From: "Charlotte S. Wellen" <cwellen-AT-pen.k12.va.us>
Subject: Re: China and Worker's "Rights"
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 3:17:35 EDT



REGARDING THE RECENT CRACKDOWN ON CHINESE ACTIVISTS

"Hello.

I was hoping that some of those on this list who eulogize about
China being
a socialist utopia might make some effort to explain how things
like this
could happen. But they have chosen to remain silent.

I wonder if you know more details of such things?

It would be good to know if there were things which we in
Europe could do to
help in such cases. Any thoughts?

Regards,


Nick  H"

Very few people believe China is a socialist Utopia. 
The orthodox Maoists say that the true socialism of 
the "great proletarian cultural revolutions" was destroyed
by Deng Xiaoping.  Some Trotskyists accuse Mao of being
a Stalinist.  Orthodox Marxist Leninists see Maoism as a 
deviation which tries to replicate in China what happened
in 1917, without the appropriate development of a class-
conscious proletariat.

Rosa Luxembourg would say that Leninism is itself a 
departure from Marxism, relying as it does on a
self-proclaimed vanguard which represents a
dictatorship of ONE PARTY rather that a genuine
proletarian dictatorship, or "a people's democratic 
dictatorship," as the phrase goes in the Chinese
constitution.

I tend to agree with Rosa Luxembourg on this question,
and highly recommend her essay "Marxism or 
Leninism?"

Any regime which jails union leaders can hardly be
called socialist in any sense.

Sincerely,

Wei En Lin



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