Is China still Communist? (Couldn't Post in Main Thread)

[migrendel]

China's Communism was in a unique category. It was perhaps the purest in all of history, and the most radical. It inspired a series of social changes that transcended the largely economic modifications of Soviet Communism. Mao's sense of self-doubtlessness brought hideous oppression and destruction unto his country, and the idolatry he sought made Chinese Communism disturbingly theistic, but the strength of conviction and determination to change made China a moral inspiration for the Communist world. We could have hoped that Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four could have carried on this tradition, but this was not to be. An epoch had ended, and all one could do was rue for China's fate.

In recent years, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other cities have become enclaves of the rawest form of capitalism, while the progress in ending poverty in rural China of the Mao era has halted. This discrepancy between bourgeoisie and proletariat would be unacceptable anywhere, but it is one of the sad ironies of globalization that it exists in China. In this sense, China has lost its national soul, and it is Communist no more.