Professor Jiang Ping, of China University of Political Science and Law, is China’s leading legal scholar. This article is translated by Nicki Dabney and Guanhui Dai. The original was published in the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu and can be found here. From China Elections and Governance:
When researching legal systems, the question of socialism always arises. In summarizing socialism there are three preconditions. How we understand socialism should include three levels of analysis. Only through clarifying these points may we be definite about which form of socialism to follow.
Three preconditions
In considering the question of socialism on a deeper level, we must first admit that the traditional model of socialism is no longer acceptable. We should proclaim that the Soviet Union model encountered large setbacks and failed, neither of which are things that we should now seek. I left the Soviet Union 50 years ago, and this year I have made a decision to return once again, just in time for the anniversary of “8-19”, the collapse of the Soviet Union. I see the people in the Red Square commemorating “8-19”; there are less than 200 people raising the red flag. As observers our own feelings are inspired and we feel that as time goes on, people have changed although things have remained the same. In addition, there are now more newspapers in Russia that still quote President Putin’s words that “Whoever did not grieve over the fall of the Soviet Union has no conscience, whoever wants to the return to the original system has no brain””perhaps these are the thoughts of Russians. They watched with pain as the Soviet Union crumbled, but they are not willing to return to the old system. Our country’s reform is exactly the same. We are not willing to once again go down the original path. This generation has already spent so many years painfully stumbling on. Criticizing today’s methods in the original path is backward and conservative. Only with the desires to discuss and solve the shortcomings of socialism, can we really call it reform. [Full Text]
