Democratic Socialism Is Capitalism - Introduction

(Some time ago I came across this article on www.maoflag.net - one of the websites maintained with apparent official sanction by supporters of Mao Zedong Thought in China today. The article reminds me of the series initiated by Chairman Mao in the early stages of the skirmish with the Soviet revisionists and published under the title The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement in Beijing in 1965, a year before the launching of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. I am not a translator - I have fulltime job and lots of comittee memberships - but I know a little bit of Chinese, and I've decided to try my hand at translating the 80 or so pages of the original of this article. Where I just can't understand a reference, or where I just can't get at what the Chinese original is trying to say, I'll add a little note of my own so that you'll know I've run into trouble. But I hope enough of what follows is clear so that some idea of current ideological struggle in China comes through. You might like to look at my post Chinese Marxist-Leninists Oppose the Sale of Xu Gong in the December 2006 archive (see link opposite and scroll down to article) so that you can see a practical example of how the restorationists are dismantling the socialist state established in Mao Zedong's time and handing it over to the capitalists and the imperialists. I'm not a quick translator: some days I get a couple of sentences done, and maybe on a weekend I can do a page or so, so don't hold your breath waiting for each new section t be completed. The table of contents (below) will give you some idea of the scope of this work, so if you're interested, keep coming back and seeing how far I've got up to. Mike)

Democratic Socialism Is Capitalism
A criticism of Xie Tao’s "Only Democratic Socialism Can Save China"
Wu Bing
Contents:

1. The real features of democratic socialism
2. Violent revolution is the only way to realise socialism
3. The superiority of socialism over capitalism cannot be denied
4. The main difference between socialism and capitalism is public ownership and private ownership
5. Antagonism between socialist and capitalist systems of distribution
6. On how the question of the two systems of ownership and the two systems of distribution are compared
7. Shamelessly tampering with and distorting the fundamentals of Marxist theory
8. Distorting the New Economic Policy and attacking Leninism
9. Misrepresenting "The Three Big Transformations", Negating Mao Zedong Thought
10. Promoting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and wanting China to take the path of Western constitutional government
11. Confusing black and white and reversing the verdict on new and old revisionism
12. Be sure not to forget the mistakes of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries
…………………………………………………………………….
Early last December, the author saw People’s University former Deputy Principal Mr Xie Tao’s preface written for Mr Xin Ziling’s "Mao Zedong: A Century of Merits and Faults", on the internet, entitled "Only Democratic Socialism Can Save China" (hereafter referred to as "The Preface"). This "Preface" was reprinted in the February 2007 edition of "Yan Huang Chun Qiu". This magazine possibly considered it should "play it safe", and made a slight change to the title renaming it "The Pattern of Democratic Socialism and China’s Future", besides concealing Mr Xin Ziling’s title "Mao Zedong: A Century of Merits and Faults" and engaging in "technical processing" of some individual barefaced words and sentences. However, no matter how this magazine tries to conceal it, Mr Xie Tao is completely unmasked for opposing socialism, opposing Marxism, opposing the proletarian revolution and the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It can be said that everyone who has read this article has the same kind of response: this is one of the wildest and most undisguised reactionary articles in our domestic open publications. This article touches on several major theoretical and practical questions: what is socialism, and should China continue along the socialist road; what is Marxism, and should China continue under the direction of Marxism; what is the dictatorship of the proletariat, and should China continue to persist with the dictatorship of the proletariat? What is most annoying and also most laughable is that this trumpeter of capitalism unexpectedly resorts to all means of fabricating rumours about and attacks on the teachers and leaders of the proletarian revolution, talking rubbish about Marx and Engels being some sort of "social democrats", some sort of originators of "peaceful evolution to socialism" in their old age; talking rubbish about Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong being the "greatest revisionists"; and moreover legitimising the founder of revisionism, Bernstein, as "Marxism"?! Shameless slander like this that distorts the facts floods through the article from beginning to end. Chairman Mao said: "All mistaken ideas, all poisonous weeds, all monsters and demons should be subjected to criticism and under no circumstances be allowed to spread unchecked." Following this guidance, the author makes some superficial analyses and commentaries on several of the main points of view and falsehoods respectively, of this "strange piece of writing".