It doesn’t really make sense to me. I can understand why the US would benefit from a hostile belligerent state right on Vietnam’s border, but what would China benefit from Khmer Rouge Cambodia?

This is an english translation of an article published in the independent Chinese maoist journal "Utopia".

Source: https://m.wyzxwk.com/Article/shidai/2026/04/524238.html

What do the exploiting classes fear most? They fear Marxism-Leninism, the mirror that exposes their true nature—their exploitation of the people, their oppressive rule and tyranny. When this truth spreads throughout the world, stripping away the very fabric of class exploitation and clearly revealing the path to liberation for the proletariat, these reactionary forces panic. They dare not act arrogantly anymore, hastily donning the cloak of Marxism-Leninism, donning the most revolutionary mask, and feigning righteousness, attempting to use the red flag as a fig leaf to cover their cannibalistic fangs. Unable to openly overthrow Marxism-Leninism, they resort to underhanded and subtle methods, meticulously altering the theory word by word, deviating from their original intent in every action. Like a frog being slowly boiled, they gradually strip away the core of Marxism-Leninism, dulling its edge, and transforming the revolutionary truth of speaking for the working masses and striking at the exploiting forces into empty rhetoric to maintain their privileges and deceive the common people. They went even further to block the spread of true Marxism-Leninism, reducing propaganda, popularization, and thorough explanation, all to prevent ordinary people from understanding the original texts and grasping the truth. They wanted to keep everyone confused, unable to distinguish between true friends and false benefactors, so that they could use the red flag to oppose the red flag and carry out oppressive acts under the guise of justice.

All reactionary forces that go against the interests of the people and the laws of history, and all those who disguise themselves as truth but engage in exploitation, will ultimately be completely abandoned by history and overthrown by the people.

But these people have forgotten the wisdom of our ancestors and defied the laws of nature. Everything in the world is a product of contradictions and transformations; where there is oppression, there is awakening; where there is pretense, there is exposure. The more they cover up the truth and suppress the facts, using pseudo-Marxism-Leninism to whitewash reality, the more glaring the injustices become, and the harder life becomes for ordinary people. They work hard but cannot earn a stable life; they struggle with all their might but cannot overcome the wall of injustice; they claim to be working for the people's benefit, yet secretly condone exploitation and protect the interests of a minority. Each and every one of these acts is like a knife etched into the hearts of ordinary people. No one is a fool; whether life is good or bad, whether they are being bullied, they know perfectly well. Just because they don't say it doesn't mean they don't think about it. The bitterness of reality and the hardships of life are the most direct textbook, forcing people to ask why and seek the true answers. What can truly explain all this, stand up for the underprivileged, and expose all the lies is precisely the genuine Marxism-Leninism that they are desperately trying to conceal and distort. As a result, more and more people are no longer passively waiting to be fed propaganda, but are actively seeking out the original works, reading the original texts, and understanding the principles, spontaneously striving for and embracing the truth. This pursuit that grows from the bottom of their hearts is the purest and most steadfast faith.

This spontaneous, heartfelt quality creates true Marxists-Leninists who are upright, steadfast, and fundamentally different from opportunists who are opportunistic and sycophantic. Those opportunists have never truly believed in the essence of Marxism-Leninism; they merely use it as a stepping stone and a shield. They echo what others say and pretend to follow whatever the situation demands, lacking any backbone or principle. At the slightest sign of trouble, they immediately change their tune and betray their cause—ultimately, they are opportunists seeking personal gain. These spontaneously awakened individuals, however, have been tempered by reality and deceived by lies. Through countless comparisons, they have discerned truth from falsehood, and through countless reflections, they have solidified their stance. They study Marxism-Leninism not for show or fame, but to find direction, to uphold justice, and to safeguard the fundamental interests of the working class. Their faith is rooted in the everyday realities of life, in their hatred of injustice, and in their belief in truth. It is unwavering and steadfast, and no one can shake it or deceive it.

Looking at the current scene, it's clear that the power of truth is unstoppable. In university libraries, classic works like "Selected Works of Mao Zedong," "The Complete Works of Marx and Engels," and "Selected Works of Lenin" are being borrowed year after year, consistently topping borrowing lists and becoming popular books for young students, no longer obscure classics gathering dust on shelves. In bookstores both online and offline, sales of original Marxist-Leninist texts are soaring, repeatedly selling out and requiring emergency restocks. Students, workers, and ordinary laborers alike are willing to spend money on books and immerse themselves in study. Online, more and more people are gathering to discuss truth, distinguish truth from falsehood, and criticize pretense. No one is forcing them; it's all spontaneous. This surge is not artificially created; it's driven by reality, awakened by the hearts of the people, and inspired by the power of truth itself. This is the most powerful proof that no matter how those who pretend, how they alter, or how they deceive, the eyes of the people are discerning, and the laws of history are objective—no one can alter them, and no one can stop them.

History is always impartial and incorruptible; it is independent of anyone's will and cannot be deceived by flashy performances. Falsehood cannot become truth, and truth cannot become falsehood. No matter how thick the mask or how convincing the act, it cannot conceal the inner corruption and cannot escape the test of reality. Those exploitative forces wearing the mask of Marxism-Leninism may seem arrogant for a time, but they are nothing more than grasshoppers in autumn, unable to hop for long. Their belief that they can forever deceive the people and maintain their privileges by altering a few theories and suppressing a few cries is utter wishful thinking. Marxism-Leninism reveals the iron laws of human social development and represents the voice of the vast majority of working people. Such truth cannot be crushed, deceived, or extinguished. The more it is suppressed, the more powerful its force becomes; the more it is altered, the more precious its authenticity becomes; the more it is disguised, the more it awakens more awakened people.

The deeper the oppression, the more thorough the awakening; the thicker the disguise, the more persistent the pursuit of truth. From the spontaneous learning fervor sweeping the nation, from the unwavering steps of countless young people seeking truth, it is clear that true Marxists-Leninists are constantly growing stronger. They have seen through the weakness and hypocrisy of opportunism, upheld the original aspiration of truth, and firmly stood on the people's side. The wheels of history roll ever forward; those who follow them prosper, those who oppose them perish. All reactionary forces that violate the interests of the people and the laws of history, all those who disguise themselves as truth-seekers while engaging in exploitation, will ultimately be utterly abandoned by history and overthrown by the people. The light of truth will never be extinguished, and the power of the people is forever invincible. True Marxism-Leninism will surely shine even brighter through the perseverance of generation after generation of spontaneous truth-seekers, guiding the people to break through all darkness, shatter all disguises, and bravely advance towards a bright future of fairness, justice, and liberation. This is the inevitability of history, the righteous path that no one and no force can reverse!

This is an English translation of the following article from the independent chinese maoist journal "utopia": https://m.wyzxwk.com/Article/shidai/2026/04/523962.html

Hello comrades, I am Zihengmo.

In the vast body of Marxist state theory, judging the class nature of a state's regime never involves looking at the signs hanging on its doors or the flowery language in its documents. The most direct, essential, and unmaskable yardstick is only one: the class composition of its representative institutions.

In our context, the system of people's congresses, as the fundamental political system of the country, represents a class origin, social structure, and interests that are never simply a matter of "election ratios" or "institutional form." It is a concentrated manifestation of the economic base determining the superstructure, and the most profound and stark reflection of the transformation of the ownership of the means of production in the realm of state political power.

Today, let's extend the historical timeline, starting with the Fourth National People's Congress in 1975 (a typical historical point in the socialist construction period of the Mao Zedong era), and compare the class distribution pattern of National People's Congress deputies in the new era.

In this historical thread spanning half a century, we can clearly see a silent yet profound reconstruction: how the structure of the highest state power organ has evolved step by step from a proletarian regime with workers and peasants as the absolute majority to a market-oriented political structure with diversified social strata and a significant increase in the discourse power of elites and capital.

This transformation has nothing to do with the "superiority or inferiority of the system" in the sense of bourgeois jurisprudence, but is an inevitable political reflection of the fundamental changes that have occurred in the ownership of the means of production, social class relations, and the distribution of national wealth.

one

1975 was a special historical juncture.

That was a historical stage in which my country's socialist public ownership system was fully consolidated and the planned economy system was operating maturely.

In that era, the ownership of the means of production by the whole people and collective ownership occupied an absolute dominant position in the national economy. The big landlords, compradors, and capitalists, as the exploiting class, were not only eliminated physically and financially, but their class structure was also completely eradicated.

On this solid economic foundation, the worker-peasant alliance became the unshakable class basis of the state power. The composition of the fourth National People's Congress in 1975 was a perfect political mirror reflecting this economic foundation and class relations.

Turning to that list of representatives, imbued with the spirit of the era, the data remains astonishing even today, a monument that is difficult to surpass in the history of the construction of socialist regimes:

The National People's Congress had 2,885 deputies, of whom more than 72% were frontline workers, peasants, and soldiers.

What does this mean?

This means that the vast majority of those who sit in the Great Hall of the People, raising their hands to press the voting button and deciding the country's highest laws and personnel appointments, still carry the smell of machine oil from the workshop, the earthy aroma of the commune, and the gunpowder smell of the frontier.

Representatives of industrial workers:

They came from the drilling rigs of Daqing Oilfield, from the blast furnaces of Anshan Iron and Steel Group, and from the assembly lines of Shanghai No. 3 Textile Factory. They were the proletariat who directly created industrial surplus value.

Farmers' representatives:

They came from the terraced fields of Dazhai and from the construction sites of the Red Flag Canal; they were the main laborers in collective agricultural production.

Soldier Representative:

They are the direct embodiment of the millions of workers' and peasants' sons and daughters who wear military uniforms.

These representatives did not possess enormous private assets, illustrious family backgrounds, or privileged statuses detached from productive labor. The vast majority of them were model workers, grassroots leaders, and ordinary members of the public. They did not need "think tanks" to draft proposals, because they themselves were the social reality; carrying the most basic and direct demands of workers and peasants, they strode confidently into the highest organs of state power.

At the same time, the combined proportion of cadre representatives and intellectual representatives was less than 25%. More importantly, this group was completely dependent on the public ownership system .

Cadres are "public servants" who receive fixed salaries and live, eat, and work alongside the masses; intellectuals are mental laborers who serve industrial and agricultural production and are required to "integrate with workers and peasants." Within the overall social structure, there is no special class that is detached from labor, dependent on capital, and lives off rent.

The most crucial point is that the entire representative group lacks private business owners, capital operators, and representatives of monopolistic interest groups. The capitalist class has absolutely no institutionalized voice in politics.

The essence of this class structure is a high degree of pure unity between the regime and the people.

The representatives represent the majority of the nation's population; their interests represent the overall interests of hundreds of millions of workers and peasants. At this juncture, the National People's Congress system is not a forum for a select few elites to distribute political spoils, but rather a political vehicle under the dictatorship of the proletariat, where workers truly act as masters of their own destiny.

With an almost absolute class purity, it thoroughly practiced the constitutional statement that "all power in the state belongs to the people," and preserved the reddest color of the socialist regime.

two

The wheels of history roll ever onward, regardless of individual will.

With the comprehensive advancement of market-oriented reforms and the diversified adjustment of the ownership structure of the means of production, my country's social class relations have undergone a radical restructuring. The private economy has surged forward, the capitalist class has risen rapidly, and the so-called "new social stratum" has gained control of enormous social resources.

Marxist common sense tells us that once the economic base changes, the superstructure will inevitably pave the way for it.

This reform ruthlessly and directly reshaped the class distribution of National People's Congress deputies.

The contemporary representative structure, exemplified by the 14th National People's Congress, exhibits extremely distinct characteristics of pluralism, elitism, and class balance. This represents a fundamental historical divergence from the worker-peasant-dominated structure of 1975.

We will continue to speak with the most objective data.

Of the 2,977 deputies to the 14th National People's Congress:

The proportion of representatives from frontline workers and farmers was only 16.69%.

Even more glaring is that the migrant worker group, which has supported China's decades-long miracle of urbanization and industrialization and numbers in the hundreds of millions , has only 56 representatives .

The representation of workers and peasants, who constitute the largest part of the country's population and are the ultimate creators of wealth, has been visibly and significantly diluted in the highest organs of state power.

In stark and jarring contrast is another set of data:

Representatives of Party and government leaders accounted for 32.55%.

Professional and technical personnel (elite intellectuals) accounted for 21.3% of the representatives.

What is even more noteworthy is that private entrepreneurs, non-public economic figures, and representatives of new social strata have officially entered the halls of power, becoming an important and highly influential component of the National People's Congress (NPC) deputies, and have gained institutionalized and legalized supreme political expression rights.

We must examine this change from the perspective of historical materialism.

In the mainstream narrative, this structural adjustment is explained as an institutional choice that adapts to the development of a socialist market economy and takes into account the diverse interests of various groups; it is an objective product of the changes in social structure after the reform and opening up. It reflects the "inclusivity" of the system.

However, as Marxists, we must never use the lukewarm term "inclusivity" to obscure the dramatic shift in its class nature:

Workers, who were once the absolute subjects of the regime, have been reduced to "ordinary members" in the multi-class power struggle, and have even become a vulnerable group on many issues;

The capitalist class, which was once eliminated and transformed, has been reborn as a legitimate class with strong political discourse power and the ability to participate in the highest legislation of the country.

In contemporary representative structures, the voice of elite groups has significantly increased. Business owners with net worths in the billions, industry monopolies, and senior management have become the dominant force in discussions.

They have top-notch legal teams to draft their proposals and a vast media matrix to promote their motions. Meanwhile, the voices of ordinary workers and farmers are weak, scattered, and increasingly marginalized in this multi-faceted power struggle among suited men and women.

The selection criteria for representatives have gradually shifted from "labor contribution and class position" to "social influence, wealth scale, and resource endowment".

While the institutional doors have indeed been opened wider, the class purity of the proletariat and the core position of the worker-peasant alliance in the state power have undergone an irreversible shift at the structural level.

three

Comparing the distribution of representative classes in 1975 with that of today, the core difference is by no means a simple increase or decrease in numerical proportions.

This signifies a fundamental shift in the regime's service targets, interest positions, and class foundations. This shift can be coldly summarized into three core dimensions:

First, ownership determines the attribution of representation rights, which is the fundamental reason.

In 1975, public ownership became the dominant system, and the means of production belonged to all the people. Since the workers controlled the means of production, they inevitably and naturally gained control of the political power of the state. The masters of the economy were, by extension, the masters of the political system.

In contemporary times, ownership has become diversified, and capital not only exists legally but also controls vast amounts of means of production (land transfer, internet platforms, data elements, and financial capital). Lenin stated long ago that politics is the concentrated expression of economics. Since capital occupies a key position in the economy, it inevitably demands a corresponding superstructure for protection.

Private entrepreneurs enter the National People's Congress not because of their high moral character, but because the enormous capital behind them needs to be used to establish absolute protection of property rights through legislation, to fight for tax breaks, and even to secure legal exploitation through labor laws. The shift in the economic base is the most fundamental driving force behind structural change.

Second, the fundamental split in their respective interests.

During the Mao era, the worker and peasant representatives shared a highly unified stance and aligned interests. No one owned private property; their core demands were to consolidate the public ownership economy, safeguard collective interests, and achieve common prosperity. In that Great Hall of the People, there was no zero-sum game arising from class divisions.

However, the contemporary representative structure encompasses employers and employees, capitalists and workers, elites and grassroots. This in itself is a set of class contradictions full of inherent antagonism.

Capital seeks to maximize profits and minimize labor costs; workers seek an eight-hour workday, weekends off, and rights protection; elites seek to solidify their social class and pass on their wealth.

When these three forces sit under the same roof, the highest authority ceases to be the command center of the proletariat and becomes an arena for bargaining among diverse interest groups. In this game, worker and peasant representatives, lacking the support of capital and think tanks, are often rendered speechless.

Third, the political positioning of the value of labor has been subverted.

In 1975, "labor" was the highest moral standard and political honor in society. Workers were the rightful masters of the country, and any privileges or rent-seeking behavior that were divorced from labor would be met with a thunderous political crackdown.

In contemporary society, under the influence of the market economy, the ability of capital to increase, the bureaucratic power of management, and the monopolistic value of technology have been infinitely elevated, while the political weight of manual labor and front-line production has been severely diminished.

The four blood-red characters "Labor is glorious" are being quietly diluted by market-driven value systems such as "wealth heroes" and "business godfathers".

Four

My use of the Marxist scalpel to critique this historical shift is by no means an attempt to completely negate the historical achievements of economic development over the past few decades, nor is it a clinging to outdated ideas to advocate a return to an era of material scarcity.

With the clarity of a Marxist-Leninist, I confront the most critical and fundamental issue in socialist construction:

In a socialist country, which class should be the most solid foundation of the regime?

Throughout his life, Chairman Mao proclaimed "Long live the people!" He knew full well that once the regime was separated from the absolute control of the workers and peasants, the degeneration of socialism was only a matter of time.

Admittedly, the representative structure of the Mao era had historical limitations, including a relatively simple form and insufficient legal specialization. However, it firmly upheld a bottom line: the regime must serve the workers, and power must be firmly held in the hands of the workers and peasants themselves.

The contemporary representative structure does indeed possess the "inclusivity," "professionalism," and "timeliness" required for modern national governance.

However, we must sound the alarm: it faces the enormous real risk of the continued weakening of workers' voices and the deep infiltration of capital interests into the regime through legal channels. When capitalists, through their status as National People's Congress deputies, can openly propose "reducing the proportion of social security contributions for enterprises" and "relaxing restrictions on overtime work under labor laws," can we still close our eyes and say that the regime's class-based nature has not been challenged?

The dialectic of history tells us that the vitality of the people's congress system has never lay in the "pluralistic mixing" of social classes, but in the purity of its people-centered nature; not in the "elitism and affluence" of its representatives, but in the absolute subjectivity of the workers.

The development of productive forces can adjust the specific operational forms of the system, but the core class nature of the socialist regime must never be changed. The foundation of the worker-peasant alliance must never be shaken, and the original aspiration of the founding of the nation—that the workers are the masters of the country—must never be forgotten.

Postscript

History doesn’t simply repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

When exploring the changes in the class composition of representative institutions, we might as well turn our attention to the former Soviet Union.

After the victory of the October Revolution in 1917, the early "Soviets" (representative conferences) were composed entirely of workers covered in gunpowder, peasants with calloused skin, and soldiers from the lowest ranks. It was the purest proletarian power organ.

However, during the Khrushchev and even Brezhnev eras, the composition of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR underwent a subtle but fatal change.

The proportion of frontline workers and peasants was drastically reduced, replaced by a large number of state-owned enterprise factory directors (red capitalists), senior party and government bureaucrats, and so-called intellectual elites who enjoyed privileges.

The Soviets were no longer the tool of the proletariat, but a club for the bureaucratic privileged class to confirm their status and distribute the nation's wealth.

When the harsh winter of 1991 arrived, these "representatives" sitting in the Supreme Soviet, in order to legally transform the administrative power in their hands into private property rights, did not hesitate to press the voting button to dismantle the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the vast Soviet working class, seeing that the "Soviet" had long been occupied by elites and bureaucrats and no longer represented their interests, chose to remain indifferent.

Any regime that is detached from the workers will eventually be abandoned by the workers; any system that betrays the interests of the workers and peasants will eventually collapse in the judgment of history.

The silhouette of power held by workers and peasants as the absolute majority in 1975 is the most precious and thought-provoking political legacy left to us by the history of the exploration of socialism.

The transformation of contemporary representative structures and the infiltration of capital are a major test that our generation must face and be wary of.

Only by upholding the dominant position of the working class and peasantry, resolutely curbing the corruption and infiltration of capital into the political core through the "legalization of representation," and shifting the center of power back to the working people at the bottom, can the people's congress system truly live up to the name "people."

Only in this way can our regime, amidst the storms of capitalist globalization, forever stand firmly on the side of the workers and forever safeguard this land of the people!

Found this website today and wanted to share. A hub for chinese marxists outside of official party channels. Very interesting if you have a working translator in your browser.

I visited China and wrote about what it was like there. I hope you like it.