The 1949 Chinese Revolution
Video: 70 years after the Chinese Revolution—How the struggle for socialism was betrayed
31 October 2019
The following lecture was delivered by Peter Symonds at eight campuses in Australia and at meeting in Wellington, New Zealand.
Australian and New Zealand students speak after lecture on 70th anniversary of Chinese Revolution
By our reporters, 31 October 2019
“The real root ideas of socialism were not implemented in China from the bottom-up. I learnt that Trotskyism is internationalism, but Mao did not agree with that perspective.”
70 years after the Chinese Revolution: How the struggle for socialism was betrayed
By Peter Symonds, 24 October 2019
This lecture was delivered at eight campuses in Australia and New Zealand to meetings organised by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) between September 26 and October 17.
Introduction to the 1955 SWP resolution “The Third Chinese Revolution and its Aftermath”
By Peter Symonds, 9 October 2019
The SWP resolution summed up the lengthy discussion within the Trotskyist movement of the significance of 1949 Chinese Revolution and its deformation under the Stalinist leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
From the archives
SWP resolution: The Third Chinese Revolution and its Aftermath
9 October 2019
On the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, the World Socialist Web Site is republishing the resolution adopted in 1955 by the Socialist Workers Party, then the Trotskyist party in the United States, on the issues raised by the revolution and its aftermath.
Australia: Important response to first IYSSE lectures on the 1949 Chinese Revolution
By our reporters, 7 October 2019
The final lectures will be held at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) later today, and at Western Sydney University on October 9, the University of New South Wales on October 16, and Macquarie University on October 17.
Introduction to the 1951 report to the Fourth International by Chinese Trotskyist Peng Shuzhi
By Peter Symonds, 3 October 2019
The World Socialist Web Site is republishing Peng's report which provides important insights into the character of the 1949 Chinese Revolution and issues that it raised for the Fourth International.
From the archives
The Causes of the Victory of the Chinese Communist Party over Chiang Kai-Shek, and the CCP’s Perspectives
By Peng Shuzhi, 3 October 2019
Report on the Chinese Situation to the Third Congress of the Fourth International in 1951.
Chinese 70th anniversary parade testifies to a crisis-stricken regime
By James Cogan, 2 October 2019
Beside repression, the regime’s only answer to the rising unrest over widening social inequality is to promote reactionary Chinese nationalism, hoping that appeals to “national unity” will contain irreconcilable class antagonisms.
Seventy years since the Chinese Revolution
Draw the political lessons from the bankruptcy of Maoism
By Peter Symonds, 1 October 2019
The political heirs of Mao Zedong cannot explain how and why the aspirations of working people for a socialist future, for which so many sacrificed 70 years ago, have resulted in the dead end of capitalism today.
Lectures in Australia and New Zealand on the 1949 Chinese Revolution
23 September 2019
In this video, Peter Symonds, SEP national WSWS editor, explains the relevance of his upcoming lecture “70 years after the Chinese Revolution: How the struggle for socialism was betrayed” to contemporary events. Details of dates and venues in Australia and New Zealand are available here.
China: Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square massacre
By Peter Symonds, 10 September 2019
This lecture was delivered by Peter Symonds at the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 25, 2019. Symonds is a member of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site and national WSWS editor of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia).
IYSSE lecture series in Australia
Seventy years after the Chinese Revolution: How the struggle for socialism was betrayed
9 September 2019
While the revolution vastly transformed international relations and class relations within China, the Communist Party, based on the Stalinist program of “Socialism in One Country,” deformed the newly-created state from the outset.
The Tiananmen Square massacre, 30 years on
By Peter Symonds, 8 June 2019
What was lacking in the 1989 protests was not determination, audacity and courage, nor numbers, but revolutionary leadership—the essential problem facing the international working class in the 20th century.
From the archives:
Trotskyism and the Chinese Revolution
By Editorial of the Fourth International magazine, 6 June 2019
The following editorial in the January-June 1989 edition of the Fourth International magazine on the Tiananmen Square massacre is an indictment of Stalinism and its opportunist apologists from the standpoint of orthodox Trotskyism.
Victory to the Political Revolution in China
Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International
David North, 3 June 2019
The following statement was published on June 8, 1989, just four days after the Chinese government’s brutal military crackdown on students and workers in Tiananmen Square.
Greetings to Chinese workers and youth on the centenary of the May 4 movement
By Peter Symonds, 7 May 2019
We are publishing here the text of the speech to the 2019 Online International May Day Rally delivered by Peter Symonds.
Twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern tour”
By John Chan, 26 November 2012
The tour became a key turning point in the process of capitalist restoration in China.
SEP (Australia) first national congress
Resolution 3: Oppose the US war drive against China
9 May 2012
The following is the second of seven resolutions passed unanimously at the first national congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) held from April 6 to 9, 2012 in Sydney (see: “Australian SEP holds first national congress”).See resolutions 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Ninety years since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party
By John Chan, 5 July 2011
The central theme of the official celebrations was a disgusting display of Chinese nationalism and patriotism, designed to bury the party’s origins as a fighting organisation of the working class based on socialist internationalism.
Sixty years after the Chinese Revolution: Lessons for the working class
By John Chan, 1 October 2009
Communist Party bureaucrats today will join hands with the representatives of global capitalism in toasting the formation of the Peoples Republic of China. These celebrations are not at variance with Maoism and the 1949 Chinese Revolution, but rather are their logical outcome.
WSWS International Editorial Board meeting
The implications of China for world socialism
Part Three
By John Chan, 11 March 2006
Published below is the conclusion of a three-part report on China delivered by World Socialist Web Site correspondent John Chan to an expanded meeting of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board (IEB) held in Sydney from January 22 to 27, 2006. Part one was posted on March 9 and Part two on March 10.
The death of China’s “red capitalist” and the 1949 revolution
By John Chan, 29 November 2005
On October 26, Rong Yiren, a prominent member of the pre-1949 Chinese capitalist elite who supported the Communist Party government established by Mao Zedong, died in Beijing at the age of 89. Better known as the “red capitalist”, Rong’s life epitomised the close relations that existed from the outset between the Stalinist regime and sections of the Chinese bourgeoisie.
Student asks about Tiananmen Square
22 July 1998
Deng Xiaoping and the fate of the Chinese Revolution
By the International Workers Bulletin editorial board, 12 March 1997
The death of Deng Xiaoping has sparked a flood of obituaries. None of the media commentary, however, has risen above banalities about Deng's supposed "mixed legacy" of encouraging capitalist economic development in China, while ferociously suppressing political opposition. The media discussion has been largely aimed at investors anxiously asking the question, "Will my money still be safe in China now that Deng is gone?"
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