Theory and society in the People's Republic of China: Outline of a perspective on Chinese socialism

The purpose of this study is to develop a more coherent perspective on the linkages between ideology and development in the framework of Chinese socialism. The study proceeds by way of identifying the specific image of society that defines and delimits direction of development in China--an image that is in turn defined by the joint parameters of Marxian theoretical ideals and Chinese social conditions. The perspective developed in this study centres on the ideology of communal form as the key to this image of society. The gist of this ideology, in both its constitution and dynamics, signified the reassertion of the primacy of society in socialist development--as against encroachment by either the state or the economy. In terms of substance, this image of communal society is marked by the vision of a society composed of autonomous, participatory units, freed from external coercion by an institutionalised, bureaucratised governmental structure, and congenial to the spontaneous growth of elementary social values. In terms of articulation, this image of society would be consolidated and actualised directly through the force of society--thus the legitimacy of social movement as vehicles of socialist development. Finally, in terms of ideological form, the momentum and support for the social movement required would be mobilized by casting this image of society in an idealised, even mythical light--thus the communal society as social myth of Chinese socialism. These dimensions together constitute a coherent image of Chinese society under socialism. As such, it may overcome for the Chinese socialist the lack of specificities in classical Marxism regarding the concrete makeup of socialist society.;In this study, the formation of this image of society in Chinese socialism is traced in four stages: (1) the economic theory of communal form (the late-50's); (2) the political theory of communal form (the mid-60's); (3) the critical theory of communal form (the early 70's);(4) the democratic theory of communal form (the late-70's). The unifying thread that tied together these stages lies in the primacy attributed to a self-governing society, which might be realised through the reabsorption of estranged institutional forces, by the reliance on relentless social movement on both the ideological and the political front. Thus the dynamic meaning of a sociological perspective in the Understanding of Chinese socialism.