How radiant is the past? Workers’ struggles for democracy and transitions from socialism to capitalism in the late 20th century

One of Burawoy’s most innovative contributions is his theorization of labor politics under “actually existing socialism” of the 20th century. This theory argues that the structure of socialist production politics disposes workers to stage struggles demanding democratic visions of socialism – a dynamic of what Burawoy calls “immanent critique” under socialism. Unlike many of his other contributions, this theory has received scant attention from scholars of Chinese labor. I make a strong case for why scholars of labor history and politics under Chinese socialism should take Burawoy’s theory seriously. Furthermore, I probe one way to reconstruct Burawoy’s theory in light of the massive wave of transitions from socialism to capitalism in the late 20th century. I argue that socialist Party-states often turned to the inauguration of market socialism as a passive-revolutionary strategy to pacify workers’ democratic struggles. Market socialism, in turn, brewed structural vulnerabilities that became fatal at key historical conjunctures.