Ok so what I’m really curious about after thinking all this over some more: what paths forward are there for expressing this yearning for socialism for the youth? From my external perspective, I see a few potential directions this all goes. Lemme know if any of these are actually possible or what I’m missing. I’ll refer to this whole phenomena as “Youth Maoism” for lack of a better term.

First, Youth Maoism could simply remain in the space of ideas, memes, literary criticism. In the west, political trends often sweep through the youth in almost entirely online spaces without ever coalescing in any coherent real world or organizational sense. Since they’re reflections of real material conditions, they do inevitably end up feeding into something, but that real world expression need not reflect any particular online trend, especially if there’s a significant time gap. In this case, we would eventually see some other form of anti-systemic expression emerge unless China effectively handles the economic issues through institutional methods - a strong possibility, given the PRC’s frequently demonstrated flexibility and problem solving capacity.

Second, Youth Maoism could become an actual anti-institutional political movement. As you’ve pointed out elsewhere in the thread, that’s not something Chinese people have much experience with since Reform and Opening Up. There are no lasting protest movements because of both state repression and the state’s ability to effectively address popular concerns before they bubble over into irrepressible unrest. As dialectical marxists, that second component is important - it is impossible to construct a society where suppression alone eliminates resistance. Therefore, forming that movement would be incredibly difficult, a lengthy process of trial and error to discover what methods can succeed and grow in the PRC’s particular conditions. If this remains external to the CPC, it will obviously face huge pressure and the power of the state. This is the most dangerous path forward, because it’s where imperialist forces can find a foothold to influence these movements. I don’t think the CIA has the juice to pull off anything like that in China, but it would also be naive to totally rule it out. And the long term course of something like this impossible to predict. Could there truly be a socialist revolution within China? In a way, that adheres to an orthodox ML analysis, where the socialist state eventually gives way to popular pressure and begins the process of withering away. I dunno.

Third, Youth Maoism could become a current - and potentially a powerful, influential one - within the CPC. The CPC has undergone dramatic political changes before, developing new orientations and strategies in response to new pressures, including from the masses. This would be a sort of institutional, peaceful Cultural Revolution. Vigorous mass youth engagement with the Party and its external organs could reform the organization and drive China towards a more socialist road. The party is made of its membership, and Xi has worked on building a more rigorous Marxist current in the party. This could be taking that effort and running with it. This, too, is an interpretation of that same orthodox ML analysis about popular will leading to the demise of the state and the progression to communism.

Finally, there could be a grassroots, non-oppositional expression that I predict would be expressed primarily in rural China. State and party media like to prop up rural revitalization efforts that, in their English-language presentation, focus on a few main themes I’ve identified: Grassroots democracy, entrepreneurial youth returning from the city, ecologically sound development, and cooperative rural enterprises. I have very little understanding of the depths of these on the ground, but I’ll operate on the assumption that they represent growing trends, whatever their current scale is. If that’s the case, Youth Maoism could express itself as a grassroots organizational process that adheres closely to the Party’s objectives and methods but carries out creative socialist innovation on the ground. Here I’m back on my Venezuela communes bullshit (everybody read Commune or Nothing!). In Venezuela, these same four elements (although the youth movement looks quite different) lead to the communard movement that is rapidly advancing socialist construction in the Bolivarian Republic. If the Youth Maoists look outward to other socialist projects and study their comrades in other countries (is there any Proletarian Internationalism to this trend?), they could go into the countryside, utilize state support, and build more complex and democratic collective economic structures. Interestingly, the communards in Venezuela consciously wield the collectivist trends of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean history as a potent cultural weapon in the construction of their new model. What country on earth has a stronger living memory of collective ownership, communes, and rural socialism than China? This is not, on its own, an overturning of Chinese society. It would certainly represent a new evolution of the rural-urban contradiction. Perhaps it could find expression in Chinese cities, especially longer-standing communities with well-established collective structures. This, I think, is the ideal path forward and the best possible expression of the withering away of the state.

Of course, if this Youth Maoism actually becomes a movement in any material sense, it would find expressions in all of the above and other possibilities I’ve not imagined. Any real political movement rooted in a Marxist analysis of actually existing conditions is a varied, complex process of historical change on all available fronts.