Rethinking Marxism in post -Mao China: The erosion of official ideology, 1978-1984.

Abstract

The focus of this study is the ideological reorientation attempted by the post-Mao Chinese leadership and its intellectual establishment from 1978-84. The motivation for refurbishing the existing doctrine stemmed from the perception that a theoretical explanation was necessary for the far-reaching changes that the Chinese polity, economy and society had experienced since the death of Mao and the purge of his radical leftist supporters. The primary sources for this dissertation were official documents, newspapers like Renmin ribao, Guangming ribao, the CCP journal Honggi and academic publications like Zhexue yanjiu, Shehui kexue, etc. The research focused on ideological debates over (1) epistemology and (2) social structure and processes in socialist society. The main conclusion of the study is that the successor leadership proved more able at undermining prevailing doctrine than at furnishing a new and coherent ideological framework. The period 1978-84 witnessed an intense competition between two sets of elites over the issues of political, economic and cultural change. The conservative or incrementalist agenda included measures to vitalize the Chinese economy without major departures from the official Marxist-Leninist and modified Stalinist tradition. The radical reformers, on the other hand, saw themselves as revisionists who borrowed from diverse strands within the Marxist tradition and other non-Marxist writings to remove discrepancies between theory and practice, and to redress the deficiencies that they perceived in the official ideology. Deng Xiaoping's determination to mediate a series of compromises between conservative and radical reformers produced an eclectic official doctrine incorporating traditional and innovative tenets and reflecting the inconsistencies and tensions of the contradictory half-way policies of reform that is was meant to justify. The intellectural contingents of either set of the contending political elites could not fashion a coherent, compelling and ideologically acceptable framework which served the interests and policy preferences of their patrons and, at the same time, satisfactorily put the Maoist era behind them. Ultimately, it was this shortcoming along with a persuasively articulated appeal for pluralism and democracy which enhanced the attraction of non Marxist and post Marxist alternatives and denied to Mao's successors the renewal of legitimacy sought by them.