The Question of Socialism in China: An Introduction

Abstract

Heady days of the Soviet revolution mooted questions of the contours of socialism. However, following World War II, questions of socialism would reappear on the Left agenda as indications spread of the Soviet Union not living up to Marx’s sketches of what a socialist society should look like. Following the Soviet collapse, the global Left was forced to both rethink basic questions of socialism and consider whether other societies self-identifying as socialist could be upheld as really existing exemplars of Marx’s vision for the human future. China, under Mao, was initially embraced by the Left as the new representative of really existing socialism. But, following the 1978 reforms of its economy towards markets and opening to international capital it fell out of favour in Left circles. Yet, China’s unparalleled successes among Third World economies in economic growth and poverty alleviation had, by the early twenty-first century, placed it once again in the crosshairs of Left debate over socialism. While vigorous debate swirled around the question of socialism in the erstwhile Soviet Union there has been less sustained debate over the question of socialism in China. What follows in this article and the Feature Section of the journal is an attempt to remedy this deficit by bringing international Left scholarship to bear upon the important question of the kind of society and economy that is represented by China.