p In Section 3 of this Chapter we already dealt with the fact that in the 1920s and 1930s Mao had, for all practical 202 purposes, ignored the leading role of the working class in the Chinese revolution. In fact, he has maintained a similar stand since then. However, in an effort to put a Marxist gloss on his views and theoretically to back up his right to leadership in the CPC, he has “injected” into his works (including those written earlier, in the 1920s) statements about the leading role of the working class in Chinese society. That is why his works contained much favourable mention about the Chinese working class. He said: “The entire history of revolution proves that without the leadership of the working class revolution fails and that with the leadership of the working class revolution triumphs. In the epoch of imperialism, in no country can any other class lead any genuine revolution to victory."  [202•1  This was uttered more than 20 years ago, on June 30, 1949, in an article entitled “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship”. Mao has expressed similar ideas since then.

p Thus, for instance, in August 1968 he declared: “Our country has a population of 700 million. The working class is the leading class. There is need fully to develop the leading role of the working class in the great proletarian cultural revolution and in all other matters."  [202•2  One of Mao’s “latest precepts" was quoted in the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC, which said: “The proletariat is the greatest class in the history of mankind. Ideologically, politically and in terms of strength it is the mightiest revolutionary class.” The CPC Rules contain this statement: “The Communist Party of China is the political party of the proletariat.”

p However, all these statements, paying lip-service to the leading role of the working class, are purely declarative, because in practice they are not backed up by any politicoorganisational or ideological measures.

p Although the “cultural revolution" has been designated as “proletarian” and is allegedly being pursued in the interests of the proletariat, the Chinese workers have in fact been prevented from taking part in it (the presence of young workers in some Tsaofan units makes no difference to the overall situation). What is more, at one stage of the “cultural revolution”, the edge of the struggle was turned directly 203 against the workers, namely, the campaign against “ counter-revolutionary economism”. The workers’ legitimate demands for better living conditions were declared to be an expression of “egoism”, “economism”, “bourgeois ideology”, “ revisionism”, etc. Jenmin jihpao declared: “This kind of economism amounts to using every means of corruption to indulge the demands of the small groups of backward masses, to erode the revolutionary will of the masses, and to divert the political struggle of the masses to the false path of economism, so as to make the masses stop reckoning with the interests of the state and the collective, the long-term interests, and to pursue nothing but their personal and short-term interests. The aim of economism is to stifle the great proletarian cultural revolution and to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system."  [203•1 

p Maoism holds that the leading role of the working class can be ensured only if it unconditionally fulfils Mao’s instructions. Hungchih explains this as follows: “In order to safeguard the leadership of the working class, the first thing that needs to be done is to ensure the fulfilment of every instruction of Chairman Mao, the great leader of the working class."  [203•2  Ultimately, the leading role of the working class is reduced to the leading role of the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”. Kwangming jihpao wrote: “The working class must direct everything. This means that Mao Tse-tung’s thought must direct everything."  [203•3  Consequently, while lip-service is being paid to the leading role of the working class, steps are in fact taken to disperse the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party, to eliminate the organisation of the working class, the trade unions, and to attack the vital rights of the Chinese workers under the pretext of fighting “counter-revolutionary economism”.

p It is not surprising, therefore, that on the whole the working class of China has taken a hostile attitude to the “cultural revolution”. There have been disturbances and strikes at many factories and enterprises. In order to put these down and simultaneously to restart production operations, 204 disorganised by the “cultural revolution”, the Maoists fell back on the help of the army.

Mao’s verbal flirtation with the working class, which has been recently intensified, and which has been expressed, in particular, in his latest precepts, is due not only to his efforts to make his ideas and actions appear to be scientific, but also to purely utilitarian considerations. The Maoists cannot help but realise that the development of large-scale (arms) industry inevitably leads to a growth in the numerical strength and influence of the working class. They realise that unless this fact is taken into account, they may find themselves facing large-scale political disturbances in the future.

p Thus, Chinese society has been plunged by the Maoists into a state of bitter struggle. The relations of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance between groups of working people, which socialism naturally produces, have been disrupted, and supplanted by hostility, eavesdropping, suspicion and treachery; the military-bureaucratic dictatorship, established by Mao Tse-tung, hits out at all the social groups of working people.

p The “class line" openly pursued by Mao Tse-tung, as expressed in the so-called great proletarian cultural revolution, has in fact made impossible in China the tendency towards an obliteration of social distinctions between groups of working people, a tendency inevitable under socialism for objective reasons, on the basis of an all-round improvement of their cultural-educational, professional, intellectual, ideological and political level. A normal development of the working class, the peasantry and the intelligentsia has been grossly disrupted. The Chinese people’s intelligentsia, an active creator of the people’s spiritual values, has been subjected to massive massacres and all manner of reprisals.

p The social structure of modern China has been substantially deformed. It has not functioned or developed normally as a socialist structure. The mutually determined development of the socialist working class, the socialist peasantry and the socialist intelligentsia has not taken place in Chinese society because virtually every one of these social groups of working people has been deformed and deprived of the possibility of normal development.

p A characteristic feature of socialism is that as it develops groups of working people engage in something like a mutual exchange of the most advanced features. Each group of working people seeks to borrow from the other groups their most progressive features, and this brings them closer together on a higher level. From the working class the peasants, the intellectuals and the office workers borrow the features which are characteristic of it as the economically and politically most advanced force, features of high ideological consciousness, awareness and organisation. For their part, the workers and peasants seek to rise to the general educational, cultural and intellectual level of the intelligentsia. The peasantry itself has many fine features, and these inevitably blend with the best features of other working people. This process is especially intensified when many people from peasant families move into the ranks of the working class and the intelligentsia. In China, this natural process has been disrupted.

p The touchstone of one’s attitude to Marxism-Leninism is known to be the attitude to classes, the class struggle, and to the dictatorship and leading role of the proletariat. Those are the very issues on which the unscientific, adventurist, subjectivist and idealistic conceptions and lines of the Maoists are being most clearly revealed.

The actions of the Chinese leadership have seriously prejudiced the interest of the people and the cause of socialism in China.