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Academic hyperzionism

A radical critique of Ingo Elbe’s book “Antisemitism and Postcolonial Theory”


05/07/2025

Vintage 1931 map of Palestine which has been subdivided by squares. Parts of it are demarcated as "international body"

This critique takes a radical postcolonial perspective, directly opposing the arguments made in the author’s book. Rather than providing a detailed analysis of the book’s content, this commentary aims to expose the underlying assumptions, distortions, and omissions that serve as key narrative strategies. We caution that readers seeking an in-depth examination of the book may not find this critique particularly useful; instead, it comments on the text as part of a broader attack on post-colonial scholars, showing that what is stated in those pages provides more information about the author and the intellectual climate in Germany than what is intended to be said about “others.”

Ingo Elbe’s Antisemitismus und postkoloniale Theorie was published in 2024, in the context of increasing global criticism of Israel’s policies and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In Elbes’ 400-page book, he misrepresents reality by distorting facts and omitting critical aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This framing functions as an ideological defense, portraying postcolonial studies (PCS) as inherently anti-Semitic while deliberately overlooking Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine.

This narrative is a deliberate distortion based on a selective omission, portraying the conflict in the Middle East as primarily racial and religious. Yet, this intentional oversight seems to be a key tactic, a framing that obscures the real cause of the struggle, which is territorial and therefore settler-colonial. In this frame, the author ignores that Palestinians, as occupied people, have a right to resist their colonial occupation, a stance even supported by a United Nations resolution (1973). Within the flawed logic that conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, the attacks on postcolonial scholars appear justified, and undermining the reality of colonial occupation paves the way for the series of fallacious arguments that the book advances. Now, let us examine some of the book’s main points.

I. There is no colonialism

By selectively choosing facts, images, and arguments from various contexts and debates among postcolonial theorists—from Latin America to the U.S. to Asia and Africa—the author attempts to lend credibility to his central accusation. However, this strategy is both deliberate and deeply flawed. It is concerning to see the repeated use of a familiar rhetorical pattern, where any critique of Israel is swiftly dismissed as antisemitic. This tactic, often employed by those who defend Israel unconditionally, deflects legitimate criticism by either ignoring it or misrepresenting it as an attack motivated by deep “hate against Jews.”

Elbe presents his book as an intellectual contribution, but its focus on labeling postcolonial scholars and activists who critique Israel’s colonial practices as “antisemites” makes it resemble a defamation campaign. Although Elbe invokes the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism to justify his criticism, acknowledging but not accepting the much more nuanced definition provided by the Jerusalem declaration as the basis for defining “antisemitism.” So, conflating such criticism with anti-Jewish hatred, he sets the groundwork for his fallacious argument.

As Moshe Zuckermann argues in Antisemit!: Ein Vorwurf als Herrschaftsinstrument, the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is not only intellectually dishonest but also misrepresents the perspectives of Jewish voices critical of Israel. Figures like Zuckermann, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chomsky have long emphasized that criticism of Israel’s policies is not the same as antisemitism, and all of them have been labelled as “Antisemitic” or “self-hating jews.”

Following the same narrative, widely used in Europe and Germany to defend and justify Israel’s actions, lies at the core of Elbe’s argumentative structure. This can be represented as a syllogism of a logical chain of denialism of Israel’s colonial nature:

  • If Israel is not a colonial state, then it has not committed acts of apartheid or ethnic cleansing.
  • Therefore, any accusation of genocide against Israel can be dismissed as anti-Semitic.

This argument unravels when confronted with overwhelming evidence of Israel’s settler-colonial history, as documented by historians like Ilan Pappe, Rashid Khalidi, and many others. Pappe’s work reveals the systematic expulsion and erasure of Palestinians, directly contradicting Elbe’s claim that such accusations are merely continuations of “anti-Jewish traditions.” It seems that Germans, who have the opportunity to redefine history, prefer to distance themselves from their historical antisemitism and project it onto critics of Israel, the left, and Arab communities, as if there had never been antisemitism in Germany. As the author Esra Özyürek recently said in an interview:

“This accusation goes back to the idea that you are allowed into the social contract as long as you prove that you have learned lessons from the Nazi regime. How do you prove it? By showing you are philosemitic, which in the German context means claiming allegiance to Israel. By definition, those who don’t do that don’t deserve to be part of Germany. The idea that Muslims have different cultural ideas, which makes them not fit into German culture, has been around for a long time. Now the focus is on antisemitism. There is this feeling among the Right and also the Left, settled around the idea that Muslims do not deserve to be here because they are anti-Semitic.”

For many of these so-called anti-anti-semites, to protest against a genocide wouls make you an antisemite. Even the claim “a genocide is happening” is called antisemitic propaganda. Elbe’s denial of Israel’s genocide reaches its extreme, extending accusations of antisemitism even to allegations brought forth by South Africa in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The author writes, “The question arises whether the genocide accusation is not a continuation of the ritual murder and blood lie from the anti-Jewish tradition” (p. 25-26). Despite the “cautious,” question-like tone, the message of this sentence is clear: South Africa is commiting an antisemitic act by accusing Israel of genocide. This rhetorical tactic seeks to discredit criticism of Israel’s actions by framing them in a distorted historical narrative. In this strategy, denial and accusation work in tandem. 

II. Against academic “mainstream”

Elbe positions himself as a defender of academia, claiming to challenge a “mainstream” supposedly dominated by PCS. However, the notion that he is battling an “academic hegemony” is far from reality in Germany and elsewhere, where PCS has been under relentless attack. As Allana Lentin notes in Why Race Still Matters, the narrative that PCS has taken over academia is often used by right-wing intellectuals to undermine critiques of Western imperialism. Other titles in the tradition of “clashing of civilizations“ discuss the distrust of the West, describing it as “war against the West” or even as hatred towards the West. Moreover, Elbe’s self-victimization can be read as part of a larger ideological strategy, aligning his work with the defense of the Western historical legacy.

In Germany, Elbe’s claims of resisting academic orthodoxy ring especially hollow in view that pro-Palestinian voices are systematically silenced, and cast out of the academic circles, as the cases of Gassan Hage and Nancy Fraser make clear. Moreover, Elbe’s ideas align with the dominant political narrative that dismisses any criticism of Israel as antisemitic, while the tactic of self-victimization is less about defending academic integrity and more about reinforcing the power structures that postcolonial scholars aim to deconstruct. A clear example of how Elbe’s argument is received in Germany is its citation by far-right AFD politicians, who use his work to attack postcolonial theory and dispute Germany’s developmental programs, as well as the view of Israel as a colonial power. It is as if Germany is already seeing the first signs of a historical revisionism that will emerge in the coming years.

III. Against a “Manichean” worldview

Elbe accuses postcolonial scholars of promoting a Manichean worldview. While it is true that some scholars may overemphasize the crimes of European colonialism, his critique overlooks the fundamental purpose of postcolonial studies, which is to address both historical and ongoing injustices. As Pankaj Mishra argues, the legacy of colonialism continues to shape global power dynamics, reflected today in the unconditional support of Israel by this same “West,“ which makes PCS´s intellectual and political contributions crucial in challenging and exposing these enduring legacies.

Ironically, Elbe engages in a form of reverse Manicheanism, selectively attacking postcolonial scholars while ignoring critiques from Jewish intellectuals. Figures such as Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, and Norman Finkelstein have long critiqued Israel’s policies from a leftist, anti-Zionist perspective. Yet, Elbe’s oversimplification of “Jewishness” and how jews have to behave regarding Israel demonstrates his refusal to engage with the diversity of thought within the leftist tradition in general and PCS in particular. It highlights his ideological alignment with those who seek to protect Israel’s status as a Western ally and as an imperial protectorate.

IV. Hyperzionism

Elbe’s book reflects a significant fear among German “intellectuals” regarding the need to confront the legacy of their own hypocrisy and historical violence. As Rob Nixon discusses in Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Western nations have long concealed the structural violence of their imperial and colonial pasts. Today, that legacy is starkly visible in the context of Gaza, the bombing campaign of Lebanon, and the recent war with Iran.

The recent statements by the new German chancellor, including “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us,” are a perfect example of this imperialist alliance based on the continuous dehumanisation of the other, be they Palestinian, Yemeni, Iranian, or left-wing dissidents. Narratives like Elbe’s contribute to a broader ideological trend aimed at protecting Western interests, using intellectual discourse to maintain the neo-colonial and U.S. imperialist status quo.

Unsurprisingly, such views are prevalent within German academia, aiming to shape perspective of new generations of Germans in defense of the Western imperial legacy, warning against the “internal” and “external” threats, whether they be “hordes of immigrants” (from Arab countries seeking to enter Europe after their homelands have been destroyed), or the external threat from Russia. Apparently, Israel plays a leading role in this Western imperialist alliance against its “threats,” that the most warmongering German politicians and academics are unwilling to let it fall, showing a support that, due to its obvious hypocrisy and double standards, borders on the irrational and even fanatical.

This German hyper-Zionism, as Hans Kundnani describes it, even permeates leftist circles and the German Green Party. It is a strange nationalist tendency to perceive Israel as an improved version of the German self, a gross historical misrepresentation, particularly regarding the so-called Anti-Deutsch elements. For any outsider, it’s not easy to understand this strange kind of Freudian projection. 

Final words

Ultimately, Antisemitismus und postkoloniale Theorie is not to be taken seriously as an “academic contribution”; instead, it needs to be seen as a piece of ideological propaganda designed to defend Israel’s colonial policies and maintain the Western narrative of self-glorification while “the only democracy in the Middle East“ continues in genociding Palestinians and bombing their neighboring nations. As the world grapples with the realities of colonialism and the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza, scholars like Elbe will find themselves increasingly isolated as their efforts to shield Israel and its ongoing crimes against humanity crumble under the weight of historical evidence and moral clarity. However, let’s be clear that this mixture of hyper-Zionism, contempt for historical facts, and moral panic, as Illan Pappe calls it, seems only possible in places like Germany.

Red Flag: Watermelons at the Fusion Festival

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin examines Berlin’s favorite radical left festival and Palestinian solidarity


04/07/2025

Last weekend, the world’s media focused on Glastonbury. The Irish hip-hop group Kneecap was cut from the live broadcast due to their solidarity with Palestine — and the English punk band Bob Vylan electrified tens of thousands with chants of “Death, death to the IDF!” Keir Starmer called the chant “appalling” — a harsher condemnation than he has managed for 20 months of genocide in Gaza.

With everyone else watching Somerset, Berlin leftists kept their eyes on Lärz, a small town two hours north of Berlin. At a former Soviet air base, 70,000 people were trying to create “vacation communism” at the Fusion Festival. Both the tagesschau and the police reported nonchalantly that there were “no disturbances” — quite a contrast to the rote denunciations of “Israel hatred” at cultural events.

In Lärz, there were indeed watermelons, “Free Palestine” signs, and artists speaking out against genocide — but reporters simply didn’t see that, as they’re not allowed on the grounds. On Sunday, up to 150 people joined a pro-Palestine demonstration through Fusion.

A pro-Israel group calling itself “Fusionistas Against Antisemitism and Antizionism” brought together around 100 people and complained that their stall was banned. They refer to supposed “antisemitic incidents” at last year’s festival, but they are using the same distorted statistics as the German government — every time a non-Jewish supporter of Israel faces criticism for advocating war crimes, they declare themselves to be a “victim of antisemitism” — even when they’re attacking left-wing Jews. 

It seems rather absurd to present support for an apartheid state — the exact same position as CDU, AfD, Axel Springer, etc. — as part of a “pluralistic” and “non-hierarchical” left. Isn’t Zionism quite hierarchical when it comes to who can live in Palestine? But then the Antideutsche were always absurd.

Not a Bubble

At Fusion, as everywhere else, Zionists are losing ground as the whole world watches a genocide unfold live on their phones. I have written about Fusion again and again and again, and after a multi-year break (for… you know… reasons), I was able to return for nine hours on Sunday, and I brought my own “Fusion Fights Apartheid” shirt. The very first Fusion worker I met, while getting on the bus in Berlin, hugged me.

Fusion’s radical left politics are not overt — it’s more like a place for leftists to zone out and make some money. It’s basically a Soliparty at the neighborhood squat, but at a bafflingly enormous scale. And for the record: I have no problem with that! Leftists get stressed, and it’s ok for us to want to shut off our brains for a few days — even better if it’s with other leftists and for a good cause.

Yet as much as Fusion feels removed from the outside world — people waiting in line at the entrance will say “I’ll see you on the other side” — it is not actually a bubble. Its politics reflect those of the Berlin Left. At the moment, up to 80% of people in Germany reject weapons shipments for Israel, and even Die Linke (the Left Party), which historically defended Zionism, can now be seen at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Muddled Statements

Last year, Fusion tried to strike a balance between the censorious demands of Germany’s “reason of state” and the left-wing views of their attendees, particularly the international ones. The organizers, Kulturkosmos, put out a statement demanding recognition of “Israel’s right to exist.” But as many people pointed out, leftists do not defend any state’s “right to exist,” and certainly not a settler-colonial state founded on the basis of ethnic cleansing. 

After lots of criticism and calls for a boycott, the Zentralkommittee published a follow-up acknowledging they had “written from our German perspective,” and should be clear about Israeli apartheid and genocide. The text was muddled, but it pointed in the right direction.

There was a subsequent call to double down on the boycott, but I think this was a mistake. While I understand everyone who doesn’t want to support events that are not 100% clear on Palestine, I think we should fight for all of our spaces. If Antideutsche are crying about being excluded, then we shouldn’t be simultaneously excluding ourselves.

There are many things to criticize about Fusion — it wouldn’t be a left-wing festival if we weren’t constantly arguing about it. It is indeed too white, too hetero, too German, and above all too cautious in its politics. It’s not a good look that Glastonbury, a commercial festival with liberal politics, had more to say than Fusion, for and by radical leftists. Yet people are learning and Fusion is changing — as evidenced by the many watermelons in Lärz.

Red Flag is a weekly column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel Flakin has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

I don’t think the center could hold even if it tried to

On the “No Kings” protests and the crackdown on expression in the United States


02/07/2025

A photograph of protestors at a "No Kings" demonstration. One holds a sign which reads "Our democracy is under attack by our own government".

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in a café in Northern California, where I live, and anxiously scrolled through headline after headline, post after post, about the deployment of the United States National Guard and Marines to the city of Los Angeles. The deployment of 2,000 California National Guard members, undertaken without the input of California Governor Gavin Newsom or any state leaders, was announced on June 7th in response to protests in Los Angeles against continued Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids against our undocumented community members. In the days that followed, that deployment ballooned to another 2,000 National Guard members, followed by 700 United States Marines.

We are about seven or eight hours away from Los Angeles, but considering the simultaneous protests in San Francisco and Sacramento, no amount of pretend normalcy or California sunshine could cut through the tension that seemed to renew every time the espresso maker hissed. The barista in charge of the music kept playing songs specifically about California, until switching to The Beach Boys shortly after the death of Brian Wilson was announced. I have to admit that I have rarely felt the kind of public anxiety pulsing through the café that morning, despite the other moments I can point to, and have participated in, that have followed a related political trajectory. I have to admit that this makes me lucky.

The night before, Karen Bass, current mayor of Los Angeles, imposed a curfew on one square mile of downtown Los Angeles in response to the notion put forward by U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration that the protests in the city, in particular those focused on the Metropolitan Detention Center, had become violent, that Los Angeles was a festering urban hellscape of lawlessness and depravity. With the exception of those residing or working in the area, failure to disperse had the consequence of detention or arrest, mostly carried out by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

The imposition of a curfew can be viewed multiple ways—Karen Bass called it a “tipping point”, reporting that 23 businesses had been looted. Jim McDonnell, Chief of the LAPD, framed it as a matter of public safety. Governor Newsom, backed by Mayor Bass, took the position that the citizens of Los Angeles and California should not in any way validate the Trump administration’s characterization of the situation. In his address to California, Newsom took great pains to clearly demarcate the line between state enforcement of immigration and federal escalation and misuse of power, telling us directly that “criminal behavior will not be tolerated” while also calling on us to exercise our right to protest.

The protests themselves have largely been peaceful, something repeatedly emphasized in play-by-play coverage by The New York Times, by CNN, and by the Associated Press, especially as protests began spreading to other cities (I want to note as well that demonstrations have been consistently occurring on a smaller scale over the past several months). However, despite this emphasis, multiple narratives also emerged about the tone and mood of the protests. Major news outlets also skipped heartbeats to report the hundreds of arrests taking place, while Fox News termed the protests in Los Angeles “an invasion.” On social media, it quickly became a common refrain for people to warn each other to protest not with foreign flags, but with Californian or American flags—this way, protestors could not be accused of invasion, of unpatriotic behavior, or of malicious intent.

On June 14th, an estimated 5 million people participated in coordinated “No Kings” demonstrations across all 50 states. I was one of those 5 million people, one of an estimated 3,500 in my town according to local organizers, in a county that votes consistently for GOP candidates and voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Aside from two trucks with Gadsden flags and one man who angrily flipped us off as we marched in serpentine coils through downtown, we encountered dozens of supportive car honks. I saw people I’d never seen at demonstrations before, and for several people I talked to, it had been their first ever protest. Parents carried babies on their shoulders. Next to me, an 11-year-old child shouted with the crowd, “Immigrants are welcome here!”. People in neon safety vests who had trained in crowd safety and de-escalation helped us safely cross streets. When a fire truck drove down Main Street, everyone cheered at it, and the man driving it waved back at us. The police did not tear gas us, as they did to protestors in Georgia—we largely seemed to ignore each other. Despite the news we had woken up to that morning regarding the assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband (and the attempted assassination of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife), there was a sense of relief and jubilation in the crowd: We were here together. Our community, like so many others, has absorbed and survived multiple historic and deadly wildfires—but on this day, we were here together.

Later that night, I absorbed the reporting emerging from other states: Some clashes between law enforcement and protestors had occurred in Los Angeles, in Portland, and in some smaller cities. Some protests had been targeted, with an attack in Utah resulting in the death of a Samoan-American fashion designer. Despite these events, however, the protests remained largely peaceful.

So if these protests have been mostly peaceful, then why are governors in other, largely conservative-led states, following Trump’s lead and deploying the National Guard? The imbalance of both agency and media response to these protests may result in a worrying trend regarding how protests are dealt with, despite the nonviolent and self-censoring actions of these demonstrations. For all of Chief McDonnell’s talk of the LAPD supporting Angelenos (an endearing nickname for residents of Los Angeles), we can see them on horseback, trampling protestors and striking them with batons. For all of Governor Newsom’s supportive rhetoric, he has simultaneously reinforced that the State of California can and will use force against its citizens all by itself.

The line between peaceful protest and unlawful assembly is continually moved, as exemplified by the curfew itself, and by the mixed messages people are given: We can and should protest, but only if we do it a certain way so as not to upset anyone. It doesn’t matter if ICE raids take place at schools, or in Home Depot parking lots, or at farms, and disrupt our public life—if we dare to be too angry about it, we are painted as lawless by both our enemies and the people who are supposed to stand up for us and our neighbors. I fear the lack of acknowledgement of the power differentials at work here. I also fear the implications of the logic at play here:  that it is okay to use force against civilians, regardless of their status, if the LAPD, if the San Francisco Police Department, if the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, says it is okay, because the alternative—the National Guard and the Marines—is objectively worse.

As of the evening of June 17th, 2025, the curfew imposed on downtown Los Angeles has been lifted. There are no curfews taking place in other California cities. The mainstream news cycle has shifted its too fearful and too savvy eye towards the escalating conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States. Too infrequently, a headline about Gaza blooms red beneath the headline banner, another ticker line about targeted aid workers and starving or murdered civilians whose names would take an entire small-town plaza to vigil, whose names could stretch around city blocks for an uncomfortable distance.

But ICE has been given renewed directives to expand their raids in California and across the United States, contradicting previous declarations from the Trump administration that raids would cease at farms, restaurants, and hotels. US Citizens and elected officials alike have been arrested, detained, and disrespected for attempting to speak out and exercise the right to protest. Local police departments are assisting ICE, even if Chief McDonnell claims that LAPD is not one of them. If these agencies are working cooperatively together, despite narratives that place them at odds with one another based on city, state, or federal jurisdiction lines, I find myself focused on how they are still working together against the rest of us, and primarily against those among us who are undocumented, who may have applied for asylum several years ago but are still held up in the endless bureaucratic queue of lawful citizenship.

About a week before the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles, I got a sudden urge to re-read some of the works of the seminal California writer Joan Didion. On a camping trip in the Sierra Nevada, I breezed through The White Album and Slouching Toward Bethlehem, reflecting on words the critic Hilton Als spoke in a 2017 documentary about Didion: “You couldn’t write a cohesive narrative about the times, because the times weren’t cohesive.” I’d been feeling anxious already, even prior to the escalation which I worry has become normal; Didion’s work gave some conviction to my sense that we were sliding into a historical kind of disorder over the past decade or two in particular, that this was not an abnormal thing to be feeling. I had no idea that a week later I would be buzzing with an even more intense feeling that this was indeed the case.

I’ve found myself holding onto the phrase she borrows from the W.B. Yeats poem, “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold”. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, this becomes, “The center was not holding”, with Didion’s verb change linguistically implying a fundamental and irreparably-in-progress fragmentation of order. Perhaps now, the center cannot hold even if it wanted to, even if we tried to make it hold; we can no longer afford to ignore what is happening to our public life, our neighbors, our friends and loved ones. What counts for normal, for order, when our communities are being attacked, and our governor platforms right-wing conservatives with one breath while calling on us to protest with the other?

Didion, a New School journalist and writer who was characterized in an obituary as someone who drifted from the Republican Party in her youth towards the Democratic Party “without ever quite endorsing their core beliefs”, was said to have a fear of disorder, that manifested as metaphors involving snakes in her work. After having spent five years in Northern California, living through wildfire, I can understand this fear, and I believe that she partially tempers it with her writing about water, in which she recognizes that control over such a valuable resource in such a volatile climate is often a futile and self-destructive endeavor. As I sat in the café reading the news with The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” surfing over me, as I protested with my community members, and as I continue to watch these senseless raids, I have come to think that maybe we, the people out on the street, are the water, looking out for the cops and the snakes on Gadsden flags in the corner of our eye, worried for the ways in which our own so-called protectors will try to dam us up next.

China is not a monolith

The Communist Party and socialist construction


01/07/2025

Out of the 1.4 billion people who live in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), around 100 million Chinese citizens are members of the Communist Party of China (CPC). To put that in perspective, Germany has a total population of about 84 million. And yet, all too often popular and even academic discourse sees fit to make broad categorizations (be they positive or negative) about China and its ruling Party, as if a political organization larger than any European country except Russia or a country larger than any other save India could be reduced to a single voice. Indeed, it is highly questionable how any group of such size could function at all without discourse, criticism, and self-reflection, and yet China’s return to global prominence has been meteoric.

Making matters worse, ideological sectarianism has led many leftists in the English-speaking world to refuse any serious engagement with more recent developments in China. This has resulted in a media landscape in which some of the most comprehensive outlets describing China’s socialist project come from reactionary sources engaged in bad faith analyses. The aim of this article is to serve as an introduction to a few of the key elements of the Chinese effort to construct socialism. It is written to inspire readers to engage more deeply with the many voices coming from China, rather than attempt to reduce the entirety of the PRC or the CPC to something which can fit inside of an “either this or that” box.

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

Any amount of time studying CPC publications will quickly familiarize one with the concept of the tífǎ (提法). Tífǎ are short phrases which condense extensive ideological meaning, with examples including “Harmonious Society”, the “Four Basic Principles”, and “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. In the case of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, what is being invoked is the continual application of socialist theory within China’s unique but permanently changing material circumstances. To that end, a line is drawn connecting the Party’s major ideological developments, which are listed as: Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

The CPC Constitution, in summarizing these developments, refers to each as a “crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China” in their respective epochs, emphasizing historical precedence. Each major ideological development by the Party is contextualized with all those that have preceded it and justified by its claim of representing a continuation of Marxist-Leninist principles. The development of China’s socialist project has been one of dramatic change and adaptation, but it is interesting to note how, with each new iteration of party leadership, the CPC has found it necessary to state and restate its commitment to socialist principles and a communist future. The Party’s legitimacy, its “right to rule”, is in part tied to its adherence to socialist ideals. Rather than attempting to move beyond these ideals, the rhetoric of the CPC repeatedly and consistently reaffirms them.

Like all nation-states, the PRC has no choice but to exist in a world-system defined by the dominance of the capitalist mode of production. The PRC Constitution states that “class struggle will continue to exist within a certain scope for a long time to come” adding that “the people of China must fight against those domestic and foreign forces and elements that are hostile to and undermine our country’s socialist system”. Similarly, the CPC Constitution notes that “owing to both domestic factors and international influences, a certain amount of class struggle will continue to exist for a long time to come, and under certain circumstances may even grow more pronounced, however, it is no longer the principal contradiction”. This is rationalized, according to the CPC Constitution, as inevitable given China’s current level of development in what is called the “primary stage of socialism” — a stage which “cannot be bypassed” and “will take over a century”.

Article 3 of the PRC Constitution and Article 10 of the CPC Constitution state that the State and Party operate in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism. It is true that the centralized aspect of Chinese governance limits actions and speech which would hinder the Party’s decisions, but this should not be misunderstood as the negation of debate within the Party or country as a whole. Dissent is constrained, but that does not mean that it does not exist. In 2012, Chinese academic Cheng Enfu defined seven tendencies in China’s political discourse: neo-liberalism, democratic socialism, new leftism, eclectic Marxism, orthodox Marxism, revivalism, and innovative Marxism. These tendencies are representative of a complex and ongoing debate within China and include policy-positions ranging from the prioritization of Confucian values to the furthering of economic privatization to the reinvigoration of Maoism. Similarly, David Ownby, a professor at the University of Montreal who runs the Reading the China Dream blog, frequently translates works by Chinese scholars into English, dividing this discourse into three main categories: liberalism, New Leftism, and New Confucianism. Ownby insists that “genuine debate… occurs constantly in China, and the intellectual world is not as ‘harmonious’ as Chinese authorities would prefer, nor as totalitarian as Western media sometimes suggests.”

Moreover, CPC publications, as well as the Party’s constitution, insist that China has entered the “primary stage” of socialist development. Whereas Lenin’s State and Revolution elaborated on the Marxist conception of the time, that the overthrow of capitalist society would first result in a “lower phase” of communism (socialism) and then a “higher phase”, the CPC insists that this lower phase must itself be broken into stages given China’s historical circumstances. In the “primary stage” of socialist development, the CPC has achieved national autonomy and placed market forces under Party control. From this perspective, one might understand the continuance of class struggle as a tactical decision while the CPC pursues the current “principal contradiction” of raising the living standards of the Chinese people and addressing “unbalanced and inadequate development”.

Cheng Enfu and Yang Jun, in an article for the Monthly Review, consider China’s socialist development through a “Triple Revolution” theory. They argue that revolution first takes the form of a seizure of power, followed by an embodiment of reform and self-improvement, and finally a transitional period to “carry the revolution through to its completion”. The authors note how this notion of carrying the revolution to its completion has been reintroduced by Xi Jinping as an “urgent demand” of the CPC. The development of socialism in China is an ongoing conversation, and its future will be tied to the ability of Chinese socialists to push their values forward through the challenges of both internal and external contradictions.

“Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones”

The CPC is attempting to build socialism by balancing the benefits and consequences of market economics through a process of experimentation and a philosophy of pragmatism (summarized in Deng Xiaoping’s famous quote, now an oft-quoted adage in Party discourse: “crossing the river by feeling the stones”). Chen Yun, who served on the Central Committee of the CPC from 1931-1987, described what has come to be known as “birdcage economics”. Chen insisted that market forces were necessary for the PRC to catch-up with the industrialized world before it succumbed to internal and external pressures. However, he also warned that the “bird” (market forces) must never be allowed outside of its “cage” (the state plans of the CPC). He stated: “We have to utilize a cage, that is to say, both invigoration of the economy and allowance for regulation by market forces should play their role as prescribed by the state plan, and we must not deviate from the format of state plans.”

China’s socialist market economy is not Soviet-style socialism premised on central planning. Nor is it free market capitalism. It has elements of both, though in reality it is neither. The state plays a tremendous role, and while the market is given space to thrive, this space is defined by ironclad limits set by the Communist Party and adjusted in accordance with changing domestic, international, and global realities. The question of whether any individual adjustment is conducive to the ends of socialism or represents a step backward is best raised empirically, rather than ideologically, which requires familiarity with China’s material situation.

The CPC’s exercise of state power has also extended beyond the market. Yang Ping, founder of the journal Wénhuà Zònghéng (文化纵横), considers China’s rise to be representative of a “third wave” of socialism following the initial wave of European labor movements gaining class-consciousness and the second wave of socialist state projects which ended with the dissolution of the USSR. Yang argues that China’s development of a socialist market economy has allowed it to rise rapidly without succumbing to the international pressures that overwhelmed Soviet-style socialism. Key to this point is an emphasis on the leading role of the Communist Party on the grounds that “if socialism does not provide ideological and cultural leadership, capitalism inevitably will”.

Under Xi Jinping, there has been a renewed effort at consolidating more and more civil spaces and social institutions under CPC control — rationalized, according to Yang Ping’s argument, that CPC leadership is necessary to prevent Chinese development from succumbing to capitalist idealism. This logic might be compared to the role of the state as a “birdcage” for the market: the CPC understands that the institutions of civil society must expand as China develops, but will not allow this expansion to take place without oversight on the grounds that the absence of leadership by the Communist Party is synonymous with the presence of leadership by capitalist interests. This is a balancing act, one which is rife with contradictions, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics will be judged historically by its ability to successfully navigate and resolve such contradictions.

One example of these contradictions in civil society is the role of organized labor in China. All labor unions must be affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), an organization controlled by the CPC. Within China’s socialist market economy many corporations are also under party oversight, and must maintain internal party organizations. This creates an obvious conflict of interest in which workers seeking a resolution to their grievances are left appealing to representatives who are also connected to their company’s management. This has resulted in widespread distrust of the ACFTU and the emergence of grassroots labor organizations and NGOs in Chinese civil society, initially tolerated by the CPC but now largely dismantled or integrated into CPC-led organizations.

However, the integration of Party and society has also enabled incredible progress, such as Xi Jinping’s poverty alleviation campaign which has lifted nearly 100 million Chinese citizens out of extreme poverty since 2013 (contributing to the 800 million who have been lifted out of poverty in China since 1978). The success of such a campaign would have been unthinkable without the capacity to mobilize large numbers of party cadres alongside local communities to address problems at their roots and in a sustained way. For example, a key role was played by the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), a mass organization tied to the CPC. This deliberate linking of Party and civil society represents an adherence to the Maoist principle of the “mass line”. The same integration of civil society organizations under CPC control which has contributed to workplace grievances and widespread strikes has also facilitated the unprecedented feat of raising the living standards of hundreds of millions while eradicating extreme poverty. China’s path to socialism is a balancing act. It is an ongoing debate over how to implement the proper kind of leadership in relation to constantly changing material circumstances, and in the face of internal and external contradictions — it cannot be otherwise.

What Can Be Learned from China’s Socialist Endeavor?

CPC official Sun Yeli has stated that while China’s modernization process contains universally applicable aspects, it is also tailored to China’s unique context. The scholar Yuen Yuen Ang has described China’s economic model as “using what you have”, referring to the creative application of local resources by grassroots actors in accordance with top-down directives. What might be learned from China is not any one specific policy or organizational system, but a methodology. An understanding of Marxism not as a dogmatic subscription to a set of conclusions to be considered ahistorically, but rather as a science of change grounded in the material world. Socialist principles (the pursuit of economic equality, international solidarity, and a resolution of exploitative contradictions) should be ironclad and inflexible. But these principles cannot be realized in one fell swoop — they must be constructed piece by piece, with inevitable setbacks and all of the challenges of human imperfection.

Marxists around the world should consider what socialism will have to look like in relation to their own specific environments. This requires a critical analysis of which tactics will or will not allow one to further the socialist cause, conducted concretely rather than abstractly. The fact that the CPC has not been able to skip from its “Century of Humiliation” straight to a fully classless society free of exploitation seems to be grounds for many so-called “Western Marxists” to dismiss the entirety of China’s effort at socialist construction outright, a consequence of treating Marxism as a dogma rather than as a science. Yet, no socialist project has ever existed outside of a state of siege from both domestic and international counter-revolutionary forces. Nor has a socialist project yet been achieved in the so-called “developed” world.

Such points cannot be brushed aside. Socialist China did not come into being with an industrialized economy or a military strong enough to secure its sovereignty. Rather, it emerged out of a period of historic weakness, imperialist exploitation, and poverty. High among these contradictions has been the horror of poverty, which led Deng Xiaoping to declare that without raising people’s living standards “you cannot say that you are building socialism”. In spite of its hardships, China has made historic strides forward. Missteps, setbacks, and counter-revolutionary tendencies (both internal and external) are inevitable. Socialist construction cannot proceed through ideological purity, it must navigate the contradictions of reality without losing sight of a red future.

There are of course reasons for concern, for example the makeup of the Party going forward. Drawing on the Organizational Department of the CPC as its source, South China Morning Post reports that CPC membership in 2019 consisted primarily of managerial and technical workers. Agricultural and “blue-collar” workers combined make up roughly a third of Party membership (a slight decrease from 2012). The Party is also aging, with about 18% of members being retirees and around a third being at least 61 years old. Female representation is horribly low and improving only at a snail’s pace. The composition of the Party, increasingly “white collar” and stubbornly male, cannot but impact the internal decision-making dynamics of the CPC going forward — but such matters are concerns, not grounds for surrender or dismissal.

In one of his polemics, Vladimir Lenin noted that in revolutionary times the Communist Party had to “speak French”, his metaphor for utilizing “rousing slogans” to “raise the energy of the direct struggle of the masses and extend its scope”. For “pure” socialists, this direct application of revolutionary zeal seems to be the be-all end-all of socialist construction. Yet, Lenin claimed, in times of stagnation one must learn to “speak German”, working slowly, “advancing step by step, winning inch by inch”, ultimately declaring: “Whoever finds this work tedious, whoever does not understand the need for preserving and developing the revolutionary principles of Social-Democratic tactics in this phase too, on this bend of the road, is taking the name of Marxist in vain.”

The history of the Communist Party of China is that of an organization which has learned, through trial and error, when to “speak French” and when to “speak German” (and there have been errors, ranging from the consequences of the Cultural Revolution to the inconsistency with which violations of worker’s legal rights have been addressed). Now, as the largest economy by GDP (PPP), the CPC is showing the world what it means to “speak Chinese”: to creatively navigate the contradictions of socialist growth in a capitalist world-economy while tirelessly developing a revolutionary culture. China’s socialism will proceed in the only way human endeavor possibly can: through steps and missteps, deviations and corrections, debate and reflection. It is an experiment which demands the world’s attention, led by a party which is not static, but living. Readers are encouraged to engage critically with the variety of theoretical perspectives emerging from China, and to engage with China’s socialist project as a process rather than as a monolith. In this time of historic reaction, Leftists around the world must learn to “use what they have”, to refine theory through practice, and to progress down the path towards a red future through both inches and strides.

3 July 1988: Iran Air flight 655 is shot down

This week in working class history


On 3rd July, 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was flying in Iranian airspace, taking civilian passengers from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. It was shot down by two surface-to-air missiles fired by the US warship Vincennes, which was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. All 290 people on board the flight were killed. 8 years later, the US government paid $61.8 million in compensation to the victims’ families. However, Vice President George Bush later insisted, “I will never apologize for the United States—I don’t care what the facts are.”

Some of the facts were recorded in the proceedings of the U.S Naval Institute, as Noam Chomsky later recounted: “David Carlson, who was commander of a nearby vessel, said he couldn’t understand it. He said that they saw this Iranian commercial airliner coming up right in international airspace, and the USS Vincennes focused its high-tech radar system on it and was moving forward to shoot it down.”

The attack on the 655 took place towards the end of the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980 to 1988. At first, the US government supplied both sides with arms (in the Iran-Contra hearings, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North admitted that the USA had broken the official arms embargo to provide Iran with weapons). As the war went on, the US tilted towards supporting the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

The shooting down of the Vincennes is just one of many examples of the disregard both for international law and human life shown by successive US governments, both Republican and Democrat, in their attempt to control the oil region. In 2002, the USA declared war on the same Saddam Hussein whom they had been supporting against Iran. As the US wages war on Iran once more, we should remember the victims, past and present, and mobilise against their imperialist wars.