by Ken Hammond

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”

—Lenin, What Is to Be Done?

In the summer of 2016 I was invited to teach a month-long course for MA students in History at Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, about 300 kilometers south of Beijing. The class was to focus on historical research methodologies and the state of historical education in the United States. The students were bright and eager to learn, very interested in how history was approached in America, and happy to discuss their own research interests in Chinese history. Over the first few days of classes, I talked about my own work as a Marxist historian, and the influence of historical materialist research methods on even non-Marxist scholars in the West. I referred to particular texts by Marx and Engels, such as the Communist Manifesto, the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, and the “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” as examples of how we could derive Marx’s own working methods from these writings.

It quickly became clear that while the students had a basic recognition of the terms I was using, and had been exposed to information about Marx’s writings, they had not actually read even so basic a text as the Manifesto. I was rather taken aback by this realization, and urged these young people to engage directly with the original writings of socialist thought and materialist analysis. We went on to have a very productive class, in which I learned as much from them as they did from me.

A couple of years later, in 2018, I was at a conference where a conversation developed among several people who had recently had similar experiences teaching in China. We exchanged ideas about why this might be the case, and sought to understand what seemed a peculiar situation in a socialist country. What seemed to make the most sense was that this was a reflection in the realm of political education of a larger phenomenon which had been characteristic of China’s political culture over recent decades.

In the early 1990s, in the wake of the events of Spring 1989, as China was reviving the policies of Reform and Opening to the Outside in order to gain access to capital, technologies, information, and other resources needed for the rapid development of its economy, Deng Xiaoping famously urged the leadership of the Communist Party and the People’s government to “bide their time and build their capabilities.” In other words, to follow a course of accommodation with the United States and the wider world of global capitalism, to assume something of a low profile in terms of China’s socialist project; not to place too much emphasis on the differences between China and the West, but also not to abandon the socialist path. This proved to be an effective strategy, and contributed to the remarkable era of growth in China’s economy from 1992-2010 or so. It also, perhaps, encouraged a misconception among American political elites that China was on a path towards political transformation, and might become a subordinate component of the world capitalist system under American hegemony.

This period was also one in which there was a growing concern among some in China with what Wang Hui, a scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, called “depoliticized politics”, the phenomenon of many ordinary people turning away from direct engagement with political affairs as they focused on improving their own life circumstances. Political affairs were instead left to those who wished to pursue them—essentially, the members of the Communist Party and government officials. One manifestation of this attitude, it seems, had been a reduction in political education, as a focus on innovation and creativity in scientific and technological fields became a more vital part of China’s developmental program.

In July 2025 I returned to China for the first time since November 2019. First the Covid pandemic and then various professional and personal obligations repeatedly delayed a new visit. But in the Spring of 2025 I was invited to teach a one-week class at the School of Marxism at Shandong University, in Jinan, capital of Shandong Province. This proved to be a remarkable experience. I traveled first to Beijing, where I met with friends and colleagues at the Institute for Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and at Renmin University, as well as non-academic contacts. In wide-ranging conversations one recurring theme was a concern about the need for the Party and the government to continue to exercise oversight over and restrain the activities of private capital. Everyone expressed pride in China’s accomplishments, but also some anxiety about the future, and the need for vigilance in managing the processes of reform and development. The importance of dynamic leadership, and a commitment to the socialist path, seemed to be a priority. After a week of stimulating exchanges of ideas in the capital, I took the high-speed train to Jinan and settled in for a week of meetings and discussions in the classroom and around campus.

There were thirteen undergraduate students in the class, and I had been given a free hand at selecting the topics I wished to cover. I spent two days talking about my own work on China’s historical political economy and the modern history of China and imperialist aggression, then two days discussing contemporary American politics, especially the role of Marx’s concept of alienation in understanding the emergence of the radical far right and the phenomenon of Trump. A final class focused on eco-socialism. These were lively sessions, with students asking questions and presenting their own ideas.

It was clear from the start that this was a different conversation than the ones I had experience in 2016. Students had a much better grasp of Marxist concepts, and though they had not read widely, none having ventured into Capital, they were eager to engage with the material from the 1844 Manuscripts and even the Grundrisse that I assigned. Only one was actually majoring in Marxism, but the others all saw an understanding of Marx as important in their own fields of interest. Several raised important points about reading texts which originated in the specific historical circumstances of mid-nineteenth century Europe. The challenges of reading Marx’s style were also seen as something which needed to be taken into account. A recurring theme, central to not only the discussions in this class but to the way in which Marxist education is being approached in contemporary China, was the idea that we read Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao, not as scripture or Classics, not to cull from their writings timeless truths which can simply be applied in any context, but rather that the focus of Marxist education must be on the dialectic of theory and practice, and on the application of Marx’s analytical methodology, historical or dialectical materialism, to specific problems within the actually existing concrete material conditions. Students saw this as the essence of the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics, socialism not as a blueprint or schematic, but as the living practice of investigation and analysis.

I talked about my earlier experience and my pleasure at finding these students so much more engaged with Marxism with two comrades at the university who were assigned to work with me. They gave me an overview of the state of Marxist education and its place within a wider process of re-emphasizing Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought within the Party, the government, and in society at large. The era of accommodation, of “biding time” and keeping a low profile, had come to an end with the election of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang to leadership positions within the Party and the government in 2012. As China adopted a more confident posture in world affairs, and no longer deferred to American sensibilities in some areas, the new leadership began to stress the need, as Xi put it, to stay true to the original aspirations of the revolution, and to keep to the original mission. [不忘初心，牢記使命] In other words, to always remember the socialist goals and to remain dedicated to the work of socialist construction. In a speech given on July 1, 2016, Xi made explicit the role that Marxism needed to play, noting,

“This means we should continue to hold Marxism as our guiding philosophy, combine Marxist principles with the realities and circumstances of today’s China, and push forward theoretical innovation. We should keep experimenting, so as to keep Marxism abreast of the times.”

One of the clearest signals of the seriousness of this new orientation was a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, held in April 2018, at which Party leaders read and discussed the Communist Manifesto. This meeting received wide coverage in the media and was meant to signal the seriousness with which the study of Marxism needed to be taken. 

2018 was also the moment when institutions of higher education across China began to establish, or re-establish, schools of Marxism and Marxist studies. Over the following years more than 1,000 such schools, including the one at Shandong University, have been set up, and now enroll hundreds of thousands of students each year. Schools of Marxism offer courses in philosophy, political economy, history, and many other aspects of Marxist theory and practice. The school at Shandong University has its own multi-story building, which houses both classrooms and offices along with meeting rooms and a substantial library.

University-level schools of Marxism are an important part, but by no means the full extent, of a much broader movement of Marxist political education in China. In Beijing, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences houses its own Institute for Marxism. This is a major research center, the second-largest unit within CASS, after the Institute of Archaeology. The Institute for Marxism supports 120 researchers, who work on a wide range of topics, including a lively interest in Marxism and socialism in other parts of the world. The Institute publishes four scholarly journals, two in Chinese and two in English. The English language journals are World Socialism Studies and International Critical Thought. The latter publishes work by foreign Marxist researchers as well. Academies of Social Sciences at the provincial or municipal level in various places also publish their own journals, including the English language review Socialism Studies.

Marxist political education goes well beyond the academic sphere. In tandem with the establishment of schools of Marxism at Chinese universities and the ongoing efforts of researchers and intellectual activists, there has been a significant effort to enhance the level of engagement and participation in social and economic life by the CPC in order to more effectively ensure the functioning of China’s system of whole-process democracy. This involves both a renewed level of political education of cadres within the Party and a re-emphasis on the role of the Party in both guiding political affairs and in maintaining a close and dynamic engagement with the needs and interests of the people. 

The Communist Party of China now has slightly more than 100 million members, which means that roughly one of every nine adults in China is in the Party. This is itself a very high level of political engagement. The CPC has, in the last decade, worked to ensure that Party members in all branches of the economy, including productive enterprises and financial institutions, and in various areas of social life, such as education or other professions, play active roles in the units to which they belong, whether as workers on the factory floor or in managerial or administrative positions. As China grapples with the challenges and contradictions of development in the context of the policies of Reform and Opening, the leadership has understood the need to manage and oversee the functioning of the system. To do this a thorough grasp of Marxist theory and materialist analytical methodologies has been seen as critical. Xi Jinping’s writings, along with the contributions of many other thinkers and activists within and beyond the Party, have explored many aspects of this process. The reinvigoration of Marxism is not simply an intellectual exercise, but is central to the work of completing the original mission of the revolution.

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Ken Hammond is professor emeritus of East Asian and global history at New Mexico State University. A life-long radical political activist, he has worked and studied in China off and on since 1982. He received his PhD in history and East Asian languages from Harvard in 1994. He is currently a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and works with Pivot to Peace. He returned to China in July 2025 to teach in the summer school at Shandong University.