FIVE HIGHLIGHTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNIST PARTIES TODAY:AN INTERNATIONAL RERSPECTIVE

CHAI SHANGJIN

Research Fellow, Research Office of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee

During the past 170 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, communist parties have constantly served as a strong force advocating communism and socialist movement in the world. In recent years, while functioning on the basis of criticizing capitalist system and adhering to the core values of socialism,communist parties outside China have upheld integrity, promoted innovation,strengthened organizational building and expanded the left-wing united front.They embrace an obviously upward trend of development, but also face grave challenges, exhibiting the following features.

Regaining Strength:An Overall Recovery Trend

There are more than 130 communist parties in the contemporary world that are guided by Marxism and strive for communism (excluding political organizations that have been declared illegal or only claim to be communist).Among them, over 30 communist parties have more than 10,000 members,or serve as the ruling party, participate in government and political affairs or occupy seats in parliaments. The majority of communist parties have withstood the vital test that might determine their survival or extinction after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and gained a firm foothold.They gradually rebound from the hard times when they suffered from tremendously declining power, confusion, volatile explorations and shadowy goals and regained strength to develop on a recovery track.

Socialist countries uphold the leadership of communist parties. As ruling parties, they strengthen the party building to fully play the core and leadership role in state politics. It is notable that the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), two major communist parties in Nepal, unified in May 2018 to restore the name of the Communist Party of Nepal and ruled the country. This unification became a remarkable event in the current world socialism development.

A statue of Karl Marx was unveiled on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Marx in Trier, his hometown in the southwest of Germany on May 5th, 2018. The statue, weighing about 2.3 tons and measuring 4.6 meters (5.5 meters if the base is also counted) was created by Chinese sculptor Wu Weishan as a gift from of China. The picture shows guests unveiling the statue of Karl Marx in Trier, Germany.

Western developed countries basically all have parties with communist ideologies. Some countries have more than one communist party. The United Kingdom, for example, has the Communist Party of Britain, the New Communist Party, and the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and others.The Japanese Communist Party, with a total of about 400,000 members, is the most effectively organized and influential communist party with the largest number of members in the developed world. The Communist Party of Spain has united the left-wing forces to evoke public protests and the party’s influence gradually spreads. Communist parties in the developing world accounts for the majority of existing communist parties in today’s world. South Asia is one of the regions where communist parties and left-wing parties flourish. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [abbreviated CPI(M)] lost its ruling positions in West Bengal and Kerala and lost some seats in the House of the People, but its membership still increased to over one million, becoming the non-ruling communist party with the largest number of members in the world. Upon the backdrop of declining traditional political power and quenchable enthusiasm for party politics among the youth,the communist parties of Brazil, Chile,Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and other countries have maintained stable development and served as important forces in their domestic political circles.

The re-organized communist parties in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, most of which claim to be the successor of the previous communist parties, have steadily built up strength and made explorations to regain trust and support of their peoples. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation,with about 150,000 members, won 42 seats in the 2016 Russian State Duma election and became the second largest party represented in the Duma.The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, with a membership of 37,000,is the third largest party in the Parliament of the Czech Republic. It rules or engages in government affairs in 9 out of 13 states. Its leader, Vojtěch Filip,is currently the Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. In Central Asia,the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan, with over 100,000 members,occupies seven seats in Mazhilis (the lower house of bicameral parliament);the Communist Party of Tajikistan and the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan have both acquired seats in their respective parliaments, showing sound momentum of development.

Strengthening Organization:Bringing the Traditional Advantages of Communist Parties into Full Play

The power of political parties mainly manifests itself in well-structured organization and solidarity. Depending on and exercising the power of organizations, which represents the traditional advantage of communist parties, is especially important for Marxist politi-cal parties. In recent years, many communist parties have arrived at profound understanding of the drawbacks of“democratization” and learned lessons from that. They thus bring up again the concept of democratic centralism and strengthen organizational building.

A thematic seminar commemorating the 200th birthday of Karl Marx opened in Shenzhen on May 28th, 2018. The event was hosted by the CPC and attended by communist parties worldwide. The picture shows a guest speaking in the seminar.

To address the degeneracy of political thoughts and morality and “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” that exist within the party, the Communist Party of Vietnam has gone to unprecedented lengths to enhance its political building and anti-corruption work,intensify the inspection of cadres’ work,and investigate and deal with malpractice in talent selection. It requires party organizations at all levels to make great efforts to build a pure and stable party and continuously enhance its leadership and combat power. North Korea has shifted its political system from the“Sungun Policy” (Army-first Policy) to“the monolithic leadership system in the Party”, aiming to strengthen the core leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea and make a good function of grassroots party branches as fighting forts. The Communist Party of Cuba has steadily proceeded with the transfer of leadership from the old generation to the new one, established the tenure system and the age limit for leadership positions, strictly selected and appointed cadres, cherished public evaluation and opinions, prioritized the virtues, and initially built a new central committee leadership integrating three generations respectively representing the old,the middle-aged and the young.

To get through predicament facing development, communist parties in Western Europe have reshaped their organizational advantages and brought the role of grassroots organizations into full play. The French Communist Party has transformed its party building model that highlighted the top-down control and re-emphasized the role of grassroots branches as fighting forts. It demanded that the collective action of the French Communist Party be based on the roles of grassroots branches,which should serve as the messenger and activist to communicate the party’s ideology. For the sake of building a more positive image and leading the left-wing parties, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) has improved its organizations at all levels, restored democratic centralism and enhanced its purity and combat effectiveness. The recent Congress of the Communist Party of Spain revisited Leninism, restored democratic centralism, emphasized centralized leadership and shifted the Federal Com-mittee to the Central Committee. It was also proposed in the congress that the PCE should continue to unite the leftwing parties and expand the united left alliance. The party should also impose stricter organizational requirement on its members and those who hold public office in the united left alliance should play an exemplary role to demonstrate the PCE’s execution capacity. The congress emphasized that the PCE should take the initiative to unite left-wing alliance and play a leading and dominant role.

Communist parties in the contemporary world attach importance to the introduction of information technology as means to transform the way they organize grassroots activities and influence the society. By establishing grassroots party branches in the cyber space, they aim to vitalize the grassroots party branches, strengthen contact and communication with the people and engage more young people in their daily activities. It is explicitly stipulated in the constitutions of the Communist Party of Japan, the Communist Party of South Africa and the Communist Party of Colombia among others that the party’s grassroots branches should undertake the task of propaganda, implementation of the party’s lines, guidelines and policy propositions and collection of public opinions; the party’s senior cadres must maintain close contact with the masses and must work and speak for the working people; ordinary party members should actively participate in grassroots organizations and complete the tasks assigned by the party organizations.Many parties have stressed the need to define the status, functions and roles of grassroots organizations in party constitutions, party programs and political resolutions and to make detailed provisions on the basic tasks, objectives, functions and operation modes of grassroots party organizations.

Inheritance and Innovation:Adhering to and Developing Marxism

Over the past period, communist parties outside China have different understanding of how to uphold and develop Marxism and how to renew socialism.Some of them tenaciously defend certain assertions in the classical works of Marxism and Leninism and become obsessed with the doctrine-based theoretical debate. They evaluate the current socialist realities with abstract principles and criticize capitalism superficially and abstractly at the sphere of morality. As a result, their slogan that the left-wing parties can serve as an alternative is impossible to be translated into reality.Some of them partially emphasize theoretical renewal and transformation of traditions, while advocating the diversity of ideologies and the abandonment of Marxism as the guiding ideology.These attempts have led to differences and confusion within the parties, which lose ground for making decisions and thus are thrown into even more grave jeopardy. A tiny minority of parties turn a blind eye to the latest development and changes of capitalism and advocate radical policies which can hardly be accepted by societies. Such parties are thus gradually marginalized.

“All nations will inevitably embrace socialism, but they will not take exactly the same approaches towards socialism.”Despite of different policy propositions of communist parties, a consensus they share is that Marxist theory is more a guide to actions than doctrines and that the theory develops in the process of implementation. Since there is no unified model socialism, all nations should take a path that accommodates the reality of their nations and parties. Only by innovation can the communist parties get out of the current predicament and effectively engage and lead the people to carry out the socialist struggle. In various events commemorating the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birthday in 2018, many communist parties stressed that Marxism, as a continuously progressive and inclusive theory rather than merely a scientific one, should be renewed and developed by proceeding with actual conditions. Only by emancipating the mind, pushing the party’s ideological theories and policy propositions to advance with the times and making constant innovation can the party bond the people together, expand political influence and lay a foundation for a new round of development of the world socialism. This consensus gradually become an instrument uniting the communist parties and left-wing forces.

The ruling communist parties make theoretical innovation by putting forward new ideas on and attempting to answer such major question as the definition of socialism, how to build socialism and how to deal with the relationship between state and market,democracy and rule of law, and reform and stability. Vietnam, North Korea,Laos and Cuba have all stressed the need to explore the socialism with their national characteristics, but with different national conditions and different judgment of their stages of development and their mandate at the current stage, they adjust and prioritize different economic policies. The past many years have witnessed ever more profound bilateral discussions and exchanges of views on the ruling of communist parties and the rules of socialism building between China and Vietnam, China and Laos, China and Cuba and Vietnam and Laos. The 14th China-Vietnam Theoretical Seminar was held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in July 2018. Political dignitaries and experts attending the seminar engaged in extensive discussion on “the practice and experience of China’s reform and opening up and Vietnam’s reform”. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has jointly hosted multiple theoretical seminars with the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and the Communist Party of Cuba to exchange views on reform and opening up and the building of ruling parties.

The ruling communist parties’ commitment to adhering to and developing Marxism serves as an important example for non-ruling communist parties.The theoretical innovation of socialism with Chinese characteristics especially imposes enormous influence on the communist parties and the left-wing forces outside China. The communist parties in the developed world has shifted their focus to the practical challenges facing the capitalist societies and advocated the transformation of the present capitalist society and proposed to reinvent the existing capitalist societies through democratic transformation and eventually arrive at socialism.During the Thematic Seminar Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Karl Marx in Shenzhen,China in May 2018, David Paul Matters,the Vice President of the Communist Party of Australia, suggested that it took a long time for the Communist Party of Australia to come to the realization that there was no fixed pattern for communism and that communist parties needed to find a path that suited them. The Communist Party of Spain believes that the restoring to Leninism does not suggest the abandonment of the guiding principle of winning the ruling power by way of election. Instead, “strategies need to be formulated in the context of reality” and “election shall be pursued as means of building socialism”. Juha-Pekka V?is?nen, the leader of the Communist Party of Finland and an artist,stated that he approached the people not as the president of the party but an artist who combined Marxism and the practical conditions and introduced Marxism to the impoverished to arouse their interest in politics. Some communist parties in the developing world propose to expand the parties’ influence and step into socialism under the existing political system through parliamentary elections, joint efforts with the domestic left-wing forces and proletarian international cooperation. The communist parties in Latin America advocates the legitimate struggles in a democratic manner in the new historical conditions and stress that “the revolution can neither be imitated nor copied, but calls for heroic creation” and that all nations need to make tailored political plans based on their own national conditions.

The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is not closed or ossified, but rather open and evolutionary.

Solidarity and Cooperation:A Role to Play in the Leading the Coalition of the Left-wing Forces

Since the global financial crisis, the flag of anti-capitalist globalization has been waved to engage many left-wing forces, non-governmental organizations and emerging social movements. The communist parties, with the tradition of internationalism, have advocated the expansion of the left-wing united front and concerted efforts to fight against international monopoly capitalism and right-wing conservative forces. Some communist parties in Europe have promoted joining hands with all the anticapitalism forces and movements and opening up to all, so as to expand the parties’mass base. In its 35th Congress, the Communist Party of France proposed that it would continue to adopt the left-wing front policies by allaying other anti-capitalist forces and work with the left-wing alliance for political battles and elections.The Communist Party of Spain has launched protests and other social movements against the government’s incompetence to cope with the debt crisis and cutting social welfare. This move has successfully expanded the party’s influence and helped the United Left win more support and approval. Some environmentalist parties, such as the Green Party, stand out with their unique policy propositions and become important participating parties.

Cuba is a banner of socialism in Latin America. Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro are communists with a strong faith and always oblige themselves to support the world socialism undertaking. Upon the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Raúl Castro stated that “Cuba would always fight together with Venezuela” and that the two nations would remain allies who rendered support to each other. In response to the Western and Latin American right-wing regimes’boycott of Venezuela’s National Constitutional Assembly and Nicolas Maduro’s re-election as the President of Venezuela, Cuba stepped forward to openly acknowledge the results of Venezuela’s Constitutional Assembly and presidential election and stated that the country would firmly support the revolutionary cause of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and the Venezuelan people.Cuba offered to host the 2018 S?o Paulo Forum, hoping that the platform will further pool consensus among the leftwing parties and strengthen the solidarity and cooperation among the left-wing parties in Latin America.

Sharing similar belief, paths of development, destiny and future, the ruling communist parties are keen to unite to resist the “Color Revolution”provoked by the West and renew their time-honored traditional friendship. In recent years, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Communist Party of Cuba,the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party sent highlevel delegations to the International Meeting of Communist & Workers’ Parties, demonstrating the importance they attached importance to exchanging and sharing experience among communist parties. As the mainstay of the world socialist movement, the socialist countries, by enhancing solidarity and cooperation, can boost the morale of communist parties across the world and effectively push forward the world socialist movements.

As the trend emerges that socialist forces are revitalizing in the current world, “Black Swan” events have frequently caught the world by surprise and led to the rise of populist parties.Many communist parties, in addition to being rejected and cracked down by right-wing parties, also face populist challenges, which further deprive them of their mass base and squeeze their survival space. A core question that the communist parties outside China have to address and answer is how to play the political guidance role of communist parties in the left-wing alliance and push forward the development of the world socialist cause.

Sharing and Learning:“Look East” Trend is Gaining Momentum

In recent years, when political parties with extremist ideologies in the West embraced populism, they accumulated and released enormous power that accelerated the political fragmentation of Western political parties and the political polarization of capitalist countries. The major countries in the West thus have developed a more profound sense of crisis. Upholding the principle of “America First”, Donald Trump not only waged a trade war against China,but also collected “protection fees” from the European allies. As cracks appear in the capitalist system, its advantages and appeal are also on the decline. Many developing countries, instead of copying the western model as they did in the past, are keen to share and draw lessons from China’s experience of development to explore development paths that accommodate their actual conditions.

The Thematic Seminar Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Karl Marx was successfully held in Shenzhen, China in May 2018 and attended by more than 70 communist parties from 50 countries, which exchanged views on state and party governance and discussed about plans for future development. The seminar attracted sensational response from all the relevant parties. The cadres from communist parties present at the seminar believe that Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, as innovative development of Marxism, has a huge impact on the development of socialism in the 21st century and provides inspiration for other communist parties as they explore their own paths. The communist parties appreciate and commend the building of a community with a shared future for mankind proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping. They believe that the Belt and Road Initiative is a major measure advocated and promoted by China advance the building of a community with a share future for mankind. The initiative aims to get developing countries, especially those that have long been marginalized by the international multilateral mechanism, aboard the express train heading for common prosperity and development. It demonstrates the resolution and responsibility of the Communist Party of China to build a better world.

The successful implementation of socialism with Chinese

characteristics has strong appeal to communist parties outside China and other left-wing forces, as it provides a brand new alternative to mankind who strive to explore a better social system.Developing countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America aspire to learn from China’s experience in poverty alleviation, rural revitalization and implementation of policies to achieve ethnic equality and expect China to play an exemplary role and lead them to achieve leapfrog development.

The leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam paid great attention to the ideological achievements of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and commissioned entrusted its Central Theoretical Committee and the Ho Chi Minh City National Political Academy to set up a special task group to conduct intensive study of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era.

The path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is not closed or ossified,but rather open and evolutionary. Although the communist parties outside China cherish and eagerly learn the innovative theories and implementation of socialism with Chinese characteristics and expect to translate it into a universally-applied “Chinese solution”, some doubt that the growing gap between the rich and the poor goes against the principle of socialist fairness and justice. China should confront such doubt with rationality. As reform and opening up deepen and socialist modernization drive advances, the socialist system with Chinese characteristics will inevitably be improved and the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics will definitely be more broad. “CPC should do our own business well, which itself is contribution to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. CPC will create more opportunities for the world by promoting China’s development. China will also explore the law of social development for mankind through its own practice and share it with other countries. CPC will neither ‘import’ foreign models of development, nor ‘export’ the Chinese model or ask other countries to ‘copy’the Chinese practice.”

As Marxism shed light of hope on China’s the independence and liberation as well as national rejuvenation,scientific socialism will be inherited,developed and carried forward in China and will inevitably drive the development of the world socialist movement.

CPC will neither “import”foreign models of development, nor “export” the Chinese model or ask other countries to “copy” the Chinese practice.