Unpacking Propaganda and Destabilization Efforts in China

This is a free preview of the episode "China Pt. 6: The Long Transition Towards Socialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

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The transition to socialism is not going to be an overnight project—and no amount of willing it to be so can change that. No, the transition towards socialism is going to be a long and winding road, traveled with fits and starts, peppered with retreats and losses. But despite it not being an overnight project, it is still a project that is being undertaken with a degree of passion and discipline that should give us hope that its outcome, perhaps not guaranteed, is at least a real possibility worth fighting for. And China, despite what imperialist propaganda wants you to think, is on this path towards socialism. In fact, it's leading it. And our guest for today's episode, Part 6 of our series on China, makes a very compelling case to support this thesis. 

Gabriel Rockhill is a philosopher, cultural critic, and activist teaching Philosophy and Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University and he runs an educational nonprofit called the Critical Theory Workshop. He is the editor of multiple books, including Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, by the Italian Marxist Domenico Losurdo. Western Marxism was the focus of our conversation with Gabriel in October last year. Gabriel is also the author of the upcoming book, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? Volume I of The Intellectual World War: Marxism versus the Imperial Theory Industry, which is forthcoming in December, 2025 by Monthly Review Press.

In this conversation, we talk about what Gabriel refers to as the intellectual world war waged by imperialists against the rest of us and how this pertains to anti-China propaganda, we discuss socialism as a process that unfolds over time versus a utopian vision that we can achieve instantly, what China learned from the socialist project of the USSR, the connections between China and the Alliance of Sahel States, the limits of liberal identity politics and China's strategy of spreading socialist economic development throughout the Global South. We dispel the myth that China is imperialist and reveal it as a propaganda by the imperialists themselves as an attempt to disparage and discredit China, the distinction between tactics and strategy in the context of the dialectics of socialism, and what the rising tensions between China and United States mean for the global world order in the coming decades and beyond.

Further resources:

• Gabriel Rockhill
• Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? Volume I of The Intellectual World War: Marxism versus the Imperial Theory Industry, by Gabriel Rockhill (forthcoming in 2025 by Monthly Review Press)
• Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, by Domenico Losurdo
• "Lenin & the Dialectics of Socialism," Gabriel Rockhill
• Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba, Leslie Feinberg
• Climate Vanguard: Is China Imperialist?
• The Dragon's Gift :The Real Story of China in Africa, by Deborah Brautigam
• On Ascending a High Mountain, V. I. Lenin
• Poll shows more countries hold a favorable view of China than US

Related episodes:

• Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill
• Listen to our ongoing series on China
• Historical Materialism w/ Torkil Lauesen
• Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction
• The Alliance of Sahel States Pt. 1: Burkina Faso – A Socialist Introduction w/ Prudence Iticka
• Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly

Artwork: CPC Propaganda Poster titled “Unite and work hard to build the four modernizations.”

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