A new class struggle: Chinese party members get back to Communist Manifesto basics
A spectre is haunting party members who only pay lip service to communist ideology as Xi Jinping orders extra Marxist study sessions
First it was Communist Party discipline, then it was President Xi Jinping’s speeches and policies. Now party members across China will soon have another subject added to their already taxing political-study sessions – the Communist Manifesto.
Last week, Xi convened a Politburo study session to celebrate the tract by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which portends the collapse of capitalism and the eventual triumph of socialism.
Studying the work serves the purpose of “strengthening faith in Marxism” and “enhancing the party’s ability to use Marxist principles to solve the problems facing contemporary China,” Xi told members of the party’s ruling body.
But it was not only the country’s 25 most powerful men and woman who needed to brush up their knowledge of the 170-year-old pamphlet.
At the meeting, Xi also ordered “the broad masses of party members, cadres and especially senior cadres to study well and apply well”.
The study session, which was played up by state media, is Xi’s latest attempt to restore the shaky – if not long-lost – faith in Marxism and communism in the 90 million members of the world’s largest political party.