Historic Lessons of China's Cultural Revolution

Table of contents :
Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
Tremendous Implications
Victory in Lessons
1: Theoretical Basis
Relation of Base and Superstructure
Basis of Revisionism
Problems of Cadre Core
2: Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965
Build Socialism or New Democracy?
Revisionists’ Overstretched Conclusions
Collectivizing Agriculture
Dictated by Conditions
Foundation of Feudal Rule
The Great Leap Forward
Agricultural Decline
Chart an Independent Path
“Going All-Out”
Chain Reaction Consequences
“Walk on Two Legs”
Poor Planning for Communes
Productive Forces Outstripped
Successful Comprehensive Line
Developing Science of Economic Construction
Major Two-Line Struggles Within CPC
Favoring Bourgeois Experts
Managers as Representatives of Workers
Party to Lead or Follow?
Non-partisan vs. Marxist Media
Academics Pitted Against Politics
Reforms and Upgrading
Effect of Retrenchment
Health Care for Whom?
Sino-Soviet Relations: From Good to Bad
A Sad Turn
Pushed to Open Polemics
Line of March’s Blatant Opportunism
People’s Army or Soviet Model
Parrots of Soviet Revisionism...
...and Soviet Chauvinism
Danger in Slavishness
The Prelude: Socialist Education Movement
A Truly Mass Education movement
The Real Sabotage
Targeting Capitalist-Roaders
3: Cultural Revolution Unfolded
Unleash or Restrict the Struggle
Trying to Narrow the Target
Model Shanghai Experience
Disruption by Ultra-Left
Official Conclusion
Consequences of the Cultural Revolution
Steady Economic Growth
Old Apparatus Destroyed
Key Problem: People
Step-by-Step in Sphere After Sphere
Undoing 2,000-Year Myth
Airing Opposing Views
Metaphysical Lines After Ninth Congress
The Mistakes and Our Lessons
Lack of a Leading Core
Incorrect Method: Naming No Names
Oversimplified in Application
Combining Propaganda and Slogans
Inevitable Limitations
Obstacles to Real Democracy
Line of March’s Idealist Line
Academic Games of Idealists
Disbelieving Revisionism
The Magic of Mechanical Materialism
Preferring Business-as-Usual
Idealism on Party’s Leadership
A Revisionist Equation
Denying Both Mao’s and Masses’ Successes
In Sum: A Necessary and Valuable Battle
End

Citation preview

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

Cynthia Lai

Table of Contents Introduction........................................................................................................................... 1 1: Theoretical Basis ........................................................................................................ 7 Relation of Base and Superstructure ................................................................. 7 Basis of Revisionism ............................................................................................... 11 Problems of Cadre Core........................................................................................ 13 2: Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965 ................................................................19 Build Socialism or New Democracy? ................................................................ 19 Collectivizing Agriculture..................................................................................... 23 The Great Leap Forward ....................................................................................... 26 Major Two-Line Struggles Within CPC ........................................................... 46 The Prelude: Socialist Education Movement ................................................. 74 3: Cultural Revolution Unfolded................................................................................81 Unleash or Restrict the Struggle.........................................................................81 Consequences of the Cultural Revolution.......................................................90 The Mistakes and Our Lessons.......................................................................... 104 Line of March’s Idealist Line ............................................................................... 119 In Sum: A Necessary and Valuable Battle...................................................... 131

Introduction Mao Zedong wanted to be remembered for two things: the Cultural Revolution and the 1949 revolution. Today, the Cultural Revolution is denounced as a “period of catastrophe” by Hu Yao-bang, the General Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and now also the CPC Chairman. Criticizing the Cultural Revolution as a manifestation of Mao’s personal maneuvering, Wang Yer-shiu, assistant editor of the People’s Daily, said, “According to the theory of Marxism-Leninism, this kind of movement has to be explained economically. However, in the few years prior to the Cultural Revolution, the economic situation was not bad, people were satisfied. From the political standpoint, the Cultural Revolution was to oppose the capitalist-roaders. People should have felt oppressed. Why didn’t the masses feel that way? The general feeling of the masses was, the situation was pretty good. Then all of sudden, there came the Cultural Revolution. Now everybody said that Mao initiated and led the Cultural Revolution. No one said it was led and initiated by the party.” Believing that it is too easy to manipulate the masses, he concluded that a personality cult of any leader should be opposed.1 There is still controversy surrounding the events that shook China and the world in the last decade. Confusion and cynicism are prevalent among those who took part in the Cultural Revolution, or were merely influenced by it. In appraising the movement, a Canton worker who is an ex-Red Guard said, “Perhaps it went wrong because it became too violent.… But there were real problems – bureaucracy, a new Wang Yer Shiu, “The essential lesson of the Cultural Revolution is that we must oppose Personality Cult”, Speech delivered at the Central Committee’s theoretical conference, February 13, 1979, (Hong Kong: Ming Pao Magazine, February 1980,) In Chinese 1

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Introduction

bourgeoisie of party officials and intellectuals, the dilution of socialism into a variant of capitalism, the loss of revolutionary morale. I think the goals of the Cultural Revolution were valid, and the proof is that we still have these problems.” 2 Another, a 32-year-old former Red Guard from Shanghai, added, “When I see privileges being given back to the old bourgeoisie, even the former capitalists, and how privileges are also being given to this new class of party cadres and officials, I am really outraged. When the rest of us are really having problems with housing, with jobs, with education, even with getting enough food to eat, these people are establishing a sort of neo-feudalism assuring themselves comfortable lives.… I do not want another Cultural Revolution — 10 years of turmoil did enough damage — but I think we were right in trying to smash the old system.” 3 Not all ex-Red Guards are that positive. “We beat people, we humiliated teachers, we ransacked houses, we burned libraries and destroyed precious cultural relics, we invaded churches and temples. All these things we did in the name of freeing people from the past, but in fact we made them slaves, to something worse through our reign of terror,” lamented another. Some of the ex-Red Guards, formerly staunchest, are openly anti-communist in a country that still holds to its socialist course.

Tremendous Implications

The Cultural Revolution was truly a mass movement — almost the entire Chinese population, one billion people, actively participated. From the early turbulence to the lowkey years of the later period, it lasted for a decade. It affected all strata of the society, and all aspects of the Chinese people’s lives. The Cultural Revolution’s breaking of tradition was thoroughly disorienting and the Chinese people

2 3

Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1981, Part 1, p.10. lbid.

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undertook it with the will and power worthy of a revolutionary people. However, the denunciation of the Cultural Revolution by the present leadership has brought into question all values, all traditions and authority — thus the present crisis of confidence. There is self-doubt and cynicism — Chinese people are questioning the superiority of socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and Marxism. There is demoralization, pessimism about the future and negation of authority, especially the leadership of the party. There is a strong nihilism, the loss of a standard of right and wrong, good and evil. Of course, there are people sincerely trying to reorient themselves through all the chaos, and they will emerge more confident and clear-headed. But these are exceptions, not the rule. In this country, there are people such as the editorial board of the Line of March who exploit the confusion among U.S. Marxist-Leninists and try to reverse the verdict on Mao and even the 1949 revolution. This puts them to the right of all revisionists, past and present. A correct verdict on the Cultural Revolution is important not only to differentiate right and wrong; even more important, the sum-up of the Cultural Revolution has tremendous implications for our preparatory work to seize state power, and to consolidate it afterwards. This orientation guides our study of the Cultural Revolution and all other questions facing the party and the international and domestic communist movements. It is most clearly drawn out in Jerry Tung’s book, The Socialist Road: Character

of Revolution in the U.S. and Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union and China.

From studying the concrete Chinese conditions between 1949 and 1965, the year when the Cultural Revolution was formally unfolded, we have concluded that it was both necessary and timely. It was necessary due to revisionism in the party leadership. The roots of revisionism were in the problems of building socialism in an economically backward country, the party’s onesided character of preparation before

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Introduction

seizing of state power, and the pressure from the enormous task of building up the country almost from scratch. These conditions caused and further aggravated the problems of party-building — forging a unified and professional cadre core capable of finding independent bearings to distinguish correct from incorrect lines, and capable of implementing correct lines and policies to lead the work of socialist construction. The many sharp two-line struggles on China’s direction reflect these problems. The development and power of the revisionists were strengthened by the failure of the Great Leap Forward movement for economic construction, and even more by the Soviet Union’s turning revisionist and openly supporting the Chinese revisionists. The Cultural Revolution was unleashed as an attempt to resolve some of these problems, and to prevent and combat revisionism in China. Thus, we disagree with Wang’s determinist argument. He denies the need for any mass movement in relation to the superstructure because “the economic situation was not bad.” By dismissing the masses’ genuine dissatisfaction with bureaucracy and stratification in society, and blaming the whole movement on Mao’s manipulation, Wang slandered the masses’ consciousness and asserted that heroes rather than the masses make history.

Victory in Lessons

Mao did initiate the Cultural Revolution and quite correctly. A leader does not have to wait until after an uprising as in Hungary, or the masses on their own have called for a movement to rid the party of corruption and bureaucracy. As Adan Baldy, a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) said at its recent Plenum, “We cannot continue making personnel changes only after Solidarity has pointed at those who should

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be changed.… We have to do it ourselves.” 4 The fact that hundreds of millions of Chinese people responded to the Cultural Revolution showed that the revolutionary call corresponded to their genuine desires and that no hero alone could have made them move. In spite of many mistakes during and after the Cultural Revolution, it is absolutely opportunist to denounce it as unnecessary. Even though overall it failed to achieve the goals set out (as the coup by the rightists in 1976, and the degeneration of Mao’s and the gang of four’s lines, show) there is victory in the lessons it offers. Perhaps Jerry Tung* best summed up the historical significance of the Cultural Revolution to the world proletariat in The Socialist Road. He wrote: Mao’s initiative in calling for and leading the Cultural Revolution was not just something he wanted to do. It was a response to a problem demanding a solution in history; the problems had become obvious in Hungary, within the Soviet Union and in China itself. Mao tried different things. Having made contributions to Marxism by solving the peasant agriculture question in China, in the political sphere he tried the ’Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom’ campaign and the Socialist Education Movement campaign, all attempts to address the problems that Hungary and the Soviet Union could not solve. In the last ten years of his life, he tried again and that attempt was the Cultural Revolution. The verdict of the Cultural Revolution can’t even be gauged by the simple ’three parts bad, seven parts good’ method Mao suggested. The Paris Commune failed too. Judging aspect by aspect, we can’t even pass a ’three-seven’ verdict on it, because obviously the errors of the Paris Commune outnumbered the successes. You can lose the war even though you win most battles, and you can lose most battles and still win the war. This military analogy applies even more to political struggles of an historical nature such as the 4 *

New York Times, March 3, 1981. Editor’s Note: Jerry Tung was the Chairperson of the CWP

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Introduction Cultural Revolution. The historical necessity of the Paris Commune, of the working class taking state power, made the attempt of the Paris Commune great, glorious and correct. It was a pathbreaking attempt. Just because in retrospect the basis was not ripe for the proletariat to seize and hold power, it does not mean that the Paris Commune was an ultra-left deviation. Its victories are mainly the lessons of its failures. Though it failed, it was a clarion call, a salvo which inspired generations to carry on the struggle and charted the road ahead.

1: Theoretical Basis To understand revisionism, and its concrete forms in China, we need to establish our understanding of the role of economic base and superstructure under socialism, and revisionism in that context. Only thus will we be aware of the danger of revisionism in the socialist state, the need to fight against it (which is a realm of the superstructure), and the need for concentric attack in general, that is, simultaneous attack to develop the productive forces and revolutionizing the superstructure, including the lines, policies and leadership of the party.

Relation of Base and Superstructure

Economic base refers to the sum total of the relations of production of a definite economic system at a definite stage of society’s development. Superstructure includes the political and judicial systems built on the foundation of the economic base, and also ideologies that correspond to the economic base, such as political and judicial thought, morality, arts, philosophy and religion, etc. In general, the economic base is the determining factor. The nature of the economic base determines the nature of the superstructure. For example, in slave, feudal and capitalist societies, the exploiting classes occupy the ruling position in economic lives, and contents of the superstructures reflect the rules of the exploiting classes in the political and ideological spheres. Secondarily, changes in the economic base also determine the changes in the superstructure. When the old economic base is replaced by a new one, the old superstructure will sooner or later be replaced by a new one. This is the objective law of the development of society. Because of the primary role of the economic base in its relationship with the superstructure, and the restraints on the superstructure (including the ownership of the means of 7

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Theoretical Basis

production) by the level of productive forces, the proletariat’s major work after the seizure of state power, especially in an economically backward country, has to be economic construction. Only by developing its productive forces can the socialist state be consolidated as well as give changes in the superstructure material and lasting reinforcement. This is a cardinal principle of materialism and it applies in all cases. The dispute between Marxists and revisionists is not whether productive forces are primary over superstructure, but rather how to develop this material base under socialism, and whether superstructure (including man’s consciousness) is passively determined by the economic base, or actually has its relative independence and given a specific set of material conditions, the superstructure could accelerate or retard its development. It is a struggle between spontaneity and consciousness. Marxists believe in the latter. As Engels said, “Political, judicial, philosophical, religions, literary, artistic, etc. development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. The state, for instance, exercises an influence by tariff, free trade, good or bad fiscal system.... Every ideology, once it has arisen, develops in connection with the given conceptual material, and develops this material further, otherwise, it would not be an ideology, that is occupation with thoughts as with independent entities, developing independently and subject only to their own laws.” (emphasis in original)5 A good example of the effect of the political and organizational superstructure on the economic base is the organization of the private ownership in the agriculture 5

Frederick Engels, “Engels to W. Borgious in Breslau,” Marx and Engels:

Selected Works, Vol. 3, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970) p.502.

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sector into collective ownership and its positive effect on the growth of national economy. Jerry Tung wrote — “It is an example of how the realms of policy, plan and the consciousness of man generally can overcome the forces of tradition and spontaneity in pushing forward the productive forces. Despite the fact that productive relations, advanced production forces in the main determine production relations, when properly constructed and carried out based on a set of concrete conditions without fundamentally violating the law of development which is itself based on a definite state of economic reality, can speed up and promote the spontaneous development of productive forces under the law of value.” 6 Elaborating further on the role of superstructure in the development of the productive forces, he wrote, “Besides advanced organization and administration, other aspects of the superstructure (which include all political lines, foreign policy, the legal system, social morals and ethics, education and culture) can have reverse effects, whether positive or negative, on the economic base, including the effect of a more focused consumption sector on the production sector. It is common sense, for example, to see that a solid education system will have tremendous impact in accelerating the rate of development of productive forces by producing a corps of workers, technicians, and scientists with advanced knowhow, even though immediately, it drains funds from the production sector. A well-grounded set of socialist laws, be they in the field of civic or commercial relations, can facilitate long-range planning and resolution of contradictions among the people, industries, and in relations between the party, the state and the people. Of course, the correctness or incorrectness of these laws and codified policies (such as the right of workers to strike) is essentially the correctness or incorrectness of the communist party’s program of the dictatorship of the 6

Tung, op. cit, p.51.

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Theoretical Basis proletariat — a comprehensive economic, political, organizational, cultural and ideological program to make the transition to communism. But whether advanced or backward, correct or incorrect, they are all indispensable to build up in the speediest way possible, a strong socialist foundation — the economic base — which is the only thing that can further consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.7

Party leadership is part of the superstructure, and as far as it is concerned, the correctness or incorrectness of the line does decide everything. However, this “cannot be misinterpreted subjectively, to mean that you will communism into being without creating step-by-step, firm material basis to enlarge the state sector and that way to propagate and sustain higher spiritual conditions for socialism. In other words, leadership cannot replace material conditions. But material conditions do depend on the dynamic role of the subjective factor, which includes the profound grasp of the economic reality and its laws of development, to tackle it step-by-step.” 8 Communists are not helpless in the face of low productive forces and the material reality of present-day socialism. As part of the dynamic role of the subjective factor, they can create material conditions to transform all aspects of production relations along with their living links with the msses. For a party before the seizure of state power, revisionist lines will mean giving up class struggle, and inability to take state power from the bourgeoisie. Under socialism, revisionist lines mean two things. One, as far as the economic base is concerned, revisionists believe in the spontaneous development of the productive forces: “Let nature take its course and survival of the fittest.” They liquidate altogether the task of transforming the ideology and believe that it will eventually transform itself when the 7 8

Ibid., p.151-152 Ibid., p.153.

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productive forces are developed enough. Though revisionists are not capitalists themselves, their lines retard the development of both the material conditions and the socialist consciousness necessary for the transition from socialism to communism. They make it easy for all capitalist and reactionary elements to take hold. The task of preventing revisionism has to be two-fold: one aspect is the long-term development of socialist production relations through raising the level of productive forces; second is the immediate and constant task of socialist education.

Basis of Revisionism

In China, and under socialism in general, the material bases for revisionism are underdeveloped productive forces, nonstate owned sectors of the economy, commodity production, the principle of “to each according to work,” grades of wage scale, exchange through money, and bourgeois right. In the superstructure, there is material basis both in the feudal ideology of Confucianism which has permeated Chinese thinking for 2,000 years, and the bourgeois ideology of worshipping all things foreign. The latter is relatively new but influential, especially among the intellectuals because of 200 years of humiliation by foreigners and education in foreign countries. Clearly, Liu’s famous line justifying stratification in society, that everyone is born different, is rooted in the Confucian doctrine that all social relationships (king and subject, father and son) are heavenly-mandated. The tendency to worship all things foreign affected many party members and leaders (Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Chou Enlai and many others were educated in Moscow and France) so badly that Mao criticized it openly. He said, “There are some who are proud instead of ashamed of knowing nothing or very little of our history.… For several decades, many of the returned students from abroad have suffered from this malady. Coming home from Europe, America, or Japan, they

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Theoretical Basis

can only parrot things foreign. They become gramophones and forget their duty to understand and create new things. This malady also infected the Communist Party.” 9 The same subservient attitude prevailed in relation to the Soviet Union. Mao once complained that doctors told him for three years not to eat chicken or eggs because a Soviet magazine said they were unhealthy. The external cause of Chinese revisionism was the pressure of a U.S.-orchestrated military blockade and particularly Khrushchev’s revisionism. In the 20th Congress of the Communist Party Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956, Khrushchev came out with the revisionist program of the three peacefuls advocating peaceful transition to socialism, peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition with the imperialists. This line gives up class struggle for socialism and national liberation, and capitulates to the imperialists. At the 22nd Congress in 1960, the ideas of the “state of the whole people” and “party of the whole people” emerged. This program calls for the proletariat to give up state power under socialism and liquidates all forms of class struggle under both capitalism and socialism. The “peaceful” lines are thoroughly revisionist. But the majority of socialist countries’ parties followed Khrushchev down the path of revisionism. China and Albania were among the very few exceptions, though the CPC as a whole was far from consolidated in opposing Khrushchev’s revisionism. The Chinese revisionists were encouraged by Khrushchev’s chauvinist call for Albania party members to oust Hohxa. The Soviet Union’s threat of economic blockade pressured others into silence. Revisionism’s effects included the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Both were suppressed by the Soviet Union’s troops and tanks. Alarmed by possible revisionism in China, Mao called for the Socialist Education Mao Zedong, “Reform our Study,” Selected Readings, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1971,) p.201.

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Movement in 1963. It was a failure. Mao’s reason for alarm was more than the fact of revisionism among the party leadership. The weakness of the party and party members in distinguishing lines and finding independent bearings in class struggle worried him the most. The Socialist Education Movement was designed to raise the masses’ consciousness and also the party members’ vigilance against revisionism. When it failed due to revisionist sabotage, Mao had to unleash the Cultural Revolution to educate the masses and in that process purge the party of revisionists.

Problems of Cadre Core

Though the CPC objectively led the international communist movement after the degeneration of the CPSU, it was far from the unified, strong party of its projected image. Its strength was more formal than real. The character of revolution in a third world country such as China leads inevitably to a one-sidedness in preparation for seizing state power and the development of the party apparatus and leadership, as well as problems of party expansion and consolidation before and (especially) after the liberation. The CPC’s relative weakness is also a result of the backward economic base which hindered its ability to propagate its lines and policies for correct implementation. The problems stemming from lack of a professional cadre core — cadres able to find independent bearings, able to organize people in socialist construction and provide leadership in all other tasks — were not unique to the CPC. The Bolshevik Party after the seizure of state power faced similar problems. But the CPC’s situation was aggravated by a special set of circumstances that made the training and consolidation of the cadre core even more difficult. Referring to the lack of a professional cadre core among the Bolsheviks, Lenin said in the 11th Congress that, “In the sea of people we are after all a drop in the ocean, and we can administer only when we express correctly what the people

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are conscious of. Unless we do this, the Communist Party will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the masses, and the whole machine will collapse.” 10 “It must be admitted, and we must not be afraid to admit, that in 99 out of 100 cases the responsible Communists are not in the jobs they are fit for; that they are unable to perform their duties, and that they must sit down to learn.” 11 A similar situation occurred in China when the Eighth Route Army marched into the cities. Mao warned in the Seventh Party Congress that his comrades working in the cities should beware of the “sugar-coated bullets.” For most of the CPC leadership, city life was an entirely new experience. Almost without exception, the known and prestigious CPC leaders, from Mao, Chu Teh, and Lin Piao to Chou Enlai and Deng Xiao-ping, had military backgrounds. The cadre core was the “Long Marchers,” those who had survived a seemingly impossible task. Like Lenin’s Bolsheviks, they had to master a thoroughly different kind of work, requiring different skills and methods of leadership. The one-sided character of their military background was a direct result of the character of preparation in China. It also conditioned the intra-party differences that later crystallized between Mao and Liu. In a previous journal, we said, “In the third world countries, the dominant classes rule directly with military force. There is no bourgeois democracy, no labor aristocracy, nor any poverty pimps to dupe the masses and suffocate their struggles. There is only naked force. Consequently the masses’ struggle is sharper and more focused against the ruling classes. The situation is generally always destablized and the revolution’s target is clearly defined. The third world has no social props, only military props and therefore the V.I. Lenin, “11th Congress of the R.C.P.(B),” Speeches at Party Congresses (1918-1922), (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971,) p.333.

10

11

Ibid.

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main form of struggle is armed.... But because the main form of struggle is armed struggle and because of the large peasantry and small working class, it is difficult or impossible to master all forms of struggle.” 12 This is the party’s weakness, and also the leaders’. China went through 20 years of armed struggle before the CPC finally seized state power. Victory was achieved with the strategy of first liberating the countryside, establishing red base areas, and then taking the cities. As the main leader of the party, Mao’s base of operations prior to 1949 was in the countryside, in the liberated red base areas. His constituents, so to speak, were mainly peasants who made up the Red Army. Members of the party apparatus under his direct influence were also mainly peasants and workers. As a result, Mao had deep understanding, indispensable to the success of the revolution, of the peasant question and a very refined talent in the art of mobilizing the masses. On the other hand, his contact with the national bourgeoisie and intellectuals concentrated in the cities, the unliberated white areas, was minimal and formal. Work with those strata was largely done by Liu Shaoqi who headed the party apparatus there. Liu was thus more sympathetic to those strata, and more susceptible to their pressure. He had little confidence in the workers and peasants’ ability to build socialism and had more illusions in capitalism in general, due to his faith in the national bourgeoisie’s abilities. The differences in style between Mao and Liu, developed over several decades, were as deep as their ideological and political differences. Mao, accustomed to open warfare, was very strong on strategy and tactics, and questions of major direction, but lacked the ability to give meticulous concrete guidance. Liu, accustomed on the other hand to underground work, was very good at concrete guidance, but pressure from “Capitalism Destabilized, How do we Prepare to Overthrow the U.S. Government?,” The 80’s, Vol. 1, No. 3, October 1980, (New York: 1980,) p.9. 12

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united front work affected his sense of direction. Their differences were the seeds of future conflict and the party’s unity after victory was formal rather than deep and lasting. As a poor, populous country, China’s objective conditions are unfavorable to the training and consolidation of cadres, many of whom are uneducated and hardly literate. To put the CPC’s problems into historical perspective, remember that at the time of liberation, the Chinese population was largely peasantry, with around 85% of the population working the land. Most were illiterate. Despite the leaps in literacy after liberation, an estimated 100 million people out of a billion are still completely illiterate. The lack of a developed communications system due to the level of productive forces also hinders raising the cultural level of the people. Audio-visual communication is almost nonexistent in the countryside. A commune (averaging 50,000 people) with one color TV is considered prosperous. A radio is one of the most desired items for a household. The main form of communication is printed material. Yet even that is rare in a country with severe material scarcity. An 18-year-old member of the Communist Youth League told one western writer that he had never seen a copy of the Red Flag, the theoretical journal of the CPC’s Central Committee. Circulation of the most widely read newspaper, the People’s Daily, which carries the party’s official views, is only slightly over one million in the entire country, even though there were over 37 million CPC members in 1973. Because of the character of the revolution in an agrarian society, where the military sphere is especially important, the cadre core’s experience in other kinds of activity was lacking at the time of the seizure of state power in China. This was the case, for example, in the study of the theory of Marxism. The intensity of the protracted armed struggle — over 20 years in China — left the party little time to study theory deeply or comprehensively. The grasp of Marxist theory among the party members and even among the

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leaders was not deep. The problem was so severe that in the ’40s Mao said if only China had 200 Marxists, the Chinese revolution’s victory would be ensured. In 1973, after a period of systematic training of cadres and popularization of Marxism, the CPC had only 2,000 full-time theoreticians to tackle the innumerable theoretical questions, for a membership of 37 million and a population of one billion. This problem of consolidation was further aggravated by the party’s rapid expansion, especially after the revolution, expansion demanded by the gigantic task of socialist construction in a backward country. Initiated by only 21 people at its first congress in 1923, the CPC numbered 300,000 in 1934. From 30,000 surviving members of the Long March in 1935, it rapidly grew to 1.2 million in 1945, and 6.5 million in 1954. Two years later, the membership again jumped to a startling 10.7 million. By 1961, at the end of the Great Leap Forward, the CPC counted 17 million members, and the number jumped again to 37 million today.13 Among this membership of 17 million, “Eighty percent joined the party after the founding of the country.... Those who joined the party prior to the founding of the state amounted to only 20%, those who joined in the ’30s and ’20s, according to the calculation eight years ago, were about 800. Some have died within these two years. Now there probably are only 700 left.” 14 These 700 members are now very old, but they are the core of bureaucrats running the state and party, and were in the position of training all members, 92% of whom are under the age of 45, and 25% of whom were young communists under 25 years old.15 The cadre training task, Derek Waller, “The Government and Politics of China,” (New York: Anchor Books, 1971.) p.34-35. 14 Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu (Long Live Mao Zedong Thought), (Hong Kong: 1969,) p.416. 15 Ibid. 13

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Theoretical Basis

however, was liquidated. The unspoken but real and nagging factional disunity among the 700 veterans, the low cultural level of the majority of the members, the tremendous task of building up the socialist economy in the face of a U.S. blockade and after the Soviet Union’s hostility — all contributed to the problem. Moreover, the cadre core themselves were learning various new spheres of activity as they began running China’s economy and society. Besides the lack of theoreticians, the lack of experts trained in management and science was also serious. Worried about China’s future, Mao stressed repeatedly the need to train “revolutionary successors” as a strategic task in the later stage of the Socialist Education Movement. It was institutionalized as the first criterion in membership requirements in the Ninth and 10th Party Constitutions. The revolutionary committee encompassing “three-in-one” age combinations was a good but unsuccessful attempt to give this solution an organizational form. Wang Hung-wen, a young textile worker, was promoted to the Political Bureau largely for this reason, but he proved unequal to the task of directing the nation’s work. Membership has again doubled since the Cultural Revolution, but during it the weak cadre core was even further devastated. The majority of experienced cadres basically boycotted the leadership due to incorrect methods of struggle which had affected them adversely.

2: Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965 The sharpness of the two-line struggle from 1949 to 1965 between Mao and the revisionists headed by Liu on China’s direction illustrates the persistent danger of revisionism in China, the weakness of the cadre core, and the resulting necessity for the Cultural Revolution to preserve China’s socialist direction. To understand the occurrence of many of the line struggles, we must remember that the 1949 revolution in China was not a socialist revolution even though it was led by communists. The 1949 revolution, also called the New Democratic revolution, was a national liberation struggle against imperialism and feudalism, because of its anti-imperialist character, the revolution gained the support of all patriotic people, including the national bourgeoisie whose political and economic development was stifled by both imperialism and feudalism. People from all classes joined the revolution and the party (the only group capable of leading the process) though many were not necessarily conscious or convinced of the CPC’s socialist convictions. In fact, many from non-proletarian background such as the national bourgeoisie and the peasantry would favor capitalism as a spontaneous class response. So even though every class united on the target in the anti-imperialist struggle, the different class interests collided sharply after the victory of the New Democratic revolution. These differences later crystallized in a struggle over whether capitalism or socialism was more suitable to China’s conditions, and would best develop China into a new independent country. This was the crux of the two-line struggle.

Build Socialism or New Democracy?

The immediate question after the seizure of state power in 1949 was: Which way for China? The thrust of the question 19

20

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

was this: Since socialism’s inevitability lies in its ability to resolve the basic contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between private ownership of the means of production and socialized production, could socialism be established where capitalism, and therefore the productive forces, were not that developed, and to that extent the basic contradiction of capitalism was not sharp? Liu Shaoqi’s line was that China could not embark on socialism until it had reached a point where it had overproduction. His view was not new among Chinese communists. Chen Ko Piao, one of the original founders of the CPC who later became a traitor for the Japanese imperialists, had said in the early ’20s that you cannot communalize when you have nothing to begin with. As “to get something” was the main task, Liu held that the CPC should just let the national bourgeoisie develop the productive forces. Politically, that would mean the consolidation of new democracy, a permanent coalition government, rather than moving on to socialism when the conditions ripened. Liu’s line was a revisionist “theory of productive forces” since it ignored the dynamic role of the subjective factor in the transition to a more advantageous, higher form of ownership. State ownership must be forged from national bourgeois ownership, and lower forms of toolsharing cooperative farms forged from individual proprietor/peasant ownership.

Revisionists’ Overstretched Conclusions

Seeing the anti-imperialist revolution as an end-point, Liu said in 1951, “At the present time, we must strive for the consolidation of New Democracy.”16 He considered the land reform movement to confiscate land from rich landlords and distribute it to the peasants as the “most thorough reform in Liu Shaoqi, “Speech at a session of the National Conference of the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference,” November 4, 1951 quoted in The Struggle Between the Two Roads in China’s Countryside, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1968) p.7. 16

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

21

the several-thousand year history of China.”17 In 1957, after the Korean War when nationalization of the main industries was already an established fact, he declared, “Class struggle has in the main ended, counter-revolutionaries have become fewer.... so the state apparatus of the dictatorship can be reduced in size.” He even envisioned a “state of the whole people in which all classes lived together in peace” each “respecting one another and getting what he wants.”18 The “state of the whole people” was first mentioned by Khrushchev in 1956 after he incorrectly concluded from 40 years of continuous and rapid growth in the Soviet Union that the country had already reached communism and the state had lost its class character. Though his conclusion was clearly overstretched, at least it was based on materialism. Liu’s applying that line to China so soon after its liberation, however, had no basis but appeasement of other classes. The burden of defense spending at the level of 40% of the GNP, and the exhaustion caused by the Korean War were understandable conditions. But it was very dangerous to downplay the role of the state apparatus, when China was still under international blockade and the nationalization of the main means of production just completed but not consolidated. While we don’t doubt Liu’s sincere desire to build up China, his line was a rightist underestimation of the vicious imperialists abroad and the overthrown classes at home. Mao disagreed with Liu. Convinced that socialist revolution must follow the democratic revolution, he criticized Liu’s view that “the forever consolidation of new Liu Shaoqi, “Report Concerning the Question of Land Reform,” June 1, 1950, Selected Works, (Japan: Chinese Culture Service Publishers, 1967) in Chinese, p.275. 18 Lowell Dittmer, “Proletarian Dictatorship and the Renegade China’s Khrushchev,” Peoples Daily, Aug. 26, 1967, quoted in Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, The Politics of Mass Criticism, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974) p.222. 17

22

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

democracy means create capitalism. New democracy is bourgeois democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat. It only touched the landlords, comprador bourgeoisie, but not the national bourgeoisie. Distributing land to the peasants is to change the feudal landlord ownership into peasant individual ownership. This is still within the framework of bourgeois revolution. There is nothing strange about distribution of land. MacArthur did it in Japan. Even Napoleon did that. Land reform cannot eliminate capitalism. It cannot teach socialism.” 19 On class struggle, in 1957 he said, “Although the large scale and turbulent class struggle of the mass character of the previous revolutionary periods has in the main come to an end, the class struggle is by no means over.…” 20 We disagree with the restoration thesis advanced in the latter ’60s and early ’70s that revisionists in power means bourgeoisie in power and that capitalism can be easily rigged up under socialism. But in the ’50s line struggle over China’s direction, there were definitely two roads represented – one the socialist road and the other the capitalist road. Given the lines propagated by Liu and others, it was not incorrect to label them “capitalist roaders.” They were, in that they thought capitalism, the spontaneous development of the productive forces, was better suited for Chinese condition. They were capitalist-roaders because they thought the work of economic construction should be carried out and led by the national bourgeoisie, who were expert in doing business. This kind of struggle would not occur in an advanced capitalist country like the United States but is common in China and third world countries not so developed and fighting for national liberation. The struggle quieted in the last decade 19

Mao Zedong, “Talk Concerning Question of Philosophy,” August 18, 1967,

Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu (Long Live Mao Zedong Thought), (Hong Kong: 1969) in Chinese, p.55l. Mao Zedong, “On Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” Selected Readings, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1971) p.446. 20

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

23

in China but has again surfaced and the debate over whether socialism or capitalism is better for China goes on.

Collectivizing Agriculture

The struggle over the collectivization of agriculture crystallized the two roads. Liu said in 1949, “In the future, when China has industrial overproduction, and there are more factories and more products, that will b« the time to embark upon socialism.” He thought that it was impossible to build socialism in a backward country with a semi-feudal economic base. Thus he advocated spontaneous development of the economy, and that the mechanization must precede collectivization in agriculture. He opposed any attempt to collectivize agriculture in the early ’50s. In 1950, he said, “At present, exploitation saves people and it is dogmatic to forbid it…. Hiring of farmhands in industrial farming should be left to take their own course.... It is good if some rich peasants should emerge as a result.” 21 “Our policy to preserve the rich peasant economy is not a temporary measure, it is a longterm measure.” 22 He condemned the July 1951 attempt to transform the agriculture mutual aid teams to advanced peasant cooperatives as “erroneous dangerous Utopian agricultural socialism.” So in 1955, he moved to oppose that movement by dissolving over 500,000 cooperatives in the countryside regardless of their success or failure. No doubt the problems of leadership, the inability to lead big peasant organizations, were severe in China, and many cooperatives were poorly organized. However, there were also outstanding examples which developed very well under Liu Shaoqi, “Instruction to An Tzu-wen and others,” January 23. 1950, quoted in The Struggle Between the Two Roads in Chinas Countryside, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1968,) p.4. 22 Liu Shaoqi, “Report Concerning the Question of Land Reform,” Selected Readings, (Japan: Chinese Culture Service Publishers, 1967) p.283. 21

24

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

proper leadership and those should be promoted and consolidated. But instead of proceeding from concretes, case by case, Liu was convinced that China could not build socialism and went about abolishing all the cooperatives. Mao and others did not disagree with Liu on the importance of machinery for collectivization, nor on the primacy for socialism of the productive forces. They differed with Liu on how China could achieve those conditions. In the era of imperialism when imperialist powers dominated the world’s economy, to expect China to go through primitive accumulation amounts to turning China back into a semi-colonial country. It is almost impossible for any country to embark on capitalism 300 years late and compete with the advanced capitalist countries, without being dominated economically and eventually politically. Liu’s line was a mechanical materialist line for the spontaneous development of the productive forces, and negated the positive effect of the relations of production and the subjective factor (consciousness) in developing the productive forces.

Dictated by Conditions

Liu’s view was also right dogmatist, for it ignored the concrete conditions of China, and why collectivization was necessary before developing its productive forces was possible. The Fundamentals of Political Economy, published in Shanghai in 1975, gave an account of the concrete conditions in China’s countryside that dictated collectivization in order to increase the productive forces. One was the increasing polarization among the peasants in the few years after land reform. Due to the spontaneous development of capitalism, many rich peasants emerged and many middle peasants tried every means to become rich peasants. But insufficient means of production left the majority of the peasants still in poverty. Many had debts; some had sold their land or leased it out. If the polarization continued the rich and middle peasants would move further and further from

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

25

the proletariat, and the poor peasants who had again lost their land would blame the proletariat for abandoning them. This would threaten the peasant-worker alliance, which was based on land reform, and endanger the economic base of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. Secondly, a small peasant economy is very backward production relations. It is operated by individual households. The small size of the individual plots of land and individual ownership make it impossible to utilize advanced technology and new farm implements. Such an economy is also helpless in the face of natural calamities and cannot realize continuous expanded reproduction. Therefore, it cannot satisfy the socialist economy’s increasing demand for commercial grain, raw materials and manpower and cannot provide a broad domestic market for the development of industry. An economy of individual farming is in contradiction to socialized industrialization. To resolve this contradiction, the proletariat must lead the scattered, backward small peasant economy along the socialist road, and collectivize agriculture. Reality invalidated Liu’s argument.

Foundation of Feudal Rule

Criticizing Liu’s mechanical materialist view, Mao wrote in 1953, “Among the peasant masses a system of individual economy has prevailed for thousands of years, with each family or household farming a productive unit. This scattered, individual form of production is the economic foundation of feudal rule and keeps the peasants in perpetual poverty. The only way to change it is gradual collectivization, and the only way to bring about collectivization according to Lenin is through cooperatives.” 23 Given the extreme low level of productive forces in the countryside, there is no way they can on their own develop a rich peasant economy. “Once a rich Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. III, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1965) p. 156. 23

26

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

peasant economy prevailed in the rural areas, more than 70% of the peasants would inevitably be forced down once again into the utter destitution and suffering under the oppression of the landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements.…” 24 Only collectivization, said Mao, with concentration of land, manpower, farm implements, resources and thus a change in the production relations, could bring prosperity to China’s peasantry. Collectivization of agriculture was accomplished amidst this fierce line struggle, and because of Mao’s correct line, China was the first third world country to achieve self-sufficiency in grain production. Mao’s victory in the struggle for collectivization was just one of the many struggles on the economic front. The Great Leap Forward represented a fiercer struggle of greater significance. The failure of the Great Leap to achieve its immediate economic result not only weakened Mao’s authority in the party, it also renewed all previous struggle including the one over collectivization. The revisionist Peng Teh Hai’s denunciation, and Liu’s silent endorsement of this denunciation, only showed the depth of their revisionism. The great controversy over the Great Leap Forward makes us look at its problems in detail and have the correct communist outlook on the sum-up.

The Great Leap Forward

In 1958, Mao called for a great leap in China’s economic development. The movement in the next three years came to be called the Great Leap Forward. Untrue to its name, the Great Leap Forward was an economic disaster rather than an advance in production. The facts of the failure are undeniable. While all Chinese analysts and leaders agree on the mistakes of the Great Leap, not all agree on the causes, how to look at the mistakes, and overall appraisal of the 24

The Struggle Between the Two Roads in Chinas Countryside, op. cit., p.7.

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

27

movement and primary leader, Mao. We will try to shed some light on these questions, and conclude with the understanding that despite the mistakes, Mao made the greatest contribution to China’s economic development, and to the theory of economic development in socialist countries in general and those with a backward economic base in particular. Philosophically, the Great Leap Forward was based on the dialectical idea of the superiority of qualitative and sudden changes over quantitative and gradual changes. According to Mao, “Sudden change is the most fundamental law of the universe. We communists want changes in things. The great is so-called because it is different from the past.... Sudden change is better than quantitative change.... The destruction of equilibrium is leap. The destruction of equilibrium is better than equilibrium.” 25 Politically, the Great Leap was a reaction to the theoretical differences between the CPC and the CPSU. It was conceived as preparation for China to develop without Soviet aid in the event of a Sino-Soviet break. Mao’s words in early 1958: “In the winter of 1956, two things happened in the world. They were the international opposition to Stalin, the Poland and Hungarian incidents.... and the wave of antiSoviet and anti-communism in the world. It affects the world, and it affects our party.… There will probably be more twists and turns in the future… there is the possibility of war, a possibility of a split. If we can anticipate it, then there is nothing to worry (about).” 26 The struggle between China and the Soviet Union was escalating. A split seemed inevitable and China had to be ready. It was then that Mao formulated the general line for economic construction, the Great Leap Forward, and the people’s commune — the Three Red Banners Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, (Hong Kong: 1969) in Chinese, p.213. 26 Ibid., p.217. 25

28

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

— to spur China’s independent economic development. Last but not least, with or without a Sino-Soviet split, the Great Leap movement was an economic necessity. The first FiveYear Plan (1953-57) modelled after the Soviet Union and using mainly Soviet aid, was simply inadequate for the concrete conditions of China’s development. The Soviet model emphasized development of heavy industry and neglected light industry and especially agriculture. The Soviet Union being the only country offering help and the only socialist country with a spectacular record of economic development, China had little choice but to follow the Soviet model. By the end of the first Five-Year Plan, however, the consequences of building heavy industry and sacrificing agricultural development were showing. This one-sided stress on heavy industry economically threatened the possibility of proportionate development essential for future growth. Politically, the squeezing of peasants created contradiction between workers and peasants and thus jeopardized the worker-peasant alliance, the social foundation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in China.

Agricultural Decline

After the 1949 victory, the Chinese concentrated for three years on stabilizing the economy and recovering it from ruin. Real economic construction started in 1953 with the launching of the first Five-Year Plan. The plan was devised with the assistance of the Soviets, who also extended a loan of $3 billion with the promise of helping China construct 300 modern industrial projects over the next 15 years. The stress of the first Five-Year Plan was production of means of production. Thus, 94% of total capital investment was allocated to industry, and 87% of that went to capital construction. Only 7.6% of the total investment was allocated

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

29

to agriculture.27 This lopsided rate of investment made for spectacular growth in the industrial sector, but agriculture did not fare so well. Economist Chou Ming Li estimated in his writing that 1957 industrial growth was 141% over that of 1952.28 But the average increase in agriculture from 1953 to 1956 was only 3.7%, slightly above the population increase of 2.2%. The slow growth in agriculture caused a chain reaction in the economic development of the country as a whole. Even the Soviet Union, which tended to claim all credit for the achievements of the period, recognized the seriousness of the problem of disproportionate development. Summing up the problem of China’s first Five-Year Plan, the Soviets said, “Distribution of the output of heavy industry between industry and farming ran on a typical pattern: 86% of all rolled metals went into industry, and 0.1% into farming; the figures for electric power were 85% and 0.7%, respectively; for machine tools, 70% and 8%, respectively, and cement, 30% and 10%, respectively. The horse-drawn ploughs and harvesters produced for agriculture often lay idle for lack draught animals. Without chemical fertilizers and modern machinery, farming was utterly dependent on the weather, so that during crop failure the state had not only to supply food to the towns, but disaster areas. Bad harvests tended to reduce the tax revenues from farming, and the rural population’s purchasing power in respect to industrial goods, the main source of accumulation for the state budget.... The Siet Fung Shuan, “Mao Zedong and China’s Economy Since 1949,” Ming Pao Monthly Magazine, (Hong Kong, in Chinese, Vol. 15, No. 11, November 27

1980) p.37. 28 Chou Ming Li, “Economic Development of Communist China,” China Quarterly I, January-March 1960, p.35-50, excerpted by Franz Shurman and Orville Schell in Communist China: Revolution and Reconstruction and International Confrontation, (New York: Vantage Books, 1967) p.195212.

30

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

development of synthetic materials being embryonic, the raw materials basis of the light industry was totally dependent on agriculture. During the first Five-Year period, 86-92% of all the consumer goods were made of farm produce. But since farming itself was very weak, productive capacities in footwear in 1956 were underloaded by 67%, fabrics (by) 47%, paper (by) 29% and cigarettes (by) 80%. The dependence of the light industry on the state of farming was particularly pronounced in the cotton industry. Agriculture’s inability to ensure steady raw material supplies for the light industry resulted in sharp annual fluctuations in growth rates, which most clearly brought out the weakness of the country’s economic basis. Thus, in 1953 and 1956 (years following good harvest), industrial production increased by 30.3% and 24.8%, whereas in 1955 and 1957 (years following upon crop failures) it was up by only 5.3% and 11% respectively.… Declining growth rates in the light industry also had an effect on the heavy industry, which depended on revenues from the former and supplied it with part of its products.” 29 The problems of disproportionate growth went on and on.

Chart an Independent Path

Mao’s first attempt to resolve the problems resulting from the first Five-Year Plan was in “On the Ten Major Relationships,” published in April 1956. He addressed the question of the correct relationship between heavy, light industries and agriculture and other aspects of economic development. In that article, the importance of more investment in agriculture was clearly recognized, but only after the Great Leap Forward was this rationally formulated — thus, the many disasters during the Great Leap. In that article, Mao wrote, G.V. Astafyen, “The PRC’s Industrial Development Problems in the First Five-Year Period,” Present-Day China, (USSR: Progress Publishers, 1975) p. 119-121. 29

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

31

“The problem facing us is that of continuing to adjust properly the ratio between investment in heavy industry on the one hand and in agriculture and light industry on the other in order to bring about a great development of the latter.... Does this mean that heavy industry is no longer primary? No, it still is (our emphasis), it still claims the emphasis in our investments. But the proportion for agriculture and light industry must be somewhat increased.... Hence the question arises, is your desire to develop heavy industry genuine or feigned, strong or weak? If your desire is feigned or weak, then you will hit agriculture and light industry and invest less in them. If your desire is genuine or strong, then you will attach more importance to agriculture and light industry so that there will be more grain and more raw materials for light industry and a greater accumulation of capital. And there will be more funds in the future and invest in heavy industry.” 30 This article was the first shot in the search for an independent road to China’s development. As Mao said, “The basic viewpoint of the Ten Major Relationships is to compare with the Soviet Union. Besides that Soviet method, can we find another method that could achieve faster and better results than those of the Soviet Onion and European countries?” 31 However, despite Mao’s article, nothing much really changed. The Soviet Union, with more than 10,000 technical personnel working in over 300 projects in China and the relative success of the first Five-Year Plan, still had the dominant influence in charting China’s economic development. Secondly, though Mao’s article contained elements of the correct line, it was still far from rational, and thus he could not translate it into a real alternative to the SovietMao Zedong, “On the Ten Major Relationships,” Selected Works, Vol. V, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1977) p.286. 31 Mao Zedong, “Talk at the 2nd Conference of the Heads of Delegates of the 8th Party Congress,” May 18, 1958, Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, (Hong Kong: 1969) in Chinese, p.222. 30

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Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

devised plan. Thirdly, those in charge of operation of the state and economic work, Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, were all highly in favor of the Soviet model. As a result, China’s second Five-Year Plan was not much different from the first in terms of allocation of capital to various sectors. Investment in agriculture was only about 10% of the total investment. And changes made later in the course of the Great Leap Forward were spontaneous and experimental, so they drew fire from all quarters, especially when the Great Leap failed.

“Going All-Out”

Facing a general lack of capital, particularly in agriculture, Mao developed the general line in economic construction as a way to step up production in China. Appearing in late 1957 and officially formulated in spring of 1958, the general line called for “going all out to achieve more, faster, better and economic results in socialist construction.” It was a general line of maximizing the subjective factor. The immediate aim was a great advance in economic construction on all fronts. Concrete implementation was the establishment of people’s communes in the country, all-out mobilization for steel production, and reform in the method of leadership by having leaders participate in production and masses participate in decision-making in order to unleash the masses’ enthusiasm for socialist construction. It was a policy of “walk on two legs” — meaning simultaneous development of agriculture and industry, utilizing foreign technology and domestic methods, and simultaneous development of big and small industries. The general line, the people’s commune and the Great Leap Forward were the Three Red Banners guiding economic work from 1958 to 1961. The call was made in late 1957, and the mass mobilization was in mid-1958. For the next three years, hundreds of millions of people exhibited energy

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

33

and enthusiasm not seen anywhere else in the world.32 In the countryside, over 100 million peasants engaged in water conservation work by building dams, reservoirs and other irrigation systems, and in fighting against diseasecausing insects. Others used domestic methods to build small machines and farm implements needed in agriculture. All this was essentially without either additional allocation of capital or technical help from the state. In the immediate harvest the work paid off. Summing up the achievement of 1958, Chou En Lai said that steel production increased from 5.35 million tons in 1957 to 11.8 million tons in 1958. Grain and cotton output doubled that of 1957 and over 480 million acres of arable land were added. Altogether, there was a total 90% increase in irrigated land.33 For those critical of the CPC leaders’ statistics, Siet Fung Shuan, an economist teaching in Hong Kong University, put the 1958 grain output at 200 million tons as compared to 183 million tons in 1957. Choh Ming Li estimated the increase to be 35%, most of that in potatoes. While we do not know the actual extent of exaggeration, there was an undeniable increase compared with the first Five-Year Plan. Encouraged by the success of the movement in agriculture, Mao called for “steel as key link and all out for steel” in the autumn of 1958. His call was timed to tap the peasantry’s idle time after the busy autumn harvest. His conception was to compensate for China’s lack of capital with manpower. All able-bodied people plunged into steel production. Industrial plants transformed into steel plants and many backyard furnaces were set up to use domestic Mao Zedong, From various talks he made during 1958-1961, Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, op. cit., p. 145-316. 33 Chou En-Lai, “Government’s Work Report,” April 18, 1959, Selected Works, Vol. 1, (Hong Kong: 1-San Books Ltd., August 1976,) in Chinese, p.155-160. 32

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Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

methods. In 1958 alone, over 700,000 tiny industrial units were set up to produce steel. With this frantic drive, steel production in 1958 reached 11 million tons, over 5.35 million tons in 1957. In 1959, it reached 13.4 million tons, and went as high as 18.7 million tons in 1960.34

Chain Reaction Consequences

However, the prosperity in both agriculture and industry was short-lived. As a whole, the Great Leap failed to effect a qualitative change in China’s economy. By 1959, grain production dropped to 165 million tons, and kept falling to 160 million tons for the next two years. It was not until 1962 that production reached the pre-Great Leap level. By 1961, the chain reaction had reached industry where production declined drastically. Steel production sank to only 8 million tons in 1960 from a previous high of 18.7 million tons and continued its fall for two more years. It was not until 1979 that production reached its highest point of the pre-Great Leap period.35 And the consequences were more than just declines in production. Mass hunger swept the land. Not seeing any concrete improvement in their standard of living after working so hard, the people felt great demoralization at the economic collapse. CPC leaders were divided on how to sum up the Great Leap, and Mao’s personal prestige was seriously eroded by constant attacks from the right. They charged him with rashness, and condemned the masses’ enthusiasm as petty bourgeois fanaticism. The anti-Great Leap Forward forces took the lead in calling for a plan for economic readjustment.

Shortcomings and Mistakes

Many factors contributed to the failure. In 1959 and 1960,

34 35

Siet Fung Shuan, op. cit., p.39. Ibid.

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35

China weathered the worst natural disasters in decades. The 1959 drought affected one third of the arable land, and the 1960 disaster affected half of it.36 It set back agricultural production terribly. The second factor was Khrushchev’s 1960 withdrawal of all aid and technical personnel from China and breaking of all contracts for industrial projects. These acts of sabotage turned more than 200 unfinished industrial projects into scrap. Without blueprints, China could do nothing with the half-built monsters. The two factors, both out of the CPC’s subjective control, cannot be blamed on Mao or anyone else. But we must still sum up the mistakes for which China was directly responsible. Main cause of the Great Leap failure was in the shortcomings of the subjective factor, namely the lack of correct line and leadership guiding the whole movement. As a result of this lack of subjective factor, the spontaneous drive of the masses’ enthusiasm was not guided. The lack of a concrete correct line guiding the economic development in terms of priority among heavy and light industries and agriculture reflected this weakness first and foremost. The lack of overall planning before the movement unfolded was another indication of that weakness. Third, there was inadequate grasp of the law that transformation of the production relations is fundamentally based on the level of development of the productive forces. In the absence of all these aspects of conscious leadership, the masses went wild with enthusiasm and made many blunders. But these mistakes were manifestations of a larger problem, not the cause of the problems. Before explaining those problems in detail, we should explain subjective factor and consciousness. Marxist understanding of conscious subjective factor is man’s understanding of the objective laws guiding the development of things, both in science and in society. This ability to know the objective 36

Ibid.

36

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

laws in order to use them and to harness them is what differentiates people from animals and enables men to obtain freedom from the constraints of the unknown. The Great Leap Forward was unfolded with the idealist interpretation of the subjective factor, thus mistakes were inevitable.

“Walk on Two Legs”

We mentioned that Mao in 1956 already had some instinctive feeling of the inadequacies of the first Five-Year Plan, but had no conscious line on the correct priority. At the time of the Great Leap, industry was still the emphasis and the key link. The “walking on two legs” strategy, meaning simultaneous development of industry and agriculture, was based not on any concrete re-allocation of investments, but on the masses’ sheer subjective wishes. A country as poor as China, with minimal capital and technical knowledge, just could not afford to walk on both legs at the same time. On the other hand, if one front were absolutized, the other automatically suffered. The situation demanded a conscious prioritizing, and a correct mutual relationship established among the three fronts. For China, a country of extreme poverty with 80% of the population engaged in agricultural production, the only correct order of priority was agriculture, light industry and then heavy industry – not the other way around as in the Soviet model. Thus, Mao’s later formulation of agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading factor was correct. The Fundamentals of Political Economy explained in clear detail why agriculture has to be the foundation: “To live, to produce, and to engage in culture and social activities, people must first solve the problem of eating. Agriculture production is the precondition for the survival of the human race and all production activities.… The higher the labor productivity was in agriculture, the more developed were the sectors outside of agriculture that were concerned with material and spiritual production. Marx observed, ’The shorter the time

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37

required by society to produce wheat and livestock, the longer is the time available for other production — material and social production.’ He continued, ’Agricultural labor productivity beyond what is required for the personal needs of the laborer is the basis of all societies.’ 37 “Agriculture as the foundation in economic development” is as basic as “being determines consciousness” is to Marxist theory of knowledge. In concrete terms, the primary reason that the development of the socialist national economy must rely on agriculture as the foundation is that the development of the various departments of the socialist economy depends on agriculture to provide the means of subsistence.... Another reason... is that it is the source of industrial materials.… Raw materials for light industry in particular are essentially provided by agriculture.” The third reason is that “the rural areas constitute a vast market for industrial products. The rural population, accounting for approximately 80% of the total, forms a major market for industrial products. The more developed agricultural production is, the more commodity grains and industrial raw materials will be produced, and the higher the peasants’ purchasing power will be. The peasants’ need for both light and heavy industrial products continuously grows. This will stimulate industrial production. The fourth reason why agriculture must be the foundation is that “agriculture is the reservoir of labor power for industry and other sectors of the national economy.... How much of the rural population can be transferred as labor force to support the development needs of other sectors of the national economy is not determined by these developmental needs, but by the level of development of agricultural production and by how much agricultural labor productivity can be increased.” The fifth reason is that “agriculture is an important source of state capital accumulation. In addition to directly providing the state with capital accumulation through agricultural taxes, it indirectly provides capital accumulation to 37

Fundamentals of Political Economy, (New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1977,)

p.366.

38

Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965 the state by supplying agricultural products to light industry as raw materials.38

This is the correct line for China’s conditions. In the absence of a correct line, there was no adjustment in investment for agriculture. Contrary to the criticisms of Mao, it was not masses’ fanaticism that caused problems. If the investment ratio between the various fronts had been proportionate, the masses’ enthusiasm would have done miracles in China’s economic development. Nor was the disaster due to abandonment of the Soviet model due to Mao’s voluntarism. Following the Soviet model would only have led to another disaster. The major weakness was the absence of a conscious correct line on economic development in China.

Poor Planning for Communes

The second mistake was the lack of overall planning. Mao himself had admitted that he didn’t know much about political economy. So, many things happened spontaneously. First of all, the establishment of the commune was not planned. Xien Mu quiao, a noted economic and CPC leader, wrote that according to the original plan in 1953, the cooperativization movement was meant to take 15 years, in light of the low level of productive forces and consciousness in the countryside. In 1954, only 2% of the farmlands were in cooperatives. But because of the cadres’ overzealousness, by 1955, 14.2% were in cooperatives, and by 1956, 19% were collectivized, with 88% of these in Advanced Cooperatives. The total process was completed by 1957. Then, by 1958 advanced cooperatives were transformed into communes.39 (In coops, peasants share plants and implements and farm together, but retain private ownership of the land and Ibid., p.366-370. Xuo Mugia, China’s Socialist Economy, (Peking: People’s Publishers, 1979) in Chinese.

38 39

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

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equipment. In communes, the collective rather than the individual has ownership.) How did such rapid motion come about? Mao said at a meeting in Lushang that a reporter once asked him about people’s communes. “It is fine,” his response, was printed in the newspaper, and overnight, communes sprang up across the countryside. Many were built by coercion rather than persuasion and education. Mao made a self-criticism for his “careless talk” and some degree of petty bourgeois fanaticism.” 40 Another manifestation of lack of planning was that the steel production target was set arbitrarily and without any scientific basis. Mao also made a self-criticism on this point. He said he proposed steel production of 10.7 million tons in 1958, almost double the production of 5.35 million tons in 1957. His mistake was not to “combine revolutionary enthusiasm with practical spirit.… At that time, all he thought about was what was needed, but not whether it was possible to accomplish.” This enthusiasm led to 900 million people’s giving up everything to engage in steel production. The result was, in Mao’s own words, “waste in labor power, tightness in consumer goods and lack of resolution of supplies for light industries, dislocation in transportation and too much capital construction.” Furthermore, the proportion of consumption to accumulation was way off, and it squeezed the masses badly. During the three years, average accumulation was 39%. Even Mao said it was too high. It was a result of the tendency “to only grasp production, and not grasp livelihood.” 41 There were more dislocations due to the lack of planning. Kang Chao, an economist teaching in the United States, listed some in his article, “Economic Aftermath of the Great Leap in China.”42 One result was that even though the production of Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, (Hong Kong: 1969,) p.304. Siet Fung Shuan, op. cit., p.41. 42 Kang Chao, “Economic Aftermath of the Great Leap in China,” Asian Survey, May 1964, excerpted in Franz Schurman and Orville Schell, Communist China 1949-Present, (New York: Vintage Books, 1967,) p.409. 40 41

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steel in 1959 was high, much was of such poor quality that it had little value in the development of Chinese industry. The lack of quality control wasted much precious manpower. Then, though many dams were constructed in 1958 and some did provide some temporary services, most systems were defective due to lack of advanced survey and proper design. Realkanization of the land later seriously damaged agricultural production. On the industrial front, the rush for production rapidly depreciated machines not maintained for the sake for immediate expediency. After the Great Leap, many machines were broken. Repairs were impossible for lack of spare parts, and many repair departments themselves were converted to production. Actual production stopped. Thus, the lack of food, the lack of raw materials, and the lack of spare parts for repairs caused massive shutdowns of factories and abandonment of backyard furnaces. Plants that were still open operated only at minimum capacity.

Productive Forces Outstripped

Besides the communes’ spontaneous development, there were many mistakes in their operation. Everything outstripped the level of productive forces and the level of consciousness. The ability of the cadres to provide correct leadership was outstripped. Commune size was a problem, some being too big, like Teh Hsien with a population of half a million. Not only did the communes present problems in management, but objectively, some had turned into state farms with equal distribution. Mao himself wrote extensively on the mistakes in this sphere. In the second Chengchou meeting to sum up the Great Leap, Mao said, “After the autumn harvest of 1958, the communes blew a wind of communalization. Its content has three main aspects. One is the equalization between rich and poor. Two is the accumulation was too high and too much voluntary labor. Three is the confiscation of all kinds of ’properties’ including

Historic Lessons of China’s Cultural Revolution

41

personally-owned ’chickens’ and ’ducks’ without compensation.” This happened because, he added, “Cadres at the front rank blurred the three level differences between commune, production teams and production brigades.” In reality, this denied the tremendous importance of the ownership of the production brigade (or production team which in general equals the size of the original advanced coops) that still exists in communes. “This inevitably led to the firm resistance of the broad masses of peasants.… The nationwide insufficient supply in grain, oil, pork, vegetables after the 1958 autumn harvest is the concentrated expression of this mistake.” 43 Mao added in another meeting, “Many people still don’t understand that there must be a process of development of ownership of the communes. They incorrectly think that once a commune is established, all the productive forces, manpower, and products of the production brigades will be directly controlled by the leading organs of the communes. They incorrectly think that socialism is already communism, and that distribution according to work is distribution according to need, and that collective ownership is public ownership. In many cases, they negate the laws of value, and equal exchange. Therefore, within the communes, they practice egalitarianism between the rich and the poor, equal distribution and appropriation of properties without compensation. The banks withdrew all loans from most of the villages. This caused panic among the peasants.” 44 In practice, mess halls were set up in the commune where people could eat to their heart’s content regardless of whether or not they worked, and regardless of whether or not there was enough grain for everybody. The wage system was almost completely abolished and replaced with the allocation system. The items of allocation included household 43 44

Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, p.285. Ibid., p.281-282.

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items such as soap and clothing. However, all these were manifestations of the problem, not the cause. The fact is, it was not that the masses did not understand the need for a process of development in transformation of the commune ownership system. First and foremost, the leadership didn’t understand it. Mao himself did self-criticism on this question: “The resolution of the Plenary of the Central Committee of the Sixth Congress had stated that the transition from collective ownership to public ownership, from socialism to communism must go through a process of development. But it did not say that collective ownership in communes also takes a process of development. This was a weakness, because we also did not understand that question then. Therefore, the cadres below confuse the distinction between communes, production teams and production brigades.” 45 If even the Central Committee of the CPC couldn’t understand it, how could anyone expect the broad masses not to make mistakes in the course of practice? Again, in the absence of a correct concrete line, the incorrect line was practiced. The present Chinese leaders have denounced the Great Leap as a total failure. Peng Dehuai, who spearheaded the criticisms of the Great Leap in 1959, condemned it as pettybourgeois fanaticism, and claimed the “gain not worth the loss.” However, many economists differ with his assessment. Kang Chao also summed up, and while ruthlessly criticizing all the mistakes, he said, “However, one should not describe the Great Leap as a total failure. It is undeniable that output increased markedly in that period even after official claims have been subject to an intensive and skeptical scrutiny. More important from a long-term point of view, perhaps, is the fact that the Great Leap movement, like most blunders made by men, has had its educational effect. Chinese leaders 45

Ibid., p.283.

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must have learned lessons from it, and presumably they will try to avoid the same mistakes in the future.” 46 That was exactly what Mao did.

Successful Comprehensive Line

Based on the mistakes of the Great Leap, inevitable due to lack of knowledge and lack of experience, Mao was able to formulate a comprehensive line of “agriculture the foundation” and “industry the leading factor” for China’s economic development. As a result of that line, investment in agriculture and light industry subsequently increased, and development of industries was to serve the development of agriculture as the starting point. From 1965 to 1974, the annual increase in electricity supply to agriculture was 17.6%, tractors 12.1% and plows 16.6%. Chemical fertilizer production increased at an annual rate of 12.1%. As a result of this correct line, the agricultural development from 1965 to 1974 increased at an annual rate of 4.3% while other socialist countries all experienced drops in agricultural development. Yugoslavia’s agriculture, for instance, dropped in 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1961 at rates of 13%, 18%, 12%, and 6%, respectively. Industries also benefited from the growth in agriculture. As a result, China’s GNP after the Great Leap increased at a constant speed. From 1963 it was 12.8%; from 1966 to 1970, 5.9%; from 1971 to 1975, 5.7%.47 The revisionist criticisms of the mistakes of the Great Leap, that it was not as rational as the Soviet-devised plan, were clearly short-sighted and ahisto-rical, and ignored the concrete conditions in China. Second, despite all the problems, China was able to collectivize its agriculture, which has not been accomplished in all socialist countries. A gigantic development for a country with a population of 80% peasantry, it laid the basis for the rapid and steady development in agriculture. 46 47

Kang Chao, op. cit. Siet Fung Shuan, op. cit., p.36.

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Furthermore, from the mistakes of the Great Leap, Mao was able to systematically develop a sub-system of collective ownership that corresponds to China’s socio-economic conditions. In commune organization, the basic accounting unit is the production brigade comprising a natural village, normally about 200 people. Since people in the village are descendants of the same ancestors, the members are more willing to share their properties and fruits of labor than total strangers would be. This system changes the nature of private ownership in the countryside without altogether breaking down its traditional social structure. Rather the positive aspect of this social structure serves the socialist end. This solution reflected Mao’s deep grasp of the concrete conditions of China in his application of the general law of Marxism. The three levels of ownership within the commune were standardized as lessons from the Great Leap.

Developing Science of Economic Construction

In short, the Great Leap was an attempt to find an independent road to develop China’s economy. After all the blunders, Mao did find that road, and it propels China to relative prosperity. That was the significance of the Great Leap — and the price we pay to gain experience and knowledge. Like a great scientist who burns a laboratory but finally succeeds in his experiment, Mao developed the social science of economic construction. In this historical context we basically unite with Mao’s own sum-up of the Great Leap and disagree with the revisionists’ slanders. We cherish the noble attempt. We cherish even more the ability to sum up and learn from mistakes. After purging the “gang of four,” the present leadership has also thrown out all Mao’s lines and policies, including the lessons from the Great Leap. Denouncing the Great Leap, they embarked on a different course of economic development, with one-sided emphasis on heavy industry and worse, importation of whole plants and foreign technology. Between

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1978 and 1980, China weathered another economic failure, the worst since the Great Leap. Two years of summing up and soul-searching have made many Chinese realize the correctness of Mao’s line and the importance of self-reliance in developing their economy. So burnt by the mistakes, though, they have turned timid. Today, under the pretext of struggling against the ’left’ line in economic work (actually the mistakes of 1978-1980 were rightist mistakes on the question of self-reliance), they now promote a remedy of “better right than left” and “better conservative than rash.” This justifies inertia, bureaucracy, reformism and inaction. This cuts the very soul out of what makes a communist — daringness to try, to challenge nature, and daringness to make mistakes. All people make mistakes. The difference between Mao and the present leaders is not that Mao made no mistakes and they will, or vice versa. Mao’s mistakes are the mistakes of a giant, and theirs are the mistakes of cowards. The difference lies in whether they admit the mistakes, make a correct sum-up, learn from and continue to engage in new battles with the ammunition of the new lessons, or justify the mistakes and get gun-shy from defeat. The hallmark of a genuine Marxist is the ability to apply the general truth of Marxism to the concrete conditions of particular countries. This was Mao’s great strength. Typical of dogmatic idealists, and totally ignorant of the concrete conditions of China, Line of March implicitly charged that China is not socialist because “emphasizing agriculture over industry… jeopardizes the long-term future of socialism.... The production of the means of production… must be the foundation of a socialist economy.” Perhaps to these armchair intellectuals, the experience of the first Five-Year Plan was just nonsense, the suffering caused by the inevitable mistakes of the Great Leap, and the lessons learned from it, mere fantasies. What is real is Line of March’s dogma of what should be, rather than what can be, given the concrete conditions of building

46

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socialism in an economically backward country.48

Major Two-Line Struggles Within CPC

As with all sciences, the science of management, though it is most developed in capitalist countries, is not inherently capitalist. The class content of a science derives from the class that science serves. Management is a science. However, unlike physical sciences, the science of management deals with organization, people, machines and their interrelationships. Changes in the ownership of the means of production and the social status of the people to be managed will inevitably force changes in the science of management. Under capitalism, everything is profit-oriented. The manager who can get the greatest profit for the enterprise is a good manager. The capitalist is not concerned whether the manager's methods are repressive or relatively liberal, as long as they bring results, that is, profits. Under socialism, workers are the masters of society and the owners of the means of production. The system of management is to unleash the maximum potential of both the managers and workers to rapidly develop the productive forces. Though profit is one way to judge the success of an enterprise, it cannot be the only criterion. After the 1949 liberation, the severe lack of management and technical personnel in the party surfaced as a problem. The new proletariat relied heavily on the bourgeois managers from old China to continue running many enterprises even after nationalization. These people, used to treating workers as slaves, kept up their usual work methods and attitudes, which caused intense contradictions with the workers, formal masters of the enterprises. It is absolutely essential to retain these bourgeois experts, The Trial of the Gang of Four and the Crisis of Maoism,” Line of March: A Marxist-Leninist Journal of Rectification, Vol. 1, No. 6, May/June 1981, (U.S.A.), p.37. 48

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even if it requires giving them privileges, so they will use their skills for the new society. But solving the contradiction between them and the workers, so that both the managers’ and the workers’ initiative can be tapped, is an extremely difficult task and it demands a great deal of maturity from communists.

Favoring Bourgeois Experts

Liu Shaoqi’s view of management, while correctly outlining the need for division of labor and organization, favors the bourgeois experts. Dazzled by Western countries’ technological development, he declared after the liberation that technical work was the central task and that the level of technology would determine success. While we uphold the importance of technology in socialist construction, the objective effect of Liu’s line is to condone the emergence of an elite stratum of technocrats who dominate the masses. Liu justified this unequal relationship, not with a sense of historical necessity, but with the line that everyone is born different. He said, “People are different and have different qualities. Some are clever and some are stupid, some are tall and some are short, some strong and some weak, some are men and some are women, men are born different (our emphasis) .... There is a division of labor and differences in work and career. For instance, in an army there are the highlevel commanders and the lower-level commanders.... Within the party, there are those who are the responsible persons and those who are not, those who are leaders and those who are led.” 49 True, people differ from one another in many ways, and there is division of labor in all organizations, institutions, and societies. However, contrary to Liu’s ideas, these differences result from many factors — political, economic, social, and Liu Shaoqi, “Democratic Spirit and Bureaucracy,” Collected Works, Vol. 1, p.81, quoted in Lowell Dittmer, op. cit., p. 191. 49

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historical factors — as well as different life experiences. Heredity is only one of the many factors. No one is born to be either revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. No one is born to be a doctor; a person must have a chance to go to medical school. No one is born a slave, without the oppression of the slave masters. Liu’s line justified existing inequalities as inevitable rather than factors to be gradually eliminated. In practice, his line is bureaucratization in management. One example of this was Tsitsihar Locomotive and Carriage Works, an enterprise that had almost 1,000 different forms to keep track of various material resources and human activities. Workers at the bottom had to follow every rule made by those at the top, who kept busy creating new rules and control procedures regardless of applicability. To illustrate its bureaucracy: in order to get fuel and electric power, the equipment section of the workshop had to fill out over 170 forms per month, and send them to the planning section, which then dealt with the representative from the power section at an appropriate cadre meeting. As a result, there were “three too manys and two too seldoms” for workshop directors, many of whom were workers previously. That is, too many meetings to attend, too many documents, too many papers to tear up, too seldom going back to the work group to take part in labor and too seldom being concerned with human relations instead of rule-bound formality. At Shih Chingshan Steel Works in Peking, 100 job analysts went to do 100,000 detailed job analyses in order to step up labor productivity. Stephen Andors wrote in China’s Industrial Revolution that it was this kind of bureaucracy and harassment that made the workers bitter and motivated them to participate in the Cultural Revolution, rather than the wage differences which were never too great.50 Stephen Andors, China’s Industrial Revolution–Politics, Planning and Management, 1949 to the Present, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977,) p. 50

190.

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Managers as Representatives of Workers

49

Mao disagreed with Liu on this question. He repeatedly stated, in various writings, that man is the decisive factor in everything and the most precious valuable aspect of the productive forces. He was very aware of the social inequalities caused by class societies between mental and manual labor, between city and countryside, and between workers and peasants. He repeatedly urged the gradual narrowing of these differences. He saw me stratification in management as an aspect of this social inequality. It was historically unavoidable, but something to abhor. Mao always advocated “simple administration” and hated bureaucracy. In struggle against Liu’s line, a major theoretical article on management echoing Mao’s line on management appeared in Economic Research in 1965. It states, “The problem of enterprise management is primarily one of relations between managers and productive workers. A socialist enterprise is different in essence from a capitalist enterprise. The important aspect of this difference lies in the relationship between managers and productive workers.... The existence of the difference between physical labor and mental labor does not owe its birth to the foundation of the socialist society.... Its existence within the working class is both a manifestation of the lack of development in the forces of production and also a kind of manifestation of the class differences left behind from the old society. It is a remnant of capitalism in the socialist society. We must realize that if it is not overcome, or if it is allowed to develop further, it is possible that the difference will expand and even be transformed into antagonism anew.” As a positive program, the article went on to say, “In a socialist enterprise, the managers are representatives of the working class. They should take part not only in mental labor... but also in physical labor.” 51

51

Ibid., p. 140.

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Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

Clearly, Mao’s positive program did not make any major breakthrough in scientific management under socialism, because the problem is larger than managers’ willingness to integrate or participate in physical labor. As the article pointed out, the problem is a result of both the low level of productive forces and capitalist ideology. Thus, the fundamental remedy, beyond the ideological remolding of old managers, is still raising the level of productive forces and training more workers to be managers. Despite this onesided-ness, Mao at least recognized the problem and attempted to find answers, rather than justifying every remnant of the old society as inevitable, which was Liu’s method. Though Mao did not have all the solutions, he pointed the direction for future generations.

Party to Lead or Follow?

Denying the existence of class contradiction under socialism, Liu Shaoqi wanted an “open door” policy for party members, to turn the party of the proletariat into a “party of the masses.” In terms of the relationship between the party and mass organizations, Liu took the position that mass organizations should come first. “Be it the party, the government, the army, or any popular organization, when it carries out mass work, it should accept the leadership of the mass organizations.… The Party could only assist, but not exercise leadership over mass organizations.” 52 There were definitely real problems of arbitrary leadership by many party members who led by decree and directive rather than by persuasion and moral influence. This problem plagues many young communists who are just learning how to lead, and the problem was intensified by the CPC having state power. However, it is one thing to struggle for a correct method of leadership, and something else to advocate abdicating leadership altogether. As 80% of the party 52

Lowell Dittmer, op. cit., p.227.

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members were workers and peasants with very little education or technical skill, Liu’s line amounted to turning everything (including the state) over to the bourgeois experts and the old ruling class, who were already leaders of many mass organizations and enterprises. Mao differed from Liu again on this crucial question. He maintained that the CPC was “the political party of the proletariat, the vanguard of the proletariat, and not a party of the masses in general.”53 He maintained the need for centralized leadership under one guiding center, and also that of the “seven sectors — industry, agriculture, commerce, cultural and education, the army, the government and the party — it is the party that exercises overall leadership.” This is so, because “without the party’s leadership — the dictatorship of the proletariat would be impossible. It would be enough to shake the party, to weaken, for the dictatorship of the proletariat to be shaken and weakened in an instant.” 54 Though this line had negative effects when put into practice — namely, too much interference by non-experts in the experts’ work, the party substituting for the masses, and leadership by declaration — again Mao was correct in principle on the leading role of the party.

Non-partisan vs. Marxist Media

Two different views affecting China’s direction were also apparent on the role of the ideological superstructure after the 1949 revolution. As early as the ’30s, Mao had stated very sharply that art and literature must serve the oppressed class. After 1949, a struggle occurred around the role of the media. Maintaining that all public opinion-making media have

“Constitution of the CPC Tenth National Congress,” The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Documents, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1973,) p.61. 54 Basic Understanding of the Communist Party of China, (Shanghai: Peoples’ Publishers, 1974,) Translated and Published by Canada’s Norman Bethune Institute, 1976, p.76. 53

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a class character, Mao specified the following tasks for the press under socialism: one, “to mobilize and organize all people into a powerful force to realize the various great tasks prescribed by the party;” two, “to integrate the creativeness of the masses with their emotions and energy;” three, and most important, “to present convincing arguments to attack the various shades of opportunism, conservatism, and destructive capitalism.”55 We now see that during the Cultural Revolution, especially when the “gang of four” dominated the propaganda apparatus of the party and state, Mao’s line, in the main correct, was mechanically applied to the point of becoming metaphysical. During that period, not only counter-revolutionary views were suppressed, but all views different from the official party line. The intellectual atmosphere was very repressive. However, these are mistakes of implementation. It does not affect the principle and the orientation guiding Mao’s line, which is consistent with Lenin’s words: “We do not intend to make our publication a mere storehouse of various views. On the contrary, we should conduct it in the spirit of strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be expressed by the word ‘Marxism.’” 56 Liu and his supporters’ view on the role of the media once again revealed their admiration for foreign things. While correctly criticizing the one-sidedness in the party press’ news coverage, Liu went too far when he called for the New China News Agency to become an independent “worldwide news agency” on the model of Reuters or UPI. His reasoning was that journalism in other countries was “objective” and “truthful.” Contradicting Mao’s view that “what to publish in the press depends on whether or not it benefits the people,” Mao Zedong, “Letter to Journalist Comrades,” Jan. 12, 1958, quoted in Lowell Dittmer, op. cit., p.278. 56 Lenin, “Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra,” Sept. 1900, quoted in Carry the Great Revolution on the Journalist Front Through to the End, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1969,) p.21. 55

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Liu supported publishing indiscriminately all views from all classes. He wanted “news for the whole people.” Lu Ting Yi, former head of the Central Committee propaganda department, made it even more explicit by saying, “Our party papers and journals should adapt themselves to the needs of all classes, including the bourgeoisie.” 57 While we deplore one-sided coverage by the CPC press, we condemn even more vigorously the view that the press has to serve all classes, which indicates a prejudiced illusion on the nature of the press in capitalist countries. It is clear that as a public opinion-making tool, all media serve the interest of one class or another. The superiority of Western journalism is not its “objectivity,” but its sophisticated method of serving the bourgeoisie without appearing to. This reflects the strength of bourgeois democracy’s ability to deceive, and the relative maturity of the bourgeois class as compared to the proletariat. The proletariat should learn all these sophisticated methods, not in order to deceive, but to make its propaganda easier to assimilate and more readily accepted. But to adopt wholesale the Western orientation is wrong. It represents Liu and supporters’ “consolidate New Democracy and appease all classes” line rather than building for socialism and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. The result of Liu’s line would not be “non-partisan” as he pretended. In 1957, Teng To, a non-party intellectual, refused to publish Mao’s report on the Conference on Propaganda Work, the Supreme State Conference and other party policies. Liu’s non-partisan line was just a cover for his own partisanism, a cover-up for his opposition to Mao’s lines and policies which at that time still had the support of the majority of the party.

57

Ibid., p.11.

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Political Manifestations: 1949 to 1965

Academics Pitted Against Politics

The struggle over the line on education, since it involves the training of future leaders, perhaps best crystallized the two views on China’s direction. Denied opportunity for education and consequent upward mobility in the old society, the workers and peasants pinned their hopes on the new society to provide their children the longed-for opportunity. It was slow in coming. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, the people raised many complaints about the educational system. Complaints focused on the high tuition cost in the universities and the concentration of schools of higher learning in cities far from the villages and costly in board fees. The strongest criticism was of the admission policy which absolutized academic credentials, especially the students’ ability to memorize. The people considered this discriminatory against students from worker-peasant backgrounds, who were deprived of the proper learning environment since birth and were occupied in helping with household chores. The controversy over Chang Tieh-sheng a few years after the Cultural Revolution best demonstrated the two-line struggle on the last criticism. A youth in China’s northeastern Liaoning province, Chang failed his college entrance examination. His letter condemning the examination system appeared on the front page of the People’s Daily on August 10, 1973. It stated the reason for his failure. He “had finished junior middle school in 1966, gone to the countryside to work in a commune in 1968 and became a leader of a production team there. He spent some 18 hours every day at his work since his rustification. The heavy work load left him with no time to review his middle school lessons, and he was therefore unable to answer the questions in geometry, physics, and chemistry on the college entrance examination.” 58 He claimed that he would have passed the Peoples’ Daily, Aug. 10, 1973, quoted in Parris H. Chang, Power and Policy in China, 2nd and enlarged edition, (U.S.A.: The Pennsylvania State 58

University Press, 1978,) p.107-108.

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exam if he had taken two days for preparation, but he didn’t because it came during the busy summer season. In supporting Chang’s indictment against those “bookworms who had done no productive work in the past except studying,” Liaoning posed the following questions in an editorial: “Should the cultural tests be chiefly aimed at understanding the applicant’s ability in analysis and solving problems, or at checking how well he remembers his middle school lessons; should the main (our emphasis) criterion for enrollment be based on an applicant’s constant behavior on the three great revolutionary movements (class struggle, production struggle, and scientific experiment), or on the marks of the cultural tests he takes?” 59

Reforms and Upgrading

In China, the fundamental way to give peasants and workers more equal opportunity in education is not simply to make the main criterion political rather than academic, as the Liaoning Daily mechanically posed the question. One needs both political clarity and academic ability to excel in learning. The fundamental way to change the situation is to raise the productive forces so that no one, even peasant children who used to work 18 hours a day, are denied education. But until that condition is achieved, it is clearly wrong to withhold support for any moves that expand opportunity to the workers and peasants. Along with pushing for changes in the admission policy, Mao criticized the examination system, pushed to make fulltime institutions more closely related to production, and tried to upgrade workers to technicians by establishing part-time institutions. Mao wanted the “educational policy to enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both

59

Liaoning Daily, July 19, 1973, quoted in Parris H. Chang, op. cit.

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socialist consciousness and culture.” 60 Liu on the other hand promoted an elite attitude among students. He looked down on the part-time institutions, remarking that “those who can’t afford the full-time system must make do with the part-time system.” He told students in 1948 that “you have to concentrate on your studies. You may inquire about things happening outside the window, but you should not be distracted from your studies thereby.” He criticized the revolutionary schools set up in Yenan during the period of resistance against Japan as “unorthodox” and advocated that universities should “run according to the experience of western Europe countries, Britain, the United States, France, and Japan.” 61 While we do not deny some of the positive aspects of the western education system, Liu’s bias blinded him to the defects of these schools in terms of curriculum and methods of teaching.

Effect of Retrenchment

Given his responsibility for implementation of party lines and policies, his outlook had very bad consequences. They were worse during the retrenchment period after the Great Leap failure, when his line was the most dominant influence. Reporting on this, John Wilson Lewis wrote, “One of the major consequences of the re-emphasis on professionalism was a reduction in the number of university students from worker and-peasant families, and a corresponding increase in those from the families of senior cadres and ’the exploiting class.’ Thus at Peking University the number of students from worker and peasant families fell from nearly 67% in 1958 to only 38% in 1962, while the number of students of ’exploiting class’ background was more than double. Many of the university’s professors were contemptuous of proletarian students, referring to them as ’coarse tea cups not amenable

Mao Zedong, “On the Correct Handling of Contradiction Among the People,” Selected Readings, (Peking: Foreign Language Press,) p.459. 61 Lowell Dittmer, op. cit, p.268-271. 60

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to fancy carving’ and resenting the fact that such students had obtained university places by means of (political) ladders. Of 237 students admitted to the eight departments of natural science in 1958, only 45 graduated with their original class, the others having been expelled or held back.... At Peking Technical College, more than 800 of the 919 cadres and military men sent there as students were ’weeded out’ as were 200 at Tsinghua. Of 108 students expelled from Peking Commercial College, some 94% were of working class origin, a well informed and favored visitor to China had written in 1967. ’Investigation into the universities and senior middle schools in the cities provided a shock, after 17 years of socialist China, over 40% of the students are from bourgeois background and capitalist families, even if these were only 5% of the population.’” 62 At the peak of influence of the revisionist lines, the period of retrenchment after the Great Leap, many of the educational institutions in the communes were slashed. The number of institutions of higher learning decreased from 841 in 1960 to 400 two years later. The number of commune schools dropped from 22,715 with 2.3 million pupils during the Great Leap to 3,715 with only 266,000 students in 1962.63 In the same manner, many skilled workers trained in the part-time technical schools and promoted to managers and technicians during the Great Leap were returned to the shop floor and their positions taken by graduates from full-time institutions. This kind of discrimination against workers and peasants led to their ready response to Mao’s call to seize power from bureaucrats during the Cultural Revolution.

Health Care for Whom?

Similar struggle occurred over whom medical workers

John Wilson Lewis, The City in Communist China, (California: Stanford University Press, 1971) p.266, 267. 63 Donald J. Murrio, “Egalitarian Ideal and Education Fact in Communist China,” quoted in Lowell Dittmer, op. cit., p.276. 62

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should serve. Liu’s emphasis was on “low-risk research in urban hospitals that are well-staffed and well-equipped rather than high-risk operations to take medical facilities to the peasants.” 64 Mao responded, “Tell the ministers of public health that the ministry works only for 15% of the nation’s population, and that of this 15% only the lords are served. The broad masses of peasants do not get medical treatment, and they are provided with neither doctors nor with medicine.” 65 As a result of Liu’s line, the number of hospital beds in the cities rose from 50,000 in 1954 to 340,000 in 1966 without corresponding increase in the villages. Instead, the number of health centers in the communes during the post-Great Leap retrenchment was cut from 290,000 to 70,000, while the number of urban clinics increased from 43,000 to 84,000. 66 Jan Myrdal reported that in LiuLing, in 1967 one worker with a minor pain in the small of his back had to spend $200 (almost a half year’s pay) and lost 30 working days to wait in line in the doctor’s office in the city.67

Sino-Soviet Relations: From Good to Bad

The two-line struggles prior to the Cultural Revolution were not restricted to domestic issues. They extended to military and foreign policy issues as well. The struggle over foreign policy was tightly interwoven with the Sino-Soviet relationship after China’s liberation in 1949. To give historical perspective to the two-line struggle among the CPC leadership, we will trace how the relationship turned from good to bad. In its first Five-Year Plan after liberation, China followed the Soviet model of economic development. The Soviet Union was the only country willing to provide aid, and the only

Lowell Dittmer, op. cit., p.273. Ibid. 66 Ibid., p.280. 67 Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, China: The Revolution Continued, (New York: Vintage Books, 1972) p.114. 64 65

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socialist model in the world. Its rapid development captured the admiration and mirrored the aspirations of many Chinese leaders, even to the point of absurdity. In 1958, Mao talked about the slavish attitude and warned of the dangers: “No matter whether the Soviet Union’s articles were accurate or not, Chinese people obeyed them, implemented them. In everything, the Soviet Union is number one.... In studying, we must combine a sense of independence and creativity, while to adopt the system and regulations of the Soviet Union rigidly is to contravene the spirit of independence and creativity...” 68 While the Soviet Union was genuinely revolutionary, slavishness towards it was wrong, but not catastrophic. With the series of events after 1956, however, such slavishness could mean the CPC’s selling out socialist revolution in China and other revolutionary struggles around the world. Stalin died in 1953. He was succeeded by Khrushchev, proven by history to be a coward, a loyal descendant of Bernstein and Kautsky, and an unworthy leader of the party founded by Lenin’. Threatened by the seeming might of U.S. nuclear weapons and motivated by careerism, he convened the infamous 20th Congress of the CPSU. There Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a dictator and dismissed all Stalin’s contributions to socialist construction in the Soviet Union and his leadership both in the international communist movement and in the struggle against fascism. Khrushchev’s denunciation was to serve his own sinister aim — to push out the revisionist program of the “three peacefuls,” that is, peaceful transition td socialism, peaceful competition, and peaceful coexistence between socialism and capitalism. Alleging that the international situation had developed favorably for the socialist countries, and that U.S. imperialism had been tamed by the socialist camp’s strength, 68

Mao Zedong, “Speech at the Cheng-tu Conference,” March 1958, Mao

Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xiu, p. 161.

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the thrust of Khrushchev’s program was unconditional support for world peace. The price for this unconditional support was heavy: give up struggle for national liberation by third world countries, because a single spark in any region could provoke the imperialists into an all-destructive nuclear war; and give up political struggles under socialism in order to engage in production to compete with capitalism. The logical conclusion of this program: a communist party should stop supporting national liberation struggles and other revolutionary struggles, supposedly because they increase the possibility of world war.

A Sad Turn

The revisionist program opposed every Leninist doctrine on war and peace, on proletarian internationalism, and on the nature of both imperialism and class struggle. Khrushchev completed his revisionist program in the 22nd Congress of the CPSU with the additional concepts of “the party of the whole people” and “the state of the whole people.” The renegade claimed that the Soviet Union had developed to the point where all aspects of class contradictions had disappeared. Thus, he saw no need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, nor for the instrument to exercise it, namely, the party of the proletariat. He said that the Soviet Union was approaching communism, so the party and the state should be for everybody. This program was contrary to the reality of the Soviet Union, as well as to Marxist-Leninist theory about the nature of socialist society and the character and tasks of the state and party during the transition from socialism to communism. It was, in short, a line of class capitulation giving the overthrown classes a new lease on life and invalidating any ideological and political struggles against the remnants of capitalism. It was a sad turn — the party that made the first socialist revolution in the world becoming revisionist. Worse still was that Khrushchev tried to use the CPSU’s prestige to force

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other communist parties to adopt the revisionist program as the general line for the international communist movement. When the CPC, and particularly Mao, resisted this corrupt program and Khrushchev’s high-handedness, the latter initiated the ugliest and most chauvinist policies toward China. On November 17, 1957, in order to gain China’s support for his program, Khrushchev made the friendly gesture of signing an agreement to help China develop her own nuclear weapon system. But the two parties’ differences were hardly resolved. During that year, when representatives from socialist bloc nations and other communist parties met in Moscow, China had to fight hard to ensure that the conference’s Moscow Declaration reflected more than just the Soviet program. Though some elements of the Soviet line were included, China was able to win approval of theses that upheld the necessity for armed struggle and that “U.S. imperialism is the center of world reaction.” The Moscow Declaration also established the principles of equality between fraternal parties, and resolution of differences through mutual consultation. There was also agreement that socialist countries should provide mutual support for one another. Then came the Quemoy incident in 1958. With U.S. support, Chang Kai Shek transferred approximately 200,000 troops to Quemoy Island, a stone’s throw from the Chinese mainland. China appealed to the Soviet Union for support against this threat. Khrushchev arrived in Peking in July, and laid out the condition for support: allow the Soviet Union to establish naval and air bases at the principal Chinese port cities. Mao flatly rejected this blackmail as infringement on China’s territorial sovereignty by the Soviet Union. But Khrushchev did not subdue his attack on China. In November 1958, Khrushchev told Hubert Humphrey in a public interview that the Chinese commune system was “old-fashioned and reactionary.” His comments were open violation of the

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Moscow Declaration, and open interference in China’s domestic affairs. They confirmed that Khrushchev would do anything to appease the U.S. imperialists he considered his partners in world peace.

Pushed to Open Polemics

In September 1959, egged on by the U.S. imperialists, India attacked China’s border. In support of Nehru, the Soviet news agency TASS openly condemned China. The following month, during the 10th anniversary of China’s liberation, Khrushchev openly attacked China on China’s platform, and in his private meeting with Peng Teh Huai, praised Peng as a most courageous person. Peng had already been purged from CPC leadership because of his opposition to the Great Leap Forward. Khrushchev publicly lashed out again in the 1960 Bucharest meeting of representatives from fraternal communist parties, calling the Chinese delegates “madmen” who wanted to unleash a new world war. He labelled the Chinese nationalists in the Sino-lndian dispute and characterized the Chinese Communist leaders as “leftadventurists, pseudo-revolutionaries and sectarian.” During the same year Khrushchev elevated the party-to-party conflict over ideological questions to the state-to-state level. He abruptly withdrew 10,000 Soviet scientific personnel, destroyed the contracts for over 200 industrial projects, and terminated all economic trade, and military and nuclear assistance. These actions caused the Chinese tremendous economic difficulties. Throughout these incidents China was quiet, mainly negotiating privately with the Soviet Union to resolve the problems. The open Nine Polemics started only when Khrushchev began circulating to CPSU party organizations and members on July 14, 1963 a letter openly attacking China. Khrushchev’s hostility towards socialist China continued after the Sino-lndian clash in 1962 when he supplied military aid to India along with the United States. Last but not least, the

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Soviet Union signed a treaty with the United States to develop its own nuclear weapons to defend herself. The Nine Polemics, published between summer of 1963 and summer of 1964, were thus an inevitable response to Khrushchev’s revisionism. The Proposal Concerning the General Line in the International Communist Movement is one of the most important anti-revisionist theoretical works. The General Line and the Nine Polemics affirmed the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on proletarian internationalism, and the correct outlook towards war and peace, towards imperialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The General Line calls for “Workers of all countries unite, workers of the world, unite with the oppressed peoples and oppressed nations; oppose imperialism and reaction in all countries, strive for world peace, national liberation, people’s democracy and socialism; consolidate and expand the socialist camp; bring the proletarian world revolution step-by-step to complete victory; and establish a new world without imperialism, without capitalism and without the exploitation of man by man.” It is considered by all genuine revolutionaries as the watchwords of a proletarian internationalist program.69 China in 1964 was a country surrounded by hostile forces on all sides. Describing the intense situation, David Milton and Nancy Dall Milton wrote, “China in the fall of 1964 was a nation under the gun. The American Seventh Fleet lay in wait off the coast as the United States actively engaged in the aerial and naval bombardment of China’s neighbor and socialist ally, North Vietnam. To the southwest, India was once again building up her shattered forces with the help of the United States and the Soviet Union.” 70 But because of China’s correct foreign policy of relying on A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1963,) p.4. 70 David and Nancy Dall Milton: The Wind Will Not Subside, Years in Revolutionary China – 1964-1969, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976,) p.4, 5. 69

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the “small friends” who were fighting imperialism, China won many allies. These friends proved to be real supporters who helped China regain its legitimate seat in the United Nations in 1971. The extent of China’s friendship with third world countries and friends in capitalist countries was described by the Miltons on the occasion of China’s 1964 national day. They wrote of the 2,600 guests representing countries all over the world, “China was welcoming to her revolutionary celebrations a heterogeneous group of nations and individuals, allied in no formal way, sharing, however, the elusive but compelling interest in standing up to one of the two superpowers. There came together in Peking the fraternal parties of Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and Indonesia, drawn together in their varying degrees of anti-revisionism by the American superpower’s Southeast Asian war; Rumania and Albania, the small resistors of the Eastern European policies of the other superpower, and the tiny pro-Chinese splinter parties which had appeared in Ceylon, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand.… Prince Sihanouk, still successful in his long struggle to maintain Cambodia’s tenuous neutrality, turned comfortably and confidently towards his giant neighbor.... His presence was a triumphant component of China’s policy of uniting all those threatened by U.S. imperialism. So, too, was the presence of the brilliantlyrobed representatives from the hopeful nations of Africa. Chou Enlai’s trip to 14 African nations earlier in the year had carried with it the hope for a second Bandung Conference, and increasing Sino-African solidarity seemed a not unreasonable expectation.” 71 So it was not coincidence that China became the true center of support for national liberation struggles and other people’s struggles, and that many parties, especially in Southeast Asia, called themselves Maoist parties. It was not just what the CPC said, but what it did in support of their struggles, that earned the Chinese 71

Ibid., p.6.

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great respect. Only the revisionists, trying to cover up their increasing isolation in the world because of their chauvinism, would shamelessly slander China’s policies as nationalist.

Line of March’s Blatant Opportunism In this regard, the Line of March’s opportunism has been

blatantly revealed. In their article, “The Trial of the Gang of Four and the Crisis of Marxism” (May-June 1981) they tried to substantiate their idealist scheme that China from Mao to Deng had always been reactionary nationalist. Line of March paid lip service to support for the General Line and first eight polemics, but without once addressing the correct lines in these documents, or any of Khrushchev’s chauvinist actions towards China during that period. Line of March even tried to credit the first eight polemics to Liu Shaoqi and his followers, even though Line of March couldn’t explain how these authors are today practicing exactly the policies for which they had previously criticized the Soviet Union. (Line of March is probably surprised to hear of an informal agreement among present CPC leaders to reverse the verdict on the line in the nine polemics.) Line of March’s opportunism is again evident in the totally different methods of analysis applied to the Cultural Revolution and China’s foreign policies. On the Cultural Revolution, they ignored all Mao’s real struggles against the revisionists, as well as the concrete problems of stratification, polarization, and bureaucracy which prompted the Cultural Revolution. Instead they repudiate that movement based solely on Mao’s incorrect “restoration of capitalism” thesis, which actually was systematically developed only after the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, analyzing foreign policies, they could not find any incorrect line advocated by China, so they ignored all the correct lines and the countless examples of support to national liberation struggles, picking out a few isolated instances to prove their points. The validity of their facts is

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questionable. Given their possible validity, they are not basis to generalize that Mao’s policies were nationalistic. At worst, the particular instances were mistaken responses of a basically proletarian internationalist under pressure from obvious chauvinist policies of the powerful Soviet Union. Similarly, Stalin is not at the same low level as Khrushchev even though Stalin made chauvinist mistakes trying to force the CPC to unite with Chiang Kai Shek instead of risking civil war prior to China’s victory. Line of March’s flip-flop, changing their methodology 180 degrees within one article, only exposes their opportunism. Trapped in their preconceived idealist conceptions of the CPC and Mao (ideas originally Khrushchev’s) they resort to any method, isolated fact or partial argument to prove their points. We will have more polemics on Line of March, but here we should return to the two-line struggles within the CPC on its foreign policies, struggles which were interwoven with the different views towards the Soviet Union.

People’s Army or Soviet Model

One serious struggle was on how to build up China’s military strength. Peng Teh Hai and others, such as Jo Jui Hsing, then head of the People’s Liberation Army, put the most emphasis on modern technology to build up the army along the Soviet model. In the military report to the Eighth Party Congress on September 18, 1956, Peng said, “Modern military science is the concentrated expression of all sciences. Officers of the modernized revolutionary troops must possess all kinds of knowledge in science, culture, technology, and laws of the modern warfare. But we lack the knowledge in this respect. Therefore, learning becomes the central task that surpasses everything.” From whom could the Chinese military learn? The Soviet Union, of course. “In the beginning of our modernization, the demand to learn every advanced experience from the Soviet Union was a correct one. Our record of learning in the last few years was

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tremendous. It is no doubt that learning from the advanced experience of the Soviet military will still be the main direction of our future learning, because the Soviet military is the most advanced modernized revolutionary troops. Its military science is superior, its military technology is of firstrate quality, and it has tremendous experience in directing warfare.” He repeated the same theme in the speech delivered during the 30th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army in the fall of 1957, saying, “We must learn from all advanced countries. The first one we must learn from is the great Soviet military.” 72 True, the Soviet military was at that time the most modernized revolutionary army. However, it was one thing to heap praise on the Soviet military, and totally another to adopt it as the model for China, especially under the conditions at that time. Given the prevailing economic conditions in China, there were two implications of China’s military developing along the Soviet line. One was heavy reliance on military supplies from that country. The Chinese troops, main pillar of the socialist state, would be vulnerable to chauvinist blackmail by the Soviets. Khrushchev’s revisionist program and the CPC’s official difference with it were immaterial to the Chinese revisionists. Secondly, to build a modern Soviet-type military would mean that China’s economy had to follow the Soviet model, giving priority to the production of the means of production, particularly military hardware. This had already proven unworkable in China’s condition of an extremely weak economic base. Mao rejected this line and hoped to guarantee China’s independence by concentrating on the development of atomic weapons, either with or without Russian aid, and of building a mass, rather than a Western style, professional army. Mao outlined his concept of the road to follow as early as 1956: “Do you want atomic weapons? If you do, you must decrease 72

Peng Dehuai, Materials of Peng Dehuai, (Hong Kong, in Chinese,) p.37.

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the proportion of military expenditure and increase economic construction. Or do you only pretend to want them? In that case, you will not decrease the proportion of military expenditure, but decrease economic construction.” 73 Along this line of building a mass army of the Yenan type, Mao wanted the army to engage in production to strive for self-sufficiency in grain and other daily necessities so as not to impose a burden on the strained economy; in contrast, military leaders wanted the army to concentrate on military exercise, because to them participation in production, was a distraction from military training. They charged that Mao’s type of army was unprofessional. The revisionists proved once again to be right dogmatist, proceeding from ideas of a Westernized modern army, and not from China’s concrete conditions and capabilities. Mao’s concept of relying on the people rather than just technology was not only strategically correct but also the only affordable option. A serious dispute erupted on how to deal with the U.S. imperialist war of aggression against Vietnam when the United States escalated its war effort in 1965. Consistent with their revisionist stand, Liu Shaoqi and company called for the “three reconciliations and one reduction” — reconciliation with Chinese capitalists, U.S. imperialists, and Soviet revisionists, and reduction of foreign aid to national liberation struggles, particularly the Vietnamese. Lo Jui Hing, then commander of the PLA, and Peng Teh Hai called for rapprochement with the Soviet Union in order to obtain military equipment to wage an offensive war. They planned to send troops to Vietnam as a deterrent to imperialist attack. Mao criticized Liu’s view as absolutizing the united front from above, a class capitulationist line, and Peng’s view as adventurist with illusions about the Soviet Union. Blind to reality, Line of March lied that “in 1965, China Mao Zedong, “On the Ten Major Relationships,” Selected Works, Vol. V, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1977,) p.289. 73

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refused to join a united front (with the Soviet Union — the author) in defense of Vietnam.” Line of March hoped that this would again prove Mao’s reactionary nationalism; and afraid that people wouldn’t believe them, they even used Edgar Snow’s writing to support their claim. But what did Edgar Snow really say in the book Line of March mentioned? He said, “By 1965 the United States’ bombing attacks on Vietnam, close upon China’s border, threatened China with invasion. Liu wanted to send a Chinese delegation to the Soviet 23rd Congress to reactivate the Sino-Soviet alliance. Mao resolutely refused to be drawn into a position of dependence, as in Korea, and a possible double-cross. Instead he insisted upon a posture of complete self-reliance on a people’s war of defense — while continuing to build the Bomb — and heavy support for, but not intervention in Vietnam.” 74 Did this quote prove Mao’s nationalism? Only the revisionists would think so. And China gave a total of 200 million Chinese dollars to aid Vietnam during the Vietnamese struggle, not a small sum for such a poor country. While we may criticize Mao for his tactical inflexibility in not wanting to make any united front with the Soviet Union, his criticism of the Soviet Union was valid. The Soviets had already sold out the national liberation movements in the world. And Khrushchev had pressured Vietnam to conciliate to U.S. imperialism; the objective of the little aid the Soviets gave, hardly commensurate with their strength, was to gain influence in directing the Vietnamese struggle. If anyone should be criticized for lack of proletarian internationalism, it was the Soviet Union, not China. And proletarian internationalism did not equal an absolute united front with the Soviet Union.

Parrots of Soviet Revisionism... Obviously Line of March knew that using China’s refusal to 74

Edgar Snow, op. cit., p. 19.

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form a united front as proof of her abandoning internationalism for nationalism was a shaky argument. Reality speaks louder than words. While they slander and lie about China’s posture towards Vietnam during the Vietnam War, they are also forced to admit, “Whatever the theoretical positions being articulated in CPC leadership, and despite some serious political errors, China did not break the ranks of those combatting imperialism during the height of the Vietnam War. Instead the fierceness of the confrontation in Vietnam served to highlight the vacillating character of the modern revisionists, as the Soviets were constantly cautioning the Vietnamese and stress moderation and compromise…” 75 Then why make such a big fuss about China’s refusal to unite with the Soviet Union if the latter played such a destructive role in relation to anti-imperialist struggles? To the Line of March, keeping a formal united front in word is more important than actual support for liberation. They defend the Soviet Union at the end of the above paragraph with the claim that “though the Soviet Union did not abandon the anti-imperialist forces defending Vietnam.” 76 Another typical example of Line of March’s methodology — looking for any shred just to prove their point that China is nationalist, regardless of whether the facts and words are correct or consistent. In fact there is nothing new in Line of March’s lie that “China refused to join a united front in defense of Vietnam, and there were a number of incidents over the next few years of interference with arms being shipped across China to Vietnam.” 77 Soviet revisionists said the same thing in 1972 in a book called Critique of Mao Zedong’s Theoretical Conception. They charged that “the Maoists have not only failed to give the fighting Vietnamese people adequate military and economic assistance but also in every way “The Trial of the Gang of Four…”, Line of March, op. cit., p.44. Ibid., p.44. 77 Ibid., p.32. 75 76

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hampered the other, socialist countries in their efforts to do so.” 78 If this is where Line of March’s line came from, it should be cited as their reference. Maybe they hoped to get over with their creativity. In charging that China collaborated with the U.S. imperialists against the Soviet Union, Line of March is objectively echoing the CPSU, which accused China of being responsible for the U.S. attack on Vietnam. The CPSU said, “The U.S.A. would never have dared to launch its aggression had the CPC leadership not pursued its antiSoviet line and not attacked the unity of the socialist countries. When escalating their aggression in Vietnam, the U.S. imperialists undoubtedly reckon with the Great Han chauvinism of the Chinese leaders and (their) stubborn refusal to accept any proposals on concerted action by China, the U.S.S.R. and the other socialist countries in helping the Vietnamese people beat back the U.S. aggression.”79 If the Soviet Union sounds shameless, draw your own conclusion on the Line of March, which adopted and defended wholesale this revisionist line, but won’t admit it openly.

...and Soviet Chauvinism To Line of March, no national contradictions exist, and we

should be a big, happy family. Thus the international division of labor among the socialist camp countries is correct. Why should any one country worry about building machines if the Soviet Union will give them to it? Because all socialist countries are one happy family without antagonistic contradictions in their fundamental interests, the Soviet army has the right to go into any country to straighten it out. The invasion of Czechoslovakia was revolutionary, because it was to preserve that country’s socialist course. Likewise, the invasion of Afghanistan was a victory for the Red Army, and Soviet tanks should roll into Poland, or into China because of 78

Critique of Mao Tse Tung’s Theoretical Conceptions, (Moscow: Progress

Publishers, 1972), p.75., 79 Ibid.

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China’s reactionary policies. According to Line of March, the powerful Soviet Union should be the socialist countries’ police. The same thread underlies their liquidation of all national questions and national oppression under the beautiful call of class struggle. But they fail to see that those chauvinist moves not only have nothing to do with class struggle, they actually hinder class struggle. The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the possibility of invasion of Poland not only antagonized people in those countries and alarmed all people struggling against foreign domination, but also they gave the imperialists their greatest ammunition against communism and socialism. With their support of the Soviet Union’s chauvinist policies the Line of March stands on the same side as the imperialists. Reflecting the Chinese revisionists’ strong support for their Soviet counterparts, many CPC leaders and intellectuals disagreed with Mao’s assessment of the international situation that “the East wind prevails over the West wind.” First explained to Chinese students in Moscow in 1957, this phrase symbolized the decline of western imperialism, the growing strength of the socialist camp and the surging revolutionary movements for national liberation in the East. Khrushchev’s denunciation of Mao’s line was echoed by Teng To, a non-party intellectual, who ridiculed it as “big empty talk” in his daily newspaper column.

Danger in Slavishness

The two-line struggle on international affairs was actually a concentrated expression of the CPC leaders’ disagreements on the nature of Soviet revisionism. Differences linked to the Soviet Union had led before, and led again, to purges among the leadership. From Li Li San in the ’20s to Wang Ming in the ’30s, the question was whether-or-not to listen to Moscow’s directives (most of which had little to do with China’s reality). The struggle which unfolded prior to the Cultural Revolution

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was a result of the continued slavish attitude. Khrushchev’s revisionism had qualitatively increased the dangerous impact of that slavishness. It was clear that the two-line struggles on the nature of Khrushchev’s revisionism permeated all spheres. Advocates of his line, the core of the Long Marchers, were entrenched in all departments. The lack of unity on this question was clearly not restricted to those who were purged during the Cultural Revolution, because many who emerged from the movement intact also differed with Mao. It is evident from a speech made by Yeh Chien-ying, a Politburo member who was never purged, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. He said, “The motive for starting the Cultural Revolution was to oppose and prevent revisionism. As a political party, we certainly have to constantly raise vigilance to prevent us from taking the revisionist path of oppressing people at home and seeking hegemony abroad. The problem was when the Cultural Revolution was unleashed, there was an incorrect assessment of the reality in the party and in the country. A correct explanation of revisionism was also lacking.”80 With the party so divided over questions of direction and principles a split had objectively occurred even though superficially there was formal unity. The inherent conflict made an open split almost inevitable. It was a question of which line would prevail, Mao’s or Liu’s. Each side worked very hard to defeat the other’s lines and influence. Liu tried to suppress Mao’s line by non-implementation or distortion of his lines, through the state machinery directly under his control. As president of the government, Mao, when all other means failed, resorted to waging mass movements to eradicate Liu’s lines and influence. That was the basis for unleashing the Socialist Education Movement from 1962 to 1965. When it failed, the later Cultural Revolution resulted in Yeh Chien-yirig, “Talk at the Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China,” Red Flag, Oct. 2, 1979, p.2, In Chinese. 80

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temporary victory of Mao’s line. The masses, however, participated in the various movements unconscious of the two-line struggles and their implications. The people were drawn into motion mainly by the widespread bureaucracy and incorrect leadership of many party members. This, among other factors, contributed to the many mistakes in the course of the two movements.

The Prelude: Socialist Education Movement

Liu’s advocacy of spontaneous development of capitalism was most influential among peasants who as a semipropertied class incline toward private ownership of the means of production. Mao’s personal prestige and influence managed to contain the devastating influence of Liu’s line in the first stage after 1949. However, the Great Leap Forward mistakes gave Liu’s lines a new lease on life as a period of economic retrenchment began. New proposals by Liu (the freedom to trade, to have private plots, to have free markets, and to make farm contracts based on individual households) were adopted and implemented. Mao himself endorsed these measures as short-term tactical moves. Though these measures did help to revitalize the Chinese economy, there were also unpleasant consequences. One was that polarization in the countryside, which Mao had warned in the early ’50s was inevitable under conditions of private farming, increased at an alarming rate. Also, Liu pushed these measures not to supplement the collective form of agriculture, but to reject the general line on socialist construction formulated by Mao, and to implement the line of consolidating New Democracy. Referring to the problems during the economic retrenchment period, Mao told party leaders at a May 1963 meeting that as a result of ideological degeneration, there was widespread extravagance, waste, and cadres’ appropriating extra shares of food. In the same meeting, a

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participant told him that in Heilungkiang, the northern part of China, a rich landlord killed 38 people.81 In another speech, Mao made reference to the fact that rich landlords, encouraged by the liberal atmosphere, resorted to old practices of embezzlement, speculation, and buying up lands from poor peasants (who lost out in the free competition game promoted by Liu’s line). He said there were also incidents of poor peasants selling their daughters to become concubines of rich peasants.82 These were most discouraging signs for a supposedly socialist country. In spite of the improving economic situation, the political situation was bad. Mao’s sum-up was probably correct.

A Truly Mass Education movement

He gave three reasons for the phenomena. One was that opposing classes still existed in China. Second was a historical factor that land reforms were not sufficiently thorough, particularly in areas that were liberated relatively late. Mao said that in those areas, even the democratic revolution had not been completed and the feudal landlords were not defeated. These areas had more problems than others and needed another revolution. The third reason, he said, was the lack of consciousness among party cadres of the need for socialist education. Of all 11 provinces, only in one province did the leader carry out socialist education.83 These factors motivated Mao to launch the Socialist Education Movement in 1963. From the way he presented the Socialist Education Movement in various documents, Mao’s intention was clearly not to eliminate the economic measures operating at the time. As part of the concentric attack under

81

Mao Zedong, “Directive on the Socialist Education Movement,” May 1963,

Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xui, op. cit., p.439.

Mao Zedong, “Talk at the Pei Tai Ho Central Work Conference,” ibid., p.423. 83 Mao Zedong, “Talk at the Hangchow Conference,” May 1963, ibid., p.441. 82

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socialism, that is, to simultaneously build the material and spiritual conditions in society, he merely wanted to eliminate the bad political consequences that were evident. Thus, there were not specific targets or lines for the Socialist Education Movement to defeat. Mao saw it as “the most revolutionary struggle since 1949 that will touch on those within and without the party, and from upper levels to lower levels.” 84 His method was to start training and educating cadres above the Hsien level, then above the production brigade level, then cadres of production teams and eventually the active elements among the poor and middle peasants. He asked for leniency towards people who had made mistakes, and no punishment as long as they returned illegally amassed property. It was intended to be a truly mass education movement to instill people with socialist consciousness. If Mao had succeeded in implementing the Socialist Education Movement, the Cultural Revolution might have been avoided. But the inability to put the Socialist Education Movement into practice showed that the problem was more serious than the lack of socialist consciousness among the masses. The degeneration in political consciousness was backed up and defended by definite lines and powerful leaders in the party and state — particularly Liu Shaoqi. The targets of the Socialist Education Movement became more and more refined as it moved through different stages. Convinced there was a better course for China, Liu as head of state refused to implement the Socialist Education Movement agreed upon at the Peitaiho Conference in August 1962. Mao made another call for the campaign in May 1963, and the second time, stated its purpose more explicitly. “The struggle was one for the reeducation of men, for the reorganization of revolutionary class forces to wage sharp Mao Zedong, “Directive on the Socialist Education Movement,” ibid., p.437.

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and effective struggle against the forces of capitalism and feudalism which are launching an audacious attack upon us. It is a great movement to suppress their counter-revolutionary activities and to remould the majority of these elements into new men; it is also a campaign for the joint participation of cadres and the masses in productive labor and scientific experiment, with a view to bringing our party a step further in becoming a more glorious, greater and correct party, and making our cadres well-versed in politics and in business operations, both red and expert, well integrated with and supported by the masses, instead of being divorced from the masses and considering themselves officials and overlords.” 85

The Real Sabotage

Worried that the Socialist Education Movement might disrupt production, Deng Xiao-ping, then vice-premier, General Secretary of the CPC and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, published the Second Ten Points, also entitled Some Concrete Policy Formulation of the Central Committee of the CPC in the Rural Socialist Education Movement. The Second Ten Points greatly modified the tone of Mao’s First Ten Points. Parris Chang wrote, “The new directive set limits by spelling out detailed, concrete guidelines on all aspects of the struggle” which demanded that “at no stage of the movement should production be affected.”86 The content of Deng’s program might not be wrong by itself. However, the problem was not excesses but lack of momentum altogether, so calling for restriction amounted to putting another lid on the movement. Measuring production as the only criterion for the campaign was also one-sided. Nine months later, Mao openly rejected Deng’s line by putting forth six criteria. Production rated last in “Draft Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC on Some Problems in Current Rural Work,” commonly known as the First Ten Points, quoted in Parris H. Chang, op. cit., p. 149. 86 Deng Xiaoping, “Second Ten Points,” quoted in Parris H. Chang, p.151. 85

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priority. The real sabotage of the Socialist Education Movement was Liu’s Revised Second Ten Points, which turned the mass education movement into a police supervision movement. Instead of relying on the masses, Liu sent in work teams of outside cadres to spy on the peasants. The original intention of the Socialist Education Movement was to struggle against the influence of feudalism and capitalism, but Liu presented the struggle as one of resolving the “contradiction between the four cleans and the four uncleans (in politics, ideology, organization and economy), because he saw the problem not as a class problem, but “the overlapping of contradiction within the party and contradiction among the people.” 87 In reality, Liu’s line led to seeing the masses’ and cadres’ mistakes as antagonistic. Many lower level leadership were purged or demoted. The experience of the model commune Dazhai, which was only recently denounced, provides a good example. In a May 1972 article in Monthly Review, Neale and Deirdre Hunter reported on their interview with Chen Yuen Quia, the former head of the commune, on the work team sent by Liu Shaoqi to the commune. He said that in 1964 the grain output of the commune was 800 catties per mou (a Chinese acre). But the Socialist Education Movement leaders sent by Liu did not believe that report. They said even flat land with water conservation projects couldn’t have that kind of output. So the report from Dazhai (which had few water conservation projects and hilly land) had to be lies. The work team demanded to re-survey the land, and it turned out that the acreage was actually less than had been reported. Then the work team charged that the commune had moistened the grain and inflated the weight. Nothing of that sort had happened. Going through the commune’s books, the work team discovered that one work point was give to a cadre 87

Liu Shaoqi, quoted in Parris H. Chang, p. 154.

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attending public affairs. They seized on that incident to accuse the commune of falsifying records. Chen said the work team “regarded things as questionable which our people felt were quite all right.... To our people it seemed as if we were blamed for spending the bitter cold winters building new fields.” Liu sent 3,800 cadres to Dazhai and removed 80% of the existing leadership.88

Targeting Capitalist-Roaders

In the Central Work Conference held in January 1965, Mao condemned Liu’s method as left in form and right in essence. For the first time since the beginning of the movement three years before, Mao clearly stated the target of the Socialist Education Movement: “to rectify those in positions of authority within the party who take a capitalist road.”89 He used the same formulation as the target of the Cultural Revolution. Launched a few months later in the Central Committee Plenum, the Cultural Revolution was like a continuation of the Socialist Education Movement — only more intense, more focused and with a more mass character. The Socialist Education Movement proves that the Cultural Revolution was not spontaneous as far as Mao’s motive is concerned. It was an inevitable continuation of previous unsuccessful attempts to guide the country in the proper direction, to change the orientation of those leaders advocating a capitalist road for China, and to defeat their lines and influence when all else failed. Liu’s line had become so strong that a few months prior to the Cultural Revolution Mao was unable to get his writing published in Peking, a Liu stronghold under Mayor Peng Chen. Supporting the need for Neal and Deirdre Hunter, “Our Man in Tachai: Chen Yung-kuei and the Two-Line Struggle in Agriculture,” Monthly Review, (U.S.A.: May 1972), p.21-24. 89 Mao Zedong, “Problems Currently Arising in the Course of the Rural SEM,” commonly known as the 23 Points, quoted in Parris H. Chang, op. cit., p. 156. 88

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concentric attack under socialism, and supporting the socialist path as correct for China’s development, we support the Socialist Education Movement and Cultural Revolution as necessary moves, though we recognize the tremendous price and criticize the mistakes and shortcomings of both movements.

3: Cultural Revolution Unfolded In addition to the Socialist Education Movement in the countryside, Mao repeatedly urged the literature and arts circles, as well as the various propaganda arms, to reform their areas. Their failure to reform made the Cultural Revolution inevitable. In September 1965 during the CPC’s Central Work Conference, the Central Committee announced the launching of the Cultural Revolution. A group of five highranking party leaders was formed to direct the movement. Peng Chen, then Peking mayor and a Politburo member, was chosen head due to his close relationship with and strong influence among the intellectuals in the literature and arts.

Unleash or Restrict the Struggle

On November 10, 1965, Shanghai published an article entitled “On the New Historical Play Hai Jui Dismissal from Office” by Yao Wenyuan, a member of the so-called “gang of four.” That article addressed the controversy around a play and was officially recognized by CPC leaders as the shot that launched the Cultural Revolution.90 The play, written by Wu Han, a former history professor and leading non-party intellectual, was the story of a Ming dynasty official dismissed from office by the emperor who reacted negatively to the official’s criticism of him. The play defended the official and condemned the emperor. As it was common intellectual practice in China to use historical legends to criticize contemporary events or figures, the play was clear to many as an orchestrated attack on Mao for his treatment of Peng For a complete account of the events during the Cultural Revolution, see Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, China: The Revolution Continued, (New York: Vintage Books, 1972); Jean Daubier, A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, (U.S.A.: Vintage Books, 1974); Joan Robinson, The Cultural Revolution in China, (Maryland: 1969); and Edgar Snow, op. cit, p.65-89. 90

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Teh-huai, a former Minister of Defense who was purged in 1959 for slandering the Great Leap Forward, having close ties with the Soviet Union and various other crimes. The political content was condemned by Mao when the play was published in 1962. He had ordered criticism of the politics of the play by intellectuals. But the criticism was quickly turned into an academic debate on how to look at historic figures such as Hai Jui. The main proponent of this shift was Peng Chen. Amidst the widespread resistance to Mao’s criticism of the play, Yao’s article condemned with theoretical clarity the play’s political content. The Cultural Revolution was then officially launched. On May 16, 1966, the Central Committee under Mao’s leadership issued a circular criticizing the content of Peng Chen’s February 12 Outline Report on the Current Academic Discussion made by the Group of Five in charge of the Cultural Revolution. A new leading group was established to replace the old one. According to the circular of the Central Committee, Peng’s report was wrong on several line questions. The report obscured the sharp class struggle in the cultural ideological sphere. Point one of Mao’s circular stated, “Our country is now in an upsurge of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which is pounding at all the decadent ideology and cultural positions still held by the bourgeoisie and the remnants of feudalism.... Using muddled, self-contradictory and hypocritical language. . . it (Peng’s report) obscures the aims of this great struggle, which is to criticize and repudiate Wu Han and the considerable number of other anti-party and anti-socialist representatives of the bourgeoisie. There are a number of them in the Central Committee and in the party, government and other departments at the center as well as at the provincial, municipal and autonomous region level.” Point two of the circular charged that the report turned a political struggle into an academic struggle and point four criticized Peng’s report for obscuring the class content of

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truth to defend the bourgeoisie. It stated: “Just when we begin the counter-offensive against the wild attack of the bourgeoisie, the author of the report raised the slogan: ’Every one is equal before the truth.’” Point nine of the circular criticized the report’s attempt to restrict the movement: “At a time when the new and fierce struggle of the proletariat against the representatives of the bourgeoisie on the ideological front has only just begun, in many spheres and places it has not even started. . . the Report stresses again and again that the struggle must be continued ’under direction,’ with prudence,’ ’with caution’ and ’with the approval of the leading bodies concerned.’ All this serves to place restrictions on the proletariat left, to impose taboos and commandments in order to tie its hands, and to place all sorts of obstacles in the way of the Proletariat Cultural Revolution.” Last but not least, the circular charged that the group of five headed by Peng Chen actually opposed the Cultural Revolution and called for protecting students in the movement.91

Trying to Narrow the Target

This Central Committee circular set the tone for later events. With Mao’s endorsement of Nieh Yuan Tzu’s first big character poster (criticizing Lu Ping, head of Peking University, for refusing to revise the curriculum and teaching methods), the movement gathered steam. Following that big character poster put up by the young instructor of philosophy in Peking University, Red Guards appeared in schools and universities, leading the movement to criticize state and party bureaucrats. During this period Liu Shaoqi, then head of state, and his wife began to send “work teams” made up of cadres of middle echelon responsibility to the campuses to “direct the “Circular of the Central Committee of the CPC,” May 16, 1966 – A Great Historic Document (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1967). 91

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revolution.” The work teams hit the lower level cadres and students as a clear violation of the Central Committee circular. Mao later condemned and withdrew the work teams. In August 1966, the 11th Plenum of the Eighth Party Congress issued a 16-point program outlining the aim, targets, and method of struggle of the Cultural Revolution. This famous document, Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, points out the rationale behind the revolution. The Decision is important because it is the program of the revolution and serves as a reference point for summing up the whole period. The Decision said, “Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use old ideas, cultures, customs and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds and endeavor to stage a comeback.”92 The Cultural Revolution was to counter all that. “At present, our objective is to struggle against and overthrow those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic authorities and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art and all other parts of the superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic base so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system.” The “main force” of the revolution is “the masses of the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary intellectuals and revolutionary cadres.” It called on cadres to “trust the masses, rely on them and respect their interest.” 93 Many points were devoted to narrowing the target of attack. The Decision asked people to “win over the middle and unite with the great majority... achieve the unity of more than Decision of the CC of the CPC Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Adopted on Aug. 8, 1966, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 92

1966), p.1. 93 Ibid., p.1, 2.

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95% of the cadres and more than 95% of the masses.” The 16 points also cautioned against counter-revolutionary sabotage by stating, “To prevent the struggle from being diverted from its main targets, it is not allowed under whatever pretext, to incite the masses or the students to struggle against each other.” Furthermore, “as regards scientists, technicians and ordinary members of working staff, as long as they are patriotic, work energetically, are not against the Party and socialism and maintain no illicit relation with any foreign country, we should in the present movement continue to apply the policy of unity, criticism, unity. Special care should be taken of those scientists and technical personnel who have made contributions.” 94 To prevent possible disruption in production, the Decision urged that “the socialist education movement now going in the countryside and in enterprises in the cities should not be upset. When the original arrangements are appropriate and the movement is going well, they should continue in accordance with the original arrangement.” It also said, “The aim of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is to revolutionize people’s ideology and as a consequence to achieve greater, faster, better and more economic results in all fields of work.” It warned that “any idea of counterposing the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the development of production is incorrect.”95

Model Shanghai Experience

The 16-point program was actually a moderate program. If it had been followed correctly, many mistakes of the Cultural Revolution would have been prevented. As events unfolded, many factors prevented the full and correct implementation of these points, a not uncommon situation in a revolutionary movement. As Lenin said, real life is more varied and 94 95

Ibid., p.1, 11. Ibid., p.12.

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complex than any theory. Bolstered by this general program, the revolution soon reached the factories and there took a qualitative leap. It was January 1967 when Shanghai factories were affected. Due to the pivotal role of workers in production, their overall maturity and discipline, the movement took on a whole different character when it reached the factories. The revolution became real. In an event later called the January Storm, revolutionary workers in Shanghai seized power from leadership in factories and enterprises. A mass organization called the General Headquarters of the Revolutionary Workers was formed. At the same time, leading cadres opposed to the Cultural Revolution were using economic schemes to lure many workers away from the movement and trying to discredit the whole revolution. They paid workers bonuses and extra wages with which they bought all stocked-up goods in the stores, causing a shortage in the city. Workers were instigated to stage work stoppages and block bridges.96 Soon after taking control of the city, the General Headquarters with 10 other mass organizations issued a Message to the Entire Population of Shanghai which said: “Our revolutionary rebel workers, bearing in mind the teaching of Chairman Mao, have stood our ground in the face of this adverse current, have given proof of our high sense of revolutionary responsibility and, under extremely difficult conditions, have shouldered all the production tasks of our factories and plants, dealing a telling blow against the handful of party persons in authority, who are taking the capitalist road and smashing their big plot by which they attempted to ’thwart the revolution through sabotaging the revolution.” The Message asked those who had left their jobs a question, “By deserting your posts in production, whose

96

Joan Robinson, op. cit., p.58-61.

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interest are you serving?” 97 Again on January 9, the General Headquarters, this time with 31 more mass organizations, put out an “Urgent Notice.” It called for all workers who had left Shanghai to return, and called on them to “take firm hold of the revolution and promote production put forward by Chairman Mao and on the other hand, take an active part in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, while on the other hand remain steadfast at our posts of production and construction, persist in the 8hour day, strive to fulfill and over fulfill production plans, and do our best to turn out high quality products.” 98 As later events showed, these were not just general platitudes. Shanghai city, then under the leadership of Chang Chunchiao, another member of the so-called “gang of four,” was one of the areas that recovered most quickly in production after the Cultural Revolution. These two calls for unity and perseverance in production were the first by any mass organization during the Cultural Revolution, They were later officially endorsed and promoted by the Central Committee led by Mao as a positive example. Judging from the prominent publicity given to these two statements, Mao saw the Shanghai experience as the correct process for the Cultural Revolution’s unfolding and concluding. In fact, the situation at that stage was excellent. In place of the old bureaucrats sitting behind big desks, revolutionary committees were formed. The committees, made up of army personnel, cadres (party or nonparty) and workers, were modelled on the principles of the Paris Commune under the conditions of socialism and were set up in most enterprises, some as far away as Heilungkiang in the Northeast. Except The Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and Ten Other Revolutionary Mass Organizations, “Message to All Shanghai People,” Jan. 4, 1967, reprinted in Joan Robinson, op. cit., p.99. 98 The Shanghai Workers Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters and Thirty-one Other Revolutionary Mass Organizations, “Urgent Notice,” reprinted in Joan Robinson, op. cit, p. 102. 97

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for the army personnel, revolutionary committee members were elected by the masses and subject to recall any time. They were to run the factories and enterprises on a dayto-day basis. Rectification in the mass organizations against all kinds of wrong tendencies also began. Mao would have declared an end to the Cultural Revolution at that point, but a left line developed among many student and worker groups at the transfer of power and rectification of cadres and mass organizations. The left line took the form of doubting all cadres and the party, and refusing to let cadres or army personnel assume leading posts.

Disruption by Ultra-Left

Trying to redirect the revolution to a proper path, the center issued a call for great alliance in Peking Review. It said, “The class struggle is being waged under very acute and complicated circumstances. We hope dear workers and staff members, comrades, that you will heighten your vigilance, form a great revolutionary alliance,” uphold the policy of the revolutionary three-in-one combination and resolutely beat back the adverse current aiming at a counter-revolutionary restoration of capitalism.” 99 But under the ultra-left line leadership of Wang Li, Kuan Feng and Chi Ren Yu, leaders of the Central Committee Cultural Revolution Group, the call for great alliance was rejected. Disagreement among the masses quickly turned into violent confrontations. Confrontations involving the PLA occurred in Wuhan and Canton in the summer of 1967. In Canton, the British Legation was burned and other embassies were attacked. The ultra-leftists even called up the office of the Indonesia-Chinese Friendship Association in Indonesia and asked them to follow the Chinese lead to overthrow the Indonesian government. This prompted a threat by Suharto to cut diplomatic ties with China. Many historic sites were 99

Peking Review, March 3, 1967, #4.

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attacked and books were burned. In the course of the fighting, thousands died and many more were injured. Later, though the ultra-left leaders were purged from leading the revolution, enough damage was done. Later, they were discovered to belong to the May 16 Detachment, an organization that included as members many counterrevolutionaries who were purged prior to or during the Cultural Revolution. How many mistakes made were due to the left lines, or how many were conscious acts of the counterrevolutionaries to discredit the Cultural Revolution is open for dispute. It is enough that many honest cadres and intellectuals were hit during this period, and many were silenced after. It is hard to calculate the wounds inflicted. From October 1967 to February 1968 was a period of relative calm and order. Many more revolutionary committees were formed, party organizations were reshaped. New education programs were experimentally implemented. The government as well as revolutionary mass organizations appealed to the masses to restore the majority of cadres to their posts, and called for unity among all revolutionary-minded people. Again, the rightists used the opportunity to call for rehabilitation of purged rightists. Factionalism among students in campuses continued. At this point worker teams were sent to universities to restore and help supervise the transformation of curriculum. Revolutionary committees continued to be set up even in autonomous regions of Tibet and Sinkiang. By September 1968, they were in all 26 provinces. The network was developed and began to sink roots. At the 12th Plenum of the Eighth Party (October 1968) Congress, Liu Shaoqi, then head of state and number one target of the Cultural Revolution, was ousted.

Official Conclusion

Then in April 1969, the Ninth Party Congress was called. It was called a congress of victory and a congress of unity. In

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the press communique issued afterwards, it asked the people: “We should, under the leadership of the proletariat, consolidate the worker-peasant alliance, reeducate the intellectuals and win them over and unite all people that can be united to fight concertedly against the enemy.” The Ninth Congress also adopted a new party constitution. It allowed, for the first time, rank and file cadres’ direct access to the Central Committee and Chairman instead of only to their immediate supervisors. This was a lesson to prevent the suppression of opinions and criticisms from below by bureaucratic leaders, sabotage of party directives from the top. Revolutionary committees were institutionalized as a means to combine the party and the masses in exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to guarantee the party’s close link with the masses. A new Central Committee, 50% grassroots leaders of the Cultural Revolution, was elected. The turbulent stage of the Cultural Revolution was officially ended with the conclusion of the Ninth Congress. Everything else that happened later was not planned, and basically anticlimactic.

Consequences of the Cultural Revolution

The proletariat fought the Cultural Revolution out of necessity rather than choice. It was a battle that they had to fight – to safeguard the fortress of socialism when enemies among the ranks threatened to seize power. Mao was the battle general, who sized up and directed the assault. However, historical and social limitations left Mao’s troops ill-equipped for their tasks. Even though the enemy was temporarily forced to retreat, it was far from a decisive defeat. The proletariat’s casualties were also great. The victory of the Cultural Revolution was in the main lessons learnt. Politically, it did purge the party of a whole faction of revisionists, in particular the ringleader Liu Shaoqi. This significantly weakened their influence and gave Mao an

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uninterrupted decade to implement many of his correct lines. One of the most important gains was the consolidation of the commune system which was in danger of disintegration during the economic retrenchment period under Liu’s line leadership. The consolidation of the socialist economic base not only furthered the development of the socialist economy, but also made it all the harder for capitalism to be restored. The implementation of Mao’s line settled the question of whether a poor agrarian society like China could embark on the socialist road without having to consummate capitalism. It was a victory of dialectical materialism over the vulgar and mechanical materialism characteristic of Trotskyism and revisionism.

Steady Economic Growth

As a result of this consolidation, and the high consciousness of the masses, even though production was hampered during the Cultural Revolution, overall the damage was slight compared to the magnitude of the movement. The rate of recovery was rapid, and has continued with steady increases since then. Many economists acknowledge this is a tremendous accomplishment for a country so poor as China. In comparison, countries such as India are getting nowhere with capitalism. According to Siet Fung Shuan of Hong Kong University, who compiled statistics from the Asia Year Book and People’s Republic of China, an economic review by the U.S. Congress Economic Council in 1975 showed China’s GNP in 1966, the first year of the Cultural Revolution, was $144.6 billion. The respective figures for 1967, 1968, and 1969 (the years of the Cultural Revolution) were $140.5 billion, $140.9 billion and $156.7, billion. It was one year of a small decrease followed by years of a small increase. Productivity figures in 1970, 1971, and 1972 showed a steady increase, $178.9 billion, $190.5 billion and $197.4 billion, respectively. Calculated in percent growth, the average annual growth rate from 1965 to 1970 in

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agriculture, industry, construction and service was a steady growth of 4.1%, 8.5%, 4.1%, and 5.1%, respectively. The growth rate from 1970 to 1974 in those four areas was 4.6%, 9.4%, 9.2%, and 5.9%, respectively. And from 1969 to 1975, the average GNP growth rate of China was a steady 5.7% compared to Eastern Europe’s and the Soviet Union’s maximum growth rate of only 2.7% and a decline in the West. The growth may not be spectacular, but the charges that the Cultural Revolution set back China’s economy for 10 years are clearly unfounded.100

Old Apparatus Destroyed

In the sphere of organization, bureaucracy was the main issue motivating many Chinese to action. It was greatly reduced to conform to Mao’s line of “simple administration, better troops.” Instead of party leaders acting as bureaucrats lording over the masses, new leading bodies, the revolutionary committees made up of both party and nonparty members, were set up in all institutions. This gave workers and peasants a new sense of pride, which was largely responsible for the rapid recovery of the economy in the post-Cultural Revolution years. One example of bureaucracy being trimmed was given by Edgar Snow, quoting Chou Enlai. In 1971, Chou was assisted by only two vice-premiers, where formerly there were seven doing the same amount of work. “In the past there were 90 departments directly under the central government, now there will be only 26.... They are all run presently by revolutionary committees, and in each committee the party nucleus is the core of leadership. Formerly there were more than 60,000 administrative personnel in the central government. Now it is about 10,000.” 101 In one factory which employed 3,400 workers in 1952, the Peking General 100 101

Siet Fung Shuan, op. cit., p.36. Edgar Snow, op. cit, p. 14.

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Knitwear Mill, there were 700 administrative personnel before the Cultural Revolution. After, there was a revolutionary committee of nine members, and an administrative staff of 20 cadres, half dealing with production business, and half devoted to the political and social welfare of the workers. The revolutionary committee was divided into three sections, taking care of production, politics and administration.102 However, the purging of revisionists and trimming of bureaucracy was accomplished at a tremendous cost: many good communists and non-party intellectuals were also purged or criticized in the process. Wheat and chaff were thrown out together. The Cultural Revolution literally destroyed the old party apparatus, and many members of the cadre core were purged. In the Ninth Congress held after the Cultural Revolution, out of the 170 full Central Committee members from the Eighth Congress, only 52 remained in leadership. Of the more than 270 members of the new Central Committee, 43% were from the military. Of them 31 were peasants or workers, and only two were former Red Guard leaders. Out of the 26 Political Bureau members from the Eighth Congress, 11 were purged, three demoted, and three died. At least half of the Standing Committee of the Politburo was gone. In the Party Secretariat, an administrative body taking care of the day-to-day business of the Politburo, nine out of 13 members were purged. Of the 10 known members of the Central Committee Department, only the leader of the women’s department survived the storm. Of the Party Control Commission, 54 out of 60 members were disgraced. Only one leader of the six Regional Bureaus of the Central Committee was still in charge. Over half of all the party secretaries at the regional or provincial levels were demoted, or at least disappeared from the news after 1966. And it was not until the fall of 1971 that all these leading posts 102

Stephen Andors, op. cit, p.215.

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were filled, mainly with military personnel. The search for personnel to fill country posts continued even after 1971.103

Key Problem: People

Mao had to bring Deng Xiao-ping and other purged members back to the Center precisely because of this dislocation. Wang Hung-wen was promoted to the Vice Chairmanship. But according to Mao, he was not able to assume national responsibilities due to lack of training. Mao’s move to rehabilitate many experienced cadres shows that he was not only aware of the problem but also he took a correct approach towards it. That’s a basic programmatic difference he had with Jiang Qing and Chang Chun-chiao. Summing up the effects of the destruction of cadres, Jerry Tung wrote, “That was the key reason why the gains of the Cultural Revolution were not consolidated and there was a backlash immediately after Mao’s death. Addressing a historically quite similar situation, Lenin said that the key problem was ’people,’ ’competent revolutionaries with political and organizational skills.’ The Bolshevik Revolution was dislocated due to the internal, subjective factor. The weakness in the subjective factor in the CPC, particularly with regard to party-building and especially because of the casualties of the Cultural Revolution led to the across-theboard reversals after Mao’s death. The key reason why many correct slogans on art and literature, trade and commerce, ’red and expert,’ plan and law of value got turned around and turned into metaphysical practices was the absence of this cadre core to do propaganda and interpret the Party’s line. That’s at the root of the discrepancy between CPC’s theory and its practice since the Ninth Congress and the reason it was not able to implement the ’three directives’ or ’concentric attack’ on all fronts and not able ’ to unite to win still greater victories.’ Mao’s grasp of the need to mobilize through campaigns was

103

Derek J. Waller, op. cit, p.67.

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a lesson learned from his success in the ’red base areas’ before liberation. That was reflected in his writings prior to 1949 and has become a political tradition since liberation. Most of the campaigns in the early ’50s against corruption–’three anti-’ (anti-corruption, anti-waste, anti-bureaucracy in 1952) and ’five anti-’ (struggle against bribery, tax theft and evasion, theft of state property, shoddy workmanship and inferior materials, and theft of state economic secrets in 1952) even ’greenificiation,’ mass clean-up and disease prevention campaigns — were world-renowned successes.... While most campaigns, including the ’people’s cooperative’ movement, were necessary and successful, some dislocated sectors of the economy. There are some signs today that after the rightists in the CPC went through their own experiences and made a mess out of China’s economy and caused tremendous disorientation among the Chinese masses, they are inching back to restore at least some of Mao’s lines and policies on the national economy. But the casualties of the Cultural Revolution and the backlash afterwards, the wholesale swing to extreme rightist dogmatist deviations by the CPC leadership, has left the Chinese people in a state of disorientation — once again lacking self-respect, and the economy suffering dislocation. Most disturbing of all is the cynicism of many towards socialism and a widespread attitude of disrespect for the CPC. This is a classical empiricist kind of flip, a reaction to metaphysical practice.104

Step-by-Step in Sphere After Sphere

Besides its problems, the Cultural Revolution had undeniable accomplishments. Reforms made in education, health care and other services gave workers and peasants more opportunity to enjoy the social wealth of society. In education, many children from worker and peasant backgrounds were admitted to schools of higher learning. In health care, in Peking alone from 1969 to 1971, 3,600 health workers were sent to the countryside where they organized 6,000 medical workers in 430 mobile health teams. Besides

104

Jerry Tung, op. cit, p. 193-194.

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reforms in the conventional health care system, barefoot doctors were trained to supplement general medical services. Barefoot doctors were similar to paramedics trained mainly in preventive health care and the treatment of minor ailments. Of course, they cannot substitute for professional trained doctors and well-equipped hospitals. The fundamental way to improve the Chinese people’s health is to raise the level of productive forces and improve all aspects of people’s lives, including better diet, better education, better living and working conditions. Until all these conditions are realized, however, barefoot doctors are very innovative, “socialist new things” that assist a more equal distribution of social services under the condition of extreme scarcity of resources. The barefoot doctors provided great services to 80% of the total population, the peasantry, who previously received little, if any, medical attention. The system helped to popularize medicine, and outstanding barefoot doctors, many from worker/peasant backgrounds, were later picked for professional training. Despite their denunciation of the Cultural Revolution, the present Chinese leadership upholds the use of barefoot doctors as a significant accomplishment of the last period. They recently announced allocation of more rnoney and other measures to upgrade the training and ’status of the barefoot doctors and further expansion of the program. This is very positive. There would never have been any barefoot doctors without the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, the Cultural Revolution confirmed many fundamental truths about the superiority of socialism. Cinder socialism, the masses are the masters of society, and the dictatorship of the proletariat means people’s rule. It means that even though the party is part of the class and leads the masses of people in exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat, masses still have the final say. They support the party when it acts in their interest, and will supervise the party and even overthrow some leaders if they counteract

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the interest of the masses. This is possible because the class owns the means of production, and the party in the main has to act according to this economic interest. Because of public ownership of the means of production, the state belonging to it is not antagonistic to the masses. Resolving contradictions between the leaders and the led, and changing incorrect lines does not require overthrowing the state. This is the basis for the eventual withering away of the state towards communism.

Undoing 2,000-Year Myth

Also, socialism is a social system wherein for the first time, people can consciously direct and mold our social organization based on objective laws rather than be subjected to its spontaneous development. Under capitalism, even the capitalists are as much enslaved by the objective laws of capitalism as the proletariat is. But under socialism man can consciously direct society in the best interest of the proletariat. This gives full play to the dynamic role of the subjective factor, particularly the role of leadership, which is stifled and frustrated under capitalism. As a result, the subjective factor plays a bigger role – either accelerating or retarding the development. Inasmuch as development of the economic base is not spontaneous, and does not enslave but only guides the development of the superstructure, the role of the party is very important. Not only can it lead when it is correct, it can also take the lead in correcting itself even after many mistakes are made. Changes in leadership and lines can mean a totally different direction for the party and society. Thus, the Cultural Revolution was initiated by the party to cleanse itself. Changes in leadership after 1976 altered almost every single aspect of China’s foreign policy. (Similarly, sweeping changes are now being carried out by leadership in the Polish United Workers Party.) All this, without fundamentally changing the economic base. In contrast, even though under capitalism there may be a two-

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party system, it is hard to expect changes of any magnitude beneficial to the proletariat even if the party in power changes. No matter which party is in power, they all have to act in the interest of their boss, monopoly capitalism. More changes can occur in a one-party system under socialism than in a two-party system under capitalism! Nothing short of overthrowing the state can effect real social change in the latter. The most significant accomplishment of the Cultural Revolution was the high level of consciousness it generated among the Chinese people. For 2,000 years, Chinese were taught to treat authority as a mandate from heaven that could not be challenged. Inequality was accepted as fate. The active mass participation in challenging and replacing authority undid a 2,000-year myth in a remarkably short period. The learning process of this direct experience to affect changes in consciousness cannot be matched by any amount of legislation. Andor correctly summed up that since the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese people will never be the same. They are less tolerant of abuses and bureaucracy in leadership. They are more confident of their essential and leading role in society.105 Despite their inexperience in participating in formal democratic procedures such as those available under bourgeois democracy in capitalist countries, the Chinese people are highly political. Though the Soviet Union’s economic development surpasses China’s, China’s political atmosphere is far more open, with much bolder criticisms and challenges to the leaders’ corruption and bureaucracy. This is invaluable for socialist construction.

Airing Opposing Views

Just as the American people after the civil rights movement of the ’60s, after Watergate, after Vietnam and ABSCAM, have changed, so have the Chinese people after the

105

Stephen Andors, op. cit, p.222, 225.

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Cultural Revolution. This open political atmosphere is manifested in many ways. Instead of printing only the official party view, newspapers now allow more open debate on questions before the party formally adopts a view. Examples are debates on topics such as classes, the purpose of socialist economic production, the relation of superstructure and base, and the role of education. Opposing views have appeared side by side in Peking Review, or were summarized in Social Science and other academic journals.106 Even a question as major as the evaluation of Mao was open for discussion. While many writers thoroughly slandered Mao, others tried honestly to sum up Mao’s achievements as well as his mistakes. The gradual changes of many lines — from total reversal and negation of the past lines and policies, to now more and more complete adoption of Mao’s correct lines, probably results from this process of airing and debating. Generally, the more correct view has prevailed. In addition, the CPC leaders have understood their mistake in totally reversing Mao’s lines. Another example of the “open” atmosphere is the publication without censorship of many novels exposing corrupt bureaucrats. A play entitled “If I Were Genuine” told about a peasant youth, disguised as the general’s son, who was able to get privileged treatment, including free theatre tickets and a furnished apartment, from an official who hoped to win favor from the general. At the end of the story, the youth was apprehended but refused to admit guilt. He said his only guilt was not having a real general for his father. If his father were a general, everything he did would have been legal and legitimate. That story, which was not far from reality, was not only published uncensored; it was produced on TV and turned into skits and performed on “Debate on Role of Education,” Social Science Quarterly, (Peking: Academy of Social Science, 1980, Issue 3), “Debate on Politics and Economics,” (Issue # 4).

106

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stage.107 It was the most popular story of the time about two years ago. A national TV program in Peking showed a short documentary about the wives of bureaucrats buying luxury goods from a special store, thus exposing the privileges of that stratum. Many such stories are still current and widely read. Nothing of this sort could possibly be done in the Soviet Union without fear of prosecution. A more mature attitude toward freedom of the press has also developed as a result of the lessons from the Cultural Revolution. Recently, the work of a writer named Ba Wah was given the highest honor in a literary contest.108 Just a short while ago, the same writer was denounced for degrading socialism. In China before the Cultural Revolution, and today in the Soviet Union, these people would be permanently labelled with no opportunity to criticize or change. Another action of the Cultural Revolution was the abolition of all laws and organization. Many of these did need to be overthrown because of thoroughly revisionist content. However, there were also many excesses. For example, abolishing the Bureau of Statistics hurt national planning on all fronts due to the lack of information about concrete conditions. Furthermore, the lack of new laws and policies allowed a lot of arbitrariness in later leadership. As Jerry Tung wrote, “One of the strengths during the Cultural Revolution was mass democracy. It turned into the opposite at the Ninth Congress with their inability to formulate new laws, new policies with a different set of values.... It is one thing to overthrow, to drag down, demote and purge; it’s quite another to establish positive organizational policies, socialist legality and positive leadership. Without that, it will inevitably lead to an arbitrary style of decision-making. That’s another essential element in safeguarding democracy under Cheng Ming Monthly Magazine, Aug. 1, 1979, Issue 22, (Hong Kong: in Chinese), p.22-24, 70s Monthly Magazine, May 1980, Issue 124, (Hong Kong: in Chinese), p.21. 108 Sino Daily Press, (New York City), Aug. 12, 1981, Front page. 107

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socialism.” 109

Metaphysical Lines After Ninth Congress

The destruction of the cadre core and the inability to quickly train new leaders to replace the old had other grave political consequences. One was the new leaders’ lack of confidence in their own ability to combat the influence of the other lines. Their uptightness about a possible comeback of the defeated line was further aggravated by the rehabilitation (based on economic and political necessity) of purged leaders including Deng Xiao-ping. Idealism about the socialist system plus uptightness about being able to influence the veteran leaders led to the total degeneration of the (previously) relatively correct line. These incorrect lines caused tremendous harm both internationally and domestically, especially as China has been the rallying point for the international communist movement since the Cultural Revolution. It is the source of a renewed disorientation and confusion in the present-day communist movement. The metaphysics of the lines that gradually developed after the Ninth Congress can be summed up briefly as pitting the dialectical relationship between revolution and production, between relations of production and productive forces, between destruction and construction, between red and expert, between superstructure and economic base, between subjective and objective, between self-reliance and foreign and many other questions. Flowing from the ideological system of idealism and metaphysics, all the former aspects were absolutized and the latter, totally negated. While it is not the purpose of this article to sum up all the incorrect lines developed after the Ninth Congress, we will mention a few simply as illustration. One manifestation of this metaphysics was to drag the Cultural Revolution on, indefinitely and artificially, even when 109

Jerry Tung, op. cit, p.175.

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the mass momentum had obviously ebbed. This violated the important principle of the dialectics of the ebbs and flows of any movement. After the Ninth Congress, the mood of the masses and the cadres favored unity and getting on with economic construction. It was correct at that point to “unite with the majority to win greater victory” as called for in the Ninth Congress. Class struggle of the intensity and magnitude of the Cultural Revolution cannot be sustained for an extended period of time; the standard of living of the people must also show concrete improvement. Ebbs and flows of the movement are inevitable. The task of communists is to guide these ebbs and flows in the general interest of the people, not to prolong them according to subjective wishes. The result of this forced campaign after the Ninth Congress was minimum participation by the masses. It was kept alive only in the propaganda machine under the “four’s” control. Another illustration of the metaphysics is the formulation over admission policy in education, stressing exclusively academic or exclusively political criteria, when the Cheng Tieh Sheng case emerged. By far the gravest consequence was the metaphysics in absolutizing the revolution in the superstructure. The Fundamentals of Political Economy published in Shanghai in 1974 said, “Only by grasping revolution in the superstructure, including the ideological sphere, and making sure that the ideological and political lines are correct, can a Marxist party lead the proletarian revolutionary enterprise from victory to still greater victory.” 110 This is wrong. The leadership of the party is a lot more than just a correct line on transforming the superstructure. It must also implement a correct line on building the economic base, or socialism degenerates and does not move towards communism. Furthermore, the line that absolutized the superstructure later developed into a full-blown system that equated revisionist lines in the party 110

Fundamentals of Political Economy, Vol. II, op. cit, p.247.

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leadership (a question of superstructure) with restoration of capitalism in the economic base. From idealism, the incorrect line developed into vulgar materialism. This line assumes that a few rotten eggs in leadership can undo decades of work by the broad masses, a total negation of the superiority of the socialist system, which is primarily the strength of the public ownership of the means of production. The impact of the Cultural Revolution was also international. The defeat of Liu’s line and ascendancy of Mao’s line on Khrushchev’s revisionism helped to demarcate Marxism from pseudo-Marxism. The emergence of the CPC as center for international communism rejuvenated the international communist movement after a period of disorientation. Revolutionaries sold out by Khrushchev’s refusal to support national liberation struggles looked to China for leadership. Around the world, youth totally disillusioned by the dead end of capitalism and the degeneration of revisionist parties drew inspiration and strength from the vitality of the Cultural Revolution. Despite its poverty, China provided idealistic youth in the world a model of what a better society should be and the possibility of its creation. This idealization of socialism had a negative one-sidedness, and many were thrown into total disarray when the lines of the CPC later degenerated and the “gang of four” denounced. But the Cultural Revolution had rejuvenated the whole international communist movement. Many communist organizations, including the Workers Viewpoint Organization, precursor of the CWP, and other MarxistLeninist collectives, were directly inspired by the Cultural Revolution. Many of these groups have been able to maintain correct orientation despite all the twists and turns in the international movement, and continue to struggle for revolution in their own countries.

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The Mistakes and Our Lessons

Various social and historical factors contributed to the mistakes (excesses, violence, destruction of cultural relics, etc.) of the Cultural Revolution. The most important reason was insufficient leadership, lack of a core of leading cadres to provide the necessary leadership to a mass movement of such gigantic proportion. The problems were compounded by Mao’s incorrect method of leadership, the low cultural level of the masses, and the inevitable problems of practicing real democracy in a socialist country with extremely low level of productive forces.

Lack of a Leading Core

The lack of a leading core was apparent in the split within the Central Committee and the aim of the Cultural Revolution being to “smash the bourgeois headquarters within the party.” The very party supposedly leading the revolution was simultaneously its target. This greatly undermined the party’s credibility. The lack of a leading core was also due to the fact that close to half of the CPC top leadership opposed the Cultural Revolution. Mao openly admitted the intra-party opposition in a 1966 statement: “The publication of Yao Wen Yuan’s article was a signal. This signal met with firm opposition from Peng Chen and others. They even completely vetoed my suggestion to publish small pamphlets. Therefore, I had to draft the May 19 circular. This circular clearly already talked about the question of two lines and two roads. At that time, most people thought that my thinking was already old. Sometimes, only myself agreed with my proposal. Later, when I brought this spirit to the 11th Plenum of the Ninth Party Congress, I only got the support of a little more than half of the people. Many comrades still could understand…” 111

Mao Zedong, “March 7th Directive and Talk Concerning Tactical Disposition,” March 7, 1966, Mao and CC of CPC– Early Period of the Cultural Reuolution, (Hong Kong: I San Books, Sept. 1975, in Chinese), p.2. 111

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The obvious disagreement of the revisionists notwithstanding, the weakness of the cadre core was largely responsible for the discrepancy between the correctness of many of Mao’s lines and the incorrect practice during and after the Cultural Revolution. One example was his repeated call to “not look for ants where ants don’t exist” (meaning not to look for capitalist-roaders in your unit if there aren’t any) during the Socialist Education Movement. The same thing happened during the Cultural Revolution. Mao repeatedly called for narrowing the target of attack, but the target was actually enlarged, leading to many excesses. The weakness of the cadre core not only meant that cadres could not guide the revolution correctly, but that many were themselves part of the problem. Worried about China’s future, Mao repeatedly stressed the need to train revolutionary successors as a strategic task in the later stage of the Socialist Education Movement and he institutionalized this task in the Ninth and 10th Congresses. The revolutionary committees sought to give this an organizational form, but were largely unsuccessful. The eventual fall of the “gang of four” proves that Mao failed in this respect. The problem of succession under socialism affects all socialist countries. The proletariat’s inexperience in governing and socialism being a new social system mean a tradition has not been established. So succession in every socialist country has been earth-shaking, with denunciation and curses heaped on former leaders. There are very few exceptions.

Incorrect Method: Naming No Names

The second major source of the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution and the Socialist Education Movement was Mao’s incorrect method of leadership. As Mao was the only person with significant credibility and authority among the masses during both periods, we should not underestimate his incorrect method.

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One of Mao’s mistakes was not pinpointing the lines and their concrete representatives at the outset of the campaigns. When the Socialist Education Movement was first launched, its purpose was vague and general. Reading over the party resolutions that initiated the movement, the only possible impression is that it aimed at everybody. This gave the opposing faction, Liu Shaoqi and his followers, an opportunity to replace leadership at several levels with their loyal supporters, under the pretext of carrying out the campaign. The damage was already done, a significant number of good cadres purged and morally injured, when Mao specified the target of attack. Even then, no names were mentioned, leaving the line subject to all kinds of interpretation. The same incorrect method was repeated in the Cultural Revolution; the effect was more serious because the struggle was qualitatively broader. In the absence of defined targets, excesses were almost inevitable. Almost anyone who had made a mistake was branded a “capitalistroader.” Mao himself knew the problem. He said during the Cultural Revolution, “Workers, peasants and soldiers don’t have direct contact with counter-revolutionary revisionist elements. In addition, these counterrevolutionary elements all wave the red flags to fight the red flags, and use the banner of Central Committee directives to get their lines out.… therefore, the people were easily deceived.”112 Given that understanding, Mao was wrong to persist naming no names. As a result of his method, every leading cadre directly linked to the masses became a target of attack, while the real bureaucrats and capitalist-roaders were spared until very late, almost two years after the Cultural Revolution had started. Enough damage had been done then. Mao’s other error was not to draw up a strategic and tactical plan on how to remove and replace revisionist 112

Ibid., p.3.

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leaders with the minimum disruption and destruction. As a result, he could not reconstruct the party after its dramatic destruction during the Cultural Revolution. It may be that the revisionists’ line and organization were simply too strong for Mao to crack without first mobilizing the masses in action. Purging the revisionists too early could have led to a civil war or himself getting squeezed out. Another reason for his error might be historical necessity, that the revisionists’ skills and experience were crucial to the building of socialism in China, especially in the early stage. A premature struggle could weaken China tremendously and make it vulnerable to imperialist invasion. Theoretically, delaying action on the revisionists was consistent with Mao’s view of handling contradictions among the classes in China under dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1957 Mao talked about the antagonistic contradiction between the national bourgeoisie and the proletariat, saying that “this antagonistic contradiction can, if properly handled, be transformed into a non-antagonistic one and be resolved by peaceful methods. However, it will change into a contradiction between ourselves and the enemy if we do not handle it properly and do not follow the policy of uniting with, criticizing and educating the national bourgeoisie, or if the national bourgeoisie does not accept this policy of ours.” 113 Applying this policy to inner party struggle, Mao obviously did not consider the contradiction with Liu and others antagonistic, although the lines were, until the repeated sabotage during the Socialist Education Movement and in the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, when Liu used the work teams to hit at lower level cadres. Furthermore, Mao’s principle of “ideologically severe and organizationally lenient” in inner party struggle delayed the purges of revisionists. Deng Xiaoping, a major target, had the 113

Mao Zedong, “On Correction Handling of Contradictions...”, Selected

Readings, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1971), p.435.

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opportunity to make self-criticism as late as October 1967, two years after commencement of the Cultural Revolution. Whatever the rationale behind Mao’s move, the unfortunate effect was too many incorrect purges of relatively good cadres along with the revisionists.

Oversimplified in Application

A third mistake or weakness in Mao’s method of leadership was leading by slogans. This was an aspect of Mao’s style as well as necessitated by China’s conditions of extreme poverty and low cultural level. These conditions made the communication and consolidation of lines very difficult. Finally communicated from level one to level 27 and the masses, the lines barely resembled what they were originally. To educate and rally people around party lines, especially in a wartime situation, is not only a question of politics, but an art. To avoid misinterpretation by cadres poorly educated in Marxism (and even language), the rule of thumb in presenting any line or directive is crispness, sharpness and precision. One way to simplify the line and make it easily understood is to use numerical formulae such as “unite with 95% of the cadres and masses,” “punishment should be limited to 1% of the population,” (which were directives and resolutions of the Socialist Education Movement) or sharp concepts such as “key link,” “principal contradiction,” “foundation,” and “leading factor.” Mao was particularly able to synthesize complicated concepts into easily-remembered slogans and songs. During the war of liberation, most military concepts were formulated this way for the illiterate peasant army. One was the slogan, “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” which has, been a rallying call for all national liberation fighters. Though very convenient, and sometimes a necessary method of leadership, slogans tend to be absolutized, especially by people who lack a comprehensive view of the

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slogans’ context, and grave consequences ensue. For example, Mao’s 16 Points Guiding the Cultural Revolution asked for narrowing the target, then clarified it in numerical terms with a directive to “unite with 95% of the cadres and masses.” Absolutely applied, the line meant that nationwide, at least 40 to 50 million people were hit. Everywhere, the masses tried to dig out the 5% “enemy.” Their implementation of the line disregarded whether the real enemy existed or not within their particular unit or enterprise. This excess was complicated by the fact that Mao did not name the targets early on.

Combining Propaganda and Slogans

Though slogans are necessary to mobilize the masses, this method of leadership has an inherent one-sidedness. We will quote Jerry Tung extensively on this problem: “Lenin said that using agitation and slogans to lead entails a danger of degenerating into demagogy. But without sharp and clear slogans of agitation, it would be hard, if not impossible, to mobilize the masses. The masses, who are not politically trained, are not motivated by historical visions even though in the long term their actions are of such substance. The masses must be organized initially by issues and events that affect them and flow from their perceptions. Such perceptions are always spontaneous and thus often lack a clear focus. The purpose of revolutionary slogans and agitation is precisely to rally and focus these spontaneous perceptions. Slogans coined sharply and in a forward-looking manner can help to define the issue itself and rouse the masses to action. Slogans and agitation are indispensable to mobilizing the masses in millions. But because such slogans and agitation around these issues are transient, unfolding around the turning points of events, and generally focus on one issue at a time, they inherently lack the scope and comprehensiveness of putting the present into historical perspective.

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Cultural Revolution Unfolded This can only be done through propaganda, comparison, synthesis and analysis. Propaganda, while orienting people and putting particular issues and immediate events into historical perspective, does not have the agitational or mobilizing value of single slogans. A working class’ or any political party’s degree of success in organizing depends heavily on its ability to use both forms in skillful combination, appropriately and in a timely fashion. One-sided emphasis on agitation and slogans has the danger of degenerating into demagogy. When an opportunist is betraying the working class and cannot possibly give reasons and perspective for his actions, he can just agitate or use inappropriate slogans to appeal to the masses’ emotions and spontaneous associations. Then this slogan turns into demagogy. If a slogan is used correctly under one set of circumstances, and still being used after a sharp turn of events, then the slogan itself would turn into a kind of demagogy for a different reason. The latter happens often even to the most honest revolutionaries. To minimize deviations, communists must do constant size-up and lead by propaganda, and only then should lively and invigorating slogans be coined to mobilize the masses. The politics must be in command. In the case of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, there was a lack of rich and varied propaganda though all that time they had slogans. The problem of Mao’s leadership after the 50’s was that he rarely wrote. Those things he did write were notes taken during meetings as “talks” or quotes. It is a serious fault in political leadership in that this approach, though lively, necessarily lacks scientific vigor and theoretical precision. How could a serious position such as the claim that capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union be propagated without serious theoretical work? This seems to have resulted from a loose and informal style of leadership after the Party Secretariat was dissolved during the Cultural Revolution. By comparison, Lenin and Stalin wrote much more. Metaphysical practice skips the process of development and materialist comprehensiveness. Generally it does not proceed from concretes to solve the problem. Let me give a couple of examples of Mao’s correct slogans getting misused and turned

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into the opposite in practice. One is the statement that in the final analysis art is not above class and has to serve the working class. Another is the statement to the effect that “as with all things reactionary, if you don’t hit it, it won’t fall.” The first slogan, “there is… no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics” is a sharp and correct slogan cutting through all the muddle on this complicated matter. But it led to simplifying art forms by reducing their variety and cutting China’s art off from international experience. The second slogan, while again very sharp and advocating a philosophy of struggle applied to the ideological sphere, often meant that the only method of leadership is to “hit” or combat incorrect ideas. Ideas may be incorrect and even reactionary, but we must see who (what class) holds such ideas, under what circumstances they appear, and whether they are being carried out in practice. Under some circumstances some of those reactionary ideas held among young workers, for instance, can be most effectively defeated by leadership through positive examples and actions rather than solely through ideological struggle. Before a young revolutionary has gained an all-sided grasp of material reality or any problem, his application of the formulation “correctness or incorrectness of ideological and political line decides everything” can be downright academic, reducing class struggle to either pedagogics or harmful internal motions. No communists have done better than the Chinese comrades in mobilizing and organizing millions of peasants in rural areas, the most difficult section of the population to organize. But the forces of habit of CPC’s leadership on onesidedly stressing slogans and campaigns rather than integrating them with propaganda has unquestionably created conditions for the CPC to make some grave errors. Perhaps the only exception to this approach are the “Nine Polemics” waged during the early 60’s and the campaign to study the dictatorship of the proletariat in the early 70’s. The latter was a model of pedagogics and campaign on the theoretical front. However, the three ideological campaigns around Confucianism, “Water Margin” and “against the right deviationist wind” were

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Inevitable Limitations

As mentioned earlier, once unfolded, the Cultural Revolution was largely a spontaneous movement with very little leadership other than sporadic directives of general guidelines from Mao. The problems inevitable in any spontaneous movement also affected the smooth sailing of the Cultural Revolution. After the call to take power from the bureaucrats, the masses’ enthusiasm was unleashed with an independent momentum running its own course. We support the masses’ participation in cleansing the party because as Lenin said in 1921: “In appraising persons, on the negative attitude to those who have attached themselves to us for selfish motives, to those who have become ’puffed-up commissars’ and ’bureaucrats,’ the suggestions of the nonparty proletarian masses and, in many cases, of the nonparty peasant masses, are extremely valuable. The working masses have a fine intuition, which enables them to distinguish honest and devoted communists from those who arouse the disgust of people earning their bread by the sweat of their brow, enjoying no privileges, and have no ’pull.’ In some places the party is being purged with the aid of the experience and suggestions of non-party workers.… If we really succeed in purging our party from top to bottom in this way, without exception, it will indeed be an enormous achievement for the resolution.115

We affirm the necessity for the Cultural Revolution, the energy of the masses’ participation, and our confidence in Jerry Tung, op. cit, p.185-188. Lenin, “Purging the Party,” Collected Works, (Moscow: Progress Publishers), Vol. 33, p.39-40. 114 115

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their decisions. However, there is also an inherent danger, as Lenin’s warning about masses’ “sentiments” in “Purging the Party” we quoted earlier demonstrated.116 This “sentiment” was responsible for many of the excesses that could not be checked during the Cultural Revolution, given the lack of a leading core in the party and the very nature of the Cultural Revolution. The lack of leadership was compounded by the rapid pace at which the Cultural Revolution developed. The short time from inception to peak (Mao estimated about five months) caused discontent among even the stronger comrades due to insufficient time to consolidate them on the correct orientation and outlook towards the masses’ participation. Mao made self-criticism to these cadres that he “made a mistake in the Cultural Revolution which is giving a response to Nieh Yuet Tzu’s big character poster (the first one in Peking University — author) and wrote a letter to Tsinghua University Affiliate High School, and my own writing of the big character poster to smash the bourgeois headquarters. All these things occurred in a very short time... less than five months. No wonder comrades don’t understand.” 117 A third aspect of the spontaneous movement was the disruption caused by the non-proletarian masses exerting their influence. According to Mao’s sum-up, that was the main reason he could not call off the Cultural Revolution in January 1967 when he and the Central Committee officially promoted and endorsed the Great Alliance in Shanghai. He said, “After the January Storm, the broad masses of workers and peasants advanced great alliance for a while, and the Center also wanted a speedy great alliance. However, while the proletariat wants to transform the world according to the proletariat world outlook, the bourgeoisie also wanted to transform the world according to their world outlook. Petty Ibid. Mao Zedong, “Talk at Central Work Conference,” Oct. 25, 1968, Mao Zedong Si Xiang Wan Xui, op. cit., p.657. 116 117

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bourgeois and bourgeois ideology developed among the intellectuals, youths and students destroyed the situation. Every class still wanted to stubbornly express itself. Since the law of class struggle is independent of man’s will, therefore, the great alliance was not formed. Those that were formed rapidly disintegrated.” 118 So the Cultural Revolution dragged on for two more years, and then was prolonged even more by the “gang of four.”

Obstacles to Real Democracy

Related to the above problem is the difficulty of exercising socialist democracy, real democracy for the broad masses. The Cultural Revolution was a genuinely democratic movement involving millions of people. Because under capitalism bourgeois democracy is mainly various forms of deception, it is relatively easy to administer. But not so for democracy under socialism. Given the newness of the socialist system and the rawness of the proletariat, no traditions are well-established. A genuine democracy is also much harder to achieve. Under socialism, the question of democracy is not just who can vote and how to vote, but whether any measure truly reflects the principle of the masses participating in shaping their own future. This problem, or blessing, was compounded by the fact that with a semi-feudal and semi-colonial history, the broad masses in China had almost no experience in formal democracy, and hardly knew of the idea of democracy. Given the opportunity, people could go beyond the limit simply because there was no limit, stated or unstated. The Great Leap Forward, the Socialist Education Movement, and the Cultural Revolution all represented great attempts to involve masses in exercising power over society. In the course of learning, mistakes were made, some great and some small; but we cannot denounce the masses as anarchists for their lack of knowledge. 118

Mao Zedong, “May 7th Directive...”, op. cit., p.3.

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Writing about the difficulty and complexity of exercising democracy under socialism, Jerry Tung explained, “In Marxist dialectics, the question of democracy is not posed abstractly as ’all men are created equal,’ to cover real inequality under bourgeois democracy. Marxism presents the question of democracy as an identity of contradictions. It has a centralism part and a democracy part at a given concrete level of freedom and necessity. Real democracy requires that the masses’ knowledge be at a high level so that there are scientific criteria and agreement as to what’s right and what’s wrong. At the same time it must be possible to express and communicate differences and opinions to affect the activity of a society. Because agrarian societies such as China, Zimbabwe, and even the Soviet Union have not gone through a period of laissez-faire capitalism with the tradition and necessary organization of bourgeois democracy which accompany the development of an industrial society, there is a lack of know-how to centralize public opinion and at least some lower forms of participatory democracy. The low level of productive forces also gives rise to a relatively low educational level as in China, parts of Russia and Zimbabwe today where they can only support universal education up to elementary school level and not even into junior high or high school. The masses’ low literacy level affects their ability to study Marxism and other sciences. This is a real hindrance to and a limiting factor for democracy and centralism under socialism. So the genuine mass democracy that has no structural material basis under socialism is limited. Another hindrance to socialist democracy is the problem of leadership transition, a problem that has still not been worked out under socialism. That is why leaders either hold the leadership position until they die, or there must be purges to change leaders. The change is usually resolved through coups or purges which inevitably negate many positive lessons and traditions of socialism – e.g., the Cultural Revolution and Stalin’s contributions. In advanced capitalist countries this question is solved. That’s why the most vicious imperialist

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Cultural Revolution Unfolded bourgeoisie also has the most perfected minority ruling state apparatus that has ever been developed in human history. One example is the U.S. presidential election and transition. Comparatively speaking there is a minimum of upheaval, disruption, and discontinuity as it moves from one leader to another, from one party to another, all the while guaranteeing the interests of the capitalist class as a whole. As a class, the bourgeoisie is definitely a far more trained and experienced class than the working class today. In China and the Soviet Union, the fact that the parliamentary tradition was not strongly established is at the root of the problems of socialist legality. There is no tradition to correctly handle and resolve these types of contradictions. That’s why Mao had to put this point in his formulation of the CPC’s basic line. But in retrospect, Mao too had only a perceptual understanding of the problem. It is one thing to formulate the basic line and quite another to establish socialist legal codes and institutions to resolve contradictions in practice. There is very little experience in resolving differences systematically, without major disruptions. And that is one of the obstacles for socialist democracy today and, therefore, one of the problems to tackle in order to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no structural guarantee, no organizational guarantee per se to the cause of socialism. Our own Party’s experience shows that there needs to be ideological/political line as well as organization. Both are indispensable. Political line without organization to implement it, to propagate it, to consolidate it, to clothe it, cannot be turned into a material force. On the other hand, organization without political line is useless and bureaucratic. In fact, it will serve reactionary ends. Organizational structure on its own cannot guarantee democracy and maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat. However, organizational structure is a necessary condition for the implementation of the line. That particular structure was correctly overthrown during the Cultural Revolution. But after the Ninth Congress, this overthrowing of the old was abused. Basically a whole generation of cadres who held opposing views, or had differences of opinion, were purged.

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There was no way to engage in debate with the opposition. That’s the result of the obsession with and subjectivity on the ideological line – that any shade of difference in line will lead to restoration of capitalism. They totally overlooked the material enforcement of socialism – the workers’ interest in building the organization to protect it. Not seeing the positive independent momentum of socialism, of the socialist state, will lead to abnormal internal life of the Party. That’s how democracy can be abused and was abused in China after the Ninth Congress. And that’s why struggle has to be on a line basis. Organizational guarantees such as the ability to go to the grass roots, to vote somebody out of their position, to have regular congresses, in other words, the norm of democratic centralism, have to be there. If there is no Party Congress, no Central Committee plenary scheduled on a regular basis, then questions drag on and there’s no chance to vote on them. Part of the organizational guarantee is to make sure that socialist legality is established. There must be set policies and procedures. All will be judged as equals before that socialist legality.... People should not be persecuted for holding a different line, a different opinion, a different belief under socialism unless they engage in active sabotage, carry out the other line in practice and violate democratic centralism. Line has to be debated on a line basis and everybody has the right to hold a different line under socialism. That’s the only way you can have genuine socialist democracy. That’s why we oppose the prosecution for the “four,” because it objectively was on the basis of their line and not as arbitrary individual acts (even though the present leadership tries to present it as such). They are accused of executing different people but those acts were based on the prevailing line of the Central Committee at the time. The problem was that the majority of revisionists who are in power today and were in the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Central Committees did not dare raise differences. So it was the nominal majority view. Even though some lines did cause damage, people should not be prosecuted because those were the lines they were operating under. Those who are prosecuting

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Cultural Revolution Unfolded are equally responsible. That’s where the organizational structural guarantee comes in, even though that does not guarantee the change in line itself. The only way a party can truly maintain itself as the vanguard party is if it can successfully combat the incorrect line. It has to be able to exercise its influence without having to shut people up. It must actually win the masses over to its line instead of allowing them to be influenced by the incorrect line, and then punishing them for it. The ideological/political guarantee is to have a true vanguard – the most advanced, far-sighted in the party – particularly in the Central Committee and in top leadership positions. To raise the political level of the people as a whole, you have to constantly raise the masses’ theoretical and cultural level. That’s what the campaign to study the dictatorship of the proletariat was all about. The study classes on the job while getting paid are necessary. These theoretical, ideological, and political components of the masses’ lives are absent now in China and the Soviet Union where there is no concentric attack. There is excessive and one-sided concern for economic construction. I see some signs of correction recently in China. And in the Soviet Union the socialist materialist basis is more extensive than in China. The public ownership of the means of production reaches out to larger realms and is more thoroughgoing than in China.119

119

Jerry Tung, op. cit, p. 173-176.

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Line of March’s Idealist Line

The present CPC leadership has one-sidedly overturned the sum-up of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s contributions. The Line of March has gone even further and tried to polarize the U.S. communist movement into Maoism and antiMaoism. In doing so, Line of March has not only become the mouthpiece of the Soviet revisionist line on this question; they also reveal their total ignorance of reality in China, as well as their chauvinist contempt for third world countries’ struggles to build better societies. Proceeding from the fact that the present CPC leadership lumped the trial of the “gang of four” with Lin Piao’s associates, Line of March concludes that there was no line difference between Mao and the Deng group (meaning Liu Shaoqi’s faction). Charging that the trial was carried out in such a manner mainly to avoid a question of Mao’s line which Deng continued to carry out, Line of March said that the historic struggle between Mao and Liu Shaoqi and others “was not a struggle between a revolutionary proletariat line and counter-revolutionary bourgeois line.... Rather, it was a struggle in the context of steady degeneration of an opportunist line, one characterized by a fierce battle between voluntarism on the one hand and pragmatism on the other.” This line, according to the Line of March, is the “nationalist policy of attempting to develop China at the expense of the world revolutions and in collaboration with imperialism.” 120

Academic Games of Idealists

With this idealist conception, Line of March reduces the history of the CPC since 1956 to merely a series of power struggles, factional fights and concessions from the two factions. Since Line of March’s conclusion is so at odds with reality, they have to resort to the opportunist method of consciously ignoring the concrete content of this “factional

120

“The Trial of the Gang of Four...”, Line of March, op. cit., p.8, 10.

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fight” in their analysis of the Cultural Revolution. Ignoring all facts, they conclude that the Cultural Revolution was incorrect because it was based on Mao’s incorrect theoretical assumption that capitalism could be easily restored and that the Cultural Revolution was an ideological and political campaign aimed at the capitalist-roaders to prevent the restoration of capitalism. Line of March argues that because capitalist-roaders don’t exist, the Cultural Revolution was unnecessary and the method antagonistic. To Line of March, class struggle, especially on the scale of the Cultural Revolution, was merely an experiment to prove the correctness of one theoretical assumption or another, rather than a concrete result of real issues, regardless of the line guiding it. Line of March is full of idealists: unless workers have a correct line on the theory of capitalism, the correct line on strategy and tactics, the main enemy and secondary enemy, and so on, their struggle against their immediate boss has to be wrong. Their idea that action must be based on a correct line turns reality upside down. Though Line of March’s assertion that it is not that easy to restore capitalism in socialist societies is correct in general, their conclusion that there are not capitalist-roaders in China is wrong. Reality refutes them. By stretching their argument to its limit, Line of March’s method of analysis becomes metaphysical, idealist and opportunist. Even Line of March’s theoretical basis (the incorrectness of Mao’s capitalist restoration thesis) to support their reversal of the Cultural Revolution is full of holes. First of all, at the time of the Cultural Revolution, the restoration thesis was still not that developed. The arguments used in the Ninth Polemic on Khrushchev’s Phoney Communism were mainly common sense arguments with little theoretical justification. The two quotes Line of March uses to substantiate their claim that Mao was wrong were not even written by Mao, and appeared years after the Cultural Revolution had subsided, in

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1973 and 1978 respectively. Using a later, incorrect line to prove that a previous action was incorrect doesn’t even pass in bourgeois logic. It is rationalism through and through. It is like calling someone who lied once in his old age a liar all his life. This rationalist methodology overlooks the process of development.

Disbelieving Revisionism

However, Line of March’s gravest mistake and the biggest flaw in their argument lies in not seeing that the Cultural Revolution was a concrete struggle unfolded around concrete circumstances, which is apparent from the historical two-line struggle between Mao and Liu. It was not a game to prove the correctness or incorrectness of a particular view. The Cultural Revolution was a struggle unleashed to resolve real problems in China. To ignore the circumstances and get hung up on one or two ideas that might be incorrect (in order to prove a point) only shows the extent of Line of March’s idealism. With a pen-stroke, Line of March not only reduces the struggle between Mao and Liu to nothing but factional fights, they also dismiss the struggle between the CPC and Khrushchev as unfounded. And by attributing China’s successful economic construction and the first eight polemics to Liu Shaoqi, Line of March has distorted history and bent over backward to give the revisionists a good image. Because of their capitulation to revisionism (even though they said “revisionists leave the door open to capitalists to penetrate and threaten socialism”), Line of March opposes the very movement, the Cultural Revolution, that attempted to deal with revisionism and its concrete representatives. In essence, Line of March doesn’t believe in the danger of revisionism. (This is why they charged the Polish workers’ struggle against the Polish Workers Party with “false

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consciousness.”)121 Line of March justifies sympathy for revisionism with quotes from Lenin’s teachings on the three sources of capitalist restoration: the old bourgeoisie, petty commodity producers and international capital. But Line of March fails to mention what kind of leadership and lines will allow these three social sources to flourish. These three sources for the restoration of capitalism gain strength only when revisionist lines dominate the party and society. If the Polish Workers Party (PWP) had seriously taken up the task of consolidating and mobilizing the peasants to collectivize agriculture, one major source of capitalist restoration would have been eliminated or greatly weakened. If the PWP’s lines were correct, Poland would not be so indebted to western imperialists, and thus imperiled by western penetration and domination. The logical conclusion of Line of March’s line on revisionism is that under socialism the masses’ prevention of capitalist restoration should focus on the old bourgeoisie (which is insignificant since they no longer own the means of production), the imperialists (who are not immediately present in most socialist countries), or the peasants (the most likely and immediate target since they are visible and the most numerous). And what would be the practical consequences of Line of March’s line? Politically, it would disintegrate the worker-peasant alliance, which is the social basis for the dictatorship of the proletariat in most socialist countries. It would misplace the blame, and totally liquidate the role and responsibility of the party leadership in tackling problems with correct lines and policies corresponding to their countries’ concrete conditions. Line of March’s position denies the absolute need to sort out the party’s ranks when leaders fail to work in the long-term interest of the masses. There is nothing original about Line of March’s charge that 121

“Poland, where we stand,” Line of March, Jan.-Feb. 1981, (U.S.A.), p.30.

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the Cultural Revolution was a voluntarist attempt aimed at the wrong target; Soviet revisionists made that accusation a long time ago. They said, “The ’great proletarian cultural revolution’ in China was in no sense directed against the national bourgeoisie and the remnants of the other exploiting classes. None of those who have been ’exposed’ as being opponents of the ’thought of Mao Tse-Tung’ were capitalistroaders or received unearned incomes.” 122 If Line of March gets their line from Moscow, they should have at least the courtesy, if not the courage, to say so, and not claim originality.

The Magic of Mechanical Materialism

Line of March’s view on how to prevent capitalist restoration is a concentrated expression of mechanical materialism. While pretending to disagree with the revisionist view that “the development of the productive forces will automatically lead towards communism in an economically determined fashion,” Line of March actually champions that line. Their words about inequality under socialism: “Social relations between town and country, administrative and executive, manual and mental work, hierarchy of the job, etc., are secondary relations of production, framed of course by the underlying property (class relations), but stemming more directly from social division of labor, which is determined by the prevailing level of productive force.” 123 According to Line of March, since under socialism there is public ownership of the means of production (and therefore no classes), differences in society are only a question of division of labor, and everybody should be content with their social status and the existing inequalities. According to Line of March, all prejudices, unequal distribution allocated to people in different divisions of labor will automatically vanish as soon 122 123

A Critique of Mao…., op. cit.

“The Trial of the Gang of Four....”, op. cit., p.27.

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as the productive forces develop enough (perhaps because there will be no division of labor then?). With this invention, Line of March rejects Engels’ teaching that as a transitional society built on the basis of the old, socialism is inevitably stamped with traces of capitalism in every sphere, including production. While we recognize and uphold the necessity for unequal distribution and the inevitability of social differences under socialism, it isn’t only a question of division of labor (which, by the way, is how Liu Shaoqi saw it). To resolve this problem we not only have to step up the development of the productive forces; we must combine that with ideological and political campaigns to raise people’s socialist consciousness. Engels called this combination of economic/practical, theoretical and political measures under socialism “concentric attack.” Instead, Line of March’s line justifies spontaneous growing stratification between masses and leaders, bureaucratism and all other social injustices under socialism. They oppose all measures to transform the mass consciousness and any measure to bring about more equality at a given level of productive forces. To the Line of March, development of the productive forces will automatically bring about these changes. With this mechanical materialist view, Line of March pits the need for structural reforms (that is, organizational measures) against the need for ideological/political campaigns, charging that “Mao displayed little faith in any (structural) solution, however, democratic or based on the masses....” 124 It is true that lack of organization was the main weakness of the Cultural Revolution, but it is not true that there was no attempt to organize it. Before and after the Cultural Revolution, Mao tried various structural reforms, such as workers’ participation in management and vice versa, the three-in-one combination, and the revolutionary 124

Ibid., p.26.

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committees. There probably were tremendous weaknesses in these reforms, and many even fell apart. One has the right to disagree with these reforms, but not to ignore these attempts. To substantiate their claim that Mao is voluntarist, Line of March has to screen out the facts and line that don’t fit into their argument.

Preferring Business-as-Usual

The thread woven through Line of March’s justification for stratification is their theoretically anti-Leninist line on the role of the party under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and its relationship to the masses. This is also the basis for Line of March’s slander of the Cultural Revolution as too anarchistic and “one of the most undemocratic and arbitrary episodes in the history of the international communist movement.” It was anarchistic, Line of March claims, because it was based on Mao’s anarchistic line of the “right to rebel.” It was undemocratic because workers and cadres were attacked by Red Guards led by “sons and daughters of the recently expropriated Chinese bourgeoisie.” 125 Factually, this is wrong. Major works on the Cultural Revolution report that the only Red Guards of that background were from the Peking United Action Committee, which was formed after other groups refused them membership. The United Action Committee was consciously promoted and egged on by the revisionist party leaders trying to sabotage the Cultural Revolution and confuse the situation. By branding the millions of Red Guards as reactionary, Line of March reveals their thorough disdain for the masses’ participation in this earthshaking event. However, this isn’t Line of March’s main example of how “undemocratic” the Cultural Revolution was. They cite the abandonment of parliamentary procedure and ignoring majority vote as other examples of lack of democracy. This did happen, and it would be surprising if it 125

Ibid., p.30-31.

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hadn’t. A major objective of the Cultural Revolution was to get rid of obsolete forms and organizations as well as rules and structures that legitimized spontaneous and incorrect stratification in society. Even without this goal, one cannot expect orderly parliamentary procedure and business-asusual during a social upheaval as great as the Cultural Revolution. Line of March is just infatuated with “legitimate” channels of formal democracy under the bourgeois system. No wonder they consider Reagan’s election a real mandate from the American people. Again, the accusation that the Cultural Revolution was anarchist is nothing new. The Soviet revisionists say the same thing. “The methods used in the ’cultural revolution’ show that its organizers intended not only to defeat their opponents, who held Party and government office in accordance with the CPC rules and the Constitution of the CPR (People’s Republic of China – author), but also to create a totally different machinery of political power, which would make the apparatus of power and the broad masses of the population absolutely subservient in their activity to the implementation of Mao’s political line.” 126 With the barrack-room as their ideal, the leaders of the ’cultural revolution’ have no need for normally functioning democratic organs of socialist legality. No wonder then that in the course of the ’cultural revolution,’ central and local organs of power were disbanded, trade unions and young communist organizations were broken up and a massive purge of Party bodies carried out.”127

But the fault with the Cultural Revolution was not that it overthrew the old organizations, legal systems, rules and regulations. Many of these were revisionist in content and needed to be overthrown. The problem was Mao’s inability 126 127

Critique of Mao’s Theoretical Conceptions, op. cit, p. 156.

Ibid., p.119.

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and lack of consciousness to establish new institutions and rules to replace the old. To charge that the Cultural Revolution was undemocratic because it dared to overthrow the existing order only reveals Line of March’s faith in the old order and fear of mass movements. This unreserved faith in the established order also underlines Line of March’s incorrect line on the party and its relationship with the masses.

Idealism on Party’s Leadership

They say “the key to proletariat democracy is to raise the political and ideological level of the masses... which requires first and foremost,” leadership by a revolutionary party based on the science of Marxism-Leninism, systematically striving to bring revolutionary theory to the masses. For Marxism and Leninism, there is no antagonism between the existence of a disciplined vanguard and the broadest workers’ democracy, in fact, the one is diametrically linked to the other.” To Line of March, the Cultural Revolution violated this cardinal principle because the “guiding line of the Cultural Revolution, however, held that democracy be extended by rebelling against the party.” 128 While we agree with Line of March on the essential need for raising the consciousness of the masses and the essential role of the party in this respect, we want to pose this question: If the party itself has so degenerated that it can’t even raise its own consciousness anymore, what are the masses supposed to do as far as democracy is concerned? It doesn’t take too much effort to think of parties like that – the CPSU and PWP are good examples. Do the workers in these situations have the right to rebel against the leadership to force changes, or should they just sit and wait for the leaders’ future transformation? Talking in idealist principles about what the party should be, Line of March liquidates the need for a concrete analysis 128

“The Trial of the Gang of Four….”, op. cit., p.31.

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of concrete conditions – that is, what was the state of affairs in the CPC prior to the Cultural Revolution? The revisionists in the party refused to raise the ideological and political consciousness of the masses and took the revolutionary soul out of the party, thus rendering the party impotent. Therefore, it was totally legitimate for the Chinese masses to rebel against these “leaders” and to remove the obstacles to future progress so the party could once again assume its leading role.

A Revisionist Equation

Again, Line of March’s view is not its own invention. They picked up wholesale the line of the Soviet Union which says, “Mao and his followers paid lip service to the Communist Party’s leading role, but their practical activity testifies to the contrary. Mao does not regard the party as a leading and directing force of society but as an instrument of the regime of personal power, as the most important means for carrying out his adventurist and chauvinist policy.… That is why one of the basic tasks of the ’cultural revolution’ was to change the composition and ideological-political face of the Communist Party of China and also its function within the system of society’s political superstructure.” 129 By echoing the CPSU’s line, Line of March makes a serious theoretical error. They equate the leading role of the party in exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat with the full content of the dictatorship of-the proletariat. Stalin commented on this question in his article, “Concerning Questions of Leninism.” “The directing force is the advanced detachment of the proletariat, its vanguard, which is the main guiding force of the dictatorship of the proletariat.... Without the Party as the main guiding force, it is impossible for the dictatorship of the proletariat to be at all durable and firm.” However, Stalin also warned against the 129

Critique of Mao’s Theoretical Conceptions, op. cit., p. 160-161.

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tendency to equate the leading role of the party with the whole content of the dictatorship of the proletariat. “Although the party carries out the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in essence the ’dictatorship of the Party,’ this does not mean that the ’dictatorship of the Party’ (its leading role) is identical with the dictatorship of the proletariat, that the former is equal to the latter.” This dictatorship of the proletariat includes not only the party but all kinds of mass organizations under socialism. Talking about the Russian experience, Lenin said, “Taken as a whole, we have a formally non-Communist, flexible and relatively wide, and very powerful proletarian apparatus, by means of which the Party is closely linked with the class and with the masses, and by means of which, under the leadership of the Party, the dictatorship of the class is exercised.” 130 The relationship between the party and the masses is characterized by unity as well as contradiction. When the party’s lines and policies are correct and reflect the interests of the masses, the leading role of the party coincides with the dictatorship of the proletariat. When the party leadership turns revisionist, the party contradicts the interest of the masses, and the masses have the right to rebel and struggle to supervise their leaders, Mistakes, excesses and other problems may occur due to the lack of leadership from the party, but these acts are justified and have to be supported. The pressure from below can bring about qualitative changes in the lines and policies of the leadership who, if still genuine, will take the initiative to correct itself. Consistent with this principle, Lenin supported the masses’ participation in sorting out the party ranks.

Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p.192, quoted in Stalin, Problems of Leninism, (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1976), p.178-216.

130

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Denying Both Mao’s and Masses’ Successes

Having full confidence in the masses and the majority of the party membership, Mao unleashed the Cultural Revolution to remove revisionists and revisionist lines from the party. Line of March’s line on the relationship between the party and the masses is bureaucratic and lifeless, having nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. In practice, under the pretext of safeguarding the dictatorship of the proletariat, their line leads to repression of the masses who have legitimate grievances. That’s exactly what the Line of March advocates with regards to the Polish workers’ struggle. Contending that Mao was interested only in manipulating the masses, Line of March charges that “while the party was locked in bitter factional struggle over the nature of revisionism’s relations with the CPSU and USSR, the masses were manipulated into struggle and shallow debate over such questions as whether the party work teams were under the control of ’capitalist-roaders’.” This is Line of March’s proof that the CPC “largely ignored” the task of “systematically raising the scientific and cultural level of the masses.” 131 There were problems in this sphere due to limitations of both the subjective and objective factors. But the debates and struggles in work places and campuses were definitely attempts to raise the scientific and cultural level. Typical intellectual idealists, Line of March can’t see any value in these campaigns, because to them, the struggle against revisionism is only a debate of ideas unrelated to actual class struggle and socialist construction. They slander the masses’ struggles against immediate effects of revisionism on their work – the only correct way to train Marxists – as “shallow.” To the Line of March, theories and lines are not for use in class struggle, but for selfcultivational academic debate. 131

“The Trial of the Gang of Four….”, op. cit., p.31.

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Blinded by their idealism, mechanism and chauvinism, Line of March claims that “Maoism... is a proven failure at constructing socialism where it has state power, at leading revolution to victory where it does not, and at directing the struggle of the world’s workers and oppressed people against their real common enemy — U.S. imperialism,” and that Maoism is the same as Trotskyism. This assertion parrots the line of the Soviet revisionists that “the Trotskyists and Maoists have also much in common in the methods they advocate for socialist construction, for these are based on subjectivism and voluntarism and lack of any scientific understanding of the laws governing the development of the socialist economy.” 132 Clearly these lies cannot explain how China under Mao’s leadership developed from a terribly backward country into a country with a self-sufficient economy and a developed infrastructure. Nor can it explain how China succeeded in its own liberation and how “Maoism” inspired many third world countries to wage victorious struggles for national liberation (while Trotskyism has inspired only counter-revolution). Line of March never begins to answer these questions. At the end of an article full of countless contradictory facts and analysis, Line of March asks, seemingly naive, “If Maoism constituted a backward ideological and political viewpoint, how did the Chinese Revolution, objectively a great blow to imperialism, succeed?” 133 This question should shatter any remaining doubts about Line of March’s idealism.

In Sum: A Necessary and Valuable Battle

The Cultural Revolution was a battle fought by the Chinese people against the revisionists that threatened the gains of socialism. Though overall it failed to achieve its objective, it was an historic attempt and the victory is the lessons 132 133

Critique of Mao’s Theoretical Conceptions, op. cit., p.283. “The Trial of the Gang of Four....”, op. cit., p.55.

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provided to the world proletariat. Just as we don’t condemn a child for a fall while learning to walk, we don’t condemn the masses for their mistakes in the course of fighting and learning. We respect their spirit of fight, fail, fight, fail and fight again until final victory. The present Chinese leaders have condemned the Cultural Revolution. Their reversal of the verdict on this great event and other accompanying questions has given modern revisionists a new lease on life. The ideological and theoretical confusion created has disintegrated many formerly genuine revolutionary organizations around the world. A correct sum-up of this great event is essential to resolve this confusion. Given the many lessons we can retrieve from the strengths as well as weaknesses of this movement, an incorrect sum-up has great consequences. Those who denounce the Cultural Revolution have no conception of the difficulty of building socialism, especially in an economically backward country. For those parties in advanced capitalist countries denouncing the Cultural Revolution, lack of appreciation of the necessity and lessons of the Cultural Revolution means inability to consolidate socialism after the seizure of state power, and even inability to take state power given the much higher level of allrounded preparation necessary in advanced capitalist countries. Therefore, differences over the Cultural Revolution sum-up are more than a line of demarcation: they affect our direction in party-building, and professionalizing the party ranks for the all-round preparations for the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the responsible outlook of genuine communists on any sum-up of major historical events. In contrast, to the idealists, political lines have no relevance to reality. That’s why they have such an outrageous and distorted view of the Cultural Revolution. Those socialist countries which denounce the Cultural Revolution risk losing valuable lessons of the Cultural Revolution in safeguarding socialism and eventually trans-

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forming socialism into communism. Totally liquidating ideological and political campaigns, those countries cannot deal with the widespread phenomena of bureaucracy, abuse of privileges and similar social problems that exist under socialism — the problems confronting the present CPC leadership. The very problems that motivated the masses to participate in the Cultural Revolution are again widespread in China. Educated through the storm of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese are less tolerant. Some have written about it, others are threatening another Cultural Revolution. A significant number take it with apathy and demoralization. Some people even doubt the superiority of the socialist system. These are factors counter-productive to the drive to modernize China. So despite their condemnation of the Cultural Revolution, due to opportunism or merely to seek revenge, the Chinese leaders know that something has to be done, or there will simply be no modernization, period. A letter written by a leading cadre of the Chinese Academy of Social Science urging ideological work was recently given full play in the party press. The author criticized the one-sided formulation of the “four modernizations” slogan. He said, “The fundamental modernization and capitalist modernization is that the former aims to unite the material and spiritual civilization .... It is important to us to study and inherit the revolutionary spirit of the Yenan Times, understand the relationship between material and spiritual civilization and attach importance to the building of socialist spiritual civilization.” Echoing Mao’s line, he added, “As an ideology, socialist spiritual civilization has its relative independence and hastens the building of a material civilization.” 134 This letter was the official party propaganda that launched the socialist civilization campaign recently Li Chang, “Build Socialist Spiritual Civilization”, Peking Review, No. 10, March 9, 1981, p.16-17.

134

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Cultural Revolution Unfolded

carried out. After two years of wholesale opportunist rejection of Mao’s lines (both correct and incorrect ones), the Chinese leaders are paying for some of the unpleasant consequences, such as the boldness of anti-socialist elements that not only reject Mao, but also socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the party. This forced the present CPC leadership to restore some of the correct teachings of Mao, if only to give themselves legitimacy and credibility as leaders. Altering their line that China after 1957 was in total darkness, and Mao’s leadership caused almost total economic collapse, they finally have to admit that despite the mistakes, China under Mao made tremendous progress, beyond comparison with other third world countries. That was in response to the bourgeois rightist challenge that bourgeois democracy and capitalism would be better than socialism for China. Perhaps nothing scared them more than the upsurge of Polish workers demanding accountability from their leaders. It reminds them of the Cultural Revolution, and that such a movement could come at any time, independent of their will. CPC leaders have repeatedly summed up lessons from the Polish situation, and are learning from it. The CPC summed up problems of opportunism in economic policy (cheating the masses with short-term economic results by getting the country tremendously in debt), bureaucracy among leadership, and lack of political independence as the cause of the Polish workers’ discontent. This sum-up gave impetus to their launching of the socialist civilization campaign, and their recognition of some of Mao’s very correct lines. But without also a correct sum-up of the Cultural Revolution, the measures that they are taking, while useful, will yield few results. How can they recognize that something has to be done about a problem, but condemn a serious attempt, namely the Cultural Revolution, to deal with it. This is the dilemma facing the CPC leaders and many communists around the world.

This work was originally published by the Communist Workers Party in 1981. In the aftermath of the Greensboro massacre, fear allowed revisionism to fester in the party, and in 1985 the party was dissolved. Nobody Owns Land reproduces it here for digital and physical distribution in the hopes that the sacrifices of these comrades are never forgotten. Though they played a bit part, these comrades nevertheless contributed to revolution in our time.

Remember the CWP 5: Comrade Cesar Cauce

Duke Hospital Organizing Committee, head of union drive newsletter

Comrade Bill Sampson President-elect, ACTWU local 1391

Comrade Jim Waller

CWP Central Committee, President of ACTWU local 1113-T

Comrade Sandy Smith

Chairperson, Cone’s Revolution Textile Mill Organizing Committee Youth Organization of Black Unity

Comrade Mike Nathan

People’s doctor, organizer of medical supplies to Zimbabwean freedom-fighters