Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (August 22, 1904 — February 19, 1997, formerly known as Deng Xiansheng, was a Chinese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and theorist, who was the de facto head of state of the People's Republic of China from 1977 to 1992, following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. He was born in Guang'an, Sichuan. His primary contributions to Marxist theory include the Socialist Market Economy, Reform and Opening Up, the Four Modernizations and the Four Cardinal Principles, which are included under his theoretical thinking which is known as Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Infrared's Assessment of Deng Xiaoping

From an Infrared show clip titled "What Deng Xiaoping means for Socialism“, Infrared showrunner Haz Al-Din can be quoted as saying

Why is Deng Xiaoping correct? Everyday I realise how correct Deng Xiaoping was...Deng Xiaoping Thoughts exists beyond the threshold of Ilienkov's self-sacrificial apocalypse...Deng xiaoping is not a revisionist but is merely elaborating marxism leninism to its conclusion....Deng Xiaoping's unleashing of the productive forces amounts the aftermath of Ilienkov's apocalypse. It is post apocalyptic. Where Ilienkov cannot perceive any reality outside of this apocalypse in which we are...that reality is already taken for granted in socialism with chinese characteristics.

Haz Al-Din states that Deng Xiaoping's contribution to Marxism-Leninism is the understanding that the pace of socialist construction happens at a level that escapes the purview of socialist consciousness. That socialist consciousness is actually derivative and secondary with regard to the material scale of time which socialist construction occurs. This notion can be otherwise interpreted as that the productive relations can only be as advanced as the productive forces, of which higher relations of production can only come from higher productive forces. And productive relations are secondary to the productive forces. To Haz, this is an idea that is an elaboration of Marxism-Leninism, and we can see this evidently in the text, A Critique of the German Ideology in which Marx says fundementally the same thing, which are quoted in the following passages:

And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the "propertyless" mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. Without this, (i) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism.

And once more he states:

"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the intercourse... ...This appropriation is further determined by the persons appropriating. Only the proletarians of the present day, who are completely shut off from all self-activity, are in a position to achieve a complete and no longer restricted self-activity, which consists in the appropriation of a totality of productive forces and in the thus postulated development of a totality of capacities. All earlier revolutionary appropriations were restricted; individuals, whose self-activity was restricted by a crude instrument of production and a limited intercourse, appropriated this crude instrument of production, and hence merely achieved a new state of limitation. Their instrument of production became their property, but they themselves remained subordinate to the division of labour and their own instrument of production. In all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of production must be made subject to each individual, and property to all.

Marx is referring to how the restriction and lack of development of the productive forces merely achieves limited communism. That their revolutionary appropriation would be limited and merely a new state of limitation or a crude state of production. If the productive forces are not fully developed or fully emancipated, or given full play to development to strengthen socialism, socialism will become limited and stagnate. This will also inevitably limit workers emancipation and restrict their access to greater material luxuries which are afforded by higher productive forces. Without the continued development and advancement of the productive forces, communism would end up being restricted as a local affair, and inevitably fail.

We can clearly see that Marx believed that the role of the productive forces was primary, while the relations of production are contingent and secondary upon which the level of the productive forces are developed. This confirms Haz's assessment that Deng Xiaoping was merely elaborating Marxism-Leninism to it's logical conclusion.

Works

• The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Volume 1 (1938 - 1965)
• The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Volume 2 (1975 - 1982)
• The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping Volume 3 (1982 - 1992)