People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red
Edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez, Praxis Press, £25

PEOPLE’S CHINA AT 75 provides a rigorous materialist analysis and a coherent theoretical framing of the PRC’s place in the world today. 

Comprised of 11 incisive analyses framed by a capacious introduction, the book serves as a useful guide to anyone interested in a crash course on China by some of the world’s leading experts on the question. Given its readability, with concise essays and a total length of just under 150 pages, it is particularly well suited for full-time organisers and a broad readership outside of academic circles. 

Since it covers so much terrain and tackles many pressing questions head on, it is in many ways a perfect primer on China. At the same time, it is packed with empirical details, extensive references, and insightful analyses that will be of interest to those with a strong working knowledge of the PRC. 

Bennett and Martinez are known to many for their indefatigable struggle against imperialist propaganda with their platform Friends of Socialist China, which has sought to build understanding of, and support for, Chinese socialism. 

Their introduction lays out the importance of recognising, when examining contemporary China, that there is “no ready-made blueprint or master plan” for socialism. Every socialist project has had to chart new territory in its own unique circumstances and explore ways of eking out an existence in a hostile, imperialist world intent on destroying it. 

Implicit in their argument is the rejection of idealist and metaphysical approaches to the question of socialism, which consist in reifying a fixed definition of it and dismissing anything that does not live up to it. Instead, Bennett and Martinez invite us to approach the issue of socialism from a dialectical materialist vantage point. This means recognising that it is a process that takes on specific forms in different material circumstances, and we therefore need to analyse the complexities of practical reality rather than simply relying on abstract definitions from the sidelines of history. 

One of the things that this bottom-up approach reveals, in their account, is that there is “no great wall” between the Maoist period and the reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping. Far from being a neoliberal capitalist, the latter resolutely defended what he called the Four Cardinal Principles: “the dictatorship of the proletariat (generally referred to as the people’s democratic dictatorship in the conditions of China), the socialist road, the leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.” 

This dialectical materialist understanding of contemporary Chinese history frames the book as a whole and undergirds its evaluative claims. Although it marshals a strong defence of the PRC against imperialist propaganda, it does not seek to paste over its tactical compromises and mistakes. What is remarkable, however, is that, in spite of these, People’s China has made truly awesome progress in its seventy-five years of existence. 

Having suffered a “century of humiliation” through extreme colonial underdevelopment prior to 1949, it has totally transformed itself under the rule of the Communist Party. As Martinez writes in his excellent concluding chapter: living standards have increased dramatically; extreme poverty has been eliminated; China has become a global leader in science and technology; it leads the way in addressing the climate crisis; Chinese society is highly stable; and the government enjoys an outstanding level of popularity and legitimacy. 

The PRC has become a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and it leads the world in Gross Domestic Product based on purchasing power parity. The average annual growth rate between 1978 and 2023 was an incredible 9.4 per cent, which “exceeded that of almost all capitalist countries”. 

It must be remembered that this has all been accomplished within what amounts to the approximate lifespan of a single human being in a developed country, 75 years. China is thus at the very beginning of its ascent toward socialism. In this brief time, it is worth noting that it has already nearly doubled the life expectancy of its 1.4 billion people, which now stands at 78 years of age.

As People’s China at 75 lays out in detail, these accomplishments and many more are due to the fact — as the book’s subtitle explains — that The Flag Stays Red. It is Marxist theory and socialist practice that have been the driving forces behind China’s remarkable socio-economic rise, people-centred development, and emergent environmental civilisation. 

Bennett and Martinez’s book brings this clearly into focus, and its authors marshal their extensive expertise to provide copious empirical data to support the volume’s overall argument. It stands as an indispensable guide to understanding the PRC and appreciating its impressive accomplishments in only 75 years of existence.