Campaign to modernize Chinese Marxism

BEIJING -- The Communist Party has launched a campaign among political leaders and senior academics to modernize Chinese Marxism, seeking to reconcile increasingly obvious contradictions between the government's founding ideology and its broad free-market reforms.

 The campaign involves the allocation of millions of dollars to produce new translations of Marxist literature and to update texts for secondary school and university students obliged to study the official philosophy, officials said. In addition, the campaign will promote more research on how Marxism can be redefined to inform China's policies even as private enterprise increasingly becomes the basis of its economy, they explained. 



 The undertaking, which coincides with an 18-month campaign to reinvigorate party rank and file, seems to be designed as a response to frequent complaints about the chasm between official discourse in Beijing -- which emphasizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" -- and the growing reality of often unbridled capitalism in which party officials are eager partners. 



 The unease over this chasm has become particularly apparent among university students, who often chafe at their required classes on Marxist theory. A prominent university's party secretary recently told a visitor that his school had resolved the problem by simply teaching traditional Chinese philosophy during the time set aside for Marxism studies. 



 Students are not the only ones complaining. One Marxist researcher, Yan Shuhan of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, told Oriental Outlook magazine last month that some local officials had responded to his survey queries by chiding him that "it's already out of date to talk about and do research on Marxism." 



 "The theory needs to be innovated on and fully developed," acknowledged Zhen Xiaoying, deputy head of the government's Chinese Socialism Institute. She added, "This is the most important stage. We are trying to use Marxism to solve China's problems. We are not only going to study the basic documents but also to seek solutions to China's current problems." 



 The Communist Party leader and state president, Hu Jintao, recently presided over a meeting of senior leaders during which, the government announced, they studied ways to apply Marxist precepts to the vast economic modernization launched here over the past 25 years. The gathering was one of several called since early last year to deal with the role of Marxism in confronting what Hu called "a series of changes, contradictions and problems in all fields." 



 Since taking power nearly three years ago, Hu repeatedly has hailed China's Marxist roots, dismissing Western-style democracy as "a blind alley" for China. At the same time, he and Premier Wen Jiabao have resisted calls to rein in the economic liberalization, which has produced booming economic growth. The result has been the continuing spread of private business alongside unrelentingly Leninist policing of information, association and political thought. 



 In the Nov. 26 meeting, Hu called for new ways of looking at Marxist doctrine to bring it in line with China's modern reality. He did not address the question of whether this would apply to political activity as well as the economy. But he and other leaders have made it clear that their promises of eventual democratization do not mean drastic changes in the system anytime soon. 



 Scholars from the Central Party School and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have said they would look for inspiration in past Chinese interpretations of Marxism. 



 Some analysts have suggested the research project could be designed to produce an elaboration of Hu's own, still vague theory, in which he calls for a "harmonious society," which he would then seek to enshrine as a national legacy the way his predecessors did. 



 In any case, a senior diplomat suggested, most of the argument within the party arises in the context of factions competing for power and patronage, rather than genuine doctrinal differences. In particular, followers of former president Jiang Zemin have maneuvered to retain their positions while followers of Hu are jockeying to get in, he explained, and the arguments over reforms are mainly weapons in that battle for influence.