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p Let us bear in mind that the strict centralisation of the political machinery, an objective necessity in the early years following the formation of the CPR, gradually developed the features of a hierarchical autocracy, that is, a form of administration under which all the real power on a given territory was in the hands of an individual responsible virtually to the individual on the rung above him.

p The fact is that the political power at the centre was quite deliberate in allowing the localities relatively broad freedom in choosing the means of attaining the aims set by the centre. That is why the Ministry of Control was eliminated, and why the principle of “direct subordination" of the organs of the procurator’s office and general procuratorial supervision were whittled down. That is why the principle that judges are independent was not established, and why the principle that “the courts are independent”, provided for by the Constitution, was not put into practice. For the same reason, the 153 sessions of the national people’s congresses at the centre and in the localities were essentially formalistic affairs and the law governing the recall of deputies was never adopted.

p For a long time, this state of affairs suited the followers of Mao as far as their plans were concerned. Mao’s absolute power, which was not checked in any way, and the subordination to his will of the whole machinery of political power, unconnected with democratic institutions or responsibility before the people and its representatives, led to a succession of the grossest political mistakes, like the “Great Leap Forward”, the establishment of the people’s communes, the worsening of relations with the socialist countries and the drive for world hegemony.

p The 1959-1962 crisis was so grave that it made many of the local leaders give more consideration to the real possibilities and requirements than to the Maoists’ ideological and political propositions. During the period in which the mistakes of the “Great Leap Forward" and the communisation were being corrected, from 1962 to 1965, the local organs became relatively independent of the central Maoist leadership. This was also largely promoted by the instructions which came from the centre, from the individuals and organisations charged with the task of righting the grave situation. This widened the gap between the Maoist leadership and the real economic and political processes. The machinery of political power was gradually slipping out of the Chinese leaders’ hands. The mainly passive, but stubborn, even if largely unrealised, resistance to the Maoists’ ideological and political aims on the part of broad masses of the working people and many grass-roots functionaries was put down and possibly for a time partly overcome with the aid of politico-juridical organs in the course of the “socialist education campaign”.

p However, it was not eradicated while the covert nonacceptance of the extreme adventurism by the functionaries in the middle and higher governing echelons of the machinery of political power remained. The difficulty of overcoming this situation was compounded by the fact, as the Chinese press makes clear, that in these echelons there were no open, public statements against Mao Tse-tung. The local Party and government functionaries, including the functionaries of political and juridical organs, could not and would 154 not come out against their leaders, who had been elected in accordance with the CPR Constitution and the CPC Rules, acting on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and wielding exceptionally great real power. That is why Mao Tsetung, having fortified his positions in the army but apparently not being quite able to rely on it and wishing to give his acts a massive character, went on to set up new organisations consisting of men who were personally loyal to him and who were not directly subordinate to the existing Party and government bodies. Their purpose was to fight those who could be classed as overt, covert or potential anti-Maoists, and to influence the mass of neutral, doubting and vacillating men. Such organisations were in fact set up from among the Hungweipings and the Tsaofans. Mao’s political style was revealed in the way the “cultural revolution" was prepared and carried out.

p However, this time it was an attempt to saddle the country with a regime of personal power, and the aims and methods of the “cultural revolution" gave ground to qualify it as such an attempt. For one thing, from the very outset of this “revolution” it was quite clear that those who were carrying it out constituted a minority in the Party and in the country, a fact the official Maoist press could not conceal and had to explain in some way. An article in Jenmin jihpao said that the “Leftists were the iron club, the golden club of the proletarian dictatorship".  [154•1  The press admitted that the “Leftists” who were the “core and mainstay of the movement" were “not numerous”. They were set the straightforward task of “winning over, rallying together and educating the majority".  [154•2  However, the Maoists did not expect the Leftists to be able to do this within the framework of the existing legal order, and therefore provided in the resolution of the CPC Central Committee, which they put through on August 8, 1966, for unprecedented measures, releasing the “revolutionary students" from criminal or administrative punishment for any crimes and offences against law and order which they might commit in the course of the “ revolution”. This resolution, while stating that it was “ inadmissible to use methods of suppression against the minority" 155 (and the minority consisted of “Leftists”), also said: “In the course of the movement, apart from murderers, incendiaries, poisoners, saboteurs, stealers of state secrets and other counter-revolutionaries, concerning whose crimes real evidence is available and who have to be punished in accordance with the law, questions about students of higher schools, special, secondary and primary schools should not as a rule be brought up."  [155•1  It is not surprising, therefore, that there were widespread abuses, slanders, arrests, beatings, inflictions of bodily injuries and other gross forms of violence against the victims of the “cultural revolution”, and that these now and again developed into lynchings, killings and massive clashes involving much bloodshed. These facts were admitted in the Maoist press. Nor could it have been otherwise, because the resolution on the “cultural revolution" said: “There is no need to fear disorder. Chairman Mao teaches us that the revolution cannot be carried out with such refinement, with such delicacy, with such decorum and stability."  [155•2 

p Although the Maoists did put in a reservation that the blows should be dealt at those “who go along the capitalist way”, with rare exceptions all the responsible functionaries in the centre and in the localities were in fact subjected to repression and intimidation in one way or another. The reason was quite understandable: Mao was no longer sure that a majority of them would support his line without question. Hence the slogan of the “cultural revolution": “Let”s break the dog’s head of anyone who opposes the thought of Mao Tse-tung.”

p The situation that has taken shape as a result of the “ cultural revolution" is so complex because neither the Constitution nor any of the other CPR laws have been revoked in any formal proceedings by competent state organs. That is largely the reason why events in China have assumed such a confused and contradictory character and why they have been verging into political, economic and administrative chaos.

p In many places, the wild frenzy of the Hungweipings and the Tsaofans came up against resistance on the part of local 156 Party organisations and government bodies, supported by the factory workers. Now and again local political and legal bodies put a check on the “rebels” in accordance with the laws of the CPR. Whereupon Mao’s followers issued calls for a “take-over of power”, “overthrow of the bourgeois dictatorship" and “break up of the old state machine”. The methods used in the “cultural revolution" show that its organisers intended not only to defeat their opponents, who held Party and government office in accordance with the CPC Rules and the Constitution of the CPR, but also to create a totally different machinery of political power, which would make the apparatus of power and the broad masses of the population absolutely subservient in their activity to the implementation of Mao’s political line.

p Having failed to obtain support from broad masses of workers, peasants and intellectuals, the Maoists began to move in the army units. From January 1967, they began to “take over power" in the provinces and the cities with the help of the army. The “take-over of power" consisted in the storming and sacking of premises of central departments and also of local Party and government agencies, in beatings, tortures and murders of many functionaries of these organs, some of whom were driven to suicide. Among the victims were even ministers of the CPR, and deputies of assemblies of people’s representatives, including the National People’s Congress. The latter was unable to hold any of its regular sessions beginning from 1966. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the Chairman of the CPR and his deputies were unable to exercise their functions. The most important directives were issued by agencies not empowered to do so by the Constitution; orders to the armed forces of which the Chairman of the CPR is the constitutional chief, were issued on behalf of Mao Tse-tung, who has no legal grounds for such acts.  [156•1 

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p Having broken up the organs of administration established in accordance with the CPR Constitution, the Maoists set up “revolutionary committees" consisting of military men, representatives of “mass revolutionary organisations" and the CPC functionaries who had “stood the test of true loyalty to Chairman Mao’s line”. The establishment of these “ revolutionary committees" ran up against great difficulties in view of resistance on the part of various social groups of Chinese society, and was finally completed only by September 1968. These committees simultaneously held all the state and Party power.

p The new, unconstitutional organs of power have managed to maintain themselves mainly by resorting to violence. An editorial in Pravda on May 18, 1970, gave this assessment of the Maoists’ system of power: “The organs of power in China are structured on the militaristic model, inherited from the Chiang Kai-shek clique. Power is concentrated in the hands of the military, who are Mao’s henchmen, and who boss the so-called revolutionary committees. The commanders of military districts, armies and garrisons are uncontrolled masters of the provinces. They head ’revolutionary committees’ and direct the ‘ordering’ of the Party organisations. Army units are quartered at enterprises, establishments and schools. At the factories, the shops and teams have been organised into companies and squads. The same militaristic system is being introduced in the government establishments and institutions of learning. The army controls the economy and culture."  [157•1 

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p The Maoists’ unconstitutional activity is also clearly evident from the fact that they have everywhere abolished the organs of the court, the procurator’s offices and the public security offices, and have set up in their place “joint committees for eradicating counter-revolutionaries”. These committees have to overcome strong resistance, because the number of those who are dissatisfied with the new authorities is exceptionally large and may be expected considerably to grow in the future.

p The incompetence of the new organs of power and the absence of any sort of positive programme created such a dangerous situation in the country that Mao’s followers were forced to establish military control everywhere and to make the utmost use of the army to organise production.

p Tremendous difficulties and fresh acute contradictions arise from the efforts to re-establish elementary law and order, which are being made for the purpose of cutting short the excesses of the “revolution”. During the exposure of “bourgeois dictatorship of the counter-revolutionary revisionists" in the second half of 1966, millions of victims of the “socialist education campaign" began to demand rehabilitation. In this connection, according to some organs of the Hungweiping press, there was evidence of a tendency on the part of the victims to revenge themselves upon the members of the teams who had carried out the “education”. The Maoists have had repeatedly to reaffirm, on Mao’s authority, that the repressions carried out in the course of that campaign had been “correct”. The committees of poor peasants and lower sections of the middle peasants, which had been formed and reformed in the course of the “campaign” and which had the task of controlling the state of affairs in the countryside, proved to be powerless. It was not they or the organs of the communes and production teams, which had existed earlier, that directed the agricultural operations from 1967 to 1969, but “combat groups" and “front commands" which relied on army personnel.

p In the course of the “cultural revolution" the numbers of persons accused by the Maoists of counter-revolutionary activity prior to 1966 were swelled by a mass of so-called counter-revolutionary revisionists from the Party and state apparatus. Finally, there appeared a totally new and possibly the most dangerous section of the suppressed and 159 discontented, consisting of arrested or dispersed members of the “rebel” organisations which had been set up to carry out the “cultural revolution”, but which had gone much farther than the Maoists had expected. Evidence of serious discontent with the ultimate results among those who had “pioneered the revolution" comes from the insistent calls for unity and cohesion of the ranks of the Hungweipings, the Tsaofans and other “rebels,” calls for combating anarchism, ultrademocratism and nihilism in their midst, and the dispatch of many of them into the countryside, amounting to exile.

p Crime is reported to spread in the country; there is growing discontent among the relatives of repressed persons, who are frequently treated as disloyal citizens. Many facts show that there is also discontent and indignation over the Chinese leadership’s policy even in the army itself, which has been openly proclaimed the “most important and the most reliable mainstay”. Even in provinces and cities like Kweichow and Shanghai, where the “greatest victories for Mao Tsetung’s thought" have been repeatedly announced, there have been massive and sanguinary clashes on various occasions, involving the army, between the proponents and the opponents of the “cultural revolution”. Sizable sections of the population, who have had their fill of the “revolution”, seek to fence themselves off from it and are not taking anything like an active part in it.

p In their attempts to consolidate their power, Mao’s followers have unhinged the country’s political machinery and plunged it into a grave crisis. The attempts on the part of some Chinese leaders to stop the “excesses” and to disassociate themselves from such excesses, to re-install some harassed individuals in their responsible posts, and to take reprisals against the “rebel organisations" and “rebels” who had exceeded the limits set out by the sponsors of the “revolution”, are being made from purely tactical considerations.

p The facts show that Mao’s followers are trying to present their political arbitrariness as a universal law governing the development of socialist society. In order to establish a system of military-bureaucratic dictatorship in the country, they seek to make the system appear ultra-revolutionary, and declare any struggle against it as stemming from the eternal machinations of the “counter-revolutionary revisionists”, 160 “restorers of capitalism" and suchlike enemies of “Mao Tsetung’s thought”.

p The Maoists insist that following one round of exposures of “enemies” within the Party, the government and the army, there inevitably appear new enemies within them. The struggle against these enemies, Mao and his followers insist, will require “decades and even centuries".  [160•1  At the height of the “cultural revolution" Mao warned: “No one must assume that everything will be well if the great cultural revolution is carried out one-two or three-four times.” On another occasion Mao said that the “cultural revolution is bound to be carried out many times".  [160•2  Consequently, the Maoists are trying to establish political arbitrariness as a law.

p The Communist Party is the highest form of socio-political organisation in socialist society, which exercises political and ideological leadership of socialist construction, and acts as the organising nucleus of the whole social system, and as the collective mind of all the working people. As Lenin put it, the Communist Party alone is capable of “being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organising their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie."  [160•3 

p Recognition of the Communist Party’s leading role in socialist society is the touchstone of membership of the Marxist-Leninist camp.

p Mao and his followers pay lip-service to the Communist Party’s leading role, but their practical activity testifies to the contrary. Mao does not regard the Party as the leading and directing force of society but as an instrument of the regime of personal power, as the most important means for carrying out his adventurist and chauvinistic policy. Mao found unsuitable a Communist Party which based its activity on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. That is why one of the basic tasks of the “cultural revolution" was to change the composition and 161 ideological-political face of the Communist Party of China and also its functions within the system of society’s political superstructure. The Maoists undertook a veritable offensive against the Communist Party of China: all the elective leading organs of the CPC from top to bottom were broken up, the Party’s organisational structure, earlier established on the principle of democratic centralism, was destroyed as a whole, and a heavy blow was dealt at all the healthy forces within the Party. A large group of prominent Party and state leaders, military commanders, veterans of the Chinese revolution and a broad section of the Party intelligentsia and Communists were removed from political activity and subjected to a purge, repression and denigration. They were all those whom Mao and his followers saw as overt or potential opponents of their own line; there was a sharp reduction in the Party of the share of politically conscious representatives of the working class and the Party intelligentsia. For all practical purposes, the CPC’s Eighth Central Committee was eliminated: over two-thirds of its membership was branded as belonging to the “black band”. It is true that now and again the Maoists pretended that they were acting on behalf of the Central Committee, but this they did in order to throw a cloak of legality on their unlawful actions.

p Convincing evidence of this came from the 12th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee held in October 1968. It was called an enlarged Plenary Meeting. Because, as we have said, most CC members had been subjected to repression, a great number of military men and “ revolutionary youths" were invited to attend the Plenary Meeting to create the impression of representation and also to exert pressure on the CC members who were still “at large" ( naturally with the exception of Mao’s followers).

p Naturally the CC Plenary Meeting made up in such fashion rubberstamped the decisions drafted beforehand by the CPC leadership on the victory of the “great proletarian cultural revolution”, and expelled from the Party and removed from all his posts in the Party and the state (once again in violation of the prerogatives of state organs) Liu Shao-chi, Chairman of the CPR, and adopted a decision to call the 9th Congress of the CPC. The sponsors of this congress expected it to provide a legal basis for the regime of Mao’s personal power.

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p The 9th Congress of the CPC called in April 1969, demonstrated the grossest violations of inner-Party democracy: 1,512 delegates to this congress were not elected by Party branches but were handpicked from among Mao’s loyal supporters. Most of the members of the Central Committee, elected at the 8th Congress of the CPC, were not among the delegates. Speakers in the debate on the report were not given and their speeches were not published.

p The 9th CPC Congress has not stabilised the Maoist sociopolitical system. The second half of 1971 saw a new political crisis in China, in the course of which a group of top army and Party leaders disappeared from public life. A great deal of attention has been given to the disappearance of Lin Piao, who was earlier proclaimed “the most reliable associate and continuator of Mao’s cause" and his official “successor”. Until recently the Chinese press invariably emphasised that the army fulfilling Mao’s instructions was under the “direct command of Lin Piao”. Today one can no longer see Lin Piao’s portraits in Peking. Moreover, publications in any way associated with him have been withdrawn from sale. All over the country there was a long wave of Party meetings at which reports were made about Lin Piao’s “blunders”, about his raising his hand against Mao himself. Together with Lin Piao there disappeared some other members of the Political Bureau of the CC CPC and army leaders including the Chief of the General Staff Huang Yung-sheng, his deputies Wu Fa-Hsien and Li Tso-peng.  [162•1 

p It is still difficult to give a definite answer to the question as to what reasons underlay the crisis in the Chinese leadership in September 1971. One thing is clear—the September developments are but a mirror of the general crisis of the Maoist “special” political course, proof of a complicated and tense situation in China, caused by the consequences of the “cultural revolution" and by the anti-Leninist internal and external policies imposed by Mao Tse-tung on the 9th CPC Congress.

p It is common knowledge that at the 9th CPC Congress 163 the Mao group adopted the course of external and internal policies wholly subordinated to the assertion of Peking’s hegemonistic positions in the international arena. With this end in view the Maoists are turning China into a “barrack”, into a “single military camp”, and are orienting her economy and socio-political life on “the preparation for war”. While doing this, they emphasise in every way that China faces a military threat “from the North”.

p However, it is obvious that it has been much easier for the Maoist leadership to proclaim a “special course" than to implement it in practice. Both the internal and external policies of Mao run counter to the objective requirements of China’s advance along the road of socialism, of her strengthening friendship and internationalist ties with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, with all the revolutionary forces of today. The Chinese leadership seems to be rent by deep disagreements on major problems of internal and external policies.

p The sponsors of the “cultural revolution" failed to remove from the consciousness of Chinese Communists, workers, peasants, intellectuals and servicemen the ideas of socialism and proletarian internationalism, the ideas for which the Chinese people had fought for many long years and which had been duly reflected in the decisions of the 8th CPC Congress. It is not accidental that Mao and his adherents say that “not only one, but even three or four cultural revolutions would not suffice to educate the people" in a spirit they like.

The very fact that the Maoists have tried to settle their political, social and economic problems through methods of compulsion, through the Army, has undoubtedly deepened the crisis of the entire Maoist socio-political system. The Maoist policy, inimical to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, has caused serious contradictions in the country and plunged it into a protracted political crisis.

p Thus, one of the essential features of Maoist ideology is its apology of violence, and its stake on the army and the punitive agencies as the main means for implementing Maoist policy. All of this is fundamentally at variance with Marxism, which sets strict legal limits to the use of methods 164 of suppression. Mao has deliberately discarded the constructive function of the proletarian dictatorship and has “ forgotten" about the fact that it is closely connected with socialist democracy, that it is in itself the highest type of democracy, because it represents the interests of the overwhelming majority of citizens, instead of a handful of individuals.

Maoist ideology is an ideology of political adventurism, demagogy, violence and mass terrorism. It is naturally inconceivable without the personality cult. Mao’s followers have used it to usurp power in the Party and in the state in the course of the “cultural revolution”. However, the experience of world history suggests that power obtained in this way is tenuous and is bound to collapse.