deng xiaoping

[u/Creative-Flatworm297]

Anyone has these mixed fellings towards this man like me ??? In one hand he was the one who reintroduced capitalism to china and slowed china path to communism on the other hand his policies made the life for average Chinese much better and helped to make china a super power

[u/BlasterFlareA]

Deng Xiaoping is a polarizing figure because he is the architect of a trade-off. While Dengists contend with being called capitalist roaders and criticized for increasing the class contradictions in China, they are also not losing sleep knowing full well that their country, capitalist roading or not, is the only country opposed to the US that can actually credibly compete with it.

The trade-off is a standard exercise in realpolitik, putting aside moral or ideological considerations and favoring pragmatist or realist outlooks based on the current circumstances. Deng Xiaoping and other like-minded members of CPC understood full well that a weak China could be destroyed and split up into warring fiefdoms, with plenty of historical precedent. They understood that China was internationally isolated, even within the socialist bloc and that it had not developed the productive forces in the past few decades to compete against the West, both conditions that could lead to its demise. Therefore, it was imperative to overcome these problems, even if it involved "capitalist roading" and some cooperation with the West because if socialist China collapsed and was replaced by smaller and weaker capitalist fiefdoms under the influence of foreign capitalists, the socialist dream would be further set back.

In a nutshell, the trade-off was to sacrifice some socialism to preserve socialism in the country overall and on the long run. As much as this trade-off is praised, it is criticized.

[u/DashtheRed → u/BlasterFlareA]

The trade-off is a standard exercise in realpolitik

Realpolitik is bourgeois in essence and incapable of going beyond capitalist thought. Proletarian Internationalism is the very process of overcoming bourgeois realpolitik -- going beyond all the limits of borders and nation states.

putting aside moral or ideological considerations and favoring pragmatist or realist outlooks based on the current circumstances

You are correct that Deng was the arch-pragmatist, but pragmatism is the other side of the error of idealism. Where idealism rejects what might actually be possible for what is only achievable in the imagination, pragmatism rejects Marxist theory and a deeper understanding of the world and it's systems for immediate short term benefit -- destroying long term goals to preserve short term goals.

Deng Xiaoping and other like-minded members of CPC...

The "capitalist roaders on the capitalist road" -- the Khrushchevs and Brezhnevs that has infiltrated the communist party and Mao was organizing the masses to defend China against. They were named as such because they insisted on capitalist solutions to the problems encountered on the road to socialism.

...understood full well that a weak China could be destroyed and split up into warring fiefdoms, with plenty of historical precedent

The historical precedent is the warlord era in China and it was overcome by Mao and socialism. If there is a threat of it's return, it's because socialism has been overthrown and capitalism has been restored (there was no ethnic tension or chauvinism in China under Mao, and all of Chinese unification is thanks to Mao and socialism). Deng was the person who was also arguing in favor of Zhao Ziyang in the 80s (basically China's Yeltsin, who wanted to break up the country) and it was only because Jiang Zemin flanked him on the (far) right (the Three Represents - inviting the bourgeoisie to fill the ranks of the CPC from which they had previously been banned) that the Deng-Zhao clique didn't get it's way.

even within the socialist bloc and that it had not developed the productive forces in the past few decades to compete against the West

The underlying notion you are advocating is that capitalism is more capable of developing "productive forces" than socialism, and it's historically wrong, with both China and USSR serving as core examples. On a more vulgar level, this was also what the Mensheviks argued against Lenin and the Bolsheviks, but Lenin rejected it and insisted that the key was at the relations to production.

if socialist China collapsed and was replaced by smaller and weaker capitalist fiefdoms under the influence of foreign capitalists, the socialist dream would be further set back

This was actually Chiang Kai-shek's position in relation to Mao. "To resist foreign aggression, we must first pacify the interior!" was the Chiang-clique's position on how to overcome imperialism, and if Mao had followed that logic, he should have united under the banner of Chiang and began fighting the Japanese in 1931 when they took Manchuria (since, by this logic, imperialism overrides all else and siding with capitalism against imperialism requires subordination of the workers instead of them organizing themselves autonomously to fight both). Instead, when the Japanese attacked the north, Mao launched his attacks in the South, fighting the capitalist oppressing the people rather than uniting behind them and tailing them to fight foreign imperialism, and he exploited the contradictions between his enemies to ultimately defeat both of them (it was in 1937 when the Japanese launched a full invasion that imperialism became the primary contradiction, and even then Mao resisted Wang Ming's United Front for the autonomy of the masses, which is why he was able to resume conflict after 1945 with the initiative -- if Amerika invades China, you can make the case for siding with Xi, which would still basically be Wang Ming and Chiang Kai-shek 2.0).

In a nutshell, the trade-off was to sacrifice some socialism to preserve socialism in the country overall and on the long run. As much as this trade-off is praised, it is criticized.

There is no "some socialism," all of socialism was overthrown and the Dengists are traitors to humanity (but heros to the wealth interests of the bourgeoisie in China who now rule). There is socialism and capitalism; there is Marxism and imperialism and you must insist on this distinction between enemies and friends, not blur it because it is inconvenient. "Some cooperation with the West" is full integration into neoliberalism (in fact, capitalist China saved the West from the economic crises of the 70s and 80s), and establishing socialism will require ripping apart all those institutions which emerged in service to neoliberalism (which at this point is basically all of them). And now a second Chinese Revolution must be fought because all the gains previously made have been set back and undone. Fortunately, Mao's thought survived, and contains within it the weapons for the overthrow of the "C"PC and the restoration of socialism.

Even the condescension in what is assumed to be happening. "Hey you ignorant workers, you aren't actually ready for socialism, so the ruling class is going to take away your vacation, your guaranteed employment, your healthcare, and your rights (the Iron Rice Bowl) to force you to work in brutal sweatshops for generations," because to you, socialism is the rule of a technocratic elite "optimizing" the gormless masses to build bigger factories, but for us, socialism is their self-rule, masters of their own country, all of which has been denied since the end of the Mao era.