy. It's very easy. It's a term that gets a lot of public attention and it's something you can just spout off and sound like you're making some sort of characterization, but it's rarely substantive. And certainly in the case of China, it's seriously wide of the mark. I think that what they really mean,

Starting point is 00:09:42 what people mean when they say that is that China has a government which is effective, which is efficient, which sets out to achieve various objectives, and does so in a way that certain systems in the West simply no longer are capable of doing. And so that must mean in the minds of people who use that characterization, that somehow they're just forcing people to do whatever they're told. And anyone who has spent serious time in China knows that that's certainly not the way that reality works over there.

Starting point is 00:10:21 You know, on the other hand, if you want to say, it depends of course course, on what you mean by democracy. If by democracy you mean let's have two or perhaps three political parties that, you know, are based on money and that are run basically by rich people for rich people and that basically trade control of the administrative apparatus and legislative apparatus of the government back and forth between them, and maybe have some disagreements over how best to extract wealth from working people. Well, no, China doesn't have that kind of democracy, but it has a democratic process and a variety of institutional structures and systems that facilitate the interaction between the huge population of China and its government.

Starting point is 00:11:16 And that's something that there are many, many mechanisms to empower people to articulate their needs, their interests, their desires, their hopes. And the state, and of course the state works in tandem with the Communist Party, it takes all of that very, very seriously and their objective is to pursue creating the conditions of a just and equitable society that will allow people to develop themselves, to fulfill their life potential, I suppose you might say, in a wide range of different ways. Does that involve the kind of, you know, sort of ritualistic gestures of let's go into a voting booth once every two or four years and make a choice between people that we didn't really have much of a role in choosing to begin with?

Starting point is 00:12:05 No, you know, it doesn't. They don't have the same kind of, you know, money-driven electoral cycle that we do here. But they have a number of other ways in which people participate directly, which include the election of representatives to the National People's Congress, which is going to be meeting next week, and of course, many, many other mechanisms for direct participation in political life. So, you know, I would say that, yes, it's an effective and efficient government that seeks to meet the needs and interests of its people. And they're pretty good at doing that. Does that make them authoritarian? Does that mean that because they have an elected leader named Xi Jinping, who has been in power now since 2013, that somehow that's invalid and that means that they don't have a democratic

Starting point is 00:12:58 society? I don't think people would have said that about the United States when Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times. So, you know, I think that critics of China, people who are hostile to China can come up with this kind of position and present it in a way that since most people in America don't have a lot of direct access to knowledge and information about China, you know, it becomes kind of the default propaganda, but it doesn't describe the situation there with any kind of accuracy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Thank you so much for that. And we're actually going to be having a Chinese journalist on the show at some point, maybe in March or April, who will be attending that meeting that you just mentioned. So that's going to be really exciting to get into the nuts and bolts of how that works. Excellent. And so that's going to be really exciting to get into the nuts and bolts of how that works. Excellent. So let's get a little bit more deeply into because I'm personally and I think a lot of our listeners are very interested in exactly how the sort of democratic centralist system

Starting point is 00:14:00 works in China, something that we're not very familiar with. Although as someone who's in a party such as yourself or PSL, you have personal experience with that. But I would like to maybe before we dive into the details, get a little bit of historical context. And so we recently had Jason Hickl on for part one of this series on China that we're doing. And he gave us sort of what he called a potted history of China's modern history, which was very interesting, but we weren't able to get as granular. And so I wanna ask you about Chinese experiments

Starting point is 00:14:37 with democratic governance starting during the revolutionary period and sort of how they evolved into the present, like what political philosophies have shaped them and just sort of how it evolved, what inspired it and how it evolved to where it is today. I know that's a huge question. Well, it is, but it's really, it's crucial because China's political system, China's political culture, it's a living thing. It's a dynamic thing. And understanding the way that China is operating today, you know, the way that the government works, the role of the Communist Party, the role of other political organizations or groups or movements, the role

Starting point is 00:15:18 of ordinary people, that's not something that either just dropped from the sky or that somebody just opened up a rule book and, you know,, this is how we're going to do it. It is a system, it is a practice, it is a culture that has evolved and continues to evolve, continues to adapt as time goes on. So taking that kind of longer term perspective and understanding the process through which we've gotten to where we are today, and that'll give us some insight into where things might be going. I think that's a very good exercise. It's a very worthwhile thing. And we want to think of that to some extent as something that operates kind of on two tracks, if you will. addressed or maybe characterized under the terms of like the mass line and

Starting point is 00:16:06 then this question of democratic centralism that you raised. Democratic centralism, I'll just talk about that briefly, we can come back and look at some of the mechanisms of that more fully if we want. But democratic centralism really is something that applies largely within the Communist Party. Okay? Democratic centralism in terms of ordinary people out in society and how they relate to the government or the state or whatever you want to call it, that's a separate arena.

Starting point is 00:16:35 And I'll get to that in just a moment. But within the Communist Party, democratic centralism is a fundamental principle. And we need to also remember that in a country like China, especially now in the modern period or the present period, there's 100 million members of the Communist Party. This is a huge organization. So the way that it operates internally is also it's very important. One out of every seven adults in China is in the party. So this is a very high level of political participation because it's not just a matter again of every few years you go and you vote for a candidate because

Starting point is 00:17:14 they're the candidate of your party. This is an active engagement in political affairs every day basically, you know, through in the normal course of life. It's not just a passive thing that pops up once in a while. It's something that these hundred million people are, they're part of the process through which the party figures out what's going on, what they would like to see go on, and how they might go about pursuing that. So, democratic centralism as a fundamental principle of the operation, the functioning of the party, is very simple. All it means is that when there is a question, when there is a topic, an issue

Starting point is 00:17:52 about which decisions need to be made, that how should we do this? What's the proper objective about that? Whether it's environmental policies or distributive issues or whatever it might be within the party, those issues are debated democratically. All members in the party have the right and indeed the obligation to study, to come to understand the issues and the questions, to express their views about that and participate in the process of formulating whatever policy decision or whatever orientation the party is going to choose to take. When the party makes that decision and this is done you know in a in a elaborate process that works from the bottom up and culminates at you know

Starting point is 00:18:40 with the Central Committee and the Political Bureau and all that and we can talk about the structure again more fully if you want to. But when those decisions are made, then that's the position that the party takes and that position is binding on the members. And so, you know, you accept what we call party discipline and you may not fully agree with the position that is finally adopted. You may have expressed a view that, you know, looked at the question in a different way. But once that decision is made, then you go along with it, right?

Starting point is 00:19:14 That's the centralism. The democracy is the process of working towards formulating a position. And the centralism is that once that position is taken, then you go along with it, which doesn't mean that it's never going to come up again, because again, as a living in dynamic process, there's a dialectical relationship between, you know, sort of theory and practice. And so, policies that are implemented, you got to see how it works. And it might be that down the road a little bit, a particular issue will be reopened. And then, once again, there's a democratic debate.

Starting point is 00:19:49 People express their views. And at that point, maybe the view that you originally articulated may become more accepted, right, by a broader group or by the party as a whole. So it's not just a cut and dried thing. It is a dynamic process that involves the ongoing debate and discussion. But also once decisions are made, you want them to be efficiently implemented. That's one of the ways in which the system in China actually is effective, right? And so you get on board and you do what you can to make it work.

Starting point is 00:20:21 But there's going to be feedback. There's going to be further debate and discussion going forward. So we want to think of it that way. Out in the larger arena, this is where what has been characterized as the mass line kind of works. And the fundamental formulation for that, and this goes back, you know, to the 1920s after the party is first founded, And this goes back to the 1920s after the party is first founded, from the masses to the masses. So that here's the situation in the 1920s. China is mired in poverty. Hundreds of millions of people in the countryside, in the cities are facing very, very dire economic

Starting point is 00:21:01 circumstances. And the party wants to find a path towards transforming society in ways that will enhance their livelihoods, that will improve the material conditions of their lives and empower them along the way, right? But what do they want? What do people want? Because you can't just come out, neither the party nor the state can just come out and be like, all right, look, here, we know what we got to do and everybody just get with the program. You know, that's A, it's not right and B, it's not effective, it's not efficient, you know. So what you want to do is listen to people. You want to solicit input from people.

Starting point is 00:21:42 You want people to, as they said during land reform, there was an amazing phrase they used during land reform, which was to speak bitterness, to talk about the grievances they feel, to talk about the suffering they've endured, to talk about the contradictions that they see in the society, in the circumstances that they're facing. And then try to formulate responses to that. Figure out how can we solve this problem? How can we eliminate usury in the countryside? How can we eliminate the exploitation of labor in the factories? And you work, there's again, there's a dialectic of theory and practice of, let's try this, let's try that. But that has to come not from some playbook

Starting point is 00:22:28 that you pull off the shelf, but through the actual investigation of really existing circumstances. Mao Zedong back in the early 30s wrote about, no criticism without investigation. That you have to look at the actual conditions. You can't just apply some theoretical model in a mechanistic way. And that's a real process of mass participation.

Starting point is 00:22:53 That's a real process, not something that goes on within the party, but that goes on in society as a whole, right? And obviously, I mean, when you're dealing with a society of hundreds of millions of people, you can't convene one big meeting and ask everybody what they think. So it's an elaborate process that aggregates and, you know, kind of moves up through various administrative levels and organizational levels and results in decisions and policies being adopted and implemented. And again, then there's the feedback. Then there's, you know, so that you have from the masses

Starting point is 00:23:28 and then you make decisions and that's to the masses to try to serve their interests, to try to meet their needs, to try to understand how to address their concerns. And maybe you're going to do a great job, you know? Maybe what you figured out and the policy you want to try, it's going to work and everybody's going to go right on. Or maybe not, you know try, it's going to work and everybody's going to go right on.

Starting point is 00:23:45 Or maybe not. The party is not an infallible thing, and nor does it claim to be. The government is not an infallible thing, and nor does it claim to be. It's a process that the Chinese, they use this phrase, crossing the river by feeling the rocks. That's what it's like. And that is not simple. It's not like, oh, we know what we're doing and we're just going to get it done. You know, you want to do your best. You want to make things work.

Starting point is 00:24:16 But if it's not working, you don't want to just continue to push it ahead, you know. And so there's feedback. And what that means, of course, is that sometimes you change direction. Sometimes you drop a policy that you had tried and you try something else. And, you know, that's flexibility, that's dialectics, it's all those kinds of things. And I think that that's fundamental to the operation of what the Chinese these days, especially, are calling full process democracy, right? That it's not, as I said a little bit earlier, it's not just a passive thing where you check a box every four years, but it's a meaningful engagement with politics. You know, maybe not on a 100 percent 24-7 basis, but on a regular and ongoing kind of ground.

Starting point is 00:25:03 on a regular and ongoing kind of ground. This was a clip from our Patreon episode with Ken Hammond. You can listen to the full episode by becoming an Upstream Patreon subscriber. As a Patreon subscriber, you will have access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give

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Upstream - [TEASER] China Pt. 2: Socialist Democracy and Democratic Centralism w/ Ken Hammond

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