#Proletarian-Nights

I've thought of a big question - How china becomes socialist. By revisiting history 1910-1949, I got to know part of the truth: Capitalism evolved into a disaster in those 39 years, so, no other way out, but socialism…

Democracy is not populism, but based on educated bourgeois who have the concept of ‘justice’, and resourceful to implement. At the beginning of 20th century, the political blueprint of the revolutionist Sun Yat-Sen made a lot of sense - feudal authority once depended on “shi(士)”, an intellectual class who voluntarily moralize themselves, and capable of mediating between authorities and civil society (actually through literature, that's why language is not a light thing in china). 

Sun Yat-Sen thought the tradition of “shi(士)” could make the introduction of bourgeois-led democracy smoother in China, because they both seem like middle-class-led politics. But even if the government then spared a lot budget on nurturing modern educated class across many disciplines -- economics, engineering, architecture, literature, etc.-- Sun’s plan finally failed. For example, after his death, banker Kong Xiangxi made a national bank for people to throw their money in, when the whole economy was almost zero in the 1930s. Pretty evil.

Educated class inevitably became exploiters, versus majority, who worked on land, still more used to being governed by bureaucratic officers who directly cultivate their lives. They are more sensitive to power & orders than knowledge & reasoning. 

In the 1940s, educated class slowly took their exploited property and fled away, land people were subsequently for socialism, and made Mao an icon, though communists claimed they eliminate hierarchy. Power is land people’s most familiar language, regardless of whatever ideology. Maybe that’s also why china scholars emphasize Foucault, the one who always talks about 'power'.

Somehow what happened then in china, also what happened in germany, remind me of today’s United States. The failure of capitalism, democracy and free market, then kind of socialism, bureaucracy and authoritarianism. America was a land for young passion, now it’s like a person getting older and dumber, which is upset…

p.s. the concept "Proletarian Nights" is from Jacques Rancière.