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p For years the name of Mao Tse-tung was associated in the minds of many people in various countries with the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people and the activity of the Communist Party of China. This impression, promoted by the Maoist claims that Mao has brilliantly applied the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions, makes it especially hard for some people to understand the present nationalist and anti-Soviet policy of the Mao group. At the same time, they tend to regard Mao Tse-tung’s departure from Marxism-Leninism as a recent phenomenon, an accidental zig-zag, and feel that it is only a question of appealing to his reason and conscience and he will think better of it, and everything will return to normal. But this is simply an infantile illusion, and a very dangerous one at that, since it disarms the Communists in the face of the splitting activity of the Maoists, enabling them to continue their corruption of the communist movement from within.

p Many Marxist works have been published in the Soviet Union and other countries recently, analysing the historical roots of Mao Tse-tung’s anti-Marxist views, and removing the mask to show Mao’s policies as they really are, the stand he took at all the main stages of the Chinese revolution. Worthy of special mention are the book by Wang Ming (Chen Shao-yu), prominent member of the CPC, member of the CPC Central Committee of the sixth, seventh and eighth convocations, On the Events in China, published by the Soviet publishing house Politicheskaya literatura in 1969, and the memoirs of the German Communist internationalist Otto Braun published in several numbers of the weekly Horizon (GDR) and later in the Soviet weekly Za Rubezhom 160 in 1969 and 1970. The pamphlet Pages from the Political Biography of Mao Tse-tung by O. Vladimirov and V. Ryazanstev contains valuable factual material on the nationalist, anti-Marxist views and anti-Party activities of Mao. The above-mentioned material proves conclusively that Mao Tsetung never was a genuine Marxist or a real Communist but simply joined the communist movement because it was the movement with the most authority, that Mao’s aims were only consonant with those of the communist movement at the stage of the national revolutionary struggle for the liberation of China from foreign capital and feudalism.

p Yet there are still people with rather hazy notions of Marxism-Leninism who under the influence of Maoist and imperialist propaganda continue to regard Mao as a "lost sheep" who can be returned to the fold, as a “seeking” Marxist.

p Certain Maoist theses seem attractive to some politicians and revolutionaries in the Afro-Asian countries who lack the reliable information necessary to form a correct concept of their essence. If they actually visit China they are surrounded by so much false propaganda and agitation that they are quite unable to gain any real insight into what is going on and simply have to take at its face value everything that is foisted upon them and whatever they are “shown”.

p These revolutionaries from Asia and Africa accept the outward propaganda aspect of Maoism as its true essence. Thus, some Arab freedom fighters believe Mao’s declarations of support for them, little suspecting that while publicly announcing their support for the Arab struggle, including the struggle of the Palestinian Arabs, the Maoists are doing everything in their power "behind the scenes" to prolong the struggle. In this connection we cannot do better than quote from a speech made by Mao Tse-tung at a meeting in Pehtaiho as long ago as August 17, 1958, which was reported in the Hungweiping journal Tung-fang hung in July 1967.

p “It is best to work from the premise that tension is more to our advantage and less to the advantage of the West. Tension is advantageous to the West in that it permits them to expand arms production and it is to our advantage in that it can set in motion all active factors. ... Let the Americans and the English stay in the Lebanon and Jordan as long as possible. We must not help the Americans appear in a good 161 light. Every extra day they stay there helps us by giving us material for articles exposing them, makes the American imperialists remain the object of universal condemnation. But when we are making propaganda we should not talk in this manner; we should say that they must get out immediately" (Emphasis added.—M.A., V.G.) This is what Mao’s “support” is really worth!

p Hundreds of thousands of Chinese are herded to meetings in Peking and representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America are invited. Mao publishes a declaration demanding that "the American paper tigers" clear out of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Africa and Latin America. Yet, all the efforts of Peking, working through secret diplomatic channels, are directed towards keeping the Americans as long as possible in the places where the Maoists themselves are not yet in a position to set up their own rule. Mao speculates on the discontent of peoples with the aggressive actions of the Americans. He demonstrates his "revolutionary ardour" in an orgy of hypocrisy, in words but not in deeds, and tries to influence public opinion in these countries and the members of the liberation movement there in the spirit of Maoism.

p It requires tremendous lucidity and sober-mindedness on the part of revolutionaries to understand what lies behind the “revolutionary” phrases and declarations of Mao and his entourage. Here we have the extremely dangerous situation when the general position of the struggle in several areas of the world makes revolutionaries fall an easy prey to the influence of revolutionary phrases, which leads to the defeat of the revolution and the destruction of the revolutionaries themselves. Lenin, the great master of revolution, warned revolutionaries of this danger.

p The tragic experience of the revolutionary movements in a number of Afro-Asian and Latin American countries in the last decade reveals the danger all too plainly. Surely the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian Communists after the events of September 30, 1965, serves as a severe enough warning of the dangers of following the advice of Mao Tse-tung and his emissaries. Here is surely ample evidence that we are not dealing with the mistakes and errors of a Marxist but with an attempt to make use of the authority of Marxism-Leninism and use the world revolutionary cause for the furtherence of the great-power 162 chauvinist plans of the Maoist leadership in Peking and their appetite for hegemony.

p The myth of Mao being a man who is trying to inspire the younger generation with revolutionary ardour and challenge bureaucracy and stagnation has gained wide currency among Left-wing youth in Europe and America. Some student groups at the Sorbonne and Rome University hold demonstrations demanding social transformations and democratic reforms in the education system at which they carry portraits not only of Marx and Lenin but also of Mao Tse-tung. They have heard, and read in the bulletins distributed by Chinese embassies and missions in millions of copies, that Mao called the young people of China to revolt. They are impressed by Mao’s thesis "Revolt is a just cause”. They have heard that Mao called for the destruction of the "old patterns" and "the bourgeois education system”. These young people seem to believe these "thoughts of Mao" correspond to their own sentiments. They do not realise what it was that Mao really called upon the young people of China, blinded by fanaticism, to revolt against. The "Little Red Book" and Chinese propaganda material does not mention the fact that Mao was really making use of the young people as a blind tool for the destruction of the very gains, of the very system, that give young people real freedom, develop their creative ability and make them real masters. The "Little Red Book" and other Chinese propaganda pamphlets do not tell how the very same young people whom Mao called to revolt are now being driven by Chinese army units from the towns into wild mountain regions and deserts to be used to carry out acts of provocation against China’s neighbours, and herded into military settlements on the borders of the Soviet Union, Mongolia, India, Vietnam and Burma.

p These little red-covered pocket books and pamphlets printed on excellent fine paper, naturally make no mention of the fact that over seventy million Chinese children are unable to receive an education as a result of this “revolt”, and that hundreds of thousands of former students will be unable to complete their studies at university and institute. Mao himself declared in November, 1968, "The sky will not fall down if enrolment to the higher educational institutions is suspended for two or three years!”

p These little books, red in colour, but black-brown in 163 content, do not quote such statements of Mao as those he made in 1964, on the eve of the "cultural revolution": "Schools are little vaults, emitting evil everywhere, and shallow ponds teeming with turtles”; "A science course can be cut in half. Confucius taught only six arts: ceremony, music, archery, charioteering, the holy writings and arithmetic. If you read a lot of books, you’ll never become an emperor... . The trouble now is, first that there are too many subjects and second that there are too many books.”

p As a warning to those who still associate the red colour of the Maoist pamphlets distributed outside China with revolution and communism, we quote the words of several prominent Chinese Communists who emerged from the crucible of the Chinese revolution only to fall victims to arbitrary Maoist persecution in the course of the "cultural revolution”. Sun Yeh-fang, director of the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: "To follow the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung in life is the same as wearing dark glasses on a dark night.”

p Wang Jen-chung, member of the CPC Central Committee of the eighth convocation, until 1966 Secretary of the CentralSouth Bureau of the Central Committee (reported in the Chinese press in June 1966 as having swum with Mao during his fantastic record swim that summer): "The thoughts of Mao Tse-tung are an insipid rice dish, to which one must add one’s own oil and salt in order to make it edible.”

p Tao Chu, member of the CPC Central Committee up to 1967, and once an ardent champion of the "thoughts of Mao": "Reflections on the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung are like a fountain without water”; "Chairman Mao’s ideas of socialism are the socialism of poverty and agony”; "The ’three banners’ policy is a suicidal policy”; "The Great Leap Forward is solving tasks by the method of the despot Shih Huang Ti: ’kill the duck to obtain the egg’.”  [163•1 

p One could go on and on quoting such views, which it must be remembered were expressed by people who for years were close to Mao Tse-tung, propagated his ideas and believed the Mao myth. It was only when they came to put 164 these “thoughts” into practice that they became convinced of how unfeasible and far-removed from reality they were. Thus the Soviet magazine Kommunist (No. 3, 1969) was perfectly correct in its characterisation of Maoism as an anti-Marxist trend in its editorial "The Features of the Situation in China and the Position of the CPC at the Present Stage”. "The Maoist programme on questions of social construction is extremely ‘radical’ and ‘Left-wing’ in form, but reactionary and Utopian in content. The programme is the outcome of a total rejection of the Leninist principles of socialist construction and an inability to find correct, effective methods of solving the complicated problems in an extremely backward peasant country.”

p Unbiased analysis of "the thoughts of Mao”, of his philosophical and political views, shows that the theory and practice of Mao Tse-tung and his followers has nothing at all in common with Marxism-Leninism and scientific communism, except for a certain terminological similarity. But the great danger of this ideology is that with its subtle methods of disguising itself as revolutionary Marxism and attempts to speak in the name of socialism and world revolution it is sowing confusion in minds of some sections of the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement, especially among young revolutionaries. Moreover, Maoism thereby creates highly favourable conditions for anti-communist ideological propaganda against revolution, Marxism- Leninism, and scientific socialism.

p It is significant that imperialist propaganda has been altering its sights in recent years. Whereas at one time tons of paper were used to discredit the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people and its Communist Party, today alongside attempts to capitalise on the difficulties of political and economic development that have arisen from the policy of the Mao group, there is a growing tendency to express a kind of respect for the present Chinese leaders and present them as people with a concern for their country’s interests and national grandeur.

p Anti-communist centres in the USA, Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany hold wide symposia and “ scientific” conferences at which many distinguished Sinologists make zealous attempts to detect “Marxist”, “Leninist”, “Stalinist”, etc, elements in the views of Mao Tse-tung and 165 try to gain acceptance for Mao’s "Chinese model of communism”. Thus, at a symposium held in the USA in 1966 on the subject "What Is Maoism?”, material from which appeared in the journal Problems of Communism,  [165•1  such outstanding Sinologists and Sovietologists as S. R. Schram, R. Cohen and B. Schwarz tried very hard to prove that Mao Tse-tung is an adherent of Marxism-Leninism, that he has shown "concern for preserving the spirit of revolutionary struggle”, that he is "a Leninist revolutionary and an AfroAsian nationalist”.

p Apart from the various symposia and numerous articles published in both scholarly and popular journals and magazines, many American and West European Sinologists have devoted monographs to Mao Tse-tung and his “thoughts”, in which the abundant factual material is often interpreted in such a way as to present Mao as the founder of a new model of socialism. Thus, Professor Robert North of Standford University (California) named his book Chinese Communism. It is as though Professor North were trying to lend support to Chen Po-ta’s thesis that "the ideals of socialism and communism.. . have not been introduced from outside”. It is significant that many of these authors “ conscientiously” repeat the anti-Soviet inventions of Maoist propaganda. Although they are in possession of the facts about the history of the CPC, they are nevertheless equally “conscientious” about repeating many Maoist fabrications concerning the history of the Chinese revolution and the CPC that are designed to discredit the Comintern and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and minimise the importance of the help China received from the international communist movement and the socialist countries.

p Some bourgeois propaganda agents insist that Mao is a "true Marxist”, that Mao and his group and not the communist parties criticising them are right from the standpoint of Marxist theory. Such “concern” for the revolution and the purity of Marxist theory from its most inveterate enemies has far-reaching aims—the discrediting of the ideals of socialism and communism.

p It is no accident that the leaders of the Trotskyite Fourth 166 International have been increasingly active champions and “volunteer” propagandists of "the thoughts of Mao" in various countries over the last few years. Maoist and Trotskyite views coincide on many points. The present-day Trotskyites are quite correct when they claim priority for invention of numerous theoretical propositions of Mao Tsetung, such as the theory of "permanent revolution”, the "thesis of the continuation of the revolution during the dictatorship of the proletariat”, the thesis of "the restoration of capitalism in the USSR" and a host of other anti-Soviet concoctions. They are equally justified in claiming that the "cultural revolution" in China is the realisation of Trotsky’s ideas of struggle against "bureaucratisation of the Party”, etc.

p Several foreign publicists write articles and make statements in which they attempt to justify the anti-socialist, anti-Marxist views and practice of Mao Tse-tung taking a "broad view”, repeating what are essentially Maoist theses, such as "the experience of the October Revolution is no use to China”, and the idea that Mao has created a special " Chinese brand of socialism”. Thus, the editor-in-chief of the Yugoslav journal International Politics even tries to ascribe to Mao "creative development of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of socialist revolution”. Without knowing anything of China and the real practice of Mao Tse-tung during the last few years, he tries to present the "cultural revolution" as enriching the theory of socialism and even as the passage from "the period of etatisation and bureaucratisation of socialist society in China" to the period of "democratisation and humanisation of social relations”. It is difficult to find a greater misapprehension of the real situation in China than this.

p These authors, having no real knowledge of the essence of the events in China or of Mao’s real policy, see just what they wish to see in the theory and practice of Maoism.

p The development of events in China and the policy of the Peking leadership cannot but arouse genuine concern and alarm among all honest men throughout the world, among all revolutionaries and progressives, and all genuine friends of the Chinese people.

p This is why in exposing the disruptive, anti-Soviet activities of the Maoist leadership it is essential to analyse and 167 criticise the theoretical roots of Maoism, its class and ideological basis.

p The present work has been an attempt at a critical analysis of one of the components of Maoism, its philosophy. This analysis shows beyond doubt that the theoretical errors of Mao Tse-tung can on no account be considered temporary, chance phenomena, but that they derive inevitably from his outlook.

p Mao Tse-tung has never been a Marxist in his philosophical views. Firstly, he treats the basic question of philosophy from a subjective-idealist, and not a materialist, standpoint, regarding ideas, subjective activity, as the determinant of social development and substituting the question of the relationship between subject and object for the question of the relationship between mind and matter.

p Secondly, Mao distorts the concept of “practice”, reducing it to the practice of the class struggle of the Chinese peasantry. Mao combines universalisation of this practice with an empirical approach to theory.

p Thirdly, Mao Tse-tung has reduced the rich content of the laws of the dialectics to one single law, the law of the unity and conflict of opposites, distorting it, refurbishing it with naive dialectical ideas and the theory of the antagonism of two opposed forces (the theory of balance).

p Fourthly, Mao Tse-tung treats the process of knowledge as a purely mechanistic relationship between the perceptual and rational stages.

p Fifthly, Maoist philosophy ignores the concrete-historical approach to analysis of the phenomena and processes of the objective world. In other words, it does not contain the feature that distinguishes Marxist philosophy from all other philosophies.

p Sixthly—and this is extremely important—Mao Tse-tung regards various philosophical problems from the standpoint of nationalism and Sinocentrism.

p Mao simply borrows Marxist-Leninist formulae and nomenclature wholesale. But the presentation of a few general premises of Marxist philosophy in popular, vulgarised form can be ignored since it does not constitute an organic part of Mao Tse-tung’s philosophical views.

p The claims that Maoist philosophy represents a new stage in the development of Marxist philosophy are thus quite 168 unfounded. On the contrary, it really takes several steps backwards in the history of world philosophy.

p It emerges clearly from analysis of the works of Mao that he never properly understood Marxism-Leninism, but while capitalising on Marxist revolutionary terminology continued to adhere to the views of peasant revolutionary democracy combined with militant great-Han chauvinism. Mao Tse-tung never advanced beyond the Chinese bourgeois and petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, and this applies not only to his philosophical views.

p In political economy Mao’s only “contributions” have been the idea of a Great Leap Forward and the "people’s communes”, "the law of saddle-like development of the economy”, and more recently, the creation of isolated seminatural, economic units in the towns, the countryside and the army. Moreover, when applied in practice, these ideas eventually led to the economic stagnation and political crisis which China is at present experiencing.

p Therefore, regarded from a Marxist-Leninist standpoint, the theoretical works of Mao Tse-tung and the Maoist claims that Mao’s ideas contained in articles written twenty to thirty years ago and the anti-Soviet articles of recent years represent "the Marxism-Leninism of the contemporary age" only raise a smile.

p The so-called “thoughts” of Mao on theory and practice are an eclectical jumble of petty-bourgeois revolutionarism, sinified social-chauvinism, Confucianism and Utopian egalitarian socialism with a sprinkling of Marxist-Leninist theses in a vulgar, simplified interpretation.

p Maoism does not represent an integrated system ideologically and the only things that it systematically justifies and substantiates are nationalism, hegemony and anti-Sovietism.

p In creating this eclectical ideological concoction, Mao Tse-tung and his group base themselves on the idea that the broad masses of people participating in the revolution have no time to go into the finer points of doctrine and are attracted by short snappy slogans, the idea that attractive slogans can make the doctrine attractive even if it is little understood.

p In the case of China, the spread of myths and legends about Mao Tse-tung and his “thoughts” is favoured by the fact that almost half the population are illiterate, by the fact 169 that the majority of Party members and the working class are, for historical reasons, ill-prepared as regards general education and training in theory, and also the fact that the population live in complete ignorance of what is going on at home and abroad, in total isolation from the outside world.

p In the international field, the extremely abstract character of the ostensibly radical theses of Maoism favours its mythicisation, enabling the Maoists to conceal their real aims and foreign revolutionaries to imbue the Maoist theses with whatever concent they please, according to their own sentiments and aims, which have nothing at all to do with the real aims of Maoism. The weaving of myths around China and Mao Tse-tung is also promoted by the fact that Mao and his followers prevent the spread of real documentary information about China, the history of the Chinese revolution and the present situation in the country, but instead propagandise the "Little Red Book" and disseminate various panegyrics to the wisdom of the “thoughts” of Mao.

p Maoism is not, and cannot be a form of creative development of Marxism-Leninism applied to Chinese conditions, since, if examined soberly, Mao’s works of the 1930s and 1940s deal mainly with various stages of guerrilla warfare and universalise specific features of the Chinese revolution and not the revolutionary experience of the Chinese people over the last forty to fifty years.

p The Chinese revolution is a complicated phenomenon, containing much that is original and unique in the world revolutionary process, and therefore to pick certain individual features, however important, and present them as universal truths—dogmas that must be accepted by all countries and peoples—is to distort the experience of the Chinese revolution and the history of the revolutionary process as a whole. As Lenin pointed out: ".. . any truth, if ’ overdone’ (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions.”  [169•1  This is what has happened to the works of Mao Tse-tung. Therefore, all the attempts of the Maoists to impose Maoism on the Chinese people and the 170 world revolutionary movement as a whole in place of Marxism-Leninism are doomed to failure.

p At the Ninth Congress of the CPC, Maoism was declared the basic ideology of the new regime. After the Ninth Congress, the process of Maoism’s break with Marxism-Leninism can be considered completed. Words borrowed from the Marxist lexicon are all that remain of Marxism-Leninism in the official views of Peking on all major questions of philosophy, political economy and the theory of Communism.

p The chief difference between Maoism and Marxism is that while the latter is a science, the former has evolved into a kind of religion with its own Church.

p Afraid to risk allowing their views to face the test of aware, informed criticism, the Maoists try to limit as far as possible all knowledge that could rival the dogma they are enforcing from above. What Mao Tse-tung and his supporters really need is ignorant, spiritual paupers, and they would like to limit the knowledge of every working person to the most primitive minimum necessary for him to fulfil his labour function.

p Identifying Marxism-Leninism with religion, the Maoists also tried at the Ninth Congress to present their leader as the successor to Marx and Lenin, as a theorist who has made a notable contribution to the development of Marxist-Leninist thought.

p The frequent verbal references to Marxism-Leninism at the Congress and in other CPC documents makes it necessary to begin by carefully examining the slogans and theses borrowed from Marxism-Leninism as a cover for the real views and instructions that underlie the present policy of the Mao group, and secondly—and this is especially important— to carefully distinguish between the words and slogans of the Mao group and their practical policy.

p At least two points of ideology draw attention to themselves in the material of the Ninth Congress. Firstly, an attempt was made to use the Marxist-Leninist banner that is sacred to all socialists to cover a grotesque parody of socialism and betrayal of proletarian revolutionary theory.

p The most typical feature of the policy proclaimed by the Ninth Congress was that it shifts the centre of gravity in the Party and the entire activity of the state from questions of developing the economy and socialist construction to 171 foreign policy aims, the struggle for the assertion of the nationalistic aspirations of the Mao group. Basically, all the directions of the Ninth Congress are aimed at creating a militarist-bureaucratic state capable of conducting an adventurist great-power policy in international affairs, spearheaded against the socialist countries and the world communist movement. The Maoists try to justify this volte-face with the old Trotskyite idea of the impossibility of the revolution triumphing in one country without the triumph of the world revolution. Lin Piao made the following statement in his speech, citing Mao Tse-tung: "From the Leninist viewpoint ultimate victory in one socialist country does not only depend on the efforts of the proletariat and broad popular masses of that country: it depends on the triumph of the world revolution and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man throughout the world, leading to the emancipation of all mankind.”

p Surely no special evidence is required to show that this thesis has nothing at all in common with Leninism. The Communists of the Soviet Union, and the Communists of other countries too, realise perfectly well, as they have for a long time, that this was the thesis with which the Trotskyites attacked Leninism, tried to turn the CPSU aside from the solution of the tasks of economic and social development and urge the Soviet Union along the slippery path of adventures and provocations in the international field.

p Now this thesis is being made full use of by the Maoists. It is serving the same ends as it did in the past—attacking Leninism and justifying an adventurist, expansionist foreign policy.

p Today, the Chinese people are being informed of "the great strategy" of Mao Tse-tung—"preparation for the event of war, preparation for the event of natural disasters, all for the people”. They are being told: "We cannot speak of final victory yet. Nor shall we be able to speak of it in the next decade.”

p The Maoists had recourse to this theory in order to forestall criticism and evade responsibility for the deterioration of the people’s living conditions, the ruination of the national economy and their adventures abroad.

p The aim pursued in advancing the thesis of the permanent threat of restoration of capitalism as the central guiding principle of the whole political and ideological activity 172 of the leadership for the whole period of socialism is intended to create an atmosphere of "imminent crisis”, general political tension which the Maoists can use for the purpose of tightening their control. It serves them as an excuse to organise permanent persecution of progressive forces, of all who disagree with the reactionary Maoist policy. In fact, it is this that leads to the realisation of the possibility of social degeneration and a counter-revolutionary restoration of the worst forms of anti-popular, bureaucratic dictatorship, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the regime of Chiang Kai-shek and similar regimes.

p What, one wonders, is the Maoist "new order"? Lin Piao’s speech formulates and makes public in a more or less complete form Mao’s principles of the organisation of society. The new state machinery is roughly as follows.

p The Army is declared to be the main decisive element of the whole social structure, and is regarded as the main bulwark of the new regime, "the main element of the state”.

p For Mao the Army is the main organisational bulwark of the present regime. Its main function is to keep the whole population subject to "the thoughts of Mao”. As a result, the Army is torn away from its social basis and ceases to be an army of workers and peasants to become the instrument of the military-bureaucratic dictatorship of the Mao group. In these conditions the social contradictions of Chinese society are not reduced but increased, and the very fact that the Army is used for coercion of the masses speaks of the corruptness of the regime and the inability of the Mao group to retain power without daily resorting to armed force.

p Mao Tse-tung draws extensively on the experience of Chiang Kai-shek, and it is no accident that he has repeatedly referred to him as his teacher. Chiang Kai-shek’s main support and organisational strength lay in the Army, which controlled all the higher organs of power. Military men are in the majority in the new CPC Central Committee and Politburo. All the so-called revolutionary committees that have replaced the constitutional organs of power and the Party committees are controlled by the military. The leaders of twenty-four out of twenty-nine "provincial revolutionary committees" and committees in the cities that come under central authority are military men. The Chinese working class, disunited and disorganised, is 173 actually no more than an object of politics, and the most widely proclaimed slogan "The working class directs everything" is simply the fig-leaf of the regime of personal power of Mao Tse-tung and his entourage. This was once more confirmed and strengthened by the Ninth Congress in its unprecedented resolutions on the “permanent” nature of the leadership, the naming of successor, etc.

p The Ninth Congress was, in fact, the culminating point of the efforts of Mao and his followers to turn the CPC into an organisation on an army model, with strict discipline entirely adapted to suit the requirements of the military- bureaucratic dictatorship and its anti-popular policy. The decisions of the Congress show that in the protracted struggle of the internationalist forces in the CPC against adventurist, anti-Marxist policy of Mao Tse-tung the scales have, for the time being, tipped in favour of the Maoists.

p The Ninth Congress fundamentally revised the political, organisational and ideological principles of the Party. The new Rules formally declaring the CPC to be "the political organisation of the proletariat" in fact serve to turn the Party into the obedient tool of the military-bureaucratic dictatorship.

p Mao Tse-tung s policy in Party construction also represents a revival of the militarist, monarchist principles of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang. At one time the Chinese revolutionaries condemned the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek regime for demanding that the whole country "must bow to one leader wielding absolute power”, and "only accept what the leader says as right”. In the Kuomintang it was the practice to take the "oath of loyalty" to the leader, and there existed the principle "faith in the leader must extend to superstition, obedience to the leader must be blind submission”. It is difficult to see where the difference lies between the Kuomintang “rules” and the instruction of Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao on taking the oath to the three loyalties to Mao Tse-tung instituted by Mao, or such Maoist thesis as "we must carry out the instructions of Chairman Mao irrespective of whether we have understood their importance or not”,  [173•1  or again that "devotion to Chairman Mao is the chief criterion of the transformation of outlook".  [173•2 

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p In order to ensure that Mao has a completely free hand in the Party, its leading organs have been made into a family patrimony. The Politburo includes wives, a son-in-law, a former bodyguard, Mao’s private secretary and Lin Piao’s wife.

p During the Chinese revolution the Chinese Communists called the usurpation of power in Kuomintang China by four families "the shame and misfortune of the Chinese people”. Today China is once more ruled by an anti-popular group that strengthens its grip of the country by violence, terror and unbridled demagogy.

p Social relations are made to conform with Mao’s idea of "the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat”. Lin Piao says: "Chairman Mao Tse-tung, for the first time in the theory and practice of the international communist movement, put forward the clear doctrine that after the basic completion of socialist transformation of ownership of the means of production, classes and the class struggle continue to exist, and the proletariat must continue to carry on the revolution.”

p The laws of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat are major principles of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin’s doctrine of the inevitability of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism is one of the major weapons in the arsenal of the proletarian parties and has been confirmed and reconfirmed by the experience of socialist revolution.

p The Maoists take these ideas, amputate them from their historical context and try to place them, thus distorted and mutilated, in the service of their ignoble aims.

p Lenin pointed out that the question of "who beats whom" is decided at the stage of transition from capitalism to socialism; the Maoists insist that the issue remains in the balance throughout the period of communist construction. Lenin pointed out that the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is waged at the stage when socialism has not yet been built and, consequently, when hostile classes continue to exist within society: the Maoists assert that the class struggle continues after the triumph of socialism, in socialist society. Lenin pointed out that the culminating point in the class struggle is the socialist revolution, the seizing of 175 power by the proletariat: the Maoists maintain that the class struggle becomes more and more fiercer as society advances from capitalism to communism. Most important of all, Lenin demonstrated the inevitability of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie resisting the revolution, and the struggle between proletarian and bourgeois ideology, whereas the Maoists aim not at struggle against the bourgeoisie but at struggle with Party and state workers, the Communists, the advanced workers, peasants and intellectuals who have opposed or refused to give active support to the personal regime of Mao Tse-tung. This is hardly the "class struggle of the proletariat”, or "the continuation of the revolution”. It is simply a group struggle for power, for personal influence. This “revolution” has all the features of counter-revolution.

p The real purpose of the ideological theses and political slogans advanced at the Ninth Congress of the CPC and officially named "Mao Tse-tung’s Thought" is seen when we compare the theory of the Maoists with their practice. Such comparison immediately reveals that the thesis of " strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat" is simply a cover for the struggle to affirm the dictatorship of Mao Tse-tung and his entourage, that the slogan "continuation of the revolution during the dictatorship of the proletariat" really stands for the destruction of all the political institutions of worker and peasant government as the result of a reactionary take-over, that the slogan "purge the Party of people who are following the capitalist path" means liquidation of the opponents of the personal dictatorship of Mao Tse-tung and Maoism, that the slogan "strengthen the role of the working class" is simply called upon to conceal the Maoists’ reliance on special army units, isolated from the masses and set up in opposition to them, and on the petty-bourgeois strata corrupted by chauvinism, and, finally, that the slogan "defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism" really means the implantation of Maoism and the "sinification of socialchauvinism”.

p A society built according to the principles of the "thoughts of Mao" is the antithesis of scientific socialism. In economics it means labour organised on army principles according to the triple union system "worker, peasant and soldier”, the curbing of consumption, "conducting a policy of rationally low wages”, "food for three people must be eaten by five”, 176 the concentration of all accumulated wealth for the needs of "preparation for war" and the creation of a nuclear missile force. In social life it means the forced levelling of society and the reduction of every individual to the position of "a stainless screw”, an "obedient buffalo”, a “soldier” of Chairman Mao. In ideology it means preservation of the cultural backwardness of the bulk of the population, the forced indoctrination of the whole people in the spirit of the "Mao Tse-tung’s Thoughts”, and complete isolation from advanced world culture. In politics it is the complete abolition of the institutions of socialist democracy, the dictatorial regime of a narrow group of people led by Mao Tsetung, the violation of all legality, the militarisation of the whole political structure of society, and systematic purges of “heretics” in the form of "cultural revolutions”.

p Such are the inevitable pernicious consequences of the "Mao Tse-tung’s Thoughts”, of the anti-humanitarian philosophy and policy of Mao Tse-tung. Such is the reactionary Utopia anti-Communists are trying to present as a creative combination of Marxism-Leninism with Chinese conditions, a "new brand of socialism”, a "creative contribution" and which the Maoists are trying to put into practice.

p It is patently evident that Maoism is incompatible with Leninism. At the International Meeting held in 1969, the Communist and Workers’ parties subjected the Maoist ideology to principled and scathing criticism. Maoism is a pettybourgeois ideological and political trend, fundamentally alien to Marxism-Leninism, living parasitically at the expense of the principles of scientific socialism, and adroitly exploiting the strivings of the Chinese people to achieve socialism. It is a militaristic variety of social-chauvinism, its purposes being at variance with those of the world communist and liberation movements.

p As Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, emphasised in the CC report to the 24th Party Congress, ".. .the Chinese leaders have put forward an ideological-political platform of their own, which is incompatible with Leninism on the key questions of international life and the world communist movement, and have demanded that we should abandon the line of the 20th Congress and the Programme of the CPSU”.

p For this reason the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 177 and its Central Committee have resolutely opposed the attempts to distort the Marxist-Leninist teaching, and to split the international communist movement and the ranks of the anti-imperialist fighters.

The 24th Party Congress approved this line of the CPSU Central Committee. The Congress resolution notes that the "CC CPSU had taken the only correct stand—a stand of consistently defending the principles of Marxism-Leninism, utmost strengthening of the unity of the world communist movement, and protection of the interests of our socialist Motherland”. This position of the Leninist Party is firmly supported and approved by most of the Communists throughout the world, by the progressives fighting against imperialism, for peace, democracy and socialism.

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