Stephen Kotkin

People disagree on this.

How many true believers are there?

Is Xi Jinping a true believer?

That's a difficult argument to win because the evidence is contradictory and because we don't know the inside of the system well.

It's still in power.

It hasn't fallen.

But it's clearly a Leninist system.

And a Leninist system can't be half pregnant.

You can't be half communist.

You either have a communist monopoly or you don't.

So what happens in communist political reform, not economic reform, where they allow some market behavior, but where you liberalize the system and you open it up politically.

So you say, DK, okay, let's have debate inside the party.

Let's allow pluralism inside the party's rule.

Meaning we're going to keep the party, but we're going to allow different tendencies in the party.

The problem with that is some...

Weizsäcker raises their hand and says, I don't want the Communist Party.

I want a Social Democratic Party or I want a right-wing party or I want a centrist party.

And you say, no, no, no, that's not the rules here.

The rule is only debate within the party's monopoly.

not that you can have another party.