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28Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 12 (2016 9) 2886-2895
УДК 338.24:330.85
Marxist Theories of Public Administration and its Impacts on Chinese and Russian Modernization during 21st Century; a Comparative Study
Muhammad Asim*
Government Degree College Gogran Lodhran, Pakistan
Received 09.10.2016, received in revised form 04.11.2016, accepted 30.11.2016
According to Marxist theories, public administration must be a subject of single political party that has Marxist ideology. Russia after 1917 and China after 1949 idealized Marxism but they implemented Marxist ideologies in these countries according to the interpretations of their revolutionary leaders like Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong. Although, Marxist implementations by Lenin, Stalin and other Russian leaders failed in Soviet Union and proved successful in China after socio-economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping. This was because administrative policies in Soviet Union were formulated and implementedfrom the elite ruling class what theyfelt better while same process is started in China from the opinion and suggestions given by the local officials to the elite class. This became reason of being success for Chinese socialist modernization than the Soviet disintegration. This study will highlight all the patterns of modernizations in China and Russia with special reference to define administrative philosophy in both the countries during 21st century. Indicators of modernization and its relation with Socialist China and Capitalist Russia will also be discussed in this study.
Keywords: marxism, titoism, bhuttoism, leninism, maoism, bolshevikism.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2016-9-12-2886-2895.
Research area: politology.
Introduction
Public administration has become fundamental part of any welfare state more famously after 1980s. Government designs public policy with the help of different institutions for administrating public. These institutions are headed by the members of government, called ministers. On the other hand, executives are also called public servants who recruit in any
state through public service exam. Executives work according to government policy. All this is general structure of administration. The difference is only existed at governance level regarding administrating public. A socialist state believes on single political party system while a liberal democratic country has multi-party system. Therefore, the participatory structure of administration differentiates among the concepts
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: asimsheikh62@yahoo.com
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of bureaucracy and public administration like China and Russia respectively.
During 21st century, China is considering as a successful socialist country due to its strong governing structure and economic development. Such progress is also motivating Russian Communist Party to adopt Chinese style of Socialism under the Deng's philosophy. Therefore, this party several times has declared that it will implement Chinese structure of public administration in Russia after getting government. Similarly, to see socialist success of China, scholars and economists of several other third world countries are arguing regarding adopting Chinese socialist structure of public administration for getting national strength as well as economic development.
Literature Review
Holzer (2011), Khan (2008) and Rabin (2006) describe difference and relation among public policy and public administration while Basu (1994) principles of public administration in democratic societies. Similarly, Billet (1993) and Hei (2012) theory of modernization and its relation with systemization, urbanization and industrialization. On the other hand, Sokov (2000) relates the process of modernization with globalization and considers it as a reason of Soviet disintegration.
McGrath (2013) and Adamski (1999) differentiate among development theory and theory of modernization. They give examples of U.K, USA, Germany, France and Australia regarding process of development and modernization. On the other hand, Amin (2006) argues that Arab countries like UAE, Saudi Arab, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait are modernized, not politically develop.
Wilber (2011) emphasizes on the process of modernization in the socialist states during 21st century while Pereira (1993) describes
functioning of all those states which are constitutionally socialist but actually these are liberal democracies like India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. At the same time, Gleason (1989) explains Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia and presents its first Marxist-Leninist structure of public administration. While, Service (2007) distinguishes between various socialist movements in the world with special reference to their leaders like "Titoism" in Yugoslavia and "Bhuttoism" in Pakistan. On the other hand, Rutland (2008) describes differences among Chinese and Russian system of public administration very clearly and highlights the reasons of Chinese success as a socialist country and Russian failure as a Socialist country.
Essay
As public policy means a planned system of action, regulations, laws and measures of government, public administration means commonly an implementation of public policy by civil servants. Public policy making and its implementation in any state is a continue process since its birth. As in public policy making process, various individuals, political parties and different social, cultural and religious interest groups play their role, public administration depends upon several action and performance of different government departments according to designed public policy (Holzer, 2011, p. 13) (Khan, 2008, p. 1) (Rabin, 2006, p. 3).
To understand basic functioning of public administrators, firstly we have to differentiate among the concepts of bureaucracy and public administration. As the term "bureaucracy" is a combination of two words; bureau (a French word means "desk") and kratos (a Greek word means "to rule"), the term "public administration" is a concept of delivering services to the public for their welfare. In fact, all the functions of bureaucracy are called public administration in
a democratic welfare state. But, the difference is, bureaucracy has hierarchical structure of non-elected officials while, there is somewhat political involvement in the process of public administration (sometimes at city or district level). Joint services of the elected officials along with bureaucracy, renowned members of civil society and sometimes non-profit organizations or groups at government level are considered as public administration (Lane, 2006, p. 44) (Box, 2007, p. 151).
Therefore, in any democratic welfare state, laws and structure of public administration are commonly designed on the base of community laws. Its structure is actually a relation between center and local administration. It also defines territorial structure of the state. Through this process, a state distributes competences and cooperation in different areas within the territorial structure. Best example of such administration is local government system of Canada and United States (Bantin, 1997, p. 176). On the other hand, some basic parts in any state's system of governance are government, ministries, departments and several other government agencies. There are also several independent commissions established by the government which are the part of governance but actually these are not political institutes. Usually, these independent commissions check the political activities of the government officials and politicians. Although, basic purpose of establishing these departments, institutes, ministries and commissions are established for delivering services to the public but it depends upon the structure of governance in any state that makes it authoritative or welfare process (Basu, 1994, p. 66).
On the other hand, theory of modernization describes the routes of modernization in different societies. In fact, this is a progressive period of any society from a tradition pole to a modern pole. According to the scholars of modernization,
citizens of modern states enjoy high standard of living while these states are more powerful and wealthy. Similarly, several historians relate this theory with the process of industrialization and urbanization. At the same time, several scholars relate this process with the spread of education. Although, the process of modernization in any state is based on its internal political system and each state designs its own way of development, but usually, corruption and nepotism are those factors which can describe the level of modernization in each state unanimously (Billet, 1993, p. 3) (Hei, 2012, p. 332).
Globalization has major role in spreading of the process of modernization from one state to another. Through tourism, communication, news and entertainment television channels and several other online service, process of modernization is spreading from one to other parts of the world. As capitalism grew during cold war era, democratization is also growing upward day by day. It got boom soon after disintegration of Soviet Union. This is the reason that several scholars create link among modernization and the democratization (Sokov, 2000, p. 1-2).
There is some difference among theories of modernization and development. Although, initially, several scholars relate both the theories but later, the difference became wide. The concept of development is normative while the concept of modernization is empirical. Development belongs to democratic structure while modernization describes in terms of institutionalization. Several countries are modernized but not politically develop like UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arab, China, and Bahrain. In these countries, modern institutions exist with efficient administration but their structure is not democratic. That's why they do not consider as politically develop (Amin, 2006, p. 151). On the other hand, politically develop countries are also modernized like USA,
U.K, Germany, France and Australia (McGrath, 2013, p. 3-4) (Adamski, 1999, p. 28).
As 21st century is an age of modernization, states which were or are inspired from Marxist ideology are becoming modernized. Even, these are not politically developed but have established modern institutions regarding public administration. In the list of modern states, Peoples Republic of China, Republic of Cuba, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic and Socialist Republic of Vietnam are following MarxistLeninist ideology with modern explanations (Wilber, 2011, p. 1010). While, there are several democratic countries which quote constitutional references to socialism like Republic of India, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea), Portuguese Republic, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and United Republic of Tanzania (Pereira, 1993, p. 113).
As Marxism is a socio-economic system presented by Karl Marx, its initial implementation is called socialism and its peak level is called communism. Socialism exists within the state but when this system will be implemented in the stateless entire world. Although, first communist revolution happened in 1917 in Russia, but, in fact, this was called Leninism or Marxist Leninism because it was introduced by Vladimir Lenin (Gleason, 1989, p. 25). Similarly, communist revolution in other countries became popular with the name of their implementers, for example, if Marshal Tito implemented several socialist reforms in Yugoslavia, these reforms were called "Titoism". "Maoism" was called socialist reforms in Peoples Republic of China and "Bhuttoism" was called socialist reforms in Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Service, 2007, p. 2-7).
As there is difference in implementations of socialist reforms in different countries, structure of administration is also difference in
these countries from each other. Initially, these have strong bureaucratically structure regarding implementing authoritative policies designed by the government but soon, agitations against authoritative structure of governance forced different countries to convert their socialist ideology towards participation of their public in policy making process like Peoples Republic of China during Deng Xiaoping regime. On the other hand, countries which still followed authoritative structure of governance, soon became force to left their socialist ideology completely and adopt democracy. Russia and several other countries of Eastern Europe are its best example (Vogel, 2013, p. 12-14).
The process of modernization started from the capitalist world but it created huge impacts on socialist countries. As, process of modernization is based on urbanization, industrialization and systemization, socialist states felt need of modern institutionalization to manage these three factors. There can be difference in establishment of modern institutes in different countries but administration through these institutes cannot be called public administration without public participation. According to German Sociologist Max Weber, although bureaucracy is a systematic administration by trained professionals which recruit through a competitive examination but its basic work in the modern world to manage information, record processing and implementation of government policies (Wilber, 2011, p. 1011).
Actually, Karl Marx never used the term "bureaucracy" in his writings because he considered that bureaucracy is itself a state which formed through civil society. He always used the term "public administration" to proj ect the concept of equal public welfare by the public servants. According to him, state is like a corporation and bureaucracy is apparently opposite to this. But, actually bureaucracy itself makes its government
and creates authoritative structure of governance (Fischer, 1994, p. 20). According to him, basic objectives of public administration are;
1) To perform common good,
2) To manage public affairs without any discrimination,
3) To administrate equally,
4) To deal neutrally,
5) To respect public choice, and
6) To provide community services (Fischer, 1994, p. 20-22).
On the other hand, there is clear difference between Marxist theory and its implementation in different societies like Soviet Union and China. Even both the countries acquired single political party system but concept of public administration was not found in Soviet Union till the end and in China till Deng Xiaoping regime. In both countries, politburo or political bureau was established under the supervision of central committee of Communist Parties. In Soviet Union, it was established in October 1917 while, in China, it established in 1927 after six years of Chinese Communist Party's zenith. Concept of politburo in socialist state is as a strong decision making authority (Schueller, 2013, p. 15-18).
This concept of politburo was very much related with the perception of Karl Marx regarding bureaucracy. So, we can say that Soviet Politburo was a strong bureaucratic structure which demolished in 1991 with disintegration of Soviet Union. On the other hand, Chinese Politburo was although a strongest decision making authority till 1978 (Schueller, 2013, p. 19). At that time, he introduced reforming structure of politburo after Cultural Revolution that made it little powerful. Similarly, he introduced a series of political and economic reforms in China. It never means that he rejected ideology of Karl Marx or Mao Zedong. but declared it as an initial or primary stage of socialism. He introduced
the concept of "Four Modernizations" in the fields of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology. For giving space in common public against capitalism, he introduced participatory structure of the administrative structure. These reforms open up the China for socio-economic developments. Deng Xiaoping was not a head of state or head of government, he is just a vice premier but originally, he became China's de facto leader who opened his country for international investment as well as introduced real concept of public administration in China which reduced down capitalist agitation in different parts of the country (Evans, 1997, p. 4347). Similarly, he promoted the concept of "lean government" in China which means to identify and then implemented all those government policies under value added way. Basic purpose of introducing lean government concept in China was to construct a culture of continuous improvement which proved successful during 21st century (Cheng, 1998, p. 141). And, for constructing culture of continuous improvement, Deng Xiaoping before his retirement in 1992, introduced the new concept of public administration, which academically called "New Public Management (NPM)" by Hood (1991). Since then, administrative structure of China is following some attributes which are as follows;
1) Administration must be a degree of market exposures and explorations.
2) Administration must be under hierarchical structure with some rules and regulations.
3) Administration must be linked with local political influence and participation.
4) Administration must be for the security of public.
5) Administration must be able to solve complex problems of society or must be able to achieve complex goals for the betterment of the society.
6) There must be a relation with managers and high authorities in administration.
7) Each department, institute, ministry or commission must have effective performance.
8) Personal character of the employees in different departments, ministries, commissions and institutions must be counted.
9) At every election cycle, senior managers or heads of the institutions, departments, intuitions or ministries must be changed (Urio, 2012, p. 50-65).
Since then, China has modernized system of public administration. Although, sometimes it faces systematic problems like protest in Hong Kong during 2014, but in mainland China, this neo-socialist structure has gotten agreed space. During 21st century, Russia has adopted multiparty democratic system after Soviet disintegration but still its political structure is inspired from Marxist School of Thought. In Peoples Republic of China, there are 19 ministries that are further working through public service system (Chinese Ministries and State Commissions, Accessed on December 21, 2014). On the other hand, there are 21 ministries in Russian Federation (Federal Ministries, Accessed on December 21, 2014). List of ministries in China and Russia is given below (Table 1).
In Peoples Republic of China, Premier is the head of government who preside State Council which includes four vice premiers and heads of all the ministries. President of China is although head of state but it has nominal powers. All the positions are occupied by the Communist Party of China (Constitution of Peoples Republic of China, Accessed on December 21, 2014). On the other hand, Russia is semi-presidential republic where president is head of state and prime minister is head of government. There is multiparty system. Major political parties are United Russia, A Just Russia, Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party. President has power
to veto legislative bills before becoming a law (Constitution of Russian Federation, Accessed on December 21, 2014). According to 1993 Constitution of Russia, President has six years tenure while according to article 62 of the 1982 Constitution of China, president has five years tenure. While, state affairs run by the prime minister in Russia and Premier in the Peoples Republic of China (Constitution of Peoples Republic of China, Accessed on December 21, 2014) (Constitution of Russian Federation, Accessed on December 21, 2014).
Under the prime minister or premier, ministries work which are being designed by the public service structure. But, the difference in reforms regarding public policy making among both countries is due to their basic motives which are as follows;
1) National and international politics is first preference of Russian Federation while Chinese first preference is economic development (Rutland, November 2008).
2) Russian policies design for getting rapid results nationally or internationally, while Chinese policies have tendency of getting results through gradual process (Rutland, November 2008).
3) Russian policies design according to top-down policy while Chinese policies design according to middle-up policy (Rutland, November 2008).
4) Russian reforms are the result of " Shock Therapy" while Chinese reforms are the reason of "controlled transition" (Rutland, November 2008).
5) Russian structure of public administration has strong influence of west while Chinese structure of public administration has no influence of west regarding making public policies (Rutland, November 2008).
This is a reason that China even has modern institutions regarding public administration but
Table 1
Ministries in Peoples Republic of China (Chinese Ministries and State Commissions, Accessed on December 21, 2014) Ministries in Russian Federation (Federal Ministries, Accessed on December 21, 2014).
1) Ministry of Agriculture 2) Ministry of Civil Affairs 3) Ministry of Commerce 4) Ministry of Culture 5) Ministry of Education 6) Ministry of Environmental Protection 7) Ministry of Finance 8) Ministry of Foreign Affairs 9) Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development 10) Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security 11) Ministry of Industry and Information Technology 12) Ministry of Justice 13) Ministry of Land and Resources 14) Ministry of National Defense 15) Ministry of Public Security 16) Ministry of Science and Technology 17) Ministry of State Security 18) Ministry of Transport 19) Ministry of Water Resources 1) Ministry of Agriculture 2) Chairman of the Government 3) Ministry of Economic Development 4) Ministry of Culture 5) Ministry of Education and Science 6) Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection 7) Ministry of Finance 8) Minister of Foreign Affairs 9) Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs 10) Ministry of Industry and Trade 11) Ministry of Justice 12) Ministry of Defense 13) Ministry of Health 14) Ministry of Emergency Situations 15) Ministry of Internal Security 16) Ministry of Transport 17) Ministry of Energy 18) Ministry of Sports 19) Ministry of Mass Media and Communication 20) Ministry of Russian for East 21) Ministry of Crimean Affairs
its strong spirit of following Marxist-LeninistMaoist ideology remains it a strong socialist state in 21st century. Any anti-Marxist-LeninistMaoist person cannot join any public office here. According to Egyptian Ex-Minister of Culture Ibrahim Hilmi, Chinese socialist structure is still successful because its policies are designed from the grass root level to the elite ruling class. On the other hand, Russian socialist structure has been failed because where policies were designed from elite ruling class and middle-low class was considered them as strict imposition (Why did Communism survive in China but not in the USSR?, Accessed on December 21, 2014).
Such failure of Russian Communist ideology became a reason of new initiatives taken by the Communist Party of Russian Federation which is the second largest party of Russia after United Russia. In last few years, this party showed its tendency of moving toward Dengism (also called Deng Xiaoping Theory). The first Secretory General of this party Gennady Zyuganov once
argued that Russia must follow the Chinese style of success and try to build Russian Socialism on the base of Chinese socialist implementations. He also advised its party members to must read "Selective Work of Deng Xiaoping" (Communist Party of Russian Federation, Accessed on December 21, 2014). Similarly, when he visited China during 2008, he said that;
"If we have been learning the successful experience from the Chinese earlier, the Soviet Union would not have dissolved" (Communist Party of Russian Federation, Accessed on December 21, 2014).
Since then, this party has friendly relation with the Chinese Communist Party. Capitalist scholars argue that people of Russia and China have been irritated from orthodox Marxist system of public administration. This was an actual reason of Soviet disintegration also. Therefore, other socialist countries forced to change its socialist structure with adopting new modernized patterns during reforming institutions. This process is still
continuing in Peoples Republic of China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cambodia. Adopting modernized socialist patterns in the structure of public administration with adopting new public management model has become their
fundamental need of 21st century. Otherwise, movements of liberation can get strength in these areas like Hmong ethnic movement in Laos and Vietnam and Tibetan ethnic movement in China.
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Марксистская теория государственного управления и ее влияние на процессы модернизации в Китае и России в XXI веке: сравнительный анализ
Мухаммад Асим
Государственный колледж г. Гогран Пакистан, Лодхран
Согласно марксистской теории государственное управление должно находиться в руках одной политической партии с марксистской идеологией. Россия после 1917 года и Китай после 1949 года идеализировали марксизм, но марксистская идеология в этих странах реализовывалась в соответствии с интерпретациями их революционных лидеров, таких как Владимир Ленин и Мао Цзэдун. Тем не менее марксистская теория в интерпретации Ленина, Сталина и других российских лидеров потерпела неудачу в Советском Союзе, но при этом оказалась успешной в Китае после социально-экономических реформ при Дэн Сяопине. Причиной этому послужило то, что административная политика в Советском Союзе разрабатывалась и реализовывалась элитным правящим классом исходя из того, что они считали лучшим, в то время как тот же процесс в Китае строился на мнениях и предложениях, выдвигаемых местными чиновни-
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ками и предлагаемых элитному классу. Это стало причиной успеха китайской социалистической модернизации в отличие от распада Советского Союза. В данном исследовании подробно освещаются все модели модернизации в Китае и России с целью определения философии государственного управления в обеих странах в XXI веке. В статье также рассматриваются показатели модернизации и их взаимосвязь с социалистическим Китаем и капиталистической Россией.
Ключевые слова: марксизм, титоизм, бхуттоизм, ленинизм, маоизм, большевизм. Научная специальность: 23.00.00 - политология.
