Mao Tse-tung, Ch'en Po-ta and the “Sinification of Marxism,” 1936–38

Abstract

Mao Tse-tung's proposal in 1938 for the “Sinification of Marxism” remains one of the most intriguing issues in the ideological history of 4 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Strangely, although this concept is given passing treatment in any number of studies of the Chinese Communist movement, little attempt has been made to subject it to a more detailed historical or theoretical analysis. Broadly, the concept has two interrelated, though distinct, dimensions. In its political aspect, it refers to the specific ways in which the foreign theory of Marxism-Leninism can be adapted to the concrete historical realities of modern China, including the under-development of capitalism, the absence of a large urban proletariat, the central role of the rural peasantry, and so forth. These are difficult problems of political theory, and they have not yet been resolved satisfactorily either in Chinese or western scholarship. Whether Marxism has been truly Sinified in this sense – and whether it has survived the process intact – are highly controversial issues, and I do not propose to deal with them here.