“Socialism” is in, “Enrich yourselves” is out. Where did we hear this before? Chinese “capitalists” may learn some lessons from Bukharin.
by Massimo Introvigne
“Common prosperity” (共同富裕) is the new big thing in China. There is, of course, a “Xi Jinping thought on common prosperity,” but then there is a Xi Jinping thought for almost everything, including toilets. There are seminars and courses about common prosperity everywhere, mandatory for state bureaucrats and Party members. There is a whole province, Zhejiang, converted into a laboratory for common prosperity. There is also widespread fear in China that with common prosperity Xi is up to no good, and will take away from the Chinese some features of the comfortable life at least the rich have enjoyed since Deng Xiaoping. And there is fear abroad that the value of some foreign investments in China will be affected.
What is common prosperity, exactly? In short, it is part of Xi’s program to show that he is deadly serious when he insists, as he does almost every day, that China is a Communist, Marxist, Leninist country, something some foreigners desperately try to deny. There are three reasons why some media, some politicians, and a part of the educated public opinion in the West do not take seriously Xi’s endless tirades about the CCP being truly Marxist and Leninist. The first is that Communism is about equality (theoretically, since this was never true in the Soviet Union), and China has the most grotesque unbalance in the last century between the rich and the poor. Second, China also has a number of super-rich that would seem hardly compatible with Communism. Third, the lifestyle of Chinese youth appears to be largely dominated by the capitalist demons of videogames, the cult of celebrities, and what in China is called “lying flat,” i.e., avoiding hard work and grand projects for the future, which does not exactly correspond with Lenin’s ideal of homo sovieticus.
Xi is well aware of this criticism. Unlike his immediate predecessors, he is also determined to do something about it. “Common prosperity” can be translated into “Back to Socialism,” meaning adopting redistributive policies to make the rich less rich, rein in their power, and make the youth more socialist. These are not empty words, as the Jack Mas of China might have believed. They were hit by the growth of new regulations and by ad hominem attacks and campaigns targeting those who had become too rich, too visible, and too powerful.
Xi also promotes something called “tertiary distribution of wealth” (三次分配,) whose meaning was explained a few days ago, at the August 17 meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee. Primary distribution occurs spontaneously in the economy, and the secondary distribution is the redistribution by state intervention. The tertiary distribution, the CCP explains, requires the rich to “participate in some charitable causes and assume more social responsibilities. To return the wealth taken from the society to the society, and use it to promote social development.”
In this sense, of course, Christianity has always preached “tertiary distribution,” and in countries like the U.S. charitable giving is all-important for society. The problem is that, unlike in the U.S., the CCP tells the Chinese that “tertiary distribution” is mandatory. Mandatory charity is not charity, it is more socialist redistribution. Classic redistributive strategies, such as increasing taxes in general, including taxes on real estate, and introducing inheritance tax, was also suggested at the August 17 meeting, which was chaired by Xi in person.
As for the young people, the crackdown on private tutoring, on videogame companies, and even on karaoke, all show that Xi is trying to remodel Chinese youth according to a more Marxist and sober ideal.
Scholars of Marxism have seen this before. “Enrich yourselves” is a famous slogan by Deng Xiaoping, a slogan that is now due for retirement. But few remember that Deng did not invent that slogan. It was actually coined by Soviet leader Nikolai Bukharin, Lenin’s ideologist and Stalin’s staunch ally in his ascent to power. With others, Bukharin invented in 1921 something called the New Economic Policy (NEP), which introduced limited elements of capitalism and private property in the Russian economy, needed to save the country from bankruptcy after the Revolution and the civil war. Lenin fully supported the NEP, but not Stalin, who after Lenin’s death abandoned it in 1928.
According to the classic biography of Deng Xiaoping by Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine, Deng went to Russia to study the NEP and Bukharin and was inspired by them for his reforms in China, which was on the verge of economics collapse after the Cultural Revolution just as the Soviet Union was in 1921.
Had the NEP continued, it would have transformed the Soviet Union in a social democrat country. Similarly, many in the West predicted that, by introducing capitalism in China, Deng’s reforms will eventually convert it into a Western-style social democracy.
Stalin made sure that this would not happen in Russia. Xi Jinping, who is part of a generation of CCP leaders very much scared by the collapse of the Soviet Union, is determined to avoid this fate for China, too.
Admittedly, the NEP was small compared to the rise of “red capitalism” and the super-rich in China after Deng. Yet, similarities are there.
On March 15, 1938, Bukharin was shot, the victim of one of Stalin’s purges. With him, Stalin symbolically executed the NEP. Perhaps times are less bloody, but “common prosperity” is the start of the symbolic execution of the Chinese NEP.