AT AN autumn meeting of China’s all-powerful Politburo, Hu Jintao, the President and Communist Party chief, left the floor to his Prime Minister to discuss economic policy.

President Hu took centre-stage only when it came to the issue of ideology, using the opportunity to propose a revival in Marxism for modern China. An £8 million Marxism-Leninism academy has opened in Beijing to mark the 112th anniversary on December 26 of the birthday of Chairman Mao. An existing institute has been upgraded, staffing expanded to 200 from 75 and its president now holds the rank of a Cabinet vice -minister.

The relevance of Marxism may be hard to grasp with Mao’s Little Red Book consigned to the shelves of Cultural Revolution kitsch, the lumbering Red Flag limousine overtaken by Buicks and BMWs and propaganda giving way to profit.

But that ideology, and its clashes in a China that has done away with such tenets as central planning, is crucial to the Communist Party’s mandate to rule. Exercising the mind of Mr Hu is how to maintain the party’s grasp on power when its founding ideology is in such contradiction to the market reforms that have brought his people unprecedented prosperity and ensured the party’s longevity. He has dismissed Western-style dem ocracy as a blind alley.

One academic said: “Marxism will be used to explain the party’s political theories, policies and goals and to emphasise the Communist Party’s legitimacy.”

Indeed, shoring up the legitimacy of single-party rule is at the heart of Mr Hu’s initiative. As one veteran party member and writer put it: “What if someone raises questions about Hu Jintao’s credibility now that capitalists can join the party? What if an opponent wants to use this as a weapon to attack him? He needs to be armed.”

Few people, even in the party, do more these days than pay lip service to communist ideology. Disillusion with Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideals set in during Mao’s 1966-76 ultra- leftist Cultural Revolution. Since Deng Xiaoping told Chinese people that “to get rich is glorious”, hundreds of millions now earn enough to pick up their groceries at Wal-Mart or Carrefour and to furnish the newly built homes they own as private property at Ikea and B&Q. Many party officials, unwilling to be left behind in the gold rush, have peddled corruption. Mr Hu may have few illusions that a new Marxist-Leninist academy will send party members rushing to read Das Kapital. But an emphasis on ideology and political correctness may help to curb the graft that regularly tops lists of public grievances. Even the party has said that a failure to stamp out corruption could lead to its downfall.

Zhang Tongxin, of the Marxism Institute at the People’s University in Beijing, insisted that just because Marxism was encountering difficulties it could not be regarded as out of date. “Since reform, a considerable number of people have forgotten that China is a socialist country,” he said. Indeed, it takes an effort to remember that a party that now admits private businessmen remains dedicated to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The attention to Marx coincides with a year-old campaign in the style of Maoist political movements that requires all 67 million members to repledge their allegiance. It has proved deeply unpopular among many officials who believed promotion would depend on economic performance rather than political orthodoxy.

But Professor Zhang speaks for a significant number of those in power when he says that China could not have put a man into space without Marxism. “We can’t deny there are many social problems now and some people are not taken care of. But we must rely on Marxism and we will resolve these problems faster than any capitalist country,” he said.

For high school students and undergraduates, those compulsory Marxism classes will remain essential for graduation for many more years.

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