Opinion | Why China embraced Marxism but not other Western thinking
- In the early 20th century, the Chinese understood that the rebuilding of China after the collapse of the old order would be a monumental task
- Marx provided historical and political perspectives on how capitalism would evolve, and a concept of dialectics that was almost Chinese
Why is Marxism thriving in China and not Marx’s place of birth? Why is Buddhism practised more in East Asia than India? Why does Islam have more followers outside Saudi Arabia?
Ideas and religion spread through globalisation, but it was really their localisation that created more believers and followers. What succeeded was not globalisation but glocalisation, the internalisation of universal ideas and beliefs by the many and not just the few.
Economist Meghnad Desai, in his book Marx’s Revenge, notes that the Chinese Communist revolution in the 20th century was very different from the French and American revolutions in the 18th century.
The French revolution was a rebellion against the monarchy, while the American revolution was against foreign British domination. By contrast, the Chinese Communist revolution was simultaneously a struggle against foreign invasion and a struggle against the Nationalist government that favoured the capitalist and landed classes.
04:14
Xi Jinping leads celebrations marking centenary of China’s ruling Communist Party
The Communist Party prevailed because it represented the rural peasantry instead of adopting the Communist International strategy of starting the revolution from the cities. In short, the party localised communism.