I
The process of the history of human society, since the emergence of capitalism, has begun with what Marx and Engels called the "transformation of history into world history", which is called globalization. Capitalism has dominated this process up to now, but at the same time, forces have developed from the bottom of society to oppose and replace capitalism. The working class is its flag-bearer and socialism its goal. The socialist movement, in the classic language of the ****Productive Manifesto, is "an independent movement of the great majority of the people, for the benefit of the great majority of the people." From idealistic socialism to scientific socialism, from the Paris Commune to the October Revolution, it has launched many blows of global significance against capitalism.
The 20th century was the century when socialism became the banner of the age.
The establishment of socialism in the Soviet Union at the beginning of this century marked a new era in the history of human society. The world socialist movement reached its climax in the middle of the century, and then some fundamental errors were exposed, and since the 1980s, neo-liberalism has swept across the globe, with the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the world socialist movement has entered a low ebb.
The core principles of neoliberalism are, first, to use privatization to plunder global resources and wealth; second, to use market liberalization, trade liberalization, financial liberalization and the like to realize the one-way opening of the world to Western multinational corporations and enterprises; and third, to use "small government" to destroy the last line of defense for the third world to safeguard its independence, sovereignty and the rights and interests of its own country and nation. The third is to use "small government" to destroy the third world's last line of defense in preserving independence, sovereignty and the rights and interests of their nations and peoples.
In our time, neo-liberalism and the world socialist movement are in competition with each other, with the former advancing and the latter retreating, so that neo-liberalism is able to flourish while the world socialist movement falls into the doldrums and becomes the same historical process.
But what has neoliberalism brought to the world?
Neoliberalism teaches that "in order to be reborn pure and healthy, you have to be put to death economically and socially", says an American magazine, that it has not contributed to the development of the West, and that it has "never succeeded in any case" in the Third World. . ("The Collapse of the Globalization Process," Harpers Magazine, No. 3, 2004)
Angel Maddison, a leading British economist, is highly regarded in the field of long-term economic growth and international comparative studies. His Economic History of the World at the Millennium provides data through 1998. He views the period from 1950 to 1973 as the "golden age" of the world economy. However, as neoliberalism established its dominance globally, both the Third World, the Soviet Union's Eastern European region and the West stagnated and regressed. "Growth in the world economy has slowed, and progress in Asia has been offset by stagnation and regression elsewhere." Global per capita income growth has halved. The economies of 168 countries, representing 1/3 of the world's population, have deteriorated. Africa's per capita income levels have completely stagnated. Income growth in Latin America and many Asian countries was negligible compared to the Golden Age. "The deterioration of economic conditions in the Soviet Union and in the countries formed after its dissolution has been catastrophic." Per capita income in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1998 was only 3/4 of what it was in 1973, and the average annual growth rate of GDP in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which he called the "Western derivatives," declined from 4.03 percent in the Golden Age to 4.5 percent in the 1973-1998 period. The average annual growth rate of GDP in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand fell from 4.03% in the "Golden Age" to 2.98% in 1973-1998. Only global income disparities are "far wider than ever before". The gap in per capita income between the richest and poorest regions fell from 15:1 to 13:1 during that golden age, and rose to 19:1 in 1998.
Maddison noted the problem of technological progress, arguing that slower technological advances in the last quarter of the 20th century contributed to the slowdown in world economic growth. "The self-appointed authorities on the 'new economy' are reluctant to accept that technological progress has slowed. They defend themselves with some fragmented microeconomic evidence. However, the effects of their so-called technological revolution have so far not shown up in macroeconomic statistics. So I can't share their kind of optimistic expectations." (Angell Madison, A Millennium History of the World Economy, pp. 3, 9, 15, 116, 180, 120, 11, Peking University Press, 2003)
The collapse of the Soviet Union has become the greatest tragedy of the 20th century in the development of human society. A united and powerful country was dismembered into disrepair and dilapidation, and the huge assets and rich natural resources created by the people over nearly a century were looted and auctioned off cheaply. Economist Sergei Glaziev, who was Russia's minister of foreign economic relations in the 1990s, writes that the policy of self-destruction of the country's economic system, which began in Russia in 1992 under the banner of liberalized economic reforms, "the privatization of state assets and the pursuit of a financial policy that became synonymous with lawlessness and corruption," and "just as the privatization of state assets and the pursuit of financial policy became synonymous with lawlessness and corruption," he writes, "so was the privatization of state assets. "Under the guise of market reforms, a policy of appropriating national wealth and colonizing the country for the benefit of international capital has been steadfastly pursued", "with disastrous consequences for the Russian people". ". (Sergey Graziyev, "The Tragedy of Russian Reform and the Way Out", pp. 3, 4, 25, 26, 31, Economic Management Publishing House, 2003) The country's productive forces have been damaged far more severely than in the Second World War, with uncountable losses in culture, science, education, and health and medical care.
Since then, both Eastern European countries and Russia and the former Soviet Union **** and countries from the West to the Soviet version of neoliberalism - "shock therapy". In the Third World, there is the Latin American version of neoliberalism - "Washington ****ing Sense" and the African version - "Economic Structural Adjustment ". These destroy the fruits of economic and social development during the high period of socialism and national liberation movements, and suppress and deprive the people of their initiative to create history. With the imposition of privatization, national sovereignty and national independence have been seriously weakened, economic and social regression has taken place on all fronts, people's lives have generally declined, the polarization between the rich and the poor has intensified, and the environment and ecology have been devastated.
International monopoly capital's arrangement for the Third World countries, in the words of Newsweek's article "Goodbye, Mr. Moe," dated November 11, 1996, "turns the decolonization process upside down, restores ancient imperial values, and even regresses back to the old system of white domination," which means "recolonization. "recolonization".
The Western authorities, in the midst of their celebratory feast, are calling for the so-called "end of history": the end of socialism, the end of national liberation movements, the end of neo-liberal world domination, and the end of the hegemony of capitalism and the international monopoly bourgeoisie. There should be no new developments in the history of mankind, and there is no need for any new creation. They call this "no choice" or "irreversibility" and want to bring world history to an end at a time they consider most favorable to themselves.
Two
But history has no period.
One of the unique qualities of the socialist movement lies in the fact that, growing out of the practice of the people's historical creative activity, it has been endowed with a particularly tenacious and resilient vitality, and that, even if the stormy ravages are ravaged and even if the trunk is broken and torn, the roots are still rooted in the depths of the earth.
In Russia, history encounters an intriguing problem. Giant corruption and theft and devouring is a record, the polarization of the rich and poor, power struggle, social chaos is also a record, so how can the people in the difficult to survive, how can the country in the difficult to function?
The oligarchs have tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign deposits, private jets and yachts, and do their best to purchase jewelry and luxury homes in London. But free schooling, free health care and other welfare policies, which benefit the entire country, have not yet been categorically eliminated by the authorities. Free or low-cost housing, equipment and cars, though old and clumsy, can continue to be used, hence the Moscow proverb "A broken Lada runs faster than a new Mercedes". Despite the fact that the material and cultural achievements of the socialist era have been subjected to such a frenzy of destruction, selling, scrambling and squandering, they continue to feed their people to this day. This in itself is a miracle. The miracle came precisely from the deep roots and home base of more than 70 years of socialist construction.
History is the continuation of generations. One may ask: did not the socialist Russia after the October Revolution inherit the family roots of Tsarist Russia? It is. But a home base is not the same as a family base. Pre-revolutionary Russia was a backward country whose economic lifelines were controlled by the West. The American scholar Stavrianos' "Global Divide - The Historical Process of the Third World" categorizes it as the Third World. Instead, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a generalizing remark, "Stalin accepted a Russia that still used wooden plows, while he left behind a Russia equipped with atomic weapons." That's a different kind of home base altogether.
The roots of socialism are, on the one hand, material roots and, on the other hand, spiritual or moral, roots of the human heart. It was during the years of the loss of socialism that people rekindled from their suffering a heartfelt respect for the pioneers of the October Revolution, the heroes of the victory over fascism and the builders of the motherland. They remained in the people's memory and were gradually transformed into new material forces for the salvation of the Motherland. Nostalgia for the Soviet ****production party, which was linked to socialism, has become the newest feature of Russian social life. The ups and downs of history have led the "dissidents" of the Soviet era to join the defenders of their country's glorious past, and even those who played an active role in the process of disintegration are speaking out in a completely opposite way to what they did at the time.
The people's historical choices have fundamentally shaped the government's decisions. In recent years, statues of Lenin and Stalin, which were toppled in the frenzy of the country's disintegration, have been reerected by the people as symbols of national strength and unity. In connection with the restoration of the melody of the Soviet national anthem, "The Unbreakable Union," as the current Russian national anthem, the use of the Soviet-era red five-star as the pattern for the Russian army's flag and coat of arms, the reprinting and distribution of the "Concise Course on the History of the United **** (Bu) Party" in its original form and the designation of it as a history textbook in colleges and universities, a series of domestic and foreign policy adjustments were also carried out. As a result of these vigorous initiatives, the chaotic regression that characterized the early years of the country's disintegration was largely ended, and important economic and social changes took place; in 2005, a battered and bruised Russia was among the world's top ten economies.
Belarus was a special case among the Soviet Union's **** and countries that generally regressed economically and socially, with Lukashenko's election to the presidency in 1994 and his rejection of "shock therapy" derided in the Western mainstream media as a "socialist revival". Between 1996 and 2004, its GDP grew at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent, reaching 9.2 percent in 2005, with a per capita income that was among the highest in the CIS, and while Russia's productivity in 2005 was close to 82 percent of what it was on the eve of the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1990 and Ukraine's less than 60 percent, Belarus' grew to 120 percent. The "color revolutions" instigated by the Western authorities, which have been successful in several countries, have hit a brick wall in Belarus, where not only has Lukashenko failed to destabilize the regime, but he was elected to a third term as president with a high number of votes.
People recognize the truth in comparison. Not to mention the years when socialism won a world victory, even like the late Soviet Union, the kind of economic and social development and the living standards of the people have become fond memories left in the hearts of the people after the loss of the socialist system. This explains why both Russia and most of the other Soviet Union **** and states or Eastern European countries still have to struggle to this day to return to the economic growth rates of the last years of socialism. Socialism united the people and made the country strong; its loss divided them and set them back. It is their own path that the people have made their choice in the movement of history.
Since the turn of the century, there has also been a gradual resurgence of workers' and mass social movements calling for socialism, which has put a global damper on neoliberalism.
In an international environment where the world socialist movement is at a low ebb, it is of great significance that China and other countries have continued to adhere to the socialist system, and that their endeavors in various aspects have developed significantly and shown vitality.
In the process of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the world hegemony stepped up its efforts to blockade, interfere and evolve against Cuba. However, the big socialist country, the Soviet Union, disintegrated, and the small socialist country, Cuba, stood its ground. Cuba's per capita income is less than 1/10th that of the United States, and its life expectancy and school enrollment rates are comparable to those of the United States; its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the United States. A 2006 article in the U.S. magazine Yes! magazine, in a 2006 article on the oil issue, recognized Cuban agriculture as the most ecologically sound and socially responsible in the world, seeing it as a new kind of superiority created by Cuba for socialism.
Socialist China is of particular interest. The largest developing socialist country has weathered the severe test of international storms and achieved rapid development thanks to its adherence to the basic socialist system, reform and opening up, and the continuous removal of shortcomings unfavorable to the development of productive forces. As General Secretary Hu Jintao has pointed out, "During the period of socialist revolution and construction, we established the basic socialist system, built an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system on the basis of poverty, and made ancient China stand in the east of the world with a brand-new attitude. During the period of reform, opening up and socialist modernization, we created the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, insisted on taking economic construction as the center, adhered to the four basic principles, insisted on reform and opening up, and initially established a socialist market economic system, which substantially improved China's comprehensive national strength and the living standard of the people, and opened up a broad prospect for the all-around construction of a moderately prosperous society and the basic realization of socialist modernization. " At a time when the development of the vast number of Third World countries was encountering serious difficulties, the Chinese ****producers put forward their own socialist concept of scientific development and drew up a grand blueprint for building a harmonious socialist society. The great achievements in economic and social undertakings made by the hard work of the Chinese people, and the respect of the world's people that China has won as a result of these achievements, come from the leadership of the Chinese ****anist Party and from the consolidation and perfection of the socialist system.
Three
History is all we have: the majority of mankind is here, the power of the people is here, the truth is here, and socialism is here.
Socialism is not a gospel about the kingdom of heaven or an abstract concept, but a vibrant new society created by the people themselves. It exists in the practice of the working class and the masses of the people in their revolt against capitalist oppression and in their search for the path of social emancipation. The belief in scientific socialism can only be built on the basis of trust in the people's spirit of historical initiative and creative practice, on the basis of knowledge and grasp of the objective laws of historical movement.
The socialist movement is part of the contemporary world historical movement. Its creation in the 20th century has been integrated into world civilization and has become the ****same wealth of the world's people. After going through the different stages of the establishment of the socialist system, the upsurge of the socialist movement and its fall into the doldrums, the ****producers, the working class, the oppressed people, and the oppressed nations of the various countries are breaking through the yoke of neo-liberalism and re-establishing the values of socialism. Their tenacious struggle is the most vital of the current movements in world history. In the first few years of the 21st century, the world socialist movement has already shown some signs of coming out of the doldrums and has begun to exhibit a number of new features.
Firstly, it is socialism under the conditions of unprecedented increase in the degree of socialization of productive forces and social interaction on a global scale along with economic globalization. Modern science and technology, with information technology and life science and technology as its main symbols, are having and will continue to have a profound impact on the political, economic, military, scientific and technological, cultural and social spheres of all countries, opening up new and broad prospects for the development of social production.
Secondly, this is socialism that has undergone unprecedented great victories and bitter defeats, and many severe tests of war and peace, of being in power and losing power, and that has accumulated a wealth of experience, both positive and negative, that is richer than at any time in the past.
Thirdly, it is a socialism that abandons dogmas and fixed patterns, fully respects the people's exploration, draws more extensively on the fruits of human civilization and the excellent cultural traditions of all peoples, and realizes the integration of the basic principles of Marxism with reality in a completely new historical environment, showing creative vitality everywhere.
Fourth, it is a socialism with a broader and deeper class and mass base. The global expansion of capital means the global expansion of capitalist relations. The reproduction of capital means the reproduction of wage labor. The working class exists and struggles. Despite record high unemployment, the unemployed still belong to the working class. Much of the so-called middle class, including scientific and technological intellectuals, who once served as stabilizers of capitalist society, have fallen into the ranks of the working class in the midst of dramatic social divisions. The inhabitants of the Third World, once far from the capitalist center, from farmers, herders, fishermen, and small craftsmen as small producers, to the aborigines, who not so long ago maintained their primitive tribal customs, are being reduced, directly or indirectly, to hired laborers for the transnational corporations.
Fifth, this is socialism with a broader and deeper social base. The harm caused by neo-liberalism has divided society into camps, on the one hand, the international monopoly bourgeoisie and its vassals, which constitute a tiny and diminishing minority of humanity, and on the other hand, the vast majority of humanity and a growing number of social groups who are being oppressed, exploited, excluded, and marginalized to varying degrees. When all rights and interests are vested in oneself, all discontent, resentment and hatred are also vested in oneself; when one's rights and interests are globalized, such discontent, resentment and hatred are also globalized. Within the boundaries of the capitalist order, it is impossible to eradicate the catastrophes it has created - from the fields of ecology and the environment, women and children, education and science and technology, morality and ethics, ethnicity and religion, to wars, polarization, poverty, unemployment, hunger and all the other basic problems of human existence, and so on. The creation of a new social order outside it becomes an inevitable historical quest. All the forces struggling for this, all the forces opposing wars of aggression, safeguarding world peace and pursuing democracy, freedom, equality and justice, all the forces loving the motherland and defending the rights and interests of the people and their cultural traditions have become more or less the natural allies of socialism, and are all moving towards socialism.
Sixth, this is the socialism that is increasingly moving towards and eventually replacing capitalism. The future of mankind lies in socialism. As Comrade Deng Xiaoping said, "Socialism will inevitably replace capitalism after a long process of development. This is the irreversible general trend of social and historical development, but the road is winding. There have been serious twists and turns in some countries, and socialism seems to have been weakened, but the people's exercise and the lessons learned from it will promote the development of socialism in a healthier direction."