Why was a Stalinist state established in China after 1949?
“Any political party or state apparatus which enslaves the working class is, in this day and age, from a proletarian, socialist, revolutionary point of view, fundamentally and completely reactionary. Therefore the CCP and the state apparatus which it has set up are also reactionary. Yet at the same time we must recognise the following facts: They have overthrown the Kuomintang [Guomindang] government, which represents foreign imperialism and the native bourgeoisie and landlord class; they are wiping out the anachronistic agrarian relationships in China’s farming villages; they have dealt a mighty blow to the foreign imperialist powers led by the United States. All of these actions, from the point of view of Chinese nationalism and democracy, have an undeniably progressive character. The difficulty is this: how and why can a fundamentally reactionary political party and government perform objectively progressive acts?” Wang Fanxi, (1951: 102). The only real attempts to develop and exten
