Happy 60th Birthday, People's Republic of China

In lieu of devoting the kind of time to thoughtful blogging this massive topic deserves, which sadly but as per usual I just don't have, I offer up this video from October 1, 1949, featuring Mao Zedong and Chou Enlai presiding after the spectacular victory of the Red Army. And these links:

Here is Mao's talk to the party the week before the victory parade.

The Empire State Building shone red and yellow last night in honor of the occasion. The Chinese community in New York, even though some of them or their parents or grandparents left China for political reasons, overall still has a strong loyalty to and bond with the PRC. (For example, the student aide here in the office where I work was telling me that her folks left China in the 1970s but that they still support the revolution; in particular, based on their experiences in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, the period most maligned by imperialist propaganda and literature but which they along with the mass of the population saw as an effort to move toward full social equality, they feel allied with the PRC to this day.) Along with that and the feelings of patriotism occasioned by this anniversary, there is also currently an upswell in pride because of John Liu's primary election victory Tuesday in the race for city comptroller, which he will now handily win in the general election, making him the first Asian-American to hold citywide office here. And so it was politic of the skyscraper's owners to display the colors. For which they were attacked widely on the TV news last night and in the city's daily rags today.

Here's an interesting and informative, albeit of course bourgeois biased, report on one of the few remaining agricultural communes in China.

Here's a talk given by one of my comrades at Workers World Party's national conference two years ago. It's a good summary of our view of the situation in China in the present period, and of the reasons for optimism as we "look forward to a resurgence of communism inside China."

While the PRC celebrates its 60th, this year WWP and its newspaper Workers World mark their 50th anniversary. The very first issue of Workers World, issued in March 1959, had as its front page headline: "Hail the Communes!" (WWP is not considered a Maoist organization but has always supported the Chinese along with every other socialist revolution; revolutionary internationalism is a central tenet.)

Here's an earlier blog post of mine listing some of the invaluable books about the Chinese Revolution.