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p The Chinese leaders grouped around
Mao Tse-tung are trying forcibly to suppress the growing discontent of Party cadres, workers and peasants, and also of progressive intellectuals with the abortive home and foreign policy. By spreading terror and increasing political tension in the country, the Mao group sought to force the discontented people into silence and make them easy prey for the young thugs, for the youth storm detachments of Mao. This, it was calculated, would prepare the ground for another "big leap”.

p Today it is obvious that this “cultural” action of the Mao group has placed a still heavier burden on the Chinese people, and that China’s progress towards socialism has been greatly retarded. The economic and social achievements scored as a result of the dedicated labour of the Chinese people are now in jeopardy. During the past two years the proletarian organisations—the Party and the trade unions— and also other organisations of the advanced sections of the Chinese population have been systematically undermined and then destroyed. This was accomplished under slogans and signboards calling for a "struggle against bourgeois elements”, a struggle against persons "planning to restore bourgeois-capitalist society”.

p China’s economic development could not remain unaffected by the whirlwinds started by this political chaos, particularly in view of the fact that in their activities the Maoists largely ignored the significance of the objective economic laws governing the building of socialism. They tried to 276 achieve their voluntaristic objectives by force, in contravention of the interests of the country’s population.

p While the official Chinese press prints countless statements to the effect that the "cultural revolution" stimulates production and the advance of science and technology, the real picture is quite different. During the past few years China has moved from one economic failure to another and the standard of living has registered a further drop.

p At a mass rally in Wuhan on October 9, 1967, Chou En-lai, Premier of the State Council, was forced to make an indirect admission on this point. He spoke of the certain price that had to be paid "in certain places and in certain departments”, and of the decline of production, taken into account in advance, at factories where matters reached the extent of disturbances.  [276•* 

p No exact statistics have been available in recent years on industrial and agricultural production in the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese press has long ago ceased to print summaries of output figures in the various branches of the economy and of key industrial products. However, on the basis of fragmentary reports and by closely following developments in China the conclusion may be drawn that in recent years industrial production has remained stagnant, while in some branches, particularly in the sphere of raw materials, there has been an appreciable decline. Despite the favourable weather, food production has grown only insignificantly, hardly surpassing the 1957 level.

p The reasons are obvious, and they are:

p 1. The leadership of the economy has been paralysed for a long time. The third five-year plan for 1966-70 was announced, but no specific figures have been published, and there has been a general absence of planned activity in the economic life of the provinces and at the factories. There were 23 ministries. In the course of the "cultural revolution" the leadership of at least 13 of them has been attacked, removed or simply scattered. Even persons belonging to the Party top echelon directly responsible for the leadership of the economy like Po I-po, Li Fu-chung and others, have been the targets of fierce attack by the "Mao detachments”. Members of various organisations of the "revolutionary youth”, many of them very young and totally inexperienced, 277 took over the direction of ministries and other key economic levers—banks, supply organs and so forth.

p 2. Strikes at industrial enterprises and bloody clashes between young people from the "storm detachments of the cultural revolution" and workers defending their factories and Party committees swept the whole of China particularly beginning in the winter of 1966-67. Army units also took part in these clashes, which were particularly violent in January-February and July-August 1967 in Central and East China, and also in the Northeast and Southwest. Many thousands of workers and entire Army units were involved. On the whole, in 1967 factories worked more or less normally for five months at the most. But even during these five months there could be no question of industry working at full capacity or of a balanced intensity of labour. It is believed that in 1967 industrial output reached about 80 per cent of the 1966 level, while the 1958-59 level was exceeded only in some strategically important industries.

p 3. The most serious consequences of the "cultural revolution" are undoubtedly to be observed in the scientific and technological fields. According to the decision of the llth plenary meeting of the CC CPC (August 1966) on the launching of the "cultural revolution" (16 points), the scientists and leading engineering cadres were not to be affected by the call to "smash and destroy" bourgeois forces. However, the general uncertainty and the absence of law and order had, naturally, a very adverse effect on the creative activity of cadres working in scientific institutes and industrial research centres. Special subjects were not taught at general education schools, at secondary schools and institutions of higher learning for more than 18 months, and even when they were re-opened the slogan was advanced that it was more important to receive a "diploma in the ideological sphere" than a diploma in technical sciences. All this had far-reaching consequences for young scientific and engineering cadres, who could see no future in the obtaining situation.

p The Chinese leaders confined their efforts to achieving a high scientific and technological level in industries which they felt were important for the attainment of their GreatPower chauvinistic aims. Priority was given first and foremost to the war industry, chiefly the production of missiles and nuclear weapons, and affiliated branches of science and the economy.

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p 4. The measures of compulsion in the economy and the massive political-ideological campaign conducted in recent years with the aim of completely eradicating incentives in industry and agriculture have had an extremely adverse effect on labour productivity. Under the slogan of uprooting survivals of "bourgeois rights" and the trend towards " bourgeois profit”, and of combating all forms of “economism”, bonuses were stopped, wages were reduced, differences in remuneration in various industries were diminished and, in general, remuneration for labour was brought down to a "low rational level”. Any aspiration of the working people for an improvement of their status at their place of work and for a better standard of living is suppressed by force because it does not fall in with the aims of the Chinese leaders. In order to achieve its aim of turning China into a "world power" the Mao group needs the largest possible accumulation fund and not the aspiration for “satiety”. As early as 1958 Mao Tse-tung said: "Poverty is a good thing. It makes people think of changes.”

p On March 11, 1967 the Shanghai newspaper Wenhuai Pao complained that the workers were coming out against the denial of rights and were fighting the deterioration of the conditions of life, which had already been reduced to a primitive level. The newspaper wrote: "Instead of denouncing the bourgeois line in principle, the workers put forward numerous complaints about the social position in their trades. First and foremost, they make purely economic demands of various kinds regarding their wages and material condition. ... At present this is a serious obstacle to the seizure of power by the proletariat.”

p 5. Through the all-embracing militarisation of social life, particularly the country’s economic life, and relying on the dictatorship of the Army, the Mao group has recently been trying to build a "new revolutionary state system”. It was the Army’s participation in agricultural work that made it possible to avert a further deterioration of supplies to the population. For a long time the rural population was not drawn into the convulsions of the "cultural revolution”, but the peasants protested against the infringements of their vital interests by concealing foodstuffs subject to delivery to the state, damaging roads leading to the towns and passively resisting Army control of field work during harvesttime.

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p In this connection the circular of the CC CPC of July 14, 1967 concerned the "inciting of peasants" to go to the towns and resort to violence. In the circular it was pointed out that persons inciting peasants "to put up obstructions on railways, motor roads and waterways will be sternly punished”.

p Throughout the country the production and distribution of commodities have been placed under military control on the pretext that the Army had to help the peasants and workers understand the new elements being introduced by the "cultural revolution" and free themselves of the ideological ballast of bourgeois views about property. Small wonder that the workers and peasants resisted in every way they could.

p 6. It must be remembered that in the period from August 1966 to September 1967 exactly 20 per cent of the means of transport in China were diverted for the conveyance of millions of young people travelling all over the country with the purpose of "sharing experience" of fighting so-called bourgeois elements. There was, therefore, a shortage of means for the transportation of raw and other materials, equipment and food. Young people gave up study and their jobs, received free clothes and food—medical care was also free—and went to all parts of the country to "share experience”. Moreover, transport structures and bridges were destroyed in the course of the armed clashes, with the result that the transport service was seriously disrupted.

p In 1966 the llth plenary meeting of the CC CPC announced that another "big leap" was pending. Two years later one could say with absolute certainty that the Chinese economy was farther away from any upsurge than ever before, that the crisis was growing deeper and the economic disproportions had grown, that the lag in production, science and technology had become more pronounced and that the people’s standard of living had fallen still lower.

p The statement made on the situation in China in the report of the Political Bureau of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany to the 13th plenary meeting of the CC SUPG in September 1966 may be repeated because it holds true to this day, two years later.

p This statement pointed out that the policy pursued by the Chinese leaders was jeopardising the socialist social system in China. The working class and other progressive forces throughout the world were worried that the considerable successes achieved by the PRC in the initial period of its 280 existence, in 1949-56, were being nullified as a result of the anti-Marxist-Leninist, nationalistic policy of the Mao group, a policy with the conquest of world domination as its objective.

p This situation in China’s economy gives rise to two questions:

p 1. How did it come about that an economic programme of this kind was formulated as part of a broad petty-bourgeois nationalistic programme?

p 2. What forces were at the back of this programme?

p To answer these questions we must examine in retrospect the principal stages of the economic development of the People’s Republic of China.

p An analysis of the policy and alignment of forces in the leadership of the Communist Party of China shows that there has been an unending struggle between two orientations: internationalist, Marxist-Leninist and petty-bourgeois, nationalistic. Since January 1935 the latter orientation has been steadily winning positions in the Party leadership. In the course of many years there have been serious discussions of the question of the leading role played by the working class in the liberation movement and in the building of socialism, and on the attitude towards proletarian internationalism. The arguments over the appraisal of MarxistLeninist teaching began not in 1957 but as early as the 1940s. The reason behind this was that already in 1942 there were signs of attempts to proclaim the teaching and "thought of Mao Tse-tung" as the theoretical foundation of the CPC and of the whole of Chinese society. The economic policy and theory of the ruling group in China can only be understood against the background of these debates and discussions (space does not permit us to analyse them in detail).

p In 1949, when the Chinese people’s revolution culminated in victory, the Chinese people and the CPC, as the leading force of the people’s democratic state, were confronted with the task of rapidly delivering the country from the heritage of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial past. Within a period of several decades the imperialist powers, primarily Japanese imperialism, in alliance with internal feudal exploiters and the reactionary forces of the Chinese bourgeoisie, pushed the Chinese people into the abyss and privations of civil wars, foreign military intervention, and inflation.

p After the Second World War, the international situation 281 and the world socialist system then emerging and gathering strength gave China the political and economic possibility of safeguarding her newly-won independence. It was obvious to the group of leaders round Mao Tse-tung that the economy could not be restored and the political and economic blockade enforced by the imperialist powers could not be breached without a firm alliance with the socialist camp. This understanding of the real situation determined the policy of the Chinese leaders during the initial years after they had seized power.

p The Chinese people had every reason to trust the extensive assistance rendered to them disinterestedly, in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. This assistance made itself felt in all spheres: the experience gained by the fraternal Parties of the socialist countries ensured the Chinese working people with a rapid improvement of the conditions of life. The nationalistic plans of the Mao group, which was out to win hegemony, had to be moved to the background. The objective course of events in China—the economic upsurge, the rising standard of living and the growing prestige in the world— clearly demonstrated that this was made possible because the laws of socialist construction were being observed and China’s policy had an internationalist, Marxist-Leninist foundation. In those years development was positive, and it attracted the attention and respect of the whole world.

p The figures given below show that with assistance from the USSR China built a reliable economic foundation for development for a period of several decades. On the basis of a number of economic agreements concluded in 1954-59, the USSR and the PRC signed treaties on the building of 304 large industrial projects. Of these 200 projects, equipped with the most up-to-date plant, were built and turned over to China before 1961. This provided the capacities for the annual production of 8,700,000 tons of pig iron, 8,400,000 tons of steel and 32,200,000 tons of coal and shale.

p The installed plant accounted for 70 per cent of China’s tin, 100 per cent of her synthetic rubber, 25-30 per cent of her electric power and 80 per cent of her lorries and tractors.

p An identical picture was to be observed in the oil, heavy engineering, turbine- and generator-building and defence industries.

p The Soviet Union sent 10,830 specialists, who passed on 282 their experience in almost all branches of the Chinese economy. The People’s Republic of China was given, free of charge, 24,000 sets of scientific and technological documentation, including the blueprints for 1,400 large factories. A total of 11,000 young Chinese received under-graduate and post-graduate training at institutions of higher learning in the Soviet Union.

p In this connection mention must be made of the fact that the GDR likewise extended considerable assistance to the People’s Republic of China in the building of nearly 40 industrial projects, chiefly in the power engineering and cement industries, and through extensive scientific and technological aid and the training of cadres.

p The Chinese leadership unconditionally acknowledged this support in their statements in China. For example, back in 1959 Chou En-lai said that the "rich store of experience garnered by the Soviet Union since it was founded is another important source which we draw on to carry out our economic construction plan. This experience has been decisive in enabling China to advance successfully along the road of socialist industrialisation”.  [282•* 

p The policy successfully pursued by China after the establishment of popular rule was reiterated at the Eighth Congress of the CPC in September 1956. In addition to this endorsement, the Congress charted the road for the future, particularly as regards further economic development in the period of the second five-year plan (1958-62). The Congress formulated the general line in socialist construction as follows:

p “... to bring about, step by step, socialist industrialisation and to accomplish, step by step, the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce over a fairly long period... .

p “The Party’s general line in the transition period is a beacon that guides our work in every field. Any work that deviates from the general line, immediately lands itself in mistakes, Rightist or ‘Leftist’.”  [282•** 

p The resolution passed by the Congress states:

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p “To transform China from a backward agricultural country into an advanced, socialist industrial one we must complete the construction, within three five-year plans or slightly more, of an essentially comprehensive industrial system. That is to say, we must bring industrial production to a dominant place in social production as a whole; bring production by heavy industry to a markedly dominant position in the production of all industry; ensure that the engineering and metallurgical industries meet the needs of socialist expanded reproduction; and provide the necessary material foundation for the reconstruction of the national economy on the basis of modern techniques.”  [283•* 

p In a message of greetings to the Eighth Congress of the CPC Mao Tse-tung likewise noted that the building-up of industry must advance step by step and that exceedingly difficult work lay ahead. He stressed that China’s experience was inadequate and that, therefore, in carrying on construction in China the experience of the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies had to be taken into account.  [283•** 

p The Congress highly assessed China’s co-operation with the USSR and other socialist countries, emphasised that the policy of sharing experience and international co-operation had to be continued, and proclaimed that the guidelines of China’s foreign policy were friendship with countries of the socialist community and the policy of peaceful coexistence.

p These and many other facts demonstrate that in those years the line of the internationalists, of the MarxistsLeninists could, in the main, take root in the Party leadership. However, this must not overshadow yet another fact, namely that as early as 1955-56 there was sufficient evidence to show that the adventurists in the leadership grouped around Mao Tse-tung had made attempts to change the line adopted by the Party.

p In the report and in some of the speeches at the Eighth Congress special significance was attached to the question of the economic development rate and of the correlation between accumulation and consumption. There evidently were differences on these questions before the Congress, otherwise it would not have been necessary to draw attention to the tendencies towards adventurism, as was done in the political 284 report of the CC CPC and in the resolution passed by the Congress.

p In the political report it is stated:

p The rate of development "must be forward-looking or else we shall let slip the good opportunities that we have today and fall into the error of conservatism. But it must also be feasible, or else it will not enable the economy to develop in the correct ratio, and will put too great a burden on the people, or result in divergencies among the different branches of the national economy, making it impossible to fulfil the plan, and causing waste. This would be an error of adventurism”.  [284•* 

p In the Congress resolution it is pointed out:

p “If we fail to take these conditions into account [meaning the actual limitations of those years in the economic, financial and technological fields.—KM] and set too rapid a pace, this will in the end only hinder our economic development and the fulfilment of the plan.”  [284•** 

p These and many other points raised in the report on the work of the CC CPC and other leading Party organs and the criticism of subjectivist methods of leadership, of Right and “Left” deviations and the desire to build "socialism one beautiful morning" are indicative of the tensions that were rending the leadership of the CPC.

p In On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation, published in 1955, Mao Tse-tung “envisaged” accelerated rates of socialist transformations on a nation-wide scale, particularly mentioning the years 1957-58. It was in these years and slightly later that 114 million peasant households were united in 688,000 rural producers’ co-operatives of the higher type, and 28,600 people’s communes were set up directly afterwards.

p In 1956 the radical elements in the CPC leadership made their first attempt to accomplish a "big leap" over some stages of social development and thereby speed up the rates of socialist construction.

p Indeed, towards the beginning of 1956 the socialist reorganisation of private industry and private wholesale trade and also the setting-up of a large number of stateprivate enterprises led to an economic upsurge, particularly 285 in the production of consumer goods (group B). The latter enterprises were closely linked with general economic planning because their financial activities, material supplies and the distribution of their end products were handled by state organs. In 1956, after a period of stagnation, investments increased considerably over 1955, namely, by 51.1 per cent. Part of this extended reproduction was mirrored in the gross output of 1956, this being largely due to reserve investments from the state budget and state credits to consumer goods industries. The exceedingly large expansion of the economy in 1956 gave some adventurists the arguments for evolving the "big leap" theory.

p However, the Chinese leadership could not but admit that there had been many mistakes and shortcomings even as early as 1956. For example, that year the state budget was not balanced for the first time since 1952 on account of the huge capital investments. State budget expenditures on the means of accumulation began to show a decline in 1957. Compared with 1956 these expenditures diminished by 6.6 per cent.  [285•* 

p In 1957, as a result of the poor harvest in 1956 and also the sweeping measures in wage policy carried out in the spring of 1956, there was an appreciable diminution of vital necessities sold to the population. Disproportions took shape also in material supplies, particularly building materials, transport and food supplies to the towns.

p The year 1956 did not, as was asserted in China in 1958, exemplify the "big leap" as the means of accelerating economic development. It was sooner proof that China’s basis was much too weak, that her resources were much too small and that there was inadequate experience in planning and leadership. In these circumstances, it was unwise to go on with this uneven and unsteady economic development. But if, as was the case in China, the point of departure is that economic planning is largely determined by political considerations, the inevitable conclusion drawn from it is that already in those years there were embryos of economic adventurism although this was not shown openly, in the form of a general political line.

p These events, which took place before the Eighth Congress of the CPC, enable us to draw the conclusion today that at 286 the time Mao Tse-tung did not have the support of the majority in the Party leadership and could not openly oppose it. It will be recalled that at the Eighth Congress in 1956 he did not publicly state his stand on the prospects of socialist society in China, on economic policy, on social reforms or on Party work.

p On the basis of an analysis of the PRC’s development until 1956-57 it must be stated that during the initial stage after the revolution the CPC, on the whole, pursued a correct policy in accordance with the obtaining conditions for the country’s advance to socialism. But it was still confronted with more complex tasks. In the economic sphere decisive progress had to be secured in stabilising the new society, promoting steady, planned economic development and raising the leadership to the level unquestionably demanded by the complex situation in China. In short, the advantages of the socialist system and of the socialist international division of labour had to be used rationally. The Chinese leadership failed to cope with these tasks. The line followed by the Mao group inexorably gained ground. The Maoists used in their own way the people’s willingness to accomplish great deeds and their enthusiasm engendered by the rapid improvement of the standard of living. They demagogically declared that after several years of hard work there would be ten thousand years of happiness, that "a basic change in the features of most areas" would be achieved after three years of persevering labour.  [286•* 

p The forces opposing the policy of the Mao group were removed from their posts or intimidated or forced into silence during the campaign against "Right elements”. Unceasing and unbridled propaganda created the ideological foundation for unprecedented labour on the part of all sections of the population. Because of the weak material and technological basis for the mechanisation of agriculture and the modernisation of industry, an-attempt was made to mobilise additional productive forces by simply putting together a huge army of workers. Nearly 100 million people were mobilised in the winter of 1957-58 during the campaign to improve the irrigation network and increase crop yields. Thousands of small and tiny, mostly unprofitable, enterprises 287 were set up throughout the country. This was done to take the strain off central industrial enterprises and satisfy local requirements. But, as a result of this, millions of people were diverted from agricultural production. During the campaign to set up "small metallurgical plants" in 1958-59, 60 million people throughout China were drawn into the building of 600,000 small blast-furnaces and primitive steelsmelting furnaces. Thousands of carts and other vehicles were needed to transport ore and coal. These were diverted from agricultural production despite the fact that they were needed to bring in the harvest.

p From 50 to 60 working days per worker were required for the production of a ton of pig iron by this primitive method. The Chinese leadership calculated that after the initial difficulties were overcome, these tiny enterprises would annually produce 15 million tons of pig iron and seven million tons of steel.  [287•* 

p The "big leap" policy directed the energy of the hardworking Chinese into the wrong channels, with the result that the fruits of their dedicated labour were reduced to nothing.

p In 1958-60, when social life was completely disorganised, sand filled the waterways that had been built at such a great outlay of labour, the smelting furnaces, left unattended, crumbled to pieces, and the peasants quit the workbenches in the tiny industrial workshops. Hunger made them look out for themselves and their families, and they returned to the fields in the hope of eking out a living. The extremely adverse weather deepened the crisis in which the unscrupulous adventurist policy of the Mao group had driven the Chinese people. In this policy a special place was accorded to the people’s communes.

p We do not have the space in which to trace the establishment and disintegration of these communes in detail. But two examples will clearly show how the people were deluded by the Chinese leadership.

p In 1958, after Mao Tse-tung had visited Hsushui county, the local Party committee drew up a "draft prospective plan for accelerating socialist construction and advancing towards communism”. The aims of this “plan” were formulated as follows:

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p “To complete the building of socialism and begin the transition to communism in the main in 1960. To enter the great communist society in 1963. To complete the mechanisation of irrigation work and food processing in the winter of 1958-59 and start the mechanisation of field work and the electrification of the villages in the following year. To reach a high level of electrification in 1963.”

p Under the influence of official decisions and of instructions from the Party leadership, the following notion of the road to communism was formed in one of the villages:

p “In three years, from 1958 to 1960, or sooner, Chihling will become a new modern communist village with a high level of mechanisation, electrification and industrialisation. Unquestionably, the village will then surpass Britain and all other capitalist countries in the level of production and the conditions of life.”

p It may be contested that these are only individual cases. Nonetheless, the personal influence of Mao Tse-tung was obviously instrumental in the formation of notions such as these. Owing to the clear-cut personality cult, this was precisely how Chinese society pictured the numerous similar "programmes of the building of communism”. The Chinese leadership proclaimed the people’s communes as a suitable form of uniting society for the transition to communism. The communes, it must be remembered, did not develop spontaneously but on the initiative of the Mao group.  [288•* 

p The failures of the Maoist policies clearly showed that objectively existing reality cannot be superseded by wishful thinking or that the requirements of economic and technological development cannot be replaced by slogans no matter, how frequently such slogans may be repeated. The political and economic crisis, which grew to such formidable proportions, could not but aggravate the contradictions in the Chinese leadership. For the first time they burst out into the open in an extremely sharp form at the 8th plenary meeting 289 of the CC CPC in August 1959. At that plenary meeting a group of Political Bureau members and alternate members headed by the then Defence Minister Peng Teh-huai criticised Mao Tse-tung’s policy. Peng Teh-huai spoke against the accelerated, spasmodic economic development, the overestimation of the results achieved in agriculture in 1958, the mass campaign to promote "household metallurgy”, the setting up of people’s communes and the Party leadership’s line of accentuating mass ideological and political work and completely ignoring the means of economic management.  [289•* 

p Tao Chu (First Secretary of the Central-Southern Bureau of the CC CPC in 1956-65, member of the Standing Commitee of the Political Bureau of the CC CPC in 1966-67, and then denounced as a "bourgeois renegade”) also criticised the "big leap”. He pointed out that the question of the rates of economic development could only be resolved by complying with objectively existing economic laws and the actual conditions of economic life. The "big leap”, he said, could not bring about a limitless acceleration of economic development rates. He characterised as spurious the reports on the results achieved in agriculture. His opinion was that in 1957 economic development was influenced by the "anti- adventurists" with the result that the growth rates and plan indices showed a decline, but in the second half of 1958 the economic growth rates were too high and objective laws were disregarded.   [289•** 

p Scientists like the economist Sun Yeh-fang, Deputy Chairman of the State Statistical Board and director of the Institute of Economy at the Academy of Sciences of China, wrote numerous articles criticising the economic policy and the planning which were based not on the law of value but on the subjective desires of China’s leaders. Sun Yeh-fang had visited the USSR several times and had closely followed the economic debate in connection with the ideas put forward by Liberman, and had subsequently spoken in favour of employing economic forms of management and providing incentives in China’s industry and agriculture.

p By that time the Mao group had succeeded in pushing 290 its adversaries aside but the conditions for a further exacerbation of contradictions remained because the Maoists began to pursue their line with increasing vigour. Economic development was extremely irregular, while agricultural production declined, falling below the 1954 level in 1960 despite the population increment of 90 million in the course of these six years. In industry output diminished in almost all branches. In this connection the Maoists brought out a "scientific theory" blaming this development in the economy not on policy but on the laws of socialist economy. As early as 1958 the Maoists declared through Tan Chen-lin, member of the Political Bureau, that the economy was developing with ups and downs, that in the economy there were "high and low tides" just as there could be an upsurge or decline of the revolutionary movement.

p Chinese economists turned these views into a system after Li Fu-chun, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, and Po I-po, Chairman of the Economic Commission of the Political Bureau, declared:

p “In the socialist social system it is quite possible and an objective law [my italics.—K.M.] that the economy should develop with the speed of a big leap. This development constantly moves from a state of unbalance to equilibrium and then to unbalance again. After every cycle production attains a higher level than before, and the national economy steadily advances along an irregular curve.”  [290•* 

p “The law of all things is to spiral upwards and develop by ups and downs. That is the situation in the economy as well.”  [290•** 

p Typical of these views is the link between military methods of economic management (“struggle on the economic front”) and the theory that the economy develops by ups and downs, spasmodically. Early in 1964 Po I-po declared when he was interviewed by the American journalist Anna Louise Strong:

p “When a commander in war wins a battle, he pauses to let the troops rest, regroup and reorganise; he sums up experiences, studies the strength and weakness revealed and estimates what is needed for the next victory. Our economy moves ahead by a rhythm something like that. After every 291 important period of action we sum up experiences and ‘readjust’ for the next action. ... In 1958-60 we tried some ideas of our own under the name of ’Big Leap Forward’. We made some big achievements and also some errors.”  [291•* 

p The Chinese theoreticians substantiated the "law of irregular development" of the economy as follows. In China agriculture accounts for a particularly large share of the economic output. Farming depends heavily on the weather and the crop yields fluctuate considerably, almost every year. For that reason the share which agriculture contributes to the country’s national income likewise changes, and as a result the annual fluctuations of farm production affect extended reproduction on the scale of the entire national economy.

p The basis for state investments is much too small to allow for an even expansion of the production capacities of industry every year. Therefore, all the forces have to be concentrated first to prepare for the building of new projects and then for the actual building, and for the consolidation of the achieved success. After this, the cycle begins again.

p The reorganisation of production relations founded on private or co-operative ownership into semi-state or entirely socialist relations will decisively stimulate the initiative of the working masses. The changes in society take place unevenly, at long intervals, and this gives rise to waves of production upsurges. But such periods cannot be taken into account in plans. "Consequently, the uneven development of the economy is necessary, being the indispensable result of the operation of all factors.”  [291•** 

p The existence of the objective economic law of planned proportionate development was not denied. In scientific works it was stated that development could not proceed rapidly if it was not proportionate. But at the same time, disproportion was characterised as an inescapable element and as a factor facilitating the acceleration of the economic development rate.

p Economists spoke of the struggle between the active and passive roles of proportionate development, but those of them who urged the observance of proportions when plans were drawn up were criticised by the Party leadership on 292 the grounds that this would slow down development rates. Chinese theoreticians absolutised rates of development as the aim of economic activity under socialism and declared that proportionate plans were a method of achieving that aim. However, in socialist society both the one and the other are indisputably subordinated to the basic economic law of socialism, namely the steadily growing satisfaction of the requirements of man.

p In order to surmount the most adverse consequences of the "big leap" and the people’s communes, the Mao group had no alternative but to declare at the 9th plenary meeting of the CC CPC in January 1961 that it was “adjusting” its erroneous policy. A turn was accomplished shortly after the 1960 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow. As the leader of the CPC delegation, Liu Shao-chi agreed with the Statement adopted by that Meeting. A few weeks later the Communist Party of China welcomed this document in a decision passed at the abovementioned plenary meeting.

p At this plenary meeting the decisive role played by the socialist community in the development of human society and the need for a policy of peaceful coexistence were underscored. In the decision that was adopted it was stated that the Communist Party of China regarded the unity and solidarity of the socialist community as the key guarantee of the victory of the peoples in their struggle for world peace, national liberation, democracy and socialism, and the special role which the Soviet Union was playing in this struggle was underscored. The impression was thus given that the leadership of the Communist Party of China concurred broadly with the general line of the world communist movement..

p This stand of Mao Tse-tung must be explained by the fact that the general political situation in China herself forced the Chinese leadership to make temporary concessions and tactically amend its mercenary, adventurist objectives. In order to make it possible to achieve the strategic aim while resolving specific tasks, tactics had to give the temporary impression of being in conflict with that aim.

p Economic problems also received considerable attention at the 9th plenary meeting of the CC CPC. The programme of further economic measures to surmount the difficulties that had emerged was set forth in detail by member of the Political Bureau Po I-po in February 1961. The main 293 orientation was to step up development in agriculture and remove the disproportion between the processing and extracting industries. Po I-po declared that in order to secure better coordination with other branches of the economy, the investments in heavy industry and the rate of that industry’s growth had to be reduced. There had to be a fundamental improvement of the quality of the output, the assortment of products had to be enlarged, labour had to be organised rationally and raw materials expended economically. This was a fairly realistic programme for 1961, and it was augmented with a whole system of measures in agriculture and industry. Subsequently, this programme was supplemented with various works on the theory of socialist economic management, which made it possible to expect that the Chinese leadership would accord more attention to economic laws than during the period of the "big leap”.

p Levelling in remuneration for labour was condemned, and the principle of payment according to work was reaffirmed by a broad system of control figures, norms and calculation units. Po I-po spoke of the need for a "close integration of political and ideological education with the principle of material incentives”.

p An editorial carried by the newspaper Takung Pao on July 30, 1962 touched on the question of the transition from collective to public ownership in agriculture. It noted that the period of collective ownership must embrace a whole phase of historical development.

p This statement in contrast to the demand of 1958-59 (to complete the transformation of the types of ownership within three or five years) was in keeping with the development of the productive forces in Chinese agriculture. The result of these changes in economic policy was that in agriculture and industry output began to grow again, slowly it is true, and the immense difficulties in supplies were gradually overcome. In the course of this process, the people’s communes practically disintegrated, some taking the shape of the developed co-operatives of 1957 (300 workers, an average of 200- 300 families per co-operative), and others, in many cases, becoming lower-type co-operatives such as existed in 1955 (20-30 workers, 15-20 families per co-operative owning an average of 35 hectares of crop area).

p As a whole this "period of adjustment" may be regarded as an indirect admission of success in the practical 294 management of socialist economy. However, the conclusion must not be drawn that an economic programme was produced which conformed to the objective requirements of life.

p The period of economic “adjustment” witnessed the reactivation of forces demanding a radical change of the Mao group’s pernicious line and thereby calling in question the infallibility of the "teaching and thought of Mao Tsetung”.

p Taking this situation into account, the Maoists again decided on sharply curtailing the people’s democratic rights, and strangling inner-Party democracy. The Chinese leadership began to condition the working masses for a military clash with the "imperialists of the USA, the revisionists of the North and the Indian reactionaries”. The resultant comprehensive militarisation of social life was accompanied by the unbridled laudation of the soldier’s simplicity, ascetic dedication and the unconditional inclusion of every individual as a “cog” in the mechanism of the "guiding thought of Mao Tse-tung”.

p A drive for the so-called socialist education of the masses was started throughout the country in 1962 under the slogans "learn from the Army" and "politics is the main force”. Mao Tse-tung’s "creative development of Marxism-Leninism" was steadily moved to the forefront of all Party activity. In the last five years this drive for "socialist education" increasingly acquired a nationalistic, chauvinistic and anti-Soviet edge, and was part and parcel of the preparations for the "great proletarian cultural revolution”. The campaign to "learn from the Army, to learn from Lei Feng, to learn from Wang Tse" accentuated the deeds and moral qualities of the two soldiers. The purpose of this campaign was obviously to impress on the people that true socialism implied not the satisfaction of material requirements but utter, selfless devotion to the cause of the proletarian revolution.  [294•* 

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p There is little to distinguish between the massive campaigns of recent years. All that has changed is the accent of the various slogans and requirements. In 1965, for instance, the accent was more on slogans of an anti-Soviet nature. This gave a clearer insight into the aims of the Map group’s home and foreign policy. In 1966 there was a further aggravation of the situation, when the Mao group set up the so-called "system of labour organisation”. At first this “system” envisaged only the combination of work in industry and agriculture. An industrial worker had to work for a certain period in agriculture, while members of agricultural teams had to work at a factory. Soldiers had to improve their handling of weapons and at the same time "work in industry, agriculture, transport, financial organs and also in trade”.

p The absurdity to which this system led is shown by the examples lauded in China as worthy of imitation. These concern the oil region of Taching in Northeast China and the agricultural commune in Tachai. Take the first example. The Chinese press reported that 3,000,000 tons of oil, or about a quarter of China’s total annual oil output, was produced in Taching in 1966. The district had gone over completely to self-supply and self-service. All men and women had been drawn into production. Bonuses had been abolished. Wages had been halved in order to create large accumulation funds. Normal housing had not been built in the district, and the workers had made dugouts for themselves in order to save funds for the state. Taching was proclaimed the model of the future communist society in China.

p The Chinese adventurists believed that by inventing this “system” they had found a new way of rapidly erasing the distinctions between town and countryside, between physical and mental work and between workers and peasants.

p Wall newspapers of extraordinary size, posted in Peking in June 1967, showed how quickly the venture at self- sufficiency in Taching collapsed. These newspapers reported that in Taching matters reached the point of bloody clashes, that Taching was "drenched in blood”. This gave further proof that the Chinese working class is prepared to fight for its rights, for an improvement of its social position, and will not allow itself to be deluded with hackneyed demands "to deny themselves food, avoid peaceful sleep because other peoples suffer want"/^^1^^" This example shows how the concepts 296 of socialism and communism are emasculated. Every concern for material insurance is denounced as "base feeling”, as "sugar-coated shells of the bourgeoisie”. Marx characterised this sort of communism as vulgar and senseless for it demanded the rejection of education and civilisation, and a return to the unnatural simplicity of poor and unassuming people.

p In conclusion, we can ask whether what we today designate as Maoism—the theses, thought and teaching of Mao—is a consummate theory valid as a guide at least in the building of socialism, particularly, in economic development? The answer must be a categorical "No!”

p The Communist Party of China had never officially had a broad Party programme. The general line adopted at the last, Eighth Congress in September 1956 and concretised in the course of the second five-year plan (up to 1962) had never been implemented. The third five-year plan (up to 1970), announced with fanfare early in 1966, was not completely pieced together. It was carried out by orders from above as an independent long-term prospect of China’s social and economic development. The "thought of Mao" is not an integral theory. It is a programme in which petty-bourgeois, chauvinistic and Confucian ideas are jumbled with MarxistLeninist propositions, which Mao had never reasoned out. This programme has always been applied in various tactical variants depending on temporary and local conditions, and also on the requirements of the international situation and the political situation in China.

p The  [296•*  recipe offered by Maoism for the economy may be characterised as follows: forced labour organised along military lines; limited satisfaction of the most elementary requirements; concentration of all state funds for the purpose of creating a powerful military state pursuing a GreatPower chauvinistic foreign policy; forced levelling of all sections of the population and the abolition of their organisations and their right to participate in the country’s administration; the establishment of a military dictatorship; increased power in the hands of individuals at all levels of the leadership. The fundamental principles of scientific socialism are denounced as “revisionism”, “economism” and "bourgeois liberalism”.

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p The turbulent events in China have not abated. The process started by the Mao group with the purpose of securing absolute power and unconditional subordination has not ended. During the past several months fresh attempts have been made to control the situation, establish order and renew normal production. So-called "associations of the three sides”, which are growing into new organs of state power, are being set up in the provinces, counties and towns, and also at factories. These organs are composed of representatives of the Army, "revolutionary organisations of rebels”, whose number has considerably increased recently, and workers. Despite all its efforts the Mao group has not been able to set up so-called "revolutionary committees" everywhere. Even where they have been set up the disorders have not ceased. This indicates that the resistance encountered in various parts of the country will continue to disrupt social order and production in 1968 also. However, it must be borne in mind that the circles opposing the forces being formed by the Mao group are not united and have neither a common centre nor a common programme.

p But neither Maoism nor any other “theory” of that kind will help to surmount the enormous difficulties which China’s economy is experiencing.

Whatever Mao Tse-tung does to establish his anti- Marxist views, which are at variance with the scientific approach to life, all his attempts will ultimately founder. They will be upset by the requirements of the development of modern productive forces in China, by the requirements of the scientific and technological revolution. They will be upset by the natural aspiration of the Chinese people for a better standard of living and a higher cultural level, by their aspiration for socialist democracy.