World Socialism in the Twenty-First Century: New Structure, New Features and New Trends

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the reality and the prospect of the world socialist movement in the twenty-first century. Capitalist crises are regarded as important opportunities to study the characteristics of world socialist development in this paper. The development characteristics and the general patterns of world capitalism and world socialism in their mutual competition after the three capitalist crises are studied first. Then, after analysis, the author believes that there are four characteristics of world socialism: the socialist system has gained a wider institutional advantage over capitalism; China has become a mainstay of the development and revitalization of world socialism; in their long struggle, the balance of power between world socialism and world capitalism will change historically in favor of world socialism; the number of socialist countries and the degree of the socialism realization has become the standards to judge socialist development. Finally, the author concludes that the possibility of the new development of world socialism will rely on the organic unifications between its nationalism and internationalism, its regionalism and cosmopolitanism, working class movement and mass movement, as well as social development and ecological civilization.

KEYWORDS:

• Capitalist crisis
• institutional advantage
• socialism with Chinese characteristics

Acknowledgements

This article is translated by Li Shuqing at the China Agricultural University (Yantai).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on Contributor

Jiang Hui (following Chinese practice, the surname, Jiang, is placed first), PhD in laws, is a researcher, a doctoral tutor, the party secretary of the Institute of Information Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), as well as a deputy director of the World Socialism Research Center of CASS. His research covers scientific socialism, international communist movement and world socialism. His publications include monographs of Reform of the Communist Parties in the European Developed Countries (in Chinese) and Chen Yun and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (in Chinese); co-authored books of Socialist Thought in the Western World (in Chinese), Market Socialism (in Chinese), Class Structure and “The Third Way” (in Chinese), and The Transformation of European Social Democracy (in Chinese); and articles of “On the Class Problem of Contemporary Capitalism” (in Chinese) and “Opportunities and Challenges Facing the World Socialism” (in Chinese). He also translated into Chinese One Hundred Years of Socialism in the Western European Countries, Conflicts about Class and Social Class in America and Britain.

Notes

1. “Five in One” is China’s overall approach to promote economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological progress in building socialism with Chinese characteristics, which was put forward in the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Additional information

Funding

This article is an initial result of the author’s research “The Historical Experience and the New Development of the World Socialist Movement” (2014YCXZD010) which is a major program of the Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.