p The events taking place in China’s political life in the 1950s and 1960s were evidently connected with a number of objective circumstances but in no small measure depended 146 also on the subjective propositions of Mao and his followers, and on Mao’s theoretical conceptions of the role of violence in a socialist revolution.

p For one thing, an analysis of Mao’s political ideas shows that he had been moving from the use of some Marxist propositions concerning the break-up of the old, exploiting state power towards a distortion of the Marxist-Leninist ideas of power, democracy and legality in the period of socialist construction.

p As has already been stressed, Mao’s political views took shape on the relatively narrow basis of Chinese practice during the protracted civil wars and in isolation from the diverse experience of the international working class. That is why his view of politics is inseparable from the notion of war. He insists that “politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed".  [146•1 

p Mao’s idea of power corresponded to some concrete circumstances of the struggle against the semi-feudal and semicolonial system in China. In effect, he even borrowed some of his notions of power and the method of exercising it, as he himself has repeatedly admitted, from the practices of Chiang Kai-shek, which everyone knows amounted to antidemocratic, militaristic terrorism. Mao stressed: “The revolutionary dictatorship and the counter-revolutionary dictatorship are opposite in character, but the former appeared in the course of learning from the latter. This learning is highly important.”

p Very early on Mao observed, with approval and some envy, how well Chiang Kai-shek had mastered the old precepts of Chinese militarists, like their saying that “if you have an army, you have power”, and “war decides everything”. Mao turned these notions into absolutes and identified them with Marxism; as has been noted above, he holds that “from the standpoint of the Marxist doctrine of the state the army is the most important part of the apparatus of state power”. Another “absolute truth"—“power grows out of the barrel of a gun"—has also been enshrined as a Marxist proposition. Both these propositions as the “cultural revolution" made absolutely clear, are also being applied by Mao to power in a socialist state. Mao regards the strengthening and 147 consolidation of the people’s state above all as the strengthening of his position in the army and in the punitive organs.

p As a rule Mao seeks to obscure the difference between democratic and socialist methods in exercising political power. His works reveal a confusion of such concepts as the type and form of state. This is not at all accidental. Mao has clearly ignored the legal forms of state power and regards legality not as a necessary and generally binding method of exercising such power, but merely as one of the possible means of suppressing and removing all real, possible and even imaginary adversaries. The role Mao assigns to law, legality and democratic state institutions shows that he does not believe they merit any serious development and consolidation.

p The pseudo-revolutionary content of Mao’s ideas of socialist democracy and legality has gradually developed into a subjectivist and pragmatic system. In accordance with this system of views, rules of law are not binding on the person or group of persons exercising supreme political power. It provides for the suppression of any, including imaginary, political opponents, and the possibility of regarding the people as a “clean sheet of paper" on which “it is possible to write the newest, the most beautiful characters, and to create the newest, the most beautiful drawings.”

p The theoretical basis for this system of views rests on postulates about “two types of dissimilar contradictions and two dissimilar methods of their resolution”. Another postulate is the distinction between “the contradictions between us and our enemies" and “contradictions among the people”. There is no doubt at all over the proposition that different types of contradictions have to be resolved in different ways, but the point is that Mao simultaneously introduces a highly ilexible definition for the concept of “enemies”. As was said in Chapter One, his concept of “enemy” has no definite class meaning and is so interpreted that it will fit anyone whom Mao and his followers find unsuitable.

p Each of these two types of contradictions, says Mao, may develop into its opposite. The fundamental principle for resolving dissimilar contradictions, according to Mao, is: “ ferocity towards the enemies and gentleness with one’s own people.” Those who find themselves in the category of 148 “enemies”, are deemed not to have any rights and are subject to suppression. The “thought of Mao Tse-tung" does not provide for any constitutional, democratic, legal norms or guarantees for the power of the people and the rights of citizens. This needs to be specially emphasised because the CPR has no criminal, civil or labour codes, nor developed procedural legislation, while the powers of the bodies applying coercion administratively are exceptionally broad. These circumstances help to understand the true meaning of Mao’s statements about “the democratic method, that is, persuasion, and not coercion" being used “among the people”. The role of law “among the people" is reduced by Mao to the operation of “administrative orders issued for the purpose of maintaining public order”.

p In China, Mao’s greatest “contribution” to the theory and practice of socialist democracy is declared to be a complex of methods characterised as the “line of the masses”, or rather, as the “mass line”. In Mao’s views this consists in conditioning the population in the course of which some of its sections are converted, by means of deception and intimidation, into mobs acting as the tools and accomplices in the political gambles and repressions carried out by Mao’s supporters.

p Practice has shown that in the guise of this “mass line”, Mao’s associates have been making ever wider use of the “foul traditions" of the feudal epoch to promote their own ends. Mao proceeds from the assumption that the “extremes” of the “mass line" may play a revolutionising role, and has advanced as a general principle the idea that “in order to straighten something out one must bend it to an extreme, without bending it to an extreme one cannot straighten it out”.

p In the last few years, one of the main methods used by the Maoists has been to stage “deafening”, “thunderous” mass campaigns which “shake heaven and earth”, which generate unhealthy passions and instincts and violate elementary social rules, and the legitimate interests and rights of citizens. This is connected with another method of pursuing political aims, namely, provocative calls for broad expression of diverse opinions and criticisms, which are followed by mass repressions.

p Characteristic in this respect are Mao’s speech at an All- 149 China Conference on Propaganda Work of the CPC in March 1957 and the subsequent events. At the time he said that the method to be used in directing the state was that of “allowing freedom" and not that of “suppression” and that it was not right “to club to death" those who express mistaken opinions. Within a few months a broad and massive campaign of represssion was launched not only against the real opponents of socialism but also everyone who had dared to express, within the framework of the law, critical judgements and proposals aimed at improving government and social affairs in the country.

p The anti-democratic substance of Mao’s political views has reached a peak in the last few years, and has been formulated as follows: “Always, everywhere and in all things to obey Mao Tse-tung, Mao Tse-tung’s precepts are the supreme law.” This sets as a binding rule on everyone the autocratic leader’s infallible will. Mao and his followers are now trying to substitute for the principles of socialist democracy and legality the routine, autarchic principle of rule characteristic of oriental despotic regimes in the early ages, of absolutist regimes in the Middle Ages and ultra-dictatorial regimes today. In this context, there has been a highly characteristic “massive campaign" against the principles of democratic centralism with the pretext provided by Liu Shaochi’s pamphlet On the Communist’s Work on Himself.

p Under the pretext of criticising Liu’s pamphlet, Mao and his followers attacked the principle that the minority must submit to the majority, the principle that decisions by higher organs are binding on lower organs, and declared these to be effective and democratic only when they serve to promote the “thought of Mao Tse-tung". Jenmin jihpao wrote in June 1967: “We must fulfil the instructions of Comrade Mao Tsetung regardless of whether we have or have not yet understood them. We must establish Mao Tse-tung’s absolute authority___This constitutes our highest discipline."  [149•1 

p A fatal effect has been exerted on the development of legal science by the eclectic ideology of autocracy, political arbitrariness, lawlessness and anti-democracy, which are now and again covered up with a vulgarised Marxist- Leninist terminology and demagogic catch-phrases about serving 150 the masses. Academic lawyers have concentrated mainly on seeking out and exposing pseudo-bourgeois ideas in each other’s writings, lectures and speeches. For all practical purposes, the publication of books on the science of law has been abandoned in China.

p Under the pretext of fighting bourgeois juridical constructions, progressive, democratic legal principles and institutions are being discarded on the ground that similar legal formulations are to be found in bourgeois legal writings or in operative bourgeois law. Thus, Chinese legal publications have branded as bourgeois—and consequently unacceptable —the idea that in the trial of cases judges must be independent and free from extraneous influence; the idea that judges should try the cases before them according to their inner judicial convictions based on a consideration of all the circumstances in the case is also considered to be an expression of bourgeois subjectivism; the idea that criminal proceedings may be started only for acts which are qualified in law as being criminal is likewise discarded; also discarded as a bourgeois principle is the idea that a man is deemed to be innocent until proved guilty in the manner established by law, etc.

p In late 1964 and early 1965, another broad campaign, conceived by Mao, was launched across the country. This was an all-embracing system of repressive measures which came to be designated as the “campaign of socialist education”. Judging by the political and legal press, this campaign equals or even exceeds in scope such massive movements as the agrarian reform, the eradication of the counter- revolution and the fight against the “three evils" and against the “five evils”. It was regarded as a universal means of eradicating the seeds of “revisionism”, and “bourgeoisification” in every section of the population. Simultaneously, orders were issued on behalf of Mao Tse-tung that the “massive line" in dictatorship over the enemies was to be intensified.

p To implement this and to carry out the “campaign of socialist education" teams, consisting of Party workers, security men, workers of the court, the procurator’s office, officers and soldiers and students, were sent to every village, enterprise and organisation in the cities by the superior Party committee. The teams made a detailed study of the situation on the spot. The propagandists, mainly students, making use 151 of visual agitation, gongs and drums, popularised the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" on the class struggle. Other members of the teams sought out among the masses the “enemies of socialism ... seeking to take the capitalist way”. In accordance with a directive from the centre, roughly 5 per cent of the total population of every locality was to be classed under that head. The teams worked for days, sometimes months, holding ceaseless mass meetings, at which every citizen, every worker had to come out with denunciatory criticism and self-criticism aimed against the “restoration of capitalism" and at exposing the enemy 5 per cent in his midst.

p Workers of politico-legal organs, who were compelled to take an active part in the campaign, were given the following instructions: “All the purely juridical precautions and superfluous ceremonies, which bind the masses and do not correspond to the revolutionary struggle, must be discarded without the slightest regret. It should be clearly understood that all the necessary normative regulations and procedural rules are designed to help to fight the enemies and not to fetter ourselves. We must apply the revolutionary standpoint of the class struggle, and not take a metaphysical view of various legal statuses."  [151•1 

p Quite clearly the repressions carried out in the guise of “socialist education" were designed not so much to punish criminals as to intimidate everyone. This is shown, in particular, by the establishment of an “indicator of the revolutionisation of the work of the court”, which was to “ensure and stimulate the three great revolutionary movements: the class struggle, the production struggle, and scientific experimentation”.

p To remove all doubts in the minds of the workers of political and legal organs about implementing the “mass line" they were bound to fight against their own ego, which was identified with “individualism”. There was good reason why the following view was expressed in the press in 1966: “ Individualism means the presence in the consciousness of one’s own ego, and the concept of ‘ego’ is a great enemy of the concept of ‘application’ [of Chairman Mao’s ideas—G.O.}. When you face a big enemy, you must defeat him."  [151•2  In 1965 152 there had already been some complaints that not all the political and juridical workers had their militant spirit “ truly aroused”. In 1966, there was open talk about a category of political and juridical workers who merely “pretended” to obey Chairman Mao. The Maoists demanded that the workers of the court, the procurator’s office and security service should act in accordance with the formula established for military men: “I shall do exactly what Chairman Mao says.” This was quite clearly said in an academic law journal.  [152•1 

The sternest measures were taken in respect to those who failed to display a marked enthusiasm in carrying out the repressions. In the roughly 18 months just before the “ cultural revolution" attained its peak there had been an almost total replacement of the leading workers in the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procurator’s Office, and their branches in Tibet, and also of workers of the courts and procurator’s offices in Peking, Shanghai and all the provinces.