Today (November 25) I went in search of socialism in Shanghai, which is rather like looking for a needle in a haystack. The least likely place to find it, of course, would be the Bund and Nanjing Road – the commercial pedestrian street near the river – but, nonetheless, that is where I began. The Bund is the area where the English settled after they gained access to the port of Shanghai back in the 1840s, and where they established their banks and other financial and capitalist institutions. It became, by the end of the century, and certainly into the 1920s, one of the major financial centers of the Pacific region.
When Mao came to power, the English and other foreigners left the area or were evicted, and all the capitalist institutions were replaced with government departments of various kinds. Now as you stand upon the embankment and look back towards the Bund, you can see that Mao’s revolution did not persist too much beyond his death. The capitalists are back in spades trumping all, and government departments have made way for them to reestablish themselves – from Citibank to Swatch. If you then turn around and look at the other side of the river, the older buildings of the early twentieth century that characterize the Bund, are faced with a twenty-first century cityscape that would rival even Hong Kong – perhaps not, but close nonetheless, and obviously closer than was the case ten or twenty years ago. With the lights blazing on both sides of the river from six o’clock in the evening, the view is quite intoxicating.
And then you see him. Mr. Socialism. Mission Accomplished. A large statue of Mao, just behind the elevated embankment, is also lit, though by comparison with the brightness of the Bund and the garishness of the other embankment, it has to be said that the Chairman looks to be in rather subdued light. His pose suggests (to me at least) that he is gazing at the Bund, and almost proclaiming triumph over capitalism and the British. We don’t need you and you will never return, seems to be the message he is delivering. And yet there he is, and all around him are those whom he once had evicted.
He is rather like the party guest who stands to one side, away from all the other revelers, and looks rather disapprovingly at them. He thinks that he is, or ought to be, where the party is at (surely this had once been so), and he can’t quite understand why it is that he is being overlooked, even ignored. Interestingly, however, he appears to be holding his coat under one arm, so he must be giving one last disapproving glance at all the other guests before leaving for home. One can imagine the host of the party coming over to him and asking him to stay, to put down his coat, and come and sample some of the rather tasty sangria. But the Chairman makes it clear that he is not happy with this; if he doesn’t decide how the party is going to be run, then he really doesn’t want to participate in it. Shanghai has become a cesspool of reactionary and capitalist thinking, he says; he is off to find some friends who he believes are to be found in the countryside.
Good luck with that, the host says, and shows him to the door.
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