Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:49:05.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Envisioning the People's Republic: China and US Marxist Anti-imperialism in the Mid-1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2021

SERENA SOJIC-BORNE
SERENA SOJIC-BORNE*
Affiliation:
Independent researcher. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay studies United States Marxist perspectives on China during US radicalism's decline in the mid-1970s. By the late 1960s, China's apparent synthesis of socialist and nationalist traditions inspired US Marxists to theorize a Chinese-led united front against American imperialism. However, China's opening up to the West in 1972 revealed US Marxists’ differing frameworks for understanding socialism and national liberation. Partly because of the confusion that followed, Marxist internationalism soon lost its intellectual weight on the US far left. Using archived Marxist periodicals from 1973 to 1979, I trace how this happened and what it meant for revolutionaries’ opposition to American empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 113 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the British Association for American Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Newton, Huey and Blake, J. Herman, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 349Google Scholar.

2 Fredrika Newton, “Introduction,” in ibid., iv–xvii.

3 Newton and Blake, 349–52.

4 Bloom, Joshua and Martin, Waldo E., Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 209–11Google Scholar.

5 Spence, Jonathan, The Search for Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013), 567–93Google Scholar.

6 Frazier, Robeson Taj, The East Is Black (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), 2014, 1–13Google Scholar. Kelly, Robin and Esch, Betty, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,” in Ho, Fred and Mullen, Bill V., eds., Afro-Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections between African-Americans and Asian-Americans (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 101–3Google Scholar. Pulido, Laura, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 1–4Google Scholar. Young, Cynthia, Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 1–17Google Scholar.

7 Buhle, Paul, Marxism in the United States: Remapping the History of the American Left (Chicago: Haymarket Press, 1991), 247Google Scholar.

8 Elbaum, Max, Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che (New York: Verso, 2018), 18Google Scholar.

9 Bloom and Martin, 390–402. Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 56–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Zimmer, Kenyon, Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Young, 1–17.

12 Bloom and Martin, 309–38.

13 Striffler, Steve, Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights (London: Pluto Press, 2019), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Alexander, Robert J., International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 912Google Scholar.

15 Elbaum.

16 Young, 7.

17 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 547–49.

18 Pollack, Jonathan, “The Opening to America,” in MacFarquhar, Roderick and Fairbank, John K., eds., The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991), 402–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Suri, Jeremi, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 231–32Google Scholar.

20 Spence, 567.

21 Henry Tanner, “Peking Seat Would Upset Power Patterns in the U.N.,” New York Times, 19 Sept. 1971, at www.nytimes.com/1971/09/19/archives/peking-seat-would-upset-power-patterns-in-the-un-peking-would-upset.html.

22 Spence, 575.

23 Ibid., 571–93.

24 Macfarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael, Mao's Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006), 451–52Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 593–605.

26 Brady, Anne-Marie, Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People's Republic (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 143–75Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 180–81.

28 For an example of this sort of claim today see Mike Gonzalez, “This BLM Co-founder and Pro-Communist China Group Are Partnering Up. Here's Why,” Daily Signal, 15 Sept. 2020, at www.dailysignal.com/2020/09/15/this-blm-co-founder-and-pro-communist-china-group-are-partnering-up-heres-why.

29 Malloy, Sean, Out of Oakland: Black Panther Party Internationalism during the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017), 10–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Prashad, Vijay, Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 140Google Scholar.

31 Cleaver, Kathleen, “Back to Africa: The Evolution of the International Section of the Black Panther Party,” in Jones, Charles E., ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 211–51, 226Google Scholar.

32 Bloom and Martin, Black against Empire, 341–71.

33 Cleaver, 244.

34 Malloy, 191.

35 Perkins, Margo V., Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), 4–5Google Scholar.

36 Elaine Brown, “An Interview with Elaine Brown, Deputy Minister of Information, Black Panther Party, LA, California,” interview by KPLA-FM Radio, Black Panther, 3 Oct. 1970.

37 Brown, Elaine, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), 313–14Google Scholar.

38 “The Black Panther Party Program: March 29, 1972 Platform,” Black Panther, 13 May 1972.

39 Brown, A Taste of Power, 313–14.

40 Malloy, 218.

41 Spencer, Robyn, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 155Google Scholar.

42 Delio Vasquez, “Intercommunalism: The Late Theorizations of Huey P. Newton, ‘Chief Theoretician’ of the Black Panther Party,” Viewpoint magazine, 11 June 2018, at www.viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-the-late-theorizations-of-huey-p-newton-chief-theoretician-of-the-black-panther-party.

43 Malloy, 219.

44 Benjamin Young, “Imagining Revolutionary Feminism: Communist Asia and the Women of the Black Panther Party,” Souls, 21, 1 (Jan.–March 2019), 1–17.

45 Spencer, 175.

46 Malloy, 222.

47 Brown, A Taste of Power, 313–14. Spencer, 175.

48 Huey Newton, “Intercommunalism” (1974), Viewpoint magazine, 11 June 2018, at www.viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-1974.

49 Vasquez.

50 “Tanzania–Zambia Railway Construction ahead of Schedule,” Black Panther, 2 Feb. 1974, 12. “Tanzanian Ambassador: ‘China Cooperation Example for Third World’,” Black Panther, 27 April 1974, 12. “Tanzania Gets Loan from China,” Black Panther, 18 May 1974, 15. “Zambia: Kaunda Discusses Trip to China,” Black Panther, 1 June 1974, 16. “Zambia: Kaunda Discusses Trip to China Pt. 2,” Black Panther, 8 June 1974, 17. “FRELIMO Delegation Hailed in China: Large Crowds Shout Revolutionary Slogans of Welcome,” Black Panther, 8 March 1975, 14. “FRELIMO Delegation Visits Tachai Commune,” Black Panther, 22 March 1975, 19. “China to Attend Mozambique Independence Celebration,” Black Panther, 29 March 1975, 17. “China Protests Murder of ZANU Leader,” Black Panther, 28 April 1975, 19. “China on Rebirth of Mozambique,” Black Panther, 14 July 1975, 2. “People's China and Zimbabwean Struggle,” Black Panther, 1 Sept. 1975, 2. “China on OAU and African Liberation,” Black Panther, 17 Aug. 1974, 2, 6. “China Denounces US over Population Myth,” Black Panther, 31 Aug. 1974, 15, 18.

51 “China on OAU and African Liberation,” 2, 6.

52 “China Denounces US over Population Myth,” 15, 18.

53 “People's China at the UN,” Black Panther, 26 Oct. 1974, 2, 14.

54 Shao, Kuo-kang, Zhou Enlai and the Foundations of Chinese Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), 232–35Google Scholar.

55 “Tanzania–Zambia Railway Construction ahead of Schedule.”

56 “Tanzanian Ambassador: ‘China Cooperation Example for Third World’.”

57 “FRELIMO Delegation Visits Tachai Commune.”

58 “People's China Celebrates 25th Anniversary,” Black Panther, 12 Oct. 1974, 15, 20.

59 “China Readies for Growing Russian Threat,” Black Panther, 13 April 1974, 17.

60 “World Scope: China,” Black Panther, 3 Aug. 1974, 18.

61 “Kissinger Goes to China Hat in Hand,” Black Panther, 3 March 1973, 13.

62 “Kissinger Visit to China Misleading,” Black Panther, 24 Nov. 1973, 2.

63 Elbaum, Revolution in the Air, 207–16.

64 “Black Panther Party Salutes China's 25th Anniversary,” Black Panther, 12 Oct. 1974, 15, 20.

65 “People's China Celebrates 25th Anniversary,” 15.

66 “China Defends Third World Right to Resources,” Black Panther, 20 April 1974, 15.

67 “China's Oil Industry Booming,” Black Panther, 12 Jan. 1974, 7.

68 “Black Panther Party Salutes China's 25th Anniversary,” 15, 20.

69 “American Scientists Find Advanced Farming System in China,” Black Panther, 19 Oct. 1974, 15, 18.

70 “China: Molding Servants of Humankind,” Black Panther, 1 March 1975, 14.

71 “Four Films Capture China's Great Strides,” Black Panther, 8 Dec. 1973, 17.

72 “Black Panther Party Salutes China's 25th Anniversary,” 15, 20.

73 Zhiming Long and Rémy Herrera, “The Enigma of China's Growth,” Monthly Review, 1 Dec. 2018, at https://monthlyreview.org/2018/12/01/the-enigma-of-chinas-growth.

74 Kelly and Esch, “Black Like Mao,” 129.

75 “Four Films Capture China's Great Strides,” 17.

76 “China: Molding Servants of Humankind,” Black Panther, 28 April 1975, 14.

77 “China: Molding Servants of Humankind Part 3,” Black Panther, 18 Jan. 1975, 12.

78 Vasquez, “Intercommunalism.”

79 “China: Molding Servants of Humankind Part 4,” Black Panther, 22 Feb. 1975, 12.

80 “Normalization of Relations with People's China to Win Billions in Profits for US,” Black Panther, 12 Jan. 1979, 5.

81 This contrasted with more classical Marxist models, which argued that a country's particular material conditions determined whether or not a socialist revolution made sense for it.

82 Bob Avakian, “The Loss in China and the Revolutionary Legacy of Mao Tse-Tung,” speech, Mao Tsetung Memorial Meeting, Chicago, Sept. 1978.

83 “China's Modernization Serves Socialism,” Unity, 1–14 Dec. 1978, at www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/lrs-china-modernization.htm.

84 Kelly and Esch, 129–55.

85 Dorothy Ballan, “Some Aspects of Sam Marcy's Life,” Workers World, 12 Feb. 1998, at www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samtrib/marcybio.htm.

86 Robert Thomas Jr., “Sam Marcy, Marxist Writer, Dies at 86,” New York Times, 9 Feb. 1998, at www.nytimes.com/1998/02/09/nyregion/sam-marcy-marxist-writer-dies-at-86.html. Larry Holmes, “Sam Saw the National Question as Central to Our Revolution,” Workers World, 26 March 1998, at www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samtrib/holmes.htm.

87 Thomas.

88 Trostky, Leon, The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2010), 310–16Google Scholar.

89 Alexander, International Trotskyism, 911.

90 Sam Marcy, “The Global Class War and the Destiny of American Labor: Is There an Independent Destiny for the American Working Class?”, Marxist Internet Archive, 1953, at www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/marcy/gclasswar/1953_Global_Class_War.html.

91 Alexander, 911.

92 Ibid., 912–13.

93 Holmes.

94 Alexander, 912–13.

95 Leslie Feinberg, “Self,” last updated 15 Nov. 2014, at www.lesliefeinberg.net/self.

96 Sam Marcy, “The Internal Struggle in China,” Workers World, 15 March 1976, 9.

97 Sam Marcy, “The Suppression of the Left in China,” Workers World, 15 Oct. 1976, 9.

98 Samir Amin, “China 2013,” Monthly Review, March 2013, at https://monthlyreview.org/2013/03/01/china-2013.

99 Sam Marcy, “The Suppression of the Left in China, Part 2,” Workers World, 22 Oct. 1976, 9.

100 Sam Marcy, “The Suppression of the Left in China, Part 3,” Workers World, 29 Oct. 1976, 9.

101 Sam Marcy, “The Struggle within China's Leadership,” Workers World, 9 April 1976, 9.

102 Sam Marcy, “Kissinger's China Visit,” Workers World, 6 Dec. 1974, 9.

103 Sam Marcy, “Behind the Nixon Trip to China,” Workers World, 27 Feb. 1976, 9.

104 Sam Marcy, “The Internal Struggle in China.”

105 “China's UN Vote,” Workers World, 29 Aug. 1975, 8.

106 Deirdre Griswold, “In Defense of the Chinese Revolution: The Record of the Workers World Party,” Workers World, 17 Sept. 1976, at www.workers.org/marcy/china/9.html.

107 Sara Flounders, “RCP Abandons Chinese Revolution,” Workers World, 15 Sept. 1978, 8.

108 Several of them had advised welfare states during the Great Depression, like Weimar Germany and the New Deal US. However, they founded the Monthly Review with a distaste for reforming capitalism and advocated for economists to serve mass movements over politicians.

109 Christopher Phelps, “Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century,” Monthly Review, May 1999, at https://monthlyreview.org/1999/05/01/introduction.

110 Ibid.

111 John J. Simon, “Paul Sweezy,” The Guardian, 4 March 2004, at www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/04/guardianobituaries.obituaries.

112 Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun, Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

113 Huberman, Leo and Sweezy, Paul, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

114 Sweezy, Paul, Post-revolutionary Society (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), 139–40Google Scholar.

115 Ibid., 15.

116 Paul Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and John Gurley, “China's Economic Strategy,” Monthly Review, July–Aug. 1975, 1–12.

117 Ibid., 49–58.

118 Editors, “Twenty-Five Eventful Years,” 1–13.

119 Sweezy, Magdoff, and Gurley.

120 William Hinton, “Correspondence: Comments on the Summer China Issue,” Monthly Review, March 1976, 55–61.

121 Hinton, William, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966), ix–xiiiGoogle Scholar.

122 William Hinton, “Reflections on China,” Monthly Review, June 1973, 30–43, 35.

123 Ibid., 38.

124 Ibid., 32.

125 Ibid., 32.

126 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 347–57Google Scholar.

127 Ibid, 357.

128 For example, nineteenth-century anthropology's distinction from history served imperialism, since it allowed Europeans to consider their colonies’ pasts as “prehistorical” and therefore inferior. However, “area studies” supplanted anthropology after World War II because of Western imperialism's need to understand decolonized nation-states.

129 Wallerstein, Immanuel, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 1–23Google Scholar.

130 Immanuel Wallerstein, “Class Struggle in China?”, Monthly Review, Sept. 1973, 57–58.

131 Immanuel Wallerstein, “Trends in World Capitalism,” Monthly Review, May 1974, 12–18.

132 Paul Sweezy, “Socialism in Poor Countries,” Monthly Review, Oct. 1976, 1–13.

133 Bettelheim, Charles, The Transition to Socialist Economy (Brighton: The Harvester Press Limited, 1975), 152–53Google Scholar.

134 Bettelheim, Charles, Cultural 2Revolution and Industrial Organization in China (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), 95–97Google Scholar.

135 Charles Bettelheim, “The Great Leap Backwards,” Monthly Review, July–Aug. 1978, 37–116, 42–48.

136 Ibid., 52–56.

137 Ibid., 60.

138 Ibid., 64.

139 Jerome Ch'en, Robert Leiken, Arthur MacEwan, and Joan Robinson, “Readers Comment on China since Mao,” Monthly Review, May 1979, 21–60, Jerome Ch'en, 22.

140 Arthur MacEwan, ibid., 48.

141 Joan Robinson, ibid., 49–52.

142 Ch'en, ibid., 28.

143 MacEwan, ibid., 42–48; Robinson, ibid., 53.

144 Ch'en, ibid., 30; Robinson, ibid., 54.