This year marks a dark milestone in human history – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrates its 100th birthday. On July 1st, 1921, the CCP was founded in China, using Marxism as its underpinning. How did Marxism brew a hundred-year evil regime in China? This should be a big research question, but I want to use my own life experience to shed some light on the root of socialism and communism; I hope my experience can wake up people still enjoying liberty and freedom.
Marxism, a Mandated Curriculum for All Education Levels
In China, Marxism is a mandated curriculum from elementary to secondary education, from college to graduate schools. As the main content of a subject called “Politics,” Marxism is compiled in students’ textbooks according to their grade levels. The Chinese government considers “Politics” as a subject superior to reading, math, and science.
My first grade reading textbooks included stories about how young Karl Marx and his wife lived in poverty and how capitalists exploited workers. When I was in fourth grade, teachers required us to write short essays “disclosing and condemning wicked capitalism.” Although I had no clue about what I talked about, I learned that I must speak and write whatever it was required if I hoped to be a straight A student.
In high school, I spent almost 60 percent of my non-sleeping hours memorizing Marxism textbooks. As it was difficult to understand those convoluted theories of Marxism, my only learning strategy for getting a high score in the exams was to memorize every word and every sentence in the textbooks. If I forgot one point during an exam, my trick was to write a paragraph harshly condemning the evil of capitalism by fabricating stories of how factory owners fired old and ailing workers, letting them starve to death.
These testing tricks helped me to pass every grade level, and scored high enough in the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) to enroll in a most prestigious university in China. The NCEE is like the Chinese version of SATs, but the difference is that students must take and pass tests about Marxism.
While at the university, Marxism was the only required course that lasted four years, from freshman to senior. If I wanted to go to graduate school, I had to pass the examination of Marxism. After 13 years memorizing Marxism, I decided not to pursue any higher education in China. I wanted to end this type of torture. Deep in my heart, I felt I had wasted so much time learning Marxism, a depressing subject that ripped off the joy of my childhood and youth.
Marxism Mandated at Weekly Staff Meetings
Finally, I graduated with my first college degree and started teaching at a medical college. No more examination of Marxism, I thought, but the nightmare did not go away. The college where I taught required Marxism be a mandated content for weekly staff meetings, and for those staff who did not show up at such meetings, they were penalized with a 10 percent deduction from their salaries, each time.
As an adult, I began to realize that the CCP uses Marxism everywhere to lie. During Mao’s time, we were told that China was a Communist country where poor people were saved from capitalists. More than 50 million people starved to death under the Mao’s Communist regime. Mao died in 1976, leaving almost the whole population in extreme poverty.
After Mao’s death, we were told that we lived in a socialist country with Chinese characteristics. During the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping, a Communist Party leader who reformed Chinese economic system, said, “A good cat is a cat that can catch mice, regardless of whether it is a black cat or white cat.” His message opened the door to capitalism. While a small proportion of the population became affluent, most Chinese only had income enough to cover basic needs. Worst of all, corruption among the Communist Party officials prevailed.
The 1989 student demonstration started with condemning corrupt government officials and calling for democratic reforms, but ended with thousands of people being brutally massacred by soldiers. After the 1989 Massacre on Tiananmen Square, China entered a dark age, banning free speech, suppressing any voice disagreeing with the government, and censoring all sorts of media, including the internet. While occasionally we heard a debate on whether China is a socialist or communist country, Marxism has never been challenged. Instead, Marxism has become the indisputable and established position of the regime.
Marxism Brews Hatred
From education to workplace staff meetings, all the indoctrination of Marxism is a systematic brainwashing. Only one line is repeated, that is, all capitalists exploit workers to accumulate their own wealth, and therefore, capitalism is evil, and we should hate capitalists. Like millions of people in China, I grew up in a binary moral system, a rigid dichotomy between love and hatred. “When friends come, you provide a feast for them; if enemies come, you take up arms and kill them.”
This was a line of a song I heard often in my childhood, during high school, and even in college. The song came from a movie about the Korean War, which has been used for propaganda against “American Imperialism” and capitalist countries. In a dichotomous view of the world, friends are those who worship Marxism and practice Communism. Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Tito’s Yugoslavia, Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, and the terrorist group Taliban are all Chinese friends. In contrast, countries and people that respect human rights and fight for freedom are labelled as enemies.
Marxism Brews a One-Party Government and Dictatorship
China is effectively a one-party government. In China, people who do not accept Marxism are seen as anti-Communist Party and categorized as enemy of people. Marxism has been used to threaten people who are against dictatorship. When Xi, the CCP Chairman, ended the term system of Chinese Presidency and became a dictator, he claimed that he was a strong Marxist and would lead China to fight capitalism.
Through brainwashing and repression, the CCP uses Marxism – a discredited ideology – to control the whole political, social, economic, and legal systems. “Around 7% of the population are members of the party – loyal membership is essential for anyone who wants to climb the career ladder – whether in politics, business or even entertainment,” and “If they are seen to go against party ideals, they have to publicly apologize to save themselves from secret detention and persecution” (BBC, 2019).
Deceived and intimidated by the CCP government, many Chinese have lost their independent, critical thinking skills, distance themselves from ideas of pursuing a democratic system, and even dislike political dissidents. I support the Uyghur people and the people of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Tibet to fight for their human rights and religious freedom, and to express their willingness to separate from the CCP regime. According to the government, anyone who openly supports or advocates for Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and Tibetans is a separatist, a criminal, a traitor, and an enemy of Chinese people.
From Chairman Mao to Chairman Xi, the CCP imposed a dictator as a “savior” on 1.4 billion Chinese. The regime successfully used Marxism to take away religion from people’s lives. From childhood to adulthood, most Chinese are educated to be atheists, because Marxism says that religion is the opium of the people. Again, the CCP uses the dichotomous view of the world to promote hate toward religion; the false syllogism is that opium is a drug and drug addiction will destroy us, the same as religion, and we should hate religion.
Ironically, the CCP always claims that religious freedom is protected in China, but churches, temples, and mosques are forced to worship the Communist Party before any god. More than one million of Uyghurs are experiencing genocide for their religion and pursuit of freedom. Because of the popularity of Falungong, its practitioners have been cruelly persecuted, and the government has banned the practice permanently. Christian pastors and believers are in prison now, just because they worship Jesus, not the CCP.
“China insists it is upholding human rights and justifies its harsh hand on dissent by saying that lifting millions out of poverty trumps individual liberties,” BBC reported. Sadly, as long as poverty exists, a one-party government can always play the “Marxist game,” blaming capitalism, promoting hate toward rich people, denying human rights, and “redistributing” wealth. In short, the CCP has used the fallacy of Marxism and the reality of harsh repression to exercise totalitarian control over the Chinese people for one century now.