Actually, contrary to poular belief in the West, Marxism is alive and well in China, the country where I've been living and raising a family for quite some time.
Most Chinese experts say that China is now something akin to the USSR's old "New Economic Policy," with a large state-controlled sector and some limited free-market projects. Not surprisingly, the private businesses are rife with hazards and can be quite dangerous, especially private coal mines. According to the Labor Bureau's stats, a worker in a government-owned business has a life expectancy of 3 years longer than one in a private-owned business. It's possible that the unsafe sites you saw were privately-owned. Also, although China is not affiliated with any foreign union groups, they do have their own, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which have the highest membership in the entire world, 100 million.
Were things better off under Chairman Mao? I'd be wary of asking that. Naturally, everyone will have a different opinion. The opinion of the canal worker that you asked has been canceled out over and over again by people I've consulted who told me things are better now. No one who didn't live through the Maoist era can really know, I suppose.
However, Marxist education is a requirement of every school course in China, and even 2nd and 3rd grade children know about Marx, Engels, Lenin, the Paris Commune, and even Trotsky. The 4th grade students I teach were hanging a picture of Charles Darwin beside the picture of Marx and Lu Xun (the famous Chinese author) in their classroom the other day and I just had to take a moment to appreciate that. Their school textbooks talk about Engels and have stories about the war against Japanese imperialism.
Since the fall of the USSR, China has had to take on the burden of supporting almost all of the remaining socialist bloc as well as their own enormous population. I think a bit of limited market reform is probably a necessary evil, in that case. But I'm still convinced this is a socialist country. Note that ever since the Iraq war started and the global depression resulted in a rise of revolutionary feelings throughout the world (as Lenin predicted), China has been moving towards a more leftist platform: cementing relations with Venezuela, taking a more active interest in secular leftist groups in Palestine, instituting more socialist programs for the Chinese people, and so on.
China has alot of potential. I wish people would recognize that. After all, there are more communists here than anywhere else in the world!
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