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p Developments over the past few years
provide evidence that by their Great-Power adventurist policy, founded on petty-bourgeois nationalistic ideology, which is hostile to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, Mao Tse-tung and his group are undermining the positions of socialism in China. This group has realised that conventional methods will not turn the Chinese working people into "mute cogs”, into "obedient buffaloes" or enable it to achieve the objectives of its anti-popular, anti-socialist line. It therefore decided on violence against the Party and the people. In the spring of 1966, under the smoke screen provided by the "cultural revolution”, Mao Tse-tung and his entourage began to steer towards the establishment of an absolute dictatorship. Characteristically, they concealed their intentions with slogans about a revolution on the cultural front. Today this camouflage has been discarded and the organisers of the present events in China bluntly call them a "political revolution”.

p Reports coming from Peking indicate that Mao Tse-tung and his henchmen are determined to secure the earliest possible legalisation and stabilisation of the "new order" set up by them during the "cultural revolution" and consolidate their positions.

p At the cost of a great effort the Maoists concentrated all power in the hands of a centre, which they call the " headquarters of Mao”, while in the provinces they have completed setting up "revolutionary committees”, which have replaced 184 the people’s committees, elected in accordance with the Constitution of the PRC, and the provincial committees of the CPC, which existed in accordance with the Party Rules. In the "revolutionary committees" all power is concentrated in the hands of Army officers supporting the Maoists.

What we are witnessing in China today is a long reactionary campaign veiled by “Left-revolutionary” verbiage and having as its real objective the establishment of a militarybureaucratic regime that has nothing in common with the dictatorship of the proletariat, with genuine socialism and democracy and with the basic interests of the working people of China.

I

p Using the authority won by the CPC
in revolutionary struggle and by the labour of millions of Communists, the Maoists cynically continue to pose as " revolutionary Marxists-Leninists”. The indications are that they intend to go on operating under the flag of the Communist Party and use the name of the Central Committee of the CPC. Testimony of this is the convening of the "12th ( extended) plenary meeting of the CC CPC”, which, according to the Hsinhua News Agency, was held in Peking from October 13 to 31, 1968.

p This "plenary meeting" was nothing more than a manoeuvre by the Maoists, for it had no legal force from the standpoint of the CPC Rules. Of the 174 members and alternate members of the CC CPC, elected at the Eighth Congress in 1956, and in office when the "cultural revolution" started, more than 130 have been publicly discredited or repressed on the charge of being “agents” of Liu Shaochi, President of the People’s Republic of China. This "plenary meeting" was called “extended” to give it the appearance of being representative and to conceal the absence of a quorum of CC CPC members and alternate members. The place of defamed prominent Party members was taken by members of the notorious "group for cultural revolution affairs" (in the communique it was underscored that all the members of this group were present), representatives of the "revolutionary committees" of provinces, major cities and 185 autonomous regions aftd also by "leading responsible comrades from the PLA”.

p Mao Tse-tung and his supporters needed this "plenary meeting" as a means of using the name of the Central Committee to bolster the shaken prestige of the "great helmsman" and post factum “approve” his activities and the arbitrary rule and excesses of the "group for cultural revolution affairs" in the course of two and a half years of political struggle, and thereby absolve themselves of the responsibility for the persecution of prominent members of the CPC and many hundreds of thousands of honest Communists who opposed the anti-popular policies.

p At the close of 1966 and beginning of 1967 the Maoists removed from office or repressed many members of the Political Bureau, secretaries of the CC CPC, members of the Government, secretaries of provincial, town and country Party committees, chairmen of the provincial and town people’s committees, and so on. Using the name of the CC, they now have, in contravention of the CPC Rules, "expelled Liu Shao-chi from the Party" and removed him "from all posts in and outside the Party”.

p For the Maoists the political significance of the "12th plenary meeting of the CC CPC" is that it sanctioned post factum the massacres in the Party in the course of the " cultural revolution”.

p The documents of the "12th plenary meeting" and the assertions of Peking propaganda about the "decisive victory in the cultural revolution" show that the Maoists consider as complete the destruction of the former political structure and the dispersal and discrediting of Party and Government cadres in one way or another upholding the line laid down by the Eighth Congress of the CPC.

p Indeed, as a result of pogroms sustained over a period of nearly three years the Maoists have paralysed the Communist Party of China, including both its central and local organisations. The Party committees in the counties, towns and provinces have been abolished. The authority of the Central Committee has been usurped by a small group headed by Mao Tse-tung. The Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the CC CPC no longer function. The National Assembly of People’s Representatives and its Standing Committee have been crippled. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Communist Youth League and other public organisations 186 have been disbanded. With the backing of a hand-picked top echelon of military leaders the Maoists have taken over key posts in the leadership of the country’s political, social and economic affairs.

p The "revolutionary committees" are regarded as the backbone of the new political structure in China. The "12th plenary meeting" assessed the establishment, completed in September 1968, of 29 provincial "revolutionary committees" as a "great and decisive victory" in the "cultural revolution”. Notwithstanding the declarations that the new organs of power "must be elected by universal elections after the pattern of the Paris Commune" (decision of the llth plenary meeting of the CC CPC of August 8, 1966), the " revolutionary committees" are formed of appointees from the Army, so-called "revolutionary masses" and Party cadres. Steps are being taken to form such “committees” in the counties, rural communes, factories and offices. According to the Chinese press this work has been completed in 20 provinces.

p However, the planting of "revolutionary committees" is encountering serious obstacles. The unceasing internal strife frequently takes them to the verge of dissolution. Even the official press does not stop complaining of attacks against the “committees” from the "Right and Left" and urges that an end should be put to the "class enemies”, who "use every means in an effort to infiltrate into the revolutionary committees of all levels" and "openly dispute their authority.”

p Actually, the "revolutionary committees" are a weapon of the military-bureaucratic dictatorship, and their role is to give the "new order" in China the appearance of being representative.

p The communique of the "12th plenary meeting" is worded in such a way as to give people the impression that Mao Tsetung and his group have the support of the working class and make them forget the hungweiping and tsaofan terror that was brought down primarily on the working class and its vanguard—the Communist Party—and the trade unions. The Maoists now claim that the "cultural revolution" is directed by none other than the working class.

p The "12th plenary meeting" called for the "resolute implementation" of this line, demanding that the workers "carry out the tasks set by Chairman Mao Tse-tung at all stages of the struggle, criticism and transformation, and consummate the great proletarian cultural revolution”. In practice this 187 was reduced to the setting up of “workers’ teams for the propagation of the thought of Mao Tse-tung”. These teams are sent to educational establishments, "to all spheres of the superstructure" and "places where intellectuals congregate"(!) with the mission to put an end to the internecine strife, which is leading to anarchy, and to continue the "cultural revolution" where it has bogged down.

p Thus, having used politically immature, fanatically-minded young people to destroy Party organisations, the Maoists now send “workers’ teams" against the hungweipings in order to secure a stabilisation of the situation in the country. Formerly Mao had deceived young people and with their help had terrorised the working people. Now the Maoists are endeavouring to dupe the workers, confuse them with flattering appeals, make them deal summarily not only with a section of the youth but also with their class brothers and thereby screen the key role played by the Maoist military units in the repressions and other unpopular acts.

p The "leading role of the working class" and "the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat" are mentioned repeatedly in the communique. This is nothing more than Mao Tse-tung’s usual juggling with Marxist terminology. In reality the power in the “teams” is in the hands of the military, who determine the composition of the “teams” and direct their actions.

p In a message to Lin Piao in May 1968, Mao Tse-tung demanded that the Army play "a bigger part in the great proletarian cultural revolution”. The Peking press calls the Army a "powerful mainstay" and a "great wall”. The Maoists are well aware that they can remain in power only by maintaining and increasing their control of the Army. Army representatives occupy key posts in the "headquarters of Mao" (eight of its 14 members are professional soldiers) and in the " revolutionary committees”.

p However, judging by reports from China, Mao and his entourage are becoming increasingly worried by the growing discontent in the Army over the fact that it has been turned into a punitive instrument of their anti-popular policy. This has induced the Maoists to step up the purge among the military. In the course of this operation, which is being carried out with the utmost caution so as not to provoke "undue discontent”, the Army is being purged not only of those who disagree with the "Mao line”, but also of those who were " 188 insufficiently active" in implementing present policy. "Suspicious elements" are demobilised and sent to the villages for “ reeducation”. Other measures are being taken to strengthen Maoist control of the Army. One of these is the formation of special units subordinated directly to the "headquarters of Mao”. These units are entrusted with all sorts of punitive operations not only against the population but also against other PLA units.

p As in previous decisions and instructions of the Mao group, the documents of the "12th plenary meeting" do not contain a positive economic programme aimed at restoring and promoting the economy. This in spite of the fact that the Maoists have plunged China into a desperate economic situation. The management of the economy has been seriously dislocated.

p Agriculture, the main branch of China’s economy, does not satisfy the country’s food and agricultural raw material requirements.

p Industry and transport have been hard hit by the "cultural revolution”. At many factories work has been brought to a standstill or disorganised. The unceasing calls to "carry out a revolution and stimulate production" have done little to end the anarchy and disorder at the factories. Economists estimate that in 1967 gross industrial output fell by 15-20 per cent. The output of coal, which constitutes 90 per cent of China’s fuel, dropped by 40 per cent, electric power by 30 per cent, and steel by 25-30 per cent. Latest reports indicate that in the localities efforts are being made to restore production and normalise economic life, but this is proceeding slowly and encountering enormous difficulties.

Nothing is said in the documents of the "12th plenary meeting" of the prospects of China’s economic development. All one finds in them are general statements to the effect that "production must be stimulated against the contingency of war”. The communique claims that the "cultural revolution" "facilitates and will facilitate another leap in socialist construction in our country”. Forecasts of this kind can hardlybe expected to gladden the Chinese working people, who have experienced the tragedy of the "big leap" of 1958-59. The vagueness of the wording in the communique is evidently due not only to economic setbacks but also to serious differences among the Maoists on questions of China’s further development.

189

II

p The questions of "adjusting and
building up Party organisations" and "purging the CPC" occupy the central place in the documents of the "12th plenary meeting”.

p While raising these questions the Maoists insist that they by no means imply the restoration of the CPC in its former shape. At first the intention was proclaimed of "infusing the Party with new blood" by bringing hungweipings into it. But this intention had to be abandoned because in this period the Maoists had lost much of their control of the hungweipings, whose outrages evoked discontent among the population and in the Army alike.

p While the "plenary meeting" was in session, the Chinese press published Mao Tse-tung’s instructions on a new purge of the CPC and the mass admission into it of new members under the demagogic slogan of "throw out garbage and bring in new blood”. The stake was now put on the so-called tsaofans, whose organisations, it will be recalled, were formed of politically immature, unsteeled workers indoctrinated in a spirit of fanatical devotion to Mao. In publishing Mao’s instructions, the magazine Hungchih wrote: "The Party organisations must accept tsaofans, who are boundlessly devoted to Chairman Mao Tse-tung.”

p Actually this was not a measure aimed at revitalising the Party. It had been disorganised and its members had been subjected to merciless persecution by the Maoists with the definite purpose of “building” a new political organisation, which would retain only the external appearance of the CPC and part of its former members.

p By paralysing and destroying the network of Party organisations and abolishing the people’s committees, Mao Tse-tung and his henchmen undermined the Party’s leading role in society and disrupted its direction of social affairs. The military control established throughout the country could make good this loss only temporarily and partially. In the autumn of 1967, therefore, the Maoists began to speak of "reorganising the Party" and preparing for the Ninth Congress of the CPC. However, the plan to hold the congress in the spring and then in the autumn of 1968 did not materialise.

p Mao Tse-tung intends to use the so-called Ninth Congress 190 of the CPC to legalise the "new order" and consolidate his military-bureaucratic dictatorship.

p In the name of the "12th plenary meeting" it was officially announced that the Ninth Party Congress had to be held "at a suitable time”. Jenmin Jihpao recently specified that the congress would be convened in 1969. In the Chinese press, as in the communique of the "12th plenary meeting”, it is stressed that "the ideological, political and organisational conditions have now been fully prepared for the Ninth AllChina Congress of the Party”.

p By "ideological conditions" they mean the final legalisation of the replacement of Marxism-Leninism by Maoism. In the communique it is stated that the “thought” of Mao Tse-tung "is for our whole Party, our whole Army and our whole country the guide in any work”.

p The present CPC Rules, in which it is recorded that "in its activities the Communist Party of China is guided by Marxism-Leninism" and which, according to Party norms, can only be amended at a Party Congress, have long ago been labelled as “revisionist” by the Mao group.

p The draft Rules of the Maoist party contain a provision stating that the "thought of Mao Tse-tung is the theoretical foundation of the CPC”. It will be recalled that in 1945, when the Maoists set out to gain complete control of the Party they compelled the Seventh Congress of the CPC to include in the Rules the provision, under the guise of " Sinicising Marxism”, that the "thought of Mao" plays the leading role in the Party. This provision was deleted from the Rules in 1956 by the Eighth Congress of the CPC. Today, having destroyed the Communist Party, Mao and his henchmen have proclaimed this “thought” the theoretical foundation not only of the CPC but of the entire international communist movement. This has been made plain by Yao Wen-yuan, a Mao henchman, who said: "In China the question of the absolute authority of the thought of Mao Tse-tung has been settled. The task is now to establish its absolute authority throughout the world.”

p The programme provisions of the CPC, adopted at the Eighth Congress, have been expunged from the draft new Rules drawn up by the "group for cultural revolution affairs" and, as is reported, discussed at the "12th plenary meeting”. Similarly, the Maoists have swept overboard all the fundamental decisions of the Eighth Congress on home and foreign 191 policy, planned economic development, industrialisation, the utmost satisfaction of the people’s material and cultural requirements, the surmounting of Great-Han chauvinism, a peace-loving foreign policy, and so on. The programme introduction to the draft Rules contains no mention of any positive tasks in socialist construction in China.

p Chauvinism and anti-Sovietism occupy a major place in Mao’s ideological platform. In contravention of the decisions of the Eighth Congress calling for closer friendship and solidarity with the CPSU, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the draft Rules of the emergent Maoist party demand that its members fight the Soviet Union and the CPSU. The hegemonistic, divisive, anti-Soviet policies of Mao Tse-tung are thus raised to the level of an official Party programme.

p This reactionary platform is reiterated in the communique of the "12th plenary meeting”. It overflows with abuse at the Soviet Union and the CPSU. Possessed with the idea of achieving hegemony, the Maoists have broken completely with the class approach. They place the USA and the Soviet Union in one and the same category and call upon their supporters to "organise a broad united front" against US imperialism and the Soviet Union. They have abandoned the idea of friendship and solidarity with countries of the socialist community.

p Recent actions and statements by the Maoists, like the documents of the "plenary meeting”, demonstrate that GreatPower chauvinism underlies their general line and that they are determined to legalise this line at the Ninth Congress of the CPC and start a broad ideological offensive against the socialist community and collective organisations of fraternal countries.

p The communique of the "12th plenary meeting" mirrors the intention of the Maoists to continue setting up proPeking groups in opposition to the international communist movement. Meanwhile, the Mao group is persevering in its savage attacks against the preparations for an international meeting of fraternal Parties.

p Acceptance of the petty-bourgeois, nationalistic, antiSoviet platform as the ideological foundation of the Party implies a complete break with proletarian and socialist internationalism. The Maoists want other peoples to recognise Mao Tse-tung as "leader, teacher, helmsman and general”. 192 Hegemonism, chauvinism, anti-Sovietism, subversion and divisive activities in the communist movement are the basic principles behind the international activities of the Maoists.

p The "political conditions" for convening a congress of the Maoist party are created by eliminating unsuitable Party cadres, who are now called agents of Liu Shao-chi. The demand of the "12th plenary meeting" that "accounts should further be settled" with Liu Shao-chi and "his accomplices" pursues the purpose of intimidating Communists. The sharp edge of the new Party purge, which has been intensified since the"plenary meeting”, is directed mainly against Communists upholding the general line approved by the Eighth Congress of the CPC. The "plenary meeting‘s” sharp condemnation of the attempts to exonerate a section of the Party cadres shows that Mao and his entourage are not making any concessions on this issue. The Communists and working people of China have been placed before the accomplished fact of a radical turn in China’s political line, illegal from the standpoint of the Constitution of the PRC and the decisions of the Eighth Congress of the CPC, and of the creation of a military-bureaucratic regime.

p The "organisational conditions" for the Ninth Congress of the CPC are being created by militarising the Party. The Party is being organised on Army principles. A striking picture of the Maoists’ rupture with the organisational principles of the Marxist-Leninist Party is given by the abovementioned draft Rules, which are to be submitted to the Ninth Congress of the CPC. From the CPC Rules adopted by the Eighth Congress, the Maoists have struck out the provisions on democratic centralism, inner-Party democracy, collective leadership, the cohesion and unity of the Party and the impermissibility of divisive, factional activity and of attempts to set an individual above the collective. " Absolute devotion to Chairman Mao, to his thought ’and political line" (Lin Piao) has been declared the criterion of Party membership.

p There is not a hint of inner-Party democracy in the draft Rules. To all intents and purposes, the Maoists have renounced the electivity of all leading Party bodies from top to bottom. According to this draft, the Party committees of all levels, including the Central Committee, the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee, are not elected but “formed”. 193 The significance of the Party National Congress and its Central Committee as the highest collective leading organs of the Party has been minimised. Their powers have not been defined, and nothing is said about the procedure for convening a congress. The reservations about "special conditions" introduced into the draft Rules make it possible to postpone convening congresses indefinitely. No time limit is set for holding plenary meetings of the CC. The CC Secretariat is done away with. In the preamble to the draft Rules Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao are named as the candidates for the post of CC Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively. The Maoists have thereby adopted the monarchist principle of succession. The preamble officially names Lin Piao as the "successor of Comrade Mao Tse-tung”.

p As understood by Mao Tse-tung and explained by Jenmin Jihpao, proletarian discipline means the following: "We must carry out Chairman Mao’s instructions regardless of whether we understand or as yet do not understand their meaning. We must consolidate the absolute authority of the thought of Mao Tse-tung.. . . This is the highest discipline.”

p The Leninist principle of the subordination of the minority to the majority is denounced as “opportunist” and “ revisionist”.

p The whole course of the preparations for the congress lays bare the anti-Leninist designs of its organisers. In a notification issued by the "group for cultural revolution affairs" it is pointed out that "it would be better to appoint the delegates to the congress from the top”. The selection of delegates has been entrusted to Kang Sheng and Chiang Ching, Mao Tse-tung’s wife. In this they are guided by Mao Tse-tung’s statement: "What is democracy? I do not believe in elections generally.” A directive to select a definite number of delegates, chiefly Army representatives and tsaofans, has been issued from Peking. The Maoists thus renounce all democratic principles of Party activity, replacing them with absolute centralism. This is turning the Party into a bureaucratic organisation and leads to its degeneration.

p The practical work of “adjusting” and “reorganising” the Party and of preparing for the Ninth Congress is directed by the "group for cultural revolution affairs" in the centre and by the "revolutionary committees" in the localities. Reports have appeared in the Chinese press to the effect that the 194 admission of tsaofans into the Party has begun. This is handled not by Party organisations but by the "revolutionary committees”.

The "adjusted and reorganised" Party is thus accorded the role of a tool of Mao Tse-tung’s military-bureaucratic dictatorship.

III

p Recent developments make it obvious
that in China the foundations of socialism are being steadily eroded. In the course of the "cultural revolution" the Mao group diverted the Party and the nation from the political line of the Eighth Congress of the CPC aimed at building socialism in China in close co-operation with the USSR and other fraternal countries. A considerable number of Party and Government cadres objectionable to Mao Tse-tung have been repressed and removed from public activity with the help of the Army, the hungweipings and the tsaofans. The political superstructure of the people’s democratic society has been superseded by a military-bureaucratic regime founded on the hierarchy of "revolutionary committees”. At present it is hard to say if the "revolutionary committees" will remain as permanent organs of power or will be replaced by other bodies more suitable for ensuring the power of Mao Tse-tung and his group. For the time being they are described as the "ideal and most perfect form of authority”.

p Although the Maoists have temporarily attained their objectives they have come up against immense difficulties in administering China’s political and economic affairs. This compels them to preserve some of the organisational forms and attributes that existed prior to the "cultural revolution”. In particular, this is explained by the Maoists’ manoeuvres in connection with the "12th plenary meeting" and with the forthcoming Ninth Congress of the CPC. Their attempts to liquidate the CPC are encountering growing resistance from rank-and-file Communists and millions of other politicallyconscious people in China. This is demonstrated by the very fact that having demolished the Party organisations the Maoists nonetheless use the name of CC CPC as a cover. They are afraid of being exposed and, therefore, all mass media are used to dupe the Chinese people, to give them no 195 opportunity to see the actual situation in the country and the real reasons for their sufferings.

Renunciation by the Maoists of the decisions of the Eighth Congress of the CPC means that they have abandoned the planned building of the material basis of socialism. But the lesson of history is that evasion or disregard of economic problems does not mean that these problems disappear. Chinese society still stands before acute and vital problems such as industrialisation and the accumulation of means for its implementation, the modernisation of and the attainment of greater efficiency in agriculture, the training of scientific and technological personnel and the abolition of illiteracy. Recent years have shown that the “thought” and policy of Mao Tsetung cannot serve as the basis for the successful solution of these problems in the interests of the Chinese people, in the interests of socialism. Since such is the case, it means that Mao Tse-tung’s victories over his adversaries, his “triumph”, stand on a wobbling foundation.

p Having broken with Marxism, with scientific socialism, Mao Tse-tung is feverishly whipping up nationalism. He is particularly afraid of the impact on the Chinese people of the example of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. He and his group regard slander against them as a major means of deceiving the masses and maintaining the class consciousness and political literacy of the people at a low level.

p A great calamity has overcome the Chinese people. This cannot but disturb many Chinese Communists, who are pondering where the Mao group is leading China. In the different strata of Chinese society there are forces trying to counter the anti-popular line of the Maoists, safeguard the gains of the revolution and uphold the line adopted at the Eighth Congress of the CPC. This frightens Mao Tse-tung and his entourage. While ruthlessly repressing Communist- internationalists and everybody else who cherishes the gains of socialism, the Mao group is compelled to camouflage its policy in an effort to confuse and split the healthy forces in Chinese society and prevent their consolidation on a Marxist-Leninist platform.

p Impelled by their friendship for the great Chinese people, 196 Soviet people, like all other fighters for the cause of communism throughout the world, express the confidence that under the leadership of Communists the Chinese people will sooner or later surmount the pernicious consequences of Maoist policy and regain their place among the peoples building socialism and communism.

The policy and actions of Mao Tse-tung over the past period of a little more than ten years strikingly demonstrate the ideological bankruptcy of Maoism. The experience of present developments in their country is making the Communists and all working people of China see for themselves that they can return to the highroad of progress, fraternal co-operation with all socialist countries, peace and friendship with all nations only by following the path delineated by the internationalist teaching of Marxism-Leninism, resurrecting the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and restoring it to its leading role in society.