The present epoch is justly known as the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, and the historical experience of the past few decades provides irrefutable evidence of this. As a result of the joint struggle of the socialist states, the working class in the capitalist countries, the newlyfree and the oppressed peoples, there is a further weakening of imperialist positions in the political, economic, military and ideological spheres. The Main Document of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties says that ``socialism, which has triumphed on one-third of the globe, has scored new successes in the world-wide struggle for the hearts and minds of the people".^^1^^
However, international imperialism has been counterattacking in an effort to change the overall balance of forces in its favour. In these conditions, there is need for even greater cohesion of all the anti-imperialist forces, above all, the Communist and Workers' Parties, the most progressive sections of modern society. ``The policy of joint anti-imperialist action demands that the ideological and political role of the Marxist-Leninist Parties in the world revolutionary process should be enhanced".^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, Documents, Prague 1969, p 12.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 38.
5This task can only be fulfilled through implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology, against Right and ``Left'' opportunism, against revisionism, dogmatism and Leftsectarian adventurism.
One of the pressing tasks before Marxism-Leninism today is to criticise the theoretical conceptions of Mao Tse-tung and his group. The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the Party's 24th Congress stressed that 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".^^1^^
A new front of ideological struggle has been opened in connection with the anti-Marxist, anti-socialist, chauvinistic and anti-Soviet line pursued by the present Chinese leadership. This line was officially formalised by the 9th Congress of the CPC in April 1969. The theoretical basis of this line is the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', or Maoism, which is an ideological trend hostile to Marxism. Maoism is deeply alien to internationalism and to the idea of the proletarian solidarity of nations; Great-Power chauvinism has become one of its main features.
The history of 20th century revolutions shows that Marxism is latent with vast attractive power not only for the working class, but also for other social groups, in particular, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Apart from the Marxists, the communist and working-class movement is joined by men with various incorrect notions about the ways of restructuring society, among them revolutionary democrats, anarchists, bourgeois nationalists, etc. Some of them, once tempered in the flames of revolutionary struggle in the ranks of the Party, become Marxists, others fail to stand the test and break with the communist movement, while still others remain in the ranks of the Party, but never ultimately shed their old petty-bourgeois or bourgeois convictions.
This is of particular importance in any examination of the make-up of Communist and Workers' Parties in developing, _-_-_
~^^1^^ 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Documents, Moscow, 1971, p. 15.
6 peasant countries. Petty-bourgeois ideology necessarily has a negative effect on these Parties, because their ranks are formed mainly from the non-proletarian sections of society. This was a fact to which Comintern documents at one time strongly drew attention. In these conditions, the role of the leading nucleus of the Communist Party is considerably enhanced, for it has the duty to rally, on a common Marxist platform, all the members of the Party, regardless of their social origin, past activity and former views, and to prevent views hostile to Marxism from gaining the upper hand in the Party. When for various reasons leadership in a Communist Party falls into the hands of anti-Marxists, this creates the danger of the Party's degeneration and its conversion into a non-socialist, non-revolutionary organisation.Let us emphasise that from the outset the CPC brought together not only Marxists, but also non-Marxists, many of whom joined the Party mainly for tactical reasons. One of them was Mao Tse-tung.
Chinese Marxists-Leninists were aware of Mao Tse-tung's erroneous political line, and of the anti-Marxist essence of his views, and saw the artificial build-up of the myth of Mao Tse-tung as an outstanding theorist and infallible leader of the Chinese revolution. As best they could they resisted Mao's attempts to impose his own, specific line on the Party, to ``sinify'' Marxism, and to supplant Marxist-Leninist ideas with the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. It was their persistent resistance to Mao's political line that made the 8th Congress of the CPC in 1956 expunge from the Party Rules the provision, imposed on the Party at the 7th Congress in May 1945, according to which the Party was ``to be guided in all its activity" by the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', and laid down in the Rules that ``in all its activity the Communist Party of China shall be guided by Marxism-Leninism''.
Mao Tse-tung did not accept this ideological defeat at the 8th Congress of the CPC, and launched on a fresh round of struggle against the Marxists-Leninists and internationalists in the period of the so-called ``great proletarian cultural revolution" in China, one of whose purposes, it will be recalled, was massive terrorism in order to impose Mao's views on the whole Party and the Chinese people, as the ``most correct" and the ``greatest'' ideas.
The failure of the ``Three Red Banners" line and the 7 foreign-policy defeats were a blow at the myth of Mao's being a Marxist-Leninist and an infallible theorist of the Chinese revolution. In this context, a special role was played by the ``cultural revolution" which laid bare the real antiMarxist petty-bourgeois nature of the Maoists' views and political line, and provided fresh evidence that Mao and his followers pursued aims which were a far cry from scientific socialism, democracy and peace. What is more, it showed once again that the Maoists confronted the international revolutionary movement as a bourgeois-nationalistic trend seeking to occupy a commanding position in the world revolutionary process so as to impose Mao's anti-socialist views on the Communists and revolutionary democrats, to subordinate the revolutionary movement to their influence and to make it serve interests incompatible with Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
The appearance of Maoism in China as a specific pettybourgeois, nationalistic trend is connected not only with the name of Mao Tse-tung, but also with definite objective conditions.
Because the Chinese proletariat emerged on the historical scene at a relatively late date, and because it was weak as a class, socialist concepts in China for a long time had the character of a social utopia coloured in the hues of traditional Chinese notions about the perfect society with its purely peasant ideals of social justice.
From the outset, the Communist Party of China had to work in a country where the peasantry made up 90 per cent of the population. The social make-up of the CPC was largely peasant and petty-bourgeois. That is why petty-bourgeois ideology of every shade was frequently reflected in the minds of CPC members. That was inevitable. As Mao himself admitted, men who came to the CPC from the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie were ``often liberals, reformists, anarchists, Blanquists, etc.'', who pretended to be MarxistsLeninists.^^1^^ Let us bear in mind that Mao himself comes from the petty bourgeoisie.
The survival of semi-feudal relations of production in China helped to conserve among various sections of the Chinese people Great-Power nationalistic attitudes, which _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, London, 1956, p. 212.
8 the country's ruling elite had been implanting for many centuries, attitudes which at the turn of the century were sharpened to the extreme and assumed the urge of restoring China to her old grandeur. The ideology of Great-Han chauvinism had infected not only the conservative feudal, bureaucratic forces, but also China's petty-bourgeois democrats, who dreamed of seeing their country as the centre of the world and reigning supreme in the international arena. It was indeed Great-Han chauvinism, combined with pettybourgeois revolutionism, that created the atmosphere in which Mao's ideology developed.Mao's views were shaped in the conditions of the Chinese people's revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism, in an atmosphere of growing popularity of MarxismLeninism in China, following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the internationalist assistance which the Soviet Union was rendering the Chinese people in their liberation struggle. It was quite natural therefore for Mao Tse-tung at one time also to turn to MarxismLeninism as a banner which rallied all the progressive forces of China. He sought to exploit the vast authority of Marxist-Leninist ideas for his own selfish ends. He clothed his petty-bourgeois, unscientific conceptions and views in Marxist-Leninist form, because the reputation of being a Marxist-Leninist opened up before him the possibility of taking over the leading position within the CPC.
Marxism-Leninism never became for Mao a world outlook which he understood, assimilated and accepted. He regarded Marxism-Leninism as a ``foreign teaching'', of which only some ``general truths" could be applied in China. Mao's approach to Marxism-Leninism was pragmatic, for he borrowed from it only that which met and served his purposes. Because before the Chinese people's victory in 1949 Mao's schemes were objectively in the main identical with the tasks of the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution, he made use in that period of that part of Marxism-Leninism which could be placed at the service of these tasks.
Mao's views never took shape as a full-fledged, systematic world outlook, or a more or less coherent theory. They are a conglomerate of diverse ideas borrowed, depending on the need of the moment, from the most diverse sources, ranging from the conversations of Confucius to the writings of 9 Kropotkin. That is why they are eclectic, fragmentary and superficial. The appearance of the Little Red Book in China was not at all accidental: it was a reflection of the mosaic nature of Mao's views. Mao's views and political line reveal elements which are akin to Narodism, anarchism, Blanquism, Trotskyism and other petty-bourgeois ideological trends. This is due not only to the concrete historical situation in which Mao's views were shaped, the conditions which in the past generated in Europe ideas of ``Left'' revolutionism, but also to the influence, direct and indirect, exerted on Mao by the tenets of Bakunin, Trotsky and petty-bourgeois theorists of similar stripe. However, it would be wrong to identify Mao's views with any of these ideological trends. Because Maoism is chiefly a Chinese phenomenon, it has deep socio-economic, historical, ideological and epistemological roots in Chinese soil, especially in view of the fact that Mao's political acts and views have far from always been in the nature of ``Left'' revolutionism, constituting in many instances a Rightopportunist and nationalistic line covered up with Leftist catchwords.
In claiming the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" to be the summit of modern Marxist-Leninist thinking, Chinese propaganda seeks to create the impression that Mao has formulated new ideas on all the basic problems of Marxist-Leninist theory. In actual fact, Mao has sought to exploit MarxismLeninism and to use its authority as camouflage, falsifying and distorting the essence of this great revolutionary teaching.
The failure of the attempts to apply the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" in practice shows best of all that this ``thought'' is subjectivist and unscientific. These failures, more than anything else, show that Maoism, whatever the mantle it dons, cannot serve the interests of a modern society building socialism. The objective laws of social development have overthrown, and will always continue to overthrow, similar ``thought'' and the political schemes it is used to justify or cover up. For all the efforts of the present Chinese leaders to maintain their ideological domination, Maoism is bound sooner or later to suffer a complete collapse. However, this will occur the earlier the sooner the working people of China realise the true nature of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. The ``cultural revolution" shows that the disillusionment in 10 this ``thought'' had spread in China to such an extent that it took a massive campaign of terrorism and intimidation to maintain the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" in a dominant position.
Mao's followers have been trying in various ways to make the Chinese people believe that his ``thought'' allegedly has a ``miraculous power" and that it is the ``embodiment of truth''. It is well known, however, that to establish the objectivity of a truth it has never been necessary to use force, abuse, idolatry and destruction of the most conscious and high-minded sections of society. Only obscurantism and barbarism were established in that manner. The light of truth has no need for the flames of bonfires lit to burn up books.
This question naturally arises: if Mao's views are unscientific, vulgar and schematic, is it at all proper to make any serious effort to expose them and to carry on a consistent ideological struggle against them? There is only one answer: it is not only proper, but necessary. It is necessary because the Maoists are seeking to present them as the highest achievement of Marxism-Leninism of the modern epoch. On the strength of their views, they have been pursuing a special, nationalistic line, discrediting the ideals of socialism and communism. Petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which permeates these views, exerts an influence on the petty-bourgeois section in China herself and elsewhere, especially in the developing countries.
It should also be borne in mind that Mao's views add up to an ideology of the personality cult in its ugliest form, and that they are marked by demagogy and an appeal to the basest instincts. The Maoists have used this demagogy to confuse the most backward section of the Chinese working class and the peasantry and to corrupt the young.
Finally, Mao's views and political line have made it possible for anti-communism considerably to step up its activity. Imperialist propaganda has been making wide use of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" to fight the forces of socialism, democracy and peace. It has used, for its own ends, the fact that a part of progressive opinion abroad is inclined to regard Mao's ``misconceptions'' and ``mistakes'' as being the price of transplanting the Marxist doctrine to Chinese soil. The Marxists are known resolutely to be opposed to any mechanical application of general truths and the imposition of 11 abstract schemes without consideration of the specific conditions in each country. Back in 1919, Lenin required the Communists of the East to ``translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of every people...".^^1^^ However, this translation of Marxism into the idiom of each nation, including the Chinese, should not amount to a departure from or betrayal of the general principles of Marxism, or to a substitution of petty-bourgeois ideology for Marxism.
To expose the anti-Marxist essence of Maoist theoretical conceptions there is need, first, to clarify their origins; second, to compare them with the principles of MarxismLeninism; third, to show the political orientation of Maoist postulates; and fourth, to examine these postulates in the context of the Maoists' practical activity.
In analysing the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" there is need to start above all from the Marxist doctrine of the state and revolution. There is need to obtain a comprehensive and profound understanding of what Lenin said about the tremendous complexity of the socialist revolution in a pettybourgeois country. The events in China make it necessary to consider a number of other problems as well, such as the class struggle and social relations in the transition period, the ``cultural revolution" and the attitude to the cultural heritage, the correlation between the international and national aspects of the anti-imperialist liberation struggle, and finally, the problem of war and peace in the presence of mass destruction weapons, etc.
This work is an attempt to give a scientific analysis, a Marxist assessment of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. The authors have naturally not set themselves the task of considering every aspect of this ``thought'', let alone providing exhaustive and definitive answers to all the questions arising in the course of this consideration.
The authors have constantly turned to an analysis of the Maoists' political practices and have sought to show the true meaning of Mao's various propositions in the light of the facts provided by the Maoists' practical activity; they have tried to expose the unscientific, petty-bourgeois, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 162.
12 Great-Power essence of Maoism, and the depth of Mao's political, moral and theoretical degradation.This monograph has been prepared by the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of the Far East of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The Introduction was written by V. G. Georgiyev, Cand. Sc. (Philos.), and V. A. Krivtsov, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter One by V. G. Georgiyev; Chapter Two by V. A. Krivtsov (Section 1), V. G. Georgiyev and V. A. Krivtsov (Section 2); Chapter Three by Y. G. Plimak, Cand. Sc. (Hist.), and Y. F. Karyakin (Sections 1, 2, 3), V. G. Georgiyev and Y. G. Plimak (Section 4); Chapter Four by Y. G. Plimak (Sections 1 and 2), V. G. Georgiyev, K. I. Ivanov, Y. G. Plimak, and V. Y. Sidikhmenov, Cand. Sc. (Econ.) (Section 3), G. S. Ostroumov, Cand. Sc. (Law) (Sections 4 and 5), V. G. Georgiyev and G. S. Ostroumov (Section 6); Chapter Five by V. N. Semyonov, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and V. Y. Sidikhmenov; Chapter Six by A. S. Frish, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter Seven by Y. A. Bailer, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and the Conclusion by V. G. Georgiyev and V. Y. Sidikhmenov.
[13] ~ [14] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SUBSTANCE OF MAOIST PHILOSOPHY __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Ideological OriginsThe whole ``wealth'' of Maoist philosophy is contained in these publications: = 1. The pamphlet, Dialectical Materialism, written in Yenan at the end of the 1930s on the basis of a series of lectures given at a Party school. A small part of this book was subsequently rewritten and published in the form of two articles, ``On Practice" and ``On Contradictions" in the Selected Works in the 1950s; = 2. The article, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', published in 1957; = 3. The article, ``Whence Does a Man Acquire Correct Ideas?" (1963); = 4. The articles, ``On New Democracy" and ``On the Democratic Dictatorship of the People''; = 5. Editorial articles in the newspaper Jenmin jihpao and the journal Hungchih (1963--1965)^^1^^; = 6. Statements on philosophical questions at various conferences and in connection with philosophical discussions.^^2^^
An analysis of all these philosophical articles and statements inevitably suggests the conclusion that Mao's theoretical scope is extremely circumscribed. The sources of Maoist philosophy are, first, the traditional Chinese (feudal) philosophy; and second, various bourgeois and pettybourgeois theories, both Chinese and European.
_-_-_~^^1^^ According to the Hungweiping press, all these articles were written with Mao's direct participation.
~^^2^^ These statements were reported in the Chinese press, mainly the Hungweiping press, which also gave the content of the statements and sometimes the verbatim text.
15Marxist philosophy is known to be a critical revolutionary generalisation of the whole of earlier philosophic thought. German classical philosophy, above all the writings of Hegel and Feuerbach, was an immediate theoretical source of Marxist philosophy. Among the important gains of world philosophic thought were Hegel's dialectical method and his coherent system of dialectical laws and categories, and Feuerbach's materialist thesis that nature and man are the only objective realities, and his statement that practice is the criterion of truth. These show that by the time Marx and Engels began their theoretical activity European philosophy had attained a sufficiently high level of development. If we take a look at the Chinese philosophy of the same period we shall find that it presents a different picture.
For a number of historical reasons, above all the long period dominated by the feudal mode of production ( expressed in the sphere of spiritual life in the deadening domination of neo-Confucian scholasticism), theoretical thinking in China by the mid-19th century markedly lagged behind theoretical thinking in other countries. At the dawn of world civilisation, Chinese philosophy had provided instances of profound (for the time of course) penetration into the substance of human nature and relations between men, of interesting dialectical conceptions covering a fairly wide range of problems of being, and in the early period of mankind's history Chinese philosophy developed parallel to philosophy in other countries and may perhaps have even been in advance of the latter on some points, which is why Confucius, Mo Tzu, Lao Tzu, Hsiin Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Yang Chu and Wang Chung all have a niche in history alongside Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. However, in the Middle Ages, and especially in the period of modern history, there was a fundamental change in the situation.
Of course, even in these periods we find some original Chinese philosophers, among them the free thinker Fan Chen (5th century) and Han Yui (8-9th centuries), the materialists Chang Tsai (12th century), Wang Fu-chih (17th century), and Tai Chen (18th century), the objective idealist Chu Hsi (12th century), the intuitive idealist Wang Yang-ming (16--17th centuries), and the interesting social philosopher Huang Tsung-hsi (17th century). However, these features are characteristic of the overall tendency in the 16 development of Chinese philosophy: first, a somewhat narrow range of problems, with a prevailing interest in ethical values, which are considered mainly in the light of the relationship between man's duty and obligations to (feudal) society, and the subordination of personal freedom to the authority of the state; and second, a descriptive, sketchy and naive approach in explaining the phenomena of the external world, an approach deeply rooted in the ancient period.
Through the whole of the history of Chinese philosophy runs the idea of there being opposite principles in nature and society which are interconnected and pass into each other. However, no Chinese philosopher ever gave a clearcut formulation of the interconnection of the opposites of the objective world as a general ontological law. Their conception of opposites was extremely metaphysical. Indeed, these opposites appeared to be discrete in time and space. The transition from one opposite to another was not an internal process of transition and connection of opposites but their mere outward displacement, or changing of places. Moreover, development was seen to be cyclical. That was the view taken of the problem of opposites not only by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, but also by Chang Tsai, Chu Hsi, Wei Yuan and Cheng Kuan-ying (19th century), among others.
Here, for instance, is what Chu Hsi wrote: ``East-West, top-bottom, winter-summer, day-night, birth-death: all these are opposites and constitute pairs. All natural phenomena are necessarily paired."^^1^^ Wei Yuan, who lived six centuries later, wrote in a similar vein: ``Heat reaching a limit gives way not to heat but to cold. Cold reaching a limit, gives way not to cold but to heat. Something excessively bent straightens out with greater force. Latent energy is revealed with greater force. . . . Decline and growth are indissoluble, happiness and misfortune have a common root."^^2^^
The same philosopher also said this: ``There are no isolated things in the Universe; everything must have a pair, that is, there can be no two high things, two big things, two costly things, there can be no two forces similar in magnitude. A struggle for primacy always takes place in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Yui Tung, Principal Problems of Chinese Philosophy, Peking, 1958, p. 139 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ Selected Writings of Progressive Chinese Thinkers of the Period of Modern History, Moscow, 1961, pp. 45--46 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---1362 17 everything that is paired. Why? It is simply because in paired things one must be cardinal and the other subordinate, because only then does the pair not break up into separate things."^^1^^Both Chu Hsi and Wei Yuan confined themselves to stating the fact that opposites exist in nature and alternate with each other, but one will look in vain for an explanation in their writings of the cause and content of the process of alternation, or of any consideration, in particular, of the problem of the identity of opposites. That is why they were unable to explain the transformation of things into their opposites.
In the middle and even at the end of the 19th century, Chinese philosophers frequently retold what had been said and written not only by their immediate predecessors, but also by philosophers who had lived 2,000 years before them. They continued to reiterate their ideas, relying on the traditional categories of Yin, Yang, Tao, Tai Chi, etc. In 1893, Cheng Kuan-ying, an ideologist of the emergent Chinese bourgeoisie, published a book entitled Bold Talk in the Age of Florescence (Sheng-shi wei-yan), proposing a number of political reforms for the purpose of China's technical and economic modernisation.^^2^^ In his philosophical substantiation of the book---``Tap-Chi''---he wrote: ``It is said in Yi Ching, in the section 'Hsi Tzu Chuan'^^3^^: 'That which has no form is called Tao; that which has form is called Chi.' Tao sprang from non-existence; initially (it) produced primary matter (Chi) which thickened and became Tai Chi. Subsequently there occurred the division of Tai Chi into Yin and Yang."^^4^^
``The heavens were arranged around the earth, and the earth occupied its place in the midst of the heavens; Yin _-_-_
~^^1^^ Selected Writings..., p. 48.
~^^2^^ Edgar Snow tells us that Mao read this book in his youth and was highly impressed (Red Star Over China, London, 1968, p. 134).
~^^3^^ Yi Ching (Book of Changes) is one of the most ancient Chinese treatises, dating back to the 8th--7th centuries B.C. ``Hsi Tzu Chuan'', an appendix to Yi Ching, sets out the philosophical interpretation of the main text of the book; written in about the 5th-3rd centuries B.C.
~^^4^^ Tai Chi (Great Limit), signifying the initial stage and the cause behind the origination and development of all things and phenomena, first occurs in Yi Ching. Yin and Yang, the two opposite principles in nature whose struggle, according to the ancient Chinese, led to the origination and development of all things.
18 included within itself Yang, and Yang included within itself Yin. That is why it is said that 'the interaction of Yin and Yang is Tao'. Hence: 'Two produced three, and three---all things.' Things and their names, primary matter and its laws existing in the world are embraced (by Tao). Because odd and even numbers exist, so, just as the multiplication of even and odd numbers produces a diversity of different numbers, the interaction of Yin and Yang in the aggregate produces the diversity of all things. Consequently, things emerge from primary matter, or in other words, concrete objects appear from Tao."^^1^^This primitive, naively dialectical scheme, which is based on ancient treatises (the author backs up his conception with references to the corresponding ideas of Lao Tzu and Confucius), was formulated in 1893 when the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, the cellular theory and Darwin's theory of evolution were already known in other countries.^^2^^
Without in any sense denying the importance of this view of cosmological problems for the establishment of the materialist world outlook, let us note that it is an obvious oversimplification. With rare exceptions, the whole of Chinese philosophy from the 17th to the 19th century was weak on ontological and epistemological problems. As a result, by the turn of the century Chinese philosophy markedly lagged behind the philosophy of other countries in the range and scope of its problems and the depth of their solution.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Selected Writings. .., pp. 98--99.
~^^2^^ Another prominent reformer, Kang Yu-wei, bases his explanation of the origin of the world on the concepts of Yuan Chi and Chi, which occur in the writings of Confucius.
^^3^^ In this connection it is strange, to say the least, to find the Chinese professor Chu Chien-chi asserting that Chinese (Confucian) philosophy has had an effect on the development of world philosophy and ultimately of Marxism as well. In an article in a Chinese philosophical journal he wrote: ``Marxism, dialectical materialism, is essentially connected with the European philosophy of the 18th century, and the European philosophy of the 18th century is essentially connected with Chinese philosophy. This means that as it penetrated Europe, Chinese philosophy exerted, on the one hand, a direct influence on French materialist philosophy, and on the other, a direct influence on the dialectics of German idealism. These materialism and dialectics were precisely the important source on which Marx and Engels drew in shaping their dialectical materialism. If these historical facts are true, we shall find __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 20. 19
Philosophical development is known to be directly connected with the development of the natural sciences, and there is no doubt at all that the gains of philosophy in the period of modern history were largely determined by the great advances in medicine, astronomy, biology, physiology, mathematics, mechanics, etc. Meanwhile, the natural sciences in China from the 17th to the 19th century were embryonic, a fact which necessarily had an effect on the development of Chinese philosophy in the period under consideration.
Neo-Confucianism, the official feudal ideology of China, was the main retarding factor in Chinese philosophy. Confucius was a great thinker who had considered a number of important problems, including man's social predestination, the causal nexus of his acts, the criteria for human acts, the relationship between various social groups, etc.
On the whole, however, the teaching of Confucius faced the past, an earlier period he called the ``golden age" in the history of China. Confucius justified and upheld conservative views and outdated traditions. He insisted that the traditions established by the ancients, the wise rulers of the earlier periods, embodied the ``behests of heaven'', and that these traditions, designated in the aggregate as Li ( ceremony, ``etiquette''), were sacrosanct.
One of the central categories of the Confucian teaching is Jen, which means ``love of mankind'', ``humaneness'', but it would be wrong to identify this concept with the concept of compassion, love and respect for men. Jen was a category with a clearly class tenor and a strictly defined sphere of application. ``Humaneness'' was proper only to noble men, the elite of society. ``A noble man can be inhumane, but a commoner cannot be humane."^^1^^ Since Li was a concrete embodiment of the Jen category, the requirement laid down by Confucius and his disciples, notably Meng Tzu, to follow Jen meant nothing more than the requirement unconditionally to observe the social graduation of men. The ideal of Confucius and his followers was that the father must be _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 19. it easy in the future to understand the connection between Marxism and Chinese philosophy, we shall cease to be unacquainted, as we once used to be, with dialectical materialism, and in general we shall find it much easier to apprehend Marxist philosophy.'' (Chieh-hsueh yan-chiu No. 4, 1957, p. 57).
~^^1^^ Lunyui, Ch. ``Hsian wen'', 6.
20 a father, the son a son, the emperor an emperor, the official an official. Everyone must occupy the station assigned to him by the heavens. Society, structured in accordance with this order, must consist of two categories of men: those who work with the ``heart'', that is, with their reason, and govern, and those whom the heavens assign to work by hand and feed those who govern.An important principle of the social order advocated by Confucianism is the requirement of unconditional subordination to one's seniors, whether by age or station in life. In this context, Confucius and his followers laid great emphasis on the concept Hsiao, which meant ``filial esteem''. They believed that ``those who honour their parents and respect their elders rarely fail to submit to their superiors".^^1^^ Consequently, Confucianism sought to use tribal, patriarchal traditions to educate men in a spirit of blind submission to the ruling elite. Confucius himself repeatedly said as much. He held that the common people had no business discoursing on the affairs of government, and had to ``be made to follow, but should not be allowed to be enlightened".^^2^^ Unquestioning obedience and submissiveness to the power of the ruler (the son of heaven), the law that ``everyone should know his place"---those are the fundamental principles of Confucian philosophy.
Although these ideas did have a negative influence on the development of Chinese theoretical thinking, their influence was at first limited, because Taoism and Buddhism existed as teachings on a par with Confucianism. However, in the llth and 12th centuries, mainly through the efforts of Chu Hsi, the teaching of neo-Confucianism was established as a blend of the ethical teaching of Confucius and the tenets of Taoism and Buddhism.
Neo-Confucianism became the official ideology of Chinese society. It secured a monopoly control over the people's spiritual life, requiring strict observance of the accepted forms of thinking and behaviour. Neo-Confucianism was a system of strictly defined canons and rigid rules, each of which was obligatory and had to be observed without fail. It was learned by rote, like dogma, in all the schools. Each _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Ch. ``Hsiuer'', 2.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Ch. ``Tai-po'', 9.
21 pupil and student had to memorise numerous sayings by Confucius and his followers as interpreted by Chu Hsi, without usually understanding what they meant. A mechanical knowledge of these sayings entitled a scholar to become an official.The memorising of Confucian dogmas from generation to generation was cultivated by the feudal elite and became a national tradition. Such methods of upbringing and education made every Chinese, in a sense, a Confucian. This did not mean, of course, that everyone was versed in all the Confucian dicta, but only that everyone accepted the Confucian prescriptions as something natural, as something to be taken for granted, as ancestral tradition.
In order to foster among the people a spirit of loyalty to the traditional ideology of neo-Confucianism every effort was made to cultivate the notion that the Chinese people's spiritual and cultural values were exclusive. This not only generated an attitude of conformism with respect to China's conservative traditions, but also helped to form the ideology of Sinocentrism, an essential element of which was contempt for all things non-Chinese, including non-Chinese sciences and philosophy.
The sway of neo-Confucian scholasticism necessarily left its mark on Chinese philosophy. Scholars were required to produce no more than commentaries on the writings of the Confucian fathers in the orthodox spirit; ideas contradicting neo-Confucianism were reviled. This naturally prevented Chinese thinkers from considering the pressing problems of China's social and spiritual development. Even progressive philosophers and socio-political thinkers were forced to fall back on the authority of Confucius to defend their ideas. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, bourgeois reformers (among them Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao) used some Confucian philosophical tenets to spread the idea of constitutional monarchy.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ It is not surprising that the cult of Confucius was once again enshrined and renovated in China under the Kuomintang reactionary clique, when it was underpinned by pseudo-Sun Yat-senism, the official doctrine of Kuomintang reaction, on the one hand, and reactionary bourgeois ideas from the West, on the other. This was the basis for Chen Li-fu's `` philosophy of life" and Chiang Kai-shek's ``philosophy of action'', both designed to vindicate the dictatorship of the Kuomintang clique. This ``phi-- __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 23. 22
Chinese society first got a knowledge of the culture and philosophy of other countries in the second half of the 19th century.^^1^^ Because the vehicle of this process was the intelligentsia, mainly its feudal section, it naturally assumed a definite character. A study was made mainly of the technical achievements in world science, some political and social institutions, and some ideas of the bourgeois philosophy of other countries, notably, positivism, but not, of course, Marxism. It should be borne in mind that Chinese society first got a knowledge of the accomplishments of world civilisation just as China was being colonised and that these ideas were brought in by agents of the imperialist powers, which naturally wanted a pro-imperialist ideology to be established in China.
The sway of traditionalism in philosophy and the embryonic state of the natural sciences resulted in a situation in which the borrowing of some elements of Western culture among the Chinese philosophers at the end of the 19th century produced a synthesis of traditional and European scientific concepts. Thus, Kang Yu-wei identified electricity with the spiritual principle called ``Jen'', which according to Confucianism was inherent in all things and phenomena. Among those who translated the writings of European thinkers was Yan Fu, a Right-wing bourgeois reformer. His translations contain commentaries in which he sought to show the similarity of various Western socio-philosophical conceptions with the traditional socio-political ideas of Chinese antiquity and the Middle Ages, mostly with Confucianism.
Consequently, the conclusion is well warranted that modern Chinese philosophy had not on the whole risen above the level of its medieval predecessor. The formation of modern philosophy, which began at the end of the 19th century, in the sense of its alignment in level with the latest _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 22. losophy'' used the cult of Confucius as a black banner to cover up the massacre of hundreds of thousands of patriots and the pursuit of chauvinistic policies. The ideologists of the Kuomintang clique declared his teaching to be the ``ideological basis" for mankind's progress and prosperity, and predicted that the peoples of the whole world would in one way or another ultimately travel the way indicated by Confucius.
~^^1^^ Up to then there was a limited knowledge of world culture and philosophy.
23 achievements in theoretical knowledge, naturally enough could not all at once yield any tangible results, especially considering that it proceeded, as we have said, under the sway of neo-Confucianism. The Chinese philosophy of the 17th-19th centuries was essentially a curious modification of the original form of materialism and naive dialectics. That was the theoretical foundation on which Maoist philosophy grew. Like all men of his generation, Mao Tse-tung received the traditional education, which consisted in the main in a Talmudic drumming into men's heads of Confucian tenets and other ancient texts.^^1^^Another source of Maoist philosophy is the Utopian, egalitarian ideas, running right through the history of the Chinese thought, which in the 19th century were most fully expressed in the policy statements of the Taipings---dispossessed Chinese peasants---and the writings of Kang Yu-wei. The Taiping ideal was a just society practising the following principles: ``The land would be tilled in common, meals would be taken together, clothes would be used jointly, and money spent collectively. Equality would be observed everywhere, and everyone would be provided with food and clothing."^^2^^
Kang Yu-wei's social utopia implied social ownership and the principle of popular rule and self-government. He believed such a society could be set up through the gradual elimination of the family and private property relations within it. Men and women would enter into free marital relations, and their children would be entirely in the public care. Kang Yu-wei believed that this would eliminate the family, with the result that no property, with the exception of ornaments and various knick-knacks, would be handed down, so that upon the death of their owners the land, factories and shops would pass into public use. Kang Yu-wei believed that this would result in universal equality. Actually, however, this amounted to no more than an anarchist rejection of the family.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung studied at a primary school in his native village of Shaoshan, at a school in the district centre of Hsiangtan, and at a secondary school and a teachers' training college of the provincial town of Changsha.
~^^2^^ Selected Writings..., p. 69.
~^^3^^ According to Liang Chi-chao, an associate of Kang Yu-wei's in the reform movement, the latter's social utopia boiled down to an ``elimination of the family''.
24We find that Hung Hsiu-chuan, the founder of the Taiping peasant movement, and Kang Yu-wei, who expressed the interests of the bourgeoisie, had the same idea of a return to a ``golden age'', and the establishment of an ideal and just society, called ``Tatung''.^^1^^
Characteristically, Mao's writings contain almost no mention of the development of the natural sciences and their latest discoveries. This is due not only to Mao's specifically traditional education, which did not provide for any serious study of the fundamentals of modern science, but also to Mao's own lack of interest in the natural sciences.^^2^^ Here are some of the ``references'' to the natural sciences that will be found in Mao's Little Red Book. = 1. ``The history of mankind is one of the continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This process is neverending. In any society in which classes exist class struggle will never end. In classless society the struggle between the new and the old and between truth and falsehood will never end. In the course of the struggle for production and scientific experiment, mankind makes constant progress and nature undergoes constant change; they never remain on the same level. Therefore, man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing. Ideas of stagnation, pessimism, inertia and complacency are all wrong. They are wrong because they agree neither with the historical facts of social development over the past million years, nor with the historical facts of nature so far (history of celestial bodies, the earth life, and other natural phenomena)."^^3^^ = 2. ``Natural science is one of man's weapons in his fight for freedom. For the purpose of attaining freedom in society, man must use social science to understand and change society and carry out social _-_-_
~^^1^^ The writings of both contain an extract from Chapter ``Liyun'' of the ancient Confucian treatise, Lichi, describing the Tatung society. Let us note, by the way, that the organisation and activity of the Chinese communes from 1958 to 1960 was highly reminiscent of the socio-economic experiments of the Taiping and Kang Yu-wei's social utopia.
~^^2^^ Recalling his school years, Mao said: ``For one thing, I was opposed to the required courses in natural science. I wanted to specialise in social sciences. Natural sciences did not especially interest me, and I did not study them, so I got poor marks in most of these courses" (Edgar Snow, 0p. cit., p. 145).
~^^3^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Peking, I960, pp. 203--04.
25 revolution. For the purpose of attaining freedom in the world of nature, man must use natural science to understand, conquer and change nature and thus attain freedom from nature."^^1^^Both these statements are a recapitulation of Engels' idea about the relation between freedom and necessity, while the references to natural science are extremely vague and abstract. What is more, these references are used by Mao to substantiate a ``truth'' which has been known since the days of Heraclitus, who said: ``All is flux, nothing is stationary.'' However, an editorial article in Hungchih in 1969 claimed that these statements of Mao's were the `` theoretical generalisation of the history of nature''.
Lenin said that ``there is nothing resembling ` sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation".^^2^^ By contrast, Maoist philosophy was developed mainly on a narrow, Chinese national basis, out of touch with the best achievements of philosophical thought in the rest of the world.
Mao read a number of works by foreign writers, among which he was most influenced by Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Thomas Henry Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois. Mao did not take much interest in the natural science and politico-economic problems these writers dealt with. He was attracted in their writings by their socio-political conception which in the early 20th century swayed men in various sections of Chinese society, the conception of social-Darwinism, which in China was seen above all as an explanation, ``in the light of advanced science'', of the causes and laws of a struggle for existence between nations and races.
At the start of his revolutionary activity, Mao took a keen interest in anarchist ideas (above all those of Bakunin and Kropotkin), whose influence he has in fact never been able to overcome.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, pp. 204--05.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 23.
26 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Meaning of Marxist TerminologyAt the 9th Congress of the CPC it was declared that for 50 years (that is, from 1919) Mao had been combining the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution. In the light of the historical facts, this assertion is quite groundless. In his earliest works, Mao was already elaborating non-Marxist ideas: in his first work, ``An Essay on Physical Education" (1917), the 24-year-old Mao declared the physical health of the nation to be a means of China's national resurgence. In his second work, an article entitled ``The Great Alliance of the People" (1919), he said nothing about the working class as the vanguard and leader of the revolution, and made no mention of the proletarian dictatorship. In 1926, as one of the leaders of the CPC, Mao wrote an article, ``Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society'',^^1^^ which gave a petty-bourgeois view of China's social structure.
That is not at all surprising. Mao's traditional education naturally excluded the study of Marxist theory. As he set out to educate himself, Mao was unable to gain a correct idea of Marxism, because he obtained his information about it mainly from the writings of various petty-bourgeois socialists.
Moreover, Mao was able to obtain an idea about Marxism only in translation, because he knew no foreign languages and was unable to read the writings of the Marxist-Leninist classics in the original. What is more, by the early 1940s, and in fact even as late as 1949, a very insignificant part of these works had been translated into Chinese.^^2^^
His main source for the study of Marxism were popular writings, mainly textbooks by Soviet philosophers, which were made available to the CPC's active members through the translations of Ai Szu-chi and others.
_-_-_~^^1^^ A reference to the original version of the article, and not the one which is included in Mao Tse-tung's Selected Works (sec Voprosy [ilosofii. No. 6, 1969).
~^^2^^ Let us also emphasise that from the 1920s to the 1940s there were no Chinese translations of the world's classic philosophers: Bacon, Locke, Diderot, Holbach, Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and so on. In that period, the Chinese public was only able to read the works of the founders of positivism and pragmatism: Comte, Spencer, Russell, Dewey and James.
27Although these Soviet philosophical textbooks did consider some of the important theoretical problems directly connected with the practice of socialist construction, specifically the problem of contradictions in exploitative and socialist societies, their authors' main purpose was to provide a popular aid on Marxist philosophy for a mass readership.
In the Soviet Union, these writings were of great importance in the struggle against the mechanistic and idealistic distortions of Marxism, and in educating Party members, government functionaries and scientists in the spirit of Marxist philosophy. In China, the Soviet textbooks on philosophy helped the Communists to obtain a knowledge of Marxism and raise the theoretical level of CPC cadres.
Mao thus had ample opportunity to acquire a correct understanding of the fundamentals of Marxist philosophy, but the content of his philosophical writings shows that he failed to master the whole body of knowledge in the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism contained in the Soviet textbooks.
As has been said, Mao's first philosophical work was the pamphlet, Dialectical Materialism, which he wrote in Yenan on the basis of a series of lectures he gave at a Party school. The contents of the pamphlet give an idea of the problems he dealt with.
Chapter I. Idealism and Materialism.
1) The war between two armies in philosophy.
2) The difference between idealism and materialism.
3) The source of the rise and development of idealism.
4) The source of the rise and development of materialism.
Chapter II. Dialectical Materialism.
1) Dialectical materialism---a revolutionary weapon of the proletariat.
2) The attitude of dialectical materialism to the legacy of the old philosophy.
3) The unity of world view and methodology in dialectical materialism.
4) The problem of the subject of materialist dialectics (what does materialist dialectics serve to study?).
5) On matter.
6) On motion (on development).
7) On space and time.
8) On consciousness.
9) On reflection.
2810) On truth.
11) On practice (on the connection between cognition and practice, theory and reality, knowledge and action).
Chapter III. Materialist Dialectics.
1) The law of the unity of opposites.
a) Two views of development.
b) The formal-logical law of identity and the dialectical law of contradiction.
c) The universality of contradiction.
d) The specific nature of contradiction.
e) The principal contradiction and the principal aspect of contradiction.
f) Identity and struggle of opposites.
g) The place of antagonism in the line of contradictions.
The pamphlet was published at Talien sometime between 1945 and 1949. Earlier, in 1940, the journal Minchu carried its first chapter, entitled ``Dialectical Materialism''.
Our detailed study of the text of the Dialectical Materialism pamphlet shows that it was written on the basis of two Soviet works: the textbook Dialectical Materialism (written under the direction of Academician M. Mitin), which was published in Moscow in 1933, and the article ``Dialectical Materialism'', in Volume 22 of the first edition of the Bolshaya Sovietskaya Entsiklopedia.
Mao's pamphlet is essentially a digest of these two works. Now and again, he simply ``borrows'' various propositions from Soviet writings and slightly modifies them. This applies especially to philosophical problems which were either not dealt with in traditional Chinese philosophy at all, or were treated on a low theoretical level, because their treatment required both a grounding in natural science and information about the world-wide historico-philosophical process. This applies to the problems of the material nature of the world, matter and the forms of its existence, notably space and time, consciousness, and the relationship between objective, relative and absolute truth.
But even while recapitulating in his Dialectical Materialism pamphlet the correct propositions taken from the abovementioned works, Mao oversimplifies and vulgarises them. Here are a few examples.
1. Characterising the class essence of the two main philosophical trends, the authors of the Soviet textbook 29 Dialectical Materialism quite rightly remarked on the possibility of idealist theories reflecting the social needs of the epoch. They said: ``In its historical development, idealism was the ideology of the exploiting classes and as a rule had a reactionary part to play. Materialism, whose development was an expression of the world outlook of the revolutionary classes, had to make its way in the class society in ceaseless struggle against idealism, the philosophy of reaction. Of course, no obligatory historical pattern can be established in this sphere. There are instances when immature social classes expressed their new revolutionary demands in the language of idealism (German idealism in the early 19th century, the theories of natural law, and, in part, Utopian socialism). On the other hand, the militant French materialism of the 18th century was the ideology of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie. The materialism of the 17th century, Engels said, had an aristocratic origin."^^1^^
Mao Tse-tung borrowed only the first two ideas: ``In the process of its historical development, idealism was the form of consciousness of the exploiting classes and had a reactionary role to play. By contrast, materialism is the world outlook of the revolutionary classes. It originates and develops in class society in ceaseless struggle against idealism, the reactionary philosophy.'' The result is a primitive and vulgarised scheme of the history of philosophical thought which rules out the possibility of recognising the achievements of the idealists in developing theoretical thinking.
2. According to Mao, the basic social cause behind the origination of idealism is the antithesis between mental and physical labour. He says: ``...Initially, idealism emerges as the product of the superstition and ignorance of a savage primitive man. But with the development of production the gap between physical and mental labour comes to be the main condition promoting the formation of idealism as a philosophical trend. The social division of labour is the result of the development of the productive forces of society; it subsequently results in the separation of men among whom mental labour becomes the main speciality. But so long as the productive forces remained weak, the gap between the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Part 1, Moscow, 1933, p. 37 (in Russian). (Emphasis added---V.G.)
30 two forms of labour was not yet complete. Only after classes and private property appear and exploitation becomes the basis for the existence of the ruling class, does a great change occur: mental labour becomes the privilege ol the ruling class, and physical labour, the lot of the oppressed classes. The ruling class begins to take a distorted view of its relations with the oppressed classes, claiming that it is not the working people who provide the means of subsistence for the members of the ruling class but that, on the contrary, it is the members of the ruling class who provide the means of subsistence for the working people. That is why they have contempt for physical labour, and that is the way idealistic views appear. The elimination of the distinctions between physical and mental labour is one of the conditions for eliminating idealistic philosophy."^^1^^Mao wrongly identifies the causes producing the illusion that ideology develops independently, and the social roots of idealism. Actually, the division into mental and physical labour does deform men and establishes definite social functions for some of them, but it also gives an impetus to the development of society's productive forces, science and the arts. Evidence of this comes from the history of the first society with antagonistic classes. Engels wrote: ``It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science...."^^2^^ As for the social roots of idealism, they lie in the division of society into classes and in the urge of the exploiting classes to maintain and consolidate their domination.
Let us add that when writing his pamphlet, Mao himself had a very modest opinion of it. He wrote: ``This lecture course of mine cannot likewise be considered a good one, because I myself have just started to study dialectics and am unable to write a good book."^^3^^
When preparing his Selected Works for the press in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mao included in them only a part of his Dialectical Materialism pamphlet, namely, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Dialectical Materialism, Talien, p. 5 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ F. Kngcls, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1969, p. 210.
~^^3^^ Dialectical Materialism, p. 110.
31 last section of Chapter II, as an article, ``On Practice'', and Chapter III (with the exception of Section 2, ``The formallogical law of identity and the dialectical law of contradiction'') as an article ``On Contradiction".^^1^^ These articles also contain a number of borrowings from the above-mentioned textbook, Dialectical Materialism, and the article `` Dialectical Materialism" in the Bolshaya Soinetskaya Entsiklopcdia.Does the fact of Mao's borrowing and use of various propositions from popular Soviet works give ground to regard him as a rank-and-file Marxist philosopher, let alone an ``outstanding Marxist-Leninist"? Is it right to say that Marxist terminology ``mastered'' in this way is evidence that Soviet philosophers are to blame for the emergence of Maoism, as bourgeois propaganda and some scientists in the West have claimed? The answer to both questions is an emphatic no.
The fact is that the borrowing of Marxist propositions from Soviet writings goes hand in hand not only with oversimplification and vulgarisation in interpreting a number of problems but also with anti-Marxist propositions. This is especially evident in Mao's treatment of the principal law of dialectics. In fact, his digest gives way to downright distortion, to say nothing of the fact that in range and depth Mao's pamphlet does not bear any comparison with the works of Soviet philosophers.
The fact that the terminology in Mao's articles ``On Contradiction" and ``On Practice" is outwardly similar to those in Marxist writings, a fact which is due to Mao's borrowing of various propositions from Soviet textbooks, creates the wrong impression about their real content and true value.
We find a further distortion and vulgarisation of Marxism in Mao's articles and statements on philosophy in the 1950s and the 1960s (for instance, in his article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', 1957, and in his ``Directions Concerning the Discussion on `Dichotomy of Unity'~'', 1964). The Maoists have tried to obscure the real essence of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" by _-_-_
~^^1^^ Up until recently it was considered that Mao's articles ``On Practice" and ``On Contradiction" had been written in 1937. The latest works by Soviet scientists show that they were in fact written in the late 1940s and the c-:»V 1950s (see M. Altaisky and V. Georgiyev, The Philosophical fiVcrs of Mao Tse-tung. A Critical Analysis, Moscow, 1971, pp. 19--21).
32 playing up his use of Marxist phraseology, his extensive quotations from the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and the formal similarity of some Maoist postulates with Marxist ideas. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. On the Real MeaningMaoist propaganda claims that Mao has safeguarded and developed materialist dialectics, notably, the law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
Actually, Mao has said much on contradictions and the unity and struggle of opposites, but his view of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites is radically at variance with the Marxist view of it.
First of all, while recognising the struggle of opposites, Mao has failed to show the true essence of this process. Take his speech at a sitting of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee in Wuchang on December 1, 1958, which the Maoists like to quote. Here is what he said at the time: ``Just as duality is a feature of all things and phenomena in the world (this is the essence of the law of the unity of opposites), so duality is also a feature of imperialism and all reactionaries---they are both real and paper tigers. History shows that until taking power and for some time after their takeover, the slaveowners, the feudal landowners and the bourgeoisie were viable, revolutionary and advanced classes, and were real tigers. In the subsequent period, as the slaves, the peasantry and the proletariat---the classes which are their opposites---gradually grew, gained in strength and carried on an ever fiercer struggle against them, the slaveowners, the feudal landowners and the bourgeoisie underwent a reverse transformation: they became reactionary, backward classes, they were transformed into paper tigers and ultimately were or will be overthrown by the people.''
Leaving aside for the time being Mao's use of the terms ``real'' and ``paper'' tigers (which will be dealt with later) one finds that he does not in essence go beyond a formal recognition of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, and fails to show the mechanism of its operation. Indeed, in the process of historical development, the slaveowners, __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---1362 33 the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie do cease to be vehicles of social progress and are gradually supplanted by more advanced classes. But to say this is to say nothing, because a mere statement of the generally known historical facts does not yet add up to scientific dialectics. The Marxist theorist must show the dialectics of the process in which one class is supplanted by another, because a knowledge of the reasons, of the source of motion and the development of antagonistic societies provides the basis for men's conscious activity in the revolutionary transformation of the world.
The mutual admission and mutual exclusion of opposites is determined by their dialectical nature. Opposites are in a state of mutual interpenetration. That is why from the very beginning of their existence the slaveowners, the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie are burdened with their opposites ---the slaves, the peasants and the proletariat. The unity of these opposites consists in the fact that they mutually imply and mutually exclude each other. If this unity is to be eliminated there is need to destroy the basis which produces these opposites, that is, antagonistic society. Such unities are destroyed in the course of the class struggle and social revolution.
Mao frequently quotes Lenin about the unity of opposites being temporary and relative and their struggle being absolute. However, he has in fact no correct idea of the process in which contradictions unfold. Because Mao regards the unity of opposites as their mere coexistence in one thing or process, he regards their intertransition, their transformation into each other as no more than a mutual exchange of places.
Mao fails to understand that Lenin's formula about the unity of opposites being relative and their struggle being absolute means that the contradiction between opposites inevitably deepens and unfolds. This leads to a resolution of the given contradiction, its ``removal'' and the emergence of a new contradiction. In the process, there is a qualitative change, the emergence of a new phenomenon. For instance, the proletariat is not transformed into the bourgeoisie and does not change places with it, as one would assume on the strength of Mao's reasoning; there is here a qualitative transformation in the historical role of the bourgeoisie and of the proletariat as opposite classes of 34 capitalist society: at a definite stage in the unfolding of the contradictions, the bourgeoisie ceases to play a progressive role, and the latter passes to the proletariat. This determines the bourgeoisie's inevitable defeat and the proletariat's victory, the struggle between them ultimately results in a break of their intrinsic connections and the elimination of the given unity of opposites, as capitalism gives way to socialism. ``When the proletariat is victorious, it by no means becomes the absolute side of society, for it is victorious only by abolishing itself and its opposite. Then the proletariat disappears as well as the opposite which determines it, private property."^^1^^
Consequently, according to Mao, as a result of the victory of the socialist revolution the proletariat changes places with the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, however, the victory of the socialist revolution results in the elimination of the bourgeoisie (private property in Marx's terminology), and the elimination of the proletariat. Who is right, Mao or Marx? Of course it is Marx. Indeed, on the one hand, the victory of the socialist revolution results in the elimination of the bourgeoisie, because the expropriation of private capitalist property is the decisive condition for the elimination of this class. Of course, bourgeois ideology continues to exert an influence, but the bourgeoisie itself ceases to exist as a class. On the other hand, the victory of the socialist revolution also results in the elimination of the proletariat of the old bourgeois society, a class deprived of the means and implements of production, a class exploited by the bourgeoisie. The proletariat, or to be more precise, the working class of socialist society is a totally new class, directing society, in which the means and instruments of production belong to all the working people and where there is no exploitation of man by man. That is why it is wrong to say, as Mao does, that the victory of the socialist revolution results in the proletariat changing places with the bourgeoisie.
In contrast to Maoist dialectics, Marxist dialectics clearly shows that under socialism neither the bourgeoisie nor the proletariat exist in the old sense, because socialism is a qualitatively new social phenomenon, with a unity of opposites proper to it alone.
_-_-_~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Critique, Moscow, 1956, p. 52.
35Mao's approach to the law of the unity and struggle of opposites suggests that development is not viewed as a negation of the old by the new, but as a simple repetition of the past, as a circular movement or even as a movement in reverse. Suffice it to say that Mao's ``dialectics'' envisages the destruction of mankind and the globe: ``There are no things in the world which are not born, which do not develop and die. The monkey was transformed into man, men arose, but ultimately mankind as a whole is bound to perish. It will be transformed into something different, and at that time there will be no globe. The globe is ultimately bound to be destroyed.''
The content of the Maoist concept of contradiction itself is a mechanical antithesis of external opposites, with Mao using good and bad as the terms to designate these opposites. There are also other pairs like good and evil, hot and cold, etc. Such propositions were to some extent meaningful 20 centuries ago, when the idea that objective being and human thinking were contradictory was being established. But in the 20th century, with the present level of scientific knowledge, that is hardly enough. What is more, to declare these propositions today, under the scientific and technological revolution, as being the summit of scientific dialectics, is to hurl philosophy into the past, and amounts to insisting on the idea of a geocentric Universe.
Marxist philosophy is never stationary and constantly develops. But it does not develop by returning to ancient philosophical ideas, however true these were in the past, but by generalising the data provided by the latest scientific advances, and analysing the development of theoretical thinking itself. Similarly, Marxist dialectics is not, and cannot be, reduced to a simple mechanical juxtaposition of external and quite obvious opposites. Scientific dialectics must show the internal contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, and the real process of development of things and phenomena consisting of two opposites; in other words, scientific dialectics must analyse their self-movement.
The Maoist definition of opposites does not give a correct understanding of the complex and contradictory processes of development in nature and society. This is not only because it is meaningless. Mao has been using such opposites to vindicate his distorted interpretation of social processes 36 and to obscure the failures of his political line. He says that counter-revolutionary insurrections in the socialist countries are ``good'' because they help to strengthen the new social system; equally the death of great numbers of people in social revolutions is good because it brings on the victory of the people; another world war is good, because it will allegedly help to eliminate capitalism, and so on. Such ``dialectics'' have as much in common with Marxism as alchemy with chemistry.
In general, a purely mechanical combination of selfevident opposites does not amount to scientific dialectics. On the contrary, it is vulgarisation and distortion of dialectics. Moreover, self-evident opposites do not always constitute the two sides of a unity, whether thing or process. For instance, in some developing countries the bourgeoisie (commercial, compradore, bureaucratic) can exist without the proletariat; in socialist society the proletariat can exist without the bourgeoisie; under feudalism the landowners can exist without tenants, etc.
This also applies to war and peace. Of course, war and peace are two opposite concepts: when war starts, peace ends, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that war and peace are phenomena which mutually determine each other. Mao takes the oversimplified, unscientific view of these two phenomena as being outwardly opposite to each other, and regards them as social opposites expressing the essence of social development. It may logically follow from this that the self-movement, the unfolding of the opposite sides of a social organism, inevitably leads to the alternation of war and peace. However, war and peace are not two sides of a unity, but distinct forms of political relations between states. War originates not from the development of a form of relations between states like peace, but from the intrinsically contradictory nature of capitalist society itself. Mao's ``theoretical substantiation" of the alternation of war and peace merely shows up the pathetic nature of his ``dialectics''.
We find him considering the law of the unity and struggle of opposites without analysing the interconnection between the categories of possibility and reality. It is quite obvious, however, that the resolution of any contradiction is closely connected with the transformation of possibility into reality, because the resolution of the contradiction and the point at 37 which possibility is transformed into reality constitute the two sides of one and the same process of development.
The existence of possibility depends on the intrinsically contradictory nature of phenomena. For instance, in the present conditions there is a possibility of another world war breaking out. However, the existence of such a possibility does not yet mean that it is bound to develop into reality. Possibility is transformed into reality only through the struggle of opposites and the victory of one of them. The victory of one and the defeat of the other depend on the quantitative and qualitative distinctions of the possibilities which contain within themselves the given opposites. For instance, whereas in the past the forces of war possessed much greater possibilities for winning out than the forces of peace, today the situation is fundamentally different.
In our day, the united might of the socialist community, the international working-class and the national liberation movement can force the imperialists to abandon war as a means of settling international disputes. Today, mankind can do away with war as a form of political relations between states. Thus, war and peace are two different phenomena in social life. That is why Mao's assertion that war must follow upon peace and vice versa, because they alternate, does not show the true essence of these social phenomena. Moreover, the Maoists' practical activity in the world arena, especially in the recent period, shows very well that Mao's theoretical exercises over the problem of war and peace are patently political.
One of the fundamental flaws of Maoist ``dialectics'' is that it is eclectic and incoherent, and that its separate elements are not logically connected. This is evident, in particular, in Mao's incorrect view of the peculiar operation of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites under socialism, the substance and historical role of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. On the one hand, he says that the opposites of an antagonistic contradiction are identical, that they penetrate and are transformed into each other, so that antagonistic opposites develop into non-antagonistic ones and back again. On the other hand, he regards the struggle of the opposites of a non-antagonistic contradiction as being the antagonism of two forces running in opposite directions.
38On the strength of such methodological principles, Mao in his article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', revises the Marxist doctrine on the different types of social contradictions. He substitutes the concepts of ``contradictions between ourselves and our enemies, and contradictions within the ranks of the people" for ``antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions''. This does not amount to a mere terminological specification or innovation. The point is that the contradiction between the working class and the peasantry, on the one hand, and the national bourgeoisie, on the other, is included among the contradictions within the ranks of the people. Mao writes: ``The contradictions between ourselves and our enemies are antagonistic ones. Within the ranks of the people, contradictions among the working people are non-antagonistic, while those between the exploiters and the exploited classes have, apart from their antagonistic aspect, a non-antagonistic aspect. ... In our country, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie is a contradiction among the people. The class struggle waged between the two is, by and large, a class struggle within the ranks of the people. This is because of the dual character of the national bourgeoisie in our country."^^1^^
The assertion that the contradictions between the working class and the (big) national bourgeoisie in China is nonantagonistic (the reservation that these contradictions also have an antagonistic aspect is immaterial) is Right-- opportunist and revisionist, although Mao himself claims to be a fighter against ``modern revisionism''. The vital interests of the working class and of the national bourgeoisie in China are irreconcilable, because the latter, like the bourgeoisie of any other country, does not want socialism on any terms, and this is backed up by the whole history of the Chinese People's Republic. Mao substitutes for the question of class relations the question of the possibility of political agreements and blocs with the bourgeoisie which is fundamentally hostile to the working class. The antagonistic contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie can be resolved only through the elimination of the latter.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People''. Supplement to People's China No. 13, July 1, 1957, p. 4 (emphasis added---V.G.).
39But perhaps Mao's idea that the contradictions between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie fall under the head of contradictions within the ranks of the people is evidence of his creative and unconventional approach to the complex and diverse phenomena of reality itself, of his urge to involve the broadest sections of the population of China in building a new society, and, finally, of a creative solution of the theoretical problems and of a contribution to Marxist philosophy, as Maoist propaganda has claimed?^^1^^
Let us recall that it was Lenin who showed the correct and scientific methods for resolving the different contradictions after the triumph of the socialist revolution. On the strength of his dialectical view of contradictions, he required that any possible internal connections even between antagonisms at a definite stage in the development of this or that process should be discovered. Being aware that in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism a fierce class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was inevitable, he believed it possible to use state capitalism, controlled by proletarian dictatorship, to use the bourgeoisie under the New Economic Policy to boost and develop the country's productive forces, provided the bourgeoisie fully abided by the laws of the state, and provided it was simultaneously being restricted and displaced. Lenin always said that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was an antagonistic one.
Mao's assertion that the contradictions between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie are contradictions within the ranks of the people clashes with his own statements at the 2nd Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee in 1949, when he said that once the proletariat took power _-_-_
~^^1^^ The report to the 9th Congress of the CPC said the article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" was a ``great work''. It said that ``in this work . . . Chairman Mao Tse-tung gave an all-round formulation of the doctrine of contradictions, of classes and class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the doctrine o\ the two types of dissimilar contradictions existing within socialist society ---the contradictions between ourselves and our enemies, and contradictions within the ranks of the people, a great theory on the continuation of the revolution under proletarian dictatorship. Like a radiant beacon, this great work has shed light on the way of the socialist revolution and socialist construction in our country and has at the same time laid the theoretical foundations for the current great proletarian cultural revolution" (emphasis added---V.G.).
40 in the whole of China the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie would become the main one within the country. Maoist dialectics has mutually exclusive propositions because it has a social function. On the whole, Mao has converted philosophy into a handmaid of politics, in the worst sense of the word. His approach to philosophy is purely utilitarian, pragmatic. He has use for philosophy only to the extent it can be applied as an instrument for his ambitious, Great-Power interests.A utilitarian, pragmatic approach to dialectics means that it is used to justify any political action. In that case, dialectics must contain a set of propositions which could be used for such purposes, regardless of whether or not these square with one another. That is precisely what we find in Maoist ``dialectics''.^^1^^ Naturally enough, at every given moment the propositions of Maoist ``dialectics'' which best serve the current tactical aims of Mao's group are brought to the fore.
The social function of Maoist ``dialectics'' is most clearly revealed in Mao's interpretation of the concept of people. He writes: ``On this stage of building socialism, all classes, strata and social groups which approve, support and work for the cause of socialist construction belong to the category of the people, while those social forces and groups which resist the socialist revolution, and arc hostile to and try to wreck socialist construction, are enemies of the people."^^2^^ ``That is to say, democracy operates within the ranks of the people, while the working class, uniting with all those enjoying civil rights, the peasantry in the first place, enforces dictatorship over the reactionary classes and elements and all those who resist socialist transformation and oppose socialist construction."^^3^^ It may appear at first sight that this is a correct Marxist definition of the concept of people. The people are all those who stand for socialism and build it; _-_-_
~^^1^^ Let us note in this context that the same report at the 9th Congress of the CPC extolled Mao's thesis that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was the main contradiction in present-day China, as well as the thesis that this contradiction was among the contradictions within the ranks of the people (sic!).
~^^2^^ Mao Tse-tung, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', p. 4 (emphasis added---V.G.).
~^^3^^ Ibid.
41 those who hamper the socialist reconstruction of society are classed among the enemies of the people. However, a closer examination of the Maoist concept of people shows that class principles are forgotten and that subjectivism takes over.In defining the concept of people Marxist sociology starts primarily from the decisive role of material production in social development, and from the economic status of various classes, sections and groups within a given system of social production, because that is exactly what determines the extent to which the various classes, sections and groups have an objective interest and capacity for tackling the concrete tasks facing society in progressive social development. The point is, however, that the Maoist definition of the concept of people lacks the first and basic criterion by which social classes, sections and groups are included in this concept, and this leaves room for subjectivism in defining its framework. All a social group, even an exploiting one (in this case the bourgeoisie), needs to do to be included in the concept of people is to announce its desire to build socialism and take a formal part in its construction.
In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism the concept of people may include the petty and even the middle urban and rural bourgeoisie, but there is no ground at all for putting a broad interpretation on the concept by including the big capitalists as well. However, according to Mao's view, the people include, and have included, ``all those enjoying civil rights'', which means therefore men like one-time Vice-President of Kuomintang China, the diehard reactionary Li Tsung-jen, the economic dictator of Macao Huo Ying, who was a member of the People's Political Consultative Council of China, and many other leaders of this stripe.
Mao also takes an anti-Marxist approach to the definition of the proletariat's class enemies. His main criterion here is attitude to the political line of the present Chinese leadership. According to the Maoist interpretation, ``enemy of the people" ceases to be a sociological characteristic and becomes a political phenomenon, which may not be---and as developments in China in the last few years indicate, is not in fact ---connected with membership of an exploiting class. On the contrary, a man's membership of a class is derived from his political stand. Those who are classified as ``enemies of the 42 people" are not members of exploiting classes, but all those who ``resist the socialist revolution, and are hostile to socialist construction (meaning, refuse to approve the distortion of the principles of socialist construction by the Maoists) and try to wreck socialist construction (meaning, fight against the Mao group)''.
This approach makes it possible to declare anyone an enemy if, for instance, he happens to express his dissatisfaction or disagreement with the Maoist foreign-policy line. No account is taken of a man's social origin or social status, or the motives of his discontent. All he needs do to be automatically classed with the ``enemies of the people" is to express his disagreement with Mao's political propositions. It is not surprising, therefore, that in China internationalist Communists are now being branded as ``enemies of the people''.
Thus, according to Mao's views, present-day Chinese society is divided into ``us'' and the ``enemies'', the former meaning Mao himself and his followers, and the latter not only, and not so much, the bourgeoisie, as all those who think differently and disagree with Mao's theory and practices. On June 23, 1966, the newspaper Chungkuo chingnien pao wrote: ``Those who oppose the thought of Mao Tse-tung are counter-revolutionaries.'' Consequently, all one needs do to be branded as an ``enemy'' is to doubt some Maoist proposition or express his own views. That is why Mao and his followers have been using the ``enemy of the people" concept to cover up any arbitrary treatment of their ideological opponents, even those who have never belonged to the exploiting classes and have honestly served the Chinese people and the Chinese revolution.
The anti-Marxist essence of Maoist exercises on the subject of ``people'' and ``enemies of the people" has been further laid bare by the practices of the ``cultural revolution''. The Mao group claims that the aim of this ``revolution'' is to prevent China's return to the bourgeois order, and that they are fighting the ``enemies of the people" (the word ``enemy'' has now been enriched with such synonyms as ``scum'', ``bandit'', ``scoundrel'', etc.) and against the ``agents of the bourgeoisie who have infiltrated the Party'', ``against those who are in power and take the capitalist way''.
Of course, it is quite possible for bourgeois degenerates and even downright agents of the class enemy to exist in the 43 Communist Party, and there is need for a resolute struggle against them. However, it is the real and not imaginary enemies that must be resolutely fought. Meanwhile, the facts show that during the ``cultural revolution" thousands upon thousands of Communists were branded as ``enemies of China" because, according to the Maoists, they were agents of the bourgeoisie, which seeks to undermine the cause of socialist construction in China. On the other hand, the real representatives of the bourgeoisie have been spared any criticism.
Mao seeks to back up his subjectivist interpretation of contradictions under socialism, an interpretation which has nothing in common with Marxism, by references to MarxistLeninist philosophy.
As has been said, Mao turned to Marxism in the 1920s because he felt that it was the best means of helping to return China to her old grandeur. In the 1930s and 1940s, he used Marxist terminology to assert his leadership in the CPC. Evidence of this comes from the ``Decision on Some Questions of the Party's History'', which he himself drew up, and which abounds with reminders of the need to fight dogmatism and the dogmatists (meaning the internationalist Communists). Mao's references to Marxist propositions in the 1950s and 1960s were used to cover up his betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, of the principles of socialist construction, to prop up his shaken power in the Party and the country, and to justify the splitting activity in the socialist community and the international communist, working-class and national liberation movement.
In the first few years after the people's revolution in China, when Mao and his followers did not yet dare openly to revise the principles of socialist construction and break with the world socialist system and the international communist movement, and when they were forced in the world arena to support the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence, they still referred to the existence of non-antagonistic contradictions. Once the Maoists executed their radical turn about in domestic and foreign policy and laid their claims to hegemony in the world socialist system, and the international communist, working-class and national liberation movement, they began to speak mainly of antagonistic contradictions, which they sought to use to justify the need to 44 draw a ``line of demarcation" from the Marxists-Leninists both in China and elsewhere. That was the very purpose of the broad discussion on the law of the unity and struggle of opposites which was started in China in 1964. To make their approach appear Marxist, the Maoists used the authority of Lenin, and put their own gloss on Lenin's well-known idea of the ``dichotomy of unity''.
Marxist dialectics requires a concrete historical approach to social phenomena. It cannot serve as an abstract scheme from which answers to all the concrete questions of practice are spun out in a purely logical manner. Apart from the general features inherent in the development of social phenomena this dialectics takes into account the contradictory nature of social phenomena at their specific stage of development. In addition to the general features the development in each socialist country, in the socialist community as a whole, in each Communist Party, in the world workingclass movement as a whole, has its own specific features, with the unity of opposites having a specific role to play, because the contradictions are non-antagonistic. For instance, the Communist and Workers' Parties have to work in different conditions, and this produces different approaches to practical matters and even differences between the Parties. However, their common vital interests provide a basis for overcoming the difficulties and differences between the various contingents of the world army of Communists. The participants in the international communist forum in 1969 expressed their firm conviction that the differences between the Communist and Workers' Parties would be successfully overcome. They declared: ``This belief is based on the fact that the international working class has common long-term objectives and interests, on the striving of each Party to find a solution to existing problems which would meet both national and international interests and the Communists' revolutionary mission; it is based on the will of Communists for cohesion on an international scale."^^1^^
The Maoists apply to all social phenomena, including socialist society, the concrete instances in which the `` dichotomy of unity" appears in the form of a division of society _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 38.
45 into hostile classes. They say that to deny the existence of social antagonisms in socialist society is, in particular, to deny the struggle of opposites as a source of development.However, this approach is fundamentally wrong because it does not accord with the propositions of Marxist dialectics and is not warranted by socialist reality itself.
Obviously, the law of the unity and struggle of opposites is universal, which is why the struggle of opposites is a source of development even under socialism, but this struggle of opposites proceeds within the framework of nonantagonistic contradictions and not social antagonisms. Lenin said that antagonism and contradiction are not the same thing, that under socialism antagonism disappears but contradictions remain. The new system has no struggle of antagonistic classes which leads to a substitution of one socioeconomic formation by another. Socialist society develops on the basis of a resolution of the contradictions which spring from the nature of socialism, otherwise it would be impossible to advance. But these contradictions are not antagonistic.
What kind of contradictions are they? Some of them are class distinctions between workers and peasants, essential distinctions between town and country, between workers by brain and workers by hand, etc., which are inherited from the earlier formations. After all, according to the founders of Marxism-Leninism, socialism has just emerged ``into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism" and therefore ``is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society".^^1^^ Characterising the social gains of socialism, Lenin wrote: ``The first phase of communism ... cannot yet provide justice and equality: differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production---the factories, machines, land, etc.---and make them private property."^^2^^
In addition, as socialism develops it produces other contradictions, which are different from those inherent in capitalism. Among these are, for instance, the following: disparity between the rapidly growing material requirements of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 465.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 466.
46 population and the inadequate level of development of production, between the interests of citizens and separate collectives, between the collective and society as a whole, between science and production, when production either lags behind scientific achievements, or when science fails to satisfy the needs of production. Among the contradictions which arise as socialism develops are also a certain unevenness in the territorial location of industry, the lag of agriculture behind industry, and bureaucratic practices in some institutions and among some officials.All these contradictions in socialist society are of a specific, non-antagonistic character, but they still continue to be contradictions which determine the advance of society.
Such is the Marxist view of the question of the specific operation of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites under socialism. It is on the basis of this view that the Communist Parties have been scoring their successes in practical activity.
It would be wrong to assume that the Maoists' approach to contradictions under socialism is due to their theoretical mistakes or misconceptions. This may be so for rank-- andfile Maoists, but for Mao himself it is a deliberate retreat from the ideas of Marxist philosophy. The thesis concerning the ``dichotomy'' of socialist society serves as the theoretical justification for the slander and lies directed against the Soviet Union. The Maoists have been shouting about the class stratification of Soviet society, claiming that there are irreconcilable contradictions between the broad masses of the working people and some kind of privileged section, which has allegedly usurped power and is appropriating the fruits of the Soviet people's labour. The struggle against some anti-social elements, like thieves, embezzlers of socialist property, hooligans and idlers is also set up as a social antagonism.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ It is a curious fact that in their view of contradictions under socialism the Maoists are at one with the anti-Communists. Thus, the well-known critic of Marxism and a rabid West German anti-- Communist, G. Wetter, says in his book Soviet Ideology Today: ``How can dialectical development go on under socialism if the class struggle is no longer there? How can such dialectics continue to exist if the proletarian revolution is the last revolution, and socialism and communism, the last social formations?''
47Evidence of Mao's utilitarian approach to dialectics also comes from the fact that the ``dichotomy of .unity" is proclaimed only with respect to some handpicked social phenomena. The ``dichotomy'' of the socialist community is declared to be progressive and inevitable, but the ``dichotomy'' of China into the CPR and Taiwan, which is occupied by the Chiang Kai-shek clique, happens to be a ``unification of two in a unity''.
The ``dichotomy'' of the Communist Party of China is declared to be progressive and inevitable. But when it comes to the Chinese bourgeoisie, then this is said to be `` unification of two in a unity''. The ``dichotomy'' of the international working-class movement is declared to be progressive and inevitable. Simultaneously, the principle of ``unification of two in a unity" is proclaimed with respect to the renegades expelled from the Communist Parties and patent agents of the bourgeoisie.
The nihilistic attitude to the cultural legacy practised in the course of the ``cultural revolution" offers another example of the use of theory to justify practical political expedients.
This will be dealt with in detail in Chapter Seven. Let us merely stress at this point that the attacks on Chinese and world culture are justified by the Maoists on the plea that there is need to eradicate the old (feudal and bourgeois) views, traditions, morals, customs and habits, which hamper the assimilation of Marxist (meaning Maoist) ideology. But it would be wrong to draw the conclusion on the strength of this that Mao is opposed to any cultural legacy as such. The destruction of the Chinese people's cultural values, carried out on his initiative, is, we believe, determined by tactical considerations. The ``great helmsman" has attacked the cultural heritage in recent years, first, because this heritage is an obstacle in the way of duping the millions of Chinese; second, because it is being used by the political and ideological opponents of Maoism; and third, because in the light of the world's cultural and philosophic values the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" stands out in its mediocrity.
However, it is quite possible that, as conditions change, Mao may well take a stand for some elements of the old culture. The thing to bear in mind is his traditional education, his great love of calligraphy and versification in the 48 old Chinese manner, and his interest in Confucianism and Buddhism.^^1^^
The Maoists seek to substantiate their political acts with quotations from the Marxist-Leninist classics: the ``Great Leap Forward"---with quotations on the transformation of an idea into a material force when it takes hold of the masses; their splitting policies---with quotations on Lenin's idea concerning the dichotomy of unity; the lawlessness of the Hungweipings---with references to the Marxist proposition on the need for resolute struggle against revisionism, etc. The result is a vulgarisation and gross distortion of Marxist dialectics. Apart from some outward terminological similarity, Maoist ``dialectics'' has nothing in common with the Marxist dialectical method, and when put to the test turns out to be a peculiar modification of traditional Chinese dialectics as described above.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Subjective Idealism InsteadWhat are the starting principles of Mao's outlook? Although his works contain statements that being is primary and consciousness is secondary, and that objective reality is the source of sensation, he takes an essentially metaphysical and idealistic view of the whole complex interconnection of matter and consciousness, of the whole contradictory process of reflection by man's consciousness of objective things and phenomena.
Mao quite obviously needed the proposition on the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness in order to appear to be a consistent materialist, for it cannot in any way be squared with Mao's own ``original'' view of many philosophical problems reflecting his ideological stand, such as the relationship between the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity, society's economic basis and its political superstructure, social being and social ideas, and so on.
Viewed from this angle, Maoism is seen to start from the _-_-_
~^^1^^ In a private conversation in I960, Mao stressed the importance of studying Buddhist philosophy.
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---1362 49 primacy of the subjective factor, ``subjective activity'', politics, ideas. This is expressed in such postulates as: the main role in the socialist mode of production belongs to the relations of production and not to the productive forces; politics and not economics is the command force in socialist society; moral and not material incentives are the principal ones in socialist construction.All these postulates ultimately boil down to the thesis that under socialism men's ``subjective activity" has the decisive role to play, which essentially means an urge to subordinate the objective laws of socialist construction to the subjective activity of leaders, and to provide a theoretical substantiation for subjectivism, voluntarism and adventurism in domestic and foreign policy.
A discussion on the relationship between objective laws and subjective activity was started in China in 1958 and 1959, and extensive propaganda of the notorious ``theory of subjective activity" was launched at about the same time, with Mao's role in developing this theory being extolled in every possible way. Here are two pertinent statements from a textbook, Dialectical Materialism, published in Peking in 1961: = 1. ``Carrying on a resolute struggle against all manner of opportunist elements denying or minimising the role of the subjective activity of the masses, he [Mao---Ed.] made not only a theoretical but also a great practical contribution to the development of the theory of subjective activity. He not only gave a precise scientific definition of subjective activity in the Marxist view, and clearly and concretely showed that in certain conditions subjective activity plays a decisive role, but also made a comprehensive and profound study, on the basis of a close unity of materialism and dialectics, of the existence of dialectical connections between the subjective and the objective, between subjective activity and objective regularities, between revolutionary spirit and scientific approach.''
2. ``Comrade Mao Tse-tung's fresh contribution to Marxist philosophy consists not only in the fact that, starting from the contradiction between the subjective and the objective, he gives a clear and positive answer to the question concerning the definitive role of subjective activity in certain conditions, but also in the fact that basing himself on the main spheres of social life and the Party's practical activity, he 50 gives our Party an even more powerful theoretical instrument for directing the people in the struggle for the grand transformation of the world [emphasis added---V.G.]."
What leaps to the eye in these quotations is the emphasis on Mao's services to Marxism in bringing out the `` definitive, decisive role of subjective activity''.
Marxism does not, of course, deny the importance of the subjective factor in social development under socialism. On the contrary, it stresses its growing role with the successful advance of socialist construction. This is due to the fact that the Communist Party, relying on the knowledge of the objective laws of social development, is able to use them in the interest of society as a whole. This makes men's activity purposeful and conscious. However, the laws of social development in socialist society are just as determined materially and are as objective as the laws of social development in all other socio-economic formations. Their inadequate consideration---to say nothing of their neglect---of men's socio-economic activity inevitably has a negative effect on the development of socialist society.
In contrast to Marxism, the Maoists advocate men's subjective activity, virtually ignoring the dialectic unity of the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity. They call the Marxists mechanicists because, they say, ``refusing to recognise man as the decisive factor in the relations between man and things, they lay one-sided stress on the fact that man's actions are determined by the lifeless schemes of objective laws, and that man can do no more than passively submit to these laws''. Referring to the fact that under socialism the role of the subjective factor is immensely increased, the Maoists metaphysically contrast objective laws and men's activity, and separate the two.
However, the main thing is that the Maoists do not regard ``subjective activity" as conscious, purposeful activity of the masses, based on a knowledge of the laws of social development, but action in realising any subjectivist propositions of the leaders. That is why the references to Mao's services in developing the ``theory of subjective activity" mean his apology of men's activity which is not limited by any objective laws, that is, essentially an apology of voluntarism and subjectivism. This is a subjective, idealist standpoint.
__PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51One important point needs to be borne in mind in analysing Maoist philosophy. Very frequently the Maoists resort to the following trick to cover up their departure from Marxism. They take a correct Marxist proposition but give it their own interpretation, by variously accentuating one of its aspects, which they happen to need most at the time, and by taking a part out of the context of the whole and turning it into an absolute. But to cover up the sleight of hand they make sure to quote the doctored Marxist proposition in full.
That is exactly what they have done in this instance. In order to cover up their revision of the Marxist philosophical postulate concerning the dialectical interconnection between the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity under socialism, they centre attention on men's activity while speaking of the need to give consideration to objective laws.
That is why the Maoists' distortion of the correct propositions of Marxist philosophy can be discovered not only in a careful study of their theoretical views and a thorough analysis and comparison of all the statements on a given question, but also by establishing when, in which circumstances and on what occasion this or that theoretical proposition is being accentuated. In particular, Mao's subjective, idealist approach to the use of the objective laws of social development becomes even more obvious when we find that his apology of subjective activity occurred in the period of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the people's communes.
Maoism also takes an essentially subjective, idealist view of man's role in material production. Take an article which appeared in 1965 in the journal Hsin Chianshe, organ of the Philosophical and Social Sciences Department of the Academy of Sciences of China. The authors said: ``Although the instruments of labour in production, the objects of labour, weapons in war, etc., are indeed of great importance, although they are a considerable factor in production and in war, they occupy a secondary place in comparison to man. Regardless of the area---production struggle or class struggle, it is men and not things that are the factor with the decisive role to play."^^1^^ The point is, the authors add, that man has an active and things a passive place. Man ``can think, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsin Chianshe No. 7, 1965, p. 23.
52 can work, he possesses subjective activity, he can know and change the world, whereas things do not possess such features. . ."^^1^^. ``Among all things, the instruments of labour in production and weapons in war are the most important. . .. However, detached from human activity, nature cannot supply man with the necessary instruments of labour and weapons. In detachment from human activity the implements and weapons already created are turned into rubbish."^^2^^ Here, as on the question of the relationship between subjective activity and objective laws, the role of the subjective factor is hypertrophied.But perhaps this is a stand for man's active substance, for his activity? If we recall that the abovementioned reasoning appeared just when China's industrialisation rate had slowed down after the fiasco of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the people's communes, in a period when the role of technical devices and technological progress was being variously played down and ignored, in a period when Mao's idea of the atomic bomb being a ``paper tiger" was being plugged, it will become obvious that it has a patently antiMarxist ring. We find a deliberate exaggeration of man's role in material production and a playing down of the role of material production itself.
Marxism has always emphasised man's decisive role in production. One need merely recall what Lenin said about the working man being the primary productive force of all mankind. But Marxism has never separated man from the other component elements of the productive forces or contrasted him with them. Man is the chief but not the only component of the productive forces. Any neglect of this principle, whether deliberate or otherwise, tends to obliterate the fundamental distinctions between the various modes of production, because every society is characterised by a definite level in the development of the productive forces.
As man exerts an influence on nature he not only changes it but also changes himself. He becomes more adept in the mode of creating the means of labour, but this depends on the level in the development of the productive forces _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 24.
53 attained at any given moment. It should be borne in mind that at every given historical epoch man's power and potentialities are limited by the existing level in the development of material production, the means of labour above all. Hardly anyone will deny that the means of labour are nothing without man. But this does not warrant their reduction to nothing. Man's power is expressed precisely in the level to which his means of production have been developed. The Maoists preach nihilism with respect to science and technology, and this is reflected in one of their slogans: ``Topple the scientific authorities.'' Under the current scientific and technological revolution, with science being a direct productive force in society, this attitude is bound to lead to stagnation in scientific research.There again we find the characteristic feature of Maoism: the narrowly utilitarian approach to theory, resulting in a divergence between theory and practice. Mao himself cannot but be aware of the ever growing role of the natural sciences in modern society, because the use of their achievements helps man to enhance his power over nature. Evidence of this comes also from the fact that most of the research institutions and scientists engaged in the fabrication of nuclear missiles were spared any criticism during the ``cultural revolution''. The blows fell mainly on those working in the social sciences. Mao apparently needed the bogey of `` pseudo-science" and ``admiration for scientific authorities" in order to defeat his political opponents. The Maoists have not cast doubt on the importance of the applied natural sciences, and are hardly likely to do so in the future.
Mao's exaggeration of man's role in production is closely connected with his erroneous view of the relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production, between the basis and the superstructure.
The Marxist view of this question was expressed by the founder of the scientific philosophy in these words: ``In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely, relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which 54 correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or---this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms ---with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. . .. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production."^^1^^ Lenin said that these words of Marx expressed the materialist view of history.
By contrast Mao, first, essentially assigns the main role within the productive forces/relations of production system to the latter component and, second, holds that the establishment of new relations of production does not spring from objective necessity, which is rooted in the process of material production, but from men's subjective will.^^2^^
The Maoists believe it to be possible artificially to `` improve" the relations of production regardless of the development of the productive forces, in order to tackle the tasks of China's socio-economic development. That was the purpose of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the establishment of the people's communes. With socialist construction in China at its initial stage, they issued a call for the earliest transition to communism. The people's communes were advertised as the primary cells of the future communist society. The lamentable results of this ``experiment'' are well known.
The artificial ``improvement'' of the relations of _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Moscow, 1970, pp. 20--21.
~^^2^^ The Maoists' reservations, like those examined above, are purely tactical and are designed to cover up their revision of the materialist view of history.
55 production, which boils down to all manner of organisational and political restructuring in agriculture and industry, is designed to sharpen the class struggle, and this has been expressed in the endless succession of political campaigns and mass movements. Let us recall the movement against the ``three'' and ``five'' evils (1952 and 1953), the struggle against the ``Rightist elements" (1957--1958), the movement for ordering the style of work (1958), the ``give the Party your heart" campaign (1958--1959), the movement for socialist education in the countryside (1962--1963) and, finally, the ``cultural revolution" (1966--1969).This anti-Marxist conception is given a logical capstone in the following formula: ``The thought of Mao Tse-tung is an almighty force.'' The newspaper Jenmin jihpao wrote: ``When the thought of Mao Tse-tung spreads across the whole world, when the revolutionary peoples of the whole world gradually master it, it will be able to change the spiritual face of the revolutionary peoples of the world and to transform spiritual force into a great material force. Having mastered the thought of Mao Tse-tung, the revolutionary peoples of the world will destroy the old world in a powerful, inexorable attack, completely bury imperialism, modern revisionism and reaction in all countries, and build on earth an immensely radiant, unprecedentedly beautiful, great new communist world, a world without oppression and exploitation."^^1^^
We find here an unscientific interpretation of the Marxist proposition concerning the relative independence of ideology, and a vulgarisation of Marx's thesis that ideas become a material force when they take hold of the masses.
Marxists have always attached much importance to the role of ideas in social development, believing that ideas can help to accelerate its pace, provided only that these ideas reflect real life, the relationship between classes, the advance of science and economic progress. Marxist ideas are viable and invincible and exert an accelerating effect on the social process because they are scientific and accord with the laws of social development. That is why they become a material force transforming the world. The ``thought of Mao Tsetung" is deprived of any life-giving power because it is not _-_-_
^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 20, 1966.
56 based on science, and does not accord with the objective laws of social development, which is why its translation into practice has brought defeats for China's domestic and foreign policies.Maoism revises the Marxist proposition concerning the role of the masses and the individual in history: the role of the individual is exaggerated, the cult of heroes is revived, and the masses are treated as a faceless mob bent to the will of the leaders.
The unscientific and subjectivist view of the role of the individual in history is clearly expressed in the build-up of Mao's personality cult, and in the exaggeration of his role, with a simultaneous playing down of the role of the people and the Communist Party in the history of the Chinese revolution. The whole activity of the CPC at every period of its history is identified with the activity of one man---Mao Tsetung---``a personality of the highest order'', ``a genius'', according to Maoist propaganda, who is born into the midst of men once in a few centuries, which is why unquestioning obedience to him is a guarantee of China's successes. `` Always think of Chairman Mao, obey Chairman Mao in everything, consistently follow Chairman Mao, do everything for the sake of Chairman Mao."^^1^^
We have here something that goes beyond the mere revival or rehearsal of the Narodist theory of the ``heroes'' and the ``crowd''. The Narodniks held up more than one hero, and enshrined the hero as an ideal. In Mao's case we have one ``hero'' who has the capacity, at will, to change or even abolish the laws of social development.
The official press helps to deify Mao and praise the Maoists who are obedient to him. The official press is not interested in the people as such, as the maker of history, as a participant in the revolutionary transformation of society. In the theory and practice of Maoism, the people is assigned the role of extra, who walks on the stage when bidden ta do so and blindly carries out the orders of Mao Tse-tung. According to the logic of Maoist philosophy, the masses are incapable of taking conscious and organised action, and can merely submit to and blindly follow the ``hero''. This is substantiated by ``Mao's thought" that the Chinese people is a _-_-_
^^1^^ China Pictorial No. 7, 1968.
57 clean sheet of paper on which there is nothing, but on which one is able to write ``the newest, the most beautiful characters, on which one can produce the newest, the most beautiful drawings".^^1^^ This view of the role of the individual and the masses in history has nothing in common with Marxism. It adds up to a pernicious cult of the personality of a leader who stands over and above the people. It amounts to mistrust of the people and abuse of them.The sway of Mao's personality cult fosters in the Chinese people a spirit of slavish adulation of the leader. Ordinary Chinese are quoted as saying: ``Chairman Mao's concern is vaster than the heavens and the earth, Chairman Mao is dearer than father and mother. But for Chairman Mao, I would not have existed."^^2^^ All of Mao's writings are regarded as sacred; therefore ``Mao Tse-tung's works must be studied every day. If you fail to study the leader's works for one day, a host of questions will arise; if you fail to study them for two days, you will begin to slide down; and it is altogether impossible to live without the leader's works for three days."^^3^^
Subjectivism is a feature of Mao's view of history. The Maoists regard Mao's political and theoretical activity as being the only cause behind social development. Action by social classes, sections and groups is meaningful only in so far as it coincides with the leader's prescriptions. That is why today the Hungweipings are ordered out into the streets, and tomorrow are sent into the countryside; today all the Party cadres are persecuted and tomorrow some of them are rehabilitated.
No political leader can regard himself as a Marxist unless he is guided in his activity by the tenet that history is made by the masses, by millions of producers, and that the decisive role in revolutionary transformation belongs to social classes, unless he is able, or to be more precise, willing to connect in a single whole the individual and the masses, and to cease theoretically and practically to act on the principle that history is made by heroes at whim.
Consequently, Mao's philosophy constitutes a revision of _-_-_
~^^1^^ China Pictorial No. 3, 1968.
~^^2^^ Ibid., No. 7, 1968.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
58 the materialist view of history, and marks a retreat to subjective, including Narodist, sociology, whose propositions have long since been refuted by Marxism. __*_*_*__Summing up some of the results of the examination of Maoist philosophy, we can draw the conclusion that Mao and his ideological followers do not take the stand of dialectical materialism. Their Marxist terminology merely serves to cover up the eclectic mixture of subjective idealism and some propositions of pre-Marxian materialism and naive dialectics.
Mao is essentially a traditional Chinese thinker, but one who has to act in the 20th century, and who has for that reason adopted as his instrument (naturally, modified) the elements of modern theoretical thinking which he needs and is able in any way to sort out.
Let us note that Mao's apologists, when building up the myth that he is the greatest Marxist philosopher of our day and age, deliberately accentuate only those problems which are dealt with in Mao's works, thereby creating the impression that these are at the centre of modern philosophy. The problems Mao fails to ``elaborate'' or even to mention are deliberately dropped as philosophical problems, thereby artificially narrowing down the sphere of philosophical knowledge and impoverishing philosophy itself as a science. At the same time, the Maoists deliberately ignore the fact that the solution of the problems Mao considers was given by philosophers before Marx, while the most general propositions are borrowed from the Marxist-Leninist classics to help Mao appear as a classic himself. The Maoists' ``works'' do not give the slightest hint that modern Marxist thinking has been elaborating any philosophical problems.
Here is Mao's version of the process of cognition: ``Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge, the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge."^^1^^ The ways, stages and forms of cognition are _-_-_
^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, pp. 208--09.
59 known to be an important element of Marxist epistemology, which emphasises the dialectical essence of the process of cognition, makes a detailed study of the logic of forms and laws of thinking, especially of conceptions, judgements and deductions, and shows the role of theory and hypotheses in the attainment of the truth.Mao confines himself to rehashing the ideas about the two stages of knowledge and their sequence, something that has been known since the period of antiquity and ancient Oriental philosophy. Maoist epistemology altogether fails to show the dialectical connection between consciousness and matter, to show the role of labour and other types of human activity in the origination and development of consciousness. The theory of knowledge of Maoist philosophy is not connected with the materialist theory of reflection. It fails to analyse the dialectics of objective, relative and absolute truth, or their contradictory unity and transition into each other, and has absolutely nothing to say about the logical and historical ascent from the abstract to the concrete in the comprehension of the substance of things and phenomena.
Moreover, Mao directly revises the Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge. First of all, he breaks up the process of cognition into independent, discrete processes alternating with each other. Furthermore, he takes a vulgar, mechanistic view of the connection between the process of cognition and the process of formulating practical policy, and confuses the problem of the source of knowledge and the process of cognition itself, which, let us bear in mind, is based on a definite store of knowledge. Mao rejects mediated experience; he holds that ``theories, directives, plans, measures" have to be taken through all the stages of knowledge afresh. This approach of Mao's is also confirmed by his neglect of the experience of his predecessors, whose knowledge, he says, is ``bookish''. While taking an oversimplified and vulgar view of the connection between theory and practice, Mao also has an idealistic concept of ``practice'' itself, in which the materialist substance of the Marxist theory of knowledge--- ``recognition of the external world and its reflection in the human mind" (Lenin)---altogether disappears. While not denying this fundamental materialist principle in so many words, Mao considers the objective external world with all its laws and in all its diversity in absolutely abstract terms, 60 as a ``sheet of clean paper" designed for voluntarist `` creative" acts by the ``genius''. Mao regards the Chinese people as just such a sheet of clean paper on which one can `` produce the newest, the most beautiful drawings''.
Because Mao's ``practice'' does not rest on concrete and diverse living reality it loses its principal property, that of being the criterion of the truth. Hence, his pragmatic conclusion that only that is correct which leads to success.
Finally, Mao contrasts sensual and rational knowledge, and theory and practice, and connects practice only with purely sensual knowledge, with ``experience'', thereby depriving practice of its rational character, and refusing to recognise it as rational activity in the process of cognition. In the light of this view of the connection between rational and sensual knowledge, and theory and practice, the whole of social life---the practice of millions upon millions of working people becomes blind, unconscious activity, each of these being no more than a ``little cog" in a gigantic machine run by the hand of the ``great genius''.
[61] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ GREAT-HAN CHAUVINISMThe struggle between reactionary bourgeois chauvinism and proletarian internationalism is not a new phenomenon. The struggle has been carried on ever since the bourgeoisie and the proletariat emerged in the arena of history, giving rise to the ``two great class camps'', and to the emergence and development in irreconcilable struggle of the ideologies of these two camps. The Marxist-Leninist classics have shown that the victory of proletarian internationalism over reactionary bourgeois chauvinism depends on a fundamental change in proprietary relations. Marx wrote: ``To be able to unite the peoples must have common interests. For the interests to be common, the existing relations of property must be destroyed because the existing property relations provide for the exploitation of some peoples by others. . .".^^1^^ In other words, bourgeois chauvinism is inseparable from the system dominated by capitalist property in the means of production and man's exploitation of man, while proletarian internationalism is inherent in the society where private property in the means of production has been abolished and the very basis of the exploitation of man by man, and of one people by another has been eliminated.
But bourgeois chauvinism and proletarian internationalism are determined not only by socio-economic conditions. They are closely connected with the historical development _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 4, Berlin, S. 416.
62 of this or that nation, and are deeply rooted in its traditions, social mentality, and ideological and cultural life, apart from many other things. Let us add that in certain conditions, these circumstances, as events in China have shown, may acquire great importance. The elimination of the socioeconomic basis of bourgeois chauvinism and society's adoption of the ideas of proletarian internationalism do not immediately lead to an overcoming of chauvinistic attitudes and preconceptions. The specially important point to stress here is the dependence of chauvinism on the social mentality of the petty producer and the conservative and stable character of socio-psychological phenomena in general. The experience of socialist construction in the USSR and other countries shows that the adoption of the new ideology does not require as much time as the remaking of the social mentality.In any country, the elimination of private property in the means of production does on the whole create the conditions for gradually doing away with bourgeois chauvinism and establishing proletarian internationalism. These conditions should sooner or later lead the people in the country to realise that they have common interests with the peoples of other countries, that is, to adopt the attitude of proletarian internationalism. However, experience has shown this process to be a long and complex one. The development of the socialist countries and the strengthening of their national independence and sovereignty has gone hand in hand with a growing national awareness, which is on the whole a positive phenomenon. However, the growth of national awareness, in the presence of strong nationalistic traditions in a country, may result in a temporary rise of bourgeois chauvinism. This largely depends on the social structure of society, and the specific features of its working class, in particular, its political maturity and integrity, and its capacity to withstand the influence of the surrounding petty-bourgeois element. Finally, another important thing is the nature of its leading party, the extent to which it has been tempered and theoretically prepared, and whether it has close ties with the international working-class and communist movement, and so on.
Lenin said that even in those parties which called themselves Communist, internationalism may only be given lip 63 service, while philistine chauvinism is actually practised. He warned that ``the urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole)."^^1^^
It goes without saying that fulfilment by any proletarian party of its international duty is inseparable from its national tasks. The point is what these national tasks are. It is one thing when these are connected with the vital interests of the working people at home and in other countries. It is something quite different if the national tasks of the working people of one country are contrasted with the tasks of the working people of other countries.
The Chinese leadership's open switch to Great-Han hegemonism and the spread in China of bourgeois chauvinism and even of racism have their roots in various historical, social and ideological factors.
China is a peasant country. Masses of peasants, fostered in the feudal and the patriarchal traditions and for centuries oppressed by local and foreign rulers, make up an absolute majority of the population. Fairly recently, a large part of the Chinese population consisted of petty artisans, traders and other non-proletarian elements. That is precisely the social medium which most vigorously breeds diverse nationalistic views and attitudes, which, in definite circumstances, easily grow into chauvinism and even racism. At the same time the spread of chauvinistic views in China is also due to an ideological factor like the country's long domination by Confucianism and to such historical factors as China's special role in the history of the Far East, foreign rule, first of the Mongols, and then of the Manchus, and in the last century, of the colonialists from the capitalist countries.
In the history of China, Confucianism was connected with the Great-Han chauvinistic and Sinocentric idea of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148.
64 superiority of the Chinese (or of the ``Han'', as they called themselves) over all the other peoples, whom Confucianism regarded as ``savages'' whose duty was to pay tribute to the Chinese emperor. The point is that from ancient times up until the mid-19th century China was the leading country in the Far East and in a sense a centre of culture and civilisation which exerted a great influence on the neighbouring peoples. No wonder China was known as the ``Middle Kingdom" (``Chung Kuo''), whose historical documents invariably designated neighbouring and distant peoples as `` barbarians''. For centuries, this Sinocentrism was used by the ruling classes of feudal China, and in the first half of the 20th century by various feudal and compradore groups, notably the Chiang Kai-shek clique, to implant Great-Han chauvinistic ideas and feelings, to spread xenophobia, etc.All of this has undoubtedly left a deep mark on the minds of people from various sections of society in China and is expressed even today in Great-Han arrogance which had been fostered for centuries by the ruling circles of feudal China. They held all things foreign to be unworthy of attention, because China was the ``summit of world civilisation''. Chinese civilisation was regarded as the highest achievement of the human spirit which had to be spread across the world. The idea of China's superiority over other countries was put on record in the Confucian canons which commanded great authority in Chinese society. Thus, one finds in the book, Meng Tzu, the following: ``I have heard men use the teachings of our great country in order to re-- educate the barbarians, but never yet have I heard of anyone being re-educated by the barbarians.'' This kind of chauvinistic view of spiritual culture has left a deep mark on the minds of men in different social sections of modern China, and undoubtedly created the conditions for the spread of Great-Han attitudes.
The Chinese revolution tackled the tasks not only of the Chinese people's social emancipation, but also of its national liberation, and that was one of its specific features. Over a period of two and a half centuries the Chinese people had fought against the Manchu yoke, and once that had been overthrown found itself facing the need to fight first against the European imperialist powers and then against Japan. This long and hard struggle for national liberation has __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---1362 65 sharpened the Chinese people's national feelings to an extreme, and has intensified the feelings of distaste for all things foreign. It has helped to put the national question in the foreground of the Chinese social mentality.
Consequently, for definite historical reasons, nationalism in China has had two aspects since it emerged---the progressive and the reactionary. Its progressive aspect was connected with the Chinese people's struggle against China's oppression by the Manchu aristocracy and the Chinese feudal lords who sided with it, and then with the struggle against the imperialism of the Great Powers, who sought to turn China into a colony. It was the nationalism of an oppressed nation and it was aimed at transforming China into an independent democratic state, and helped to advance the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution. All progressives in Chinese society brimmed with patriotic feelings and yearned to drive the foreign invaders from their native soil. These aspirations were strikingly expressed in the revolutionary-democratic teaching of Sun Yat-sen of whom Lenin said: ``Every line of Sun Yat-sen's platform breathes a spirit of militant and sincere democracy."^^1^^ Sun Yat-sen's teaching, the progressive trend of nationalism in China, played a great role in the Chinese people's national liberation struggle.
The reactionary aspect of Chinese nationalism consisted in the fact that since its emergence it has had the features of Great-Han chauvinism and contained the idea of the Chinese people's national superiority over the other peoples, and an urge for racism and hegemonism. The Chinese bourgeoisie's aspirations to see China great and dominating the international scene clashed with the country's oppressed and semi-colonial status, and this served to sharpen its national pride to an extreme.
The ideologists of the Chinese bourgeoisie held the yellow race to be a special and outstanding one, and believed the Han people to have a leading role in it, and to be destined in good time to establish their hegemony over the whole world. Thus, in a letter to Liang Chi-chao in October 1907, Kang Yu-wei said that if there was ``no revolt" in China, it would become the ``ruler of the world".^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 164.
~^^2^^ Quoted from Y. V. Ghudodeyev, On the Eve of the 1911 Revolution in China, Moscow, 1966, p. 123 (in Russian).
66This shows that the ideologists of the Chinese bourgeoisie saw their ultimate aim not in a prosperous and independent China, which would seek to establish equitable and just relations with other nations, but in raising China over and above the others and turning her into their ruler. This spirit of disdain for all things non-Chinese, this certainty of moral superiority over other nations was fostered by the Chinese bourgeoisie right up to 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek was totally routed.
The victory of the People's Revolution in 1949 and the early successes of socialist construction produced in China, on the one hand, a general patriotic elan, and on the other, revived Great-Han arrogance and hegemonistic aspirations. For a number of subjective and objective reasons these feelings increasingly developed into Great-Han chauvinism. Of course, this process would not have had such a fatal character, and could have been stopped and cut short, had a united Marxist-Leninist party, capable of overcoming any anti-- popular, anti-socialist ideological and political trend, properly directed the people's state. However, the CPC was not such a party and, as has been stressed above, carried within itself the struggle of two lines: the Marxist-Leninist and the chauvinist, bourgeois line. Moreover, the Marxist-Leninist, internationalist line fell victim to the anti-Marxist policy of the Mao group. We believe this was ultimately due to the fact that most of the members of the CPC were of peasant origin, while the working-class section made up an insignificant minority. The working class of China did not succeed in retaining its vanguard role at the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution and in firmly taking the leading position in the country at its socialist stage. Mao and his followers, far from seeking to strengthen the vanguard role of the Chinese working class, in fact did everything to reduce it. China's working class proved to be unable to withstand the pressure of Great-Han chauvinistic ideas and feelings, and to put up adequate resistance to Mao and his followers. As a result, Mao and his followers were given an opportunity to hit out at the CPC and the working class of China, and to push the country on to the way of Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism.
The penetration of Marxism-Leninism into China, the making and development of the Communist Party of China 67 and the emergence of proletarian internationalism in the country proceeded in stubborn struggle against chauvinism, which was at the time opposed to the Comintern's internationalist line. At the very end of the 1920s and in the early 1930s, the chauvinistic views within the CPC were expressed in the so-called Li Li-san line. This put China at the centre of all world developments and regarded the Chinese revolution as the ``main pillar of the world revolution'', that is, took the Sinocentrist view of the world revolutionary process. To secure a victory for the revolution in China, Li Lisan and his followers were prepared to sacrifice everything, including the lives of millions of workers and peasants not only in China, but also in other countries, because they expected to start a world war in the interest of the Chinese revolution.
We have recalled Li Li-san's Sinocentrism and chauvinism at this point because, first, at the time his views largely coincided with those of Mao Tse-tung, and second, ``Mao's thought" on revolution and war today is reminiscent of Li's views.
This struggle between the internationalists and the chauvinists in the CPC in the 1930s was carried on, among other things, over the nature of contradictions of the epoch and the interpretation of internationalism. The chauvinists held that at the time the focal point of world contradictions did not involve the Soviet Union and the capitalist system, but China and Japan. Accordingly, they asserted that internationalism did not consist in helping the Soviet Union to fight the capitalist system but in helping the CPC to fight Japan and the Kuomintang. That is why Mao held the Canadian Doctor Bethune, who had come to China to help the Chinese people fight Japan, to be the model internationalist. There is obviously an interconnection between this early Sinocentrist conception and the Mao and his group's present-day view of the basic contradiction of the epoch and their view of internationalism.
In the late 1930s and the early 1940s, the ideological struggle between Marxism-Leninism and chauvinism in the CPC was also expressed in the form of somewhat abstract discussion concerning the relation between the specific and the general, the Chinese and the foreign (just as the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and chauvinism in China in the 68 1960s at one time assumed the form of a discussion on the dichotomy of unity), and then gave way to a broad campaign for ``correction of style"---``cheng feng" (just as in the 1960s the discussion on the dichotomy of unity turned out to be connected with the movement for ``socialist education''). It is now becoming increasingly clear, especially considering the nature of the ``socialist education" campaign that the struggle for ``correction of style" started on Mao's initiative was essentially a chauvinistic drive against Marxism-- Leninism and internationalism in the guise of the fight with dogmatism and alienation from Chinese reality. It was closely connected with the establishment of a ``Sinified Marxism'', that is, a substitution of Maoism for Marxism-Leninism.
The ideas which promoted the emergence of a ``Sinified Marxism" began to appear in China back in the 1920s. Thus, at the time Kuo Mo-jo tried to show that Confucianism and Marxism had many points in common, and also to prove that Confucius was superior to Marx. At the time he published an allegory entitled ``Marx's Visit to the Temple of Confucius" (this article was subsequently included in a collection of Kuo Mo-jo's articles, entitled ``Laughter in the Underground" which was issued in a new edition in 1950). It shows Confucius as a noble-minded and true sage of antiquity and Marx as a ``whiskered crab speaking a pidgin language''. After the talk between the two sages it turns out that Marx had not produced any new ideas: everything that he had said and written had been expressed by Confucius long before. Marx is made to say the following: ``I had never expected to find such an esteemed fellow-thinker living in the distant Far East over 2,000 years ago. You and I hold exactly the same views."^^1^^
In the early 1940s, the danger of the spread of GreatHan views in China was pointed out by the journal Chungkuo wenhwa (organ of the CPC Central Committee), which was published in Yenan. It said: ``All the reactionary views in modern China have one special tradition, and to give it its name one could perhaps say that it is ideological seclusion. As the people's democratic revolution and the culture of modern China develop, this kind of backlash in ideology appears in different forms, and in accordance with the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Tihsia hsioshen, Shanghai, 1950, p. 27.
69 different stages in the development of the revolution and the different objective conditions this kind of views in contrasted, in different forms, with progressive revolutionary views and the revolutionary forces. However, regardless of the numerous transformations these have undergone, their main content invariably consists in stressing the 'national features' and 'specifics of China', a denial of the general laws of human history, an assertion that the development of Chinese society can proceed only on the basis of specific Chinese regularities, that China can advance only along her own way which runs outside the general laws governing the development of human history. In China, this ideological tradition of seclusion ... is a specific feature of reactionary views."^^1^^In the late 1930s and the early 1940s, Chinese Trotskyites, like Yeh Ching, propounded, under the pretext of `` mastering the specifics of China'', ideas which essentially amounted to an assertion of the superiority of ``the Chinese spirit'', ideas borrowed from the arsenal of feudal and bourgeois Chinese chauvinism. They demanded that MarxismLeninism should be Sinified. The journal Shihtai chinshen wrote: ``There is need to modify the form of MarxismLeninism, and to make it a thing that would be like a new, Chinese thing differing from the original one."^^2^^
These views were subjected to criticism in the CPC. The journal Chungkuo wenhwa said that those who insisted on the need to Sinify Marxism-Leninism ``implied Sinification to mean a change of its form and by a change of its form a total rejection of original Marxism".^^3^^
However, this criticism of those who urged that MarxismLeninism should be Sinified did not mean that the CPC succeeded in overcoming the growing tendency towards chauvinism. The fact is that since the late 1930s, Mao himself was insisting on ``Sinifying Marxism''. As we have already seen, the ``correction of style" movement had a Great-Han character and was used to hit out at Marxism-Leninism and internationalism within the ranks of the CPC. The 7th Congress of the CPC in 1945 was told that Mao had produced _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chungkuo wenhwa No. 1, 1940.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid,
70 a ``Sinified Marxism''. This congress reflected the emergence of Mao's personality cult and a marked intensification of Sinocentrist attitudes within the ranks of the Party.The Soviet Union's victory over nazi Germany and militarist Japan, the emergence of the socialist world system, the formation of the Chinese People's Republic in 1949 and the establishment by the Soviet Union of friendly relations with her had a positive influence in fortifying the MarxistLeninist forces within the CPC. This process was reflected and consolidated in the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC in 1956.
In 1958, Mao once again managed to increase his ideological influence in the CPC and to secure the adoption of the adventurist ``Three Red Banners" line: the general line, the ``Great Leap Forward" and the people's communes. Since then there has been a noticeable increase in the Chinese leaders' policy of Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism.
At the turn of the century, that is, the period in which the minds of the elder generation of the Chinese leaders were moulded, ideas of ``pan-Asianism'', superiority of the yellow race, the idea that the peoples of Asia had a common future, the idea of a pan-Asian Sino-Japanese alliance, etc., appeared in China under the impact of Japanese theories. It is well known that in some historical conditions nationalism all too easily assumes the form of racism, the view that some nations are physically or spiritually superior to others.
Of course, the Chinese leaders are well aware of the illfame of racism, which has been used by fascism and nazism. That is why they naturally seek to conceal their views which reek of racism. However, they are not always successful. There were already racist, pan-Asian elements in Mao's idea of the ``wind from the East" prevailing over the ``wind from the West''. That is why this idea was duly rejected by the international communist movement.
The Maoist pan-Asianism and racism is most pronounced in their political line with respect to Japan, which they regard as a possible temporary ally in their drive for domination in Asia and hegemony in the world. In a talk Mao had in the early 1950s with Japanese POW generals and officers, who were being allowed to return home from China, he said that China intended to take a dominant position in Asia, and that Japan should not wait too long. He said: 71 ``China and Japan must join hands and forget the past.'' In 1961, Mao met a Japanese delegation and suggested that China and Japan had a common future. He said: ``We share the same destiny, which is why we are united. We must enlarge the framework of unity and gather together in a unity the peoples of the whole of Asia, Africa and Latin America and of the whole world.'' In their talks with Japanese delegations, the Maoists keep stressing that the Chinese and the Japanese belong to one and the same race, that they have a common written language and other elements of culture.
This short look into the past shows that the Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism in the views and political line of the Chinese leadership is not at all a casual development, but that both are rooted in China's socio-economic and ideological development, and her Confucian traditions and history.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Great-Han ChauvinismA typical feature of the Chinese leaders' theoretical and practical activity is that they seek thoroughly to cover up their views and acts with Marxist-Leninist terminology and to present these as internationalism. In this way they managed for a long time to mislead not only the CPC but also some members of the international communist and working-class movement. This they also managed to do because they acted with circumspection, behind a barrage of revolutionary catchwords, calls for fighting imperialism and so on.
However, with time the waters receded and the stones appeared on the surface, as the saying in China goes, revealing the true Great-Han, chauvinistic and hegemonistic essence of the views of the Chinese leaders who acted ever more openly and with growing brazenness.
Maoism's Great-Han, chauvinistic and hegemonistic character was most fully revealed during the ``cultural revolution''. Let us recall in this connection that on August 1, 1966, Mao issued a tatsupao to the Hungweipings in which he said, with reference to Marx: ``The proletariat has not only 72 to emancipate itself but has also to emancipate all mankind. If it is unable to emancipate all mankind the proletariat itself will be unable to win real emancipation.'' Mao gave these words a Great-Han chauvinistic twist. We know that in China today it is Mao's followers that are known as the proletariat (regardless of their class status). That is why Mao's talk about the proletariat having to emancipate the whole of mankind means that it is Mao's followers that have to emancipate the whole of mankind, and to carry out this ``emancipation'' on the strength of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" and the establishment of a corresponding order.
That this was precisely the meaning given to Marx's words about the proletariat's emancipatory mission was shown by the appearance within a few weeks of a Hungweiping ``appeal to our compatriots'', which spoke of their urge resolutely to hoist ``the great red banner of Mao Tsetungism all over the globe''.
The ``cultural revolution" in China has intensified all manner of chauvinistic Great-Han attitudes, xenophobia and racism, especially among the young who have no knowledge of Marxism-Leninism and who have been blinded and confused by the spread of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. The idea that China is politically, morally and ideologically superior over all the other countries, that the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" is the summit of Marxist-Leninist thinking, that China is the centre of world revolution, etc., is being drummed into the heads of the Chinese people.
The 9th Congress of the CPC held in April 1969 has a very important place in Maoism's final transformation into a Great-Han chauvinistic and hegemonistic ideology. It showed that Maoism is not only alien but is deeply hostile to proletarian internationalism. The material of the 9th Congress, specifically the programme section of the Rules it adopted, contains the old call of ``emancipating the whole of mankind" and insists that the present epoch is ``the epoch when imperialism is moving towards its universal collapse, and socialism towards victory all over the world''. While this is quite right in itself, the point is that the Maoists invest it with a Great-Han hegemonistic meaning. After all, Mao and his followers do not accept any other socialism except their own ``true'' one. That is why this talk of the victory 73 of socialism all over the world means a victory for ``Mao''s thought'', a victory for China.
Since the congress, the Chinese propaganda has made no secret of the Chinese leadership's intentions to remake the whole world according to the Maoist image. The Chinese press reports that this is to be done through a world war, which is regarded as an engine of history, and as something that helps to foster and temper the people. Extreme chauvinism is known always to lead to war. The Great-Han hegemonism of Mao Tse-tung and his followers appears to be no exception.
Today, there is no international event of any importance to which the Chinese leaders have not openly taken a GreatHan chauvinistic approach. Take the unity of the countries within the socialist community in the fight against imperialism, the international communist movement, the national liberation struggle, Afro-Asian solidarity, the movement of the peoples for peace, etc.---to each of these the Chinese leaders have not taken a class, internationalist approach, but a narrowly nationalistic, Sinocentric approach, in the light of their chauvinistic and hegemonistic interests.
The Main Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in the summer of 1969, re-emphasised the decisive role of the world socialist system in the anti-imperialist struggle, and once again drew attention to the need for the cohesion of the socialist states.^^1^^ However, it is precisely against the world socialist system and the socialist countries' cohesion that the Mao group has carried on a fierce fight, directing all their hatred at the Soviet Union in particular. At the 12th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee, held in October 1968, the Maoists called for the establishment of a ``broad united front of peoples" aimed against the USA and the USSR, a demand allegedly justified by absurd talk of a ``deal'' between the USSR and the USA.
It is well known, however, that Mao and his followers now and again ascribe their own intentions to others for the purpose of camouflage. Every sober-minded observer will realise that they make mention of the USA merely to present themselves as ``fighters against imperialism''. In actual fact, _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, pp. 21, 23,
74 the Chinese leaders call for the establishment of such a front to fight the Soviet Union. Will anyone believe that they are in earnest about fighting the USA, the leading power of the capitalist world, while China's foreign trade relations are being increasingly re-oriented upon the major capitalist countries closely allied with the USA, namely, Japan, the FRG and Britain, among others? However, we are not here interested in this hypocritical manner of action, but in the fact that the Chinese leaders continue to claim to be internationalists while betraying proletarian internationalism at every step.The 9th Congress of the CPC officially adopted the antiSoviet line of the present Chinese leaders. Its decisions contain not only statements about ``Soviet revisionism" and a ``deal between the Soviet leaders and American imperialism'', but also assertions that the Soviet Union is a `` social-imperialist country''.
The Chinese leaders' talk about the need for simultaneously fighting US imperialism is no more than a smoke screen. To see the truth of this one needs merely look at their policy on the Vietnam issue. Their attitude to the US aggression against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam most fully and obviously reflects their betrayal of the interests of proletarian internationalism. The USA would never have dared to launch its aggression had the CPC leadership not pursued its anti-Soviet line and not attacked the unity of the socialist countries. When escalating their aggression in Vietnam, the US imperialists undoubtedly reckon with the Great-Han chauvinism of the Chinese leaders and their stubborn refusal to accept any proposals on concerted action by China, the USSR and the other socialist countries in helping the Vietnamese people beat back the US aggression.
The Maoists have not only failed to give the fighting Vietnamese people adequate military and economic assistance but have also in every way hampered the other socialist countries in their efforts to do so. At the same time, they have tried to capitalise politically on the Vietnamese people's struggle, and have resorted to provocative attacks against the Soviet Union's policy on the Vietnam question. Specifically, the Chinese leaders have qualified the joint action by the fraternal Parties in rendering assistance to fighting Vietnam as ``chauvinism'', as ``treason'', and ``betrayal'', while 75 presenting their own Great-Power, pro-imperialist line as a model of proletarian internationalism.
However, recent facts have exposed the verbal shifts and dodges of the CPC leaders. The Chinese press has been writing less and less about the Vietnamese people's struggle. What is more, the question was for all practical purposes not dealt with even at the 9th Congress of the CPC. The report disposes of it in one sentence: ``We ... resolutely support the Vietnamese people in carrying to the end the war of resistance against American aggression for the salvation of their country.''
In contrast to this nationalism-dictated approach to the Vietnam problem, the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties stressed that it was the primary aim of joint action by all the Communist and Workers' Parties and all the anti-imperialist forces to give all-round support to the heroic Vietnamese people. The Meeting adopted a special document, ``Independence, Freedom and Peace for Vietnam!'', in which the Communists of the world once again condemned the US aggression in Vietnam and reaffirmed their complete solidarity with the Vietnamese people's just struggle. The document says: ``True to the principles of proletarian internationalism and in the spirit of fraternal solidarity, the international communist and working-class movement will continue to render the Vietnamese people all the assistance they require until the final triumph of their just cause."^^1^^
The international communist and working-class movement is an embodiment of the principles of proletarian internationalism, but it is precisely against this movement that Mao and his followers have been carrying on their stubborn fight. They bear a great responsibility for their efforts to undermine the international solidarity of the working class and its parties.
The CPC leaders have carried on extensive splitting activity in the ranks of the international communist movement, slandering the tried and true leaders of the working class, and organising factional groups and whole parties with a Maoist platform who take orders from Peking. There are _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 44.
76 schemes in Peking for setting up a bloc of Maoist parties, to fight the Marxist-Leninist parties and the world communist movement.The Chinese leadership's Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism is based on Sinocentrism, which has been duly clothed and thoroughly camouflaged to look like MarxismLeninism. But once the camouflage is off, its Great-Power chauvinistic and hegemonistic substance stands out and is clearly seen to have nothing in common with MarxismLeninism or proletarian internationalism.
Thus, the prospects for political developments in the colonial and semi-colonial countries are viewed in the light of Sinocentrism. Back in 1940, Mao said in his work On New Democracy that in the course of the revolution only the Chinese-type new democracy could be used as a form of state in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. While noting its transitional nature, he stressed that this form was necessary and obligatory. This means that in their political development all colonies and semi-colonies must pass along China's way; in other words, all the countries subsequently included by the Chinese leadership in the ``world village" would necessarily have to follow in the tracks of China's development. From this it necessarily and logically followed that China was the leader of the peoples in the colonial and semicolonial countries.
In 1963, the Sinocentrist idea was essentially made the basis of the ``Proposals on the General Line of the International Communist Movement" and of other documents containing an analysis of the present epoch. At the time, the Chinese leaders said that Asia, Africa and Latin America were the ``focal point of various contradictions of the capitalist world and may be said to be the focal point of all the contradictions existing in the world. These areas constitute the weakest link in the imperialist chain and the main centres of revolutionary storms in the modern world".^^1^^ The struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America ``is of decisive importance for the cause of the international proletariat as a whole'',^^2^^ and ``without the support of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Once Again on Comrade Togliatti's Differences With Us, Peking, 1963, p. 34 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 47--48.
77 revolutionary struggle of the oppressed nations and peoples in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the proletariat and masses of people in the capitalist countries of Europe and America cannot realise their aspirations---to be rid of privation and calamities caused by the oppression of capital and the threat of imperialist war".^^1^^There is no doubt at all about the great importance of the liberatory revolutionary struggle of the peoples in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America or about the need for the unity of the progressive forces of the world in the struggle against imperialism. But the ``Proposals on the General Line of the International Communist Movement" clearly contained an attempt to push the international communist movement into the background and to contrast it with the national liberation movement, thereby separating the national liberation movement from the world socialist system and the international communist movement.
At the 9th Congress of the CPC, the approach to the basic contradictions of the present epoch, as given in the ``Proposals on the General Line of the International Communist Movement'', was markedly modified. The report asserted that ``in the modern world there are four major contradictions: the contradiction between the oppressed nations, on the one hand, and imperialism and social-- imperialism, on the other; the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and the revisionist countries; the contradiction between the imperialist countries and the social-imperialist country,^^2^^ between the imperialist countries themselves; the contradiction between the socialist countries, on the one hand, and imperialism and social-imperialism, on the other''.
In this ``new scheme" of the basic contradictions of the present epoch the contradiction brought to the fore may be formulated as follows: the contradiction between the working class and the national liberation movement and so-called social-imperialism, because the latter is mentioned in all the four contradictions.
That is not at all accidental. The Chinese leaders still seek to put China at the centre of world developments. All the theoretical exercises described above are required in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Once Again on Comrade Togliatti's Differences With Us, p. 49.
~^^2^^ Meaning the USSR.
78 order to introduce the idea of China's leading role in the present-day socio-historical process. That is the purpose behind the accusation of social-imperialism levelled at the Soviet Union, because this is an attempt to undermine its prestige as the leading socialist power in the world revolutionary process, and to put China in its place.The ``people's war" theory provides more evidence of the Great-Power, chauvinistic and hegemonistic attitudes of the present CPC leadership. This theory was first briefly outlined in an article, ``Long Live the Victory in the People's War!'', written by Lin Piao, who was a close associate of Mao at the time and Minister of Defence. The publication of this article was timed for the 20th anniversary of the Chinese people's victory in the war against the Japanese invaders (September 1955). This article was designed to impose on the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America the Chinese model of revolution, to unleash armed conflicts in various parts of the globe, to secure in the course of these conflicts a weakening of the USA and of the USSR, and ultimately to establish China's undivided domination on the globe.
The substance of this model of revolution is expressed in the two words ``people's war" by which is meant extensive spread of guerrilla warfare based on strongholds set up in the villages and the surrounding of the towns by the village. The article says: ``Many countries and peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America are now being subjected to aggression and enslavement on a serious scale by the imperialists headed by the United States and its lackeys. The basic political and economic conditions in many of these countries have many similarities to those that prevailed in old China. As in China, the peasant question is extremely important in these regions. The peasants constitute the main force of the national-- democratic revolution directed against the imperialists and their lackeys. In committing aggression against these countries, the imperialists usually begin by seizing the big cities and the main lines of communication, but they are unable to bring the vast countryside completely under their control. The countryside, and the countryside alone, can provide the broad areas in which the revolutionaries can manoeuvre freely. The countryside, and the countryside alone, can provide the revolutionary bases from which the revolutionaries 79 can go forward to final victory. Precisely for this reason, Comrade Mao Tse-tung's theory of establishing revolutionary base areas in the rural districts and encircling the cities from the countryside is attracting more and more attention among the peoples in these regions.
``Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called 'the cities of the world', then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute 'the rural areas of the world'. Since World War II, the proletarian revolutionary movement has for various reasons been temporarily held back in the North American and West European capitalist countries, while the people's revolutionary movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been growing vigorously. In a sense, the contemparary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas."^^1^^
In their efforts to invest the ``people's war" theory with international significance the Chinese leaders simultaneously seek to minimise the historic experience of the October Revolution. The article says: ``The October Revolution began with armed uprisings in the cities and then spread to the countryside, while the Chinese revolution won nation-wide victory through the encirclement of the cities from the rural areas and the final capture of the cities."^^2^^ The Peking leaders suggest that the experience of the proletariat of Russia is inapplicable to the practice of the revolutionary movement in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, allegedly being of purely European significance, whereas Chinese experience is of universal significance and can be used by countries whose population is mainly rural.
Seeking to impose the experience of China's liberation struggle on other peoples, Peking leaders go to the extent of twisting the history of the Chinese revolution. Contrary to the actual facts, they argue that the Chinese people's victory over Japan and then over the Kuomintang was scored exclusively through ``reliance on one's own strength''. Without in any way minimising the importance of the Chinese people's struggle against Japanese imperialism, there is need to emphasise that Japan's defeat was predetermined by the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lin Piao, ``Long Live the Victory of People's War!'', In Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of Victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japan, Peking, 1967, pp. 48--49.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 42.
80 Soviet Union's entry into the war against her. Peking leaders forget such ``trifles'' as the fact that China's victory in the ``people's war" was predetermined by the rout of Japanese imperialism.At one time, Mao himself admitted: ``We are told that `Victory is possible even without international help'. This is a mistaken idea. In the epoch in which imperialism exists, it is impossible for a genuine people's revolution to win victory in any country without any assistance from international revolutionary forces, and if this victory is won, it will not be consolidated in the absence of such assistance."^^1^^ Similar statements were also made by other Chinese leaders, who stressed that without the Soviet Union's assistance China's victory over Japan would have taken a long time. However, at present they are trying in every way to isolate the national liberation movement from the international working-class movement and its product, the world socialist system, and to impose on this movement their policy of ``reliance on one's own strength''.
Let us now consider the question of this allegedly universal and world-wide character of Chinese military experience. Is it right to say that at present the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America are faced with the need of a ``people''s war'', as the Chinese leaders insist? We do not think so. Lenin wrote: ``Marxist dialectics calls for a concrete analysis of each specific historical situation."^^2^^ We are witnessing the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism: not more than 30 million people still live in colonies, as compared with 1,500 million 20 years ago. The overwhelming majority of the colonies have won independence, some of them arms in hand. At present, the former colonial and semi-colonial countries are faced with the task of consolidationg this political independence, winning economic independence, and making good their economic and cultural lag.
The Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties stresses that ``the solution of these problems involves far-reaching socio-economic changes, the implementation of democratic agrarian reforms in the interests of the working peasantry and with its participation, the abolition of outdated feudal and pre-feudal relations, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. VI, Peking, 1961, p. 416.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 316.
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---1362 81 liquidation of oppression by foreign monopolies, radical democratisation of social and political life and the state apparatus, regeneration of national culture and the development of its progressive traditions, the strengthening of revolutionary Parties and the founding of such Parties where they do not yet exist".^^1^^ These socio-economic transformations cannot, of course, be realised the military way. Such is the specific historical situation which now obtains in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.Puppet regimes exist in a number of these countries. Besides, imperialism, while using neo-colonialist methods, simultaneously has no qualms about resorting to direct armed intervention in the domestic affairs of the newly-free countries. We have already said that some peoples continue to live under the yoke of colonialism. That is why nationalcolonial wars in our day and age are possible and are in fact inevitable, but they are only one of the methods in the fight against imperialism.
At present, political and economic methods of fighting imperialism and its local agents are being brought to the fore in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and these methods are as or more complex than those of armed struggle. That is why it is quite wrong today to regard armed struggle as an absolute and to insist on it as the central task facing the peoples of these continents.
This question arises: what is the purpose of the Chinese leaders' strong advocacy of ``people's war"? There is only one answer: their only purpose is to provoke armed conflicts in various parts of the globe, to incite civil wars within the liberated countries, to involve the USA and the USSR in these conflicts and wars, so as to start a world war while remaining on the sidelines. There are any number of facts to bear this out. Take the war-mongering policy of the Chinese leaders during the Indo-Pakistani armed conflicts in 1965 and 1971, their intensified support of the extremist elements in Indonesia, Burma, Congo, Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere. Today, during Israel's aggression against the Arab countries they keep saying that the Soviet Union has allegedly betrayed the Arabs. They want to provoke the _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 28.
82 Soviet Union into direct armed intervention in the Middle East conflict and by getting Israel's imperialist friends to take counteraction, to push the world on the brink of nuclear war.Analysing the international situation after the Second World War, in 1946, Mao put forward his ``theory of the intermediary zone'', which allegedly lies between the Soviet Union and the USA. This ``theory'' contained the assertion that the principal contradiction of the epoch was not that between the socialist countries and the capitalist world (in this instance represented by the USA), but between the USA and the ``intermediate zone''. As time went on, the chauvinistic element in this ``theory'' was steadily built up, until finally the Soviet Union was ranked with the USA, while China was brought to the fore as the leader of the `` intermediate zone''.
Of late the Maoist leadership has advanced a doctrine of ``the monopoly of two superpowers'', according to which two Great Powers---the USSR and the USA---struggle acutely for the division of the world into spheres of influence and for establishing sole supremacy.
The doctrine is another proof that Peking goes to all lengths, including the departure from its class positions, in order to reach its purposes. When analysing the world situation and defining foreign policy tasks, the Chinese leaders regard not socio-economic and political factors but geopolitical factors, geographic position and other state features as being of paramount importance. Moreover, they derive benefit from the negation of the objectively existing division of the world into two diametrically opposed social systems and the genuine nature of the resultant class struggle in the world arena.
The Maoists disregard the fact that one of the Great Powers is a socialist state and the other is an imperialist state. The latter actively supports Israeli aggression in the Middle East, whereas the former acts as a reliable friend and bulwark of Arab states in their struggle for the elimination of the aftermath of Israeli aggression. The latter has occupied Taiwan, a Chinese island, and has a treaty of alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, is resorting to aggressive actions in Indochina in the direct vicinity of China's borders, and is provoking against the Korean People's Democratic Republic. The former is supplying the Vietnamese __PRINTERS_P_82_COMMENT__ 6* 83 people with weapons, ammunition and other materiel and resources, and is rendering the peoples of Indochina political and diplomatic support, is actively counteracting the provocations against the fraternal Korean People's Democratic Republic, is strongly decrying the occupation of Taiwan by the USA, and is consistently exposing all attempts aimed at creating a situation of ``two Chinas'.
In an attempt to fit all the diverse and complex world developments into an artificially concocted scheme the Maoists regard these developments through a prism of the conception of ``the monopoly of two superpowers''. According to their logic, to eliminate backwardness or to achieve further progress the peoples have no need at all to fight for their national or social liberation, for the solution of their economic and political tasks. As soon as ``the middle-sized and small states unite against the two superpowers'', it was stated in Peking early in June 1971, ``the weak states will turn into strong ones, and the small into big ones.''
But the main purport of this doctrine is to give ideological substance to ``the exclusive role" played by China as the leader of ``the struggle against two superpowers''. They circulate the following assertions: the People's Republic of China is similar to ``small and weak" states, shares with them ``a special community of features'', for she is also ``subjected to aggression and interference on the part of the `superpowers' ''. Their modesty being exhausted at this point, they make a different statement: ``China towers above the East as a giant.'' By this they imply that China is the biggest and strongest state among those which ``oppose the two superpowers''. This explains why on May 20, 1970, Mao Tse-tung put into circulation the term ``small and weak states''.
An approach to the world in terms of a conglomeration of nations and countries, in which ``small and weak" states have to seek China's protection from the ``rule of two superpowers" and a deliberate introduction of confusion into people's concepts about the alignment of class forces and the nature of the world struggle only play into the hands of imperialist politicians and ideologists.
The thesis of ``two superpowers" is in unison with the ideas long harboured by the reactionary circles in the West. Two years before the appearance of this Chinese doctrine 84 Strauss, the leader of the revenge-seeking forces in West Germany, published his book The Challenge and the Reply. A Programme for Europe, in which he reiterates the idea about ``the dominance of two Great Powers---the USA and the USSR"---and urges Europeans (albeit in more modest terms---in European terms rather than in global ones as Peking does) to create ``an autonomous Europe which would confront both the USA and the USSR" and in which the ERG would, of course, be the ``most important strategically, and the strongest economically''.
The Chinese leaders' Great-Han chauvinism reveals itself not only in their theoretical approach to present-day problems, but mainly in their practical activity in which they willingly make use for their own interests of various conceptions like pan-Africanism, pan-Arabism, pan-Asianism, the ``young emergent forces'', etc. They have deliberately inflated racist feelings by plugging the antithesis of East and West.
While paying lip service to Afro-Asian solidarity, Mao and his followers are in fact prepared to recognise solidarity only where it meets their own plans, that is, solidarity on their own ideological-political platform. With the start of the ``cultural revolution" in China, there has been a marked step-up in the efforts to make the peoples of Asia and Africa recognise Peking's ideological leadership at any price, ``to carry to the peoples of Africa a clear understanding of the genius of Mao Tse-tung and the great proletarian cultural revolution'', and to lend ``the new African national organisations the militant spirit of Mao Tse-tung''. But because the peoples of these countries want to develop relations with each other on the basis of the principles they formulated together at Bandung in 1955, and to set themselves goals meeting the national interests, the Chinese leaders have tried to undermine Afro-Asian solidarity in every possible way. The most glaring instance of this policy is their torpedoing of the Second Conference of Asian and African Heads of State and Government that was to have been held at Algiers in 1965.
There is rejection in Peking of any other solidarity between the peoples and countries of Asia and Africa except that based on the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. Any other kind of solidarity is regarded as being illegitimate and is 85 being branded as resulting from the moves of ``modern revisionism''.
Economic diplomacy, designed to play upon the young national states' desire to develop their economy and cooperate with other countries for that purpose, is a growing element of China's foreign policy with respect to the developing countries. Its main task is, of course, to exercise Chinese influence on the countries of Asia and Africa. The CPC leadership has been trying to use the Afro-Asian Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in its efforts to impose on Asian and African countries its recipes for economic development, above all, the principle of ``reliance on one's own strength'', which it takes to mean that the newly-emergent countries should look to support only from China. Co-operation with China is the only type of economic, scientific and technical co-operation Peking finds acceptable for the newly-emergent countries. This means that in the sphere of economic relations as well the Maoists intend to impose on the Asian and African countries the domination of China and to set up a kind of closed AfroAsian economic organisation under Peking's control. Claiming to be the ``best friends" of Asia and Africa and trying hard to prove their ``selflessness'', they readily issue promises of economic, scientific and technical aid and support in the fight against ``imperialism and the old and new colonialism''. However, the experience of the peoples of Asia and Africa tells them that Peking's aid either comes to mere promises (for, as a rule, Peking honours only a small part of its commitments) or is in the nature of a Trojan horse.
The Chinese leaders seek to impose on the developing countries their own specific way of social development. They take little interest in the actual practical problems of construction in the young national states, such as development of the productive forces, achievement of genuine economic independence, etc. They are much more concerned with involving these countries in struggle with each other over territory (Chinese diplomats assigned to Africa are explicitly set the task of ``helping the African brothers to secure realisation of the new countries' just territorial claims''), with starting civil wars wherever possible and spreading chaos and confusion so as to present all this as a `` revolutionary storm''. When this kind of meddling in the affairs 86 of the newly-emergent countries sparks off an offensive by domestic reaction or even open intervention by imperialism, the leaders in Peking pretend that none of this has anything to do with their activity and launch upon obscure discourses about the ``inevitable zigzags and relapses" in the development of world revolution. That was exactly what happened, for instance, after the failure of the attempted coup in Indonesia, which was staged not without Peking's participation.
The Chinese leadership's Great-Power calculations are chiefly connected with Asia, which is regarded as a sphere of immediate Chinese interests and the area of China's traditional influence. In the last few years the Chinese leadership have carried out their major foreign-policy measures in Asia, with the countries in this area taking the bulk of China's trade and one-half of her aid to the developing states. In fact, it is in Asia that one of the characteristic methods of their foreign policy---divide and rule---is most clearly revealed. There they seek to set at odds everyone they can in order to pave China's way to the domination of that part of the world.
To promote their chauvinistic interests the Maoists are prepared to betray the national liberation movement of Asian peoples. A glaring example of this was the Peking support of the repressions fulminated by the Pakistani military regime against the liberation movement in East Bengal in 1971.
The Chinese leadership's Great-Han chauvinistic claims to domination in Asia and their gross intervention in the affairs of the Asian countries, their expansionist schemes and attempts to decide territorial issues by force of arms have led to a situation in which China's Asian policy is meeting with ever growing difficulties. The Chinese leaders' policy with respect to the US aggression in Vietnam is also the source of grave apprehension and much concern in Asia.
Equally grave apprehensions are aroused by the Maoists' policy in Africa and Latin America, which is reflected in growing mistrust of it in the African and Latin American countries.
It is the national-territorial issue that has perhaps most forcefully revealed the Chinese leaders' Great-Han 87 chauvinism. The ideologists of the Chinese national bourgeoisie used to spread expansionist ideas with much vigour. From the turn of the century, books and articles published in China presented the Chinese history as an expansion of her national boundaries, with vast territories bordering on China and even whole countries designated as having been ``lost'' by China. Today, China's leaders have Great-Power schemes of re-establishing China within the boundaries of the last Chin dynasty. Let us note the fact that even in the 1930s and 1940s, when the CPC was giving a lead in the fight against Japanese imperialism for the country's liberation, there were hints of Great-Power notions in some of Mao's statements. Thus, in an interview with Edgar Snow in 1936, he declared that after the people's revolution had been victorious in China, Outer Mongolia would automatically become a part of the Chinese Federation, at its own will.^^1^^
In 1954, the Chinese leaders raised with a Soviet government delegation the question of a merger between the Mongolian People's Republic and the Chinese People's Republic totally ignoring the Mongolian people's ``own will''. Characteristically, that same year a book on China's modern history published in Peking showed Mongolia, and also the Korean People's Democratic Republic, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and a part of the territory of the USSR as lands ``lost'' by China. The next event which revealed the Chinese leadership's chauvinistic, expansionist attitudes on the national-territorial questions was the Sino-Indian border dispute and the Chinese leaders' territorial claims on India, which led to a number of armed clashes along the border.
The Chinese leaders' expansionism was equally revealed with respect to the Sino-Soviet border. Back in 1945, Mao Tse-tung said in the Political Report to the 7th Congress of the CPC that ``the Soviet Union was the first country to renounce unequal treaties and sign new, equal treaties with China".^^2^^ From this statement it followed that relations between the USSR and China were based on justice and equality, and that there were no outstanding issues, including border issues between the two countries. However, very _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China, London, 1968, p. 443.
~^^2^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, London, 1956, p. 302.
88 soon Mao ``discovered'' some ``outstanding'' territorial problems between the USSR and China. Beginning with 1960, the Chinese side systematically staged provocations on the Sino-Soviet border, making efforts to ``assimilate'' various parts of Soviet territory. This was followed by statements in the Chinese press alleging that the treaties defining the Sino-Soviet border were unequal,^^1^^ and that these treaties had cost China the loss of her territories. When meeting a group of Japanese socialists in 1964, Mao already put forward a whole programme of territorial claims on the Soviet Union, adding that China was yet to ``present her bill" for the vast territory lying in the Baikal-Kamchatka-Vladivostok triangle.^^2^^As a logical sequence of this there came the armed provocations staged in 1969 in the area of the Soviet island of Damansky and on other sectors of the Soviet-Chinese border.
The Chinese leaders' territorial claims on the Soviet Union demonstrate their expansionism and once again show up their Great-Han chauvinistic and hegemonistic aspirations. All of this reveals the true nature of the Chinese leaders' political line and shows it to be anti-socialist. Today, their Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism is increasingly acquiring a militaristic and political tenor, acting as an accomplice of the most reactionary forces of world imperialism and the worst enemy of proletarian internationalism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jcnmin jihpao, March 8, 1963.
~^^2^^ Pravda, September 2, 1964.
[89] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ ANTITHESIS OF THE MARXISTA collection of Mao's statements on various questions, a sort of compendium of Maoist ideology, was issued in Peking in 1966 in the main languages of the world. It gives a good idea of the level and content of Maoist theoretical postulates, which the present Chinese leadership seeks to substitute for Marxism-Leninism.
Let us note that a person who is about to read Mao's Little Red Book is in for a surprise. None of the 26 sections of this ``aid'', which is declared to be a summit of revolutionary Marxism, specially deals with revolution. It does not contain such terms as ``revolutionary situation'', ``forms and methods of revolutionary struggle'', ``the theory of bourgeois-democratic revolution growing into a socialist revolution'', and so on. But there are any number of expressions dealing with war, like ``war and peace'', ``people''s war'', ``relations between officers and men'', ``relations between the army and the people'', etc.
There is good reason for this lopsided attitude to the problems of revolution. In the Little Red Book the rich and living, the many-faceted and profound doctrine of Marx and Lenin on the proletariat's revolutionary struggle has been supplanted by a primitive scheme reducing every form of struggle and Communist Parties' activity essentially to revolutionary war.
Here are some of the statements it contains.
90``War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes."^^1^^
``Every Communist must grasp the truth: 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'... .
``The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries."^^2^^
One is struck by the inflexibility and peremptory character of these formulations. If they ``hold good universally'', one may well ignore the concrete conditions, the time and place. This simplifies the theory of revolutionary struggle to the limit. At long last one has got universal means of solving all kinds of problems and resolving any contradictions: the contradictions ``between classes, nations, states, or political groups''. This means is a revolutionary war. If Mao does now and again advise the use of other means it is merely to prepare for the selfsame revolutionary war.
How, on what ground, has this distortion of Marxism arisen? Let us look above all at the period in the history of the Chinese revolution to which these quotations refer. They have been taken from Mao's works entitled ``On Protracted War'', ``War and Questions of Strategy'', ``Strategic Questions of the Revolutionary War in China'', and `` Questions of Strategy in the Guerrilla War Against the Japanese Invaders''. All these works date to the 1930s, and their titles and date explain a great deal.
The 1930s were the height of the civil war, which continued even after the Japanese imperialists attacked China. In that period, practice, life itself demanded of the progressive forces of the Chinese people, the Chinese Communists above all, that they should organise armed resistance to the invaders, and launch a nation-wide armed struggle, although judging by these same extracts, Mao was already at that time now and again giving incorrect theoretical _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-time;, p. 58.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 61--62.
91 expressions to this necessity, treating as absolutes specific propositions applicable to a given country, to a given period, and enshrining them as absolute general laws.However, in these same works of Mao's we find---and this is especially important---some understanding of the specific nature of the Chinese situation. Even at the time, Mao used to stress the specific features of China's external and domestic situation which put the CPC into an absolutely exceptional set of conditions in the struggle. He wrote: ``If one clearly understands this [that China is a semi-colony contended for by many imperialist powers---Ed.], then, first, one can understand why in China alone in the world there is such an unusual thing as a prolonged strife within the ruling classes, why the fight intensifies and expands day by day, and why no unified political power has ever come into being. Secondly, one can understand how important the peasant problem is, and consequently why rural uprisings have developed on such a nation-wide scale as at present. Thirdly, one can understand the correctness of the slogan about a workers' and peasants' democratic political power. Fourthly, one can understand another unusual thing which corresponds to and arises out of the unusual thing that in China alone in the world there is a prolonged strife within the ruling classes, and that is the existence and development of the Red Army and guerrilla troops, and, together with them, the existence and development of small Red areas that have grown amid the encirclement of the White political power (no such unusual thing is found anywhere except in China). Fifthly, one can also understand that the formation and development of the Red Army, the guerrilla units and the Red areas are the highest form of the peasant struggle under the leadership of the proletariat in semi-colonial China, the inevitable outcome of the growth of the peasant struggle in a semi-colony, and are undoubtedly the most important factors in accelerating the revolutionary upsurge throughout the country. And sixthly, one can also understand that the policy of purely mobile guerrilla-like activities cannot accomplish the task of accelerating the nation-wide revolutionary upsurge, while the kind of policies adopted by Chu Teh and Mao Tse-tung and by Fang Chih-min are undoubtedly correct---policies such as establishing base areas; building up political power according to plan, deepening 92 the agrarian revolution, and expanding the people's armed forces by developing in due order first the township Red Guards, then the local Red Army, and then a regular Red Army; and expanding political power by advancing in a series of waves, etc., etc."^^1^^
However, with the growing tendency for Peking to establish its hegemony in the international liberation movement, these indications of the specific character of the Chinese situation tended to disappear from the CPC documents. The concrete national experience was transformed into experience that ``holds good universally" in a phased manner. At first, the experience of armed struggle in China was presented as a universal means for the national liberation struggle of the peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In their statements, the Chinese leaders ever more frequently presented the Chinese revolution as the classic type of revolution for the oppressed countries, and all the three continents (without consideration of the differences in the concrete situation in various countries, their different levels of social development, etc.) as centres of a `` revolutionary situation" standing on the threshold of civil war.
Very soon even this was felt to be insufficient. When reprinting in 1965 Mao's article, ``Questions of Strategy in the Guerrilla War Against the Japanese Invaders'', the editors of the Hungchih declared the concrete military propositions of that period to be valid as global strategy. The same purpose was served by Lin Piao's article ``Long Live the Victory of the People's War'', which appeared the same year. It not only declared that the political and economic conditions in China and in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America were identical, it not only advocated for these countries Mao's thesis of ``setting up revolutionary base areas in the countryside and encircling the town by the village''. Mao's idea was used, you might say, also to characterise the postwar situation in the world, and the attitude of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to the countries of North America and Western Europe. The latter were declared to be the ``world town'', and Asia, Africa and Latin America, the ``world village''. Encirclement of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, London, 1954, pp. 116--17 (emphasis added---Y.K. and Y.P.).
93 town by the village was declared to be the specific feature of ``world revolution" at its present stage.^^1^^Finally, in Mao's Little Red Book, published a year later, in 1966, the operation of converting Chinese experience into universal experience was completed. There, the conclusions bearing on a definite situation in China in the 1930s and the 1940s were already presented as a universal law; various statements, taken out of historical contents, were presented as the summit of Marxist thinking, as universal truths of the epoch of the ``general collapse of imperialism and the triumph of socialism throughout the world''.
In 1936, Mao wrote: ``War, this monster of mutual slaughter among mankind, will be finally eliminated through the progress of human society, and in no distant future too. But there is only one way of eliminating it, namely, to oppose war by means of war.... A war ... will form a bridge leading world history into a new era."^^2^^
That was said a long time ago, in a period when the German, Italian and Japanese imperialists were starting the Second World War on the fields of Europe, Africa and Asia, and the rigidity and peremptory character of the formulation could have been ascribed to the requirements of the concrete situation, of the concrete historical epoch. However, this has been reprinted and declared to be the greatest and, what is more, universal truth in our day. From this it follows (and the Peking propagandists have said as much) that thermonuclear war may be fought by means of thermonuclear war itself. From this it follows that thermonuclear war is the bridge leading to mankind's radiant future. But if it is a bridge, it is one which is made up of corpses, and one leading to the burial ground of mankind's civilisation. Summing up the practice of the 1930s and the 1940s, Mao declared: ``As we are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not desire war; but war can only be abolished through war; in order to get rid of the gun we must first grasp it in our hand."^^3^^ In order to get rid of thermonuclear arms we must first grasp them in our hand, seems to be the message of this idea today.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, September 3. 1965.
~^^2^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 179.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 273.
94In the 1930s, Mao wrote: ``Some people have waxed ironic, calling us advocates of the 'theory of almightiness of war'.. . . Indeed, we are advocates of the theory of almightiness of revolutionary war. This is not bad, this is good, this is the Marxist approach.''
One may well ask this legitimate question: what about thermonuclear war: is it, too, almighty, revolutionarycreative and therefore desirable?
Spreading the theory of the almightiness of revolutionary war, Mao assures us that this is ``not bad, this is good, this is the Marxist approach''. No, this is not the Marxist approach at all. Even revolutionary war cannot be regarded as being the sole almighty means for establishing socialism. It is inevitable only in definite conditions. The only almighty means is the active ogranisation of the revolutionary masses, the proletariat above all, flexibly adapting its tactics and forms of struggle to the changing and mobile political situation.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. On the Two Ways of SocialistThe communist movement is constantly faced with opponents on the ``Right'' and on the ``Left'' who claim to stand for socialist revolution but in fact distort its meaning. Both tend to regard relative truth as an absolute, and carry it to absurdity. They declare either of the two forms of struggle, which produces the greatest effect only in definite conditions, to be the only and unquestionably best form of struggle. Thus, the revisionists, with their slogan of ``painless progress'', insist that there is only the one---peaceful---way of transition to socialism, and it is a way which they in fact reduce to reforms, which do not go to the roots of capitalism; when confronted with armed reaction, they capitulate. On the other hand, the dogmatists, having once and for all connected revolution with revolutionary war, refused to recognise any other, peaceful forms of struggle for power, and push the people into unwarranted sacrifices and disorganise the revolutionary movement.
Let us note that the anti-Marxist attitude of the CPC leadership on the question of ways of socialist revolution 95 did not crystallise all at once. Up until mid-1963, before the CPC leadership finally broke with the decisions of the 1957 and 1960 Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, and merely spoke about a ``different reading" of them, documents issued by the CPC Central Committee contained, together with one-sided and erroneous formulations, propositions generally accepted by the Communist Parties about the need to master ``every form of struggle'', and to learn swiftly to switch from one form of struggle to another ``in accordance with the changes in the situation of such struggle''. A CPC Central Committee letter of June 14, 1963, ``Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement'', stressed that ``the Communists always prefer to make the transition to socialism by peaceful means".^^1^^ But this letter already threw the wrong light on the attitude taken by the Communist Parties to disagree with Peking. It was said that there had appeared in their ranks ``soothsayers'' who pinned their hopes on a ``peaceful transition'', men who ``started from historical idealism, obscured the basic contradictions of capitalist society, rejected the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the class struggle and erected their own subjectivist propositions".^^2^^
Subsequently, an open attempt to revise the basic propositions of the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement was made in the well-known editorial articles published from September 6, 1963 to March 31, 1964. The last of the eight articles dealt specifically with the question of the so-called peaceful transition. Intending to talk to the ``revisionists'' in ``much clearer language than before'', its authors left virtually nothing at all of the statements contained earlier in CPC Central Committee documents about the diversity of forms of proletarian struggle. The same ``violent revolution is the universal law of proletarian revolution" was proclaimed to be the only Marxist approach. The article explained: ``Marxism openly declares the inevitability of violent revolution. It says that violent revolution is the midwife without whom no socialist society is born, that it is the inevitable way of supplanting the bourgeois dictatorship by the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 17, 1963.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
96 proletarian dictatorship, the universal law of proletarian revolution."^^1^^By repeating that the Marxist classics had regarded violence as the midwife of the new society, the Chinese leaders try to present themselves as consistent Marxists. Indeed, Marx and Engels did say that revolutionary violence was the midwife of the new society, but what they meant was social violence, social revolution, which is far from always being identical with war. Generally speaking, the substance of socialist, proletarian revolution consists not only, and not so much, in violence or coercion, as in the creative construction of the new society (the prevalence of violent forms and methods of struggle usually marks the early stages of a social revolution). Lenin wrote: ``There is no doubt that without this, without revolutionary violence, the proletariat could not have triumphed. Nor can there be any doubt that revolutionary violence was a necessary and legitimate weapon of the revolution only at definite stages of its development, only under definite and special conditions, and that a far more profound and permanent feature of this revolution and condition of its victory was, and remains, the organisation of the proletarian masses, the organisation of the working people. And it is this organisation of millions of working people that constitutes the best stimulant for the revolution, its deepest source of victory."^^2^^
Furthermore, in the course of a proletarian revolution there does indeed occur elimination of the exploiting classes, the ``expropriation of the expropriators'', that is, the application of violence to a handful of oppressors, but the social demise of the bourgeois class or of the class of landowners is not the same thing as the physical destruction of persons belonging to these classes. The proletariat gives freedom and the right to work to those who come from the exploiting classes but who refuse to resist the socialist transformations and express their desire to co-operate with the new power.
Finally, revolution is always violence and social coercion (on this point there can be no misunderstanding), but it does not always involve the use of armed force. It is correct, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jcumin ji//jjai>, March 31, 1964.
^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, pp. 89--90.
97 therefore, to speak not of some kind of ``peaceful transition" and violent proletarian revolution, and to contrast these two concepts, but of the peaceful and non-peaceful ways of socialist revolution. The revolution runs a peaceful course when it does not involve an armed uprising, civil war or the armed export of counter-revolution; it runs a non-peaceful way whenever any of these elements (or all three together, as was the case, for instance, during the socialist revolution in Russia) are present in it.The author of the Jenmin jihpao article of March 31, 1964, made known the theses which the CPC delegation set up in contrast to the CPSU's attitude at the 1957 Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties. He wrote: ``Starting from tactical considerations, it is useful to express a desire for peaceful transition, but there should be no excessive accent on the possibility of peaceful transition, it is always necessary to be ready to give a rebuff to the attacks of counterrevolution, it is necessary to be prepared for the revolution at the decisive moment of taking power by the working class to overthrow the bourgeoisie by means of armed force, if it resorts to armed force to suppress the people's revolution (which is, as a rule, inevitable)."^^1^^
No Communist has ever doubted the need to use arms to beat back the counter-revolution when it resorts to ``armed force to suppress the people's revolution''. But the Communists have never used the recognition of the peaceful as well as the non-peaceful way of socialist revolution as a kind of tactical ploy or a propaganda slogan which merely serves to cover up preparations for the almost always ``inevitable'' forms of armed struggle. For the Communists, this question of the way the revolution is to run has always been one of real political tactics and strategy. Moreover, this question of the peaceful and the non-peaceful ways of revolution has been and continues to be one of the Communist Parties' humanistic world outlook.
Let us stress that the question of the real implementation of the ideas of the socialist revolution's peaceful way is a most complex one. The Communist Parties of a number of advanced capitalist countries seek to its solution through so-called structural reforms in capitalist society, by making _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, March 31, 1964 (emphasis added---Y.K. and Y.P.).
98 use of the traditional democratic institutions existing in these countries.It is, in fact, the failure to understand this attitude and the denial of the possibility of there being different forms of social coercion, and of the need to use and combine different forms of political struggle that is the characteristic feature of the ``directive'' Jenmin jihpao article examined above, for its purpose is to revise the agreed documents of the international communist movement and to substitute onesided dogmatic propositions for the dialectical Marxist-- Leninist ones. The article says, among other things: ``The documents of the Meetings, in particular, contain the assertion that there is a possibility in some capitalist countries of winning state power without civil war, although they also say that the ruling classes never give up power of their own accord; they contain the assertion that there is a possibility of winning a solid majority in parliament and converting parliament into an instrument serving the working people, although they also point to the need to carry on extensive and massive extra-parliamentary struggle and to break down the resistance of the reactionary forces; they do not accentuate the fact that violent revolution is a universal law, although peaceful transition is mentioned."^^1^^
The Maoists have essentially distorted the idea of the possibility of peaceful transition to socialism which the Communist Parties advocate. A peaceful victory for the socialist revolution is not at all equivalent to denying the use of force in the struggle, nor does the idea of a peaceful way amount to a mere use of bourgeois legalism. When, say, the Communists seek to make parliament serve the people and to fill it with new content, they have in mind not only the battles which are fought at the polls and not only parliamentary debates, but above all the winning by the working class of a parliamentary majority through the broadest revolutionary action of the masses. The revolution develops both ``from above" and ``from below''. Massive extra-parliamentary struggle is the rock bottom foundation lor truly democratic activity by members of parliament and the condition for parliament progressively playing an ever greater part in the country's social life.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, March 31, 1964.
99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1972/CMTTC290/20070510/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.09) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+``The proletarian party must in no instance base its ideological propositions, its revolutionary line and the whole of its work on the assumption that the imperialists and the reactionaries will agree to peaceful change,"^^1^^ the CPC leaders warned the Communist Parties which recognise the real possibilities not only of an armed but also of a peaceful way for the revolution. But recognition by the Communist Parties of the possibility of peaceful transition to socialism does not at all imply voluntary abandonment by the exploiting classes of their power, their property or their privileges. In this sense, no deep-going social revolution is conceivable without the organisation of massive political action, without the use of coercive measures with respect to the exploiters, and without the establishment of a dictatorship of the revolutionary classes. Let us add, too, that there has never been any ``purely'' peaceful or non-peaceful revolution in history in any period. In actual fact there is always a prevalent, predominant tendency which makes its way across the other tendencies. These may pass into one another in the most diverse combinations. Which means of struggle is best and in which conditions? Is it guerrilla warfare? Is it a general political strike? Is it an electoral campaign? Is it an armed uprising in town or country? How are these different means to be combined with each other? To obtain the answers to these questions there is need again and again to look at the aggregation of internal and external factors, which, by the way, keep constantly changing, or, as Lenin said, there is need for concrete analysis of the concrete situation.
Today, there are over 100 countries which have still to travel the way to socialism. In any of these there may arise and be realised the most diverse tendencies in the most different ``proportions''. The history of each nation has national and international features, the specific and the general, the former being unique and the latter occurring everywhere. Coming revolutions will have the great advantage over earlier revolutions in that they will have the opportunity to take account of all their pluses and minuses. The Communists believe that the growing variety of forms in the struggle for socialism is evidence of its viability, and is in a sense an earnest of its triumph.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 17, 19G3.
100The 1969 International Meeting of Communists in Moscow stressed this point once again when it said: ``The Communist and Workers' Parties are conducting their activity in diverse, specific conditions, requiring an appropriate approach to the solution of concrete problems. Each Party, guided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism and in keeping with concrete national conditions, fully independently elaborates its own policy, determines the directions, forms and methods of struggle, and, depending on the circumstances, chooses the peaceful or non-peaceful way of transition to socialism.''^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Peaceful Coexistence of the Two SystemsToday, it is impossible, more so than at any other period, to consider the revolutionary movement in individual countries outside the context of international events and of the world-wide struggle between the two systems. That is why the problem of ``peaceful coexistence and the class struggle" has become one of the central ones in the present-day ideological struggle between the Marxists and their ideological adversaries.
The line of peaceful coexistence between the two systems, for which the Communists stand, is based on the theory of socialist revolution. During the First World War, Lenin gave theoretical proof, and historical practice has confirmed this, that socialist revolution cannot win out simultaneously in all the capitalist countries. After the revolution wins out initially in one or several countries, the imperialist camp, with great economic, political and military strength, will be in existence over a whole historical epoch, which means that two fundamentally different social systems will exist side by side. The struggle between them is inevitable, but the forms of this struggle are not hard and fast, but are determined by the arrangement and balance of forces at every given period; thus, in the early years and decades of the world's first and _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1<HH), p. 37 (emphasis added.---Y.K. and Y.I'.).
101 only Soviet socialist republic its peaceful coexistence together with the imperialist states was virtually inconceivable for any considerable length of time, because the capitalists did not stop trying to destroy it by means of armed intervention; however, as the strength of the socialist state grew and a whole system of socialist countries emerged such attempts became in effect quite hopeless; imperialism was forced to accept the existence of a hostile social system and to abandon the idea of resorting to war as a means of resolving the contradictions between the two systems. Coexistence of the two opposite systems over a long period became historical reality and the struggle between them moved mainly into political, economic and ideological spheres.Why can and must there be peaceful coexistence between the two systems, between states with opposite social systems, but not between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the people and the reactionaries of a given capitalist country? In present-day conditions, peaceful coexistence is a necessity first of all because if mankind wants to live and develop it has no other alternative, considering the vast and ever growing force of nuclear and other modern weapons. Peaceful coexistence is now a possibility above all because the joint strength of the working people of all the world, the strength of international communism, the strength of the socialist countries, the strength of the Soviet Union is now no longer inferior to that of the international bourgeoisie. Relying on its ever growing economic, political and military might, the proletarian states confront the bourgeois states.
Relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries are quite another matter. There, the proletariat is not equal in any respect, and has no positions in the economy, politics or ideology which would be equivalent to those of the bourgeoisie. There we find a ceaseless struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, a struggle between the exploiters and the exploited, a struggle which rules out ``peaceful coexistence''.
However, let us stress once again that the peaceful coexistence of states is merely a specific form of class struggle in which the outcome is for one of the systems in the competition to show its decisive superiority in meeting the basic interests of the people. This specific form of class struggle exerts a tremendous influence on the course of the class 102 struggle in the individual countries, and that is something that Maoists fail to understand.
A collection of their programme articles entitled Long Live Leninism (1960) contained the assertion that ``the peaceful coexistence of different states and people's revolutions in different countries are essentially two different things and not one thing, two concepts and not one concept, questions of two types and not of one.... What the transition will be, whether it will take the form of armed uprising or will run a peaceful course^^1^^---that is a totally different question which is basically distinct from the question of peaceful coexistence between the socialist and the capitalist countries. It is an internal question in each country which can be settled only depending on the balance of class forces in a given country at a given period. That is a question only the Communists of each country themselves can decide."^^2^^
It is not right to identify different types of liberation movement, different forms of class struggle---international and internal---all that is elementary Marxism. But is it right to contrast them absolutely as this is being done in the above and similar passages? The CPC leaders refuse to see the real interconnection between the class struggle as it proceeds in the international arena and within each individual country.
Indeed, although there is not always a direct interconnection between relaxation of international tensions and the heat of the class battles in the capitalist countries, there is no doubt at all that any detente markedly facilitates the solution of the social tasks which have matured there. What is the result of every success scored by the policy of peaceful coexistence? It is the earliest realisation of the creative plans of the countries in the socialist system, and a growing influence of socialist ideas on the working people in the capitalist countries. This policy exposes the essence of capitalist exploitation, because the bourgeoisie finds it harder to evade the solution of internal problems by referring to a mythical ``external'' threat. This policy opens up the prospects for more effective struggle against militarism, the mainstay of international and domestic reaction, and ties the hands of _-_-_
^^1^^ The CPC leadership's documents dating to the early 1960s still nominally recognised the peaceful way of the socialist revolution together with the non-peaceful way.
~^^2^^ Long Live Leninism, Peking, 1960, pp. 35, 47 (in Chinese).
103 those who want to export counter-revolution. That is precisely what the aggressive circles of the imperialist bourgeoisie fear, and that is why they have been trying so hard to keep any form of ``cold war" simmering in the international arena.Being unable to refute clear-cut and unequivocal propositions of Lenin's doctrine of peaceful coexistence the CPC leaders usually resort to slander and gross distortions of the stand taken by their opponents. They assert that peaceful coexistence, which the Communists stand for, ``meets the needs of imperialism and plays into the hands of the imperialist policy of aggression and war'', ``signifies a substitution for the class struggle of class collaboration on a world scale ... substitution of pacifism and an abandonment of proletarian internationalism for the proletarian revolution".^^1^^ They add: ``It is quite wrong to extend peaceful coexistence to relations between oppressed and oppressor classes, between oppressed and oppressor nations, to impose the policy of peaceful coexistence pursued by the socialist countries on the Communist Parties of the capitalist world, or to try to subordinate to this policy the revolutionary struggle of oppressed peoples and nations."^^2^^
But the Communists have always insisted that peaceful coexistence only extends to the sphere of interstate relations and does not in any sense mean an end to the struggle of the capitalist-oppressed classes for their social emancipation, an end to the struggle of oppressed nations for their national liberation, or any relaxation of the ideological struggle between communism and anti-communism. This was forcefully re-emphasised by the International Meeting of Communists in 1969 who declared: ``The policy of peaceful coexistence does not contradict the right of any oppressed people to fight for its liberation by any means it considers necessary---armed or peaceful. This policy in no way signifies support for reactionary regimes.... This policy does not imply either the preservation of the socio-political status quo or a weakening of the ideological struggle."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, December 12, 1963.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 31 (emphasis added---Y.K. and Y.P.).
104But an analysis of the CPC leadership's actual policy suggests that these phrases are part of the old ``tactical considerations" attitude, and amount to no more than sheer propaganda, like the slogan about the possibility of the revolution running a peaceful way.
In early March 1959, Mao said in a confidential talk he had with representatives of a number of Latin American Communist and Workers' Parties that ``if there is international tension Communist Parties will grow more quickly, the rate of their development will be more rapid".^^1^^ Let us add that the Chinese leaders do not confine themselves to words alone. They have tried to create conflicts on China's borders with other countries, they have opposed the steps taken by the Soviet Union to eliminate tension in the Caribbean Sea and in the Middle East, and have long opposed any political settlement of the Vietnam conflict. Just recently, the Chinese leaders have been spreading wild ideas about a military threat to China on the part of ``social-- imperialism" (as the Soviet Union and socialist countries friendly to it are now being designated in Peking). Here are some of the slogans Radio Peking has been broadcasting all over the world, which come from the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC: ``We must be fully prepared'', ``we must be ready for their starting a large-scale war'', ``we must be ready for their starting a war in the near future'', ``we must be ready for their starting a war with the use of conventional weapons, and must also be ready for their starting a large-scale nuclear war''. Up to now, Peking has substituted for the clear-cut propositions of Lenin's doctrine of peaceful coexistence sayings which date to the epoch of the Chinese emperors and mandarins, as for instance, ``the state flourishes in difficulties'', ``the state is destroyed unless it is faced with an external threat on the part of an enemy's state".^^2^^
For all practical purposes, in international affairs the Chinese leaders have long since taken for their guide this simple rule: ``the worse---the better'', thereby objectively taking the attitude of splitting the united anti-imperialist camp and encouraging imperialism in its foreign-policy gambles.
_-_-_^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 1964, p. 56.
~^^2^^ Jenmin jih/xio, January 30, 1965.
105Naturally, this policy arouses indignation of all progressive public opinion. This being the case, the Maoists have taken up the slogan of peaceful coexistence. Whereas in the recent past they did not even want to hear about peaceful coexistence, now they do all they can to prove their adherence to it. But they use this slogan for chauvinistic purposes. Although professing support for peaceful coexistence with all countries, they in the first place appeal to imperialist powers due to the general reorientation of China's foreign policy. While struggling against the socialist community and exacerbating their relations with Asian neighbour countries (Sino-Indian relations are a typical example in this respect), the Maoists are greatly interested in better relations with imperialist countries. Hence their appeals to the USA, Britain and other countries that their relations with them should be based on the principles of peaceful coexistence. Thus the slogan of peaceful coexistence is used by the Maoists for tactical purposes prompted as they are by their chauvinistic interests and the desire to mask the anti-socialist nature of their foreign policy.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. ``World Revolution'' and WorldLet us recall that the concept of world revolutionary process, which is accepted by the Communist Parties, establishes the general content of our epoch as an epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism and also implies recognition of the qualitative diversity of the progressive liberation movements proceeding throughout the world (proletarian revolutions, bourgeois-democratic revolutions, national liberation revolutions, general democratic struggle in the countries of monopoly capital, anti-fascist struggle in the countries with fascist and semi-fascist regimes, and other types of movements). Furthermore, this concept implies recognition not only of definite general laws governing socialist construction in countries where the proletarian revolution has triumphed but also a diversity of forms of the socialist reconstruction that is taking place in these countries, forms which are determined by the economic, political and cultural levels 106 attained, forms which accord with the historical, national traditions in each country. Finally, the concept of world revolutionary process implies a definite duration of the renovation movement which is inexorably running in every part of the globe and which is ultimately to put an end to the epoch of oppression, violence and war.
In contrast to this realistic concept, which takes account of all the diversity, complexity, qualitative distinctions, and definite difficulties in revolutionary processes and the possibility not only of advances but also of temporary retreats, of zigzag courses, the Chinese leaders have long been spreading among the people illusory and essentially mythical notions about the events taking place in the world outside China.
Thus, the deepening crisis of US imperialist policy has been presented in this vulgarised and caricatured form: ``US imperialism, this arch-enemy of the peoples of the world, is steadily plunging downwards. Once in office, Nixon took over an economy bursting at the seams, faced an insoluble economic crisis, and tremendous resistance from the peoples of the whole world and the masses of people at home, and found himself in a difficult situation, in which there is complete confusion among the imperialist countries while the rod of US imperialism has been steadily losing its force.'' It is true that it has at his command ``vast quantities of planes and guns, nuclear bombs and guided missiles'', but the use of these can result in only one thing: it can cause ``an even broader revolution throughout the world''. One would expect such statements to come from a mediocre propagandist, but these happen to be theoretical disquisitions from the report at the 9th Congress of the CPC. To these `` conclusions" were added wild ideas about the whole world soon becoming a field of application for the selfsame ideas of the ``great Mao''. The new Rules adopted by the 9th Congress, for instance, declare: ``Mao Tse-tung thought is the MarxismLeninism of an epoch in which imperialism is moving to a general collapse, and socialism to victory all over the world.''
The myth of an almost imminent ``general collapse" of imperialism and of ``revisionism'', and of the triumphant advance of the ``world revolution" in every part of the world was undoubtedly of some propaganda importance at home, being designed to leave the Chinese people with the 107 impression that the difficulties faced by the Chinese People's Republic do not in any sense spring from the leadership's fatal policies but from the incompleteness of international revolutionary processes and that these difficulties will be overcome only after the revolution triumphs in the international arena, and that this will be done overnight, in one great leap. Let us note that these attempts to make success in socialist construction in China directly dependent on successes of the ``world revolution'', the attempts to prove that the internal problems of the Chinese revolution cannot be solved without a solution of international problems, without a ``world-wide'' defeat for imperialism, were first made precisely towards the end of the 1950s, following the failure of the ``Great Leap Forward" which was to have ``introduced'' communism in China within a matter of three or five years.^^1^^
However, it would be wrong to reduce the ``world revolution" slogan only to an urge on the part of the Chinese leaders to evade responsibility for their failures in domestic policy and to put the blame for the delay in China's socialist construction on other Communist Parties. The facts show that from the end of the 1950s, the Chinese leadership did indeed try to replace the policy of peaceful coexistence with a policy of ``cold'' (and not only ``cold'') war, attempting to push the socialist camp into a military overnight solution of contradictions between the two systems. And the greatest danger is that the future victory of socialism over imperialism was even then connected with the prospect of a world thermonuclear war.
At the 1957 Moscow Meeting, Mao argued that a world thermonuclear war could be a real way for socialism's future victory over imperialism. He reasoned: ``Is it possible to estimate the number of human victims a future war could cause? Yes, it is, it will perhaps be one-third of the 2,700 million population of the whole world, that is, only 900 million people----I argued over the issue with Nehru. In this respect he is more pessimistic than I am. I told him that if one-half of mankind were destroyed, there would still remain the other half, but then imperialism would be completely wiped out and only socialism would remain all over the world, and that within half a century or a full century _-_-_
~^^1^^ China Today, Moscow, 1969, p. 31.
108 the population will once again increase even more than by half as much again.''When spokesmen for relatively small nations expressed legitimate fears over such prognostications, because their nations could be totally wiped out in a thermonuclear war, Chinese officials assuaged their fears by saying: ``In the event of a devastating war, the small countries would have to subordinate their interests to the common interests.'' Or: ``But the other nations would remain, while imperialism would be destroyed.''
The Soviet Government, expressing the interest and the will of the Soviet people and standing up for the interests of the peoples of the other countries, including the peoples of China, issued a clear and unequivocal statement over such irresponsible and inhuman ``prognostications''. It declared: ``But has anyone asked the Chinese people who are being doomed to death in advance about whether they agree to be the firewood in the furnace of a nuclear missile war; have they empowered the CPR leadership to issue their burial certificates in advance?
``Another question also arises. If, according to the Chinese leaders' forecasts, roughly one-half of the population of such a big country as China is destroyed in a thermonuclear war, how many men will die in countries whose populations do not run to hundreds of millions but to tens or to simply millions of people? It is, after all, quite obvious that many countries and peoples would find themselves entirely within that half of mankind which the Chinese leaders are prepared to scrap from the human race. Who then has given the Chinese leaders the right to make free with these people's destinies or to speak on their behalf?
``Who has given the Chinese leaders the right to denigrate the ultimate goal of the international working-class movement---the triumph of labour over capital---by making assertions that the way to it runs through world thermonuclear war and that it is worth sacrificing one-half of the globe's population in order to build a higher civilisation on the corpses and ruins? This conception has nothing in common with Marxist-Leninist doctrine. We oppose this bestial conception. We have carried on and are carrying on a tireless struggle for the triumph of Marxist-Leninist ideas, for the emancipation of the peoples from all exploitation and 109 oppression, and for the triumph of labour over capital, with the use of methods which are worthy of the great humanistic ideals of socialism and communism."^^1^^
On the one hand, their attitude is characterised by an underestimation of the monstrously devastating force of thermonuclear (and other) modern weapons, an underestimation which has its classic expression in the notorious Maoist slogan: ``The atomic bomb is a paper tiger.'' In his well-known interview with Edgar Snow, Mao spoke of modern weapons with extreme scorn. He said that `` Americans also had said very much about the destructiveness of the atom bomb, and that Khrushchev had made a big noise about that.. . . Yet recently he had read reports of an investigation by Americans who had visited the Bikini Islands six years after the nuclear tests had been conducted there. From 1959 onward research workers had been on Bikini. When they first entered the island they had had to cut paths through the undergrowth. They had found mice scampering about and fish swimming in the stream as usual. The wellwater was potable, plantation foliage was flourishing and birds were twittering in the trees. Probably there had been two bad years after the tests, but nature had gone on. In the eyes of nature and the birds, the mice and the trees the atom bomb was a paper tiger. Possibly man had less stamina than they?''^^2^^
On the other hand, the Maoists have underestimated the strength of the united forces of peace and socialism standing in the way of thermonuclear war, and have in effect been spreading the fatalistic idea that another world-wide conflict is inevitable because the future of war and peace, they insist, is in the hands of the imperialists alone.
The collection Long Live Leninism insisted that ``whether the imperialists ultimately start a war does not depend on us, for we are not the chiefs of the imperialists' general staffs"^^3^^ A CPC Central Committee's letter of June 14, 1963, says that it is an ``absolutely vain illusion" to hope to avert wars. When it comes to world wars, the Maoists use only words like ``always'' and ``inevitably''. To create the impression that on this question the present Chinese leadership take _-_-_
~^^1^^ ``Soviet Government's Statement'', Pravda, August 21, 19G3.
~^^2^^ Maoism Through the Eyes of Communists, Moscow, 1970, p. 134.
~^^3^^ Long Live Leninism, p. 23.
110 a Marxist stand, while their opponents pursue a revisionist line, they present quotations from Lenin without considering the actual epoch in which he made the statement. Imperialism is latent with war: from this truth, Mao's followers draw the conclusion that another world war is inevitable.In contrast to the CPC leaders, Marxists-Leninists do not believe that the possibility of world war is equivalent to an inevitability. Although the nature of imperialism has not changed, it is no longer able to dictate its will to the peoples of the world, because the sphere of its activity has been narrowed down and the scale of its influence has been reduced. Imperialism is the soil for aggressive wars, but to prevent a third world war from growing on this soil there is need for definite conditions which may or may not materialise, that is, there is need for a balance of forces within the individual countries and in the world arena favouring the start of a war. It is the task of the popular movement for peace and against war to make these conditions as unfavourable as possible. The Document of the 1969 Meeting of the Communists of the world declared once again that ``a new world war can be averted by the combined effort of the socialist countries, the international working class, the national liberation movement, all peace-loving countries, public organisations and mass movements".^^1^^
The Chinese leaders like to repeat Marx's words about ideas becoming a material force when they get hold of the masses. Radio Peking often starts its broadcasts by quoting Mao as saying that the ``people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history".^^2^^ ``The Chinese people and all the revolutionary peoples of the world" constituting, according to Chinese propaganda estimates, over 90 per cent of the population of the globe, are capable of performing all sorts of miracles, except one---to prevent another world war. Isn't this a rather curious line to take for those who insist that the peoples are all-powerful?
Actually, however, in the present epoch the question of a war depends above all on the joint efforts of the progressive anti-imperialist, anti-war forces. The truth must be faced; it is precisely the splitting policy of the Chinese _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1069, p. 31.
~^^2^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao `I'sc-luiig, p. IIS.
111 leadership, which weakens the united front in the struggle for peace, that is untying the hands of the ``chiefs of the imperialists' general staffs''.It is true that just recently this idea of the inevitability of another world war has been expressed in more veiled formulations. The report to the 9th CPC Congress contains Mao's ``latest'' precept on this score: ``As for the question of world war, there are only two possibilities: either war will cause revolution, or revolution will avert war.'' But `` dialectical" juggling with slogans like the one about ``either war causing revolution or revolution averting war'', may confuse only those who have lost the ability of getting through to the real meaning of deceptively sonorous phrases, those who have lost their sense of historical reality. The point is that war---and what the Chinese leaders have in mind is a world thermonuclear war---is capable rather not of producing ``world-wide revolution'', but interrupting for many decades any continuation of social and even of simple biological life in the most developed countries of the world. On the other hand, by insisting that ``revolution will avert war'', the CPC leaders deprive the Marxist-Leninist concept of ``social revolution" of its rich and highly diverse content, reduce the revolutionary process to extreme forms of armed struggle or even to Blanquist armed putsches, thereby scrapping the importance of general democratic struggle for peace. In either case they betray the very substance of the MarxistLeninist revolutionary doctrine, whose precepts are the relentlessly sober approach and realism in assessing the concrete historical conditions of the class struggle, on the one hand, and on the other, a choice of means and ways of political action which are most favourable in the light of social progress and the interests of the working classes.
The reckless and irresponsible arithmetical exercises about the future destruction of one-third or one-half of mankind (and who can guarantee that these figures will not actually increase to nine-tenths or even ten-tenths?), like the falsely optimistic predictions that after an ``anti-imperialist'' thermonuclear war the ``triumphant people will very rapidly create on the ruins of destroyed imperialism a civilisation a thousand times higher than that under the capitalist system, and will build its own, truly beautiful future'',^^1^^ have nothing _-_-_
~^^1^^ Long Live Leninism, p. 23.
112 in common with the Marxist doctrine of war and revolution and its application in the conditions of the present epoch.In 1918 Lenin said that back in the 1880s the leaders of the international proletariat ``with extreme caution" treated the prospect of socialism growing out of an all-European war, for they clearly realised that such a war ``would also lead to the brutalisation, degradation and retrogression of the whole of Europe".^^1^^ Summing up the sanguinary experience of the First World War, Lenin anticipated the threat that this kind of conflict ``might undermine the very foundations of human society. Because it is the first time in history that the most powerful achievements of technology have been applied on such a scale, so destructively and with such energy, for the annihilation of millions of human lives. When all means of production are being thus devoted to the service of war, we see that the most gloomy prophecies are being fulfilled, and that more and more countries are falling a prey to retrogression, starvation and complete decline of all the productive forces".^^2^^ These words become a hundred times more meaningful under the present military-technological revolution, which involves a great advance in destructive weapons fraught with the possibility of catastrophic consequences.
The Communists are convinced that imperialism is bound to be destroyed and that the forces of progress will do away with the world of violence, oppression, and wars, however protracted and hard their struggle may be. But the Communists have been doing their utmost to have all the nations and all the peoples share the joys of this victory, and to have this victory secured by mankind at the lowest costs in terms of sacrifices, so that men are spared the horrors of a world thermonuclear war.
Let us recall, that the aim Marx set himself in his Capital was to discover and analyse the laws of social development, whose knowledge could help to reduce and ease the birth pangs of the new social system. The Peking leaders have taken as their basis the very opposite proposition: to increase and to sharpen the birth pangs, without ever giving a thought that this kind of ``midwifery'' could well transform the pangs of birth into the agony of death. Incidentally, the ``great Mao`s' latest precepts hold in store for the Chinese people _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 422.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
__PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---1362 113 not just war, but a war with a lethal outcome. Editorials in Jenmin jihpao, Chiefangchiun pao and Hungchih have been widely circulating the following statement by Mao Tse-tung: ``I favour this slogan: 'fear no difficulties, fear no death'.'' That is the logical capstone to the earlier conclusion that the ``world can be rebuilt only with the aid of a gun'', that war is the ``bridge'' along which mankind will move into a future world without wars, etc.Although in recent times Chinese propagandists have somehow toned down the thesis about the inevitability of a new world war and ever more often make statements to the effect that China favours peaceful coexistence, Peking keeps opposing the adoption of any practical measures aimed at solving acute problems and easing tensions. Proof of this is its attitude to the war in Indochina, its policy in the Middle East and its attempts to provoke a new conflict there. The true designs of Chinese statesmen are seen in their deep disappointment over the signing of treaties between the USSR and the FRG and between Poland and the FRG, over the signing of a quadripartite agreement on West Berlin, and in their desire to prevent the convocation of a conference on European security. Peking has pleaded against the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear arms, rejected the treaty banning the placing of mass destruction weapons on the seabed, and declined the Soviet proposal to hold a conference of the five nuclear powers to consider problems of nuclear disarmament. At the 26th UN General Assembly the Chinese representatives argued against the Soviet proposal to convene a world conference on disarmament and played into the hands of the US delegation. One of the chief designs of Peking today is to frustrate international detente, to create new hotbeds of war, and to provoke a missile-nuclear conflict between the USA and the USSR.
Adventurist propositions governing the foreign policy of a great power, which is in possession of thermonuclear weapons, are latent with grave consequences.
The real successes in the struggle for the triumph of socialism throughout the world will largely depend on how successfully and swiftly the world revolutionary movement is able to overcome these adventurist propositions advocated by the present CPC leadership, which is pushing mankind towards a world thermonuclear conflict.
[114] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE ATTITUDE OF MARXISM AND OF MAOISMThe grave danger of Maoism consists in its efforts to discredit the principles of socialism, and horribly to distort, twist and deform the ideals for which millions of men on the globe have been fighting.
The Maoists refuse to consider this elementary truth: the means of transformation cannot be neutral with respect to the aim of transformation, the way this or that country has to carry out the mature social revolution, for this inevitably leaves its mark on the nature of the new system that is being established. In other words, the Maoists fail to realise the simple fact that even a victorious civil war creates vast additional difficulties for further creative construction. Mao's Little Red Book says: ``Revolutionary war is an antitoxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison but also purges us of our own filth. Every just, revolutionary war is endowed with tremendous power and can transform many things or clear the way for their transformation ... and people and everything else ... will be transformed during and after the war."^^1^^
Superficially this sounds like the ideas Marx and Lenin expressed about the use of revolutionary coercion being inevitable and necessary, and about revolutionary coercive action by the masses being creative. But having declared _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, p. 61.
115 revolutionary war to be a cure-all, Mao altogether forgets about dialectics, about the fact that any phenomenon may develop into its opposite, that the antitoxin may well become (as the dividing line is obliterated and the use of violent methods is overdone) a potent toxin, a preparation that kills instead of curing.In contrast to reformism of any stripe, Marxism recognises revolutionary coercion to be inevitable and necessary for social transformations. In the society divided into antagonistic classes, the rising, progressive classes cannot avoid using force to break up the obsolete social relations and to overthrow the exploiting classes which are connected with that system and refuse to give up their interests and privileges of their own accord. This is a truth Marxism had derived from summing up past experience. Let us recall what Plekhanov once said: ``The fewer the chances a given social class or section has of maintaining its domination the more inclined it is to terroristic measures."^^1^^ Resistance by the outgoing classes inevitably makes the revolutionary classes resort to violent retaliatory measures and armed struggle.
But in contrast to all manner of Blanquist, anarchist and Trotskyite petty-bourgeois theories, Marxism does not confine itself to saying that revolutionary coercion is progressive and justified. On many occasions the founders of Marxism warned the proletariat that the use of violent means was limited and forced, and emphasised the dangers arising from the use of extreme means of struggle.
Marxism requires that a distinction should be drawn between the forms of violence and requires---and this is extremely important---that the leaders of the proletariat should keep violence down to a minimum at every stage of the struggle, and use more moderate forms of coercion whenever possible. It requires them to display skill in switching at the right time from means of violence and coercion to means of education and persuasion.
On the strength of historical experience, the Marxists regard the forms of violent action by proletarian parties above all as being dependent on the resistance put up by the overthrown classes and the ability of the masses to impose _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. V. Plekhanov, Works, Vol. IV, Moscow-Petrograd, 1923, p. 63 (in Russian).
116 their own methods and modes of struggle on the enemy. At the same time, as Marx and Lenin both pointed out, the level of the moral and intellectual development of the working class itself and its parties and leaders, and other circumstances, like the legacy of war, have a great part to play in the choice of more humane or sterner forms of revolution.^^1^^ Marx saw the political organisation of the Paris Commune type as being an organised means of proletarian action and specifically observed that ``it affords the rational medium in which that class struggle can run through its different phases in the most rational and humane way."^^2^^The experience of the Paris Commune in 1871 and of the October Socialist Revolution in 1917 showed that proletarian revolutions were initially almost totally bloodless revolutions, and that only support of the counter-revolutionary forces by interventionists (Prussians in 1871, and the Entente and the Germans in 1918--1920) enabled the overthrown classes to start sanguinary civil wars both in France and in Russia. The proletariat used more moderate means of coercion after the Second World War as bourgeois-democratic revolutions developed into socialist ones in the countries of Eastern Europe.
Consequently, to the extent that it depends on the proletarian revolutionary parties they have always preferred not to carry things to the extremes. They are aware of the simple truth, one that history has tested over and over again in numerous civil wars, that armed struggle and civil war are connected with vast losses and sufferings for the masses, with the destruction of the productive forces, with the death of the best revolutionary men, that they are connected---and this is of much importance for the prospects of the revolution---with the inevitable militarisation of the country, and the emergence of traditions and habits which may subsequently become a serious obstacle to transition to peaceful construction.
During the Civil War in Russia, Lenin repeatedly warned of the danger of the excessive enlargement of the sphere in _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, 1971, p. 9; V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 268.
^^2^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, OH the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1971, p. 156.
117 which military methods were being applied, and said that it was intolerable to use military orders in organising the working masses. He wrote: ``This is a field in which revolutionary violence and dictatorship can be applied only by way of abuse and I make bold to warn you against such abuse. Revolutionary violence and dictatorship are excellent things when applied in the right way and against the right people. But they cannot be applied in the field of organisation."^^1^^It is true that during the Civil War in Russia herself, the country's militarisation and some militarisation of organised government became inevitable. The ``war communism" of the Civil War period is known to have included the surplus food appropriation system, and the use of the Red Army units not only in military operations but also on the labour front, with some sections of production being militarised. Lenin specifically and repeatedly stressed that ``war communism" was a forced expedient caused by the Civil War and the country's extreme ruin, and that it had not been and could not be a permanent policy. After the Civil War, the Party combated attempts to continue the emergency measures longer than was necessary.
In China this historical experience of the October Revolution has been discarded. In their day-to-day political practices, the Maoists are guided by the idea that socialism should be built in the first place by means of violence and the use of armed force.
The healthy forces in the CPC, believing that it is impossible for China today to abandon the military methods of the earlier period all at once, were nevertheless fully aware of their interim nature and of their applicability only within a definite historical period and within the framework of strictly established spheres of Party and government activity. By contrast, Mao's followers put all their trust into these methods in tackling any questions, and the forms and methods of work produced during the civil war were carried over to the whole of the transition period.
The Maoists have carried out a ``militarisation'' both of town and country, spreading army rules to the Party organisations, the enterprises, the schools and the kindergartens. _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 162.
118 Relations are modelled after the army in the people's communes, the factories and plants; military orders are used to decide all questions relating to the development of production and a new system of wages has been introduced based on this principle: ``Work for the highest level in production, and maintain a low level in life''; orders, coercion and violence have become popular as a means of ``educational work" with the intelligentsia. This tendency, already fairly pronounced back in the 1950s, was carried to an extreme during the ``cultural revolution''; the violent voluntaristic measures coming from the ``top'' were backed up by stagemanaged pressure from ``below'' on the part of politically immature masses of young people who had been drugged by pseudo-Marxist catchwords; subsequently, the anarchist masses escaping from under control were kept in check by the use of army units.With the barrack-room as their ideal, the leaders of the ``cultural revolution" have no need for normally functioning democratic organs or socialist legality. No wonder then that in the course of the ``cultural revolution" central or local organs of power were disbanded, trade unions and young communist organisations were broken up and a massive purge of Party bodies carried out. The society the Maoists are trying to build up has no need either for the conscious, intelligent and well-educated man, capable of thinking for himself; no wonder the architects of the ``cultural revolution" have set themselves the task of converting the conscious citizen of socialist society into ``Chairman Mao's stainless screw''. This kind of society has no need for popular participation in elaborating socialist forms, for there everything has been provided for in advance and established by the precepts of the ``omniscient great helmsman''. The people are being induced to believe that to reach communism all one need do is obediently fulfil Mao's teachings, that only one thing is necessary, namely, that the people should become ``an army without uniform''.
``What a fine specimen of barrack-room communism!'', Marx and Engels once wrote about the well-known article of the Bakuninists entitled ``The Main Principles of the Future Social System'', which proposed that men should produce for society as much as possible and consume as little us possible, that men's activity should all be regulated, 119 including the use of dining rooms and bedrooms, and that all the functions of administration should be vested in a committee of conspirators, without any control or responsibility to anyone. ``This article shows that if mere mortals are being punished, as for a crime, for the very idea of a future organisation of society, that is because the leaders have already ordered everything beforehand."^^1^^ We wonder what Marx and Engels would have said about the principles of presentday Maoist policy, whose aim is to translate into life these monstrous principles of a reactionary utopia.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The ``State and Revolution'' ProblemThe events taking place in China have made Marxists all over the world return to the problem of ``the state and revolution'', which is central to the doctrine of Marx and Lenin.
Let us recall that Marx in the 19th century and Lenin on the eve of the 1917 Revolution believed that it was unnecessary to establish in the course of the revolution a professional apparatus of coercion and pointed to the need for the army, carrying on a war against the bourgeoisie and the landowners, to be merged with the mass of the population, with the people, to the need of officials being elected by the people, to the need for full democracy in organising production and distribution.
These ideas of the founders of Marxism rested on the experience of history, on the experience of the first proletarian state, the Paris Commune. The Commune, having done away with the police, having armed the population, and having transferred the whole executive and legislative power, all the levers of management of production into the hands of functionaries elected by the Communards or the workers of the enterprises, transformed the functions of administration into truly popular ones, and wrested them from the hands of a specially trained ruling caste isolated from the people. The whole of social life, all social relations became transparent, open and crystal-clear. Marx wrote: ``[Gone is] the delusion as if administration and political governing were _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx/F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 18, Berlin, S. 424.
120 mysteries, transcendent functions only to be trusted to the hands of a trained caste---state parasites, richly paid sycophants and sinecurists, in the higher posts, absorbing the intelligence of the masses and turning them against themselves in the lower places of the hierarchy. Doing away with the state hierarchy altogether and replacing the haughteous masters of the people by its always removable servants, a mock responsibility by a real responsibility, as they act continuously under public supervision."^^1^^However, this highly valuable practical experience of state construction under the Paris Commune was highly short-lived, this city-state lasted for only a few months and its boundaries did not extend beyond the city of Paris. What is more, the outcome of the civil war between Paris and Versailles showed that in the conditions of civil war it was precisely the various fundamentally new features of the Commune, which promised to give the new society tremendous advantages in the long-term historical prospects, that proved to be a tremendous practical shortcoming: the Commune went down, in particular, because it was unable to carry out a ruthless centralisation in the sphere of military affairs, administration and management of production. The Paris Commune on the whole failed to solve the problem of the balance between democracy and centralisation, and its shortlived experience had to be put to the test over and over again.
The October Revolution, having repeated in its initial stages the experience of its predecessor, subsequently introduced substantial additions. In order to withstand the flames of the Civil War, which proved to be a ``natural state of transition" of the proletarian revolution in one country, the Soviet power had to resort to a sharp intensification of centralism in every sphere of social life.
In the very first year of the revolution, counter-- revolutionary resistance forced the Soviet power, which at first relied on the people who were armed to a man, to set up special agencies and apparatuses of class suppression---the Red Army and the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission. Their edge was now directed against the overthrown _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1971, p. 154.
121 oppressors. This class orientation was guaranteed above all by the make-up of the leadership of the Red Army and the AllRussia Extraordinary Commission, which had recruited from the ranks of the Party its best fighters who had passed the test of revolutionary battle. However, the existence of special apparatuses of coercion was to some extent latent with dangerous tendencies and in the event of any relaxation of Party control over these agencies or in the event of any violation of the Leninist principles of democratic centralism within the Party, opened up the possibility for their abuse. It was essentially about these difficulties of the revolutionary process, the difficulties of the transition period in a country which had gone through the epoch of civil war that a warning was sounded for the Communists of all countries by the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which pointed to the connection between some aspects of the personality cult and the temporary and inevitable limitations on democracy in the course of the revolutionary process. The CPSU Central Committee resolution ``On Overcoming the Personality Cult and Its Consequences" said: ``This complicated international and internal situation required an iron discipline, tireless vigilance, and the strictest centralisation of leadership, and this necessarily had a negative effect on the development of some democratic forms. In the course of fierce struggle against the whole world of imperialism our country had to make some limitations of democracy, which were justified by the logic of our people's struggle for socialism in conditions of the capitalist encirclement. But even at the time, these limitations were already regarded by the Party and the people as being temporary, and as being subject to elimination as the Soviet state was consolidated and the forces of democracy and socialism throughout the world developed."^^1^^The Chinese leaders, carrying out their transformations of the transition period in more favourable international conditions, had every possibility of taking account of the experience of socialist construction in the USSR.
The CPC leaders tried to do this directly after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, as will be seen from the decisions _-_-_
~^^1^^ Questions of Ideological Work, Moscow, 19G1, pp. 83--84 (in Russian).
122 of the 8th Congress of the CPC. Speaking on behalf of the Central Committee in a report on changes of the Party's Rules, the former CPC General Secretary Teng Hsiao-ping gave a high assessment to the 20th Congress of the CPSU and condemned the personality cult. He said: ``An important achievement of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lies in the fact that it showed us what serious consequences can follow from the deification of the individual. Our Party has always held that no political parties and no individuals are free from flaws and mistakes in their activities, and this has now been written into the General Programme of the draft constitution of our Party. For the same reason, our Party abhors the deification of the individual."^^1^^ Today the documents of the 8th Congress, adopted collectively and in approval of the line of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, have been discarded by Mao and his associates. The ``great Mao's'' formulas have been substituted for the Marxist doctrine of the state and revolution. The precepts of the founders of Marxism and the whole of historical experience gained by the world communist movement has been forgotten.Mao's Little Red Book said: ``Every Communist must grasp the truth: political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."^^2^^ There is some truth in this, but not the whole truth. In the course of the proletarian revolution the gun does not merely produce power, but military-revolutionary power. In the flames of the civil war, which the overthrown exploiting classes impose on the classes rising up against the exploiters, the revolutionary forces have to resort mainly to violence and coercion, when everything is decided by orders ``from above'', by military orders. Following its victory over the armed counter-revolution, the proletarian revolution ( especially a proletarian revolution winning out in a backward, petty-bourgeois country) faces long years of struggle against sabotage, dislocation and the ignorance and inertness of millions of people. In this period, it is inevitable that the old agencies and some of the old methods of struggle are maintained. But it would be a bad mistake to see violent _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Documents, Vol. I, Peking, 1956, p. 200.
~^^2^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, p. 61.
123 military methods alone as providing the key to a solution of all the problems and tasks of the transition period.The Party directing the transformative socialist process must modify its methods of struggle as the situation changes, and this means above all its own organisation and the organisation of the whole government machine. Thus, in the early years of the Soviet Republic, the Civil War conditions did little to help develop the principles of inner-Party democracy at every level of the Party organism. On the whole, both the form of organisation and the methods of work were necessarily determined by the concrete historical situation and the task of organising resistance against the interventionists and the whiteguards. The Resolution of the 10th Congress of the RCP(B) said: ``Accordingly, the Party's organisational form was inevitably to be in that period a militarisation of the Party organisation. Just as the form of proletarian dictatorship assumed the nature of militaryproletarian dictatorship, so the form of Party organisation has assumed---and from the standpoint of revolutionary purpose, inevitably had to assume in such conditions---a corresponding character. This was on the whole expressed in an extreme organisational centralism and a fold-up of the collective organs of Party organisation."^^1^^
With the end of the Civil War and the entry upon the period of peaceful construction there necessarily appeared some contradictions between the Party's forms of organisation and methods of work on the one hand, and on the other, the tasks of educating the broadest masses of Party members in a spirit of initiative and active solution of all the questions of Party life. These contradictions were already brought out by the 10th Congress of the RCP(B), whose Resolution also outlined ways of doing away with them.
After the Civil War, the forms of organisation of the socialist state were bound to be modified in various ways: ``the military-proletarian dictatorship" gradually lost its features of a militarised and extremely centralised apparatus. The transition period is simultaneously a period in which the remnants of the hostile classes are being eliminated, in which their resistance is overcome, and a period in which millions _-_-_
~^^1^^ Tenth Congress of the RCP(B). Verbatim Report, Moscow, 1963, p. 560 (in Russian).
124 of working people develop and are involved in the cause of socialism, a period in which the new proletarian democracy, the new socialist legality is established and consolidated, a period in which the state machine, adapted to the Civil War conditions, is improved and restructured. Without all this, it is impossible for the socialist revolution to advance.Let us stress that centralised power which is built up in the process of revolutionary struggle is simultaneously a system of definite human relations, of definite dependence of men on each other. Leading workers, habituated in the Civil War epoch to issue orders and appoint performers, may continue in the same manner, even after the situation has changed and when there is need not only of unquestioning execution of orders but also freedom of discussion, not only oneman authority but also collegiality, not only continuity, but also change and renewal of leadership.
There is a possibility here of different variants of development. The contradictions which inevitably arise in the course of socialist construction may be painlessly and openly resolved through an improvement of the system of democratic centralism, but these contradictions may also be resolved behind closed doors, within a tight little group of leaders, so that the Party is faced with the faits accomplis. That is when situations may arise, as they have in China, when the Party loses control of its Central Committee, and the Central Committee loses control of the Politburo, the highest leading group.
The consequences of this are well known: the line of gradual advance towards socialism was substituted by an adventurist attempt extremely to accelerate the pace of socioeconomic change, producing the idea of a ``Great Leap Forward'', which was to carry the country straight into communism, while the old level-headed warnings about the country taking ``only the first few steps along a 10,000-mile way" gave way to boastful and irresponsible promises, like ``three years of persistent labour effort---10,000 years of happy life''. When the inevitable collapse soon followed, the CPC leaders hastened to put the blame for these failures on the designs of ``enemies'' at home and ``revisionists'' abroad. Leninist norms of inner-Party life were trampled, open and principled polemics and self-criticism were supplanted with intrigue, designed to do away with those who opposed the 125 adventurist line. Educational work within the Party and in the masses was increasingly supplanted by violence, while the ideology of proletarian socialism was ousted by primitive forms of socialism, egalitarian, barrack-room socialism, with Mao's personality cult assuming monstrous forms. The preaching of chauvinism went hand in hand with a fanning of hostility for the USSR and attempts to impose a hegemonistic line on the world revolutionary movement. Finally, in the period of the ``cultural revolution" Mao and his followers came to look for support to the politically most immature masses of young people and increasingly to the army. It is not the Party, not the working people's grass roots organisations, but the army that has been raised over and above the other sections of the political superstructure.
This practice was provided with ideological backing in the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC, which, as the current practice is, referred to Mao's authority when it said: ``The People's Liberation Army is the mainstay of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chairman Mao Tse-tung has repeatedly said that from the Marxist standpoint the army is the main component part of the state."^^1^^
Indeed, the people's army is a reliable bulwark of the proletarian dictatorship, which ensures defence of the socialist countries against imperialist aggression, but to declare it to be the ``main component part" of the socialist state and an instrument of ``support of industry, agriculture and broad masses of the Left" and to impose on it the functions of ``military control" over the country's life and of `` military-political education" of the whole people is to convert the socialist state system into a military-bureaucratic state system.
The army's interference in the inner-Party struggle and the country's social and economic life is more than an additional minor detail in the ``helmsman's" biography or another feature of the overall picture of the revolution. A political coup has been staged in the country, with real political power taken over by the army; the country's life is being rapidly militarised, and the real gains and cadres of the people's revolution in China have been destroyed under the guise of the ``cultural revolution''. All of this is subordinated _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsinhua Press Release, April 27, 1969.
126 to a single goal, that of helping Mao and his followers retain power.The dangerous tendencies of the people's democratic power being transformed into a military-bureaucratic dictatorship first became evident at the early stages of the ``cultural revolution''; the subsequent course of events led to the consolidation of these dangerous tendencies in the whole of the country's internal political life.
Analysing the processes going on in China, the Marxists must naturally not discount some objective circumstances which have helped to inflate the centralising elements at the expense of the democratic elements, and to militarise the whole of governmental and social life. The whole of China's modern history is marked by strong tendencies towards local separatism, with the provincial governors concentrating vast political, economic and military power in their hands. After the 1911 revolution, China was, for all practical purposes, split up into a number of areas, each a state within a state, and each headed by a definite militaristic group. The establishment in 1927 of the central Kuomintang government with Chiang Kai-shek at its head, could not result in the establishment of centralised power. Seeking to put down the revolutionary movement, Chiang Kai-shek struck an alliance with the local militarists, who agreed to support him provided they retained great powers in running the provinces, within whose limits they operated.
Japan's occupation of the north-eastern provinces in 1931 and the subsequent aggression against the rest of China not only disrupted the ties between the various parts of the country, but also removed a sizable part of it from the Kuomintang government's control. On a vast territory in northwest China, the Communists succeeded in setting up their own organs of power, organising the army, etc. Consequently, in the early 1940s China was not a united state.
It was quite natural therefore that after the victory of the people's revolution there was intensified centralisation in the country, and at the first stage of socialist construction some methods characteristic of the period of the armed struggle against the Kuomintang were retained.
Let us also note that before the people's democratic revolution China was a country virtually without democratic government institutions; the feudal traditions had an impact 127 not only on the policy of the ruling class. At the end of the 1920s, Mao wrote the following about the legacy of the past: ``The evil practice of arbitrary dictation in feudal times, deeply rooted in the minds of the masses and even of the Party members in general, cannot be swept away at once; when anything comes up, people seek the easy way out and do not like the elaborate democratic system.''^^1^^
During the civil war which was fought for decades the democratic centralism system within the Party and the mass organisations could not be fully developed. Add to this the inadequate Marxist training of the leading Party cadres and the obvious oversimplification of the scientific socialism theory down to primitive levels in the theoretical writings of Mao Tse-tung, who headed the CPC Central Committee.
But although a number of objective circumstances in China hampered the development of the new, proletarian democracy, there was nothing fatally inevitable about the people's democratic state degenerating into a militarybureaucratic dictatorship. The CPC leadership, taking a critical view of its own activity and learning from the international experience accumulated by other revolutionary parties could well have put a stop to the development of the undesirable and dangerous tendencies. Observance of innerParty democracy, and the Leninist principles and rules of Party life could well have become a most important guarantee of successes in building up a socialist state. Lenin wrote: ``More confidence in the independent judgement of the whole body of Party workers!... The whole Party must constantly, steadily and systematically train suitable persons for the central bodies, must see clearly, as in the palm of its hand, all the activities of every candidate for these high posts, must come to know even their personal characteristics, their strong and weak points, their victories and ' defeats'. . .. Light, more light!"^^2^^ This was said at a time when the Bolshevik Party had to work in the underground. But what Lenin said has even more relevance to ruling parties.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 92.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 116, 117, 118.
128 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. On the Question of Mao'sOne of the expressions of the violation of Leninist principles and rules of inner-Party life in China is Mao's personality cult, which has assumed such ugly and hypertrophied forms that it has virtually become impossible to make mention of the personality cult problem, let alone examine it. But this very fact makes a look at the CPC documents dealing specially with personality cult problems so much more important and instructive. These documents date back to the period when Mao's glorification and deification in China had not yet reached the proportions of a national craze, a period when the CPC leadership still tried to analyse the problem theoretically.
We have in mind above all the article ``On the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship" which was written just after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, when fundamental decisions in the Communist Party of China were still being taken collectively and, as the editors of Jenmin jihpao said at the time, this article was written ``on the basis of a discussion of the given question at an enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China".^^1^^ This fact seems to explain why there is some depth in this document, which is the best evidence today of the CPC leadership's betrayal of its own principles and concrete assessments.
Chinese documents in the early 1960s declared the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU on the personality cult to be ``a betrayal of Marxism'', ``revisionism'', `` treason'', etc. The Chinese leaders said: ``The so-called fight against the personality cult, started by the CPSU leadership was taken over by them in a relay from Bakunin, Kautsky, Trotsky and Tito, who had used the slogan to fight against the leaders of the proletariat and to undermine the proletariat's revolutionary movement."^^2^^
Let us now recall what the same paper had said about the same decisions seven years earlier. It had written: ``This _-_-_
~^^1^^ On the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship, Moscow, 1956, p. 2.
~^^2^^ Jenmin jihpao, September 13, 1963.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---1362 129 bold self-criticism, carried out by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and aimed at exposing the mistakes it had made, testifies that its inner life is highly principled and that Marxism-Leninism has great viability."^^1^^But apart from recalling these general principled assessments by the CPC leadership of the decisions of the 20th CPSU Congress the important thing to bear in mind is that the article ``On the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship" contained attempts to consider the personality cult in its historical development, in a unity of its subjective and objective aspects. The article linked up its emergence with the ideology of the past, with the immaturity of millions of people in a petty-bourgeois country which had carried out a proletarian revolution, and where old traditions had much potency. The article went on: ``The personality cult is a rotten legacy which has come down from mankind's long history. The personality cult has a basis not only among the exploiter classes but also among the small producers___After the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, despite the fact that the exploiting classes were eliminated, the petty-producer economy supplanted by the collective economy, and a socialist society built, some of the rotten ideological survivals remaining from the old society and laden with poison can still long remain in the minds of men. 'The force of habit in millions and tens of millions is a most formidable force' (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 44). The personality cult is also in a sense an expression of the force of habit of millions and tens of millions of people."^^2^^
It was also stressed that there were various difficulties in building up the state machinery in a socialist country which had gone through a period of civil war, difficulties which in turn helped to produce the personality cult: ``In order to defeat a strong enemy the proletarian dictatorship requires a high degree of centralised power. This highly centralised power must go hand in hand with a high level of democracy. When the accent is one-sidedly on centralisation, a great many errors may arise."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ On the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship, p. 3.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 10.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 6.
130The emergence and development of the personality cult was connected with the fact that after the victory over the class enemy, bureaucratic practices tended to remain tenacious, and that the practice of the Chinese revolution itself offered an example. The article said: ``After the victory of the revolution, when the working class and the Communist Party became a class and a party in power, leading workers of our Party and state are subjected in many respects to the influence of bureaucracy, thereby facing a great danger: abusing their official position in government agencies, they may well engage in arbitrary practices, lose their touch with the masses, abandon the collective leadership, govern by fiat and undermine democratic principles in the Party and in the state. That is why if we do not want to find ourselves in such a bog, we must devote the closest attention to maintaining the 'line of the masses' in our method of leadership, and never in any case allowing the slightest negligence. For this we must formulate a definite system of work, ensuring the implementation of the 'line of the masses' and of collective leadership, so as to avoid the appearance of upstarts and individual `heroes' out of touch with the masses, reducing subjectivism and one-sidedness in our work which are at variance with objective reality".^^1^^
An attempt was also made in the article to establish the connection between the initial and the culminating stage of the process being examined, when the emergence of the personality cult was to some extent promoted not only by the difficulties but also by the successes of socialist construction achieved through the effort of the masses and hundreds of thousands of Communists. The article elaborated on the well-known idea expressed in the documents of the 20th Congress of the CPSU to the effect that ``the personality cult emerged and developed against the background of the greatest historical gains by Marxism-Leninism, and the tremendous successes scored by the Soviet people and the Communist Party in socialist construction".^^2^^
It would of course be wrong to require an editorial article, and especially one written shortly after the events in question, to contain an exhaustive analysis of the causes of a _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 13--14.
~^^2^^ On the Question of the Personality Cult, pp. 4-5.
131 complex and contradictory phenomenon like the personality cult. But it cannot be denied that it did contain some important outlines making it possible to take a historical approach to the analysis of the experience of the proletarian dictatorship and a consideration of its lessons and mistakes. A general assessment of the 1956 article today shows that it concentrated attention on Lenin's idea about the difficulties of the transition period. That was the key to an understanding of the events taking place in one's own country, the key which the CPC leadership subsequently lost. This departure from the method of Leninism and of historical materialism went hand in hand with its slanderous statements to the effect that the 20th and the 22nd Congresses of the CPSU had revised Lenin's propositions.The events of the past few years give ground to say that the article ``On the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship" contained an indirect critique of Mao's personality cult and had been written without his consent, even if not against his will. It had apparently been prepared by the internationalist section of the CPC leadership at the time, which under the influence of the 20th Congress of the CPSU could not help but realise the full extent of the danger for China's future presented by Mao's personality cult.
Under pressure from the section Mao and his followers had to accept the criticism of the personality cult at the 8th Congress and the deletion from the CPC Rules of the statement, which had been written into the Rules at the 7th Congress, that Mao's ideas were the Party's leading ideology. It was under pressure from this section that the 8th Congress tried to remove the shortcomings in the structure and the system of the Party apparatus which made it possible for various negative features to appear among Party leaders, notably Mao himself. We have in mind the requirements that Party congresses are to be held regularly, that the Rules should contain a provision on annual sessions of Congresses for the purpose of controlling the Central Committee's activity, that the Central Committee and its Politburo should be enlarged, that all Party members, including its leaders, should strictly abide by the Party Rules and so on.
Let us note this fact. In the period under consideration, Mao himself and his closest associates did not oppose, not openly at any rate, the criticism of the ideology and practice 132 of the personality cult, and at one time this may even have created the impression that Mao accepted this criticism. At any rate, towards the end of February 1957, Mao delivered a speech at the Supreme State Conference, which was then published in the form of an article and entitled: ``On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People''. Mao spoke fairly frankly about the difficulties of socialist construction, agreed that contradictions existed in the country, criticised bureaucratic practices in the Party and government apparatus, and urged broad discussions in science, literature and the art (the so-called Hundred Flowers line).^^1^^ He wished to create the impression that he was not speaking as the leader of a state and of a Party but as the father of a big family. That is why he did not in essence condemn those who had taken part in the strikes and the disorders which had occurred in China in 1956, but merely rebuked them, and blamed everything on the bureaucratic practices of the local leaders.
Mao's speech evoked a stormy response inside and outside the Party. Rank-and-file Party members and the masses of working people saw his speech as a call for the establishment of Leninist standards in the Party and the state and in every sphere of social and political life. A broad discussion was started of Mao's article and in the course of it demands were put forward for measures in China essentially similar to those which were being put through in the Soviet Union in pursuance of the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Statements by ordinary Chinese citizens contained criticism of Mao's personality cult and its negative consequences.
Here is an example. Lin Hsi-ling, a girl-student of the People's University, delivered a speech at Peking University on May 27, 1957. She said: ``Chairman Mao's valuable quality is that he has dialectical ideas and knows how to discover and correct mistakes, to generalise experience and to learn from it. But that is not to say that he has not made any mistakes. In China there is also a personality cult.... The Chairman wrote several poems and sent them to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ We do not consider here the mistaken propositions his speech contained because this has no direct bearing on the question being dealt with and also because these were analysed in Chapter One.
133 journal Shikan, where some people began to evaluate them, declaring that the Chairman is not only a great politician but also a great poet. I think that when the Chairman heard of this he could not help being angry, because these are nasty words. Some people say that the Chairman is a good calligrapher, but I don't think so [emphasis added---V. Y., K. I., Y.P.and V.Y.}."^^1^^Statements by many scientists, lecturers, students and workers dealt with a broad range of questions relating to breaches of the principles of socialist legality, the existence of a bureaucratic regime in the Party, the discrepancy between wages and the principles of remuneration for labour under socialism, lack of democratic principles in the work of colleges and research institutions, etc.
The discussion of Mao's article, in the course of which shortcomings in various sections of China's social mechanism were criticised, was used by counter-revolutionary elements, especially by members of the bourgeois parties and also by their allies within the CPC and outside it, as an opportunity for attacking the CPC, the Soviet Union and socialism in general. They were justly condemned as ``Rightist elements'', but the Maoists put a broad interpretation on this concept, and included among them those who were mistaken or were vacillating, and even those who favoured the establishment of Leninist standards in Party and state life not only in words but also in deeds. Without any reason at all they were lumped together with avowed enemies of socialism like Chang Po-chun, Lung Yun and Fei Hsiaotung.
The attacks on Mao's opponents which followed in 1957 and 1958 under the pretext of a drive against the ``Rightist elements" showed very well the falsehood and essentially provocative character of the Maoists' condemnation of the personality cult, and gave evidence that Mao and his entourage in fact had no intention of giving up the ideology and practices of the personality cult.
It is well known that for the USSR the personality cult was a temporary phenomenon, and that the CPSU found the strength to put an end to that state of affairs. The Theses of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Let us note that in the autumn of 1957 Lin Hsi-ling was declared to be a ``Right-wing element" and was ordered to work as a charwoman.
134 the CPSU Central Committee, Fiftieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which summed up the experience of socialist construction in the USSR over half a century, said: ``Life proved that the Party's political course was correct. It showed its ability to give theoretical generalisation to the experience of the masses, to put forward correct political slogans, and to lay bare and correct mistakes. In pursuing its course towards the further development of socialist democracy, the 20th Party Congress resolutely condemned Stalin's personality cult which was expressed in the glorification of the role of one man, something that is alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, in departures from the Leninist principles of collective leadership, and in unwarranted reprisals and other violations of socialist legality which inflicted harm on our society. These distortions, for all their gravity, did not alter the nature of socialist society, nor did they shake the pillars of socialism.``The Party and the people had an abiding faith in the cause of communism and worked with enthusiasm to implement the Leninist ideals, overcoming difficulties, temporary setbacks and mistakes."^^1^^ Where the Party finds the strength and means to give an objective assessment of negative tendencies, where these tendencies are resolutely cut short, there they cannot develop into a threat to the construction of socialism and communism.
In contrast to the line of the CPSU and the fraternal Parties of other socialist countries oriented upon a broad development of socialist democracy, Mao's personality cult is being implanted in China in increasing proportions. This is evident in the fact that all the power in the Party and the state is virtually concentrated in the hands of one man, that his instructions, and his alone, are the ultimate truth, that there is no freedom of opinion either within the Party or the state, and that the ideological and political opponents of the ``great helmsman" and people who merely doubt or are mistaken are classed as ``enemies of the people'', that there is a political reign of terror in the country which is being carried out in Mao's name and that Marxism-Leninism is being supplanted by Maoism. The report to the 9th Congress of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fiftieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Theses of the CPSU Central Committee, Moscow, 1967, p. 24.
135 the CPC asserted: ``All the achievements of the Communist Party of China are the result of Chairman Mao Tse-tung's sage leadership, are a victory of the thought of Mao Tsetung. Over the last half-century, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, directing the great struggle of the multinational people of China to complete the new-democratic revolution, in the course of directing the great struggle---the socialist revolution and socialist construction in our country---in the course of the great struggle of the modern international communist movement against imperialism, against modern revisionism and reaction in various countries, combining the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution, inherited, upheld and developed MarxismLeninism in the sphere of politics, military science, economics, culture, philosophy and so on, and raised it to a totally new stage.''This kind of assessment of Mao's contribution to Marxist theory goes hand in hand with ignoring or direct denial of the merits of all the other leading members of the CPC, past and present, and of the leaders of the international communist and working-class movement. For that purpose, the history of the CPC before Mao's advent to power in 1935 is being revised and is being presented as a succession of mistakes and miscalculations. There is a deliberate confusion between the Right opportunists (Chen Tu-hsiu), the ``Left'' opportunists (Li Li-san) and true internationalists (Chui Chu-po). The paper Jenmin jihpao wrote: ``Our Party has gone through struggle with the Right or the Left-deviationist erroneous line of Chen Tu-hsiu, Chui Chu-po, Li Li-san, and Wang Ming, and especially through long and repeated struggle with the bourgeois reactionary line represented by Liu Shaochi."^^1^^ This assertion was repeated in the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC: ``The history of the Communist Party of China is a history of struggle of the Marxist-Leninist line, of Chairman Mao Tse-tung's struggle against Right and `Left'-opportunist lines in the Party.. .. Our Party has matured, grown up and gained in stature in struggle between two lines, especially in struggle which led to the rout of three traitors' cliques: the cliques of Chen Tu-hsiu, Wang _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, November 25, 1968.
136 Ming and Liu Shao-chi, which have done the Party a great harm.On instructions from the Mao group a ``movement for the study of the history of the struggle between the two lines within the Party" was started in China, with the obvious purpose of defaming all of Mao's opponents, while presenting him as the great leader of the CPC who never makes any mistakes. In this context, one should note the publication in the Chinese press, on November 25, 1968, of Mao's report at the 2nd Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the CPC on March 5, 1949. The re-issue of this 20-year-old report and the highest praise heaped on it at the 9th Congress of the CPC pursued the following purposes: to present Mao's fight against those who differed with him within the Party as a struggle of long duration between two lines: the ``revolutionary proletarian line'', meaning Mao's own line, and the ``counter-revolutionary, revisionist line'', meaning that of his opponents.^^1^^
The report, and the Party Rules adopted at the 9th Congress of the CPC were designed to put an official legal seal on the ideology of Mao's personality cult. All the events set out in the report centre on Mao's own personality; the whole history of the struggle within the CPC during the antiJapanese war and after the formation of the CPR is described as Mao's personal struggle against Liu Shao-chi, as the struggle of the ``proletarian revolutionary line of Chairman Mao Tse-tung" against the ``revisionist line of Liu Shaochi''. It is alleged that ``the line of Mao Tse-tung" scored victories at every stage while the line of Liu Shao-chi suffered defeat. The report made no mention of any Party documents or decisions of Party congresses and conferences. The development of the Chinese revolution is presented in the light of naked subjectivism: out in front was Mao Tse-tung, who saw all and anticipated everything, while the Party and the people followed blindly in his footsteps.
There is no other instance in the history of the world revolutionary movement of a living leader's name being entered into the Party Rules.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, November 25, 196S.
137Let us stress that Mao's personality cult has been erected on the socio-spiritual foundation which had been cemented for long centuries by feudal Confucian tradition. Confucius magnified the cult of Wen Wang (12th century B.C.), the first legendary king of the Chou dynasty (12th-3rd centuries B.C.) and spread his own teaching on the strength of his authority and on tradition. Subsequently, the cult of Confucius himself was built up step by step, until he came to be compared with the ``heavens'' which lit up the whole world with its radiant light. By the 2nd century B.C., Confucius was enshrined as a deity and his cult was given a theological substantiation in the teaching of Tung Chung-shu.
Confucianism had the aim of suppressing vibrant thinking among men and transforming them into fanatics who did the will of the ruling feudal elite. Confucius insisted that the life of men down here, on earth, depended entirely on sage rulers. He compared them to the wind, and their subjects to the grass which bent in the wind. Where rulers rule wisely, the people ``will toil without grumbling".^^1^^
Virtually the same ideas are being preached in China today, the only difference being that Maoism does not make any references to the ``will'' of the ancestors, while the rest is essentially identical with Confucian dogmas. The point is that Maoism has no need either of ``celestial will" or of any ancestors---``sage rulers of antiquity"---because Mao himself has long since been converted by his admirers into a ``living god'', and, as Maoist propaganda insists, is an embodiment of mankind's wisdom.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Political Arbitrariness InsteadThe theoretical apology of the personality cult in practice takes the form of a drive against the Chinese people's democratic gains.
Lenin used to say that the fullest and most consistent democracy is the most important distinctive mark of the new, proletarian, socialist state, as compared with the state in the ``proper sense of the word'', which he saw as a ``special _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lun Yii, Ch. ``Yaoyueh'', 2.
138 machine for the suppression of one class by another, and, what is more, of the majority by the minority".^^1^^ Lenin wrote: ``Democracy, introduced as fully and consistently as is at all conceivable, is transformed from bourgeois into proletarian democracy; from the state (=a special force for the suppression of a particular class) into something which is no longer the state proper."^^2^^Proletarian, socialist democracy is closely connected with the implementation of the rules of socialist law, with socialist legality, which serve as the constitutional expression of the general interests of the working people. Characterising socialist democracy and its class character, Lenin pointed to the broad range of rights enjoyed by citizens in socialist society, including election and recall of functionaries of the state apparatus, control by the masses of their work, and alternative participation by citizens in the conduct of affairs of state. Lenin never regarded socialist democracy as arbitrary rule by a faceless crowd, which ignored democratic institutions and civil rights. Nor had he ever contrasted direct action by the masses and the activity of representative institutions of the proletarian state. He wrote: ``We cannot imagine democracy, even proletarian democracy, without representative institutions."^^3^^ According to Lenin, the representative institutions of the socialist state carry out legislation and organise its translation into life.
It is a duty of every citizen and of every person in office, without exception, to observe socialist legality. The whole activity of the Communists should set an example of observance of socialist laws. With Lenin's participation, the 8th Congress of the Party in 1919 adopted a resolution which said that ``the Party must carry out its decisions through the Soviet organs, within the framework of the Soviet Constitution".^^4^^ The leader of the working people stressed the need consistently and steadily to consolidate legality. In 1921, he said: ``The closer we approach conditions of unshakable and lasting power and the more trade _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 463.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 419.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 424.
~^^4^^ The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences mid CC Plenary Meetings, Part I, Moscow, 1953, p. 446 (in Russian).
139 develops, the more imperative it is to put forward the firm slogan of greater revolutionary legality."^^1^^Lenin held respect for socialist laws to be one of the most important marks of civilised behaviour. He wrote that legality and civilised behaviour are indissoluble, and attached vast importance to the use of legality in raising the standards of behaviour among broad masses of people.^^2^^ Lenin's principles of socialist democracy and legality and Lenin's experience in the struggle to implement them are the legacy of all true revolutionaries, of all the advanced culture of modern society. Socialist democracy and legality serve, according to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, as guarantees against subjectivism and arbitrary acts, and help to bring out and realise the people's true will, to establish respect for human dignity, and the most consistent observance of the basic rules of any community living.^^3^^
The Main Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in June 1969 stressed that ``the forces of socialism are strengthened and unity of will and action of the people is promoted by the steadily increasing political activity of the working people, by the greater activity of their social organisations, extension of the rights of the individual, irreconcilable struggle against manifestations of bureaucracy and by the allround development of socialist democracy".^^4^^ Neglect or distortion of these ideas in the practice of socialist construction breeds subjectivism, builds up political mistakes and may develop into highly dangerous political arbitrariness, gravely jeopardising the socialist gains of the working people.
The tragic consequences of the policy pursued by Mao and his supporters are closely connected with the downright neglect of the key Marxist-Leninist ideas on socialist democracy and legality. Mao and his entourage contemptuously try to present their own unprecedented arbitrariness as being the theory and practice of ``massive democracy under the proletarian dictatorship'', as being the use and development of the experience of the Paris Commune, as being an `` _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol, 33, p. 176.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 366.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 474.
~^^4^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, W69, p. 22.
140 epochal and brilliant development of Marxism-Leninism" and as its entry upon a totally new stage, that of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''.The rampant political arbitrariness of Mao and his supporters, which reached a peak during the ``cultural revolution'', has a fairly long and complex history behind it. It cannot be correctly understood without consideration, as has been said, of the fact that in the late 1940s and early 1950s there was in China an objective need to establish a strictly centralised political power capable of exercising control over the country's vast territory, which had just been liberated in the course of the civil war from Chiang Kai-shek's rule. The new power had to fight against the counter-revolution, the resistance of the exploiting classes, the vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie, and the criminal acts of the declasse elements.
These problems were all tackled mainly through administrative repressions and outright armed suppression, both of which were used on a fairly large scale. The massive use of repression was accompanied by a number of mistakes and abuses, and now and again developed into brutal violence. However, political coercion, aimed at expropriating the landowners and compradores and safeguarding the gains of the revolution, had a progressive significance and yielded a tangible political effect. Let us stress that this coercion was being carried out simultaneously with extensive economic and cultural construction, in which the USSR and other socialist countries gave great assistance. Meanwhile, as practice has shown, some political leaders in China, who had mastered mainly violent, military and paramilitary methods of tackling various problems, came to believe that violence, administration by fiat, military orders, hand in hand with massive campaigns were the most effective and reliable means of solving any political, economic and other problems.
At the 8th Congress of the CPC in September 1956, some delegates expressed concern over these attitudes. In its resolution, the Congress, having remarked on the successes of socialist construction in China, declared: ``It is a matter of urgency and of great importance, now that we have entered the period of socialist construction, to further extend the scope of democracy in our country, and to combat bureaucracy."^^1^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 126.
141 The Congress outlined a number of concrete measures to develop socialist democracy in China and condemned the views of those who were trying artificially to sharpen the class struggle in the country. The Congress also noted that the provisional laws adopted in the initial period after liberation and direct action by the masses as a mode of combating reaction, had already played their part. The CPC Central Committee's report said that together with the changing tasks in the struggle ``a corresponding change in the methods of struggle will consequently have to follow, and a complete legal system becomes an absolute necessity".^^1^^ Tung Pi-wu, a founding member of the CPC, made some trenchant criticism of the state of legality in the country and advanced important proposals for strengthening it. He said: ``The problem today is that we still lack several urgently-needed, fairly complete basic statutes such as a criminal code, a civil code, rules of court procedure, a labour law, a law governing the utilisation of land and the like. At the same time, because of the changes that have taken place in our political and economic situation, a number of our laws should have been revised or framed anew."^^2^^ He added: ``It would have to be regarded as a serious problem, if we allowed our legal system to remain incomplete or unduly deferred its completion."^^3^^At the Congress much was also said about the fact that ``while carrying out our work in a number of localities and departments, we have often discovered violations of the law and encroachments upon the people's democratic rights".^^4^^ It was further said that there had been arrests without observance of the established legal procedure, that the defendants' exercise of the rights of defence and appeal had been restricted and that those arrested were brutally treated.^^5^^ The material of the Congress contains an analysis of the historical and social reasons for these negative developments in the life of the country. It said: ``Before our Party, as the leading force of the people, seized state power throughout the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 82.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 87.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 57.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 89.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 145.
142 country, we were an outlawed party with no legal means of waging the struggle and all revolutionary work had to be carried on by outwitting the legal system of the old regime; after we seized state power throughout the country, we did a thorough job of destroying the old state apparatus and the old legal system. For this reason there was a deep-seated hatred for the old legal system among our Party membership and the revolutionary masses, and it is very natural that this hatred for the old legal system should have caused a lack of respect for all legal systems in general."^^1^^ And: ``The petty bourgeoisie make up the preponderant majority of all the classes existing in our society. People from the petty bourgeoisie also form the biggest part of our Party membership. ... It may be said that all forms of disregard for the legal system are, in essence, manifestations of the anarchist thinking of the petty bourgeoisie."^^2^^One important and alarming conclusion that rang out at the 8th Congress of the CPC was this: ``Apart from the fact that the causes of disregard and non-observance of the legal system are deeply embedded in our history and in our society, we have today a vast number of new and inexperienced cadres, and the propaganda and education work that has been done in this connection among them is by no means adequate."^^3^^
Some speakers at the Congress stressed the danger of subjectivism and adventurism. The Congress announced a line to strengthen and develop socialist democracy and legality in China. There is reason to assert that a number of political leaders took a highly serious view of this line, which was a novel one for China in every respect, and sought to implement it in political and legal practices. Meanwhile, as has been noted above, Mao himself, being forced to accept the line proclaimed by the 8th Congress, had no intention of putting it into practice. Already in the summer of 1957 a fresh tide of repressions was generated. Among the victims, alongside the elements truly hostile to the revolution, were a large mass of people who were sincerely responding to Mao's ``Hundred Flowers" call, which implied freedom of criticism _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 91--92.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 92--93.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 93.
143 and expression within the framework of the law. They were labelled (sometimes literally) with the ``Right element" tag. These ``Right elements" were placed on a par with war criminals, Chiang Kai-shek's agents and counterrevolutionaries. Being declared a ``Right element" meant dismissal from work, expulsion from school, and other repressions.The campaign against the ``Right elements" was no exception. Subsequent practice showed that Mao and his followers had decided to put down criticism of their acts by every possible means. Far from abandoning the extensive use of violence in the new conditions, they in fact applied it against all their opponents, stifling criticism, and hoping that reliance on violence, combined with generation of ``enthusiasm'' among the masses, would help them to solve the most complex problems.
In August 1957, the State Council of the CPR adopted a decision on labour education, under which virtually any citizen of the CPR, without trial or the sanction of the prosecutor, simply under a decision by an administrative agency, could be transported for labour education, which for all practical purposes meant exile or the concentration camp for an indefinite period. An announcement broadly circulated at the end of 1957 revealed that a number of responsible workers^t the Ministry of Control of the CPR, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procurator's Office had been dismissed from their office and qualified as ``Right elements who had infiltrated into the Party''. They were accused of a Right-wing deviation for having stood up for the independent powers of the organs of state control, the procurator's office and the court. This was followed by a corresponding purge in the agencies of state control, the courts and the procurator's office.
The proposals on the adoption of the new criminal, civil and procedural codes, which speakers at the 8th Congress of the CPC said were extremely necessary, were soon branded as ``undermining the democratic dictatorship of the people".^^1^^ Some of the drafted codes are being applied in secret, without publication, and the practice of intimidating criminal punishments, like execution by shooting deferred for two _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chengfa yanchiu No. 3, 1958, pp. 28--29.
144 years, deprivation of liberty for an indefinite period, and so on, is being continued.The wider use of violent methods in implementing policy, and neglect of legality have gone hand in hand with political and economic adventurism, Maoist plans for ``Great Leaps Forward'', ``communisation'' and world hegemonism. Characteristically, the National People's Congress, the highest organ of state power, was ignored when such extremely important measures for the people as the ``Great Leap Forward" and the introduction of the people's communes, were being prepared. Implementation of this line was accompanied with an intensification of criminal and other repressions. Mobile teams, consisting of security men, and functionaries of the courts and the procurator's office, were formed to speed up the infliction of mass repressions. Here and there, the execution of death sentences was carried out in the presence of vast crowds. The labour of prisoners was being widely used in all the provinces. Fierce attacks were launched in the political and juridical press against assertions that the main functions of the state in China had now become the function of economic organisation and cultural education, and that there was no longer any need to intensify the function of suppression at home. ``The fundamental reason for the existence of our law consists in the existence of the class struggle in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, and since contradictions exist between our enemies and ourselves the main role of law always consists in exercising a dictatorship over the enemies, and in resolving the contradictions between us and the enemies; it is not the main role of law to resolve the contradictions within the people."^^1^^ Consequently, the primary function of law as an instrument of repression and retribution was being emphasised in every way.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Ideological Justification of the RegimeThe 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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chcngfa yanclriu No. 6, 1958, p. 40.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10---1362 145 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.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.
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".^^1^^
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.''
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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, p. 59.
146 consolidation of the people's state above all as the strengthening of his position in the army and in the punitive organs.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.
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.''
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.
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 __PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 147 ``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''.
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.
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''.
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.
Characteristic in this respect are Mao's speech at an All-- 148 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.
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.
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."^^1^^
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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 16, 1967.
149 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.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.
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.
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 150 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.
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."^^1^^
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''.
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."^^2^^ In 1965 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chengfa yanchiu No. 1, 1965.
~^^2^^ Ibid., No. 1, 1966.
151 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.^^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.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. On the True EssenceLet 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.
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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Chengfa yanchiu No. 1, 1966.
152 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.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.
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''.
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 153 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.
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".^^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".^^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" _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 11, 1966.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
154 (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."^^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."^^2^^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.''
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.
In many places, the wild frenzy of the Hungweipings and the Tsaofans came up against resistance on the part of local _-_-_
~^^1^^ CPC Central Committee's Resolution on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, § 7, Jenmin jihpao, August 9. 1966.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
155 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.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.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Recent reports from China say that the Maoists intend to hold elections for the fourth National People's Congress, a decision clearly dictated by tactical and short-term considerations. The Maoists want the military-bureaucratic dictatorship regime to function normally by making it ``respectable'' and to try to re-establish some of the organs of state administration which had been in existence before the start of the ``cultural revolution''. They are also impelled to do so by foreignpolicy considerations : first, they would like to appear in the eyes of world opinion as supporters of legality and law and order, and second, __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 157. 156
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.
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."^^1^^
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 156. to facilitate the attainment of political and cultural ties with foreign countries, the capitalist countries above all. This is naturally hampered by the absence of a parliament (the National People's Congress) and a Chairman of the CPR.The Maoists' intention to hold elections for the fourth National People's Congress also shows that it was pure demagogy on the part of the Maoists to back up the activity of the Hungweiping and Tsaofan outfits, and to declare their break-up of the constitutional organs of power to amount to the ``utilisation and development of the experience of the Paris Commune''. When the Maoists were faced with the need to eliminate their political and ideological opponents, they held forth about the need to ``break up the old state machine''; now that the Maoists have achieved their aims they are prepared to use the ``old state machine'', against which they had earlier directed the wrath and hatred of millions of men.
~^^1^^ See ``Pseudo-Revolutionaries Unmasked" (editorial article published in Pravda on May 18, 1970), Moscow, 1970, pp. 6-7 (in Russian).
157The 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.
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.
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.
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 158 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.
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.
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.
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'', 159 ``restorers of capitalism" and suchlike enemies of ``Mao Tsetung's thought''.
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".^^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".^^2^^ Consequently, the Maoists are trying to establish political arbitrariness as a law.
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."^^3^^
Recognition of the Communist Party's leading role in socialist society is the touchstone of membership of the Marxist-Leninist camp.
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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ See ``Minutes of a Conference on Questions of Work in the Sphere of Literature and the Arts in the Army, Called by Comrade Tsian Chin on the Assignment of Comrade Lin Piao'', Hsinnua Press Release, May 28, 1967.
~^^2^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 8, 1967.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 404.
160 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.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).
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.
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---1362 161The 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.
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.^^1^^
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.
It is common knowledge that at the 9th CPC Congress _-_-_
~^^1^^ As before, the Army, in whose command such ``unexpected'' changes were made, continues to play the role of the chief support and instrument of the regime created as a result of ``the fierce struggle for power'', as the ``cultural revolution" is now described by its organisers.
162 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''.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.
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.
__*_*_*__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 163 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.
[164] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE MAOIST CONCEPTIONAn analysis of the views and practical policy on classes, the class struggle and class relations pursued by the Chinese leaders leaves no doubt that they have distorted the key principles formulated by Marxism-Leninism on the establishment of new social relations in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism.
The socialist countries' experience, summed up in the documents of the International Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1957, 1960 and 1969, fully confirmed the proposition of the Marxist-Leninist theory that the processes of socialist revolution and socialist construction are based on a number of key laws which apply to all countries taking the socialist path. These laws are manifest everywhere in the presence of a great diversity of historicallyrooted national specifics and traditions which must be taken into account.
Among these general laws are: leadership of the working people by the working class, with the Marxist-Leninist party as its core, in carrying through the proletarian revolution in one form or another and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship in one form or another; the alliance of the working class with the bulk of the peasantry and other sections of the working people; the elimination of capitalist property and the establishment of socialist property in the principal means of production; the gradual socialist 165 transformation of agriculture, the balanced development of the national economy aimed at building socialism and communism and raising the working people's living standards; the implementation of socialist changes in the sphere of ideology and culture and the creation of a numerous intelligentsia loyal to the working class, the working people and the socialist cause; the elimination of national oppression and the establishment of equality and fraternal friendship among nations; the defence of socialist gains against the encroachments of external and internal enemies; and proletarian internationalism, which means solidarity between the working class of a given country and the working class of other countries.
While favouring strict account in socialist construction of the concrete historical conditions and national features, the participants in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1969 stressed the need to follow the general laws. These are the general laws of the socialist revolution and socialist construction bearing on the development of classes and class relations:
1. Exercise by the working class of leadership of the mass of working people in the proletarian revolution, and, once the proletarian dictatorship is established, of its leading role in society. Reliance of the working class on its alliance with the bulk of the peasantry and other sections of the working people.
2. Elimination of exploiting classes resulting from the abolition of private property in the means of production.
3. Socialist re-education of the peasantry and the intelligentsia; creation of a numerous intelligentsia loyal to the cause of socialism.
These laws governing the development of the social structure and class relations necessarily apply to any country taking the socialist path.
These are of especial importance for China, considering the level of her socio-economic development at the end of 1949, when under the leadership of the Communist Party the Chinese people took power into their own hands. In that period, China was an agrarian small-peasant, economically, socially and culturally backward country. Her transition to socialism did not take place on the level of developed capitalism but of a feudal-capitalist social system in which the 166 exploiters were landowners and a bureaucratic and national bourgeoisie.
In 1949, the bulk of China's population (over 80 per cent) consisted of peasants. The principal antagonistic contradictions of Chinese society were those between the landowners and the peasants. The absentee landowners rented out their lands to the landless and land-hungry peasants, collecting an exorbitant feudal rent which came to over one-half the peasant's crop. In the Chinese countryside, the development of capitalist relations was shackled by feudalism, which is why the rich peasants (kulaks) were very weak economically and as a rule used pre-capitalist forms of exploiting peasants: they rented most of their land to farmhands and middle peasants and engaged in usury. The landowners and the kulaks, who made up less than 10 per cent of the rural population, owned 70--80 per cent of the farmland. The other 90 per cent of the rural population---farmhands and poor and middle peasants---had only 20--30 per cent of the land.^^1^^
This was the reason for broad action by the Chinese peasants against the existing social regime. The existence of a peasant anti-feudal movement was a positive fact for the revolutionary struggle of the working class, because the bulk of the peasantry is an ally of the proletariat. However, the petty-bourgeois character of the peasants constituting a majority of the population produced various difficulties for the working-class party in the transition period.
These difficulties were compounded by the fact that when the people's revolution in China won out, industrial workers constituted roughly 0.5 per cent of the total population.^^2^^ Industrial and office workers numbered only 8 million, or 1.5 per cent of the population (together with their families the figure came to about 5-6 per cent). This naturally created the highly acute problem of the numerical growth of the working class, of its vanguard role in town and country and in all the branches of the national economy. Another equally acute problem was the remoulding of the social character _-_-_
^^1^^ The Fundamental Provisions of the Land Law of China, Harbin, 1948, p. 3 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ World Economics and International Relations No. 6, 1967, p. 31 (in Russian).
167 of the peasantry, so as to make it take the socialist path of development, and the formation of a numerous socialist intelligentsia.In the first 7-8 years of the transition period (1949--1957) the Communist Party of China took account of the experience of the development of classes and class relations in the other socialist countries and relied on the general laws of socialist construction, taking these as a basis for its policy in developing the social structure. In that period, the formulation of the CPC's political line was greatly influenced by men among the Party leadership who had a clear understanding of the tremendous difficulties the Chinese people had to overcome to ensure a transition to socialism, and fully and finally to establish the socialist mode of production. China's economic and cultural backwardness, the 2nd Plenary Meeting of the 7th CPC Central Committee (March 1949) said in its decisions, require a more or less prolonged period for creating the economic and cultural prerequisites necessary for ensuring the full victory of socialism.
Following the establishment of the CPR, the government's first act was to expropriate the property of the imperialists and the compradore bourgeoisie. The state nationalised almost all the railways, the bulk of the enterprises in the heavy industry, and also some of the key branches of the light industry, and this helped to create a socialist sector in the country.
Following the expropriation of the property of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie from 1950 to 1952, an agrarian reform was carried out in China designed to eliminate feudal relations of production and the class of landowners, and to hand over, without redemption, the land confiscated from the landowners to the landless and land-hungry peasants. The 47 million hectares of land confiscated from the landowners went to 300 million landless and land-hungry peasants. Feudal property in land gave way to individual peasant property in land. Once the land reform was completed, the following social groups took shape within the Chinese peasantry: the poor peasants, the middle peasants, who consisted of the lower middle peasants (the poor middle peasants), the higher middle peasants (the rich middle peasants), and also the kulaks. In economic status, the poor middle peasants 168 were close to the poor peasants and together with the latter made up 60--70 per cent of the rural population.^^1^^
The land reform which eliminated the landed estates helped considerably to enlarge the domestic market, and in these conditions capitalist industry and trade began rapidly to develop.
The state used the capitalist economy for the purpose of rehabilitating the national economy, which had been ruined by the foreign intervention and the civil war. However, the national bourgeoisie put up stiff resistance to the measures the people's government took to improve the state of the country's economy. For one thing, it sought to corrupt and weaken the government apparatus from inside by means of graft. Accordingly, in late 1951 and early 1952, the CPC launched two campaigns: first one against the ``three evils" (stealing, waste and bureaucratic practice) and then against the ``five evils" (graft, tax evasion, stealing of government funds, careless fulfilment of government orders and stealing of secret economic information in government agencies).^^2^^
These campaigns helped to limit and cut short the bourgeoisie's economic and political subversion against the people's power and to purge the government and Party apparatus of persons who were making concessions to the bourgeoisie or were its direct agents.
In 1952, once the rehabilitation of the national economy, ruined by the civil war and the foreign intervention, had in the main been completed, the CPC Central Committee worked out the Party's general line for the transition period, which set these tasks before the Chinese people: gradually to carry out the country's socialist industrialisation and socialist change in agriculture, the handicrafts industry and in capitalist industry and trade. These tasks were to be fulfilled in roughly three five-year periods, that is, about 15 years, from 1953 to 1967, by which time China was expected to become a ``great socialist state".^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Chinchi yanchiu No. 5, 1956, p. 88,
~^^2^^ Essays on the History of China in the Recent Period, Moscow 1959, p. 511 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ See Fighting to Mobilise all the Forces to Transform Our Country into a Great Socialist State. Theses for the Study and Propaganda of the Party's General Line in the Transition Period, Moscow, 1953 (in Russian).
169In connection with the announcement of the Party's general line for the transition period, the CPC Central Committee approved a set of special theses for its study and propaganda, which said that if socialism was to score a full victory in China in the transition period the following had to be done: the relations of production were to be simultaneously modified with the development of productive forces; a powerful socialist industry had above all to be set up as a basis for transforming the individual peasant farms, that is, non-socialist sectors into a socialist sector; socialist industry had to be converted into the leading and guiding force of the whole national economy.
In accordance with the CPC's general line, important socio-economic changes were started in the country from 1953. The whole peasantry (including the kulaks) was involved in agricultural producers' co-operatives. The individual property of the peasants and the handicraftsmen was transformed into collective property. All private industrial and commercial enterprises were transformed into state-private enterprises. The capitalists were deprived of the means of production and were allowed an interest of 5 per cent per annum on their erstwhile capital and also higher salaries for their work as government employees.
The 8th Congress of the CPC, held in September 1956, declared that the following socio-class changes had by then taken place in China as a result of the implementation of the Party's general line.
1. The exploitation of man by man, together with its roots, was in the main eliminated; the class contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were resolved in favour of socialism, thereby deciding the issue of ``who beats whom" in the struggle between socialism and capitalism.
2. Class contradictions ceased to be the principal contradictions of Chinese society, giving way to contradictions ``between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces'', thereby centring the Chinese people's attention on the task of developing material production.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See V. Sidikhmenov, ``The Maoists' Revision of the CPC's General Line'', Kommunist No. 3, 1969.
170However, the social changes carried out in the country did not yet mean the complete establishment of socialist relations of production, which were still highly immature and imperfect, and rested on an extremely backward material and technical basis. The country was just making a start on all-round industrialisation. Chinese society was yet to effect its full and final transition to socialism, a transition that had to be consolidated through the further development of society's productive forces, and of the whole of the national economy.
The working class still constituted a clear minority and was concentrated mainly in the cities. The very small percentage of workers who came from working-class families were mainly skilled cadres. The national bourgeoisie still maintained some economic and ideological influence. A sizable section of the handicraftsmen were yet to be drawn into co-operatives. There was an acute shortage of intellectuals, and the new, socialist intelligentsia was virtually just taking shape. These objective difficulties were compounded by a number of subjective mistakes made in the course of socialist change through Mao's fault.
Let us emphasise that in 1955 and 1956, the Maoists and their opponents were already seriously divided over the methods and pace of socialist construction. Mao and his followers were trying to impose on the country a totally unrealistic pace of socialist change and were pushing the peasants into a stepped up transformation of their individual property, without providing any solid material and technical basis for such a change-over. Mao's opponents urged that socialist changes should be carried out within the periods set by the Party's general line, and insisted that any changes in the social character of the peasantry should be tied in with changes in their economic life and their mentality.
However, Mao managed to saddle the Party with his adventurist line which was expressed chiefly in the hasty completion of agricultural co-operation, without the necessary economic measures: instead of the 15--18 years initially envisaged, the co-operatives were nominally set up within just over 2 years. The balanced development of economic, social and spiritual processes was disrupted and the need for proportional social development discarded. There was 171 discontent among a section of the peasantry with this stepped up pace in agricultural co-operation and the rapid transition from lower-type to higher-type co-operatives, and this naturally did not help to strengthen the social basis of the people's power.
In contrast to Mao, the CPG leaders who held correct views on various aspects of socialist construction, believed that the Party should concentrate the people's efforts on laying a modern material and technical foundation for the new relations of production. The report of the CPC Central Committee to the 8th Congress of the CPC (September 1956) said: ``Now, however, the period of storm and stress is past, new relations of production have been set up, and the aim of our struggle is changed into one of safeguarding the successful development of the productive forces of society."^^1^^
The decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC mapped out a real and concrete programme for transforming China into an advanced socialist power. On the social plane, its implementation was to result in a considerable growth of the working class, improvement of its professional training, and its ideological and political levels, thereby reaffirming and consolidating its leading position in Chinese society. In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, the introduction of science and technology into agriculture was bound to have changed the face of the Chinese countryside, favourably affecting the tradition-bound thinking and mentality of the Chinese peasants, and converting them into real allies of the proletariat in the struggle for China's social transformation. The development of science and culture, the cultural revolution, was to have helped to create a numerous intelligentsia closely allied with the people.
However, because of the voluntarist line of social development, imposed by Mao on the Party and the country, the changes in the classes and class relations, which naturally occur in the transition period, and which followed from the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC, were not carried out.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China Peking, 1956, p. 82.
172 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Line of ``Leaping Over''In mid-1958, the Maoists announced that the transition period in China had been fully completed, that socialism had been built, and that an immediate start could be made on building communist relations. The adventurist idea was put forward that China could move rapidly towards communism by executing a ``Great Leap Forward''. Chinese society did not in actual fact have the necessary material, social and cultural prerequisites even for developed socialism, but the Maoists argued that it could attain communism merely by carrying out this ``Great Leap Forward''.
The fact that Mao and his followers suggested the ``Great Leap Forward" idea showed that they had lost the ability of making a realistic assessment of the situation, of starting from the actual level of development at which Chinese society then found itself. This undoubtedly sprang from the hegemonistic aspirations of Mao and his followers. In order to rise to leadership in the world's revolutionary movement, it was necessary to ``surpass'' the Soviet Union, and the ``accelerate the transition to communism" slogan was issued to achieve this aim. This subjectivist and anti-Marxist slogan was seized upon and ``theoretically'' analysed by the Chinese press. The journal Hsin chianshe wrote: ``Not long ago many believed that for a fairly long subsequent period changes in the relations of production in our country would take place within the framework of socialism, i.e., that this would be a completion of the socialist revolution on the economic front, with all the main forces being thrown into the implementation of the technological and cultural revolution.'' The journal declared this quite correct view to be wrong, and suggested the following as the right approach: ``Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and Comrade Mao Tse-tung, simultaneously with the full completion of the socialist revolution, with the productive forces growing at an exceptionally fast rate, we have already created the conditions for gradual transition to communism."^^1^^ Thus, the completion of transition to socialism and the all-round _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsin chianshe No. 11, 1958.
173 development of socialism were declared to be a stage that was over.An idea which runs right through the numerous publications in the Chinese press from 1958 to 1960 is that China is on the threshold of transition to communism. In their efforts to provide a theoretical grounding for such transition, Chinese theorists fell back on the well-known statement of Marx's that between capitalist and communist society there lies a period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter, with a corresponding political transition period. From this they drew the conclusion that socialist society could not be regarded as an independent stage of social development, because it allegedly had a transitional character. The Maoists started to include socialism, the first phase of the communist formation, into the transition period. All of this was to help them remove from the order of the day the task of completing socialist construction in China, and orient the Chinese people upon immediate transition to communist society. Jenmin jihpao wrote: ``After all, socialism is not our supreme ideal. Communist society is our supreme ideal. . .. We are building socialism to move on to communist society and not for the purpose of consolidating the making of socialist society, and regarding it as a historical period of stability and absence of change, or of quantitative but not qualitative change."^^1^^
Indeed, communist society, its highest phase, is the ideal of the working class, but to attain it there is need to build full-fledged socialism, a whole phase of the communist formation, and to make it function and progress successfully. However, it is impossible to find in any of Mao's statements a full-scale programme for completing the construction and further development of socialism, dealing with the improvement of its material and technical basis, and the rapid development of the productive forces corresponding to socialist relations of production.
The Maoists have come to regard the strengthening and further improvement of the foundations of the socialist social system as no more than the treading of water, and as unwillingness to go on from socialism to communism. One journal, criticising the advocates of ``frozen socialism'', _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, April 24, 1960.
174 wrote: ``The demand that socialist relations of production and also collective property and the distribution according to labour should be rigidly fixed at one point expresses the standpoint of those who want to conserve socialist society. Such views are erroneous."^^1^^Consequently, before the ``Great Leap Forward'', the Maoists regarded the transition period as one of transition from capitalism to socialism, while following the announcement of the ``Great Leap Forward" in 1958 their views underwent a fundamental, totally unfounded change: on the one hand, they ceased to draw any line of distinction between the transition period and socialism proper, and on the other, enlarged the framework of the transition period to include the construction of full-scale communist society. In other words, they discarded socialism as a lawgoverned socio-economic state of society on the way to communism.
The ``Three Red Banners" (the general line, the ``Great Leap Forward'', and the people's communes), the line Mao put forward in 1958, far from accelerating the socio-class development of Chinese society, in fact slowed it down, because it ran into contradiction with the tendencies of social development objectively required by socialism. This was expressed in the following.
First, there was a slow-down in the quantitative and especially qualitative growth of the working class which usually goes hand in hand with a country's industrialisation, because the accent was on the establishment of primitive, handicraft enterprises.
Second, the implanting of people's communes in the countryside in effect diverted the peasantry from the natural socialist path of development onto a path of artificial egalitarianism and a barrack-room social system.
Third, the accelerated transition to communism resulted in a neglect of the need for a relatively long period in which state-private enterprises are transformed into socialist enterprises, and the members of the bourgeoisie are moulded into working people of socialist society.
The outcome of all this was that the transition to communism was actually slowed down and a brake was put _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chinchi yanchiu No. 5, 1960.
175 on the socialist transformation of classes and their relations in the country. The greatest harm was thereby inflicted on the development of the already small working class. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Curtailment of the Vanguard RoleOn many occasions, Lenin analysed in detail the arrangement of class forces in China, drawing important conclusions about the difficulties and the main problems facing the revolutionary movement in that country. In April 1913, commenting on the intricate problems faced by Sun Yat-sen, he wrote: ``What is this party's weakness? It lies in the fact that it has not yet been able sufficiently to involve broad masses of the Chinese people in the revolution. The proletariat in China is still very weak---there is therefore no leading class capable of waging a resolute and conscious struggle to carry the democratic revolution to its end. The peasantry, lacking a leader in the person of the proletariat, is terribly downtrodden, passive, ignorant and indifferent to politics-----How little of the really broad popular mass has yet been drawn into active support of the Chinese Republic. But without such massive support, without an organised and steadfast leading class, the Republic cannot be stable."^^1^^
Lenin's indication of the need to promote the growth of the working class, to enhance its vanguard, conscious and organising role in every sphere of social development to bring about the success of the revolution in China was grossly neglected.
Mao never understood the fundamental Marxist-Leninist proposition about the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolution, and he has always essentially relied on the petty-bourgeois elements, which he regarded as the leader both in the bourgeois-- democratic and the socialist revolution. That was his line when he set out on his political career, and that is still his line today.
The 3rd Congress of the CPC was held in Canton from June 10 to 19, 1923, and it was attended by Mao. What was _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 41, p. 282.
176 his stand on this crucial question of the revolution at that time? He supported the capitulationist line of Chen Tu-hsiu, who denied the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and who put his stake on the national bourgeoisie, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry. Three weeks later, Mao had an article in the CPC General Committee's journal Hsiangtao, entitled ``The Coup in Peking and the Merchants'', dealing with the role of the merchants in the Chinese revolution. He wrote: ``China''s present political problem is none other than the problem of the national revolution. The Chinese people's historical mission lies ... in using this force of the people to overthrow militarism and the foreign imperialists. This revolution is a task of the whole people and all those who constitute the people---merchants, workers, peasants, students, teachers---everyone must undertake a part of the revolutionary work. However, in virtue of historical necessity and the tendencies of the present-day situation, it is the merchants that have to take upon themselves the more vital and important part of this work for the sake of the national revolution rather than the rest of the people."^^1^^We find, therefore, that Mao did not regard the workers or the peasants, but the merchants, that is, the petty-- bourgeois and bourgeois elements as constituting the most important component part of the Chinese people, and assigned to them a decisive role in the Chinese revolution. He wrote: ``The time has now come to unite the whole people for the purpose of starting a revolutionary movement, which makes it all the more important to prevent any split among the merchants. .. . The broader the unity of the merchants and the greater their influence, the more powerful the force leading the whole people and the more swiftly the revolution will achieve success."^^2^^
A reading of Mao's earlier writings shows that he believed the definition of classes was not based on socio-economic relations between men, which are of different types, but on their property status, regardless of the actual form of relations of production (feudal, capitalist, etc.). Ignoring the historical approach, he classified all men into five categories: _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsiangtao No. 31--32, July 11, 1923, p. 233.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 234.
__PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---1362 177 big bourgeoisie, middle bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, semiproletariat, and proletariat. This was an extremely confused and unscientific approach to the definition of classes, and it stood out in the boldest relief in an article he wrote in 1926, entitled ``Analysis of the Classes of Chinese Society".^^1^^ There, he grouped into a single class different social groups representing different types of relations of production. Thus, big feudal landowners, militarists and senior officials, senior civil servants, officials of banks and industrial and commercial enterprises, and the upper layers of the intelligentsia, like prominent lawyers, teachers and lecturers of institutions of higher learning, and also a section of the students, were lumped alongside the compradores together with the big bourgeoisie. Apart from the owners of various enterprises, the middle bourgeoisie also included small landowners, together with employees of banks, industrial and commercial enterprises, a section of the teachers and students of institutions of higher learning, small-time lawyers, etc.Consequently, the big and middle bourgeoisie included all the rich, propertied or well-off sections of the population in general. By including the landowners into the class of Chinese bourgeoisie, Mao ignored the domination of semifeudal relations in the country and took the edge off the agrarian revolution in China.
The article also contained a muddled and equivocal definition of the petty bourgeoisie. Mao wrote: ``To the petty bourgeoisie belongs the toiling peasantry, the small traders, the owners of handicraft enterprises, and the small intelligentsia---petty officials and employees, pupils of secondary schools and teachers of secondary and primary schools, small-time lawyers, etc."^^2^^ The petty bourgeoisie is divided into three groups depending on the size of income. In the first group we find men who have ``surpluses of rice and money'', in the second those whose ``annual income allows them barely to make ends meet'', and in the third, men ``whose living conditions grow worse from year to year".^^3^^
Apart from the industrial workers, miners, railwaymen, seamen, dock-workers, the proletariat also includes all the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chungkuo nungmin No. 2, 1926.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 3.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
178 propertyless, poor and deprived sections of the population in general, like the city coolies, farm labourers in the countryside, and also the lumpen proletariat, which meant bandits, mercenaries, beggars, robbers and prostitutes. Mao wrote: ``This category of people is able to carry on a heroic struggle. Under skilful leadership, they can become a revolutionary force."^^1^^Mao characterised the role of the industrial proletariat as follows: ``Despite its small numerical strength the industrial proletariat is the main force of the national-- revolutionary movement."^^2^^ However, he explained the proletariat's revolutionary activity by the fact that ``its economic condition is low. Having been deprived of the instruments of production, it was left with its bare hands, without any hope of enrichment''. The implication here is that the workers were guided in the revolution not by their class consciousness, but by an urge for enrichment. Consequently, Mao defined classes not by men's place in social production, but by their proprietary condition, the size of their income, that is, relations of distribution.
Mao derived men's attitude to the revolution, and the extent of the revolutionary activity of various social groups from the place these men had within the system of social distribution. This made the lowest sections of society the most revolutionary forces, instead of those who were connected with progressive, large-scale modern production; it turned out that the poorer a people, the better, because ``poverty impelled men to revolution''. Because the peasantry was the poorest section of China's population it followed that the peasantry was to play the leading role in the Chinese revolution. It is this anti-Marxist attitude to the question of classes---with the accent on the peasantry---that determined the adventurist line of action in the political sphere.
No Marxist-Leninist has denied the important role of the peasantry in the revolutionary movement, especially in countries like China. While stressing the leading role of the working class in the Chinese revolution, Lenin did not in any sense minimise the great importance of the peasantry in social progress. He wrote: ``By drawing ever broader masses of the Chinese peasantry into the movement and into _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chungkuo nungmin No. 2, 1926, p.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 10.
__PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 politics, Sun Yat-sen's party is becoming (to the extent to which this process is taking place) a great factor of progress in Asia and of mankind's progress. Whatever defeats it may suffer from political rogues, adventurers and dictators, who rely on the country's reactionary forces, this party's efforts will not have been in vain."^^1^^ Lenin believed that Sun Yat-sen's democratic programme was a militant one, because it took account of the interests of the peasantry.Let us recall that after the Great October Socialist Revolution, Lenin attached much importance to the liberation struggle of the peasant masses, whom he regarded as the natural and principal allies of the proletariat in nationalcolonial revolutions. Accordingly, the Communist International repeatedly stressed the great role of the peasantry in the backward countries of the East. Thus, the ``General Theses on the Eastern Question" of the 4th Congress of the Comintern in 1922 stressed that the ``revolutionary movement in the backward countries of the East cannot win any success unless it is based on action by broad masses of peasants".^^2^^
The theses on the revolutionary movement in the colonial and semi-colonial countries adopted by the 6th Congress of the Comintern in 1928 said that ``the peasantry, together with the proletariat and as its ally, is a motive force of the revolution".^^3^^ The Comintern Executive's Directives to the 3rd Congress of the CPC in May 1923 drew the Chinese Communists' attention to the fact that ``it is the peasant question that is the central question of the whole policy"^^4^^ The resolution of the 6th enlarged Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive in March 1926 observed that ``the peasant question is the principal question of the Chinese national liberation movement".^^5^^ A letter from the Comintern Executive to the CPC Central Committee in December 1929 stressed that ``peasant war is a distinctive feature of the national crisis and the revolutionary upswing in China''.^^6^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 41, pp. 282--83.
~^^2^^ The Strategy and Tactics of the Comintern in the NationalColonial Revolution as Exemplified by China, Moscow, 1934, p. 47 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 72.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 114.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 125.
~^^6^^ Ibid., p. 255.
180We find all these documents stressing that in countries like China the peasant question is the central and principal question; that the peasantry is an ally of the proletariat; that peasant war is a distinctive feature of the national crisis and the revolutionary upswing. All of this is undoubtedly true, but we do not find any of these documents saying that the peasantry is the vanguard force of the revolution in China or in any of the economically backward countries of the East in general.
Let us recall that the 2nd Congress of the Comintern stressed the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the national liberation revolutions in the East, an idea which was further elaborated in the ``General Theses on the Eastern Question'', adopted by the 4th Congress of the Comintern. While recognising the great role of the peasantry in the East, notably in China, the Comintern pointed to the need to subordinate the peasant question to the strategic goal of the proletariat. By emphasising the decisive role of the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, in the revolution, Mao ignores the idea of the proletariat's hegemony, thereby breaking with the revolutionary line of the whole international communist movement.
As early as 1923, attention to the fact that Mao tended to underestimate the role of the working class in China was drawn by the representative of the Comintern Executive in China. His memo to the Comintern Executive on June 20, 1923, concerning the 3rd Congress of the CPC, said that ``the Hunan delegate, now Party Secretary, Mao Tse-tung, declared that it was now still impossible to set up either a national or a mass Communist Party''. In his ``Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan'', published in March 1927, Mao expressed in general terms the view that the peasantry was the decisive and only force of the revolutionary movement in China.^^1^^ He went into this matter at greater length in his work ``trategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War'',^^2^^ summing up the experience of Party work from 1927 to 1936. Once again, Mao advanced as the theoretical basis of the Chinese revolution, the proposition that the peasantry had the decisive role to play, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tsc-tung, Sclcfled Works, Vol. 1, pp. 23--24,
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 175--88.
181 reiterated this formula: the peasantry---the strategic mainstay; war---the principal tactical means of the Chinese revolution. In his work, ``The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China" at the end of 1939, Mao declared that the peasantry was the ``main force in the Chinese revolution'', that the revolution had its mainstay in the countryside, and that the revolution was first to triumph in the rural districts and then in the towns.^^1^^In his work ``On New Democracy" (January 1940) Mao drew the general conclusion that ``the Chinese revolution is virtually the peasants' revolution, and the resistance to Japan now going on is virtually the peasants' resistance to Japan. New-democratic politics is virtually the granting of power to the peasants.. . . And all that goes into the resistance to Japan and our own livelihood is virtually provided by the peasants. ... So the peasant problem has become the main problem of the Chinese revolution, and the strength of the peasants constitutes the principal force of the Chinese revolution".^^2^^
Back in 1931, Wang Ming, who was elected to the CPC leadership and subsequently also to the leadership of the Comintern Executive, and his followers pursued the Comintern line and tried to resist Mao's line, by stressing the importance of relying on the proletariat. They emphasised that even in the specific conditions in which the revolution developed in China it was not right to ignore the historical role of the working class, to forget about its historical mission in the revolution and to bring the peasantry into the foreground. For all the specific features of the Chinese revolution, for all the importance of the agrarian and peasant question in China, it was not right to ignore the strategic line of the Party which saw the proletariat as the guiding and leading force of the revolution. Wang Ming and his followers said Mao's line was an expression of the ``specifically peasant revolutionary attitude'', of ``peasant capitalism" and the ``kulak line''.
Mao started a drive against Wang Ming and accused him of taking a ``Left-deviationist'' line in the CPC leadership. By resorting to demagogy and juggling catchwords about _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 171--218.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 138.
182 the need to fight subjectivism and improve and correct the style of work in the CPC, Mao got the 7th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee to adopt the ``Resolution on Questions in History of the Party"^^1^^ expressing Mao's view and criticising those who advocated the ``Left-deviationist'' line above all for having resisted the line of the peasant revolution and subordination of work in the towns to work in the countryside.These unscientific, opportunistic views of Mao's, which had taken shape long ago, were most forcefully expressed after 1960 in his openly Right-opportunist line of depriving the working class of its vanguard role in Chinese society. In 1939 and 1940, Mao put forward the slogan that ``the rural districts are the mainstay of the revolution" and that ``the peasantry is the main force of the Chinese revolution'', whereas after 1960 he proclaimed the so-called general line of national-economic development: ``Agriculture is the basis of the national economy, industry is its leading force.'' Mao was unable altogether to drop all mention of industry, where the working class is engaged, but he did declare agriculture to be the basis of life in society. In a sense this realised the idea he had expressed in his article ``On New Democracy" in 1940, that ``our own livelihood is virtually provided by the peasants".^^2^^
This sharp turn-about from the ``Great Leap Forward" in industry to reliance on agriculture cannot be construed otherwise than as a petty-bourgeois Right-opportunist response to the failure of the Leftist policy of instant construction of socialism and communism. Here we constantly find a toing and froing between ``Left'' opportunism and Right opportunism, for such is the ``logic'' of all those who abandon Marxism: the overdoing of the Leftist line and its failure impel them to retreat to the Right, and then once again to fall back on Leftist gambles.
Mao's line of slowing down the country's industrialisation has inevitably caused a slow-down in the development of the working class and a reduction of its leading, vanguard role in the country. As a result, there has been a marked slow-down in the quantitative and qualitative growth of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 84.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 137--38.
183 working class in China. From 1949 to 1957, the number of industrial and office workers increased 3-fold (from 8 million to 24.5 million), an increase of 16.5 million; from 1957 to 1964, it increased by only about 10 million (from 24.5 million to 34--35 million). From 1949 to 1957, the number of industrial workers alone increased from 3 million to 9 million, and from 1957 to 1965, the number of industrial workers increased by only 2 million (a growth of only onethird in a similar period), reaching 11 million (with China's population in 1965 at 735 million).Consequently, the share of the working class in the socioclass structure of present-day Chinese society is still very small.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Artificial AggravationHaving taken the attitude of subjectivism and refusing to consider the real, objective processes of social development, Mao and his followers pushed the country into serious economic difficulties which had a grave effect on the life of hundreds of millions of people. By the end of 1960, Mao's idea of rapidly building communism in China was already a shambles. Industrial output had been halved and agriculture was in decline. The economic difficulties were compounded by heavy natural calamities which hit the country in 1959 and 1960. Millions of people died in the ensuing famine. The economic difficulties arising from the experiments in the period of the ``Great Leap Forward" reduced living standards among almost every section of the Chinese population, and this, for its part, naturally caused extensive and strong discontent throughout the country over the CPC's domestic policy, evidence of which came from the numerous disorders in many parts of China from 1958 to 1960.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ For example, on November 18, 1958, 40 men, armed with rifles, shotguns and knives, staged a peculiar demonstration in the village of Taiping, Wuhsing district, Jukin region, Szechwan province. They marched through the village bearing red hexagonal banners with this inscription: ``Down with Chairman Mao Tse-tung''. The participants in this demonstration chanted slogans like: ``We are starving'', ``We __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 185. 184
However, the fatal consequences of the Left-adventurist line for China did not induce Mao and his followers to take the path followed by other socialist countries. What is more, Mao's followers gradually lost faith in the possibility of building socialism in China within the foreseeable future. In 1958, during the ``Great Leap Forward'', the Chinese press asserted that for the Chinese people communism was a matter of the immediate future, whereas following the failure of the ``Great Leap Forward" socialist construction was regarded as a remote and totally dim prospect. An editorial article carried by Jenmin jihpao and Hungchih on June 14, 1964, said: ``It is impossible to achieve the final triumph of socialism within the lifetime of one or two generations. It can be fully achieved in five-ten generations or even after a much longer period of time."^^1^^ In accordance with this theoretical conclusion, the Maoists took the line of curtailing socialist construction in the country in the early 1960s.
Simultaneously, they began artificially to put heat into the political situation in the country. The line Mao has been conducting since 1960--1961 is aimed not at strengthening and developing in Chinese society relations of co-operation, and of alliance between the various labouring classes and groups of Chinese society, not at completing the class struggle against the remnants of the national bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes. It is geared to diametrically opposite aims: artificial fanning of social contradictions, the ranging and incitement of classes and social groups against each other: peasants against workers, workers and peasants against the intelligentsia, students and schoolchildren against Party and government cadres, etc.
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 184. cast iron in the mountain, and never see our wives and children''. Here is another example: on April 18, 1959, seven districts of Hsinhua region, Chinghai province, inhabited by people of four nationalities--- Sala, Tibetan, Uighur and Chinese---were the scene of a large-scale uprising; the insurgents besieged the regional centre, Hsinhua, for three days. Almost 4,000 other people rallied to their side and they occupied a large part of the regional territory. On April 25, the Chinese troops managed to put down the uprising. The insurgents lost over 400 men killed, while nearly 2,500 men were taken prisoner. Similar action occurred in other parts of the country.~^^1^^ The Chinese press said this article had been written by Mao himself.
185Mao's theoretical propositions on class relations in China have further evolved. Whereas in 1958 and 1959 his accent was on the possibility of rapidly overcoming all the contradictions and antagonisms between classes and even on the possibility of their peaceful resolution, the accent was now switched to an apology of the class struggle. In their domestic policy, the Maoists laid their main stress not on the development of production or improvement of the new relations of production, not on raising the people's living standards, but on ferreting out more and more class enemies. The Chinese press broadly circulated this postulate formulated by Mao: ``The class struggle, the production struggle and scientific experimentation are the three great revolutionary movements in the construction of a socialist power.'' Let us note that the class struggle is ranked first and is seen as a ``lever of these three great revolutionary movements''. ``The class struggle is the substance of all questions.'' ``From start to finish, the epoch of socialism is an epoch of class struggle."^^1^^
The idea that the class struggle is to continue until communist society has been built was first officially formulated in a communique issued by the 10th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee in September 1962, which said: ``The 10th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee declares that throughout the whole historical period of the proletarian revolution and the proletarian dictatorship, throughout the whole historical period of transition from capitalism to communism (this period covers decades and an even longer period of time) a class struggle takes place between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle between the socialist and the capitalist ways."^^2^^ The 10th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee proclaimed a line of sharpening the class struggle within the country, and one journal explained this as follows: ``During the period of socialism, classes and the class struggle not only continue to exist but the difficulties and complexities are far greater than those of earlier periods, and do not bear comparison with any other revolutionary period."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jcntnin jifipao, November 29, 1963.
~^^2^^ Hsinhua Press Release, September 28, 1902.
~^^3^^ Shichicn, November 1, 19G4.
186In a speech at this plenary meeting, Mao issued a call on the whole Party and the whole people ``never to forget about classes and the class struggle."^^1^^ Later he said: ``Throughout the whole stage of socialism, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the political, economic, ideological and cultural-educational spheres cannot cease. This is a long and intricate struggle; it runs a zigzag path and is repeated again and again. Like the wave, this struggle rises and falls; now it diminishes somewhat, now it is sharply aggravated. This struggle determines the future of socialism. On this protracted struggle depends the way socialist society takes: towards communism or towards a restoration of capitalism."^^2^^
Let us stress that this presentation of the class struggle in the form of a wave that rises and falls, regardless of the concrete political, economic and social changes in a society building socialism smacks of anarchism and demagogy, for it reduces the class struggle to the level of a tantrum thrown by the elemental forces of nature, while the possibility of making conscious use of the laws of social development discovered by Marx and Lenin is rejected. The Communist Parties, having mastered these laws, are in a position to say when the class struggle will become sharper and when it will subside.
It was declared at the 9th Congress of the CPC that Mao's thesis concerning the existence of the class struggle within the socialist society enriched Marxism and was a contribution to Marxist theory. The report said: ``Chairman Mao Tsetung especially emphasised that . . . 'the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the class struggle between the various political forces, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the sphere of ideology remains protracted, develops in zigzags and now and again even assumes a highly bitter character'. Consequently, it was Chairman Mao Tse-tung who for the first time in the theory and practice of the international revolutionary movement gave a clear-cut statement of the doctrine that following the completion in the main of the socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chicfangchiun pan, April 18, 1967.
~^^2^^ Editorial article published in Jcnmin ji/ipao and Iluiigchih .June 14, 1964.
187 transformation of the property in the means of production classes and the class struggle still exist, and that the proletariat must continue to carry on the revolution.''The assertion about Mao's ``development'' of the theory of class struggle as applied to socialist society is at variance with the generally known historical facts. No Marxist has ever said that the class struggle disappears of itself once the expropriators are expropriated. For a long time, the overthrown exploiting classes continue to have a sense of rabid hatred for the new social system and jump at any opportunity to restore their old domination. This was repeatedly pointed out by Lenin, who required that the Communists should be vigilant in face of the machinations by the class enemy. The experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, including China herself, has borne out the truth of what Lenin said. This was most visually demonstrated by such recent events as the counter-revolutionary putsch in Hungary in 1956 and the counter-revolutionary action in Czechoslovakia in 1968. It was said at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1969 that ``the enemies of socialism are keeping up their attempts to undermine the foundations of the socialist state power, thwart the socialist transformation of society and restore their own rule".^^1^^
Mao has never taken the historical approach to the analysis of social phenomena. He has refused to make any distinction between the initial stage of socialist construction and the stage of mature and developed socialism, between the laws of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism and the laws of socialist society. He has identified the class contradictions between antagonistic classes and class contradictions and relations between friendly nonantagonistic classes in socialist society. That is why he has essentially proposed similar methods for resolving these contradictions. Finally, Mao has refused to consider the fact that in the course of socialist construction the bitterness of the class struggle is moderated, and that gradually the edge of the class struggle is increasingly directed outwardly, because the remnants of the exploiting classes are left with _-_-_
^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969), p. 22.
188 less and less opportunities for restoring their erstwhile domination without direct armed support on the part of imperialism.According to Mao, it turns out that the economic domination, political rule and ideological pressure of the bourgeoisie remain not only in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism but also in full-scale socialist society. This question then suggests itself: what kind of full-fledged and mature socialist society is that?
Mao says that the elimination of the bourgeoisie, the landowners and other exploiters, as social classes, depends only on the overcoming of the bourgeois-feudal ideology among the citizens of the socialist society. The Maoists argue roughly on these lines: since bourgeois ideology exists, the bourgeoisie exists as well, and consequently there is need for the class struggle.
Here are some extracts from the Chinese press. ``Some people believe that once the socialist transformations are in the main completed, the capitalist economy, as the basis of the bourgeoisie, is in the main already eliminated, the bourgeoisie no longer holds the means of production and consequently already ceases to exist.'' ``By destroying the reactionary state machine men can eliminate it, but reactionary political views and ideology cannot be destroyed, these can be eliminated only as a result of re-education over a protracted period of time. That is why, although the crucial thing in eliminating a class is to deprive that class of its economic basis and the main conditions for its economic existence, this does not in any sense mean its immediate destruction. So long as the members of this class have not been re-educated, so long as the ideological and political influence of this class remains, it cannot be said to have been finally eliminated."^^1^^ Here is another extract: ``The solution of the question of property in the means of production is undoubtedly the first step which is of decisive importance in the elimination of classes, but it would be wrong to reduce the task of eliminating classes to this proposition alone. It would be wrong to assume that once the question of property is settled, there follows an instant disappearance of classes and the historical task of eliminating classes is fulfilled. Even after the exploiting classes have _-_-_
~^^1^^ Chungkuo chingnien Nos. 20, 21, 1962.
189 been overthrown in economic terms they continue to exist as classes. Their political views, ideology, world outlook and all kinds of activity exist and operate as the marks of their class. This is an important objective source for the protracted existence of classes, class contradictions and the class struggle in the transition period."^^1^^ And again: ``It is inconceivable that once the means of production are transferred, the exploiting classes are at once transformed into working people, and that in the sphere of ideology bourgeois world outlooks are likewise instantly transformed into proletarian outlooks. Following the establishment of the socialist system of property the struggle between the two ways continues to exist, the class struggle continues to be the main motive force behind the development of production."^^2^^These texts contain some correct propositions, borrowed from Marxist theory, and there is nothing wrong with them. What we have in mind is, for instance, that ``by destroying the reactionary state machine men can eliminate it, but reactionary political views and ideology cannot be destroyed, these can be eliminated only as a result of re-education over a protracted period of time''. And again: ``It is inconceivable that once the means of production are transferred, the exploiting classes are at once transformed into working people, and that in the sphere of ideology bourgeois world outlooks are likewise instantly transformed into proletarian outlooks''.
But these correct Marxist propositions are being used to substantiate an incorrect, anti-Marxist thesis about ideological re-education, instead of the expropriation of the property of the exploiting classes being the crucial condition for their elimination. The fact that a capitalist has been deprived of his private property, that he no longer receives surplus value, that he is made by his labour to earn the means of subsistence---all that turns out to be less than the basic condition for eliminating the capitalists as representatives of the exploiting classes. In other words, in defining the social structure and class relations in Chinese society, Mao and his followers do not start from objective criteria but mainly from subjective criteria relating to the sphere of ideology and politics.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Hsin chianshe No. 11, 1967.
~^^2^^ Chien hsien No. 12, 1964.
190Real revolutionaries have never discounted subjective criteria in analysing the class structure of socialist society, especially in the initial period of its construction. They have been fully aware that the expropriation of the expropriators, while signifying their elimination in social and class terms, and marking an end of their economic domination and political power, does not at all signify the total disappearance of bourgeois ideology. The proposition that social consciousness tends to lag behind social being is a Marxist axiom. That is why the revolutionary parties directing socialist construction are in no doubt about the fact that the struggle against the influence exerted by bourgeois ideology requires a considerable period of time, especially in view of the steady pressure exerted on the socialist countries by imperialist propaganda. However, none of these facts nullifies the fundamental Marxist-Leninist proposition that the expropriation of private capitalist property is the crucial condition for the elimination of the exploiting classes. This proposition holds true whatever the conditions of the class struggle.
Let us stress that Mao also takes a distorted view of the struggle against bourgeois ideology itself: he refers to the class struggle any discussion and any debate on political and ideological problems, and ranks among the class enemies Party functionaries who express differing views.
But Mao has gone beyond distortions of the Marxist theory of classes and the class struggle, and has been stubbornly putting them into practice. He has used these mainly artificially to build up an atmosphere of bitter class struggle in the country and then used this atmosphere to establish police control over the behaviour of every section of the Chinese population. Under the pretext of ``socialist re-education" the Maoists have carried out intensified purges in the cities among Party functionaries, government officials and the intelligentsia in trapping and suppressing those who do not accept their policy.
One of the refined measures used in ``re-educating'' such people, especially among the cadres and intellectuals, is to transport them to the countryside for ``tempering'' and `` reeducation in labour''. The Maoists have made wide use of this method to put down the discontented whom it is impossible to charge with any criminal offence. Jenmin 191 jihpao and other newspapers have described this ``tempering through labour" in the countryside as the ``most important and radical measure" for the socialist system, which helps to overcome bureaucratic practices and to avert revisionism. The papers have been calling for resolute implementation of Mao's instructions, concerning the ``tempering through labour" as one of the ways of ``preventing the restoration of capitalism''. Refusal by functionaries to fulfil the directives concerning the ``tempering through labour" and to leave for the countryside is qualified as bourgeois degeneration.
The policy pursued by Mao and his followers in the countryside is also aimed at building up clashes between social classes.
During the completion of the co-operative drive (1956--1957) Chinese peasants were divided into the class sections of the poor, the middle peasants and the kulaks chiefly in accordance with the means of production they had in their possession. The distinction between the well-off middle peasants and the kulaks consisted in the fact that the earnings from exploitation obtained by the well-off middle peasant were not in excess of 25 per cent of his whole family's total annual income, whereas for the kulak family it was in excess of 25 per cent of the total annual income. Through the establishment of co-operatives, the main means of production held by the peasants (including the kulaks) were socialised. The landowners (the petty landowners, because the big landowners had been suppressed during the agrarian reform) had also been admitted into the cooperatives on definite terms.
Of course, the end of the co-operative campaign did not mean the instant disappearance of class distinctions in the Chinese countryside, but the main source of class differentiation among the peasants---private property in the means of production---was no longer there. Now, with the class struggle being artificially sharpened, Mao and his followers have once again fallen back on the idea of the class distinction among the peasants based not on their relation to property but on their relation to the ``thought of Mao Tsetung''. Mao's supporters rank among the hostile classes in the countryside not only the former landowners and kulaks, but virtually all well-off middle peasants.
The Maoists' artificial aggravation of the class struggle 192 in the Chinese countryside and their reliance on the poor and the economically weak middle peasants is due to the following reasons: the establishment of the people's communes led to a break-up of collective farms which had not yet been firmly established. The peasantry, especially its middle section, discontented with the existing state of affairs, has been seeking to improve its living conditions. In accordance with Mao's conceptions, the urge on the part of the Chinese peasants to improve their living conditions (by various means, including the sale in the open market of the farm produce they grow by their own labours) is branded by the official press as ``spontaneous capitalistic tendencies''. Mao's class line in the countryside is designed above all to distract the peasantry's attention from its vital interests, to switch its efforts to the struggle against the ``class enemies'', thereby damping down peasant discontent by means of an artificial state of tension.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Class Struggle Without the StruggleIf the main class contradiction in China in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, according to Mao, continues to be the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, one would think that the revolutionary forces should concentrate their efforts on the struggle against the Chinese bourgeoisie. In practice this is far from being so. The Chinese press carries no reports about a class struggle against the bourgeois elements, no calls on the people to intensify the struggle against them, nor reports about subversive activity by the national bourgeoisie.
In 1956, following the wholesale conversion of all private enterprises into state-private enterprises, the state assessed the share of private capital at these enterprises as being worth 2,200 million yuan. Every year the former owners of the enterprises converted into state-private enterprises are paid 5 per cent on their invested capital. This means they receive 110--120 million yuan a year. Initially, the payment of interest, started in 1956, was expected to go on until the end of the second five-year period, that is, up to 1962, by when the state should have paid out almost 35 per cent of __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---1362 193 the value of the private capital, that is, 770 million yuan.^^1^^ However, the payment of interest has continued to this very day, and there is no indication when it will be stopped.
Another important form in buying out private capital in China, apart from the fixed interest, is the very high salaries paid to working capitalists. Thus, average salaries to former capitalists working in foreign trade establishments in Shanghai came to 223 yuan, as compared with the average of 50--60 yuan for industrial wages. A capitalist who is director of the Shenhsin textile mill No. 9 in Shanghai was paid 400 yuan a month, while the director of the same factory representing the state was paid 160 yuan. Some Shanghai capitalists have salaries running to more than 1,000 yuan a month. If the buying out payments already received by the capitalists are added to the amount by which the capitalists' salaries exceed those of government officials of equal rank (let us note that it is the high salary and not the fixed interest that is the capitalists' chief source of income) the total may be safely regarded as fully covering the value of the means of production bought up from the Chinese bourgeoisie.
Despite the fact that the buying out of the means of production from the bourgeoisie under the proletarian dictatorship does not amount to a transaction of sale (a fact the Chinese theorists did not deny in their articles either), the Chinese leadership, while claiming to be extra `` revolutionary" and urging a step-up of the class struggle, continue to pay the bourgeoisie ``smart money" 20 years since the establishment of the people's power.
The following fact shows the Maoists' attitude to the bourgeoisie.
Liu Nieh-yi is a capitalist who lives in Shanghai. His father had owned many enterprises, which in 1956 were estimated to be worth 90 million yuan. Following the father's death, the estate was shared out equally among his 10 sons. Liu Nieh-yi's share came to a number of match factories. Every year, he receives from the state 5 per cent interest on his capital, which comes to 450,000 yuan. Liu is chairman of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Theses of the All-China Trade Union Federation on the Policy of Redemption by the State of the Share of Private Capital at StatePrivate Enterprises, Peking, 1957 (in Chinese).
194 the Shanghai industrialists' and merchants' federation, and as director of one of his former factories receives a monthly salary of 250 yuan. His nine brothers cannot complain either. They too receive 450,000 yuan a year each and a higherthan-average salary. One of them, for instance, is director of a cement plant and has a salary of 690 yuan.Liu Nieh-yi will tell you straight away that in China the ``dictatorship of the proletariat is not aimed against the Chinese bourgeoisie'', and that he already regards himself as a common working cadre. Consequently, the loud talk about the class struggle and greater class vigilance has not prevented Mao and his entourage from forgetting it when dealing with the Chinese bourgeoisie.
At the 9th Congress of the CPC much was said about fighting the class enemies and purging the ``class ranks'', but the question of the national bourgeoisie, the last exploiter class of Chinese society, was not even considered. Mao's attitude to the national bourgeoisie can hardly be squared with the Maoists' revolutionary catchwords and is in fact marked by compromise, Right-opportunist flirtation and concessions, an urge to neutralise it and even to win it over to the Maoists' side in their fight against the Chinese people's socialist gains. Consequently, their Leftist words go hand in hand with their Right-opportunist deeds.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. Class Struggle:Mao said the ``cultural revolution" was ``absolutely necessary and highly timely in consolidating the proletarian dictatorship, preventing the restoration of capitalism and building socialism''. In their efforts to prove that the ``cultural revolution" was a ``natural development" and `` accorded with Marxist doctrine" the Maoists cited the founders of Marxism-Leninism.
In order to justify his assertions concerning the danger of a restoration of capitalism in full-scale socialist society, Mao referred to the following words of Lenin's: ``The transition from capitalism to communism takes an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch is over, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hope turns into __PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 13* 195 attempts at restoration."^^1^^ Mao thinks these words of Lenin's back up his idea that because the danger of restoration continues to exist right up to the construction of full-scale communist society the implication is that even in full-scale socialist society there must be a bitter class struggle. Mao ignores Lenin's remark to the effect that socialism is in fact communism, but only its first, or lower, phase. Lenin regarded the transition to communism as transition to its first stage---socialism. Here is what Lenin said about this in his work The State and Revolution: ``What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the `first', or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production become common property, the word `communism' is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism."^^2^^
When Lenin said that the exploiters still have hopes of restoration he had in mind the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, in which the issue of ``who beats whom" is decided. Mao tries to extend this period, and to include in it the whole of socialist society, when the issue of ``who beats whom" has already been decided. The Chinese leaders have been driving home the idea that the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries is inevitable. They have slanderously declared that this process is already taking place in the Soviet Union and in a number of other socialist countries in Eastern Europe. Accordingly, they `` recommend" that the peoples of these countries, including the Soviet people, should stage ``cultural revolutions" like the Chinese one.
In China's case the possibility of a capitalist restoration there cannot be denied because the country is still going through the transition period proper. To this very day, we find in Chinese society the national bourgeoisie and numerous remnants of old exploiting classes, who have visions of restoring the old social order. Nor can it be denied that their hopes of doing so have materially increased after socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ This quotation from Lenin's ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 254) was given in an editorial article carried by Jenmin jihpao and Hungchih on June 14, 1964, and once again used in the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 471.
196 ideas were discredited among some social sections of the Chinese people by the Maoist leadership's subjectivist policies.The ``great proletarian cultural revolution" in China is in no sense directed against the national bourgeoisie and the remnants of the other exploiting classes. None of those who have been ``exposed'' as being opponents of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" were capitalists or received unearned incomes. The Chinese press has admitted as much. Hungchih said in No.~8 for 1966: ``The great proletarian cultural revolution in our country is aimed against a handful of scoundrels who have used the signboard of communism to peddle their anti-communist wares. It is aimed against the handful of anti-Party, anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary bourgeois intellectuals.''
The ``Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (adopted on August 8, 1966) said: ``Because the cultural revolution is a revolution it inevitably meets with resistance. The source of this resistance lies mainly among those vested with power who have infiltrated into the Party and are going the capitalist way.'' It added: ``The present movement is centred on the struggle against those vested with power who are within the ranks of the Party and who are going the capitalist way."^^1^^
Who are these men who are ``vested with power ... and are going the capitalist way"? It turns out that the advocates of the counter-revolutionary line and restoration of capitalism in China and of struggle against the Party and socialism are Party cadres. The result is a pretty weird picture: it is not the bourgeois elements, but Party cadres who have visions of restoring capitalism in China.
Mao's shameless speculation on the threat of a capitalist restoration in China and the demagogic nature of his assertions about a ``life-and-death struggle between bourgeois restoration and proletarian counter-restoration"^^2^^ ultimately lays bare the true reasons behind the notorious ``great proletarian cultural revolution''. We believe the reasons to be these.
_-_-_~^^1^^ China Pictorial No. 9, 1966, pp. 6-7. At the 9th Congress of the CPG a new term---``capwayist''---was coined to designate those who are in power and are going the capitalist way.
~^^2^^ Hungchih No. 8, 1966.
197The Maoists' adventurist experiments in stepping up China's entry into communism by means of the ``Three Red Banners" line proved to be a fiasco. These experiments inflicted great damage on the Chinese economy, and it is still trying to make good these losses. In industrial and agricultural production China remains essentially on the 1957--1959 level. A large part of the national income goes into military needs, above all the fabrication of nuclear weapons. Despite some stabilisation of the economic and political situation following the failure of the ``Great Leap Forward'', Mao's erroneous domestic and foreign policy line has, for all practical purposes, driven the country into a dead end. It was announced that 1966 marked the start of the third fiveyear period, but no target figures for the five-year plan have yet been published. It would be wrong to assume that the gross errors made by Mao and his followers, including the ``Great Leap Forward'', have already become a part of history and have been forgotten by the Chinese people.
Many Party functionaries and government officials knew who was really to blame for China's plight. The Maoists could not be unaware of the fact that their domestic and foreign-policy failures had markedly undermined the influence of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" at home and abroad. So, in order to retain power, Mao and his followers started the ``cultural revolution''. Under the pretext of fighting the threat of a capitalist restoration they attacked the Party cadres and the patriotic elements who condemned Mao's adventurist propositions in the sphere of economic policy and demanded a return to the socialist methods of economic development; those who demanded an end to Mao's personality cult, which had frozen the life and creativity of the Party; those who insisted on restoring friendly relations and co-operation between China and the Soviet Union; those who urged the use of scientific, technical and cultural achievements in foreign countries; and those who demanded that the intelligentsia should be given more freedom of initiative and allowed to pursue its own creative quest. These demands by internationalist-minded Chinese Marxists, and other men who simply take the common-sense view of things are depicted by Chinese propaganda as an attempt to ``restore capitalism'', and as amounting to a 198 ``struggle against the Party and socialism" and a `` counterrevolutionary line''.
These Maoists' assertions amount to no more than a bogey used to intimidate and terrify the Chinese people, a trick used to justify the Maoists' political reprisals and to discredit their opponents.^^1^^ Despite these zigzags in China's political and economic life, brought about by the Maoists' line, there are considerable numbers of people in China who support socialism. Quite naturally, in the absence of any information concerning the true causes of the difficulties now facing China and the men who were instrumental in producing them, the speculation over the ``restoration of capitalism" slogan suits the book of Mao and his followers, because it allows them to retain some of their political and ideological influence.
During the ``cultural revolution" thousands of Party functionaries in charge of ideological and cultural matters, workers in culture, the sciences and the arts in all provinces and cities were removed from their posts and subjected to abuse, humiliation and political harassment. The most prominent leaders of the Communist Party of China fell victim to Mao's ambitious and treacherous policy, among them Liu Shao-chi and Teng Hsiao-ping, members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, Peng Chen, member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, Lu Ting-yi, alternate member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee's propaganda department, Lo Juiching, Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, and many others.
The pragmatic nature of the ``restoration of capitalism" slogan, designed to meet the narrow group interests of the _-_-_
^^1^^ Thus, for instance, Chou Yang, one-time chief of the propaganda department of the CPC Central Committee, was declared to be a ``counter-revolutionary revisionist element" on the ground that he had declared the following: ``The general line, the 'Great Leap Forward' and the people's communes met with great difficulties.'' He also said: ``Ultimately, it will be possible to say whether we arc right or wrong within 50 or 100 years.'' Chinese propaganda regards this as a slander of Mao Tse-tung because, as Jenmin jihpao wrote, ``the Party's general line---straining to the utmost, seeking to advance in building socialism on the principle of `more, faster, better, at less cost', is a great work of the thought of Mao Tse-tung" (Jenmin jihpao, August 7, 1966).
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1972/CMTTC290/20070510/290.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.09) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ Maoists, stands out quite clearly in an analysis of the charges brought against Liu Shao-chi. The report to the 9th Congress of the CPC calls Liu a ``provocateur'', ``a strikebreaker'', and a ``running dog of imperialism''. He is alleged to have ``concocted the political line of restoring capitalism" in China and of ``transforming China into a colony of imperialism and revisionism'', working to condition public opinion for an ``overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship''. The really surprising thing, however, is that the report contains no concrete facts to back up these charges. The report does not contain either an outline of Liu's programme or information about his contacts with the bourgeoisie. Some of the facts concerning ``Liu Shao-chi's black line'', which the report gives, relate mainly to the period before 1949, and merely show that Liu did not share some of Mao's tactical propositions. The point is that the Maoists were incapable of producing any facts to confirm the absurd assertion that Liu was seeking to restore capitalism, because no such facts are available. The fact is that, beginning from the mid1950s, Liu (like other sober-minded Party leaders) increasingly differed with Mao and his followers on the various aspects of the content and pace of China's socio-political and economic development.Evidence of this comes from the ``charges'' levelled against Liu Shao-chi by the Hungweiping press. Liu was attacked with special ferocity for having urged in the 1950s that a study should be made of the experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, and for having ``actively preached the idea of learning from the Soviet Union'', ``campaigned for Sino-Soviet friendship" and ``given a high assessment of Soviet assistance to China''. The Hungweiping press also accused Liu of having entertained the possibility of joining with the Soviet Union in fighting US imperialism.
One Hungweiping handbill gave this assessment of Liu Shao-chi's report at the 8th Congress of the CPC: ``In his report at the 8th Congress of the CPC in 1956, under the pretext of opposing the personality cult, he came out against Chairman Mao Tse-tung and used the banner of fighting against dogmatism as a pretext for attacking Mao Tse-tung.'' Another handbill accused Liu of ``revising'' the Party Rules, as adopted by the 7th Congress of the CPC. This ``revision'' amounted to the following. The Party Rules adopted at the 200 7th Congress of the CPC, said that the blend of MarxismLeninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution, as embodied in the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', was the guiding light of all its work, while the Party Rules adopted by the 8th Congress of the CPC said that every Party member had the duty strenuously to study Marxism-Leninism, but said nothing about studying the ``thought of Mao Tsetung''. The handbill asserted that Liu was ``mainly responsible for modifying the Party Rules at the 8th Congress of the CPC''. Similar charges were levelled at Teng Hsiaoping, former General Secretary of the CPC.^^1^^
The nature of the charges brought against Liu once again testifies to the fact that Mao has deliberately distorted the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of classes and the class struggle, that he has identified the clash of opinion within the Party and the class struggle, and that he has ranked all the Communists who disagree with his adventurist propositions among the class enemies and supporters of the ``bourgeois headquarters''. That is why the report to the 9th Congress says the struggle between Mao and Liu is not an innerParty struggle over the ways of building socialism in China, but a class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The facts also show that Mao has suppressed many of his former associates precisely because they have come out against his pseudo-revolutionary conceptions and lines on classes and class relations.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 7. Concerning Mao's AttitudeIn Section 3 of this Chapter we already dealt with the fact that in the 1920s and 1930s Mao had, for all practical _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Hungweiping press wrote the following about Teng: ``At the 8th Congress of the CPC, back in 1956, his report on changes in the Party Rules in every way glorified the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and opposed the so-called personality cult.'' Naturally enough, considering the unprecedented proportions to which Mao's personality cult has now been blown up in China, such a statement is regarded as counterrevolutionary, and is amounting to action against the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. Like Liu, Teng was accused of spreading the ``fading out of the class struggle" theory, and insisting that as socialist transformations were being completed, the class struggle in China was bound to ease off.
201 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."^^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.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."^^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.''
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.
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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. IV, Peking, 1961, p. 421.
~^^2^^ Hungchih No. 2, 1968.
202 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."^^1^^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."^^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."^^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''.
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, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, January 12, 1967.
~^^2^^ Hungchih No. 2, 1968.
~^^3^^ Kwangming jihpao, July 26, 1969.
203 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.
__*_*_*__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.
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.
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.
204A 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.
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.
[205] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Six __ALPHA_LVL1__ RELATION OF POLITICS AND ECONOMICSA correct understanding of the relation between politics and economics is the most important criterion of the scientific nature of a social theory and the social practice resting on it. The starting point of the Marxist-Leninist theory of social development and the materialist view of history consists in recognition of the definitive role of production in this process, and recognition of the fact that changes in the social superstructure, specifically the political life of society, are based on changes in the mode of production which are determined by the development of the productive forces. This is the fundamental distinction between Marxism-Leninism, the theory of the revolutionary working class, and the social theories put forward by the reactionary ideologists not only of the big but also of the petty bourgeoisie.
The twofold nature of the condition and mentality of the petty-bourgeois masses, the peasant masses above all, is expressed in the existence of opposite ideological traditions: the progressive tradition of revolutionary democracy, which real revolutionaries regard with profound respect, and reactionary traditions against which real revolutionaries carry on an implacable struggle, and this means specifically the traditions of pseudo-revolutionary adventurism and anarchism.
Anarchists, like the followers of Bakunin, denied the need for a mass proletarian party, for the proletariat's hegemony 206 in the socialist revolution and for its dictatorship, and regarded the revolution as a spontaneous rebellion by pettybourgeois masses and declasse elements. Following Marx and Engels, Lenin resolutely condemned Bakunin's views, characterised them as the outlook of a petty-bourgeois despairing of his salvation, and consistently opposed any manifestations of anarchist theory and tactics in the revolutionary movement. In his work ``Left-Wing'' Communism ---an Infantile Disorder and several others, Lenin exposed the reactionary essence of anarchist conceptions and showed them to be incompatible with Marxist theory and the strategy and tactics of the communist movement.
The ideologists of the proletariat regarded anarchism as an essentially counter-revolutionary trend which brought division into the liberation movement of the masses, and which hampered the strengthening of the unity of the revolutionary forces, and development of the alliance between the working class and the non-proletarian exploited masses, the toiling peasantry in the first place. By contrast, Marx, Engels and Lenin regarded revolutionary democracy as a trend expressing the truly revolutionary aspirations of the non-proletarian masses which helped to raise the awareness of these masses to the level of proletarian ideology. In their ideological development, Marx and Engels themselves travelled from revolutionary democracy to scientific communism.
Marxism was a continuation of the revolutionary-- democratic tradition which, in particular, was expressed in the understanding of the dependence of politics on economics. In contrast to this, anarchism saw politics as constituting the main force behind the historical process, and relied not on objective economic prerequisites for revolution and the mass movements they generated, but on arbitrary sparking off of putsches by handfuls of politicians, declasse elements, and so on. The anarchists concentrated on the destructive side of the revolution and lost sight of its creative side.
We have to deal with these matters because Mao's ideological and theoretical platform, which is at the basis of his group's current political line, is a departure not only from proletarian ideology, from Marxism-Leninism, but also from all the progressive traditions of the revolutionary peasantry.
Maoism gives expression not to petty-bourgeois ideology 207 as a whole, but to the reactionary tradition of this ideology, specifically, the anarchist tradition, elements of whose ideological content Mao and his group have used to speculate on the ideological and political immaturity of sizable sections of the population resulting from the country's economic backwardness.
The anarchist tendencies in Mao's views were expressed variously and in differing forms at the succeeding stages of his ideological evolution. It is true that during the civil war---the struggle against the Kuomintang regime---Mao paid lip-service to the danger of such expressions of anarchism within the Party branches and the Red Army of China as ``the militaristic mentality" which is connected with mistrust of the strength of the masses, putschism, clannishness, the ``freebooters'' spirit'', demands for egalitarian distribution, etc. In that period, he made a show of attacking the very elements of anarchist mentality and tactics which he himself now makes a point of openly and stubbornly implanting.^^1^^
However, even then anarchist tendencies had a definite effect on Mao's own views, being expressed in a one-sided enthusiasm for political means of class struggle and an underestimation of its economic content and tasks.^^2^^
The analysis of economic phenomena is known to have played a most important part in the writings of the founders of Marxism-Leninism. Scientific political economy, an important component part of Marx's doctrine, was formulated in his fundamental writings, the greatest of which is his immortal Capital. In the creative development of Marxism, Lenin gave much attention to an analysis of economic processes and specifically dealt with them in such of his works as The Development of Capitalism in Russia and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and a great number of articles.
A departure from this tradition, which is characteristic of genuine social science, is to be found in Mao's writings. _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, London, 1954, pp. 105--16.
~^^2^^ Let us bear in mind that anarchist ideas were popular in China at the time when Mao's world outlook took shape. In the first and second decades of the century, a large section of the Chinese intelligentsia went through a period of enthusiasm for anarchism.
208 which betray an obvious neglect for questions of economic theory.This could to some extent be explained by the fact that for many years Mao had to work in an atmosphere of armed struggle, which required primary attention to matters of military strategy and tactics, and which tended to push questions arising in the development of production into the background. That is why Mao regarded economic problems not from the standpoint of the prospects of socialist change, but merely as current economic questions directly subordinate to the political tasks of the civil war. Because Mao was not sufficiently mature in theoretical terms, he tended to turn this approach into an absolute: he developed the notion that politics had the decisive role to play in social life. The thesis he formulated---``politics is the soul, the command force"--- clearly expresses his view of the relationship between economics and politics, a view which is incompatible with Marxism-Leninism.
Characterising the Communist Party's scientific approach in formulating its policy, Lenin wrote: ``We value communism only when it is based on economic facts ... 'we always took our stand first and foremost on an exact economic analysis'."^^1^^ Another of Lenin's references to the question stresses the definitive role of economics and characterises the meaning of the attitude of those who ignore it. In 1918, he said: ``Economic interests and the economic position of the classes which rule our state lie at the root of both our home and foreign policy. These propositions which constitute the basis of the Marxist world outlook and have been confirmed for us Russian revolutionaries by the great experience of both Russian revolutions, must not be forgotten even for a moment if we are to avoid losing ourselves in the thickets, the labyrinth of diplomatic tricks, a labyrinth which at times is artificially created and made more intricate by people, classes, parties and groups who like to fish in muddy waters, or who are compelled to do so."^^2^^
It is precisely the basis of the Marxist world outlook, which Lenin brought out, that Mao distorts because, when considering the relationship between economics and politics, he _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, pp. 191--92.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, pp. 365--66.
__PRINTERS_P_210_COMMENT__ 14---1362 209 substitutes a mechanistic for a dialectical approach and essentially presents politics as a force which is independent of economics.Economics and politics are organically connected with each other. Revealing this interconnection, Lenin wrote that ``politics is a concentrated expression of economics'',^^1^^ and that is precisely why ``politics must take precedence over economics".^^2^^ In his article ``Once Again on the Trade Unions" Lenin showed that it was not right to separate the ``political approach" from the ``economic approach" and to try mechanically to combine them as principles isolated from each other. The political approach to questions of economic construction from the standpoint of the working class requires that the interests of the current economic advantage should not blot out the vital economic interests of the working people, and that the primary economic tasks of the working class---the tasks of building and developing the socialist economy---should be regarded as the fundamental ones.
Politics takes precedence over economics simply because the question of whether the working class is to retain its economic domination is decided in the political sphere, in the sphere of the class struggle. It is precisely on the successful solution of the political task of consolidating the alliance of the working class and the toiling peasantry that the implementation of socialist change in the economy depends. Let us note that it is not any type of politics that takes precedence over economics, but only correct politics, which give genuine expression to the economic interests of the working class and indicate the scientifically-grounded ways for realising these interests, relying on a consideration of the requirements of objective economic laws. Lenin stressed: ``Without a correct political approach to the matter the given class will be unable to stay on top, and, consequently, will be incapable of solving its production problems either,"^^3^^ adding that for the working class which has taken power into its own hands, for its Party and for the state of the proletarian dictatorship the most important content of politics henceforth amounts to a fulfilment of this ``production problem": _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 83.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 84.
210 organisation of economic construction on scientific principles, unification of the efforts of all the working people and direction of their activity in building and developing the socialist economy.Neglect of the dialectical interconnection between economics and politics and inability to analyse economic processes and to apply such analysis in formulating policies were increasingly revealed in Mao's writings as the specific conditions of the civil war receded and China entered a period of peaceful construction, when economic questions assumed central importance.
Initially, Mao did not try blatantly to contrast his specific approach to these questions with the economic line formulated by the collective thinking of the Communist Party of China, which relied on the Soviet Union's experience. The correctness of this policy, expressed in the CPC's general line and approved, following nation-wide discussion, by the National People's Congress in September 1954, was borne out by the successes in fulfilling the first five-year plan of China's economic development (1953--1957).
This plan provided for the establishment of a primary base of socialist industry and the socialist transformation of agriculture, concentration of the main forces on building 694 large industrial enterprises, among which the main ones were 156 enterprises and shops that were being built with the Soviet Union's assistance. The plan targets for capital construction were overfulfilled by 10 per cent. The targets for gross industrial output were overfulfilled by 15 per cent, and the targets for the staple cereal and industrial crops were slightly overfulfilled.
However, Mao saw these successes not as an argument in favour of the general line adopted by the Party, but as a pretext for its revision. From 1955 on, Mao, spurred by his hegemonistic aspirations and claims to personal leadership of the world revolutionary movement, has been insisting on supplanting the general line by the new line designed to put China ahead of all the socialist countries in one great spurt. While trying to impose on the Party his adventurist line, he also tries to give it some theoretical backing, and all of Mao's ``creativity'' in economic theory comes to these attempts in the form of separate statements, thrown here and there in his various articles and speeches. It is futile to seek in these __PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 211 statements any hint of a scientific analysis of economic processes. Still, they reveal most clearly a definite conception of economic development, and because it is embodied in the Chinese leaders' economic policy, it is worthwhile to consider its content.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Mao's View of Socialist EconomicLet us recall that Mao's followers have declared him to be the ``greatest Marxist-Leninist of our day''. The extent to which Mao is actually out of touch with Marxism-Leninism will be clearly seen from his views concerning the substance and development of the socialist mode of production. Marxist-Leninist theory regards the mode of production as a dialectical unity of its two sides: the productive forces and the relations of production. These two sides cannot be detached from each other, because in reality they are organically connected and develop in accordance with the objective law of their mutual concordance. That is also the law governing the development of the socialist mode of production; conscious consideration of the requirements of this law means the balanced maintenance of the concordance of the productive forces and the relations of production, and their simultaneous improvement. Once the working class takes over political power, it can and must use it for the balanced establishment and development of socialist relations of production on the basis of the development of the productive forces. To try to establish new relations of production without relying on a development of the productive forces is to establish these relations of production only in formal terms, without the substratum on which alone they can be consolidated and developed.
The triumph of socialism in the USSR was secured because Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were guided by the proposition of simultaneously improving the productive forces and the relations of production, and consciously working to maintain them in harmonious balance. The Party Programme, adopted by the 8th Congress of the RCP(B), said that the ``all-round boosting of the country's productive forces" should be the main line which determined 212 the whole economic policy of the Soviet power.^^1^^ Lenin felt that it was necessary to supplement the full-scale plan for social change, above all change in the sphere of relations of production, as set out in the Party Programme, with a concrete plan for developing the country's productive forces, above all its material and technical basis, the plan known as the GOELRO, which was elaborated on Lenin's initiative.
Lenin resolutely opposed any attempt to identify the development of the productive forces with the quantitative growth of production which went forward without any reliance on technological progress. He saw the rise of the productive forces as implying an improvement of technology and the technical organisation of production, going hand in hand with a development of the working people themselves through a change in the content of their work and the supplanting of manual operations by mechanised operations arising from steady technical improvements, through higher living standards and a raising of their general educational and professional levels.
Lenin said that the way to establish social property throughout the national economy lay through socialist industrialisation, the building of a large-scale machine industry capable of supplying all the branches of the economy with modern means of production and establishing a technical basis for a developed agriculture. He wrote: ``Without highly developed large-scale industry, socialism is impossible anywhere; still less is it possible in a peasant country."^^2^^
These precepts of Lenin's have been the CPSU's guideline in the whole of its economic policy. It rejected the opportunist suggestions to delay the establishment of a heavy industry, and to lay stress on the boosting of output in the light and handicraft industries, which had a backward technical basis. The CPSU also discarded the Trotskyite suggestions for developing production by putting pressure on the workers and peasants and lowering their living standards. In line with Lenin's precepts, the CPSU based its economic policy on the need to ensure the technical improvement of production together with the creation of _-_-_
~^^1^^ The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences, and CC Plenary Meetings, Part I, p. 421.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 408.
213 conditions promoting a steady rise in the material welfare and cultural and technical levels of the working people, the chief productive force.Mao's conception has nothing in common with the MarxistLeninist doctrine of the substance and development of the socialist mode of production, which has been tested and confirmed by the practice of socialist construction in the USSR and the other socialist countries.
Whereas Marxist-Leninist theory regards the mode of production as a dialectical unity of the productive forces and the relations of production, Mao's conception has these two aspects of the mode of production mechanistically detached from each other. He assumes that it is possible to establish socialist relations of production and even to transform them into communist ones without reliance on a corresponding development of the productive forces. In Mao's view it is not the establishment of the necessary material conditions, not the development of society's material and technical basis and change in the content of labour that provides the groundwork for the development of socialist relations of production, but decrees, instructions from the political leader, and political instruments which make the masses obediently bend to his orders.
Mao's neglect of the improvement of society's material and technical basis is ever more clearly revealed in his statements as he formulates his new economic line. In a report dealing with co-operatives in agriculture in 1955, he said: ``We are now carrying out a revolution not only in the social system, the change from private to public ownership, but also in technology, the change from handicraft to largescale modern machine production. . .. We must on no account regard industry and agriculture, socialist industrialisation and the socialist transformation of agriculture as two separate and isolated things, and on no account must we emphasise the one and play down the other."^^1^^ This appears not only to insist on a simultaneous development of the productive forces and the relations of production, as stated in the CPC's general line in that period, but also to emphasise the need for this proposition, the need for the technical improvement of production (agriculture in particular) as a _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-lung, pp. 26--27.
214 condition for switching it to socialist lines. But recognition of the need to abide by the requirements of the law of concordance amounted to no more than demagogy, for what Mao said in the above-mentioned speech clashed with the main content of the report from which the words are taken: in the report Mao urged a step-up in the collectivisation of agriculture, without ensuring the real possibilities for its technical equipment.Let us recall that the CPC Central Committee's general line provided for a gradual implementation of socialist change in the country over a period of roughly 15 years. In 1956, Mao proposed that this period of transition to socialism should be reduced to one-third. He told the Supreme State Conference: ``Since the summer of last year, socialist change, that is, a socialist revolution, has been started on an exceptionally large scale. Within another three years or so the socialist revolution will in the main be completed on the scale of the whole country."^^1^^
The idea of instantly establishing socialist relations of production throughout the national economy without providing the necessary technical basis clearly clashed with the principle of developing the relations of production on the basis of an improvement of the productive forces. While in 1955 Mao still pretended that he had considerations for this principle, when he declared that the ``revolution in the social system" should be implemented together with the `` revolution in technology'',^^2^^ in 1956 he openly discarded this principle. This was expressed in his distorted view of the operation of the law of concordance of the productive forces and the relations of production in the period of socialist construction. In 1956 Mao declared: ``Socialist revolution aims at liberating the productive forces. The change-over from individual to socialist, collective ownership in agriculture and handicrafts and from capitalist to socialist ownership in private industry and commerce is bound to bring about a tremendous liberation of the productive forces. Thus the social conditions are being created for a tremendous expansion of industrial and agricultural production."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Quoted from Pravda, January 27, 1956.
~^^2^^ See Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-lung, p. 27.
^^3^^ Ibid., p. 26 (emphasis added---A.F.).
215There is good reason why the idea of developing the productive forces has been supplanted by the idea of their ``liberation''. The substance of Mao's new line in effect consisted in putting off the development of the productive forces and the technical equipment of agriculture for an indefinite period, merely gaining the advantages to be had from a simple co-operation of the peasants' unmechanised labour. On this basis, which did not allow the productive forces to go beyond the framework of a very limited level, Mao expected not only to establish socialist relations of production in an immature form, but also to develop them to a high state of maturity, and to convert the forms of organisation in production into communist ones. Mao was not put out by the lack of the necessary material and technical basis: he decided that the political power of the state was a factor which could serve as a substitute.
Thus, the new line oriented the CPC's economic policy away from a consideration of the objective requirements of the law of concordance of the productive forces and the relations of production and upon a deliberate neglect of these requirements: it did not induce a balanced resolution of the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production, but an artificial sharpening of these contradictions. It will be easily seen that the idea which, let us recall, Mao put forward in that period, namely, that under socialism contradictions are resolved through their artificial sharpening, served not only as a ``substantiation'' for the sharpening of the class struggle within socialist society, but also as justification for the new line in the CPC leadership's economic policy. In fact, Mao took a cynical attitude on the question of contradictions under socialism: guided by the principle ``the worse the better'', he declared massive poverty and backwardness to be a favourable factor in socialist construction. He said: ``Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are 'poor and blank'. This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution."^^1^^
Above we already dealt with Mao's voluntarism and his _-_-_
~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, p. 36.
216 off-hand attitude to the people, expressed, in particular, in his well-known statement in which he compares the people with a ``clean sheet of paper" on which, ``the newest, the most beautiful characters" can be written, and ``the newest, the most beautiful drawings can be created''. This patent voluntarism, this scorn for the working people, the chief productive force, were most clearly revealed in the economic sphere. Mao's statement quoted above suggests a haughty confidence on his part that the impoverished and backward mass of people can be made to do anything, that it can be turned into a pliant tool of the adventurist politician imagining himself to be a demi-god capable of changing the social system at will.The ``sheet of paper" on which Mao intended to write ``the newest, the most beautiful characters" in the expectation of setting up communism in some miraculous fashion was indeed a ``clean'' one in the sense that the objective conditions for such a project were lacking. The peasantry, constituting 80 per cent of China's population, was engaged in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming. It lacked even the primitive implements which require the application of arduous manual labour, while in many places the peasants had to pull their ploughs and carts themselves because they were short of draught animals and mechanical means of traction. In industry, the bulk of the workers were engaged in handicraft production or at small and medium-size enterprises with extremely backward techniques and machinery and with the prevalence of manual labour. These workers had a productivity which came to no more than 10 per cent of that at the very small number of large enterprises equipped with machinery.
In these conditions, there was an especially acute need to concentrate efforts on developing the large-scale machine industry as the only basis for the technical equipment of production and the substitution of mechanised for manual operations, so as to enhance productivity. But Mao thought on different lines. He assumed that economic problems could be tackled without technical improvements in production, if the entire working population were involved, while the working people's poverty and backwardness would make it possible to get the most out of them through longer hours and lower living standards, to make up for the low labour 217 productivity. Instead of setting the goal of technical development and higher living, cultural and technical standards for the people, Mao put forward the idea of boosting production and increasing accumulation at the expense of the working people.
That is precisely what was done in 1958. Enterprises were switched to a 10--12-hour working day with two holidays a month, and in the countryside more intensive use of manpower was made through the peasantry being saddled with the duty, in addition to farming, of also doing industrial work by extending rural handicraft production. The level of consumption among the rural population was sharply pressed down while the closed 3rd Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee in 1957 formulated a special policy of ``low and rational wages" in order to press down living standards among industrial and office workers. The substance of this policy was expressed by Minister of Labour Liu Tze-chiu, when he said: ``At the present time, the basic policy in the sphere of labour and wages in our country is aimed at having five men consume the food of three."^^1^^ The urge for higher wages and better living conditions was declared by Mao to be an expression of ``unhealthy style" and of the bourgeois mentality. He proclaimed this slogan: ``Poverty is good.''
The substance of the new economic line proposed by Mao and his entourage boiled down to the following: to accept the technical backwardness of production based on manual labour, to involve all the manpower reserves in this backward production by setting up labour armies and a great many handicraft industries, to put millions of men and women in conditions of hard labour, setting the goal not of boosting productivity, which is impossible without technological progress, but of wearing down men's physical strength and pressing down their living standards to the utmost. This was a programme for the barbarous use of the available productive forces, which ruled out any possibility of their development. Nothing but a destruction of the productive forces could result from this programme.
While holding forth about the ``liberation'' of the productive forces, Mao put this in the context of triumphant _-_-_
~^^1^^ Kunjcn jihpao, March 1, 1957.
218 socialist relations of production and socialist property. The terms ``socialist property" and ``social property" constantly occur in his speeches. However, behind the Marxist terminology there is nothing but a distortion of these concepts of MarxistLeninist science.Marxism-Leninism regards socialist relations of production not as the result of a formal socialisation of the means of production, decreed by some political body, but as a true realisation of relations involving the social ownership of the means of production and signifying that the various branches and the numerous units of the national economy are no longer fragmented economically, but have been brought together and are ruled by a single plan. Real establishment of social property means development of comradely co-operation and mutual assistance in the relations involving exchange of labour activity and a system of incentives for this activity which provides for a blend of personal interests, group interests and the interests of society as a whole. According to Marxism-Leninism, socialist democracy alone allows the development of all these aspects of socialist relations of production and their growth into communist forms of socio-economic organisation of social production.
It will be easily seen that the political instruments which Mao has decided to use have nothing in common with socialist democracy, and the socio-economic system which he has been stubbornly trying to implant with these instruments has nothing in common with socialist relations of production.
Mao's idea about the political instruments to be used to establish the new relations of production is expressed in his call to ``militarise organisation, take combat action and carry on a collective way of life'', as formulated in the CPC Central Committee's resolution of August 29, 1958. Among the means used by Mao and his followers to implant the ``collective way of life" are decrees establishing the form of organisation the people are to adopt, backed up by ideological brainwashing, and the introduction of these forms through administrative and military pressure on the masses. The so-called collective way of life itself, which is being established in this manner, is a system of extra-economic coercion of the working people, who have been switched to 219 near barrack-room conditions, and who have to play the part of faceless little screws doing the will of their senior. The people's communes, which Mao declared to be the best organisational form for transition to communism, have always been instruments of extra-economic coercion designed to make the masses put up with any privation and give up the fruits of their labour to the state without a murmur.
As Mao saw them, the communes were economic organisations essentially embodying not social but group property. This means that Mao's views of the ideal economic organisation of society did not originate in Marxism but in anarchisttype conceptions and ideas going all the way back to Proudhon. Instead of realising the need to set up an integrated national economy with developed economic ties, and rational specialisation and co-operation of its units, Mao set for China the ideal of a semi-subsistence economy claiming that economic cells isolated from each other constituted a communist system. For one thing, each of these cells had to look to its own supplies, and not expect to co-operate with other cells, and for another, it was forced to make deductions into a state's accumulations fund, without expecting any help from the latter.
In the last few years, these conceptions have been expressed in Mao's principle of ``relying on one's own strength'', which in application to China's internal economic development boils down to the requirement of self-supply by economic cells and complexes. The practices at the Tacheng oil fields and of the Tachai production brigade were declared to be setting a model in the application of this principle. About 80,000 families, constituting the population of Tacheng---an oil-bearing area in north-east China, live in villages and hamlets situated in such a way as to enable the men to work on the oil fields and the women on the farms. The ``spirit of Tacheng" which the Chinese press has extolled over a period of several years, amounts to a low rate of consumption and wretched living conditions in barrack-rooms and mud-huts, self-supply of foodstuffs and ``voluntary'' renunciation of assistance from the state. The same thing applies to the ``spirit of Tachai'', with the sole difference that this is not a large industrial enterprise, but a small farm consisting of 83 households. The Tachai brigade is 220 credited not only with having provided their own supplies of seed, feed, fertilisers and building materials, but also with having refused to use paper and ink, so as to refrain from acquiring anything for their office from outside. The Tachai brigade practises the following principle: the greater part of the crop goes to the state and the rest is used for the needs of the farm and food for the peasants. One of their slogans is ``three never ask" (never ask the state for grain, money or materials).
The principle of ``relying on one's own strength" is the ``substantiation'' of the thesis that the isolation of the areas, the communes and production collectives is not a defect of China's economy, but a great boon. At the same time, the Maoists have used this principle to justify their line of isolating China economically from the other socialist countries, a line which is in conflict with the objective need for international division of labour within the world socialist system and is aimed at undermining the economic unity of the socialist countries.
Substitution of group for social property and of relations of economic isolation for relations of co-operation and mutual assistance necessarily had an effect on Mao's views of the mechanism of the national economy and the economic laws governing its operation and development. Mao regards commodity-money relations as something that is alien to socialism, that is only outwardly connected with socialist relations of production and that exists alongside these relations. One would think that this view implies recognition of the need for strict centralisation of the national economy and comprehensive planning. But Mao has in fact also denied the need to regulate the national economy on the basis of the objective law of balanced and proportional development.
In a speech before the Supreme State Conference in 1957 he said that grain was the only item that needed to be planned centrally, because the production of other industrial and agricultural items has to be determined by ``local social organisations or by the masses themselves''. There is nothing paradoxical about this conclusion, because once the isolation of the economic units is idealised it logically follows that there is no need for centralising social production and carrying it on under a single plan. What is paradoxical is this: 221 Mao has failed to see that the separation of the economic units inevitably results in the anarchy of production and spontaneous operation of the law of value, and that consideration of the objective requirements of this law is a necessary condition for the balanced development of a socialist economy. In fact, he appears to regard socialist production as being a realm of spontaneous movement, in which there are no objective regulators.
According to Mao, the law of ``undulating'' development is the only ``law'' that governs socialist production. He says that social production spontaneously fluctuates between a ``state of equilibrium" and a ``state of disequilibrium'', with alternating ebbs and flows, ups and downs. It is impossible, he says, to do anything about this and make economic development steady; the only thing that can be done is for the subjective factors to exert an influence on the economy so as to whip up the spontaneous rise and limit the spontaneous fall, when the time comes. Those are the only limits, according to Mao, in which the planning and conscious regulation of the development of socialist production is possible.
Personal incentives are not among the means to be used in putting up the rises and tempering the falls. The working people have to be induced to do better by means of ideological influence and administrative pressure, with the products of labour so distributed as to ensure maximum accumulation, while keeping personal consumption' down to a minimum, which the principle of levelling should help the working people to accept.
Thus, in his view of socialist relations of production and their development, Mao is as far from Marxism-Leninism as he is in his view of the substance and importance of the productive forces in the socialist mode of production, and of the need for their improvement. Mao's conception is an eclectic mixture, in which distorted concepts of MarxistLeninist science are interwoven with concepts and notions borrowed from anarchist-type theories whose roots go back to Proudhon, together with the mechanistic ``theory of equilibrium" which the Right opportunists once advocated, and other similar ideas.
[222] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The ``Great Leap Forward'': CollapseMao began to put through his economic conception by breaking up the ``old framework" of the first five-year plan. He did so in the hope of whipping up the advance which was evident in the early years of the five-year period. Accordingly, the 1956 plan targets for capital construction and industrial production were sharply increased. In 1956 outlays on capital investments went up by 62 per cent, and the pace at which the peasant farms were collectivised was sharply increased. Whereas only 14 per cent of peasant farms in China were united in co-operatives in 1955, by the end of 1956, the co-operative sector already covered over 90 per cent of the peasant farms. Within a few months, the bulk of agricultural production and the handicraft industry was co-operated, while private industrial and commercial enterprises were converted into mixed state-private enterprises.
However, there was no reason to regard the state-private enterprises, which were essentially a part of the statecapitalist sector, as a form of social socialist property in the means of production. As for the co-operative sector, which was hurriedly set up almost throughout the whole of agricultural and handicraft production, if socialist relations of production were to develop and to be solidly established in it, there was need to provide a corresponding material basis for the collective forms of economic operation, without which they could not be stable. It was impossible to do this while keeping the level of mechanisation of agricultural labour extremely low and without creating the conditions for ensuring the technical equipment of agriculture.
Mao was apparently hoping that the favourable weather in 1955 would continue in the following few years, thereby ensuring good crops and helping to win the peasants over with more or less adequate incomes from the collective farms. However, his expectations were not realised. The last years of the five-year period---1956 and 1957---were marked by heavy crop failures. Far from increasing, the incomes of a sizable section of the peasantry were in fact reduced after they joined co-operatives. The situation in the social sector of the co-operatives became more complicated.
223The attempt to step up industrial output likewise came to nothing: capital investments, scattered over an excessive number of construction projects, were largely frozen and shortages of the necessary raw and other materials developed. Serious disproportions appeared in the national economy. There were interruptions in the supply of consumer goods and food to the cities. This caused discontent and strikes were staged by workers and students in some parts of the country.
Thus, the experiment which, it later turned out, was a peculiar dress rehearsal for the ``Great Leap Forward" proved to be a fiasco. In the circumstances, it would have been wise to resume consistent fulfilment of the general line set out in 1953 and to correct the situation in agriculture by resorting to the economic instruments inherent in socialist production, enhancing the material incentives for peasants in developing the social sector of economy and by increasing state assistance to the co-operatives.
While the possibilities were limited, they were still there: in the five-year period the growth rates of gross industrial output averaged 12.8 per cent (as compared with the planned 9.9 per cent). By continuing to give priority development to large-scale industry while making rational use of handicraft production to turn out simple farm implements and consumer goods, carrying out repairs and providing everyday services for the population, China could have built up her industrial strength at a relatively rapid pace, and allocated more and more money and machinery to agriculture. That was exactly what the 8th Congress of the CPC suggested for the second five-year plan (1958--1962). It said: ``The value of industrial output . .. will be about double the planned figure for 1957 and that of agricultural output will increase by about 35 per cent."^^1^^
However, Mao's hegemonistic aspirations induced him to ignore the realistic targets set by the congress and, despite the lessons of the unfortunate experiment in 1956, to advance a full-scale programme for even hastier economic development. This programme was approved by the 3rd Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee in September 1957, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, p. 233.
224 and adopted by the 2nd session of the 8th Congress of the CPC in May 1958 as the Party's new general line. That year saw the start on the practical implementation of Mao's new line, the ``Three Red Banners" line, that is, the new general line, the people's communes and the ``Great Leap Forward''.This policy did not win unanimous support in the Party, and was opposed by those who favoured a realistic economic policy. Mao and his followers resorted to harsh measures in fighting their opponents. In 1955, Mao already levelled the charge of ``cowardice'' against those who did not accept the idea of stepped up co-operation in agriculture, while the realisation of the new line started with a political campaign aimed at routing those who opposed it. In the course of a discussion on ``bourgeois law and distribution'', those who stood up for the principle of remuneration according to labour were declared to be advocates of ``bourgeois corruption'', while the principle of levelling was strongly boosted; the population was invited to reconcile itself with the hardships that were allegedly inevitable because the country had to remain in a state of full alert; the armed border conflict with India was used to screw up nationalistic ``enthusiasm''.
In this political atmosphere a start was made on setting up the people's communes, which Mao hoped would help carry the Chinese people into instant communism bypassing the socialist stage. Each commune was set up through an amalgamation of all the co-operatives of one or several districts and covered a territory with a population ranging from 25,000 to 100,000. Mao's followers believed that the substitution of tens of thousands of communes for over 700,000 co-operatives would allow them to manage and deploy labour power and the means of production ``in a unified way to ensure that they are used still more rationally and effectively...".^^1^^
The local organs of power were merged with the commune boards and were empowered to dispose of the peasants' property, labour and the products of their labour. Rigid administrative control was established over each working man's labour and leisure. The peasants' house-and-garden plots, which in 1957 had on the average provided families with 27 per cent of their incomes, were confiscated.
_-_-_~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1959, p. 80. 15---1362
225This led to a reduction in rural living standards. Work on the fields or in the handicraft enterprises, which were a part of the communes' social sector, yielded very little income for their members, first, because farms remained on a low level of development and second, because communes' governing bodies were put under an obligation to increase accumulations to the utmost. In 1958, the accumulation of the state and the people's communes came to 30 per cent of net agricultural output, that is, an increase of roughly 100 per cent over the average for 1953--1957. This was achieved by reducing the share of the product which went into personal consumption and which was in the main distributed in the communes on the levelling principle.
The barrack-room atmosphere in the communes and the administrative control could not compensate for the peasants' loss of personal material incentive in developing agriculture. Moreover, a large part of the manpower was withdrawn from agricultural production, because tens of millions of peasants were switched to industrial and building operations through the ``labour armies'', which were set up at the same time as the communes, and worked under contracts concluded between the communes and industrial enterprises. Stripped of manpower in this way, agricultural production went into decline. While the crops were saved by the good weather in 1958, the crop failures in 1959 and 1960 showed that agriculture was in a very bad state and that the country was faced with massive famine. The acute shortage of foodstuffs, increasingly felt with the rapid population growth, forced the CPR government to fall back on grain purchases abroad.^^1^^
Mao had expected that the ``Great Leap Forward" would help to boost agriculture, which had been switched to the commune system, and bring about unprecedented growth in production on the basis of a special type of `` industrialisation''. The idea behind this ``industrialisation'' was that the line of the priority development of large-scale machine industry, effected in the first five-year period, was supplanted _-_-_
~^^1^^ According to foreign observers, China made annual purchases of foreign grain reaching 6 million tons, so as to keep the rate of food consumption at the level of 1,900-2,000 calories per man a day (that is, below the minimum average of 2,300 calories).
226 by the ``walking on two legs" line, with equal emphasis on large-scale industry and on handicraft production. In actual fact, it was the latter that became the main source of industrial products. In order to enlarge it, 7.5 million small and medium-size enterprises were set up during the ``Great Leap Forward" period (1958--1960). These were technically weak enterprises using the simplest equipment operated by tens of millions of peasants and urban dwellers lacking industrial skills and knowledge.This incredibly inflated handicraft and artisan production was urged not to confine itself to turning out consumer goods, carrying out repairs, etc., but also to take over, on a large scale, the functions of heavy industry, like the mining of coal, the casting of metal and the making of machinery and mechanisms for every branch of the national economy. Under the 1958 plan (which the Maoists soon declared to be ``conservative'', without sufficient orientation on the production of the means of production), the handicraft industry was to produce over 1 million tons of standard pig-iron, 200,000 tons of steel, 18,000 metal-cutting machine tools, over 21,000 electrical machines, and 8,300 motors of different kinds.^^1^^
Mao's followers promised the Chinese people that the establishment within a short period of an extensive network of small and medium-size enterprises covering every part of China would ``inevitably result in: = 1) quickening the pace of the nation's industrialisation; = 2) quickening the pace of mechanisation of agriculture...".^^2^^ The rate of acceleration, allegedly guaranteed by the growth of handicraft production, was fantastic. In the five years from 1958 to 1962, industrial output was to go up 6.5-fold.
It very soon turned out that these calculations were groundless. The extremely low standard of equipment at the newly-established handicraft enterprises, the switch of many old enterprises of this kind to the manufacture of unaccustomed products, which deprived the workers of the possibility of using their old labour skills and which obliterated the distinction between them and the unskilled newcomers, _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Hsiao Chiun, Boost Metallurgy and Machine-Building, Peking, 1958, pp. 13--14 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Peking, 1958, p. 50.
__PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 15* 227 the disruption of the production, supply and marketing activity of the handicraft industry and of the management of its enterprises due to the hasty conversion of co-operatives into enterprises of local state industry and people's communes---all this had disastrous consequences. There was a sharp drop in the output of consumer goods, while the means of production, to the making of which most handicraft enterprises had switched, turned out to be unfit for use. This meant the waste of vast financial and material resources and the labour of tens of millions of men. Only in the handicraft metallurgical industry, which produced substandard pig-iron and steel, the CPR suffered losses in excess of 4,000 million yuan. The overwhelming majority of the handicraft enterprises set up in the ``Great Leap Forward" period had to be closed down because they were patently unprofitable and turned out low-quality goods. Only a small part of them were later remodelled.The ``handicraft industrialisation" also hit agriculture, first, because it siphoned off large numbers of workers (from 25 to 50 per cent of the working population in rural localities), and second, because it prevented the development of irrigation. In the first five-year period, the state had allocated resources for the construction of large-scale irrigation installations, but in 1958 irrigation construction, an extremely vital element in China's agriculture, was switched to handicraft operations. There, too, the line was to set up small installations which the peasants were to erect through their own efforts and pay for out of local budgets. On February 1, 1958, Jenmin jihpao reported that 100 million people were taking part in a mass irrigation movement. According to the Chinese press, in 1958 the irrigated area increased by 32 million hectares (as against an annual average increase of 1.5 million hectares from 1950 to 1955), and towards the end of that year covered 62 per cent of all farmland.^^1^^
However, in 1963, Jenmin jihpao reported that only onethird of all the farmland was being irrigated, with a large part of the irrigation system functioning badly or not at all.^^2^^ This means that the irrigation installations thrown up hastily _-_-_
~^^1^^ See The Great Decade, Peking, 1960 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ See Jenmin jihpao, November 30, 1963.
228 and in large numbers during the ``Great Leap Forward" period, turned out to be useless, like the handicraft enterprises run in at the time.Thus, vast damage was inflicted on the national economy by the adventurist ``Three Red Banners" line. It was disrupted. The people's communes turned out to be an impediment to the development of production, so that the ``Great Leap Forward" hurled it back instead of advancing it. The increase in the output of coal, pig-iron and steel in 1959 and 1960 turned out to be fictitious, because a large part of the products made by the handicraft industry was unfit for use. The years 1961--1962 were marked by a direct drop of production in the various lines of basic industrial products by something like 20 to 50 per cent. Instead of accelerating the development of the productive forces, the new line noticeably slowed down the country's pace of industrialisation, hit its agriculture and worsened the material conditions and working capacity of the workers and peasants, the country's chief productive force.
The grave condition in which the economy found itself forced Mao into a partial retreat from the programme of the new economic line. In 1959, at the height of the ``Great Leap Forward'', the 8th Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee was forced to scale down the plan targets for the current year (from 525 million to 275 million tons for grain and from 18 million to 12 million tons for steel). The Plenary Meeting proposed that the production brigades in the communes (about the size of the old co-operatives) should be given more freedom to operate on their own, and that remuneration by labour should be restored. The decisions of the 9th Plenary Meeting in January 1961 and the 10th Plenary Meeting in September 1962 were even more drastic: they laid down the line, declared to be temporary, of ``regulation, strengthening, replenishment and enhancement, with emphasis on regulation".^^1^^
This line provided above all for an abandonment of the priority development of industry and concentration of efforts on boosting agriculture. Handicraft blast furnaces and many other similar-type small enterprises were dismantled, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ See ``The Third Session of the National People's Congress'', Pravda, April 18, 1962.
229 construction of such enterprises stopped. The enterprises which continued to function were set the task of mainly servicing agriculture and turning out consumer goods.The decline in production during the ``Great Leap Forward" created a grave financial situation; budget revenues fell short of the need to make large-scale purchases of industrial equipment abroad in addition to redeeming debts under old loans, and buying foreign grain and mineral fertilisers. The lack of funds was compounded by the consequences of the Great-Power chauvinistic attitude taken by the Maoist leadership of the CPC: it decided sharply to worsen economic ties with the USSR and other socialist countries, and deprive China of the possibility of using the extensive assistance which it had been receiving from these countries before; at the same time, the CPC leadership saddled the country with the intolerable burden of fabricating nuclear weapons, a goal that was dictated by hegemonistic considerations. All of this resulted in a sharp reduction of capital investments in large-scale industry (with the exception of the arms industries).
The cut-back in appropriations for industry made it possible somewhat to increase investments in agriculture. At the same time, Mao and his entourage had to agree to some restoration of the principle of material incentive for working people and a return from levelling to distribution in accordance with labour, and some invigoration of commoditymoney relations. The communes were split up (their number increased from 24,000 in 1958 to 73,000 in 1965). They retained the functions of local organs of power through which the state continued to determine production plans and the volume of farm procurements, rates of food consumption by peasants, etc. But the role of principal production unit in the countryside now went to the small production brigades, economic cells similar in size to the productive co-operatives of the first five-year period (they usually consisted of 20--40 peasant households). The house-and-garden plots were returned to the peasants and they were permitted to sell the produce from their personal plots on the village markets.
These measures helped to bring about a relative stabilisation of China's economy. They were a forced concession on the part of the Chinese leadership to the Party members 230 and economic personnel whom life had convinced of the need to pursue a realistic economic policy. Their efforts were aimed at restoring the economy, disrupted during the ``Great Leap Forward" period, and by improving industrial management to prepare the conditions for returning the economy to planned development. A conference of the State Economic Commission in 1965 discussed a set of instructions, formulated by Liu Shao-chi, concerning the economic measures to be taken to improve management in industry. Articles appearing >in the Chinese press in 1964 and 1965 dealt with the need for industrial co-ordination both within the individual industries and between industries, and the need to develop specialisation and co-operation under a single state plan.
This tendency was clearly expressed during the discussion of production targets for 1965 by the State Conference on Industry and Transport. Among other things, its resolution said: ``It is necessary to get rid of prejudices and not of science. There is need to act in accordance with objective reality and not on the basis of subjective desires. Production must be boosted, wherever it is possible, instead of blindly trying to do so where it is not possible. The boosting of production must be based on growing labour productivity, better management of production, the use of advanced techniques, the achievement and surpassing of international standards and improvement of co-operation between enterprises."^^1^^
However, Mao did not like this line, to say nothing of the growing influence of those members of the Party who backed it up. The Maoists built up their positions through the armymen who were appointed to the political departments set up to keep an eye on the Party branches of economic bodies. In the press they attacked articles calling for a common sense approach to economics and urged the ``destruction of boundaries" and fresh ``leaps forward''. This was their preparation for. the fierce offensive which they launched in 1966 against the advocates of realistic economic policies under the banner of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution''.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, February 25, 1965.
231This time, the political campaign against those who were, wittingly or unwittingly, encroaching on the Maoists' dictatorship, assumed unprecedented proportions. Those who dared point at the unfortunate lessons of the past and try to introduce rational methods into economic management were branded as class enemies, and revisionist accomplices of imperialism. The Maoists began by denigrating the Party, government and economic cadres who disagreed or were suspected of disagreeing with Mao's line, and then went on to dismiss them from office and execute many of them. Speculating on the political immaturity of young people and implanting in their midst a spirit of mindless adulation of Mao Tse-tung, his henchmen organised Hungweiping and Tsaofan detachments, which they used to break up Party and other social organisations.
This political campaign was carried on in an atmosphere of growing chauvinistic intoxication and war hysteria, and it gave Mao and his followers a free hand in preparing for the next ``leap forward'', which was announced by the llth Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee in August 1966. Preparations were started for a fresh offensive on the living standards of the working people. From the end of 1966, it began to assume ever greater proportions, being advanced under the slogans of fighting against ``economism'' and the principle of material incentive which was declared to be ``bourgeois''.
The exploitation of the peasant masses was again intensified. Production brigades were put under an obligation to increase their deliveries to the state and to reduce the rates of personal consumption fixed for their members. In 1966, average food consumption among peasants (much lower than that for urban dwellers) came to roughly 200 kilograms per man a year for grain (including sweet potatoes and potatoes, in terms of grain) as compared with 229 kilograms in 1957, and 900 grams per man a year for vegetable oil, as compared with 1.25 kilograms in 1957. Over the next few years, the level of consumption for these and other foodstuffs in the countryside was further reduced. The personal consumption funds in the production brigades were reduced and were in the main---70--80 per cent--- distributed on the levelling principle, under so-called guaranteed norms. Many peasants in fact found themselves 232 incapable of purchasing even these famine rations because of their extremely low incomes which were roughly half the average incomes in industry.
The condition of the urban working people also sharply deteriorated. Housing and all construction for service industries fell into a state of complete stagnation, and in many parts of China it was officially wound up. The policy of ``low and rational wages" was fully implemented; in 1966 and 1967, the bonus system of wages, which had been partially restored at the enterprises in 1960, was once again abolished, so that nominal wages among workers, engineers and technicians were reduced on the average by about 10--15 per cent. Real wages dropped even lower because of the growing prices of rice and other foodstuffs. The number of items being rationed was greatly increased (in 1968, ration cards were introduced even for laundry soap). A campaign was started that year to switch schools and public health establishments from the state budgets to maintenance by enterprises, city blocks and communes, all of which fell as an additional burden on the shoulders of the people.
This time they put up more active resistance to the offensive against their living standards than they had done in 1958--1960. Industrial and office workers staged massive strikes in response to the reduction of their living standards.
In many parts of the country, the peasants broke into foodstores, shared out the social funds. Numerous reports in the provincial newspapers testify to the massiveness of this action. Among the urgent tasks formulated by the ``revolutionary organisations" of central agricultural and forestry establishments, this special point was made: ``It shall not be permitted in any circumstances to share out seeds, feed, social accumulation funds, communal funds.. . . The seeds, feed, reserve grain, resources from social accumulation funds, from communal funds, and from production funds already shared out must be returned."^^1^^ In the countryside there was sabotage of agricultural operations, and this forced the Maoists to send regular army units into the rural localities.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, February 12, 1967.
233Mao and his followers did not shrink from using armed force to suppress the massive protest, with the army being used as the main force to ensure implementation of their domestic policy. Following the ``revolutionising'' of enterprises and offices, and the establishment of the political department system, designed to exercise political control over the behaviour of industrial and office workers, the functions of such control were transferred directly to the army. By intensifying the barrack-room regime, sending demobilised soldiers to the enterprises, and using the armycontrolled Hungweipings and Tsaofans to put down the discontented working people, the Maoists expected to prevent social production from being disrupted. However, these expectations were not justified. The ``cultural revolution" led to rampant anarchy, clashes between hostile groups at enterprises, distraction of working men from their jobs for participation in various political acts, and relaxation of management in production. All of this necessarily had an effect on the state of China's national economy. While the Maoists did manage to safeguard the arms and to some extent the chemical and the oil industry from the effects of the ``cultural revolution'', it did have a devastating effect on the other industries, including metallurgy and engineering. In 1969, steel output was down to 12 million tons from 13 million in 1966; coal extraction was down respectively from 245 million to 210 million tons. The coal shortage had an effect on electric power generation: 60,000 million kwh was generated in 1969 as compared with 70,000 million in 1966. In Wuhan, Kunming, Tsinan, Chungking and other cities electric power supplies to enterprises and homes were repeatedly interrupted. In early 1968, the level of production in Peking and many other industrial centres was only 40--50 per cent of the 1966 level.
The normal operation of industrial enterprises was further disrupted by snags in transport. The transfer of Hungweipings and other ``representatives of the revolutionary masses" from one part of the country to another (from the autumn of 1966 to February 1967, the railways carried over 20 million such unpaying customers), the disturbances and other armed clashes, the strikes---all this upset the railway timetable and kept some consignments of freight lie for months waiting delivery to the place of 234 their destination. China's seaports operated with great interruption.
The disruption of transport had an effect not only on industry but also on agriculture, because a large part of the chemical fertilisers was not delivered for use in good time. This factor was added to the disruption of agriculture, which was bred by the ``cultural revolution'', the sabotage, and so on. The use of the army on the farms helped to prevent grain production from dropping sharply, and to maintain it on about the 1965 and 1966 level, but there was a drop in per capita output, which worsened the already poor state of food supplies.
The damage inflicted by the ``cultural revolution" on China's national economy will be seen from the following data characterising the changes in the principal indicators for the 1957--1969 period.
Unit 1957 1959 1965 1966 1968* 1969* '000 National income mln yuan 83.7 150.9 125.0 137.0 125.0 131.0 Gross industrial out-- put `` 70.4 163.0 122.0 135.0 120.0 130.0 Gross agricultural output `` 53.7 60.0 55.0 55.0 55.0 60.0 Total investments from budget `` 13.8 26.7 13.5 13.0 8.0 ____ Investments in in-- dustry i> 7.2 20.2 6.5 6.5 4.0 ___ . Military expendi-- ture (direct) »» 5.5 5.8 12.5 13.0 17.0 18--19* Preliminary estimate.
These data show that the gradual edging up to the 1959 level, as expressed in the 1965--1966 indicators, was interrupted by the ``cultural revolution'', which went hand in hand with abandonment of the ``line of regulation" and a return to Mao's economic line. This line had brought about a sharp decline in China's economy during the ``Great Leap 235 Forward" period, and in 1967 and 1968 led to a fresh decline, thus showing itself to be completely untenable.
In a speech in August 1967 Mao was forced to admit that ``we have had to pay a very high price for the present cultural revolution''. Alarmed by the economic losses, the Maoist leadership started in late 1967 to put through measures intended to clamp down on the Hungweipings and the Tsaofans, and to intensify the army's control in the economic bodies and at the enterprises. The functions of economic organisation, once performed by the now-routed Party and government apparatus, were transferred to the ``revolutionary committees" in' which army representatives play the leading role, and which, the Maoists hope, will help them to make good the economic consequences of the ``cultural revolution''.
In a speech before the Peking revolutionary committee in September 1967, Chou En-lai dealt with the matter of economic losses caused by the ``cultural revolution" and gave this promise: ``If the revolution succeeds, we shall make up for everything in six months.'' Much more time has passed since then, but the ``making up" has not quite succeeded. With the army's help, the Maoists have stopped the decline in production, but military methods cannot help to solve the strident task of economic development. The rate of economic development has been heavily affected by the actual suspension of capital construction caused by the ``cultural revolution'', and by the debilitation of the management and technical services at the enterprises because of the massive reduction in the number of specialists and the increase in the military outlays, which hamper the development of power engineering, transport and other industries producing bottlenecks in China's national economy and acting as a drag on its development.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Zigzags in Peking's Economic PolicyThe 9th CPC Congress has not changed the Maoist economic policy which had shattered China's economy and retarded its development for a long time. It did not work out any practical recommendations, but only reiterated provisions 236 that would serve as a ``theoretical groundwork" for Mao's policy. The CC report to the Congress mentioned the oftrepeated thesis that politics are a commanding force, that production may be stimulated by a ``revolution in the superstructure" and by a criticism of the ``revisionist line" and once again according to tradition in Maoist propaganda Lenin's words that politics have a priority over economics were interpreted as a justification of arbitrariness in politics. The congress once again approved the formula: ``Agriculture is the basis of the national economy while industry is its leading force.'' This formula is contrary to Lenin's idea that developing industry is the basis of the transformation of the national economy along socialist lines. The congress reiterated that Mao's group would henceforward carry on the policy of ``support on one's own strength'', a policy which consolidates the disunity of economic cells and places them in a position of state tributaries compelled to complement state accumulations with their own means without claiming any material assistance from the state.
The years that have passed since the 9th CPC Congress testify to the continued crisis of the Maoists' economic policy, which fact serves as a direct reflection of the existing discrepancy between their theoretical conceptions and the objective requirements of China's economic growth.
It is quite obvious that the establishment of a semblance of ``order'' by tightening up the military-bureaucratic regime has not helped to improve China's economy. The country's militarisation has not helped and cannot help invigorate production activity among the working people, contrary to the Maoists' expectations. Nor can this be achieved by the system of labour services, under which millions of peasants have to do temporary, arduous and poorly paid work in industry, while hundreds of thousands of intellectuals are transported into the countryside to work on the farms. Nor can the economy be improved by the measures designed to make the millions of Chinese in the semi-subsistence and separated economic units boost production with their bare hands on the basis of manual, unskilled labour, ``stimulated'' not by any moral or material incentives geared to the results of their work, but by political demagogy, orders from supervisers and threats of reprisal. Nor will the economy be improved by the waste for military purposes of money which 237 is being squeezed out from the people through a lowering of their living standards.
In 1971, according to Chinese official statistics, China produced 21 million tons of steel and gathered 245 million tons of grain. However, already in the early 1960s, the Republic's production capacities had made it possible to put out as much as 22 million tons of steel. The results achieved in the production of grain were below those of 1958, although the country's population had risen considerably since then. This is evidence of the fact that the Chinese economy up till now has not been able to overcome the big economic difficulties brought about by the adventurist policy of the ``Great Leap Forward'', the ``people's communes" and later of the ``cultural revolution''.
Recent facts testify to certain zigzags in Peking's economic policy: in a way it reappraises the theoretical ``values'' of the ``cultural revolution''. A part of Chinese leading personnel, especially those who are employed in concrete sectors of economic construction are realising more and more that voluntarist attempts to force up the rate of economic growth through the utmost strain of the workers' effort, to rely not on objective economic laws and real possibilities but only on Mao's ideas cannot bring about the expected results. This, it seems to us, explains the now observable in China return to some rational methods of economic management which had justified themselves during the first five-year-plan periods, to the application of economic levers of influencing production. And though the Peking propagandists continue to insist on the ``revolutionising'' of management in enterprises and on ``fighting the revisionist venom of Liu Shao-chi'', one can see in fact the use of forms and methods of economic management which had been subjected to criticism and abolished by the ``cultural revolution''.
The striving to put an end to the chaos and anarchy in industrial management is seen in the attempts to restore the principles of planning in industry and the centralised guidance of enterprises.
Reality itself forced the Government to resume the work of industrial ministries and the State Planning Committee which had been paralysed during the ``cultural revolution''. After a long time it convened a national conference on problems of planning and some sectoral conferences on the 238 same subject. Chinese papers, while mentioning the fact that the ``cultural revolution" was so to say ``a great stimulus" to the Chinese economy, fulminated against those ``hostile elements" who, ``under the influence of anarchism and ultraLeft views'', negate the need for economic planning. The mass media have buried in oblivion the ``theories'' of the sponsors of the ``cultural revolution" according to which planning ``fetters mass initiative" and centralisation means a ``departmental dictatorship'', which ``the revisionists and reactionaries" had tried to implant in the country.
Peking propagandists are bent on expanding the campaign to improve the economic performance of factories and mills based on the application of such categories as cost accounting, prime cost, profit, payment according to the work done, and planning. The journal Hungchih stresses the need for ``a maximum utilisation of manpower and equipment, a maximum improvement of labour organisation, better management and higher labour productivity''. As this journal writes, ``cost accounting in the national economy is an important method of managing socialist enterprises''.
Reports from China show that there is a greater tendency towards the restoration of the principle of distribution according to labour contributed, although during the ``cultural revolution" the principle of material incentives in general was declared to be ``a sugar-coated shell'', ``a black revisionist commodity'', ``a dagger driven into the back of the revolution''. As was mentioned before, the ``cultural revolution" abolished the system of material incentives for good labour, the latter comprising 25 to 35 per cent of the workers' total earnings. This ``reform'' was played down by Peking propagandists as an essential ``guarantee'' against ``bourgeois regeneration" to which workers of some socialist countries are allegedly subject. But economic construction has made the Chinese renounce egalitarian dogmas and retain the principles of remuneration for the labour done.
According to the Chinese press, there is no clear-cut criterion by which to distinguish the universally recognised principle ``to each according to labour contributed" from `` revisionism" and ``bourgeois economism''. Yet despite all this, the management of many Chinese enterprises is renouncing wage equalisation and is introducing a system of differentiated payment for the labour done in order to stimulate 239 production. An example is provided by the Shanghai Engineering Works, a large enterprise employing over 6,000 workers. Their wages are two or two and a half times higher than those received by apprentices. The wages are fixed here not only with due account for the ``devotion'' of a worker to ``Mao''s thought'', as the sponsors of the `` cultural revolution" insisted, but also for the record of labour service and professional skill. The same situation obtains at many other enterprises and in some agricultural communes. As the provincial newspaper Hunan jihpao points out, ``Members of communes who produce more output must receive greater income''.
Economic experience prompts the most sober managers to come to the conclusion that slogans and quotations cannot replace concrete economic and technical knowledge, that it is impossible to run the national economy without experienced, knowledgeable personnel. In recent times the Chinese have intensified the campaign for ``strengthening the guidance of production'', for the gradual return into the sphere of production of those qualified administrative and especially technical personnel who had been defamed and repressed during the ``cultural revolution''. After completely reversing its policy in this field the Chinese press is now reporting about ``the valuable experience" of making use of the old cadres who are now employed in managerial work. Jenmin jihpao says that ``the old cadres must play today the role of the backbone in the management of enterprises" and subjects to criticism the management of those factories who ``make insufficient effort to promote their role as technical specialists and managers''.
According to the Chinese press, the cadres promoted during the ``cultural revolution" cannot cope with the tasks they have been assigned because they do not know the elements of economics and often apply methods that do not correspond to realities. On the other hand, the ``old cadres'', that is specialists accused during the ``cultural revolution" of revisionism, ``economism'' and other ``mortal sins'', sent for ``re-education'' purposes to rural localities or placed as manual workers in labour-consuming sectors of production, but now returned to their former posts, behave passively, shirk the solution of concrete problems out of fear of entering into conflict with those who watch over their political 240 ``trustworthiness''. All this, naturally, exacerbates the moral atmosphere at enterprises and creates additional tensions in the economy as a whole.
Complex and contradictory, at times even diametrically opposite phenomena and processes occurring in China, the absence of consensus in the Peking leadership concerning the ways and means of the country's development are bound to retard the progress of the Chinese economy.
The congress did not work out any practical recommendations, but merely reiterated the propositions designed to serve as a ``theoretical foundation" for Mao's line. It once again repeated the thesis that politics was the command force, that production should be stimulated through ``revolution in the sphere of the superstructure'', and criticism of the `` revisionist line'', and once again---in accordance with the tradition established in Maoist propaganda---what Lenin said about politics taking precedence over economics, this being interpreted as justification for arbitrary political acts. Once again this formula was proclaimed: ``Agriculture is the basis of the national economy, and industry is its leading force,'' a formula which is fundamentally at variance with the Leninist idea of industrial development as the basis of the socialist transformation of the national economy. This provided further evidence that Mao's entourage is still intent on pursuing the line of ``relying on one's own strength'', a line which tends to perpetuate the fragmentation of economic units and which puts them in the position of tributaries of the state whose duty is to provide resources for its accumulation, without claiming any material assistance on its part.
The 9th Congress did nothing to change the policy which has unhinged China's national economy and which has retarded her economic development for a long time. The only way to clear the obstacles to this development is resolutely to reject the Maoists' anti-popular policy, the line which runs counter to the requirements of the objective laws of socialism. So long as this line is being pursued it provides ground for the ``tactics of despair" and for preparation of adventurist ``leaps forward'', which do not bring the Chinese people anything except greater extra-economic coercion and political deprivation, nothing except fresh burdens and privations.
__PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 10---1362 241 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Some Aspects of China's ForeignThe line of intensifying the barrack-room regime, the country's militarisation, which is due to Mao's urge to maintain the system of extra-economic coercion, is one of the basic elements which determine the character of the specific foreign-policy line imposed on China by the Maoists, a line which is just as alien to Marxist-Leninist principles as is their domestic-policy line. Historical experience shows that war communism is justified as a system for organising production and distribution in a country without a high economic potential forced to carry on a drawn-out war against the counter-revolutionary forces of the overthrown bourgeoisie, and the interventionists. But it is unfit for peacetime construction. The Maoists have sought to use the methods of war communism even in peacetime, thereby distorting them, killing their communist content, and converting them into a means of militarising the country and creating an ideological climate which gives the population a sense of impending danger of war. For many years, the creation of such a climate, the build-up of an atmosphere of war hysteria in China, was being done with the help of the idea that another world war was fatally inevitable and that it was impossible for the world socialist revolution to develop without a direct armed clash between its forces and those of international imperialism. In recent years, the same purposes have been served by the war hysteria built up over the ``threat from the north'', that is, from the Soviet Union, which the Maoists have invented.
Since the late 1950s, statements by Mao and his followers on such key questions as the content of the present epoch, the balance between the contending forces, the place of the various revolutionary streams within the single world revolutionary process, have ever more clearly revealed the denial of the need of economic prerequisites for socialist revolution and of the role of the socialist system as the economic mainstay for unfolding the world socialist revolution.
In his speech at the 1957 Moscow Meeting of fraternal parties, and in his articles ``On the Historical Experience of 242 the Proletarian Dictatorship" and ``Once More on the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship" Mao still expressed the view that war was the only means of achieving revolution together with recognition of the decisive role of the socialist system in the development of the world revolutionary process. However, in the course of the polemics which Mao started by coming out against the CPSU's stand and the principles written into the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement, he arrived at the denial of the decisive role of the socialist system in the world revolutionary process, and came to contrapose the national liberation movement and the forces of socialism.
Mao's followers ignore the fact that the character of the national liberation movement is determined by its economic content, that the outcome of the national-democratic revolution depends on the kind of economic tasks it sets out to tackle: tasks expressing the interests of the bourgeoisie, which seeks to direct the country's development after national independence along the capitalist way, or tasks expressing the interests of the proletariat which seeks to carry on the revolution beyond the bourgeois-democratic stage and to fill it with socialist content.
National-democratic revolutions in countries without internal economic prerequisites for the triumph of socialism would inevitably be confined to a solution of bourgeoisdemocratic tasks unless the working people in these countries were able to rely on the support of the world socialist system and the assistance and experience of the socialist countries. The Maoists' denial that the socialist system is the decisive factor of the world revolutionary process has been expressed in the CPR's foreign economic policy, which took a sharp turn after 1960. By breaking their economic ties with the Soviet Union and other socialist states, ties which under the first five-year plan had determined the successes of economic construction in China, the Maoists pushed the country into autarchy, into isolated development of the national economy, which in fact developed into a policy of orientation upon the international capitalist market and extension of economic ties with the capitalist countries.
The cancellation, on the CPR's initiative, of the agreements concluded with the socialist countries resulted in a sharp 243 drop in China's trade with this group of countries. In 1968, it was down by more than 66 per cent as compared with 1959, when it was at its peak. In that period, China's trade with the capitalist countries increased by 120 per cent. In 1968 and 1969, the share of non-socialist countries in China's foreign trade went up to 75 per cent (with the capitalist countries' share coming to roughly 50 per cent of total trade), while the share of the socialist countries was down to less than 25 per cent of China's foreign trade.
The Maoists have used the ``relying on one's own strength" thesis to back up their break of economic ties with the socialist countries, a thesis they believe to mean, for the state, a refusal to participate in the international division of labour, complete self-sufficiency of the national economy in every type of product needed, regardless of whether the home production of this or that item is warranted in terms of economic efficiency.
Their references to the ``relying on one's own strength" principle are untenable theoretically and also hypocritical, like their declarations of implacability with respect to imperialism. This is well illustrated by the CPR's ever more pronounced orientation on the system of the international capitalist division of labour. The Maoists have been extending direct trade ties with the advanced capitalist countries (Japan and the FRG in the first place), relying less and less on intermediaries (Hong Kong, etc.) which had helped them to cover up these ties and ever more actively supplementing them with scientific and technical co-- operation, invitation of foreign specialists, conclusion of credit agreements, etc. Mao and his followers have also been openly seeking to establish economic ties with the United States.
In an effort to justify the turn-about in foreign economic policy which they had foisted on the country, the Maoists tried to blame the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries for the ``Great Leap Forward" fiasco, and spread slanderous inventions about co-operation with these countries having hampered China's economic development, about their economic assistance to China having been insignificant and ineffective, etc.
These inventions are patently absurd. The scale of the economic assistance the socialist countries gave China will be 244 seen from the fact that the Soviet Union alone helped China to build and modernise enterprises ensuring the production of 8.7 million tons of pig-iron, 25--30 per cent of the country's electric power generation, 80 per cent of its lorry and tractor output, etc. The Soviet Union supplied China with complete sets of plant for 90 projects out of 211 going up in China under the first five-year plan. It should be borne in mind that these deliveries were so arranged as to accelerate the development in China of the leading branches of the heavy industry and to help her create the necessary basis for technological progress. In 1957, China's industry already supplied 50 per cent of the equipment for the industrial projects going up with the Soviet Union's assistance. The vast economic, financial and technical assistance from the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries helped China to establish within a short period a developed iron and steel industry, heavy and precision engineering, an automobile and tractor industry, an aircraft industry, a powergenerating equipment industry, a radio engineering industry and an atomic industry.
Co-operation with the socialist countries helped China rapidly to build up the basis of her economic independence. Just now, her orientation to the international capitalist market is producing the opposite results, because the imperialist countries see no point in letting China have large quantities of the producer goods she needs to develop her economy.
The turn-about in her foreign economic policy is a source of large losses for China, because, on the one hand, it has reduced her export potential and has forced her to sell at reduced prices the products the capitalist countries want (agricultural raw materials and some minerals, non-ferrous metals above all); on the other hand, China now has to pay high prices for the goods she has to buy from these countries. Add to this the losses arising from the need to pay high interest rates for the capitalist countries' credits, and the high price of the various types of scientific and technical assistance, which the socialist countries had made available to China virtually free of charge.
The fact that the Maoists have decided to reorientate the country's external economic ties, despite the vast losses this has inflicted on China, is sufficiently clear evidence that 245 this step of theirs was not in any sense motivated by concern for national economic development. It was motivated by political considerations springing from the Chinese leadership's hegemonistic propositions and the hope of promoting their self-seeking aims by making use of the contradictions between capitalism and socialism. Unscrupulous politicasting is the substance of the line being pursued by Mao and his followers at home and in relations with other countries. That is the essence of the ill-famed principle of ``politics is the command force'', a principle which they have adopted for their banner, and which serves to vindicate their policy expressive of Great-Power interests, instead of the vital economic interests of the working people. Their policy has no socialist economic content and in all its forms cuts across the objective requirements of socialist construction in China and the development of the world socialist revolution.
History has shown that Lenin was quite right when he kept stressing that the outcome of the world socialist revolution crucially depends on the economic successes in countries where the working class has taken over. Lenin insisted that the economic front was the fundamental one for the first proletarian dictatorship, the young Soviet Republic, and added that unless victory was scored on this front, unless a powerful socialist economy was built up, ``nothing will follow from our successes, from our victories in overthrowing the exploiters, and from our military rebuff to international imperialism, and a return to the old system will be inevitable".^^1^^
Lenin showed the dialectical interconnection between economics and politics, and proved that the development of the socialist economy is not only the basic condition for a full and final victory of socialism in Soviet Russia, but also a necessary condition for the political victory of the working class advancing at the head of great masses of exploited people in their liberation struggle, victory over the bourgeoisie on a world scale. He wrote: ``We are now exercising our main influence on the international revolution through our economic policy. The struggle in this field has now _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 417.
246 become global. Once we solve this problem, we shall have certainly and finally won on an international scale."^^1^^The last half-century of world history has shown very well that the national liberation movement has become a mighty force in a world divided into two camps---the socialist and the imperialist---a world in which the first socialist power, relying on the mighty economic potential it had built up, routed the most reactionary forces of imperialism, with socialism established as a world system, bringing together a number of countries and scoring more and more victories in the economic competition with capitalism.
With China for its example, history has also presented an unfortunate lesson showing that neglect of objective requirements in economic development, bearing on the ``deepest foundations of the existence of hundreds of millions of people'',^^2^^ as Lenin put it, tends to revenge itself by turning politics into baseless adventurism.
In 1948, Mao wrote: ``Policy is the starting-point of all the practical actions of a revolutionary party and manifests itself in the process and end-result of that party's actions.
``What we call experience is the process and the end-result of carrying out a policy. Only through the practice of the people, that is, through experience, can we verify whether a policy is correct or wrong and determine to what extent it is correct or wrong."^^3^^ In this formulation Mao seems to ``have forgotten" that the social practice of the masses does not amount to a mere implementation of a policy but that it is the basis on which it is alone possible to work out a correct policy, that it is not policy that serves as the starting point, because it cannot be correct if it is a flight of fancy, but that the starting point is scientific analysis of the social practice of the masses, of the concrete conditions in which this takes place, a scientific generalisation of historical experience. The Chinese people have to pay a stiff price for Mao's ``forgetfulness''. The enshrinement of a subjectivist, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 437.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 409.
~^^3^^ Selected Works of Mao Tse-lung, Vol. IV, Peking, 1961, p. 204.
247 adventurist policy, not in any way anchored economically, has led to disastrous failures in the CPR's economic development, and has sent Mao and his followers hastily abandoning their illusions about the possibility of establishing communism in China before this is done in other countries, and panically embracing the idea that no country can reach communism even after centuries of development. This has impelled them to take anti-socialist action, which has resulted in their growing isolation in the international liberation movement. [248] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Seven __ALPHA_LVL1__ ``GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURALMarx's aphorism about ``revolutions being locomotives of history" applies equally to society's material and spiritual life.
Socialist revolution is not only a fundamental and qualitative transformation of the whole system of political and economic relations existing under capitalism, but also a deep-going transformation of society's spiritual life. That is what Lenin called the cultural revolution.
What did the founders of Marxism-Leninism mean by this concept? Marx wrote that communism is ``the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being---a return becoming conscious, and accomplished within the entire wealth of previous development".^^1^^ It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this idea of Marx, because it gives the very gist of the cultural revolution, which is to eliminate the alienated forms of human activity. Marx gives the main characteristic of the process of communist construction: mankind's conscious activity, and sets out with exceptional clarity the attitude of the socialist revolution to the culture of the past, ``within the entire wealth of previous development''.
Communism is a society consisting of men freely creating their own social relations. This kind of system can be _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Moscow, 1959, p. 102.
249 produced only as a result of conscious and purposeful activity by millions of working people based on the knowledge and creative use of the objective laws of social development. This implies above all the need to put the great store of culture created by mankind within the reach of the masses. At the same time, while formulating his plan for the cultural revolution in the USSR Lenin kept stressing that it was not so much a process of enlightenment as creative activity aimed at the transformation of things. Every step in assimilating the spiritual treasures created by mankind, he said, is connected with the tackling of this or that task in socialist construction. That is the basis on which, he insisted, culture will become an inner need for each member of society.Indeed, the full man is formed in the course of creative construction of the new world, which provides every individual with an opportunity for developing his creative potential, abilities and talents, and that is the main purpose of the cultural revolution. Under communism, the free and harmonious development of every individual will become the condition of the free and harmonious development of society, and of unlimited growth of the people's creative powers. Consequently, the cultural revolution the people start by building socialism has for its highest aim the allround development of man's spiritual creative powers, the elimination of the alienated forms of human activity which are characteristic of all antagonistic socio-economic formations, and the conversion of every individual into a conscious maker of history.
Are there any common points between the MarxistLeninist view of the cultural revolution and the ``cultural revolution" in China?
Marxism-Leninism starts from the assumption that no cultural revolution is possible unless men master the store of knowledge and assimilate the material and spiritual values accumulated by mankind before their day, but Mao and his followers started their ``great proletarian cultural revolution" in China by proclaiming that the culture of past centuries was alien and hostile to the proletariat, and set the Hungweipings loose in a rampage against the cherished values of world civilisation.
Marxism-Leninism starts from the assumption that the cultural revolution, permeating every aspect of social life, 250 helps to overcome the division of society into makers and consumers of culture, opening the floodgates to mass initiative and social activity, whereas Mao and his followers have been implanting the personality cult, which means turning masses of people into mobs whose duty is blindly to act on the orders of the ``leader''.
What is there in common between genuine cultural activity of masses of working people and the `` revolutionism" of the Hungweipings and the Tsaofans, who supplant the assimilation of culture by parroting quotations from Mao's articles? The line of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution'', announced by the CPC leadership in late 1965 and early 1966 and subsequently given the official imprimatur by the decisions of the llth Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee in 1966, is a patent ``Leftist'' revision of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of culture and the cultural revolution. This revision, which affects literally all the basic propositions of the Marxist-Leninist theory on the cultural revolution, was given perhaps the most explicit expression in the CPC leadership's attitude to such basic problems of the cultural revolution as 1) the cultural legacy of the past; 2) the culture of modern bourgeois society; and 3) the intelligentsia.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Cultural RevolutionThe problem of continuity has always been a vital one for human progress. In the most general terms, the dialectics of social development reveals a contradictory unity of two interconnected elements. On the one hand, each new generation never starts from scratch, but assimilates the cultural (material and spiritual) values which had been accumulated by earlier generations. By extracting from cultural values of the past the concentrated creative energy of human thought and work which they contain, men are enabled to turn it into their own gain. On the other hand, the material and spiritual values of past epochs become for those who assimilate them no more than ``the raw material for new production" (Marx), for the creation of fresh values and, consequently, for fresh spurts into the future.
251That is why the culture of each new formation necessarily finds itself in continuity with the whole aggregate of earlier relations of spiritual production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The objective basis for this continuity is provided by the development of material production, because ultimately changes in spiritual production are determined by the changes taking place in the sphere of social being. But while being determined by production and reproduction of actual life, spiritual culture always depends in its development both on the relations which have arisen earlier in spiritual production itself and on the existing results of mankind's earlier spiritual activity, which are found in the form of a definite complex of cultural values.
In the recent period, the attitude of communism to the cultural legacy of the past is a question that has acquired special practical, political and theoretical urgency in connection with a number of additional circumstances. New theoretical and political aspects of continuity have appeared with the spread of socialism beyond the boundaries of one country, the establishment of the world socialist community, and the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism. There have arisen the problem of the attitude on the part of the culture of some socialist countries to the cultural experience gained by other socialist countries and the problem of the relationship between the culture of socialist society and the culture of bourgeois society under peaceful coexistence between opposite social systems and the mounting ideological struggle.
The greater the number of countries taking the way of socialist change, the faster is the cultural and historical progress of society, the greater the urgency of the question of the attitude to adopt to the cultural legacy of earlier generations, of what precisely needs to be taken from the treasure-house of world culture, of how the socialist nations and the nations taking the non-capitalist way can use not only the cultural values created in past historical epochs but also the cultural achievements in present-day capitalist society.
The steady and unprecedented growth in the flow of information, which mankind is accumulating in the course of the headlong scientific and technological revolution, objectively gives greater importance to the question of 252 assimilating the cultural legacy. At the same time, there are also subjective reasons for probing more deeply into the problem of continuity in the development of culture in socialist society. Let us consider only two of these: a) the attempts by present-day Right and ``Left'' revisionists to revise the basic Marxist principles bearing on the cultural legacy; b) the fresh barrage of charges coming from the anti-Communists that the Marxists-Leninists are taking a nihilistic attitude to the culture of earlier epochs (let us note that the revival of anti-communist activity along this line is largely connected precisely with the Maoists' antiLeninist attitude to the cultural legacy).
A vast store of practical experience in cultural construction, experience which is of international importance, has been gained in the USSR and the People's Democracies in the decades of their socialist construction. One of the most important lessons the Communist Parties have drawn from an analysis of their activity in realising Lenin's plan of the cultural revolution is that it would have been unfeasible but for the Marxist-Leninist struggle on two fronts: both against the attempts to adopt the whole of the old culture, without discrimination, and against the attempts to reject the whole of it out of hand.
Lenin repeatedly stressed that there can be no extraclass ideology, and consequently no extra-class culture, in bourgeois society, which is rended by class antagonisms. He criticised the ``mindless philosophers" who denied the party spirit of philosophy, and branded those whom he called the ``learned salesmen of the capitalist class'', insisting on the partisanship of literature and art. Lenin said that the proletariat could not afford to adopt indiscriminately the whole of the old culture, adding that this would be tantamount to forgetting the class criteria in assessing the cultural legacy. These ideas of Lenin's are of immediate relevance to our own day in fighting present-day revisionism, which calls for an end to ideology in culture, and a ``peaceful synthesis" of socialist and bourgeois cultures (Henri Lefebvre, Ernst Fischer, and others). However, while fighting the Rightopportunist attitudes to the cultural legacy, MarxistsLeninists have always attacked the ``Left"--opportunist anarchist attitude to the cultural legacy.
There is nothing in common between the cultural 253 revolution and the nihilistic attitude to the achievements of world culture, the primitive rejection of the cultural legacy of one's own nation and of that of other nations.
In his writings and numerous speeches, Lenin showed the sheer nonsense of the ultra-Leftist arguments about a bourgeois science ``hostile to the proletariat in class terms'', about ``all of bourgeois art, a product of the exploitative system, being alien to the proletariat''. Lenin maintained that socialist culture could not arise ``out of nothing'', that it did not ``spring from out of nowhere'', and that the way for its emergence had been paved by centuries of social development. From this he drew the conclusion that ``we must take the entire culture that capitalism left behind and build socialism with it".^^1^^ He also wrote: ``Socialism cannot be built unless we utilise the heritage of capitalist culture."^^2^^
These ideas of Lenin's are of special importance for a principled assessment of the ideological ``platform'' and nihilistic practices in the so-called great proletarian cultural revolution in China.
The ideologists of the ``cultural revolution" in China say that the proletariat must put an end to all the ``old culture" as being a ``feudal'' and ``bourgeois'' culture. The tone of the ideological campaign was set on April 13, 1966, by an editorial in Chief angchiun pao, the mouthpiece of the People's Liberation Army, entitled ``Hold High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-Tung's Thought, Actively Participate in the Great Socialist Cultural Revolution''. It was reprinted by all the national papers and also in the journal Hungchih. It provided a ``theoretical basis" for these nihilistic calls: ``The socialist revolution goes hand in hand with destruction and construction. There can be no complete construction without complete destruction." This slogan became the central one in the drive against culture. Thus, a Hsinhua press release on June 11, 1966, said that the ``proletarian revolution demands the final destruction of the old bourgeois and feudal culture, which is rotten through and through, and the creation of a totally new, socialist culture'', and called for ``a struggle for the extensive liquidation of the old culture''.
_-_-_^^1^^ V I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 70.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 156.
254How did the leaders of the ``cultural revolution" in China come to adopt these monstrous ideas which are not only alien to Marxism-Leninism, but clash with the views of Marx, Engels and Lenin? It is impossible to answer this question without bringing out all the connections which exist between some of Mao's theoretical views and the practices of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution''.
Even before the revolution won out in China, Mao insisted, in some of his speeches, notably those at a conference on literature and art in Yenan in May 1942, that ``only dark forces which endanger the masses of the people must be exposed ... this is the basic task of all revolutionary artists and writers".^^1^^ He stressed that the revolution had need only of works extolling the bright side of the proletariat and ``depicting the dark side" of the bourgeoisie.^^2^^ Hence the conclusion: ``Life, reflected in the works of literature and art, can and must appear to be loftier, brighter, more concentrated, more typical and more ideal . .. than commonplace reality."^^3^^
In defining in this utilitarian manner the content of socialist art, the tasks it faced and the Party's line with respect to art, Mao went on to a similarly blunt definition of form for works of literature and art. He stressed that workers and peasants needed the kind of art that ``can be readily accepted by them".^^4^^ This essentially primitive and idealistic approach to fundamental aesthetic problems, being again nothing but vulgarisation and revision of the basic principles of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, was given practical expression in the CPC leadership's political line as the ``theoretical basis" of the ``great cultural revolution''. A direct outcome of this theoretical injunction, in particular, was the attitude to the whole of the Chinese people's artistic legacy, which was declared to be anti-popular and characteristic of the exploiting elite, and so allegedly alien to the revolution in form and content.
Mao asserted that in pre-revolutionary China the whole of culture had consisted of two parts: Chinese semi-feudal _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, London, 1956, p. 87.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 89.
~^^3^^ The Great Socialist Cultural Revolution in China, Part I, Peking, p. 15 (in Chinese).
~^^4^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, p. 75.
255 culture, on the one hand, and the culture brought in from outside, ``imperialist'' culture, on the other.^^1^^ He wrote that for this reason, the Chinese people had had a feeling of hatred for the traditional ``culture of the mandarins'', and for the ``imperialist culture'', which it had regarded as a ``foreign body''. ``All these are rotten and should be completely destroyed."^^2^^ From this necessarily followed the need to eliminate the whole of the old culture as being an `` exploitative" culture. That is precisely what the leaders of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution" suggested: ``We must vigorously eradicate the old ideology, the old culture, the old customs and the old mores of all the exploiting classes."^^3^^Chou En-lai, Chen Yi and Lin Piao gave an unambiguous explanation of how these nihilistic propositions should be applied to culture. On June 17, 1966, Chou En-lai declared that the traditional Chinese culture, created over the past several thousand years, ``poisoned the minds of men'', and on June 21, 1966, Chen Yi told a meeting that ``culture [the whole of culture!---E. B.] and traditional customs poison the minds of people, which is why they need to be completely (sic!) rejected and their influence destroyed".^^4^^ On August 31, 1966, addressing a meeting of ``revolutionary'' students and teachers, Lin Piao urged them on Mao's behalf to ``wipe out the old culture''.
The Chinese leaders declared that the works of the outstanding masters of culture in the past did not contain anything but ``the exploitative substance" and ordered a drive both against national and world culture. The first blow was dealt at the Chinese classics, among them Li Po, Tu Fu, Tao Yuan-ming, Kwang Han-ching and Pu Sung-ling. Here is how Kwangming jihpao assessed the classical novel, Dream in the Red Chamber, by the 18th-century writer Tsao Hsiueh-ching: ``To be quite frank, Tsao Hsiueh-ching considers beautiful what from our present standpoint has long since become outdated. ... There is a thick layer of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 141.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 143. Let us note, by the way, that these statements by the ``great helmsman" can hardly be squared with his own bent for imagery and quotations from the Chinese classics.
~^^3^^ Carry the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the End, Peking, 1966, p. 33 (in Chinese).
~^^4^^ L'Humanit\'e, September 26, 1966.
256 exploitative, class varnish on the methods of combating feudal morality used by Chia Pao-yui and Lin Tai-yui [the leading characters of the novel---E.B.], on their ideals of life, the essence of their love, etc.''For some time now Chinese periodicals and literary journals have said nothing good about such classical works of traditional art as the Peking, Shaohsin, Kunming and other national operas. The CPC leaders have accused many present-day playwrights and composers of being ``too enthusiastic about ancient art'', and have urged a complete repudiation of classic opera, declaring that ``if Peking opera does not fade away in 40 years, it is bound to fade away within 60".^^1^^ That being the Maoists' attitude to their own traditional Chinese culture, is it surprising that they have anathematised the classical cultural legacy of other nations?
Virtually all the world's classics in literature and the arts have been attacked. Thus, official Chinese critics have actually consigned all of Shakespeare's works to the scrapheap, declaring them to be a part ``of the ideology of the exploiting classes, and antagonistic to the ideology of the proletariat, which is why if they are allowed to spread unhampered, without being subjected to harsh criticism, they could have an extremely bad effect on the modern reader.... Seen in the light of the present day, Shakespeare's plays turn out to be contrary to socialist collectivism at root,'' says Kwangming jihpao.
The same paper says about Balzac: ``He extolled a reactionary theory of humanism.'' About Stendhal the paper says: ``In building the beautiful life we must not be inspired by the works of Stendhal.. .. He and we are essentially men going different ways.... We cannot but separate ourselves from him ideologically.'' Chinese periodicals have classed among the ``poisonous weeds" works like Dante's Divina Commedia, Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, the works of Rablais, Hugo and Maupassant.
It is said quite in earnest in China that the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Glinka and Chaikovsky allegedly ``reflect nothing but the suffering and romanticism of the lone intellectual".^^2^^ According to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, August 1, 1966.
~^^2^^ Wenhui pao, January 9, 1963.
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---1362 257 Kwangming jihpao, Bizet's ``Carmen'' is nothing but an `` auction of goods like the bourgeois emancipation of the individual, the cult of sex and of individualism".^^1^^ Consider the same paper's view of the classical ballet, which, it says, ``spreads the reconciliation of classes and the bourgeois theory of humanism, and corrupts youth".^^2^^ Here is what Hungchih said in February 1970 about the new production of ``Swan Lake" at the Bolshoi Theatre: ``An evil genius leaps about the stage, suppressing everything. Indeed, devils have become the protagonists! . .. We have here a truly sinister picture of the restoration of capitalism on the stage!''Attacks have been made on all the Russian classics, including Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Lev Tolstoi and Chekhov. Chinese critics say that stories and novels by Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev and Goncharov do nothing but ``relish the corrupt way of life of landowners and aristocrats''. They found a ``revisionist outlook" in Tolstoi's Resurrection and Anna Karenina, and Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches. The weekly Wenyi pao accused the prominent Chinese writer, Shao Chuan-lin, of ``political degradation" and charged that he was ``kowtowing to the West'', because he had translated into Chinese Dostoyevsky's novel The Insulted and Humiliated.^^3^^ Another prominent Chinese writer, Ouyang Shan, has also been abused for ``worshipping Chekhov''. Some Chinese newspapers carried pasquinades against the famous Russian 19th-century revolutionary democrats Belinsky, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky and called them ``bourgeois literary critics''.
In their efforts to provide some ``theoretical basis" for their nihilistic treatment of the classics, Chinese literary critics have put forward the ridiculous idea that recognition of continuity between socialist literature and the literature and art of critical realism amounts to ``a denial of the innovative character of socialist literature and art''. In an effort to convince their readers that this view, which so _-_-_
~^^1^^ Kwangming jihpao, June 29, 1966.
~^^2^^ Ibid., August 8, 1966.
~^^3^^ It is a curious fact that up until 1965 the Chinese press still treated Dostoyevsky's works with respect. However, official Chinese propaganda has now discerned in his writings elements which are ``harmful to the existing system" and accordingly branded his translator, Shao Chuan-lin, as an ``accomplice of modern revisionism''.
258 patently clashes with Lenin's, is in line with the principles of Marxism-Leninism, Chinese ``theorists'' have gone to the extent of falsifying the views of Maxim Gorky, the founder of socialist realism. ``According to Gorky critical realism is the realism of bourgeois idlers."^^1^^ This is the grossest possible distortion of Gorky's view, which can be allowed only when the reader is unable to consult the original. Everyone knows that Gorky always showed the greatest respect for the writers of critical realism and called them the ``prodigal sons" of their class, thereby stressing the idea that by overcoming their class sympathies and antipathies these men rose above them and to a large extent expressed the feelings of the working people.The official Chinese press has also given equal assessments of the scientific legacy, and while these have been less concrete, they have been sufficiently definite. It has denied the objective content of science, declaring all scientific achievements of past epochs to be ``alien in class terms" to the proletariat and the revolution. Thus, in an article entitled ``Refuting the Slogan `All Are Equal in Face of the Truth'~" one paper wrote: ``Can `all be equal' in face of the truth? We say: No! Truth has a class substance."^^2^^
Another paper carried a letter signed by seven students of the Chinese People's University addressed to the Central Committee and Chairman Mao demanding ``resolute, swift and final destruction of the whole old system of education, and the heaviest fire aimed against the gentlemen styled as bourgeois `authorities'~".^^3^^ This letter, which was hailed by students and teachers in many other Chinese colleges, ridiculed the old system of education ``with its emphasis on so-called systematic knowledge" and insisted that ``the longer the students study, the hazier their thinking''. The letter proposed the abolition of ``the old bourgeois titles and degrees'', ``the bourgeois system of enrolment and training of post-graduates'', etc. The editors said the letter set ``a model of courage and daring''.
The CPC leadership got the Central Committee and the State Council to issue a directive abolishing entrance examinations at higher schools, and declared the teacher's _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, October 28, 1958.
~^^2^^ Kwangming jihpao, June 13, 1966.
~^^3^^ Jenmin jihpao, July 12, 1966.
__PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 concern for high academic progress among students to be a ``bourgeois revisionist black line''. It urged that the old study aids (published before 1966) should be ``buried'' and a new curriculum implemented, under which primary schools should ``study quotations from the works of Chairman Mao and three of his articles'', secondary schools, a collection of selected works by Mao and other articles of his, and institutions of higher learning---the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung.The theoretical propositions of the ideologists of the ``cultural revolution'', which have been building up another ``Great Wall" between China's culture and foreign culture, are extremely harmful, and are clearly at variance with the whole ideology and revolutionary practice of Marxism-- Leninism and, let us add, with the decisions of the 8th Congress of the CPC, whose resolution on the Central Committee's political report said: ``There is need to inherit and comprehend everything that is useful in our country's past culture and the culture of foreign countries; in addition, there is need to use the achievements of modern science and culture to sort out all the best elements in our country's cultural legacy and to make efforts to create a new, socialist national culture.''
__NOTE__ Missing footnote with source for above quotation.In contrast to the primitive Leftist talk about the spiritual culture of the past epochs being unacceptable for the triumphant proletarian revolution, Marxism-Leninism takes a strictly scientific and truly class approach to the cultural legacy, implying above all a concrete historical analysis of the cultural values of the past epochs. Because at definite stages of social development, namely, in the initial stages of the existence of this or that antagonistic formation, the relations of production proper to it have a progressive role to play, the class which is in charge of these relations of production, the ruling class, acts as a progressive force in the cultural and historical process. For this reason, the culture of every ruling class is not always, and never entirely, reactionary. The history of exploitative societies shows that many ideas put forward by the men who represent the ruling class in the sphere of culture can contain objective truth, correctly reflect the objective requirements of social progress and be of lasting importance.
Every ideology has a class character, reflecting the world 260 in terms of definite class positions, but the whole point is how correctly it reflects reality at a given historical moment. Lenin repeatedly warned of the serious danger of vulgarisation whenever, for instance, the terms ``bourgeois'', `` bourgeois ideology'', ``bourgeois literature'', etc., are used outside a historical context. He wrote: ``This word [bourgeois---E.B.) is often understood very incorrectly, narrowly and unhistorically, it being associated (without distinction of historical period) with a selfish defence of the interests of a minority."^^1^^
Everyone knows that bourgeois writers, critics, and so on, who fought against the reactionary and religious ideology of feudalism, made a big contribution to the treasure-store of world culture, and that the proletariat inherits and continues all that is best in the sphere of culture under capitalism.
In class society, spiritual culture has a class character. That is an axiom of Marxism-Leninism. But what does that mean? It means above all that spiritual culture in a class society always has a definite class ideological content. It also means that spiritual culture in class society has corresponding social functions and a practical class orientation. But it should also be borne in mind that not all the components of spiritual culture have a class character. Science, for instance, is a most important component of culture. Lenin relentlessly branded his ideological adversaries as ``learned salesmen of the capitalist class'', but added: ``For instance, you will not make the slightest progress in the investigation of new economic phenomena without making use of the works of these salesmen."^^2^^ This is even truer of the natural and technical sciences, which do contain some elements of the class philosophical outlook, but cannot be reduced to these because they always rest on facts, which they generalise, and are in addition inconceivable without the methods of research proper to this or that science.
Lenin warned that ``not a single one" of the bourgeois scientists who are capable of making very valuable contributions in the special fields of chemistry, history or physics ``can be trusted one iota'', when it comes to theoretical and philosophical generalisations.^^3^^ At the same time, he urged to take _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 70.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 14, p. 342.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 342.
261 and use in the interests of socialism the discoveries made by these men and to separate the objective content of science (to be inherited and advanced) from reactionary class philosophy (to be cut off and discarded).In this context, let us recall, for instance, Lenin's attitude to Taylor's system, which, he said, combined the refined brutality of bourgeois exploitation and a number of outstanding scientific achievements in analysing physical movements in the labour process, elimination of incorrect and superfluous movements, development of the most expedient methods, and introduction of the best systems of accounting and control. Assessing the , role of Taylor's system in the scientific organisation of labour, Lenin wrote: ``The Soviet Republic must at all costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of science and technology in this field."^^1^^
Nor can socialism afford to take a nihilistic attitude to the achievements of art in earlier epochs. The emergence of humanistic art, for instance, is connected with the rise of bourgeois relations, but it does not follow that humanism is an exclusively ``bourgeois'' ideology, because from the outset it was an expression of protest against the inhumanity of bourgeois relations as well. The art of socialist society inherits and critically remoulds these humanistic ideas, develops on the basis of progressive artistic and aesthetic views and creative realistic traditions, adopting the techniques and artistic methods, and what is especially important, inherits the works of art themselves which are unique in their aesthetic value as specimens and monuments of the culture of past ages.
This leads us up to yet another highly important question, that of the attitude of the cultural revolution to the culture of present-day bourgeois society.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Socialist Culture and Its ``Critics''Capitalism as a socio-economic formation, with its culture, is in a sense something that is already on the way out, while socialism, with its culture, represents _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 259.
262 the future of mankind, a higher and qualitatively new stage of development. However, in this period the two cultures exist side by side, and so necessarily influence each other. That is why the relationship between socialist culture and the culture of modern bourgeois society can and must be seen as yet another essential aspect of the problem of continuity, which might be called the ``horizontal'' aspect (in contrast to the ``vertical'', historical aspect).It would be quite wrong to take the retrospective view of this relationship not only in theoretical but also in practical terms, because once the element of continuity is excluded from this relationship we should have to deny the need for making critical use of the progressive elements in the culture of modern bourgeois society. The present is always a point at which the future is in contact with the past, and so has to take over from it all that is valuable.
It is quite obvious that in view of the implacable class struggle which is going on in the world arena there can be no ``integration'' of ideology, as the Right-wing revisionists have advocated. Socialist ideology and bourgeois ideology are antipodes and do not meet. Leonid Brezhnev said in his speech at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties: ``Peaceful coexistence does not extend to the struggle of ideologies---this must be stressed most categorically."^^1^^ Likewise there can be no ``convergence'' between the two cultures, socialist culture and bourgeois culture.
However, it would be wrong to reduce the problem of the dialectical interaction of the two cultures to a struggle of ideologies. Far from excluding, the struggle of ideologies implies the need to make the utmost use ``of the achievements of the engineering and culture created by large-scale capitalism".^^2^^ This applies not only to capitalism as it existed before the 1920s, but fully applies also to modern capitalism and its culture.
The ideologists of the ``cultural revolution" in China, while urging a struggle against the whole of the ``old culture'', as a ``feudal'' and ``bourgeois'' culture, have also _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 170.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 350.
263 issued the slogan of fighting present-day foreign culture, which they regard either as ``imperialist'' or ``revisionist''. They declare: ``We must not only stamp out but also destroy a corrupt culture like the imperialist and the modern revisionist culture."^^1^^ It is now hard to find a West European or American writer or scientist whom the Chinese periodicals have not anathematised, and this includes James Aldridge, Ernest Hemingway, Lion Feuchtwanger, Frederic Joliot-Curie and John Bernal.The ``theorists'' of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution" identify the concept of ``the culture of bourgeois society" and ``bourgeois culture'', whereas it is necessary to draw a distinction within each national culture between the culture of the ruling class and the culture of the oppressed classes, the more or less developed elements of democratic and socialist culture.
It is an incontestable fact that in highly developed capitalist countries a proletarian literature has already long since emerged and is successfully developing, a new literature that has attained great ideological and artistic heights. Among those who have helped to create it are outstanding playwrights and producers, a host of remarkable musicians and artists, who have sided with communism.
Besides, many prominent workers in culture in the capitalist world today now find themselves at the crossroad. They have rejected the policy which leads to another world war, and begin to realise that this policy springs from a definite social order. In their creative work, these men and women--- sometimes hesitantly and inconclusively---express their people's urge for peace and social progress. Some of them have still a long way to go before accepting communism. But whatever the differences of their views and nature of their activity they all represent the democratic stream in the spiritual life of modern bourgeois society. That is why they should not be classed among the ``servitors'' of the bourgeoisie. Some of these numerous democratic leaders may subsequently turn to the Right, as Jules Romains once did in the past, and John Steinbeck in our own day, but many of them will continue on the hard and dangerous way of struggle. Let us recall that Anatole France joined the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsinhua News Agency Release, July 11, 1966.
264 Communist Party, Romain Rolland actively co-operated with the Communists, and Pablo Picasso sided with communism.In their fight against ``bourgeois culture'', the Chinese leaders discard the Marxist-Leninist criterion of the dialectical, concrete historical assessment of cultural values; they have clearly revised from the ``Left'' Lenin's proposition of the two cultures within each national culture of bourgeois society; they have rejected out of hand the culture of bourgeois society as a whole, including its democratic elements, and also the elements of socialist culture, taking shape within the entrails of capitalist society; they have classed the new culture of the socialist countries as ``bourgeois'' culture.
Take the pamphlet entitled Some Questions Bearing on the Literature of Modern Soviet Revisionism, which was published in Peking in the summer of 1966. The contributors to the pamphlet, which was put out for distribution at the so-called extraordinary conference of Asian and African writers (July 1966), attacked the article ``The Art of the Heroic Epoch'',^^1^^ which said that the general line in the development of literature in the 20th century consists in assimilating and enriching the traditions of critical and socialist realism---the traditions of Maxim Gorky, Martin Andersen Nexo, Romain Rolland, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Mikhail Sholokhov, Leon Kruczkowski, Henri Barbusse, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vitezslav Nezval, Mihail Sadoveanu and Johannes Becher. The two men who wrote the article entitled ``Extracts from the Statements of Sholokhov, a Renegade Author'', Hsiang Hung and Wei Ning, said: ``The present-day Soviet revisionists, with the help of their ' general line of development of literature in the 20th century', which represents a mixture of revolutionary, non-- revolutionary and counter-revolutionary writers, and which makes no distinction between friends and enemies... have in fact tried to prevent the development of a truly socialist, revolutionary literature of the 20th century."^^2^^
The best writings of proletarian authors in the USA, Britain and Italy have been labeled in China as ``revisionist''. _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Kommunist No. 10, 1964.
~^^2^^ Some Questions Bearing on the Literature of Modern Soviet Revisionism, Peking, 1966, p. 82 (in Chinese).
265 This is in fact a distortion of the propositions proclaimed by the 8th Congress of the CPC to ``inherit and comprehend all that is useful in the culture of China and of foreign countries''.Another fundamental error made by the vulgarisers of Marxism, who reject the whole of present-day foreign culture as an ``imperialist culture'', consists in their identification of the concepts of ``culture'' and of ``ideology''. These two concepts are in no sense identical, but we find them identified in Mao's article ``On New Democracy" which said that ``a given culture is the ideological reflection of the politics and economy of a given society".^^1^^ Actually, however, while ideology makes up the content of spiritual culture in class society, and for that reason determines and directs the development of every form of spiritual production, it is in no sense a concept that is identical with the concept of ``spiritual culture''.
When V. Pletnyov, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Proletcult,^^2^^ wrote in an article, ``On the Ideological Front'', which appeared in Pravda in 1922, that ``questions of ideology are broader than questions of culture'', Lenin made a note in the margin of this word ``broader''. A little later, Pravda carried an article by Y. Yakovlev, entitled ``On Proletarian Culture and Proletcult'', which had been written on the strength of Lenin's notes and which, in addition, had been read and edited by Lenin himself.^^3^^ Concerning the statement that ``ideology is broader than culture'', the article said: ``This is a patent absurdity, because culture, which brings together a number of social phenomena (ranging from morality and law to science, art and philosophy) is, of course, a more general concept than social ideology."^^4^^ Consequently, ``ideology'' is not broader but narrower than ``culture''.
On the strength of Lenin's ideas, the 20th Congress of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 141.
~^^2^^ Reference is to the Proletarian Culture Organisation, whose members rejected the cultural legacy of the past and tried to create a special ``proletarian culture''. It flourished in 1919 and in the twenties went into decline, and in 1932 ceased to exist.---Ed.
~^^3^^ Questions of Culture under Proletarian Dictatorship, MoscowLeningrad, 1925, p. 3 (in Russian).
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 22.
266 the CPSU made a scathing criticism of the vulgar theories which held that the general tendency for capitalism to stagnate allegedly rules out any progress in the sphere of culture in the imperialist epoch. Those who close their eyes to the achievements of culture abroad wittingly or unwittingly help to slow down the development of culture in the socialist society. Lenin believed that the epoch-making task facing the proletariat after the take-over was ``turning the sum total of the very rich, historically inevitable and necessary for us store of culture and knowledge and technique accumulated by capitalism from an instrument of capitalism into an instrument of socialism".^^1^^The Chinese leaders have not only rejected everything that is progressive in the culture of modern bourgeois society, including the elements of democratic and socialist culture, which are taking shape within it, but have also urged repudiation of the achievements in the culture of the socialist countries.
Mao's followers have accused Soviet cultural personalities of ``revisionism'' and ``bourgeois degeneration'', and this applies above all to those who attack militarism and urge efforts to prevent a disastrous nuclear war, among them Sholokhov, Simonov, Tvardovsky and Ehrenburg.
The Maoists declare that the ``ideology of survival" permeates such works as Sholokhov's ``The Fate of a Man'',^^2^^ and Simonov's The Living and the Dead and Days and Nights. They say that the Soviet writers Aitmatov, Miezelaitis and Rozhdestvensky are ``revisionists'' who constitute a ``special detachment of US imperialism and help to undermine the revolutionary wars of Asian and African peoples''. An article by Hsieh Shui-fu denigrates all Soviet writers who have written works about the Great Patriotic War, declaring that ``they have taken the path of betrayal of the revolutionary traditions of Soviet literature ... and are vehicles of ideas asserting no more than the need to save one's life and unwillingness to carry on the revolution, vehicles of ideas asserting the happiness of the individual _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 412.
~^^2^^ An article about Sholokhov's story, ``The Fate of a Man'', by Chi Hsueh-tung and Cheng Tse-ping, said: ``The story is a black banner of modern revisionism in literature and art" (see Jenmin jihpao, May 13, 1966).
267 and indifference to the country's prosperity. These works can only paralyse and undermine the militant will of the peoples fighting in defence of peace and against imperialism, and in practice play the part of accomplices of imperialism in preparing another war".^^1^^The best Soviet films---Clear Skies, Ballad of a Soldier, On the Seven Winds, Ivan's Childhood, The Cranes Are Flying, Nine Days of One Year, among others---have `` merited" similar assessments in the Chinese press. The film critic Fang Liang says: ``Some revisionists .. . have deliberately distorted the true face of war by producing a number of reactionary films ... these films extol pacifism, capitulationism, and preach the philosophy of survival."^^2^^ Among the ``revisionist films" the Chinese film critics have managed to include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, The Idiot, Eugene Onegin, The Captain's Daughter, Queen of Spades and Resurrection.
There has been particular indignation in China over the struggle for peaceful coexistence, against another world war, and the consequent policy of cultural contacts with the capitalist countries, which the Soviet people has pursued under the leadership of the Communist Party, and in which workers of Soviet culture quite naturally take an active part. The Maoists condemn the cultural exchanges between the USSR and the USA, and the publication of the works of foreign writers in the Soviet Union on the plea that this allegedly helps the ``infiltration'' of bourgeois ideology.
The attacks on Soviet literature and art and on outstanding cultural personalities are an aspect of the broad antiSoviet propaganda campaign which has been carried on by its sponsors for a long time behind the cover of the `` cultural revolution''. By now the whole world has realised that this campaign has far-reaching political aims. There is no doubt at all that one of these aims is to deify Mao, to stamp out creative thinking, and to try to eliminate all opposition to the adventurist and chauvinistic policy which is being pursued for the purpose of realising the hegemonistic plans now being fostered by the CPC leadership.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Hsieh Shui-fu, ``Under the Cover of Party Approach'', Wenhsueh pinglung No. 5, 1965; see also Kuang Chiun's article, ``The Mouthpiece of the Revisionist Grouping'', Chiefangchiun pao, July 9, 1966.
~^^2^^ Wenyi pao No. 5, 1965.
268 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The ``Cultural Revolution''The experience of the USSR and other socialist countries shows that in the period of socialist and communist construction the role of the intelligentsia in society acquires special importance. This is due not only to the scientific and technological revolution which is taking place in all the advanced countries, but also to the fact that in contrast to antagonistic class formations socialism does not arise or develop spontaneously but on the basis of a conscious application of the objective laws of social development which men have comprehended. In these conditions, the activity of those who engage in brainwork turns out to be the most important factor without which it is impossible for society to function normally.
One of the main specific features in the emergence of a socialist intelligentsia is that it is shaped mainly after the triumph of the socialist revolution. Whereas the bourgeoisie was in a position to build up a numerous intelligentsia long before it had taken over, and as new productive forces emerged, the proletariat has very few intellectuals on its side before the triumph of the socialist revolution, and these are in the first place professional revolutionaries.
Following the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of proletarian dictatorship it is faced with gigantic tasks in creating the new, socialist society. Quite naturally, the small group of proletarian intellectuals who sided with the people before or just after the revolution, cannot cope with these tasks in full. That is why one of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution is to build up a new, socialist intelligentsia. However, this cannot be done in a short time. That is why there arises the task of making use of bourgeois specialists. In the early Soviet years, Lenin taught the Party how to go on fighting the counter-revolutionary elements, while creating an atmosphere of comradely co-operation for honest specialists who were loyal to the Soviet state, how to carry on painstaking and systematic efforts to involve them in the work of the Soviet power, being prepared to pay them high salaries and make bolder use of their knowledge and experience, learn from them how to manage the economy, while educating them 269 ideologically. Lenin wrote: ``We cannot build it [Soviet power---Ed.] if we do not utilise such a heritage of capitalist culture as the intellectuals."^^1^^
But it was also impossible to build the new society without fostering intellectuals who came from the ranks of the people. This was a much more intricate and difficult task than the winning over of bourgeois specialists for the revolution. It required above all the raising of the people's general cultural standard so as to enable socialist intellectuals ultimately to rise from its ranks.
It goes without saying that the fulfilment of these tasks proves to be the more difficult the more backward, economically and culturally, is a country taking the way of socialist revolution.
In the early years of the people's power in China a great deal was done to overcome the people's age-old backwardness: illiteracy was reduced, the working people's cultural standards raised and national intellectuals trained. As the revolution in China entered its seventh year, there were already 3,840,000 specialists working in the national economy, with about 100,000 of them trained to the highest standards.^^2^^ In a report at a conference on the question of the intelligentsia, called by the CPC Central Committee on January 14, 1956, Chou En-lai said that the intelligentsia was a ``great force in socialist construction" in five principal spheres: scientific research, education, engineering, public health, culture and art. Invaluable assistance was given to the Chinese People's Republic by other socialist countries, the Soviet Union above all. Thousands of Soviet specialists helped the Chinese people to implement the plans of national economic development, while many thousands of Chinese young men and women studied at Soviet institutions of higher learning and were trained to become high-skilled specialists.
However, later, in violation of the decisions adopted by the 8th Congress of the CPC, and in contravention of the Party's general line, Mao and his followers acted in such a manner that Soviet specialists were recalled from China _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 28, p. 215.
~^^2^^ Chou En-lai, On the Question of the Intelligentsia, Peking, 1956, pp. 14--15 (in Chinese).
270 and Chinese students left the USSR. At the same time, a campaign was mounted in China against ``Soviet revisionism" and its ``agents'' in the midst of the Chinese intelligentsia. In the course of this campaign, a succession of draconian measures was aimed against workers in Chinese culture ( numerically still very small), as a prelude to the ``great cultural revolution" in China.In 1945, Mao declared that intellectuals should be ``esteemed as valuable assets of the nation and society".^^1^^ In 1948, he said: ``It is entirely right that we should value intellectuals, for without revolutionary intellectuals the revolution cannot succeed."^^2^^ From 1964 to 1966, that is, just before the decisions were taken by the llth Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee marking the start of the ``great proletarian cultural revolution'', the present CPC leadership scrapped the old line and mounted a succession of attacks against the intelligentsia, primarily against workers in the art and the humanities, that is, against the overwhelming majority of intellectuals. As a rule, the intellectuals in the scientific and technological fields, constituting a small minority of the workers by brain, were spared any attack, and the Hungweipings were even officially forbidden to touch them in any way. This must have been motivated chiefly by the Maoists' militaristic policy and was, for a very good reason, connected in the relevant instructions for the ``great cultural revolution" with China's nuclear blasts.
It is true that before the full-scale offensive against the intelligentsia was started in late 1964, there had been attacks from 1951 to 1964, like the criticism of the film entitled The Life of Wu Hsun, the campaign over the analysis of the classical novel, Dream in the Red Chamber, the fight against Hu Feng and his ``counter-revolutionary clique'', the fight in 1957 against the ``bourgeois Rightists'', and so on. But in scale and effect, the drive from 1964 to 1966 surpassed all these attacks and ``critical campaigns" taken together.
In the course of this unprecedented drive against the intellectuals in China, there was another ``reappraisal of values": all the traditions of revolutionary Chinese culture _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 299--300.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 32.
271 of the 1920s and 1930s were overthrown, the very traditions which had been considered the ``pride of China's national literature and art''.Among the victims of the fierce ``discussion'' that followed was the film In February, in Early Spring, a screen adaptation by the well-known producer Hsieh Teh-li of a novel by Jou Shih (Chao Ping-fu), a Communist writer shot in 1931; and the works of Yin Fu, Hu Yeh-pin, Li Wei-hsien and Feng Keng, who had been shot together with Jou Shih by the Kuomintang, and who, according to Lu Hsun, ``had written with their own blood the first page of Chinese proletarian literature''. The Maoist critics also attacked the writings of Mao Tun (in connection with the screening of his story, ``Lin''s Shop'') and the writings of all the authors who had been grouped round Lu Hsun in the 1930s. The final blast against ``the so-called literature and art of the 1930s" came from an editorial article in Chiefangchiun pao on April 18, 1966, which was subsequently reprinted by all the newspapers and Hungchih. It called for an end ``to the blind faith in the so-called literature and art of the 1930s'', which were characterised as an ``anti-Party, anti-socialist black line opposing the thought of Mao Tse-tung".^^1^^
In 1965 and 1966, the Chinese press was virtually swamped with a flood of ``denunciatory'' articles against leading Chinese intellectuals, chiefly historians, philosophers, economists, workers of cultural and ideological establishments, and against all those who used their own heads and had ``directly or indirectly expressed doubt about the correctness of Mao's line. It is highly indicative that the hardest blows were dealt above all at the members of the older generation, active Party members like the playwright Tien Han, Deputy Chairman of the All-China Association of Literary and Art Circles, the script writer Hsia Yen, Deputy Minister of Culture Lin Mo-han, Prorector of the Higher Party School under the CPC Central Committee Yang Hsiang-chen, and others. Mao Tun, the world-famed writer, was removed from the post of Minister of Culture, which he had held since 1949.
But there was ``logic'' in this madness, for those who had gone through the great school of revolutionary activity were _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hungchih No. 6, 1966.
272 most consistent in adhering to Marxism-Leninism and internationalism. All of them were variously accused of being politically unreliable and subjected to different repressions, like humiliating ``criticism'', dismissal from their posts, and deportation to remote rural areas.Jenmin jihpao admitted that in 18 months of 1965 and 1966, 160,000 intellectuals were sent to the countryside for ``physical re-education''. Subsequently, at the height of the ``cultural revolution'', at least 400,000 more ``hostile elements" and members of their families went the same way. Of course, not all of them were intellectuals, but they were engaged in creative work. As a result, the overwhelming majority of the best members of China's intelligentsia were for all practical purposes subjected to repression.
The 1964--1966 campaign against the intelligentsia, a sort of prelude for the ``great proletarian cultural revolution'', like the ``cultural revolution" itself, announced at the llth Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee, cannot be understood unless they are viewed in the context of the Maoist domestic economic policy and foreign policy.
In their efforts to cover up the collapse of the ``Great Leap Forward" policy, the failure of the people's communes and the economic difficulties which sprang from the adventurist domestic policy, together with foreign-policy fiascos, the present CPC leaders used the ``cultural revolution" as a cover for their massacre of Party cadres and intellectuals who took a critical view of Mao's line. The ``struggle against modern revisionism" in Chinese literature in the course of the ``proletarian cultural revolution" was in fact a political fight against the leading workers in Chinese culture, the Party's internationalist cadres, the most revolutionary sections of China's youth, and all the forward-looking Chinese who urged loyalty to the ideas of Marxism-Leninism.
The decisions of the llth Plenary Meeting of the CPC Central Committee and the practice of the ``cultural revolution" showed the world that Mao and his entourage had abandoned Marxism-Leninism and the socialist camp. There was good reason why the anti-Soviet campaign flared up afresh following that plenary meeting. The Chinese leaders did their utmost to worsen relations between the Soviet Union and China, a sinister scheme which was to be implemented behind the smokescreen of the ``cultural revolution''.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18---1362 273In 1964, the journal of the CPSU Central Committee, Kommunist, gave an assessment of the nihilistic policy of the CPC leadership on cultural values. An editorial article in the journal said: ``It is now very hard even to imagine the vast damage the Chinese people will suffer in the sphere of culture from this policy of national isolation, the urge to separate oneself from the cultural life of the world, especially of the socialist countries."^^1^^
Three years later, with the blessings of the ``great helmsman'', the Hungweipings were let loose on their rampage, destroying the ``demons and monsters of the old ruling classes'', the Greek, Roman and Chinese treasures at the Peking Museum and the Central Academy of Arts, the Pushkin monument in Shanghai, and the bookshops and art shops with their ``feudal'' and ``revisionist'' works by the masters of world culture. Today, most journals and newspapers in China are not being published, virtually no scientific and art books are being printed, because all the paper goes into the publication of Mao's Little Red Book and eulogies of the great leader. Feature films have not been shown in the country for over five years. Cinema-goers may see only newsreels about government receptions, parades, festivities and sports events.
No sign of life comes from the modern drama, or the dialogue drama, as it is known in China. For several years now, the ``revolutionised'' Peking Musical Theatre has been running the same plays which had been prepared ``with the personal participation of Chiang Chang, and which glorify her husband's ``radiant thought''. The ballet is regarded as a ``counter-revolutionary'' art, but two ballet pieces---``The Red Women's Company" and the ``Grey-Haired Girl"---are still on: they have been ``revolutionised'' through the introduction of a chorus which keeps singing songs about Mao Tse-tung.
At Peking University, the students keep learning Mao's statements by rote. Following the ``re-organisation'' of the education system, all the departments at the Peking Technical Institute of Forestry have been abolished and all the teachers and students organised in ``companies''. In a country _-_-_
~^^1^^ ``Against Dogmatism and Vulgarisation in Literature and Art'', Kummunist No. 9, 1964, p. 14.
274 where hundreds of millions of people are still unable to read or write all the schools have been closed down. Academic centres, research institutions and laboratories have been declared a ``battlefield''. There, ``bourgeois reactionary authorities'', scientists who do not accept the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', are being ``winkled out of the dark corners''. Professor Lu Ping, Rector of Peking University, who dared to teach the students ``some kind of chemical formulas" instead of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" was killed, while Professor Hua Loo-keng, Director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences, was subjected to repressions, and so on.Everything is being done to fence off the Chinese people not only from world civilisation and from the advanced experience of the socialist community, but also from China's own cultural heritage. Thus, Chen Po-ta, the former head of the group for ``cultural revolution" affairs under the CPC Central Committee, declared that ``it is better for old books to be read by only a small number of men, and only for the purpose of subjecting such literature to criticism and supplying the fertiliser for producing correct ideas in the heads of the new generation of Chinese''. This ``sage'' statement links up with Mao's own sentiment that ``the more books you read, the stupider you become. There is no point at all in much learning.''
Of the 13,000 book titles issued over the last 50 years by the Chunghua Publishers only 500 titles have been permitted to remain. The rest are being barbarously destroyed, including classical philosophic, literary and historical works. In the recent period, some 500,000 old editions of books have been destroyed only by the central and the southern branches of the Hsinhua shutien Publishers. Family libraries that had been handed down from generation to generation have been destroyed in the flames.
In recent years, no work of fiction has been published in the country and libraries and museums have been closed. At the same time, the plan for the publication of Mao's Selected Works, his Little Red Book, and collections of his poems, was fulfilled ``ahead of schedule'', reprinting 3,000 million copies. ``This is a brilliant achievement,'' said Hsinhua News Agency. ``This is an unprecedented triumph for the cultural revolution.'' There was a time when on New __PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 275 Year's Day Hsinhua reported the overfulfilment of national economic plans and successes in education and public health, and this was a source of joy for all the friends of the Chinese people. Ever since Mao's ``special line" was adopted and the ``cultural revolution" started in China, Hsinhua makes no mention at all of five-year plans and does not publish any concrete data on their fulfilment.
The ``cultural revolution" showed that Mao's followers regard the intelligentsia and all workers by brain in general as a force hostile to the Chinese people, a force which could easily take the way of ``revisionism'' and ``bourgeois degeneration''. It turns out that there is only one way to prevent this, and that is to make these men do manual labour, because it is the embodiment of everything that is truly popular and revolutionary. Manual labour is the one and only cure-all for the ``degeneration'' of the Chinese intelligentsia. The ``theoretical'' arguments for this were set out by Mao as follows: ``In order to determine what this or that member of the intelligentsia is---a revolutionary, a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary---there is only one decisive criterion: one needs to know whether he is willing to coalesce with the workers' and peasants' masses and whether he does in fact coalesce with them."^^1^^
The practical implication here is that the intellectual must be made to do manual labour on a par with the worker and the peasant. According to Mao's view, the intellectual's task is to sink to the cultural level of the peasants and to adopt their way of life, instead of passing on his knowledge to the working people and helping them to raise their cultural and political standards. Here is, for instance, how Hsinhua News Agency presented the ``sobering up" of one Chinese intellectual. He had come from a poor family, but after being long out of touch with manual labour, the callosities on his palms became thinner and his feelings for the poor and lower middle peasants shallower. Having now arrived with his whole family permanently to live and work in a production brigade, he took off the uniform of the cadre worker and put on peasant garb. He wore the straw shoes he had woven himself, and began to work with the peasants. He said thoughtfully: ``The thicker the callosities on your palms, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsinhua Press Release, November 5, 1968.
276 the deeper your feelings for the poor and lower middle peasants, and the more strength you have in fighting against revisionism and for its prevention."^^1^^The Maoists insist that manual labour can help ``change the ideology and feelings of the intelligentsia and revolutionise their consciousness".^^2^^ The Chinese press quoted, for instance, these assertions by the cadre workers who went to the rural areas to engage in manual labour: ``This time we have really made a beginning in revolutionising our consciousness by leaving our families, schools and offices and entering the homes of the poor and lower middle peasants."^^3^^
Just after the ``cultural revolution" a campaign was started in China to dispatch young people who could read and write to the countryside to make them ``merge with the poor and lower middle peasants''. In this context, Jenmin jihpao wrote: ``The boundless expanses of the villages are universities for the remoulding of literate young people."^^4^^ The Chinese press has repeatedly stressed that literate young people are sent to the countryside to accept a new education from the poor and lower middle peasants, because ``when out of touch with manual labour one may be infected with revisionist ideology".^^5^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Maoist Cultural Policy AfterNew phenomena are now observable in China against the general background of her cultural development.
Peking booksellers propose to readers a number of books
on China's history, published during the early years of the
People's Republic, chief of them being China s Ancient
History by Fan Wen-Ian and Ten Critical Articles by Kuo
Mo-jo. The journal Wen-wu has seen the day of light, its
first issue summing up the results of archaeological research
in recent years. Bookstores have on display the book Notes
_-_-_
~^^1^^
Hsinhua Press Release, October 31, 1968.
~^^2^^
Kwangming jihpao, January 17, 1969.
~^^3^^
Hsinhua Press Release, October 31, 1968.
~^^4^^ Jenmin jihpao, January 17, 1969. ~^^5^^
Hsinhua Press Release, January 5, 1969.
Late in 1971, Kuo Mo-jo published his new book Li Po and Tu Fu, devoted to the two well-known poets of Chinese medieval times. Some popular science books and stories have made their appearance. Even fiction is now being advertised, the forthcoming publication of some of works of art has been announced in the press. The higher educational establishments have resumed their functioning. All this shows that there is some revival of activity on the cultural front of China today.
The reasons of this phenomenon must be sought in the internal and external political factors. The Maoist idea of bringing up ``men-cogs'' has in effect flopped. The specimens of Maoist ``culture'' did not bring about the desired results. The rank-and-file person has remained indifferent to these specimens, for he was reared up in other traditions. In particular, the Chinese people have been fond of the ancient theatre from time immemorial. The national theatre was used to acquaint the illiterate masses with the heroes of national history, with ancient legends, with concepts of good and evil. Thousands of theatrical troupes staged performances in villages all over China. The art of professional actor was bequeathed, as a rule, from father to son, from generation to generation. All family members and apprentices used to participate in theatrical performances. Although their acting was within the strict framework of national traditions, they played their parts in a masterly fashion. The ``cultural revolution" has put an end to popular art in China and the most ardent and single-hearted spectator in the world has been deprived of his theatre.
The poor set of ``model performances" could not, naturally, satisfy the needs of the exacting Chinese spectator. Neither could he be content with Maoist imitations in other fields of literature and art. All this could not but trouble the Peking leaders, since their policy has considerably restricted 278 the possibility of brainwashing the masses. Hence the need for definite changes in the sphere of culture.
In addition to this, there are reasons of an external political nature. The Maoist leadership have been trying to present themselves as the mouthpiece of the ``oppressed part of humanity" and to pass off China's social development as an example to other nations of the world. But it was no longer possible to lay these claims and simultaneously deprive themselves of the possibility of propping them up by achievements in the sphere of culture. The most far-sighted politicians in Peking seem to have realised that the destruction of cultural values and the suppression of the creativity of intellectuals during the ``cultural revolution" have done the Maoists an ill turn, once they tried to influence public opinion in other countries. Even the newly-free nations have already produced real masterprieces with a deep social content. So in the eyes of their people the ``specimens'' of Maoist culture look like effete and awkward imitations.
The present changes in the sphere of culture are being camouflaged with public glorification of ``victories'' scored by the same cultural policy which Peking has to renounce because of its patent failure. For instance, the Chinese periodical press has announced that Hao Jan's novel The Sun Shines Bright is to be reprinted. Its three volumes were first published long before the ``cultural revolution''. Although it describes the Chinese village in terms of ``Mao''s thought'', until recently it was banned from circulation among readers. Now the author is writing another novel on this topic and the press mentions this fact as though the country had never been the venue of the Hungweipings' violence, and for six years Hao Jan had been writing in peace.
In its issue of January 8, 1972, Jenmin jihpao reports about the visit paid by its correspondent to Peking University and the talk he had with some of its professors. One may learn astonishing things from this article, e.g., that the ``cultural revolution" allegedly promoted the progress of science and education in China, while it is common knowledge that the Chinese higher educational establishments did not function during this ``revolution''. This testifies to the strong effort of the Maoist leadership to reject the accusation of striking a heavy blow at Chinese culture.
The Maoists are applying the policy of bringing a certain 279 part of cultural workers and social scientists back to active service only to those persons who have never been in opposition to the present Chinese leadership. One can observe startling developments in this context. The same issue of Jenmin jihpao (January 8, 1972) carried an interview given by Prof. Fen Yu-lan, a well-known bourgeois philosopher who created in the 1920s the reactionary system of NeoConfucianism. This professor, whose books have been more than once translated in the USA, is praising in this interview ``Mao's thought" and the ``cultural revolution''. He speaks and writes in the press on behalf of the Chinese philisophers, whereas such Chinese Marxists as Hou Wai-lu, Sung Tingkuo, Jen Chi-yu, Pan Tzu-nien and others are deprived of such an opportunity.^^1^^
The Maoists are not going to cease adapting the works of literature and art to their anti-socialist policy. This is proved in particular by the latest book written by Kuo Mo-jo. Up till now there are no objectively verified data concerning the place of birth of Li Po, though Chinese scholars conducted their research for many centuries. Yet in defiance of historical truth Kuo Mo-jo begins his book with the phrase: ``Li Po was born in Central Asia.'' What purpose lies behind the assertion that Li Po's homeland is the region of Lake Balkhash and what reasons are there to distort the universally known facts? The answer is: to substantiate the right of the Maoist leadership to lay claim to Soviet Central Asia.
The foregoing warrants the conclusion that it is difficult to overestimate the damage inflicted by the ideology and practice of the ``cultural revolution" on the world communist movement.
These are only some of the truly tragic results of what is now known in China as the ``great proletarian cultural revolution''. It is hard to exaggerate the harm that has been done to the world communist movement by the ideology and practices of the ``cultural revolution" in China. By _-_-_
~^^1^^ This circumstance is, no doubt, dictated by foreign-policy considerations. Since China is drawing nearer to the Western imperialist powers, the Maoists need to show that they favour the bourgeois intelligentsia and that the ``cultural revolution" has not affected them. It is not without interest to note that Fen Yu-lan was among the few Chinese intellectuals who were present at the reception given in honour of President Nixon during his sojourn in Peking in February 1972.
280 distorting Marxism-Leninism, and trampling on the experience of socialist cultural revolutions in other countries, the Chinese leaders throw a freakish light on the noble ideals of socialism and undermine the prestige of the world revolutionary movement.The Communists can show the working people of the world what the genuine cultural revolution is and the true attitude of the socialist revolution to culture and the cultural heritage by exposing the Chinese leadership's anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist line in the sphere of culture. The example of the Soviet Union and of the peoples of other socialist countries advancing along the Leninist path has provided the world with convincing proof that socialism brings mankind a new culture, but that the culture of the new world emerges as the legitimate successor to all the best works of society in pre-socialist formations, instead of arising somewhere off the highway of world civilisation.
It is impossible to go on to communism without using the cultural legacy stored up by mankind over the centuries. Assimilation of this legacy---not by select individuals, but by everyone---is a necessary condition for producing an abundant spiritual culture, and constitutes a most important prerequisite for the development of the full man. There can be no cultural revolution without such creative assimilation and utmost development by the people of the cultural attainments of past epochs and of the present-day bourgeois society, and without the Leninist attitude to the intelligentsia. The true purpose of the cultural revolution is to create the culture of communism which, as the Programme of the CPSU says, by ``absorbing and developing all the best that has been created by world culture, will be a new, higher stage in the cultural progress of mankind".^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Road to Communism, Moscow, 1961, p. 576.
__PRINTERS_P_281_COMMENT__ 19---1362 [281] __ALPHA_LVL1__ CONCLUSIONWe have considered some aspects of Maoism and have tried to show how it looks in theory and practice. Summing up what has been said one could define it as a specific pseudo-revolutionary, chauvinistic trend in the world revolutionary movement.
As we have tried to show, Maoism consists of conceptions and notions characteristic of non-proletarian social groups in Chinese society: the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, the petty-bourgeois urban sections, and the poor sections of the peasantry. These conceptions and notions are largely determined by the status of their vehicles in the country's sociohistorical structure and by their cultural and ideological traditions. They contain ideas borrowed from non-socialist thinking abroad. In addition, Maoism also contains a whole range of nominally Marxist propositions which, however, lose their real meaning because they are incorrectly understood or applied.
It would be wrong to say that Maoism stems directly from non-Marxist ideological trends. It emerged in definite historical conditions and has its own specific features. However, Maoism is akin to other pseudo-revolutionary ideological trends, because those spring from similar-type socio-economic structures.
282Thus, for instance, the Maoists, like the Trotskyites, have no faith in the strength of the working class and its capacity to give a lead to the peasantry along the socialist path, although this is expressed in different ways. Trotsky saw the peasantry as a petty-bourgeois mass hostile to socialism, a mass which in Soviet Russia was, sooner or later, to clash with the working class, because the latter was allegedly incapable of establishing a strong alliance with the peasantry. By contrast, Mao believes the peasantry to be the most consistently revolutionary and constructive force, capable of giving China a lead along the way to socialism and communism. However, this discrepancy is more outward, because ultimately the Trotskyites and the Maoists equally ignore the historical mission of the working class and minimise its leading role in society.
The Trotskyites and the Maoists have also much in common in the methods they advocate for socialist construction, for these are based on subjectivism and voluntarism and lack of any scientific understanding of the laws governing the development of the socialist economy.
The Trotskyites sought to introduce militarised forms and methods of organising production, and held that such production was to be based on forced labour. They also insisted on the retention of the civil-war methods of strictly regulating distribution of the aggregate social product, with the maintenance of low levels of consumption. Trotsky insisted on a levelling of the working people's consumption together with the principle of shock-work, that is, utmost mobilisation of efforts by workers and peasants in production. This was categorically rejected by Lenin, who wrote: ``It is all wrong. Shock-work is preference, but it is nothing without consumption... . Preference in shock-work implies preference in consumption as well."^^1^^
The Maoists have reproduced Trotskyite ideas, and looked to forced labour, the establishment of labour armies, and the use of military methods in the national economy.
The method of administration by fiat, of orders and the use of force was expressed in Trotsky's thesis about `` tightening the screws" and ``shaking out the trade unions'', a _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 28.
283 method the Trotskyites wanted to be turned into the basis of the Party's domestic policy in its relations with the working people. The Chinese leaders have reproduced this method on an extended scale.Disbandment of trade unions, abolition of democratic principles in life, ``revolutionisation'' of industrial enterprises with the aid of military units, and uninterrupted purge campaigns---these are only some of the methods the Maoists have used. Trotsky tried artificially to accelerate the world revolution by means of a world war. Mao has pursued the same aim, but by means of a ``people's war''.
There is also much in common between Maoism and anarchism. Let us recall that anarchism was the fullest expression of petty-bourgeois revolutionism at the dawn of the proletarian movement, when the proletariat's struggle was still embryonic and was still dominated by the forms which occur at the initial stages of the proletarian movement. Lenin said: ``Anarchism is a product of despair. The psychology of the unsettled intellectual or the vagabond and not of the proletarian."^^1^^
Among the characteristic features of anarchism is the demand for instant revolution and blind faith in the miraculous power of activity. Its view of the revolution above all as an act of universal destruction goes hand in hand with fairly hazy ideas about constructive activity after the revolution. This makes anarchism akin to Maoism, which sees the revolution and the post-revolutionary period as consisting of nothing but destruction.
What the Maoists and the Blanquists have in common is that both start from the assumption that a bold revolutionary sally by conspirators (armed uprising, rebel action) can provide the impetus, the spark that will ignite the conflagration---a massive uprising for the triumph of social revolution. Lenin said these Blanquist tactics were a ``Blanquist gamble" and ``~a game of taking over power''. Both Blanquism and Maoism are characterised by conspiratorial tactics based on action only by the top leadership, without any consideration of objective conditions.
There is also a great deal that is common to the Maoists _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 327.
284 and the Narodniks. The assumption that the peasantry is imbued with ``socialist instincts'', that the village commune is an embryo of socialism, and that peasant riots will save mankind from capitalism and exploitation---all these Narodnik political propositions have been re-issued in a new version by the Maoists, who have visions of building communism first in the countryside, and who consider the peasantry to be the greatest constructive force. The Maoists regard the urge on the part of the poor section of the Chinese peasants to have egalitarian distribution as signifying a high level of communist awareness.Maoism also reveals some Bonapartist features, like its reliance on the militarists and its tacking between classes and social groups. The Maoists have borrowed a great deal from Confucius and his followers. Confucius believed that man's moral improvement was the best means of doing away with social injustice in society. This Confucian dogma was adopted by Mao, who holds that if the Chinese studied his articles---``Serve the People'', ``In Memory of N. Bethune" and ``Yui Kung Has Moved the Mountains"---all their vital problems would be solved. Like Confucius, Mao has visions of a ``society of justice" which is to be set up by educating the Chinese people in a spirit of asceticism and privation, instead of tackling economic problems.
We believe these are the characteristic features of Maoism:
First, eclecticism. This is natural because, as we have said, Maoism consists of different, sometimes mutually exclusive, concepts and propositions.
Second, primitivism and oversimplification, verging on distortion of various propositions of scientific theory.
Third, a demagogically utilitarian and pragmatic approach to theoretical propositions. Maoism regards philosophy as a narrowly utilitarian instrument to be used for the achievement of definite aims, instead of a methodological basis for working out correct strategy and tactics, policy and slogans.
When considering the eclecticism, primitivism and utilitarianism of Maoism the following points should be borne in mind. Maoism exists on two ``levels'': one is for the broad masses, and the other for a narrower group of persons, for the military-bureaucratic elite; there are two ``truths'': one is for general consumption, for the Party rank-and-file, the 285 masses of workers and peasants, and the other, for Mao's entourage. The second ``truth'' is a fairly coherent system of views concerning the functioning and structure of social power, the principles of economic policy, and the rules governing relations in society and the Party, and so on.
Fourth, Great-Han chauvinism. Many Maoist propositions are of a clearly chauvinistic tenor and are designed to back up the universal importance of Chinese experience and, in consequence, China's messianic role in the world revolutionary process and in the whole of world history, and to justify the political practices of the present Chinese leadership. Theoretically, their chauvinism is substantiated, the Maoists argue, by the shift of the centre of the world revolutionary movement to China. One newspaper declared: ``China is the centre of world revolution. In the past, the centre of history lay entirely in the West, but now it has shifted to China. China has become not only the political and economic centre, but also the cultural centre. It is unique in the whole world. In future the centre of science and technology will also shift to China. . . . People's China, armed with the thought of Mao Tse-tung, will inevitably become the political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological centre."^^1^^
Brezhnev's speech at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in June 1969, specifically drew attention to the connection between the hegemonism of the present Chinese leadership and its Great-Power aspirations.
Great-Han chauvinism is indissolubly connected with anti-Sovietism. It is expressed above all in the fierce attacks on Lenin's Party, which, according to the Mao group, stands in the way of their hegemonistic aspirations. Here is how the Maoists' logic runs: in order to impose their doctrines on the international revolutionary movement and to subordinate all countries and peoples to their political and ideological diktat, there is need to ``crush'' the CPSU. For that purpose, the most incredible, slanderous inventions have been circulated about the ``aggressiveness of the USSR" and a ``Soviet-American deal''.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Hungse haiyuan, January 24, 1968.
286Brezhnev's report on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Lenin said: ``The enemies of socialism are the only ones who benefit by the virulent anti-Soviet campaign that has been conducted in China during the past few years. Lately it has been carried on under the screen of an alleged threat from the Soviet Union. By their actions against the country of Lenin and against the world communist movement the initiators of this campaign expose themselves before the masses as apostates of the revolutionary cause of Lenin."^^1^^
__*_*_*__The emergence of an ideological trend like Maoism inevitably poses the question of the future of Marxism in oncebackward countries, including China. The ideologists of the bourgeoisie have recently been drumming in the idea that Marxist theory is inapplicable to countries with a precapitalist social structure, and have referred to the experience of the Chinese revolution, the activity of Mao and his followers, and the conceptual formalisation of Maoism.
We believe these assertions to be groundless. The spread of Marxist-Leninist ideas across the world is naturally promoted by the growth of the world revolutionary process, as it involves many millions of working people in oncebackward countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It would, of course, be wrong to assume that the process runs smoothly and painlessly. The experience of the past few decades shows that the spread of Marxism in breadth has far from always been accompanied by a correct understanding and application of its principles. Lenin wrote: ``One of the most profound causes that periodically give rise to differences over tactics is the very growth of the labour movement. If this movement is not measured by the criterion of some fantastic ideal, but is regarded as the practical movement of ordinary people, it will be clear that the enlistment of larger and larger numbers of new `recruits', the attraction of new sections of the working people must inevitably be accompanied by waverings in the sphere of _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Lenin's Cause Lives On and Triumphs, Moscow, 1970, p. 64.
287 theory and tactics, by repetitions of old mistakes, by a temporary reversion to antiquated views and antiquated methods, and so forth. The labour movement of every country periodically spends a varying amount of energy, attention and time on the `training' of recruits."^^1^^This warning of Lenin's is of special importance for the working-class movement in the developing countries. It is common knowledge that the social structure of these countries is marked by a slight class differentiation, the prevalence of peasants among the population, and a weak working class (or no working class to speak of in some countries). All of this, quite naturally, confronts Marxists in these countries with much more difficult tasks than those that have ever faced Marxists in the developed capitalist countries.
China is a striking example of the extreme backwardness, illiteracy and ignorance of millions of people in the past. But there are different kinds of backwardness. Russia, too, was once very backward, but both this backwardness and the need for change had already been recognised among the leading sections of the intelligentsia as early as the end of the 18th century. Russia had a rich and historically rooted revolutionary tradition of social thinking and social action. In China, such a tradition began to take shape only in the 20th century. The country did not have any serious chance of ``experiencing'' the various theories of revolutionary thought, before it found itself faced with the need of expressing its attitude to full-fledged socialist trends, notably, Marxism.
This brings up the fundamental methodological question about applying general Marxist propositions to concrete (national) conditions, specifically in backward countries which include China. It would be wrong to deny the need to consider national specifics as Marxism is joined with the revolutionary movement in this or that country. Marxism is not ``applied'' to some abstract social organism, but to a definite socio-historical soil. Marxism is not joined with a working-class movement in general, but with the political movement of the working class and the other exploited sections in the given country. Marxism is not _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 16, pp. 347--48.
288 adopted by abstract men, but real individuals with definite and fairly stable conceptions, traditions and habits which have been shaped under the influence of their social milieu.Lenin was fully aware of this and of the great difficulties facing Marxists in the backward countries. He required that they should display skill in tackling the complex problems of reality, and taking account of national specifics in applying Marxism in the conditions of backward countries.
Consequently, the spread and assimilation of Marxist ideas in socio-economically backward countries cannot be quite identical, at any rate not at the initial stage, to similar processes taking place in the advanced countries.
All of this has a direct bearing on China. Marxism can be successfully adapted to China's conditions only if the men directing this process take account of the socioeconomic conditions, of China's historical past, of the level of scientific development and scientific thinking, including philosophy, and of the Chinese national traditions.
However, the transfer of Marxism to national, in this instance Chinese, soil should not be accompanied with departures from its cardinal principles. Marxists resolutely oppose any stereotyped application of general truths and the imposition of abstract schemes without considering the specifics of each country. However, consideration of national specifics cannot and must not be accompanied with departures from the general principles of Marxism, with direct betrayal of these principles and a substitution of a hostile ideology for Marxism. At this point, exceptional importance attaches to the subjective moment, meaning who directs the process of joining Marxism with the revolutionary movement of the exploited masses in each country. Because since the 1930s this process in China was headed mainly by inconsistent Marxists or anti-Marxists (Mao and his followers) this has resulted in the emergence of an ideological trend like Maoism, which is hostile to Marxism.
Marxists insist on the creative development of the theory of scientific socialism. ``Communists regard it as their task firmly to uphold the revolutionary principles of MarxismLeninism and proletarian internationalism in the struggle against all enemies, steadfastly to make them a living 289 reality, constantly to develop Marxist-Leninist theory and enrich it on the basis of present experience of waging the class struggle and building socialist society."^^1^^
The Maoists have distorted the idea of the creative approach to the development of Marxism-Leninism. Referring to the specifics of the Chinese revolution, Mao has tried to create a methodology of his own, which is different from Marxist-Leninist methodology, clothing it in ``Chinese'' national form. He wrote: ``Marxism can be translated into life only through a national form. There is no abstract Marxism, there is only concrete Marxism. Concrete Marxism is Marxism that is embodied in national form, that is, Marxism which is applied in concrete struggle, in the concrete conditions of Chinese reality, and not Marxism which is applied abstractly. If the Communists, who constitute a part of the great nation, who are an organic part of this nation, treat Marxism outside the context of China's specifics, that will be abstract, empty Marxism."^^2^^
Indeed, Marxism needs to be applied in the light of the concrete situation in any country, including China. But Mao is wrong in saying that there is only ``concrete Marxism''. This is a denial of the international character of Marxism, and its ``quartering'' at the various ``national premises''.
It is also wrong in itself to contrast ``abstract'' and `` concrete" Marxism, because Marxism is a coherent doctrine of the international working class.
Creative application of Marxism in accordance with each country's conditions does not amount to its `` nationalisation'', which is why it is wrong to speak of a ``Russified'', ``Germanised'' or ``Sinified'' Marxism. But Mao believes the application of Marxism in the concrete conditions of Chinese reality is a ``Sinification'' of Marxism, which in effect amounts to a distortion and vulgarisation of Marxism and its supplanting by the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''.
The emergence of Maoism, and its subsequent establishment as the official doctrine of the CPC, has never been inevitable. The experience of revolution and socialist construction in countries neighbouring on China, the history of the _-_-_
^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 41.
~^^2^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Harbin, 1946, p. 928 (in Chinese).
290 revolutionary movement in China herself, and finally, the practice of the first ten years of the people's power in China show that Marxist-Leninist ideas are universally meaningful, both for countries in the West and for countries in the East.There is no doubt at all that the fundamental stand taken by the CPSU and the other fraternal Parties on the antiLeninist and anti-socialist propositions of the present Chinese leadership, and the well-argumented scientific critique of its theoretical conceptions will help to enhance the influence of Marxist ideology among the Chinese people.
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